Catatonic Smile

By Julian Aguirre

Julian Aguirre

Most teenagers consider the summer before college to be an epic event. Sebastian Vega is no different. He has been dreaming of this moment since he can remember. He decides to spend it with his eccentric maternal grandmother, Elsa, in suburban Los Angeles. This move leaves Sebastian far outside the realm of parental influence and will alter his life path. In Los Angeles Sebastian meets a host of interesting people, some unscrupulous, who do not have his well-being in mind. While Sebastian navigates the labyrinth, he falls in love. This provokes its own dilemma because love is anything but simple.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781646545391

Book preview

Chapter 1

I’ve never been very good at much of anything. I can do a lot of things kinda half-assed, but that’s about it. I’ll tell you one thing I’m intense at; that is daydreaming. Do they give out trophies for daydreaming? Probably not, but if they did you’d be looking at the world champ. Seriously.

One of my favorite places to space out in a daydream has always been when I’m in class at school, especially in history class. Whenever my history teacher Mr. Palmer jetted off on a tangent with all those dates and places and stuff, well I’d just lay back and take a different runway to another part of the world that is a hell of a lot more interesting than the one Mr. Palmer was dribbling about.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t like history or anything like that, ’cause I do. I guess I just resent the fact that I had to sit day after day in class and listen to some nerd-ball World History teacher like Mr. Palmer rant on and on about the virtues of the twelfth century monks transcribing copies of Homer’s The Iliad for posterity, that’s all.

I got to thinking about something the other day, probably during one of my righteous daydreams; have you ever liked a chick? Or if you’re a chick have you ever liked a dude? And I’m talking about having this incredible crush and falling in love head over heels from the moment you first saw her. You know, that kinda crazy love that blew you away and didn’t let go? And all your friends knew it. You couldn’t hide it. It was one of those freaks of nature. But then one day you came face to face with her, maybe in the lockers or in the cafeteria or at the 7-Eleven. Suddenly she was right there, man, right in front of you. Ripe for the picking and what happened? You froze. You blew it. You couldn’t even get your tongue out of your throat ’cause you were too damn scared to even say hi. You stumbled and flipped out and fumbled around like some jackass, then she walked on by like you didn’t even exist and your world crumbled in on top of you.

Has that ever happened to you? Well, it had to me and I hated it. I’m telling you there was nothing worse on this planet than being totally in love with somebody and you couldn’t even manage to spit out of your stupid mouth a monosyllabic word like hi. I hate that. I didn’t know what it is. It killed me. I couldn’t explain it. Around my friends, man, I was cool. I hung out with some pretty cool dudes, that’s basic. But when it comes to chicks, I got to admit I’m not too cool.

So; what do I end up doing instead of what some normal dude would do, like go steady with her? I daydream about her. Hey, it’s easier than trying to forget her. I mean I can get so lost in a good daydream that maybe two hours would go by and I wouldn’t even realize it. Seriously. I would dream up that me and this chick were off living on some deserted island in the South Pacific or the Caribbean somewhere, watching perfect waves break off a perfect point on the perfect crystal blue water, sitting in the shade of a palm tree in each other’s arms with a couple of cold brews listening to Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and The Shondells on the radio in total bliss. And to me that daydream would be so real it was almost like it was actually happening. Now I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. That is sad. What a pathetic loser, right? Yeah, but that was last year, man. A lot has changed since then.

My mom always says I’ve got the memory of an elephant. What’s that supposed to mean, anyway? Come to think of it, that’s a pretty wacky thing to say about somebody. How does anybody know what kind of memory an elephant has, anyway? I’ve never seen an elephant get interviewed on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom or Johnny Carson and get asked about how they acquired such tremendous memory banks, have you? I guess my mom never really gave that saying much thought or she probably wouldn’t have said it.

My pop is really the one in the family who’s got all those wacky sayings to his credit. He can spit ’em out like there’s no tomorrow. My pop is a real strict guy, but he can be funny, too. One of my personal favorite wacky sayings has always been Gimme a growl. He’s always saying that to people when he’s talking to them on the phone and he wants them to call him back or something. See, my pop is this major business guy and he’s always on the phone talking to people making deals and setting up meetings and stuff like that. It’s kinda better when he’s on the phone ’cause he’s not yelling at me for something or other. I’m his favorite target ’cause I’m the oldest and I’m supposed to set the example for everybody. Yeah, right. When did I pick being the eldest child?

Anyway, that saying Gimme a growl is hilarious. One time my friend Mark Turquet and me were just sitting around the house doing nothing in particular when all of a sudden that phrase, Gimme a growl, just hit me. You know how it is when sometimes stuff just hits you from out of nowhere. I nearly hit the floor I was laughing so hard. I just kept thinking to myself of this friend of my pop’s, Bert Kraken, who is this absolute nerd-ball type guy that’s 6 feet 2 inches and weighs maybe a 150 pounds and wears these major league horned rimmed glasses with Coke-bottle lenses that make his eyes bug out. I kept thinking of Mr. Kraken calling up my pop on the phone and him growling at my pop instead of saying hello. The visual image of Mr. Kraken growling into the receiver and me imagining the look on my pop’s face as he holds his receiver at arm’s length after being growled at was just too much for me. After about ten minutes of being out of control laughing I was able to tell Mark about it and then he started to lose it; mostly because he knows my pop and Mr. Kraken, so it was juicy to him, too. We got a big kick out of that one, let me tell you. That’s what I mean when I say my pop can be funny, too. But just mostly he’s always on my case, which sucks.

