(Dress: The salvation army)

As you remember, Black, my best friend and Achilles left me a week ago. Said she was going 4 a walkabout. Well, today the loneliness of grannie's house was 2 much 4 me, and I went down 2 Chateau 2 try their vodka in the company of… well… myself… and I must've been good company, because I  don't think it was more than 2 p.m. before I was really drunk and just sat there, by the pool trying (as now) not 2 think of Viktor and dad and granny, when I saw a dark figure in the corner of my eye and I turned just in time 2 see her disappear behind the wall.

*

I know it can't b her but I know it's her, and I follow her and when I'm @ the corner I see her.
She's by her car stuffing huge crates of something into the trunk, but she doesn't see me and I'm just about 2 shout when I feel a hand gripping my shoulder and I turn and it's…
Evan?

*

I close my eyes (the sun against my eyelids, the color of blood) but when I open them he's still there.
He puts his finger over his lips like he wants 2 silence me and then points 2 something up on the hotel roof.
A gray bird?
And I stare @ the bird like, I don't know, it's supposed 2 mean something.
Then I look back and Evan is gone and Black is gone and instead there is this small mexican guy politely (but with some ice in his voice) asking me if "I want the check before I leave".

(Dress: Alice + Olivia)

Sittin on my bed, heart beating, staring @ my phone, sweating.
Yes. Grannys aircondition is broke AGAIN and five mexican "repairmen" succeeded in no more than expressing in different ways how "old old old" the system was and opening my windows towards the garden, but the faint night breeze barely moves the linen curtains and the damp august heat makes my thoughts slow and my body heavy and as I stare @ the phone I still can't belive it.

SHE called.

Yes. Just a minute ago!
I was almost asleep when my cell rang. Half dreaming, with a weird feelin. I reached 4 it and I was SURE it was the attorney. (He's b'n callin me all day about the FUNERAL and how some "choir" needs 2 c my speech) but I DON'T wanna talk abouth DEATH in this heat and I was just about 2 shut off the phone of when I saw the name.

BLACK

And I answered.
"Hello?" I whispered.
"Hey darlin" her voice warm and dark and calm as always "how u doin?"
Mouth dry.
"I'm…I'm…" I stammered quietly, then I couldn't hold back.
"…where ARE u Black?" I almost wept "What r u DOIN? Come back 2 me, I miss u and…"
I had 2 force back my tears so she didn't hear how helpless I felt but I couldn't help hearing her smiling there in the darkness on the other end of the line.
"I'm where I have to b my love" she said "and I'll b back when I've finished the things I have 2 finish. Until then I want 2 ask you 2 b strong and call the attorney. He's got news 4 you."
"T..t…the attorney? But what do u know of the attorney, and why?"
But as I spoke I knew she had already hung up. And then I sat there in the humid darkness, staring @ the phone.

Somewhere in the garden a bird screeched.
What is happening?

(Dress: Vintage Valentino)

Distant sounds of traffic woke me from my dreams. Outside, white sky and a breathtakingly clear day. I put on grannys old silk robe, the one she took from the set design of Ben Hur and then, I sit there.
By the pool. Alone by the pool. In the shade reading grannys old invitations 2 parties that Black found in the attic.

The 20 year anniversary of Bel Air Golf Club with Sinatra singing.
The première from the new italian designer Mr E. Armani.
A Cocktail with the cast for the Misfits at Chateau Marmont

And every minute, every letter I miss her more. Who do I miss? I miss granny, I miss my mother I miss myself when I was that kid with big blue eyes and firm belief that the mystery out there was a good one but most of all I miss Black.

I close my eyes and remember.

"Two kids reading too much Shakespeare, makin' perfume out of roses …"

Show encrypted text

If you want the password, go to my facebookpage 2 get it.

I know you're all dying 2 hear what Aloysius told me two nights ago.

I've told you about his mood swings, outbursts and most lately - various diseases. I've been alternating between irritation and worry. But enough is ENOUGH, so when he broke all rules by running away, ordering 200$ worth of tequila and then throwing up on my McQueen dress, I made it clear that if he didn't tell me what was wrong I would put him in the shower. Then, in the dusky light of the Roosevelt Hotel, with shaky voice and breath reeking of tequila, he told me...

The reason for his behavior is called LOVE, and the object of his affection is BLACK.
Ha ha ha. Oh my stupid, stupid bear.

