Going, Going, Gone

There’s more “why” to my working from home than the separation anxiety I feel for my espresso machine, besides being able to make money from nine to five, five to nine in trashy lingerie.

I hustle from home because Los Angeles traffic is soul sucking.

And I don’t even have a soul.

I dial The Boy–who has noted the ridiculousness of being referring to as “The Boy” when he’s almost twice my age–while I’m on Laurel Canyon Blvd., a road that winds through the Hollywood hills into a scenic parking lot come 5 p.m. “Did you hit traffic yet?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to stab yourself yet?”

“Yes,” he answers. “Can you do me a favor?”

“Tell me what it is first.”

“I want to get a tattoo,” he says. “And I want it on my forehead, written backwards so I can read it in a mirror. It should say, ‘Why did you leave the Castle, you fucking fool.’”

My giggle is punctuated with a long honk. The Boy is driving from L.A.’s Pacific-lined outskirts, but maybe he’s–

“Ready to turn back around?” He’s quiet, and I wonder how much longer it’d take me to hit home compared to how long it’ll take me to land deep in the Valley, at the antiques auction The Boy convinced me to break work to attend with him. “You can work from anywhere, with your iPhone,” he’d said, half an hour ago. “There will be freaks. Blog about it.” Deal sealed, there was a reason he worked well on Wall Street even though he was off in La La Land, there was a reason why he was able to sell my gay-man Miata for more than I paid for the cute convertible.

So I hopped in my car, hitting Hollywood traffic immediately, imagining what it might be like to do this everyday, twice a day, an hour wasted on dull talk radio and top 40 and dreading drudging through a job for a fat wife and whiny kids that were the result of being raised Catholic. Everyday. Every motherfucking day, could–

“–you imagine two hours out of your day, every day?” I wonder, aloud. “You can do so much in two hours. And even if you were just jerking off instead of sitting in traffic, your time would be better spent.”

“Forget an hour a day,” says The Boy. “Do the math. Ten hours a week, 40 hours a month, 20 days a year.”

“Which is really a month, when you factor in time spent sleeping.” I gasp like when I saw the curvaceous chick-from-Dream-Girls-who-is-not-Beyonce on the cover of eating disorder-inducing Vogue. “My lord.”

“Yes, I am. Gottatakethiscall.”

I hang up, and try to read NYTimes.com on my iPhone at a red light, though I’m distracted by checking the inland mutants leering at me from the bus stop, though I’m distracted by–

Driving.

When I’ve finally reached the auction, its neon sign shouting I’ve arrived, I’ve heard NPR’s reporting of morons killing each other in Iraqranrael and Justin Timberlake’s new single twice. I didn’t think it possible, but I cared even less the second time.

About the war. Not JT.

I get out of my car, and survey the scene while I’m surveyed by people who might date from my fav decade, the ’20s, though they don’t seem to appreciate my modern flapper frock of ice blue satin cinched with purple belt, my peep-show platforms topped by leopard-print ponyskin. Everyone looks three, four times as old as me, they look like the result of lives wasted competing for things that only seem attractive during a bidding battle, they look like–

They’re drinking coffee from styrofoam cups.

I speed inside and pour myself a weak brew, the coffee streaming into the cup with the sound of hot piss. My only satisfaction from the drink is that it’s served in an un-earth-friendly cup.

I cross a wide-empty floor to mirrored shelves crammed with old items, and as I eye a statue of a naked Greek man I’m eyed by Mexican workers in the back of the warehouse. I look at the sculpture, and as it stands tall centuries after its creation, I see in its cold marble this classic continuum of life: despite culture clashes, we are all the same. We breath, we hunger, we sex.

I look back at the men, shadows in the dark, watching me as I watch the statue. Same function, sure, but different feeling–I don’t want to hump the statue.

Then I double-check the Greek sculpture’s six-pack. Well…

The Boy arrives, and we take our cheap seats. “You’re rich,” I declare. “Why aren’t we at motherfucking Sotheby’s?”

“Your last blow job sucked.”

“I’ll memo quality control, sir.”

The auction starts with what reminds me of a glass jar from my Nana’s home in the South. “Going for fifty cents,” declares a dude decaying into a chipped podium. “One dollar. Dollar-fifty, two dollars. Three dollars four dollars. Sold! For five dollars.”

“These fuckers wouldn’t even pay a dollar for my iPhone,” I say, not looking up from my emails. “Do you want to stand up and say, ‘This is why you’ve got a mortgage that’s eating you out of home? Because you spend hours and the fruits of your labor bidding on the Cheetos of interior decor’?”

“You’re too loud,” The Boy whispers. “We’re going to get kicked out.”

“You should thank me, then.”

After the pimping of a painting that wouldn’t qualify for a spammy e-card that really masks malicious software, after the sale of a mirror trimmed in green-gold, The Boy raises his hand without looking up from his Blackberry, and he’s bought a rug for $400.

“How much do you think that rug’s really worth?” he asks.

“$399,” pounding my iPhone with my finger. “You overpaid.”

“And you go take care of this.” He hands me his receipt.

I walk to the desk in the back, and I figure since I’m a Kristopher there’s no reason why I can’t be The Boy. “I’m here to pick up my rug.” I hand the lady my receipt. “And the small, third-world child that was for sale.”

The woman laughs, and I wonder if she’s human.

The Boy appears next to me, and leans over the desk. “Did you see that dude behind me? The freak with the Marie Antoinette hair and man boobs? This is the scariest place on earth.”

“Why?” she squeals.

I guess she’s not.

� Betsey Johnson heels $170, Zappos

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