The Silverlake Angel

By Shirley Poston

Not the usual angel book and not your usual angel- now there’s an understatement, two of them in fact. This angel is a 16-year-old-Latino, born in East L.A. and back on the planet in East Hollywood, to right a wrong and save the life of a comatose child. After nearly scaring the pants off the child’s nurse (more about pants later, the angel’s actually) said angel appeals to her for help. They soon run afoul of a sexy Hollywood detective who appeals to the nurse in a whole different way. Intrigue, love, hate and a lot of laughs follow. Along the way. you’ll meet the mysterious MysticHA, a band composed of late great rock musicians who are still alive and kicking it in the HereAfter. Don’t miss their blog!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Veteran but still hip (she hopes) rock writer/critic Shirley Poston lives and loves in Silverlake (actually two words but one to her because she also considers it a state of mind), the best part of her home town (one word except in her case) (don’t ask) of Los Angeles, California.

Watch for the anthology of Shirley’s rock and roll ravings, including her concert review that, unbeknownst to her for years, became the liner notes and title of the Dylan bootleg album/CD, We Had Known A Lion. Entitled BLITHER, the book will be available online in late 2014.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shirley Poston
• Release date: Jan 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310562174

Shirley Poston

ABOUT THE AUTHORVeteran but still hip rock writer Shirley Poston lives and loves in Silverlake, the best part of her home town, Los Angeles, California.Watch for the anthology of Shirley’s rock and roll ravings, including her concert review that, unbeknownst to her for years, became the liner notes and title of the Dylan bootleg album/CD, We Had Known A Lion. Entitled BLITHER, the book will be available online in 2014.

Book preview

PREFACE

Two chapters of this book take place in the famous Dresden restaurant in East Hollywood/Silverlake. Painful changes have occurred since the writing of these chapters: Owner Carl Ferraro, hostess Joanie Cahill and waiter extraordinaire, Louie-Louie, have flown away to join the Angel. I decided not to update the material and leave it as-is in their memory along with my thanks for many years of great times. Those include the heyday of the Dresden’s Zircons In The Rough (also coming in 2014), or as they liked to brag after hoisting a few too many, Algonquin West. The Dresden is still happening, now in the capable hands of scion Jimmy Ferraro. Long may it run. -SP

CHAPTER ONE

My name is Abra. My parents' idea, not mine. It morphed it into Abby, which is better but still kind of girly if you ask me. Which no one bothered to.

I don’t live anywhere fancy like Beverly Hills 90210. I live in Silverlake 90026, a hilly, green section of Los Angeles planted between the East end of Hollywood and Echo Park, on the way to downtown. It’s a special place filled with different kinds of people. It’s the kind of place where almost anything can happen, and did.

I’m about the last person you’d expect to come face to face with an angel. I never thought about these ethereal beings one way or another. And when I did encounter one, I definitely didn’t expect him to be a skinny Latino teenager, standing in my living room sporting nothing but jockey shorts and an impressive set of wings.

But I’m already getting ahead of my story.

Strange things started happening to me about a month ago. Well, actually, they started happening the day I was born. But about four weeks ago, they started hitting the high water mark.

For one, life seemed to get easier. Little things changed, like my car stopped coughing consumptively and began purring like the old days before it’d spent nearly a decade breathing the L.A. smog (not to mention contributing to it).

Then my uniforms started taking on a whiter shade of pale although I hadn't switched laundry detergents. I literally gleamed my way through the corridors of the hospital where I've spent the last five years as a nurse in the children's ward.

I love my job. I hate seeing the little ones sick, but I really dig helping to make them better. In a way, it’s like having my own family. I'd hoped to do that too and maybe I still will. But you never know. I'm not quite thirty, but like the old song goes, the days grow short as we reach September, or something depressing like that.

I haven’t done much lately about trying to alter (or altar) my single status. With my hours, that isn’t easy. I live on a double 3-ll shift, working from 3-11 p.m. then sleeping from 3-11 a.m. It’s cool because it allows me to have some day and some night to myself and it keeps me from having to get up early in the morning. (When I have to do that, I can't function as a nurse. I need one.)

The schedule fits perfectly with my goofy bio-rhythms. I love snuggling into bed and sleeping through the sunrise. I like waking up with Al—he’s my cat--in midmorning and having a four whole hours before I have to get up and do it again.

