Memories of Seventh Street

Years ago I was walking on Seventh Street near downtown Los Angeles as my mind reeled and my soul churned. Aggressive, ominpresent drug dealers and severely drug-addicted prostitutes lined this block near Witmer. They eyed all the passersby. The only people returning their gazes were those seeking heroin or sex. All the rest of us looked into the grey distance or down at the sidewalk. Gazing at the ground connotes a sense of discomfort, possibly trepidation, but it had always worked well enough for me. It conveyed my disinterest in purchasing drugs. I aimed my scrutiny, though not my awareness, at the concrete beneath my feet as I headed for the Mayfair Hotel (see above pic). All at once it seemed that someone was looking up at me. Everyone on the sidewalk seemed to stop. The world seemed to stop. I looked back at the man who in actuality was standing at least 20 feet ahead of me. He was leaning on crutches and he was hunched over like a horseshoe. That condition seems to occur in very elderly people although I do not know the name of it. The gentleman was gesturing animatedly at me and seemed to have something of an encouraging - perhaps pleading - smile on his face. People hurried past him on either side, eager to get off Seventh Street and arrive at their destinations. A drug dealer and some blank-faced young teenagers lingered near the man, but this gentleman was staring straight into my face. I began rushing towards him and realized that he had dropped some magazines that he had been carrying. He was too crippled to pick them up. It seemed that an odd yellow light surrounded him. I bent to pick up his magazines and he seemed very pleased by my behavior. He said something to me, but I don’t think he was speaking English. Exultation filled me as I handed him his magazines and I felt so happy to have the opportunity to help someone out. It made me feel human. I did not have to block out the world during those moments when I came to his aid.

It was as if he had been waiting for me or had seen me coming. He knew I’d do it. Did he think no one else would? No one else had. Something about the whole incident seemed surreal at the time and does even now. Seventh Street is not so desperate and decayed a place anymore, but I remember it well. I left there long ago although sometimes I used to wonder if I ever would or could. Back then I spent horrible, self-doubting moments surrounded by squalor. During those times I would reflect on the hunched-over man and wonder if his presence on that blighted street might have been some type of sign. It gave me tremendous hope for reasons that I cannot entirely explain.

The episode still seems otherworldly.





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Abduction

A while ago I was reading a true crime book written by celebrity District Attorney Vincent Bugliosi. There never should have been such a person as a "celebrity District Attorney," but the book is still pretty interesting nonetheless. It is about a man and a woman whom he prosecuted for their involvement in the murder of the woman's husband in the 1960s. Bugliosi presumed that they offed him so she could collect a fairly substantial insurance settlement. In the book Bugliosi takes an in-depth look at the sociopathic personalities and backgrounds of both individuals. The man was a former cop who had been kicked out of the LAPD for his role in helping a young woman find someone to illegally abort her unborn child in the "no choice" era of the 1950s. Among the other revelations about his background was the murderer's own admission that he became sexually aroused while watching two women fight. Evidently he had witnessed two young girls fighting over him when he was at a pivotal age. He had been at the home of a fat girl who liked him and he had unintentionally started paying more attention to her thinner friend. The fat girl had become enraged, stripped her girlfriend naked, and begun beating her while the future murderer watched in amazement. Bugliosi ties the killer's sexual interest in female fighting to his penchant for commiting extreme acts of violence. I found that a bit amusing.

To date I still have not finished the book because I temporarily lost interest in the second part of it. Part 2 covers all the details, (and I mean all of them), of the courtroom proceedings which ultimately lead to the convictions of the murdering pair. Eventually I'll read it but last month I put it to the side of my nighttable for awhile. Coincidentally I got booked for a catfight shoot right around that time. I had not done one in many months and this shoot would be for a new company. Oddly, the location was a house in San Bernardino. I was willing to go there even though it was a long distance away because I could use some extra money. When I confirmed the directions on MapQuest.com I noticed that the place was on an isolated road way off the main highway. Oh, whatever. These people would be paying me generously and they had mentioned the names of several models I knew as references. Plus, I would be working with Stacy B. It appeared that everything was on the up and up.

On the appointed morning I drove out there and arrived at the location a bit late. I did not see Stacy's car anywhere. Numerous other vehicles lined the driveway leading up to the secluded house. The accumulated dirt and rust coating their surfaces indicated that they had not moved for a long time. I stepped up to the door and rang the doorbell. No one answered so I tried knocking and then rang the doorbell again. Maybe I was at the wrong place. The dwelling itself looked so ramshackle that it was possible that no one lived there at all. When I pulled out my cellphone to call the man who had booked me for the shoot I found that I could not get a signal.