Guess I should tell you about what happened to me last summer when I went up to stay with my grandma Elsa in Los Angeles. That’s what got this whole thing started.

Being seventeen years old is pretty tough business these days. A guy’s got to get through a lot to get to eighteen. Lot of water under the bridge, as my pop would say. But everybody who is eighteen has been through it, so I guess you could say it’s not a very exclusive club or anything. But it’s still tough, if you ask me.

I like Los Angeles and all. It’s a big city and I kinda like big cities. When I was a little kid I used to love to build cities using Lego Blocks. I’d make the coolest damn cities you ever saw. I’d check out pictures of various city skylines from magazines or books and I’d build them right up from scratch with my Lego Blocks. I must have made Manhattan out of Lego Blocks about a million times when I was a kid. I was never one of those guys who collected stamps or coins or stuff like that though. I never went in much for any kind of collection, come to think of it. I liked to build models though. That was the best. I had two favorites. My favorite model in the world was the US battleship Missouri. God I loved that one. It had the coolest guns on it, all lined up one after the other on the deck in those big turrets. I was never into painting my models though. I was way too lazy for that. I just liked to build them and play with them. My second favorite model in the world was an airplane, the B-17 Flying Fortress, another total classic if you ask me. Just thinking about those two models kinda gives me goose bumps. The B-17 had some righteous decals that I put on it. Decals are cool. Paint sucked. Paint was a total hassle and that’s trouble. I don’t like hassles.

So anyway, I went up to Los Angeles to live with my Grandma Elsa last summer, the summer of 1974. My Pop drove me up there to my Grandma Elsa’s house, which is kinda strange on account of my Grandma Elsa is my mom’s mother and Grandma Elsa and my Pop don’t get along so good. Not like they fight or anything, it’s just that they don’t see eye to eye on a lot of stuff and they really don’t even talk to each other ever much even if the whole family would spend the weekend or something up at Grandma Elsa’s house. Not like my Pop has said anything to her face, mind you, but a lot of times a person doesn’t have to say anything, and you just know right away that something’s up. That’s how it is with my pop and Grandma Elsa; they’ve got this unspoken animosity going.

Now let me tell you something right off the bat, my pop is the most boring lecture guy on the planet. I love him and all but hey, a guy needs to take a break now and then from the lecture circuit, if you know what I mean. Well, now he had a captive audience, me. Two hours plus on the lecture circuit with me riding shotgun all the way up to Grandma Elsa’s house. My Pop was always laying into me about one thing or another and this time it was about my hair. See, I had long hair. Now I’m not talking your measly shoulder length pageboy haircut or something lame like that, hell no. My hair came down below my nipples. It was nice dark brown and a little wavy, but not curly or anything like that. No, it was an awesome, righteous mane and my pop hated it. He’d lost control of my hair for about two years now and that was a major problem for him. He’s always been huge on control especially when it comes to his family. Like I told you, he’s strict, but not just on me, he’s got a vice grip on my mom, too. One time when they were having one of their famous barbeques for his work over at the house and before anybody had shown up my parents were out on the patio putting the finishing touches on the festivities when all of a sudden my pop just lays heavy into my mom because of the way she adjusted the trash can liner in a trash can off to the side. I watched him as he actually pulled the liner out of the trash can and reinserted it the way he thought was the correct way while the whole time my mom just stood in a stunned silent rage, holding back every crazy emotion known to man instead of letting loose. And do you want to know why? ’Cause I’m sure she was afraid that at any moment the doorbell would ring announcing the first guest’s arrival at the soiree and god forbid anyone detect trouble in paradise. I felt really bad for mom that day. She didn’t deserve that treatment. The trash would have got dumped just fine either way, if you ask me.

So getting back to my locks, the one thing for sure my pop would have loved nothing better than to do would have been to drive me straight up to the closest barber shop in town and plop me down in one of those big ass barber’s chairs himself no doubt and sit back gleefully as he commissioned the barber at the top of his lungs: Give this young man a high and tight! That would have been about the best thing ever for him, getting me to sit down in a barber’s chair for a high and tight. Imagine that. What a stupid thing to get a hard on over.

So you can just imagine how the lecture was going. Son, a leopard can’t change his spots, but you can. It’s like you’re walking around with a chip on your shoulder. Read the handwriting on the wall. It’s time to see the forest through the trees if you expect anyone to take you seriously. This was basically the text of his soliloquy. What a load of fucking bullshit. Oh yeah, I cuss. I don’t have to or anything. I’m not like one of those guys that every other word out of their stinking mouths is a cuss word. No, that’s not my style, but I do like to cuss just like anybody else. My favorite cuss word is fuck, but then that’s everybody’s favorite cuss word, mostly because it works so well in a just about every situation known to man.

