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“I got a Molotov cocktail with a match to go,
I smoke my cigarette with style.” Night train, Guns and Roses
Sometime in October 2000.
“Habibi! Habibi!” Belly dancing music blared from the car’s radio, as I maneuvered my sports car through Panorama City, which made the worst part of the Bronx look like a Norman Rockwell painting. I light a Capri. Yes, I can multi task. And then there was a light that turned red, right off the 170 freeway at Roscoe Boulevard.
My God, I was in purgatory and I wasn’t even Catholic.
I closed my eyes for a split second, and I could see people crossing the intersection from hell and staring right at me, like zombies with bad hair days and cheap Foster Grant sunglasses. An image flashed before my eyes. The traffic lights were upside down, and the faces became blobs, with eyeballs as huge as amoebas, and the blue sky and red lights of the traffic signs became oversaturated to the point of where my eyes hurt. I thought of Rene Magritte’s painting, “The Eye.”
Was I losing my mind? What was happening to me?
And then the car stalled.
“This is all your fault, Mas,” I cursed under my breath. “All your goddamn fault.”
I braked and put the car back into neutral, and then, pressed my left foot on the clutch, and started the engine. I could hear my car rumble as I lowered the damn music on the car radio.
Some jerk behind me beeped. Should I put on my emergency flashers or tell him to go fuck himself?
I chose the latter. As I rolled my windows down, and protruded my left hand, middle finger poised like a toothpick, my Capri dropped onto my orange pink Betsy Johnson bellbottoms.
“Goddamn it!” I yelled. I managed to retrieve the Capri but not before it burned a hole, the size of a penny on my right thigh. My five hundred dollar pants were ruined. I was so mad that I did not even feel the burn of the damn cigarette.
The asshole behind me was a woman in a white minivan. She honked again. Was she insane? How dare she have the gall to honk at me from her GMC Safari minivan? Before I could yell out an epithet, I saw a gaggle of little kids staring at me. They bobbed their heads up and down, like shooting ducks at a range. If I were a sharpshooter I would have knocked them each down, one by one, with a machine gun.
“Hold your horses!” I yelled at her, and honked right back.
The light finally turned green.
“I curse you, Mas!!!” I said. “But I have the goddamn Testa Rossa.”
The Ferrari with its 12 cylinder engine shot out of that damn intersection like a bat out of hell, but I kept it at ten miles per hour and I could hear the engine burble in dismay. It did not like driving at sixty miles an hour, let alone ten. I could hear it begging me to accelerate but I said out loud, “No, sweetie, safety first” like I was addressing a toddler.
I praised God it was an Italian car, because Italians like Greeks (yes, in another life I was Greek, but now I have a Japanese last name, go figure) love to smoke. I was able to maneuver my Capri into the ashtray that I could locate with my eyes closed. But the Ferrari has a hard suspension, and there was a pothole up ahead that I had to avoid. I maneuvered my way around it but not before I almost hit a homeless man crossing Roscoe Boulevard with his shopping cart and shaggy dog. He was so drunk that he didn’t even notice, but the dog stared at me, as I drove by, its black eyes looking at me. I shuddered from the sight. I had a dog, my little Chihuahua Evita and she was right next to me, on the passenger seat. My Evita was more than a pooch she was all I had left these days. Other dogs were just mutts, and honestly I could not figure out why that homeless dude had a canine, when he could not even afford to feed himself. That canine was probably better off dead, as was the guy. Homeless people drove me nuts, because they shot out of the street like flies. It was as if they wanted to be hit by my car, so that they could go to the emergency room for a free meal and bed. It made me sick, as did that man’s dog. I am sorry. I am a narcissist. I really have a hard time caring about people and dogs outside of my immediate radius. For a long time, Mas was part of my radius but now it was just Evita and I. So I had no option but to be self-absorbed.
I shoved the image of the man and his mutt out of my head. I had other problems to deal with.
I had to find two parking spots in a reasonable safe location for my car because I had an appointment at two p.m. at the Department of Social Services on Lanark Street. Evita slept besides me. I had her little Gucci carrier with me, so I figured she could go with me to the interview because I had to get food stamps.
The thought of locating parking for my Testa made me anxious beyond belief. The concept of food stamps was beyond my comprehension, but what the hell. I had to eat, Evita had to eat. I located my flask, which was safely ensconced inside my Prada handbag, and pulled it out. A swig of my martini and I was fine. I felt relaxed. Where the hell was my Xanax? Shit, I didn’t have that anymore. Dr. Zen had taken all my prescription bottles, and all I had was some goddamn cymbalta and celexa, which I had already taken this morning. I needed a Xanax. Maybe there was a way I could get some, but I had to get to goddamn welfare right now.
Yeah, that’s me.
My name is Thera Basilios Nigoshito.
Formerly of Bel Air, California.
On my way to fucking welfare.
From Bel Air to welfare.
What’s next on the agenda?
A zombie apocalypse?
This is the opening of From Bel Air To Welfare. Would love to hear reactions or feedback!