Moorpark Palms - 4. Chapter 4

My other apartments always centered on my bedroom. I passed through the living room, kept snacks in the fridge, but my computer, stereo, phone, and TV were all within inches of where I slept. If I could have showered there, I might have – warm water and lying down being two of my favorite things. I read, ate, wrote, graded papers, and paid bills in bed. It’s part of being six-four: only my mattress is scaled to size. And it didn’t hurt that I could have company.
When I moved to LA, I bought a narrow futon for economy. My first month at Doug’s, that lumpy wad of shredded-god-knows-what was almost all I owned. I was more broke than even my family knew. Before I found work, everything went on credit cards. My damn car – and I say this cautiously because it’s somewhere between an inanimate object and a demanding god – had wiped out my savings prepping for the trip west.
“Ooh, a water pump! I want one of those! And brake linings! Air filter! And couldn’t I get a valve job? Please? Jake! Please?”
I confessed my fears only once, and then in guy code, on the phone to my dad. “Maybe I made a mistake,” I said quietly. I’d been in LA for three weeks, and nothing was happening. “I might have to come back.”
Dad made comforting sounds we both knew had no meaning. He couldn’t help, retired as he was. There was no family business. Three days later, as I earnestly considered cramming to become a bartender, my strongest contact miraculously paid off, and in seconds, I was over-worked.
By December, everything was paid off – except my college loans which would dribble on perpetually. I’d also saved toward the Christmas trip east I had to take – partly to see family but more because I knew guys there who’d actually let me touch them. LA men were the Bizarro version of the economical college teachers I’d dated. They didn’t drag cross-country to meet the guy-next-door. In my case, the guy-next-door’s older brother, the future-lawyer of our family having gotten all our cute genes. And even if I managed to meet a California guy who’d condescend to go out with me and then shepherded him past drooling Doug, I might only get pity. One glance at my limp futon, and he’d be gone. Three months sleeping on floor rags had made me a Prisoner of Sex.
After clearing my charge cards, I’d taken the inevitable trip to Ikea and bought what little I owned. At Doug’s it had been fine, but I’d obviously need more than that to furnish an apartment. My futon, bookcases, and desk would take care of the bedroom, along with the rug and a few of the posters. Fortunately, there were already blinds on the windows, or I’d see the rest of my neighbors sooner than expected. That left four posters – the big ones at least – to furnish the living room-dining room-kitchen – that “huge” space that had seemed so attractive. No matter how I shifted them, it looked like a gallery.
I gave myself five-hundred bucks credit – I’d skip doing laundry till June – then paced Ikea’s basement outlet. Thinking unseemly thoughts like:
“Two armchairs or a dining table?”
“Coffee table or a stack of crates?”
“Could I eat at my desk?”
“Did I really need a living room?”
I finally settled on seven cheap director’s chairs, a slightly-damaged dining table, and a matching white-formica coffee-table, also with chipped corners. And I bought a second worktable to pair with the one I owned to expand my desk. The total: $497.83.
I figured by putting my desk in the living room, I could pretend it was really my office, so I wouldn’t need a lot of other furniture. I’d run the ten-foot “desk” under the picture window, stick three director’s chairs around the coffee table – on the rug I’d had in my room at Doug’s – and put the four remaining director’s chairs around the dining table. It was desperate, but so was minimalism.
When I put it all together, it was dark but looked fine. I’d forgotten to buy extra lamps. “What a great room,” I could hear my mom saying.
“But when you gonna buy furniture?” Dad would add.
Still, I suspected everything was fine when Gabe’s wife stopped by the next night to deliver my approved rent agreement.
“It looks so nice in here,” she said. “Airy.”
I could bring a guy home.