Did I tell you I’m bilingual? Spanish is my second language and I speak fluently. Me and my pop are the only two in my family who can speak Spanish. Maybe someday I’ll tell you how that happened, but for now just digest it.

There are some excellent cuss words in Spanish that I’ll let you in on later. Spanish is basic for cuss words. And they sound so beautiful. You can cuss somebody out in Spanish and they’ll think you’re lying on thick accolades instead of a shitstorm. Believe me, it’s hilarious. Just for the record the lecture was in English.

So we’re on Interstate 5, headed north, about to take Highway 101 into Downtown LA and my pop turns to me and says,

You hungry?

That was about the dumbest question if I’d ever heard. No shit I was hungry for Chrissake. Hell, I’d been riding shotgun in the car listening to the litany of my faults as a human being with absolutely no escape for nearly two hours with only a bowl of Cap’n Crunch in my gut. If that doesn’t work up a guy’s hunger, I don’t know what does.

Yeah, super hungry.

Look, my pop is a lot of things, chief among them being a first ballet asshole, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the dude has class, too. Case in point, we stopped at like the best sandwich place on the planet, Philippe the Original restaurant over on Alameda in front of Union Station. Vinnie and Jerry were calling the Dodger game with their usual finesse. It was the bottom of the third and the Dodgers were beating up on the Giants. The sun was beating down pretty hard and the smog was kinda bad that day. We had to park in the parking lot across the street because the lot behind the restaurant was full. Philippe the Original restaurant owns the parking lot across the street, too. They need two parking lots because the place is always packed to the gills. There’s this guy who’s basically a parking attendant I guess who just sits on a chair at the entrance of the extra parking lot. I’ve never seen the guy get up or move from his perch. He’s been sitting there since I was about four years old. I swear to god it’s the truth. I’ve noticed there are a lotta guys like that in Los Angeles; I mean guys who have been doing one job, like sitting at the entrance of the Philippe the Original restaurant parking lot since I was about four years old. I see them all the time doing jobs like that guy. I should remember to ask my pop sometime if that’s some kinda wild prerequisite he has about going to a restaurant or store or something. You know, that the place has got to have a guy who’s been working there doing some stupid job since his eldest son was four years old, I mean.

Chapter 2

When you first walk into Phillippe the Original restaurant from the street level you’re elevated way up above everyone else who are down on the ground floor and the din from the crowd below greets you like the Marshall speaker towers at a Led Zeppelin concert. Typically, you’re waiting in some kinda line from the get go because the place is always packed to the gills. As you walk in the main floor below looks more like a beehive or an ant farm or something and you must walk down a flight of stairs to get there. Now there is another flight of stairs going up to an upper floor that runs along a brick wall where people over the years have carved their names or initials or something really stupid into it with knives to commemorate their experience at this amazing restaurant. That second floor dining room is okay, but I have always preferred to eat on the main floor. You see they spread this sawdust down all over the main floor and that just makes the place look just so righteous and besides that the tables on the main floor are long and tall with some kinda red surface as the table top and the stools are kinda low to the ground. It’s basic. So classic. It’s one of the things I love about my pop, the fact that he introduced me and my brothers and sisters to places like Philippe the Original restaurant. Hell, he coulda been the kinda father who’d just pull off into a Denny’s.

Now I haven’t even go into the order counter yet, which is the hub of all the activity at Philippe the Original restaurant. The order counter is a mob scene that’s more like the betting windows at Hollywood Park then that of a french dip sandwich restaurant. Not that I’ve recently been to the betting windows at Hollywood Park or anything. Don’t get the idea that I hang out around the track or anything, ’cause I don’t. My uncle Sergio is the one who’s responsible for my experience there. He took me there once when I was a little kid and I nearly got lost when I just let go of his hand for a split second in the huge crowd of people. Looking back on it Uncle Sergio was probably more worried about who he was betting in the fourth than he was about his little nephew Sebastian standing next to him holding on for dear life in a sea of white patent leather loafers and lime-green double-knit slacks. Uncle Sergio was my pop’s sister’s brother, only my pop doesn’t have a sister because he was an only child, but at the time when I was four years old at Hollywood Park with Uncle Sergio holding on to his hand for dear life I wasn’t privy to all that minutia. I came to find out much later on in life that my Uncle Sergio and my aunt Consuelo were really my grandma Lourdes’ brother and sister making them my pop’s aunt and uncle. But aunt Consuelo was the youngest in her family and she was only a few years older than my pop, so as it turns out they ended up being practically brother and sister. Uncle Sergio was a lot older than his little sister, my aunt Consuelo. There were nine children in my grandma Lourdes’ family. Confused? It’s the Mexican way, don’t ask me why. Hey, I’m