Roses of Death

I was just curious, looking to hear someone’s story; mostly I was tired of narrating my own life while listening to the radio.


February 1978

I was a commuter who had tried living the dorm life at Cal State Northridge, a commuter school, but it didn’t make much sense. So after the ‘75 school year I moved back home. It felt better, more mature, even though I was almost 23 and living with my parents. I commuted from Burbank to Northridge for the next two years.
The thing about the drive to me was that I had to change up the way I got either to school or home to break up the monotony. I’d take the freeway; then streets; then half and half. There were dozens of ways to get home and I drove most of them.
One afternoon in my last semester I was headed up Devonshire, not a route I had frequented, in fact it may have been the first time, when I saw a hitch-hiker who looked like she was a high school kid too lazy to walk home. I told myself that I would protect her by picking her up. I was just curious, looking to hear someone’s story; mostly I was tired of narrating my life while listening to the radio. She was an odd little bird, very skinny, straight black hair, grimy Levi’s and a black t-shirt, it looked like she couldn’t keep her arm, hand and thumb from shaking as she stood on the street, a good three feet from the curb, waiting impatiently. I pulled the Grand Torino station wagon over. She got in the car before I could say anything. She was not a high school kid; she was around 20 and the look on her face suggested she had already been traveling a rough road.
“You care if I smoke? You don’t care. Oh, yeah, you got your cigar, I got my Camel. You don’t care, do you? No. Where you going? Long way I hope. A far way? Far away I hope.” Her words flew out of her mouth like she was spitting out spoiled milk.
“A far way; far away,” I said in a fairy tale voice, trying to match her wordplay.
“Oh good. Far away? Like how far away? Cucamonga? Oh good, Cucamonga. Cucamonga, good. Good, good, good. Goodie.” She laughed like a B actress in a bad movie.
“No, not Cucamonga.”
“Oh, too bad, not Cucamonga. Too bad, too bad. Panorama City? I hope. Tryin’ to get there. There would be good. Cucamonga another time. You get high?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Well then you don’t. If you don’t, then you don’t. There are all kinds of things to take. Wanna know them? Wanna know what you can take? All kinds of things. And then you don’t sleep. Sleep, who needs to sleep? You don’t sleep for four days. Then you get like this, right? Just like this. Brandy and coke. But I mean coke, you know. But that’s nothing, that’s nothing. Dust though. That’s bad. I know dust is no good. I know it’s bad and stupid. It’s really stupid.”
“Are you hungry? You want something to eat?” I only had two dollars so I pulled into Jack in the Box.
“Hungry? Yeah, that’s good. That sounds good. Something to eat. I didn’t eat. Didn’t eat at all. For four days. Couldn’t eat. Didn’t eat. Yeah I want to eat. “
She took huge gulps of her soda and small bites of her hamburger. She didn’t seem interested in her fries. I was tapped out but I told her I wasn’t hungry and I had to not eat those fries to maintain my credibility. She ate a little less than half her hamburger and we headed back to the car and resumed our journey.
“Oh, you’re nice. You bought me some food. You want something? You like me? You want something?”
“No, that’s ok.”
“Oh, you’re nice. You bought the food. You don’t want anything back. You’re nice. Penthouse offered me $1,500 but I didn’t take it. That was before. See, I tried to, you know, I didn’t want to, like, be here. And I took a rose branch and cut my wrists. Then I got my new name. My friends gave me a new name. Wanna know my name? Roses of Death. I got a tattoo of it. Wanna see it?” She arched her back and began unbuttoning her pants.
“No, you don’t need to do that. I believe you.”
“Oh yeah. I keep forgetting, you’re nice. But my boyfriend isn’t. He knocks me around. And so that’s why we’re going to Panorama City. He doesn’t know I have friends there. He won’t know where I am.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“Yeah. The rose branches didn’t work, so I got my life back. So I get high. And talk to people to see if they’re nice.”
“Are you happy?”
“Am I happy? Yes, I’m happy. The world is miserable. It’s a miserable world. Hard to be happy in a miserable world. “
“That’s true.”
“Yeah.”
She directed me not to Panorama City but Pacoima, to a bad looking neighborhood in a town so bad that it later changed its name to try and ditch its bad reputation. I dropped her off by an empty lot next to an empty building. I asked her if there was somewhere else she wanted to go but she insisted this was exactly where she wanted to be. She got out of the car, closed the door and then put half her frail body back in through the open window.
“It’s a miserable world.” She paused for a while. “I’m not happy.” Then she turned and began her trek across the trashed filled lot, walking right through the middle of it as if she were cutting it in half.