Al must have been born a night person, too. (He is a person, as any pet lover will attest.) He is totally in with my weird hours. Or maybe he’s just well trained. I discovered that if you feed your pet just before you hit the pillow, it won't be in your face at 6 a.m. wanting to eat or frisk or pee. It'll be out cold, just like you, and you won’t have to throw it against the wall or anything violent. (Joking, joking.)

Unfortunately, my schedule isn’t really that great for anything else. I do hang with friends sometimes after work. The Hollywood clubs are just starting to pop at that hour. And I occasionally have a date, most of which leave me wanting to enter a convent. I did try answering a couple of personal ads from other late-shift types, and if they weren’t a pair to draw to! They didn’t just need to be spanked and put to bed. They wanted to be.

There are lots of things you can’t do when you work strange hours. For instance, I have no idea what’s on television (which is probably in my favor). I don’t know or care who won on American Idol or what star is dancing on his or his partner’s toes. I do try to catch the early a.m. re-re-re-runs of the old X Files series on cable when I can (more about that in a minute). But my friends go to concerts and plays and party on the weekend, not on Wednesdays and Thursdays, a.k.a. my days off, so I’m not seeing a lot of action.

Speaking of the X Files, I kind of have to credit that show for the fact that I actually lived through the drama I’m about to share with you. I used to be such a complete wimp before I got with this program. I was seriously creeped out by devils and vampires and all, but after watching every episode of that show more than once, I’d seen so much gore and so much woo-woo, I stopped being freaked out by anything supernatural and paranormal. That was a very good thing considering what was about the happen to me.

So, back to the weirdness that has invaded my life. Pretty soon bigger strange things started up, things I really couldn’t explain. One night when I left the hospital, feeling like I was coming down something yucky, it was pouring rain. The guard who walked me out to the parking garage was dripping, but there I was, dry as a bone. I jumped in my ride quick before he noticed.

That was weird enough, thanks, but by the time I got home, I was feeling great and what’s more my apartment was different than I’d left it. It was clean. And I mean clean. I’m not a pig or anything but I’m probably not the neatest person in the world either. Now everything was perfect and put away and kind of shiny. Even scarier, Al was vibrating happy circles around his dish which was heaped with one of his favorite stinky meals.

Since no one had keys to my apartment, I probably would have figured I'd caved in and done the spic and span before I left for work and then forgotten the unpleasant experience. But AL? We’ve already discussed when he dines and why, but there he was, chowing away.

So what was up? I didn't know. I only knew that something was.

Something in addition to my regular weekly visitor, that is, who arrived at that very moment, causing me to forget all about odd happenings and all about most everything else, for a while anyway.

That’s because Kevin is someone I am about half in love with if I'd admit it to myself. He’s a local musician, and a recording engineer - very talented, and of course terminally hip and cool. A fashion shape-shifter, he was currently doing the short-haired, goateed hipster thing. Me, I preferred a shaggier, more lived in type, but Kevin is smart and attractive and funny and successful. And I’d been surprised and secretly (I hope) flattered when he showed up at my door one night after work, a nice bottle of wine in hand.

I knew him from around my Silverlake neighborhood where I'd grown up and still lived. I’d seen him perform in a couple of local clubs and we'd exchanged heys a few times. To cut to the chase, it took him a few visits, but we ended up in bed.

But bed partners is all we’ve ever been and this has been going on for over a year. And I think I know why. In the first place, I'd already found out that when a guy shows up at your door at midnight, and you let him in, he’s probably not going to invite you out to dinner. He’s somehow managed to circumvent that step and cut right to his own chase.

Also, Kevin was in the entertainment industry, and those guys exist in a permanent Babe Contest. Meaning a femme who is totally fatale - gorgeous and, of course, skinny as a rake. I’m no slouch in the looks department, but I’m also a realist. I don’t qualify as an Arm Ornament and also, I dare to have some meat clinging to my bones. Clinging in just the right places, I’ve been told, but that still doesn’t make it okay with the Beautiful People who demand at least visible perfection.

