My Dark Places - James Ellroy [59]
I pounded my pud for 12 to 18 hours straight. It felt so gooooood. I’d lie on my bed with the dog asleep beside me. I’d slam the ham with my eyes shut and the lights out.
Amphetamine comedowns terminated my fantasies. The dope passed through my system and left me depressed and sleep-deprived. I drank myself into a nether world then. Booze ascended while speed receded. I always passed out grasping for some woman.
Fritz lost his speed connection. I lost mine by default. I got gnawingly hungry for real love and sex.
I wanted a girlfriend and unlimited poontang. Fritz’s sister set me up with her friend Cathy.
Cathy went to Marlborough—an exclusive Hancock Park girl’s school. She was plain-featured and chubby. We went to see The Sound of Music on our first date. I lied and told Cathy that I really liked the movie.
Cathy was socially dense and love-starved. I found it appealing. She disdained formal date activities. She craved park-the-car make-out action.
Which meant hugging and kissing sans tongues.
We “made out” several weekend nights running. The no-tongue/no-skin policy drove me insane. I begged for more contact. Cathy refused. I begged some more. Cathy threw a big diversion at me.
She planned a string of get-togethers with her school chums. The diversion got me inside looks at several juicy Hancock Park pads.
I liked the plush furnishings. I liked the big rooms. I liked the wood panels and oil paintings. This was my old voyeur prowl world—close-up and intimate.
Cathy introduced me to her friend Anne. Anne was 6′1″, blond and strapping. She never got dates.
I called Anne up and asked her out. We went to a movie and necked in Fern Dell Park. She shot me some tongue. It was gooooood.
I called up Cathy and broke our thing off. Anne called me and told me to stay out of her life. I called Fritz’s sister Heidi and asked her out. She told me to buzz off. I called Heidi’s friend Kay and asked her out. She told me she was a committed Christian and only went out with saved guys.
I wanted more love. I wanted sex with no schoolgirl limits. I wanted to see some more Hancock Park pads.
Fritz maintained a little room adjoining his garage. He kept his records and stereo shit there. It was his hideout. He never let his parents or sister in. Lloyd, Daryl and I had keys.
The room was 20 yards from the main house. The house tantalized me. It was my favorite sex-fantasy backdrop.
I broke in one night. It was late ’66.
Fritz and his family were out somewhere. I got down on the ground beside the kitchen door and stuck my left arm through a pet-access hole. I tripped the inside latch and let myself in to the house.
I walked around. I kept the lights off and prowled upstairs and down. I checked the medicine cabinets for dope and filched a few painkillers. I poured myself a double scotch and popped the pills right there. I washed the glass I used and put it back where I found it.
I walked through Heidi’s bedroom. I savored the smell of her pillows and went through her closet and drawers. I buried my face in a stack of lingerie and stole a pair of white panties.
I left the house quietly. I didn’t want to blow a shot at reentry. I knew I’d touched another secret world.
Kay lived directly across the street. I broke into her house a few nights later.
I called the house from Fritz’s back room and got no answer. I walked over and checked entry points.
I found an open window overlooking the driveway. It was covered by a screen secured with bent nails. I pried two bottom nails loose, removed the screen and vaulted into the house.
It was strange turf. I turned a few lights on for a second to acclimate myself.
There was no liquor cabinet. There was no good shit in the medicine chests. I hit the refrigerator and stuffed myself with cold cuts and fruit. I explored the house upstairs and down— and saved Kay’s bedroom for last.
I looked through her school papers and stretched out on her bed. I examined a