Free Boulevard by Bill Guttentag Page A

asked.
    â€œYeah,” Mary said. “It’s for a magazine. This guy’s gonna take a bunch of pictures of me. He’s got a studio over on Gower.”
    â€œIf this thing goes,” Rancher said, “they told us it’s gonna lead to real acting gigs for the same people.”
    â€œThey said that?”
    â€œThat’s the way it works, man. You know that.”
    â€œIf you’re, like, unbelievable lucky,” Tulip said.
    â€œIt ain’t luck, guys. Mary’s got the looks. Anyone can see that.”
    Casey turned to her, and he was right. She had amber eyes, high cheekbones, and very long black hair. She was beautiful. As beautiful as any of the girls you saw in magazines.
    â€œJust one good break and you’re on your way— one . It’s all it takes,” Mary said. She leaned into Paul and whispered loud enough for the rest to hear, “Some day, all you guys are gonna see me putting my hands into the cement at the Chinese.”
    â€œNo one wants it more than me,” Paul said.
    â€œSo whaddya say, Saint Paul, a few bucks for Mar’?” Rancher said.
    â€œNot for rock.”
    â€œNo way. Not this time.”
    Paul looked over at Mary.
    â€œMakeup,” she said. “That’s all. Promise.”
    Paul reached into his pocket, pulled out a couple of crinkled one-dollar bills and gave them to Mary. She threw her arms around him and said, “You’re the greatest!”
    â€œGreatest idiot.”
    As they hurried off, Mary sipped her arms around Rancher’s waist. There wasn’t a feather’s distance between them.
    â€œOur very own Boulevard Romeo and Juliet,” Paul said. “One more girl who came here thinking she’s gonna be a movie star. Look around—you see any stars here?”
    â€œOn the sidewalk,” Tulip said.
    â€œThe only place.”
    â€œBut she’s so pretty, she could be,” Casey said.
    â€œRight … star of the Boulevard crackheads,” Paul said.
    Down the block, Rancher stopped, gently pushed Mary against a streetlight and they kissed. A long, sweet kiss, like they were they only ones on the street. Maybe they were crackheads, Casey thought, but at least they had each other, and that was something.
    With his flannel shirt tied around his waist, bare-chested and defying the cold, Paul sat on a concrete trash can on Santa Monica, showing his stuff to an endless line of cars that moved at a mile an hour, as the drivers slowed to check him and the other boys out. On a low wall in front of the 7-11, across the sidewalk from Paul, Casey was having a Marlboro with the triplets, who were fooling around with their bikes. The three of them had come down from Winnipeg together and Casey thought nobody must be seriously looking for them—how hard could it be to find three identical fifteen-year-old hustlers? Tracy, the triplet who had been supplying Casey with the smokes all night, picked up his bike and offered it to her.
    â€œThe frame’s what makes it happen. Try it.”
    Casey lifted it up easily.
    â€œWeighs like nothing, right?” Tracy said.
    â€œIt better, for eight hundred and fifty,” his brother Timmy, said. He was nice, with a broad, toothy smile. Casey liked hanging out with him—all of them.
    He leapt onto his bike and raced off, disappearing down Santa Monica, then up a side street. Casey heard a strange combination of laughter and retching behind her. She turned and saw a pack of six or seven skinhead kids, all wearing torn, studded leather jackets covered with weird, white handwriting. She couldn’t make out most of the words, but saw enough fucks and anarchy- A’s in circles to get the idea. The two oldest, rough-looking kids, were laughing hard at the youngest of the gang, who couldn’t have been more than twelve, as he leaned over the curb and was throwing up into the street. Beside him, rubbing him on the back was a girl who