As a result of these restrictions, in the arts, so to speak, there are more terrific women without men than in any other profession on the planet. Also while a guy can go the bimbo route if she’s hot enough, a woman with power and status can’t nibble her way down the food chain and date her cute mechanic. That is not cool. To retain cool, you stick to presentable friends or you appear on the arm of a peer.

I'm glad I don't work in that industry, but those of us who live surrounded by its denizens do feel the effect. No matter how great we get along, in and out of the sack, I ended up having an enjoyable but limited relationship with Kevin. The few times I did suggest doing something (else) together, he was always politely unavailable. So I got a clue and went with the flow. Or, I should say, I went without it.

It didn't bother me while I was with him, but it did sometimes after he left and if I thought about it the rest of the week, which I tried not to.

I always made Kevin go home before I had to get some sleep. Being sent home never failed to annoy him. Why won't you let me spend the night? he would grouse, cuddled comfortably in my bed and wanting to stay there, albeit temporarily. And he did it again that night.

Ordinarily, I would tell him I couldn't rest with someone else in the bed or some other lie, but tonight my answer was quite different. Looking him square in the eye, I said exactly what I'd been thinking for a year: Because I don't want you to have me for breakfast and then do lunch with someone cooler.

His eyes popped open. Did you want to have lunch with me?

Either he wasn’t getting it (even smart men can be totally obtuse) or he wasn’t having any, so I just laughed and pushed him out of bed.

Getting dressed, he moaned and groaned as usual. But before he left, he kissed me goodbye and actually asked if he could come over next week. Usually, he just showed up.

Would you believe I said, We'll see instead of sure. After he left I smiled nastily to myself, reliving my surprising bravery. I enjoyed gloating a little until the other unusual events of the evening began to sift back into my brain.

By the way, sorry I got off on the Babe rant, but you need to know about Kevin. He’s a key player in the trauma I’m about to inherit. And once Kevin was gone, I started getting nutty and nervous all over again.

I had no idea what to think or what to do. Not wet from the rain… apartment all clean and shiny. Cat fed and happy. I could practically hear the Twilight Zone theme playing in my head.

Maybe I was just in low blood sugar or something. I hadn't eaten much of anything since before I went to work and I wasn't hungry in my present state of mind (loony), but I wandered into the spotless (??) kitchen anyway and opened the fridge.

That did it. There’s a salad I like to make after work. It has tuna, olives, greenery, hard-boiled egg, etc. and it’s my special fave. Well, there it sat, resting in my Westinghouse, beautifully arranged on my best plate.

Slamming the fridge closed, I fled into the bedroom. I looked in the bed, under it, in the closets, then behind the shower curtain. With Al hot on my heels, thinking it was playtime, I checked the entire apartment, including behind the drapes. I found nada, but by then I knew someone--something?--was there. By now I could actually feel a presence and it was scaring the pants off me, or would have if I'd been wearing any.

It was time, as Bowie once sang, to turn and face the strange.

Okay, I tried to bellow forcefully but mostly just squeaked. Who are you and where are you and I'm calling the police!

Don't do that, said a voice, a boy’s voice. They'll think you're loco. (This was true. If I called the authorities to report an invisible intruder in my apartment, I could be in even bigger trouble--unless I happened to reach Agent Mulder, ho ho.)

Then who are you? I demanded, grabbing the pepper spray out of my purse.

I'm Angel, said the voice.

You're an angel? I re-squeaked..

Well, um, yeah. That's my name too.

You're an angel named Angel? That wasn’t a bit confusing.

But he, she or it never had a chance to reply because just then there was a knock at the door. Kevin again. He'd forgotten his dayrunner, which I hadn't even noticed in my panic. Finding it for him fast, I was shooing him back out the door when I suddenly stopped. You didn't make me a salad while I was taking a shower, did you?

No, he said, his eyes re-popping. Did you want me to?

No, I said, re-shooing.

Are you all right, Abby?

No, I said, and almost closed the door on his goatee.

Then I turned to the empty room, which it still was. It was just me and Al, who was sitting on the couch, looking accusingly at me. After all, we’d run merrily--he thought--through the house but there had been no toy mousies or balls of paper on a string on any of the usual fun stuff that accompanied such antics. His eyes said, thanks for nothing.

Picking him up, I looked deeply into those eyes. It's not you, is it? I quavered. "Are you talking