Just then I heard a footstep behind me. Momentarily startled, I whipped around to face a disheveled looking man with a friendly smile on his face. It turned out to be Pete, the guy who had arranged the shoot. He picked up my bag and ushered me inside. For some reason a bit of nervousness was welling up inside me and I asked if Stacy had arrived. He said "no" and gestured for me to sit at the rickety wooden table in the center of the room. There was a single lightbulb with no enclosure suspended from the ceiling above it. We sat in silence for a minute and then I began making polite conversation to fill the dead air. Pete was a master of one-word responses, but I gleaned that he'd been a fan of catfight entertainment for some time and had finally decided to start shooting his own material for an Internet site. We lapsed into another prolonged silence. Where in the world was Stacy? Could she have gotten lost on the winding roads that lead up to Pete's house? I started chatting again to ease my own tension. For some reason I found myself mentioning the Bugliosi book and the murderer who enjoyed watching women fight. The emotionless expression on Pete's face began to morph into one of sinister fascination. He quickly became so enrapt in my discussion of the book that it started to creep me out. Abruptly I stopped talking. A minute ticked by as he stared at me and watched me try to stifle my rising sense of unease. There was a sadistic glint in his eye when at last he said:

"You really should have checked with the other models I named as references. I've never met any of them. At least you could have called Stacy to find out if she really was booked for a shoot today. I can tell you that she's not booked for one here, but I am still very eager to see how hard you can fight."

I sat frozen in my chair paralyzed with panic. Oh, Lord help me- what was this psycho going to do to me?!

Perhaps it's better that I don't remember much of what happened after that. I wish I could forget all of it, but the memory of his rough, calloused hands jerking me out of the chair and forcing me into the woods behind his shack is etched into my mind forever. A week after the incident I received the pictures below in a large manila envelope that came to my mailbox. The return address provided on the package named a street in San Bernardino that does not exist.

Elinor's House

A few days ago I went for a walk after I'd been sitting at my desk too long. Lost in thought I trudged down the sidewalk until I noticed a couple with a baby carriage coming at me from the opposite direction. I made a right turn because I did not feel like engaging in any cursory interaction, even if it was as simple as just nodding my head in greeting. Staying home alone all day renders me kind of phobic around strangers. It's as if the shyness and awkwardness of my grade-school years has returned full force. I seemed a lot more normal when I was still dancing in bars because the job required me to interact with others. Now I often go days without speaking a single word. After veering right I passed a sign that said "No Outlet" so I realized I was walking down a cul-de-sac. It turned out to be a remarkably long cul-de-sac. Towards the end of it I noticed a house with a "For Sale by Owner" sign planted on its front lawn. The small sign languished near the porch and its coloration made it very hard to notice. I doubted that I would have even seen it if I had been driving. After crossing the street I read the hand-lettered description which informed me that the property was a three bedroom, two bathroom house with an 800-square-foot garage. I glanced up and noticed that something about the garage pulled my attention to right away although I was not sure why. The sign also proclaimed that the owner would "review all offers" and provided a phone number with an Orange County prefix. I walked away after staring at the dwelling for a few long minutes. Within five seconds I nearly strode right past a steep, wooden staircase leading from this street to the one below it. This neighborhood has many such pedestrian walkways that the original planners included when they designed the layout of the subdivision. I'd lived in the area for nearly nine months and still regularly came across new pedestrian thoroughfares that I had not yet encountered in my daily jogs or walks. It always kind of tripped me out when I found a new one. I decided to go down this staircase and counted about 39 steps as I descended. It deposited me onto a street that I did not immediately recognize, but after strolling for a few minutes I saw my friend Tim's Chevy Blazer parked in front of his house. I smiled as I reflected on the oddity of this little community in the hills. The twisting streets curved around so much that it was very easy to get disoriented. Here I was two blocks from home and yet I'd felt a bit lost just moments earlier. I went back up the staircase and walked home.

Yesterday my friends Tim and Raul came over to my place. I mentioned the house for sale because Raul is looking for a house. Tim grew up in this area so he knew the street I was talking about and described the location to Raul.

"Did you get the number of the owner?" Raul asked.

"No, I didn't." I said. "I wasn't sure if you'd want to see it or not."

Raul and I decided to drive over to the house while Tim headed home. We drove right past it because I did not spot the place until we had gone too far. Raul put the car in reverse and stopped in front of it. I copied the number off the sign while he gazed at the home with genuine interest.

"It has bars on some of the windows." he commented. "Isn't that strange for this neighborhood?"

