27. That's Cherry, Like the Tart

For a sweet young thing, the most sought after of all Hollywood commodities, selling yourself on the open market comes with a whisper short shelf life. At the age of twenty-six -- having survived eight long years in a town that prefers to eat us alive -- I was dangerously close to my expiration date. "It's been fun playing cops and robbers," I told Georgia May, "but I'm on a very tight schedule." Standing in line at Zankou Chicken, we looked out the window toward the Greyhound station, where a fresh busload of us ships in pretty much every hour.


"Let's eat here while the skin is still crispy," she said, pondering the overhead menu, for some unknown reason, since she already had it memorized. "Chicken Tarna, Chicken Shawerma, Chicken Kebab.  Spit-roasted, slow-roasted, flame grilled."

The Bubba Gump of the poultry world, the woman was obsessed with getting her bird on, even as my life fell to pieces on the floor. "Let's get a whole one and split it," she said. "Don't tell me you can't eat all that -- I've seen you put down a roll of cookie dough. Steamed rice or chopped salad?"

"Why aren't you listening to me? I keep saying I don't want to work for you any more and you keep bringing it back to side dishes."

"They're very cheap with the garlic sauce, you'd think it was made of crack," she said, lowering her voice. "I'll tell her she left one out of the bag so we can get some extra." Exasperated, I turned up the volume. "This was supposed to be a temp job! I want my life back!"

"Alrighty. What about your buddy?"


"She can haunt me all she wants. It's not my fault what happened to her."

"Not her, some photographer coming around looking for you," she said, stuffing a white paper bag with napkins. "Looked like somebody roughed him up pretty good over something or other. That's why captain was asking for you." She read the look of surprise on my face. "You think he wanted to ask for your hand in marriage?"

 "I thought he was mad at me because I'm just not up to this job."

She laughed, peeling the cellophane off a minted toothpick. "Ain't nothing to this job, Fancy Pants," she scoffed. "Just sit there and eat your chicken, try not to get too much grease on the booking sheets when somebody else brings in the bad guy. First of the month you pay your own rent instead of calling home to your daddy and crying about how his little ballerina should have been famous by now. Meanwhile, whatever you and Cap got going on, I'm here to tell you -- you ain't the first. Ain't gonna be the last, neither, so you best snap out of it and move on before your ass falls."

A couple of fresh-faced new arrivals walked past the pictures windows, toting their rolling suitcases, in the general direction of the beach. "Why do they always look so much like me and Rita getting off that bus?" I wondered aloud.

"You all look alike to me. Why don't you run out and tell them it's another thirty miles before they can dip as much as a pretty little toe in the sand. Even if they do make it, the beach belongs to some fancy movie director who's got it roped off all the way up to Santa Barbara."

"Or you want to let them work that out for their damn selves, and help me get some more garlic up in this bag?"

"Somebody killed my friend," I said, as though it just occurred to me. "You keep out of my way while I stay on long enough to figure out why -- and I'll score you a five-gallon vat of that crap right now."

She crossed her arms with a full-on eye roll, challenging me to make good on that deal. I turned to the put upon little manager at the register. "Excuse me, sir? My name is Cherry. Like the tart? I work at LAPD Hollywood Division. We girls get so hungry over there."