Karolina Waclawiak - How to Get into the Twin Palms

He stared at me and said, “You like here?”

“Here in Poland? Or here in the dzialki ?” I said.

He smiled. Laughed. “I guess both.”

My back had started to sweat. Drips of sweat pooled at the waist of my pants. How could he be wearing a sweater? I gave him a coy little smile, like I thought you were supposed to do and then I turned away and picked a tomato to play hard to get.

“That’s not our pomidor .”

He took it out of my hand and I smelled my fingers. The sour smell. The little hairs on the vines pulling away and covering my fingers as I pressed.

“Come over here.”

I followed through morning glories closed and fading and scraped past the chicken wire. Closer to the line of trees and further away from the apartment. I didn’t want to look at him but when I did I saw his eyes and I knew we were going to go deeper into the plots and why and I didn’t turn away and I didn’t go back. No one else was willing to do this for me.

He put his tongue into my mouth and I could taste the pickle soup all over again and I could taste that he had eaten herring. Even though I had been careful to avoid it.

I WENT TO BINGO BUT IT HAD BEEN CANCELEDwithout anyone telling me. I walked to my car, pissed about losing the $50 for the night. The cold, dry air made my hands sting. I had to walk uphill and realized I could walk a couple of blocks and see the lights of the city. Probably see my apartment from here. The lights of the Twin Palms. All of it was obscured by the lights of Hollywood Boulevard. I liked driving down Hollywood. On the east edge, near the border of Little Armenia and next to the old apartments. Some had spires. There were castles on Hayworth too, where I lived, but these were bigger, more foreboding. They weren’t like the two-story stuccos built in the ’70s with the tropically deceptive names. The buildings shot up and past the palm trees that lined the streets here. I drove past the Hollywood Downtowner motel and wondered what was going on in the rooms. I decided to pull into the parking lot. I opened the latched little gate and stared at the swimming pool that was up lit in the midst of the split-level stucco building. I sat down on a green plastic lawn chair and stared at the water quietly, waiting to hear sex sounds. The motel office was well lit and displayed signage stating that the establishment accepted AAA. Famous people headshots covered the walls, enticing tourists into believing that they too could see someone famous. They could sit and breathe famous air.

The air here was mild but not famous. The Santa Anas were gone and now that thin layer of mist was covering things. Cheap geraniums were latched onto the metal fence surrounding the walkway above me. No sex sounds were starting. I tried to be extra quiet and looked at the pool. The water was still and there was a film over it. Small bugs and debris. Maybe other things mixed in. Sex things. The ladies had made me think about sex and how I would need it forever. How I’d never be able to escape it.

I got back into my car and headed home. I wanted to see Lev tonight. I wanted him and his smell. I drove down Hollywood under the 101 and down Vine, before hitting the Walk of Fame and watching tourists stop and shoot pictures of their feet on gum-covered stars.

When I pulled up to my apartment I was hoping he’d be sitting on the steps. Instead, there was a smoked mackerel wrapped in paper. I brought it inside but it made the apartment smell like an immigrant’s house. I didn’t know what to do with it so I put it in the refrigerator and went to take a bath.

I came out of the bathroom and I could smell the mackerel coming out of the refrigerator. It was seeping into the air and I knew by morning that it would be in the couch cushions, my chairs, and my bed. I locked myself in my room to try and get away from the smell and turned on the ceiling fan. At the highest speed the fan looked like it was going to launch off the ceiling and spin around the room, slicing and dicing. I always put it on the highest speed, hoping one day something exciting would happen.

My mattress was still barren. My unemployment check would come in a week but I hadn’t allocated any funds for new sheets. I needed to burn the mackerel smell out of the apartment.

The convenience store with the big glowing ATM sign was closed so I had no choice but to go to the magazine stand on the corner of Fairfax and Rosewood. The man selling the magazines had sparrows tattooed on his neck and he was always strung out. He had a dog with him again. It had fur missing from his face and one eye was blue and the other was brown and it just sat there and glared at me like I did something to it. So this time I was smart. I brought dry Polish sausage and fed some to the beast while the man got my cigarettes for me.

I watched people zoom around and around looking for parking spaces, make U-turns, rub their bumpers against the cars in front and behind theirs as they tried to parallel park. People were getting out, congregating in front of the Silent Movie Theater. They had well-manicured haircuts and pegged pants. They didn’t live around here. The windows in the neighborhood stayed dark and uninviting, only alive during the day.

“Marlboro Lights, please.” I didn’t want anything fancy today. He grunted at me and leaned to get the pack. “Hard pack.”

I tossed the sausage to the dog. He ate it up without question while I perused the magazines. The lights from the magazine stand were bright. Bug-killer bright. I was all alone with the dog. The man with the sparrows on his neck scratched at his arm like there was something under his skin. He was really getting in there, really looking where he was scratching. The dog took a seat next to me and waited for more sausage. It wasn’t happening, but the dog didn’t get it so he just kept waiting.

“Are you going to pay for these?” The man was still scratching, breaking open the skin and letting the blood pool.

“In a minute,” I said.

“You’re going to crease the pages.”

I stared down at the magazine, holding it so I didn’t give my still-pink hands any papercuts. “I’m being careful.”

He looked at me, then at his dog at my leg. “Do you want a smoke?”

“I’ll pay for them in a second.” I purposely ripped the front page as I pushed it back in the rack.

I didn’t even put it back where it was supposed to go.

“No, I mean, I’ll give you one of mine.”

I walked over. He was opening a pack behind him. Newport Lights. I scowled.

“What’s your problem?” he asked me.

“Those have fiberglass in them.”

“That’s a myth. ” He spent extra time saying myth . “I work at a cigarette stand. I should know what’s what,” he said.

“You work at a magazine stand. It just happens to sell cigarettes.”

He pulled back the cigarette he was offering me and looked at me like I smelled like shit. “No need to be a bitch.”

I shook my head. It was either apologize or walk back to my apartment empty-handed. “I’m sorry. You definitely should know what you’re talking about.”

“Thank you,” he said.

He shoved the Newport Light toward me and lit. “I see you here sometimes.”

I wasn’t listening to him. I was staring at people walking in and out of Canter’s. I was salivating thinking about their carrot cake. Their cheesecake with the strawberries on it. The strawberries always looked stiff, always safely enrobed in red gelatin. The bear claws, the rugelach, poppy seed cake, black-and-white cookies, apple turnovers, cherry turnovers, five kinds of cheesecake, latticed cream cakes, sharlotka . Like my grandmother makes. I wanted to have one of each.