MAGES FOR HIRE. I. GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE. 002.
If you've never been to Silverlake before, allow me to paint you a terror-laden word picture.
Silverlake is a neighborhood in Los Angeles where you can get tattooed between a Michelin star Ethiopian restaurant and a haunted Vape store. It’s not a great place to drive, though it’s better than the (Frankly more exciting, and intoxicating) neighborhood of Koreatown.
To get from Point A, B, and Z, you either walk to where you’re headed, or you book a ride with Rad Cab. Your choices are either a ride-sharing app that values its drivers the way plastic manufacturers value the ocean or cardio. I will let you decide which is the lesser of two evils.
Aside from Tarbell, bartenders charged $19 for a mediocre old-fashioned. There are niche business pop-ups, like doggy hair salons. When the season is right, find dozens of photo ops for any given “for your consideration” campaigns. And Sunset Blvd smells like high rent, food trucks, and broken dreams.
Art and Fiona were in the same boat as the other 20 something-year-olds that called it home. They lived in a neighborhood they couldn’t afford, doing jobs that risk their very well-being. Yet, somehow, they survived, and made rent along the way. Not because they wanted to. Far from it.
They did it because if they were going to pay $3,000 a month for a two-bedroom/one-bath with no air-conditioning or a real kitchen, it better be a five-minute drunken stumble to the most magic(k)al bar in Los Angeles.
Also, the landlord knew their bar tab. He purposely made the drinks better when they paid rent on time.
“It totally would’ve worked, by the way,” said Art, defending and nursing his bruised face and ego. “You know, if John wasn’t determined to cock block me eight days a week.”
“I can’t lie,” said Fiona shrugging honestly. “You sound like those guys who hang outside a liquor store after last call complaining about why they struck out.”
Art gasped, clutching his heart like the wooden performances found in bad porn. “Ouch! Fucking uncalled for, Fiona. My ego can only take so much damage in a single evening.”
Fiona smiled. “You’re a magician. You’re 80% ego. The rest is that terrible scotch you love.”
They turned the corner off the busy street and stumbled into a residential grid of houses. Every home passed cost more than they’d ever make in their entire lives. Or nine if they were struggling cat actors.
“Oh, fuck off. You drink Bud Light. You only had one glass the entire evening. Naathan’s? It’s an acquired taste.”
Fiona took out her phone to find the address. “One I don’t see myself wanting anytime soon.”
Art stretched his arms the way a boxer might before stepping into the ring with a killer kangaroo.
He asked, “What the hell do you want?”
After six months of being roommates, doing this job, and paying Tarbell Circle’s mortgage via shots, there was still a lot Art didn’t know. Her last name, considering she was just listed as “Fiona” on the lease. Where she's from, or who her family was. Hell, Art didn’t even know how she did her side of the operation. As essential to their business as The Constant was, asking him to explain it would be like asking the Amish to explain the rockets at JPL.
Fiona stopped walking. She pondered a second, then shrugged.
They turned another corner in silence.
Honestly? Fiona didn’t mind carrying the case. It prevented Art from making unnecessary Pulp Fiction references in front of clients. The decision kept things looking professional, and she had always been told to act professionally. That the real world would not hold her hand or tolerate her slacking off. If she thought it was terrible now, she had no idea what suffering truly was.
The memory of who etched this onto her bones, inside her eyelids, and on her soul was a shadow in a dark room. She just remembered Father, and being burned alive.
“So, what’s the gig?” Art asked, done stretching and now fixing up his hair.
“Possession,” Fiona responded flatly. “Mom is freaked out. Dad is in denial. Nothing we haven't done before.''
The white A-frame three houses away, the one with vibrant green detailing and a brown tiled roof, caught their eye. Exploding glass from an upstairs window revealed ravenous howls, laughter, and the unmistakable ripping of human flesh. A sickly yellow, foggy, irradiated piss sample glow pulsed with the noise.
Art pointed to the lawn where glass fell. “Found it!”
There is a trope in buddy cop stories called “The Good Cop and Bad Cop”. The Bad Cop is loud, aggressive, and cruel, causing a giant scene to intimidate. The Good Cop (an oxymoron) steps in, pulls the Bad Cop (the officer you’re most likely to meet on the street) away, then tells the person that they aren't like their partner. If you tell the Good Cop what they need to know? You’re cut a deal, and life moves on. Refuse to cooperate? The Bad Cop comes back worse.
Art and Fiona didn’t have that. Art was the drinker, Fiona, the thinker. The two of them refused to elaborate any further.