"Is this why you refuse to eat?" I asked him. "Is this why you've started to dress like Oscar Wilde's lover?"
He looked at me, insulted. 
"No" he said "the reason I don't eat is that I think eating is bourgeois. And regarding my new look, lets just say that I'm not a child anymore."
"Ok" I forced myself not to laugh @ his pompous voice "but why didn't you TELL me?"
"I didn't want to make you jealous!"
"But darling Aloysius." I said. "Why would I be jealous? You are like a brother to me."
"Sisters and brothers" he said and looked me in the eyes "can lust for each other, even fornicate. It's in the bible."
I pretended I didn't hear the last remark and told him I'm happy for him and that he should let Black know. But THAT he of course wouldn't do. Instead he spent the entire DAY yesterday in front of the mirror, brushing his fur and adjusting the ridiculous bow tie she gave him.
"You've had that thing on 4 two weeks now, don't you think it starts to look sorta worn out?" I asked him this morning.
"This thing" he responded with an arrogant voice "makes this little bear look like a true grizzly."
I looked at the stained piece of cloth.
"Really?" I said. "Who told you?" But I already knew the answer. 

Oh christ. I don't know what is worse - him being sick or him being in love.

Me and Black by the pool.
It's late now and Bel Air is sleeping. Aloysius is inside tucked up in bed, still ill. Grinding his tiny teeth. Dreaming about whatever sick bears dream about.

We listen to the soft sounds of the night, crickets and cars far away on Cahuenga. I wear my gray McQueen and Black's dressed in…I don't know…some weird thing she found @ the vintage store downtown. Can't explain it…looks like the remnants of McQueen perhaps.

On the table between us, Chesterfields Reds and half bottle of Madeira.
Black takes a cigarette, lights it, inhales and blows the gray smoke towards the black sky.
"So" She holds the golden key into the light. "where do YOU think it fits?"
But forgive me. I'm tired and a little drunk and getting ahead of things. Let me tell u from the beginning.

*

It all started when me and Black got home an hour ago.
I parked the Camaro on the street, got out and then I suddenly saw this tiny golden key lying on the street. I picked it up. The metal cool against my skin. Drunkenly, in sort of a haze, I studied it like it was some kind of sign, and I am about 2 say something when Black points to a shadow just inside the gates and we open them and the auto floodlights is turned on, revealing a skinny guy in jeans, a tank top and a huge yellow Zapata sombrero sitting on the ground in the middle of the small gravel pathway leading up 2 the house.
In his left hand he holds an empty bottle of Jack. In his right, a small green Maracas.
"Excuse me" I say. He doesn't move.
"EXCUSE ME!" I say it a little louder and kick his left foot with my right one.
He looks up @ me. Stares @ me sort of absent minded 4 a moment. Then tips his hat.
"Ma'am, You're excused" he sez.
Then tilts his head down so the face disapears behind the hat. For a moment it's quiet again.
"I don't mean 2 b rude" I tell him "but this is MY house. You are sitting on MY property."
No answer.
"You can't SIT here" I say a little louder "It - is - MY - house."
No answer.
"I'll call the Pol..."
He slowly looks up again, straight @ me, his drunken eyes full of contempt.
"Has anyone ever told u" he says while staggering 2 his feet "that YOU are a LOUSY conversationalist."
He takes a few steps towards me and Black, then raises his right arm.
"All I ever wanted" he says "is to have some goddam PEACE and SILENCE and then they gimme THIS."
He shakes the green maracas in front of our faces a couple of times, then turns away and starts to walk TOWARDS the house.
I look @ Black with a face like: What is HAPPENING but she just shrugs. And then, as I watch the shadowy figure disappear around the corner I get this weird feeling of having seen that person before somewhere.

Then Black takes my hand, hiding the key between our palms. Her eyes beams with excitement.
"So where do YOU think it fits?"
But, no, that's NOT when it all started.

*

It actually started even earlier. This night. Me and Black, dressed like movie stars in Dolce Gabbana and Gaïa, @ the Chateau. We sip blood red sangria in a crowd of Khaki colored Valleypeople. Black laughs as I tell her…

…as I tell her how Daddy once knew one of the staff @ the Chateau, an old black guy with a tiny gray moustache, and how the guy always lend us the keys 2 the secret garden behind the lower part of the hotel where tiny but magical creatures like elves hid from Hollywood. How WE used 2 hide there as well. Just me and dad and Viktor, far away from mom's rage, until she had that forth martini she needed to survive "a world populated to 99% by idiots and the last percent by criminal idiots".

