trampset, a publication for which I recently became an Editor-at-Large, published this little ditty in June, 2020. It speaks of being raised on television in the 70’s, and is something of a companion piece to Ventura Highway a story of mine that also appeared in trampset.
Read the story below or by going to the publication HERE.
L.A. in Pieces
by
J. Edward Kruft
Adam-12
Mom sat me in front of the TV so she could drink highballs in the den while my father was at his Tuesday night poker game. I was in the fifth grade, so what does that make me, ten? I could hear her – over the blare of police sirens and dialogue with drunkards and squad-room chatter and the sound of what I now know to be my crush on Officer Reed – riffling through his desk drawers, taking books from the shelf and fanning them, holding them by the boards and shaking, then dropping them to the ground with a thud. I didn’t know what she was looking for, I only knew she was looking and that her talking to herself was as bad as if she’d found something, something awful.
So I focused best I could on the streets of Los Angeles, a blood and guts contrast in shapes and materials: the hardness of politely rolling drunks on Skid Row; the softness of the manicured blue lawns of the bedroom communities, so much like my own house that Malloy and Reed, too, could be in Richmond, Indiana. I could and did imagine Officer Reed and I living in such a house together. Not as lovers, for my mind could not yet articulate such a thing. And if not as lovers, the only way I could otherwise conceive of such an arrangement was as father and son.
Emergency!
My father’s new wife, Jeannie, asked how I wanted my steak done. I told her I didn’t eat meat. Johnny Gage was rescuing a boy from the sewer, so I couldn’t be bothered. I was old enough now to know that my desire for Gage was not for want of a father – although that persisted in other ways – but for reasons altogether illicit and carnal.
The industrial environment around Station 51made me think of being on the wrong side of the tracks. This pristine, blond brick firehouse, plopped down in the middle of oil tanks and utility substations. That’s how I felt.
My father blustered in.
“What the hell did you say to Jeannie?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing my ass. She’s crying.”
“I told her I don’t eat meat.”
“Oh, you’ll eat it all right. And you’ll love every Goddamn bite.”
The Rockford Files
James Scott Rockford, P.I. My heart be still. Not that I would have kicked him out of my bed, but I didn’t love Jim Rockford, aka J.W. Farnsworth, aka Jimmy Joe Meeker, aka Jim Taggert, so much as I wanted to be him. And in a way, maybe I was.
The day after my 18th birthday I moved to Indianapolis, to a studio apartment above a shoe store on Mass Avenue, which I shared with a messy drag queen who called herself Draama Mean. Apt, as she did nauseate me.
The job at the bookstore didn’t last. Nor did my tenure at Lazarus, where my entire duty consisted of making sure people in the dressing rooms didn’t steal. How was I to know that giving blowjobs to the cuter clientele was frowned upon?
So I started tricking. And the way to survive that, perhaps even thrive at it, for I was, if I must boast, in high demand, was to lose yourself in a persona. For Bill with the lust for piss, I was Joey Pajamas. For Rudy, who self-deprecatingly declared his gut so big that he hadn’t seen his own cock in decades, I was Raoul. To others I was Sam Spade, Windy Wintersome, Tad the Lad. But like Jim, eventually my knees gave out and my ticket was punched. Or rather, I was beaten to unconsciousness and robbed, and for some reason that left a bad taste in my mouth.
That’s where Jim and I parted company. He drove his Firebird into danger, whether to the mansions of Beverly Hills or to a seedy bar on the Strip. I had no choice but to resign myself to the fact that I didn’t possess his fortitude. Still, he convinced me to move west where I also didn’t carry a gun and where I went to where his trailer was supposed to be parked, 29 Cove Road, Malibu, and where I too had an answering machine, and where I eventually got my act together enough to fall in love.
The Partridge Family
I live in the Hollywood Hills now with my partner, Joe Partridge, and our dogs Anya and Sacha. And no, it turns out the bedroom communities of Los Angles are not at all like the manicured blue lawns of Richmond, Indiana. Thank doG.
Because of his surname, I like to sometimes spontaneously burst into song: I Think I Love You. He obliges. He’s wealthy – family money – and he knows my whole history and doesn’t mind or doesn’t let on that he minds. Either way. He is the only one: Mother’s highballs, Crying Jeannie, Piss-on-me-Bill. I DVR the reruns from channels like Cozi and We TV and watch them by myself. Joe says he thinks it’s funny, my penchant for these oldies. Maybe he even thinks it’s a little sad. But it’s how I grew up.
When people ask, I tell them I was raised in Los Angles. And not for a moment has it ever felt like a lie.
BIO (as it appeared in the original publication)
J. Edward Kruft is editor-at-large for trampset.