I agreed that it was odd and we both swivelled in our seats to look at the surrounding houses. None of them had iron security bars. Raul asked me to call the seller for him since he hates talking on the phone even more than I do. He dropped me off at home so he could go back to his office. Fifteen minutes later I was speaking with the seller on the phone and he gave me a bunch of information about the property. Evidently his aunt and uncle had lived there since 1960. No, he would not consider a lease option agreement because the home had been placed in a trust and he wanted to sell it quickly. He told me that the cracks in the garage and in the pavement were not as bad as they looked and that he had some type of geological survey attesting to the fact that the residence was not sliding backwards down the hill upon which it sat. Of course warning bells went off in my head. He paused and waited for me to end the phone call but I didn't. Encouraged, he went on to tell me where one of the neighbors left the keys during the daytime so prospective buyers could look it over. Finally he gave me his name, I gave him mine, and then we hung up.

Twenty minutes later I was entering the house. Raul was too busy to stop by but Tim had said he would come look at it. After all, he only had to get to the pedestrian walkway and go up the wooden staircase to join me. It was taking him longer than I had expected so I decided to go in without him. I fumbled with the keys. One of them had a white, circular tag that said "Elinor's house" and the other bore a white, circular tag that said "Elinor's garage". I fit the appropriate key into the lock on the iron doorscreen and walked into Elinor's house. Somebody had died in there. I just felt it. Ostensibly it was an elderly person who had lived out his or her declining days in these rooms. I wandered around the rooms and then outside into the backyard. After a few moments I entered the garage. Someone had clearly been using it for a lot of business recently. I wanted to get out of there.

After locking all the doors I exited the premises and replaced the keys in their hiding spot. Tim still had not arrived so I went to the wooden staircase. Sure enough, Tim was heading up the pedestrian walkway.

"Sorry I'm late." he apologized.

"I already went in there." I told him. "It's pretty interesting. Come check it out."

He followed me and we let ourselves into the place. I purposely had withheld my thoughts about the property so I could watch his reaction. He wandered around the rooms.

"This is strange." he said. "This layout just doesn't make sense."

I nodded although he could not see me from where he was standing.

"I've gotta use the bathroom." he called from across the house. "Hopefully the water is still on."

I decided to walk out to the garage and headed to the back door. Once there I realized that it was not the same back door I'd used the last time. To my right was a doorway leading into a room I had not even noticed during my last tour. I pushed it open and then recoiled in horror.

"Tim!" I called out.

I heard a toilet flush and realized that he probably had not heard me. The bathroom door opened and his footsteps fell across the floor.

"Hey.. check this out." I said with a touch of alarm.

He found my voice and then came to where I was standing. He looked where I was looking.

"Oh, my God.. " he exclaimed.

An overwhelming stench emanated from the dank little room. Indescribable layers of mold covered every surface: ceiling, walls, and floor. It was absolutely nauseating and Tim walked in there. I didn't.

"What is this place?" he wondered aloud. "Or what was it? It must have been the laundry room."

I said: "No, the hook-ups are in that other room."

Simultaneously Tim said: "But there are no hook-ups in here."

Our sentences clanged together and we both wore repulsed expressions on our faces as we surveyed the horrible little room with fungus coating its every dimension.

"We shouldn't even be breathing this." I said.

Tim snapped back into reality.

"No, we really shouldn't." he said as he stepped quickly out of there.

We went outside and around the side of the house where we encountered a large shed of sorts that was built into a brick wall. Upon opening it we discovered the same grisly type of mold covering every one of its surfaces too. We both recoiled yet again and neither of us had any desire to examine the interior too closely. Tim quickly shut and fastened the door.

Next we ventured into the garage.

"Wow." was all Tim said at first.

"I wonder what they did in here." he mused out loud a few minutes later after surveying the place

We both noted the huge air conditioner connected to the ceiling and another large one mounted to a wall. Five ladders led up to a loft-type area above our heads. There were numerous electrical outlets around the place and, inexplicably, a bunch of what looked like seatbelt straps hanging down from the loft area. We stared at all of it and then went into a bathroom that had been built into the garage. It contained a toilet, sink, and shower. Before leaving Tim found a safe built into the concrete floor of the structure and we played around with that, hastily stopping when we heard a car pull up. We exited the garage and I heard Tim mumbling something about "paranoia" as we walked back in the house. He seemed to be speaking about the former occupants' modification of the place rather than our quick abandonment of the safe when we had heard the car. I noticed that he was looking at some of the iron bars.

After locking up and replacing the keys we took the wooden staircase to Tim's house. We discussed the other property at length.

"That place was like a dungeon." he said more than once. "It was just like a dungeon."

That night I did not sleep well. My nightmares were filled with images that belonged in a dungeon..



(to be continued.. )











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