(I actually read about that garden the other week in a magazine. The article says: it belongs to the Chinese garden suites and was famous in the sixties as the place where an aging Sinatra used to fuck the wives of Burbank producers two @ the time. Which I guess is sort of what daddy told me, but in a nicer way than the tabloid.)

I tell Black that the last time me and dad went there I hid the key behind a stone in the wall, so that someday I could return. Her face shines with excitement.
"We must find the key" she says.
And then. In the dusky dawn we sneak between the attorneys, over the lush grass and into the shade by the wall which 2 my disappointment consists of approximately 1 billion bricks. I sigh, but Black's face still glows.
"Oh my god" she says "just look @ this, the key must b behind one of the stones!"
And without hesitation she starts to pull bricks out of the wall 2 find it.

*

Now we're back in the garden, staring @ the corner where Sombrero just disappeared. Blacks face is shining again, as she was looking @ the key.
"That's the thing with symbols" she's laughing now "I mean. When god wants 2 tell you something, he speaks in CAPITAL LETTERS"
I look @ the key.
"What do you mean?" I say.
"The key was not hidden behind a brick in the wall" she says, in a voice as if speaking to a very young child "There was NO need to push over that poor waiter or to be banned from the chateau. The key was here all along just in front of your doorstep."
"But where" I say "does it fit?"
"That is" she answers "the question."

Me and Black @ Rodeo Dr, hand in hand, with hats on our heads and sun at our backs. Lately I've been possessed by a vague feeling of delusion, but shopping takes it away for a moment. However, Black had one too many glasses of Dom Pérignon @ Dolce&Gabbana and tried to "ascend" the chandelier.
Later we walked the battleground of dreadful shoes @ Guess. Black bought every pair and asked the confused salesclerk to throw them away, "so no poor drunkie happens to buy them."
Thank god she didn't enter Chanel.

The Chanel party. Just as luxurious as the invitation suggested. Hidden in the garden behind the store. Lush greenery. Scents of flowers and perfume. String Quartet playing Bach in front of grannys old friends. More war diamonds than in the Sierra Leone town hall.

Four VERY smily women welcomes us. Me in my Dior and Black in some weird army suit.
"So happy you could join us!" They smile and try not to look @ Blacks outfit.
"Just give us the champagne" black snorts.

After about eight glasses more, the well-combed staff looks sort of reluctant to come Blacks way. Black waves, but gets no attention. She turns towards the SMILING guy in front holding some speech about what a CREATIVE woman Coco was. How her sense of style dragged her from her misery. I see how Blacks eyes get darker.
"You could say a lot of Coco" Black shouts "but she wouldn't have let her party guests go thirsty!"
The audience turns towards us. 200 disgusted eyes.
I want to disappear, vanish, but the guy don't lose a beat.
"So you like our champagne" he begins, with a sardonic voice, but he has missed on Blacks mood.

"Yeah we like champagne" black interrupts him. "But yours? Well I guess you are right about Cocos CREATIVITY. I mean how she used the Nazi occupation of Paris to fuck half the occupation government and @ the same time get control of some lucrative perfume business by having the owners sent of to Auschwitz and their shares given to the "aryan" Coco. I mean, it's THEIR perfume money that still pays for this party, so just GIMME some fucking CHAMPAGNE will you?"

While the smiling ladies (not smiling anymore) are leading us out, Black seems in a festive mood.
"Thank you ladies" she says "I'm sure Coco would appreciate your sense of tradition, I mean the fact that you all still are FASCISTS here!!"

(And readers: how do you like this? I'm hesitating to write everything black does, it's like she does more outrageous things just because she knows I'll write about it. Like she's starting to act like a character in a book or something? What do you think?)

Back home I just stare at her in confusion and suddenly I notice. It's something with her eyes, an hazy sharpness that I can’t remember from when we were young.
"Please Black,” I say "if something happened when I was away you must tell me."
"Something happened?" she mocks me "Happened like sex? Oh I know what you wanna hear… so it was @ Bardot. Me and Perez Hilton had just..."
I shrug trying not to laugh.
"Seriously" I say "if there is something..."
"Ok YOU tell me" she snaps "tell me about Viktor. Tell me about how he used to read night time stories for you while you crossed seas in a bird of steel. Tell me about his smile, about his…"

But I don't hear her anymore. I'm out of the room.

*

Why is she like this? It's like the only thing we can do is to party. As soon as something even vaguely serious comes up she runs away.

