Burbank Boulevard

                Kay and Ally went to a show at the Spot Friday night. Kay promised she had a hookup to get them in. Ally had doubts. Why would anyone let a couple of high school girls into the prime underground club in NoHo? But she didn’t interrogate Kay. 

Kay had the address written down on a Post-It stuck on the steering wheel of her car but vaguely knew that it was on Burbank Boulevard. The building numbers on that block were hard to see, especially at night. They drove down the street three times, trying to find the Spot. Finally, Kay said, like, fuck it, and parked on a random street in a sketchy neighborhood, and they started looking on foot. They eventually found the Spot.

It was a bizarre carnival fever dream of a building, with strange nightmarish multicolored murals painted on the facade, a large anatomical head for a ticket booth, surrounded by a wooden fence painted like a tarot deck. No one was in the head, so Kay started slamming her fist on the fence, screaming. A strange white man opened a gate near Kay and Ally. He looked like a hipster clown with face tattoos and dyed hair spikes.  

‘You here for the show?’ he asked. 

‘Yeah,’ Kay said.

‘Ten-dollar cover.’

‘Isay said we’d be covered.’

‘You Katherine?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Come on in.’

The gate led to the large patio. It looked like a Day-Glo freak show, with large turn-of-the-century sideshow advertisements billowing in the nocturnal SoCal breeze and circus accouterments arraigned in every space. People were smoking on benches or picnic tables near a large blazing fire pit. ‘Yo, Kay!’ someone screamed.

She turned around and smiled, ‘Hey, Isay!’ 

They ran to each other and hugged. Isay was older, in his mid-twenties, kind of short, handsome. But there was something wrong about his face, something untrustworthy about it. Ally wondered how they knew each other. Kay brought him to her. ‘Is this your friend?’ he asked.

‘Yeah, this is Ally.’

‘A pleasure to meet you,’ he said before bringing her hand to his lips. 

‘Yeah,’ Ally said uncomfortably.

‘So, you wanna see the inside?’ Isay asked. Kay responded enthusiastically. Ally wanted to leave.

The inside of the Spot was dark and packed. A colorfully lighted-up stage decorated like something out of Peewee’s Playhouse dominated one side, where a band was hammering away sonically. The crowd was pogoing to the music. Ally lost track of Kay and squeezed through the crowd to look for her. Kay was in the back of the space talking to Isay. He gave her a Dixie cup. Something inside Ally wanted to slap it out of her hand. But she drank from it and looked fine. 

Another band came on stage after the first one and started playing. They weren’t as good, though. The faces of the crowd shined from the stage’s different color lights. They looked insane. The crowd charged hard towards the stage during the second song, dragging Ally with them. She started to panic. A hand reached out and grabbed her own, pulling her away. Isay stood beside her. He smiled, ‘Gotta watch out for these people. They’re animals.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, out of breath.

‘Let’s go outside. It’s more peaceful.’

They stepped out to the patio. There were a few people around, smoking. Ally found Kay lying on a bench near the fire pit. She sat down near her. Kay looked off. ‘You okay?’ Ally asked.

‘Yeah, Ally, I’m alright,’ she slurred, her breath sickly sweet with whiskey.

‘Jesus fuck, Kay!’

‘It’s okay,’ Isay said. He took out a large flask from his jacket pocket, unscrewed the top, and drank a healthy pull. He exhaled roughly and hooted, ‘Now that’s the good shit right here!’ He looked at Ally, waving the flask at her. ‘Want a taste?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Come on, Ally,’ Kay muttered, her eyes closed. ‘Take a sip.’

‘Yeah, come on, Ally,’ Isay said. ‘You trust Kay, yeah? How close’re you two?’

‘Like sisters,’ Ally said. 

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. And Kay trusts me. She knows I wouldn’t lead her astray. We’re family.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah, Ally,’ Kay said, pointing an unbalanced finger towards the sky, ‘we’re cousins, practically helped raise me. I trust him.’

‘Yeah, man!’ he said. He offered the flask again.

Ally held it in her hand and took a sip. The liquor burned in her throat harshly. She coughed, almost to the point of choking. 

Isay laughed, ‘You have to take it gentler. Gotta savor it.’

He showed her. Ally felt a warm, loving, tingling sensation with every sip. Kay sat up on her bench and took the flask from Ally, drinking her fill. Isay laughed maniacally and joined them. They kept drinking until the flask was drained. The world was spinning in a happy dance. The warmth of the fire was beautiful against the cool evening wind. 

It was nearly dawn when Ally woke up in the backseat of a stranger’s car. She panicked, screamed, and thrashed around. ‘Hey, hey!’ cried the driver. He was very angry. It took Ally a moment to recognize Kay’s older brother, Mike. She looked at the passenger seat. Kay was lying supine in it, snoring. 

‘You two are in so much fuckin’ trouble,’ Mike said. 

‘I’m sorry,’ Ally slurred. 

‘Yeah. Whatever. You can deal with your folks when I drop you off.’

‘Where’s Isay?’

‘Probably still bleedin’ on the street curb.’

‘What?’

Mike sighed, flicked on a turn signal, and made a left. He looked at Ally through the rearview mirror, ‘You can’t trust Isay, Ally. You just can’t. He’s bad news when he’s around little girls.’

‘I’m not a little girl,’ Ally said. 

‘Right, you’re not. Sorry. Regardless, he’s no good to be around.’

‘Aren’t you two cousins?’

‘Yeah. That doesn’t mean I can let him do whatever he fuckin’ wants to do. Someone has to stop him.’

‘What happened, Mike?’

He was quiet for a moment, concentrating on the drive down San Fernando Boulevard. He clicked his tongue, ‘My homeboy Jimbi called me sayin’ that Isay was being inappropriate with you.’

‘Jimbi?’

‘You’ve met him. He’s the white boy with the painted spikes and face tattoos.’

‘Oh…’

‘Yeah. Anyway, he was keepin’ an eye on you and Kay. When you were passin’ out, Isay started draggin’ you someplace. Jimbi went up to stop him. Isay was denyin’ everything, then was confrontational. He didn’t know that Jimbi got his black belt at Twin Towers. Isay got curb-stomped to hell and gone.’

‘And Jimbi called you?’

‘Yup. He didn’t want you and Kay there when someone called the cops.’

‘Did someone call them?’

‘It would’ve been a matter of time, Ally. No hipster likes violence at their club, you know?’

The pale, false light of dawn died away as the golden sun crested in the east. Mike made a turn and entered Glassell Park, pulling onto Avenue Thirty-two, and parked in front of Ally’s house. Ally stared at the house and felt terribly sick. ‘Can you come with me, Mike?’ she asked. 

He chuckled, ‘I think I’ve helped you enough, Ally. My hands are still full with this one.’ He pointed his thumb towards Kay. 

‘Right.’

‘Look, just go in there with your head high. You fucked up; now you face the consequences. But don’t let that define you. That’s what being an adult should be all about, right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘See ya around, Ally.’

Ally got out of the car and wobbled towards her house. She imagined what her parents were going to say, how her mom was going to chastise her loudly and viciously while beseeching la madre y el nino, how her father was going to tack on punishment on top of punishment until he felt satisfied that justice for the transgression against his authority was reached, how she herself was probably going to explode, as she always had, towards her parents’ overreactions and instigate another miniature cold war with them. Eventually, Ally and her parents will forgive each other after some time, as they have always done.