One Day in L.A.
submitted Anonymously
illustration by Timothy Walker
When I got off the plane at LAX, I overheard this dude talking about the time Christian tried to carry his gun onto a plane on account of his publicist telling him to. I figured what the hell and asked the dude if he was talking about Christian Slater. He says, “yeah,” and just looks at me like I’m supposed to get all excited and ask more questions. I figured he was probably an actor, too, since he was sure packing a lot of ‘tude. So, I asked him about that. He says he’s in a few independent films coming out soon, really stressing the word INDEPENDENT like I’m supposed to say, wow, can I suck the lint out from between your toes. Why I don’t know, but I told the guy, “Me, too.” He asked me which ones though. I had to think quick. I tells the guy “A Cool, Dry Place and Good Will Hunting.” His face lit up for like a fraction of a second and I almost pissed because I thought he was going to suck MY toes. Before he could say anything though, the hot chick he was with was asking me about Matt Damon and Vince Vaughn. She wanted to know if Matt was as short as they say he is and if Vince was really that tall. I laughed and said, “Yeah, but don’t tell them I said that.” That’s when the guy asked my name. I said Scott Walters for no reason in particular (No, that’s not my legal name!). Then the idiot says he remembered reading something about me in Movieline recently! I couldn’t believe it. I laughed so hard I thought I was blowing my cover, but he just figured I was laughing because I was proud or something. He actually patted me on the back with this big shit-eating grin on his puss. Then he says his name is Mark and the chick says she’s Andrea. I think, geez, their names are more generic than the one I just made up. The next thing I know, we’re walking through LAX together and they’re telling me how they just flew in from Montreal (they were working on a “project”) and it’s too bad they hadn’t gone to Toronto while they were up there because maybe we would have hooked up. We just shot the shit while they got their luggage then they followed me to get mine and we went outside. Mark had a black limo waiting for him and they invited me to go for a ride so we all got in. I couldn’t believe it! Christian Slater was in the limo! He was drinking champagne straight from the bottle and seemed really happy about something. What can I say, I smiled and got all excited. I would have cracked jokes about him after Broken Arrow and that atrocious Bed of Roses, but he was just instantly impressive in person. The limo started to drive and Andrea took a joint out of a prescription bottle in her faux leather purse. She lit it up and we started passing it around.
The limo ride must have lasted an hour. We drank champagne, vodka and some minty shit that Christian didn’t like. Plus, we got real stoned from that joint. It seemed a little funny, like the way it tasted or something, but it did mostly taste like pot so I just figured it was just the really good, expensive shit because they were celebrities and stuff. While we partied we talked about The Flood and Christian was saying he doesn’t like the new title, Bad Rain or whatever it is. He was saying he might not even do press for it at this point because he’s also pissed that they kept pushing it back. Sounded really bitter, but it has been a while since anything the dude’s done has been released so I guess it was understandable. I wasn’t paying much attention during that part of the conversation anyway because I was drifting into my own little world. Also, I was trying to figure out if Andrea was Mark or Christian’s girlfriend since she was really flirting with both of them. She seemed really impressed with Mark’s belly button ring, but Christian said it was “pretty ridiculous” and they had a little debate about that. I started to think they were going to throw fists and said we should all just be mellow. That’s when Christian finally asked me who I was. I guess it was because I was so happy and even more stoned, but I told him Gas Monkey. He thought that was a fucking riot and repeated it a dozen times while he was laughing. Maybe even more. “Gas Monkey. Gas Monkey. That’s too much! Gas Monkey!” He must have carried on like that for five minutes. Then Mark said that I’m in A Cool, Dry Place and Good Will Hunting and Christian said something about Gus Van Sant being “an asshole the size of the Grand Canyon.”
