Gray

Chapter 18

We're inmates at the Oakwood apartment complex, which our label rep lovingly refers to as "the Cokewoods." The sign on the gate is emblazoned with the three most gorgeous words, FULL RE- SORT AMENITIES, written in a looping, regal script. But that makes the place sound much nicer than it is. Oakwood is where movie studios and record labels house "talent" whenever they're in Los Angeles working on a project. I believe the correct term for the place is "temporary furnished and serviced apartments," or at least it says so in the brochure. But basically, it's where child al- most-stars and has-beens-in-the-making do tons of cocaine (hence the nickname) and then fuck each other in the hot tubs. It's a twenty-four-hour nightmare, fueled by those little white lines, full of silicone-injected blondes and men with bizarrely white teeth. And kids, C-list actors from Disney shows, most not a day over fifteen, wandering around with sadness in their eyes and white powder around their nostrils. Terrible house music is always playing by the pool. It's brutal. 

We spend every minute indoors, hiding from the zombies that prowl the place, and though we should probably be working on songs, we basically amuse ourselves by calling our rep—a nice girl named Jen-with-Two-N's (that's how she introduced herself when she picked us up at LAX, so we refer to her only as such)—and begging her to come and save us. She picks us up in an SUV, and we drive around Los Angeles, up to the top of Mulholland Drive, which probably looks a lot like the movie I never saw. The garages here are twice the size of most people's houses. We get out of the car and marvel at the view, but Jen-with-Two-N's says we can't stay up here for long because homeless people hide in the bushes and wait for you. Imagine it: the richest homeless people in the world. 

Up there at the top, you can see the smog hovering above the valley, as if it's trapped in there and can't get out. In the distance, the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles are barely visible through the yellowish haze. The suburban sprawl fans out in all directions, split-level houses clinging to the cliffs, block after block of apartment buildings, huddled together for safety. When I think about the California suburbs, it brings to mind the Mansons, not the Cleavers. Los Angeles is like hell only with more pretty people. You would think all the plastic would melt out here in the desert heat. 

We tell Jen-with-Two-N's that we want to see the water, so she begrudgingly takes us down to Santa Monica (a trip that, thanks to the traffic, takes roughly twenty-two hours), where we walk out to the end of the pier and watch the old men cast their reels into the Pacific. They stand there in silence, listening to ball games on the radio, buckets full of minnows between their feet, until one of them gets a tug on his rod, then in a sudden burst of excitement, in a whirlwind of yanking and frantic reeling and cursing in Spanish, the rod bending and threatening to break in two, the old men shout instructions, and everyone holds his breath until eventually the old man is victorious, and he pulls a huge fish out of the ocean, shiny and electric and wriggling, and a great cheer goes up along the pier, and the old man accepts congratulations from his fellow fishermen, and maybe takes a drink or two, and tourists snap photos of the wide-eyed, silvery fish while the pelicans watch with hungry eyes. Everyone wants a piece of the action. 

We roll up our jeans and walk on the beach, while women in Lycra sports bras jog by, pushing their babies in three-wheeled sports strollers. Men do yoga in the sand. We look ridiculously out of place, with our pegged jeans and pale skin in the early evening sun, but nobody even looks in our direction. Everyone is lost in their own little world, which is kind of the way things are out here. Los Angeles is a great place to disappear because people don't notice anyone but themselves. Jen-with-Two-N's is standing up on the boardwalk, furiously typing away on her BlackBerry. You can tell she's getting a little annoyed with us, probably because she has to go back to her boss with daily status updates, has to say stuff like "Today they all went to Santa Monica and watched old men fish." Ledgers are shifted, and the stockholders are getting restless. I expect a phone call from our manager any day now.