*

Well. If that's the way it's going to be, fine! Tomorrow we're going to Chanel’s Party @ Rodeo Drive. I've gotten a hand written invitation. Well, ok, it's for granny, but I'm the heir, right?

(Vanessa Bruno dress + J.W. Anderson necklace)

Black enters the door. Light fabric in bloom flowing behind her. A vague scent of cigarette smoke and Opium. She wears nothing but grannys rabbit slippers and an open morning gown.
"Attorney guy told me to give you this." She hands me a note.
I read it. The date of the funeral has been moved. To 32th of august. I look @ her and then @ the note.
"But this is crazy! Did you tell him I wanted 2 speak 2 him?" I say. She nods.
"I did!" She says. "But he seemed, like, stressed or something."
"Mhmm." I look @ her tits. "And you wore only that?"
"No." She smiles. "I didn't actually have time 2 put ANYTHING on. This I picked up on my way back."

So I had 2 call the attorney 2 make an appointment. It's tomorrow @ two. I'm going to ask him if he knows anything about Mr Mysterious.

Yesterday @ the Marmont: met beautiful ppl. Black traded (someone else's) olives for cigarettes and drank maybe ten vodka tonics.

*

Everything should be all shimmery, but I’ve had a strange feeling with Black lately. When I ask her something that has to do with reality she just changes the subject. What happened when I was away?

Since the day she threw grain on my window this weird dream has been haunting me: Me and Black, in some sort of video game world, dressed as samurais. Neon purple buildings, roofs shaped as Kremlin in Moscow. But I know that we're in Prague. From nowhere the bicycle ppl from the Wizard of Oz appear and start hunting us down. We're climbing the streetlight cables, balancing on tiny strings. It's night, the rain falls and all of a sudden, Black slips...

Last night I woke up and found myself sitting wedged in the corner of my room. Aloysius noticed. Sat with me the rest of the night and held my hand. Dried my tears.

*

Now I'm seeing HER through the window, dressed in granny's old Kenzo kimono. An odd expression on her face, looking as beautiful as ever.

Drove to the 99cent store and filled the truck with everything from root beer to water pistols, placed a few tables on the lawn and painted a sign. ”Seven11 - Black & White edition” in glitter colors. Dressed in couture Versace and a Darth Vader mask, Black knocked on every door in the neighborhood and handed out discount cards.
”A new store just opened around the corner! It has everything you will ever need AND more!” She shouted in their faces.

But it went all to blazes. We didn’t sell a thing. Probably because no one knew the secret password for entrance.

"Idiots." Black whispered to me. "Barbosa - how can ppl NOT get that? It's so easy."

When the heat of the Darth Vader disguise got unbearable we decided to declare bankruptcy. Gave all the stuff to the gardener. He threw them in the bin.

*

Tonight double sided Pneumonia hits Chateau Marmont. Will I see you there?

@ the master balcony, we drink our absolute tonics like two old ladies while sun burns our pale faces. Talk about granny, how she used to take us to Malibu Lagoon and let us eat as many Milky Ways as we wanted.

“What have you been doing Black, since I left?” I ask her. She sits quiet for a moment, then gulps her drink down and bursts out:
“Can't we do something FUN? Fashion alcoholism feels SO yesterday” looks me straight in the eyes and continues like she just discovered the cure for cancer. “Let's open a 7-Eleven!”

(Investigation of the giraffe turned out to pay off - now we have our secret ingredient to make this business a success.)

Yesterday. When darkness sneaked up on us we drove downtown where they filmed a new season of Jersey Shore. Cute dogs with unpretentious haircuts, an army of polite homeless ppl and free jello shots @ The Standard. "To try out real life" as Black put it (but sometimes she just speaks in a foreign language). She was on the move. A translucent water gun loaded with Vodka in one hand, Aloysius in the other.

Now. Rooftop afternoon. Aloysius confuses water with poison. Glances @ me with eyes of desperation and sadness. I give him an encouraging smile.
"You must let the fear swallow you." Black whispers dramatically.

And suddenly a hazy memory hits me. It had been two weeks since we left Venice (not the beach but the Italian city built on water and hubris) for LA. I laid on granny's driveway in an attempt to melt away, when a thin figure leaned over me. Switched off the sun.
"Come on lazy." She said and handed me a worn edition of Crime and Punishment. "I'm gonna learn you how to fly."

