Part two of: What happened to Trevor and Meher while they were in L.A. together composing the score for Reasons To Live.
April 3, 1998.
Stopped working on the score at just after 4am last night. I tried to stay up with Meher but I sort of drifted off at about 3:30. At 12:38 today the phone rings and thus begins The Continuing Story of Tony and His Girls…
RING!
Meher’s eyes light up expectantly.
“It’s the stripper!” I say.
“Hello? Hey how ya doin’!” Meher nods in my direction. It’s the stripper.
Erika wants to know if they can keep their bags in our room. They’ve lost their room (apparently due to some loud fighting late last night) and they need somewhere to stash their stuff until their friend shows up around four o’clock or so.
“What do you think?” Meher asks.
“I don’t know.” I say with a touch of worry.
He hangs up the phone having agreed to protect the stripper’s worldly goods.
“I knew this would happen!” I say feeling pretty world wise, “I wrote it in my book last night.”
“What?” Meher asks.
“That we were supposed to offer our room to them.” I enter the bathroom to wash my face. “Next thing they’ll ask to use our room ‘just for a little while’ and Tony will beat us up and empty our wallets.”
“No we can’t have that.” Meher leaves the room and returns five minutes later. He’s convinced them to put their bags in his car, that way they won’t have an excuse to get into our room if we’re out. Also, Tony wants to go for coffee with us.
“Just Tony? Or the whole gang?.”
“The whole gang, I think. They say there’s a place within walking distance just around the corner. It’s weird, I walked up there and Erika was just in panties and a bra and I was like ‘oh! sorry’ and they were like ‘no, that’s cool’. ”
‘They’re up to something.’ I think. My mind keeps drifting to Jim Thompson novels and how the protagonist is continually presented with chances to escape, but instead keeps digging himself in deeper and deeper…. mixed up with the wrong people until he is double-crossed and he says “I’ve been played for a sucker!”
Later:
I’ve left the door open while I attempt to strategically hide stuff in our room, my ID, camera. walkman etc… Leah appears in the doorway with an armful of stuffed animals.
“They didn’t want to stay in the car.” She smiles coyly, “Is it alright if I leave them here?”
Um… “Sure”. She is really cute in a little girl Lolita kind of way.
“They won’t take up much space.” She puts them on our chair.
“And they add a little colour to the room.”
“Thanks.” She smiles – coyness incarnate – and then leaves. It dawns on me that I am a sucker. She’s just got to bat her eyes and suddenly they’ve got personal items in our room.
Meher with Leah the stripper’s stuffed animals
Continues on the next page.
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