California Dreaming

It’s mid-December and I am standing in my underwear in a strange man’s home. The front and back doors are open, and some woman is yelling from the basement.?

A friend is rummaging through the kitchen cabinets looking for a cup. All I want is a towel.?

Neighbors are walking in and out, oblivious to the half-naked man, which is me, standing in the living room. This is my first experience in sunny California.?

Long Beach to be exact.?

It’s Christmas break, and I am the only one who sees a problem here. The ecstasy I had taken earlier in the morning has all but worn off.?

I want an In & Out burger.?

More importantly, I want some pants. Or, at least a towel. The cold Pacific inverted my shrinkage, and I am blushing red from embarrassment.?

Wet white underwear leaves little to the imagination.?

I began to wonder if my Xmas vacation was really worth it. My friend said nothing about strangers. I even asked earlier if I should bring a towel since were going to the beach.

He said we wouldn’t be going swimming. He also didn’t mention that he would push me down when the waves came up on the shore.?

This was not the experience in the brochure.?

When he had said road trip, I was picturing a drive to San Diego, or maybe LA to see the Hollywood sign. I didn’t anticipate club drugs and a dirty beach.?

Someone once said to me that man is curious. Curiosity also killed the cat.??

Between the sound of the woman downstairs and my friend in the kitchen, I started reflecting on my life choices up until that point.?

The stranger we were supposed to meet wasn’t home. He had left hours earlier on a drug fuel sabbatical to Tijuana with a couple of girls.?

“I better get these back!” The woman says as she emerges from behind a door. She launches a pair of tattered board shorts at my head.?

They land a couple of feet in front of me, which means I have to bend over to pick them up.

Some heavy-set guy is at the door behind me asking if Cheryl is home.?

“You ok?” My friend asks. He has two cups of neon blue Kool-Aide in his hands.?

The woman, who I am guessing is Cheryl, is lighting a Virgina Slim menthol with daggers for eyes in my direction.

“No Mike, I am not. I am standing in my underwear in the middle of the living room. And by the looks of Cheryl’s track marks, I think we might have interrupted something.”?

“I am not standing in your living room am I?” Cheryl retorts.

Mike hands me the cup and I drink it down. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I can taste the dried salt on my lips from when my face and the Pacific connected.?

“You ready? Let’s get out of here.”?

Mike walks past the man still standing at the door. I follow.?

‘I better get those shorts back Michael.”?

Outside, Mike lights up a Marlboro and climbs into his Toyota. A breeze off of the ocean gives me a chill.?

“Where do you want to go now?”?

“Back to the hotel” I reply.?

The hour-long drive back is quiet except for the radio. The board shorts smell like sweat and I can’t help but feel unnerved.?

“If you want me to pick up some more ecstasy, I am going to need money.”

“I have to wait for my friend to get back. I don’t know where he is. You going to be around later?”

“Yeah, I should be. Just call me.”?

And with that, Mike drives out of the parking lot. I have no intention of calling him tonight or for the remainder of the trip.

We are going to have to experience the LA club scene like God intended. With alcohol.?

A couple of months earlier, my best friend and I decided that we would spend Christmas break in California. He wanted to move here after he graduated to be closer to the movie industry.?

I thought it was a good idea.?

On our first night in Long Beach, he hooked up with someone and disappeared. It wasn’t until the next day that he told me he got us a hotel in LA and that I should get dropped off.

Mike agreed but first wanted to take me on what he considered his “California Experience” before he dropped me off.?

Mike was our friend from Milwaukee who moved here a few years ago and said we could stay with him that first night.?

Turned out, we stayed with his girlfriend since he still hadn’t found a job this entire time he was out here.???

So here I am standing in a parking lot as Mike’s tail lights disappear in the traffic. I can’t seem to get a hold of my best friend to tell me what room we are in.

I desperately want to shower. I can’t tell if I am itchy because of the salt of the grimy shorts I am wearing.?

The thought of body lice is tricking my mind into thinking I have to scratch everywhere.?

And for the next several hours, I walked around LA disgusted. I am upset with myself, upset that I might have to delouse myself with Dip while wheeling my suitcase behind me.?

My California experience is nothing like the movies. It only went downhill from there.?

The club experience turned out to be a bust. It was midweek, so no one was out. Construction sprung up out of nowhere, so every morning we had to wake up to a jackhammer.?

And to top it all off, the airport we had to fly out of was in Long Beach. Which meant we would have to get a ride share to take us back.?

Something neither of us thought to reserve.?

I ended up having to rent us a limousine for the hour ride back which cost $200 bucks.

From there on, it was no Califonia was Dreaming on such a winter's day.

I will settle for mid-west blizzard-like conditions.?

Well, until that following year when we both went back and had the time of our lives.?

California redeemed itself.?

And I learned that standing in the middle of a living room days before Christmas in my underwear was not the right way to start a vacation.