Andrea said, “But he got to work with Matt Damon, Ben Affleck and Robin Williams.” Christian wasn’t fazed, but I was still proud of myself. Like I said, I think we were in the limo for an hour. We ended up outside The Viper Room though, so I guess we were mostly driving around in circles. Or maybe it was just a half hour. Either way, Christian didn’t want to get out when Mark opened the door. He checked out the crowd and didn’t see any celebs, I guess, because he said, “None of these people look terribly interesting, now do they?” Mark shut the door, Andrea took out another one of those funny joints, and we were on our way again. I didn’t smoke any more dope though because I was so damn stoned I couldn’t feel my toes and kinda wanted to curl up in a ball and go to sleep. Actually, I think I did fall asleep because the next thing I knew we were at some condominiums and Mark was yelling, telling me we were “here.” Christian and Andrea were already out of the limo. I was completely dazed and I tripped getting out, which Christian found really amusing. Then he got confused like he didn’t know who I was for a minute before he said, “Gas Monkey. Right.” That brought on another round of laughter.
I wanted to leave the condos right when we walked in. See, we had to go up a few flights of stairs and I was just too dizzy for that. Andrea helped me though, which gave me some enthusiasm because she was really attractive. The sort of girl you see and want to run right off and marry or whatever. Almost like Patricia Arquette’s character in True Romance, to tell you the truth. Except she was dressed better. What was really cool is Christian and Mark both seemed kind of jealous that she was helping me, not that they offered. I guess they figured this way neither of them lost to the other. If Mark had helped me, Christian would have had Andrea’s attention. If Christian helped me, Mark would have had her attention. Instead, I got to feel like the king.
The condo we went in actually ended up to be really great. The place was just money. The stereo had speakers bigger than me. Andrea said the place belonged to a friend of hers, but the friend was off working on a film somewhere so she was staying there until she got back because her place was being sprayed for bugs. Mark said, “Bugs? That’s a nice way to talk about your ex-boyfriends.”
We sat down on the couch and started watching some TV. Mark had the remote and kept changing the channel, which really aggravated me. The place had all the cable channels, including the pay-per-views, on account of Andrea’s friend having a nifty descrambler. This bugged me because I figured they could afford to pay for them, but, anyway, Christian was calling up a bunch of people and between calls he kept telling us about the great party we were gonna have. Said we’d be up all night, it was going to “rock our pretty little world.”
People started showing up an hour or so later. I figured Christian’s place must be even nicer than this, and even said as much, but Andrea explained he doesn’t like to party at his place on account of “he doesn’t like people walking on his rug.” Everyone was talking films. There was a big debate about Chasing Amy and Mark kept telling everyone I was in A Cool, Dry Place and Good Will Hunting. I panicked every time because I was expecting someone who was really in one of them to show up and blow my cover. Once this dude who looked like Ben Affleck with a lot of scruff walked in and I must have went pale because Andrea put her hand on my head and asked me if I ever did “H” before. I said, “No, that shit will kill you.” Christian thought that was really funny, but not as much as Mark. He fell off the couch. Turns out that joint I smoked with them in the limo was laced with heroin! I got kind of nervous about that news, even thought about going to the hospital, but people kept coming in and everyone was happy and excited so I pretty much forgot about it twenty minutes later. Not long after that, I fell asleep on the couch while I was talking to this chick I think was Kathleen Robertson from 90210. Either way, I guess you could say she was as boring as the show. I woke up a few times during the next several hours when people dancing and just plain acting crazy would bump into me, but I didn’t pay much attention.
Sometime around 5 a.m. there was some loud commotion and I REALLY woke up. A couple pissed off chicks I didn’t know said “this party is over” and left. Christian and Mark were still there though, yelling at each other about some girl. I guess it was Andrea. At first, I thought she’d left, but when I leaned over on the couch I could see she was getting dressed in the bedroom (the door was open) and she didn’t look too happy herself. They just kept screaming fucking this and fucking that and fuck you until she came out and gave them this cold, hard stare. Then it got really quiet and kind of eerie, and I wanted to call a cab, but I was afraid to ask where the phone was and disrupt the silence. Mark did a pretty good job of that himself though. I guess he smiled at Andrea (his back was to me), but Christian got really pissed and punched him right in the face. Mark hit him back and they just started punching the hell out of each other and screaming. Andrea ran into the kitchen and I followed her, though I really wanted to get the hell out of there. She was calling the police, but she yelled at me to go stop them. I was nice enough to go into the kitchen and make sure she was OK, but there was NO way I was getting between those two. They were going at each other like psycho monsters, breaking furniture and stuff. I thought one of them was going to end up through the sliding glass door. I just hurried past them and left. They didn’t even notice.
