“Come on over.”
“Where are you?”
“Up in the Hollywood Hills,” ‘Hildy’ enthused.
“Who did you come over with?”
“Keith and his lady.”
“Keith?...oh right.” Keith's lady was one
of her models. “Great,
OK, let me just get a pen, jot the address down.” I try to come across as cool,
nonchalant.
“Where are you?”
“Pacific Palisades.”
“Think you will be able find it?”
“Sure, no problem” I porky pie as I think of
my transport an ageing Beach Buggy that had seen better sand dunes.
I am living in Los Angeles for the past year.
Why am I there? Let's call it a ‘late adolescence’. I am driving one of those ‘Beach
Buggy’ cars as if I am some Angelino beach bum. But I am on the 'programme',
(which might be termed more adolescence) but I am clean and sober and getting a
full frontal on reality and there is a certain stark beauty to that. I have
friends, to my surprise, quite a few. Anyway, I am no longer, ‘out of my tree’
living some melodramatic existence in my head, I am, without drugs or drink,
embracing the ‘real’ world with all its vicissitudes.
The phone call was from - let us call her ‘Hildred’. ‘Hildy's’ soft spot for me is more prolonged than my affection for her, but my fondness for her is persistent. She is an ex flame, who runs a model agency in Kings Road, Chelsea, that Valhalla for would be's. Where all those leather jacketed studs would gather outside playing cool, like a pack of wolves. There they congregated in that studied casual way of the predatory male, as they subdued their drooling over the long legged beauties who would emerge from Hildred's model agency. Me too, I didn't have a motorbike, too timorous although I was paradoxically brave, for hadn't I fought my own tigers as one of the manipulated in the Roman Amphitheatre called professional pugilism.
The phone call was from - let us call her ‘Hildred’. ‘Hildy's’ soft spot for me is more prolonged than my affection for her, but my fondness for her is persistent. She is an ex flame, who runs a model agency in Kings Road, Chelsea, that Valhalla for would be's. Where all those leather jacketed studs would gather outside playing cool, like a pack of wolves. There they congregated in that studied casual way of the predatory male, as they subdued their drooling over the long legged beauties who would emerge from Hildred's model agency. Me too, I didn't have a motorbike, too timorous although I was paradoxically brave, for hadn't I fought my own tigers as one of the manipulated in the Roman Amphitheatre called professional pugilism.
"Well, you had the brains to get out,
didn't you?" my friend, the ‘Oracle’ would gently chide.
Back to ‘Hildy’. At that juncture of our liaison I was the manager of a boutique type family hotel off the King's Road. In a similarly wolf like way to the pack gathered outside Hildred’s Model Agency on their Suzuki’s and Yamaha’s I was dying to ‘pull’ too, but surreptitiously.
Back to ‘Hildy’. At that juncture of our liaison I was the manager of a boutique type family hotel off the King's Road. In a similarly wolf like way to the pack gathered outside Hildred’s Model Agency on their Suzuki’s and Yamaha’s I was dying to ‘pull’ too, but surreptitiously.
On the face of it, I was lobbying model
agencies about our family hotel - it was part of marketing strategy, however underneath
those cobbles was the lawn of self serving aggrandisement.
What I really wanted was to be seen with a beautiful model on my arm as I
sauntered down the Kings Road, as if a woman was no more than a shimmering
reflection of my vanity.
And so it came to pass that in that faintly demented Lothario mode, there were quite a few ‘liaisons’ with Hildy’s stunning models and in that heady musk of masculine ego, I would saunter down the Kings’ Road in that preening way. On a more serious note, I would congratulate myself for being ‘clean’; no drugs or drink for how long is it now? Almost a year. Not bad for a guy who 15 months earlier nearly had his head in the gas oven. It was that close. So Hildy's models were pursued with a mad adolescent persistence until, having plateaued I took up with their mother hen herself, ‘Hildy’.
Now
I am on the Hollywood Freeway, coming in from the East Side. Is that a police
car behind me? Well, I am clean, and I passed my American Driving Test, so
there! But they soon tail off and head into Little Armenia where there might be
better pickings than a beach bum in his bug. Now I am driving through the
Hollywood Hills, it must be here somewhere. Bloody hell, what was that? I am nervous
about meeting Keith, but surely not that nervous that I am seeing apparitions?
A shape pounds past me then another and another. My God, I don't believe it.
Wolves, a pack of them, it is the most glorious sight to see them lolloping
along beside me. I slow down and watch them disappear up a path high up into
the hills. Wow! I think of the other pack of wolves, the gathered pack outside
Hildred’s Model Agency. Well, even if they didn’t ‘pull’ they still could roar
up the King’s Road with all that power between their legs.And so it came to pass that in that faintly demented Lothario mode, there were quite a few ‘liaisons’ with Hildy’s stunning models and in that heady musk of masculine ego, I would saunter down the Kings’ Road in that preening way. On a more serious note, I would congratulate myself for being ‘clean’; no drugs or drink for how long is it now? Almost a year. Not bad for a guy who 15 months earlier nearly had his head in the gas oven. It was that close. So Hildy's models were pursued with a mad adolescent persistence until, having plateaued I took up with their mother hen herself, ‘Hildy’.
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