Page 16 - Finding Tulsa - Preview

8 Jim Provenzano

On the fridge are poems, beautiful phrases put together by party
guests. I have one from all my friends. It’s a combination of Magnetic
Poetry and another set called X Philes, the bootleg version, made before
the guy who ripped off Fox’s X-Files got the license to make them for Fox.
It’s a tough town. Only thieves get in.
Those should be put back in their little boxes, after I write them
down. Anyway, that’s where I got the chapter titles for this book.
The near-impenetrable front door hall is lined with bookshelves, tape
shelves, but have mostly been boxed. Where the hell else could I put it?
They don’t do basements in L.A.
In the guest bedroom are tables and my editing console, more film
canisters, videotapes, CDs and files. Atop a shelf over my desk are the
awards from indie and gay film festivals, and a pair of stolen drive-in the-
atre speakers. Some need to be put away. I still can’t decide.
Over the shelf hangs my pride and joy, a three-by-five foot poster of
Hel, the gal from Metropolis who drove a city mad, her metallic face sur-
rounded in lush green. It’s signed by the man himself, Fritz Lang. No, I
didn’t pay top dollar, but it was a long time before she got into my hands.
The bathroom walls are a lovely cacophony of mixed tiles picked from
leftover warehouse piles. On a plaster gargoyle-shaped sconce, the silver
teardrop-shaped Cable Ace Award. Behold and wipe.
But Hel and the Ace weren’t there when all this started. I’m getting
ahead of myself.
If you happen to spend some extra time in my bedroom, you’ll see the
photo over the bed. Um, yes. That gets questions. You have to look closer
to see a small framed black and white photo of a man being eaten by an
alligator.
Those shoulders bared under African sun, him lying in it. A real ham,
though, I mean, to stuff yourself into the guts of an alligator to have your
picture taken while you’re writing? Whoa. Give the man a nod.
By this time in my description of the Peter Beard photo, you may have
hopefully fallen into bed with me, or something of that nature, if you are
the sort of person I’d like to do that to, which is ... Well, anyway that’s
what this is all about, isn’t it? Who do you love?
The shuttle bus is late. I pace outside and stand, breathing deep, as if
smoking. Then I get the urge and decide to quell it with the better stuff.
I return to my den, open the curved plastic window of my 1965 GI Joe
Apollo capsule, current resale value $460.00, and shove a silver-uniformed
Joe aside to extract the plastic bag that holds a morsel of Humboldt puffy.