(Lace jackets - something mom made)

"I'm about what goes through people's minds, the stuff that people don't want to admit or face up to. The shows are about what's buried in people's psyches."
McQueen

(Me: Viktor’s favorite tee and a skirt/mantle that is some old Kenzo thing I found in granny’s wardrobe.
Black: Tee from Comme des Garçons and a headpiece she found on the street)

Argh. Seems like no good thing can enter my life without dragging a whole wagon of problems with it. Now it's Aloysius. He hasn't eaten all day, not even his Coco Pops. When I speak to him he doesn't answer, just sits sulking in a corner. I'm starting to think he just can't stand me being happy.
But happy I am. Me and Black spent the day shopping and drinkin' Pinot down in Silver Lake. I got a new jacket from McQueen and a hat from the 99cent store. Black got three bottles of Rum.
Now we're gonna watch some Audrey Hepburn movie.

Ps. I'll pick the winner of this treasure on Monday.

I wake up early with “sleeping like a baby” next to me. We eat breakfast on the roof and then decide 2 explore our strange lush Bel Air backstreets. Sun high and bright, it's a weird feeling to walk in granny’s footsteps.  (When I was a kid and walked the same streets with my hand in hers, everyone from the Billion $ Producers to the Mexican gardeners used to wave happily @ us.) Today no one waves, but one man grabs Black's wrist and whispers that she “looks very chic”.
"Did you hear him?" Black smiles @ me. "He said I look cheap!"

*

As to the MYSTERIOUS guest there's no sign. But he MUST have been here again, since the weird pile of objects in the living room has increased dramatically.

Tonight we'll meet up with a new friend that runs Dolce & Gabbana in Rodeo drive. Later!

*

PS. Following me HERE ON GOOGLE gives you good luck for a week (I'm full of white magic)

At the Astoria I took this photo of me and the beauty Olivia Lopez.

Olivia is dressed in hand made lace from Verona (Pizzo) the same as Alaïa tried to buy for his SS2010.

Now me and Black are on our way 2 some party downtown where Aloysius have promised 2 teach Will Ferrell to drink like a man.

Just woke up in my own bed. Air smelling of summer and Black’s YSL Opium. Same reflections of the pool dancing in the dusty ceiling and same sense of lonlieness, but then I turn and I see Black sleeping. Mouth open and Aloysious clutched in her arms.

We get up and find my Mexican gardener dancing around on the lawn, listening to Bowie’s Changes and singing (screaming) along. Maybe my happiness is contagious.

Anyway, now we're of to get Blacks stuff. Cause yesterday we decided that she should move in with me and throw some life in this ghost house.
I'm looking forward to meeting her mother again. She's a lady who’s dressed in these sort of diamanté jeans Victoria Beckham would love… doesn’t that say it all?

Tonite black has convinced me to accept the inivitation to some "cool" party where the DJ apparently has DJ:d for Queen Victoria (not the Beckam one, but the one of the house of Windsor). Perhaps we can hope for some Pomp and Circumstance for Aloysious?

Talk soon!

Sitting in the shadow of the steaming Silver Lake sun. Should really be shopping clothes for granny's funeral, but instead I rest here under an almond tree with birds flocking around my feet.

It’s so weird. My love is back. My Helen of Troy. If it weren't for the fact that she's right here in front of me walking around in circles on the sidewalk, taking pics of the plebs and noblesse I wouldn't believe it.

Maybe I'm still a little dizzy from the non-stop talking about everything that's happened the last five years. OR the zero sleep. OR the fact that the only substances that has entered my body today is one bottle of chilled pinot and the smoke from one packet of Marlboro Lights.
Anyway. Black is here and she is smiling, with her lips colored by last night's Pinot grapes and cheap Tesco lipstick. Watching her passing out (my) 20$ bills to the homeless (and not homeless) I am, for the first time in as far as I can remember, happy.

Kids, are you up yet?
The weirdest thing just happened last night. I left the Chateau early. Too many memories of butterflies. Then the scene is me sittin' in front of the MacBook upstairs in the dimly lit room touching myself to Altuzarra SS11 when grain on glass gets my attention.

And there. Outside at the LED-lit porch is SHE. Long brown hair, a pre-Raphaelite painting. She's wearing some kind of Kimono and a sailors-hat.
My heart, as always, is rockin' out of control.
"Hello YOU" she sings, "…You’re so fucking special! But I’m a creeeeep, I’m a weirdoooo!”
Then she smiles a smile that can cure cancer.

And now, as I'm changing clothes she's downstairs in the kitchen putting the ice in the Pinot.

Tonite Hollywood need to keep it's guard up.