Beverly Hills Plebs

A young man—living in a trailer in Beverly Hills—sees something horrific while bartending for his wealthy employer.

(Photo: Tim Barnett)

The following is an excerpt from I Don’t Want, a new book of poetry and essays from Vandal Press.

Ahh…cruising down Wilshire, turning left onto Whittier. I’m returning from another mind-numbing errand. What am I to really expect? Every errand is mind-numbing — bullshit simmering in this hyper-real grid of a decrepit city, mausoleums soaking in a whorish brew. She’s a well-learned woman; she’s seen a dick or two or thirty-five hundred. That’s all these mansions are: whorehouses drowning in booze a-la-debaucherí con sodomy-de-la-(h)whiskey.

And the Master of the Mansion struts in, grabs the Macallan robed in some obscene dollar amount north of 500; he takes it, apishly finger fucks the cork, coaxing it out of the virgin bottle. Then bending some bimbo over the bar, entrapping me, the bartender, to a front row showing of her asshole guzzling up 3 or 4 shots worth. But not to worry. There’s no way it’s her first time being fucked up the ass with a crowd cheering her penultimate death. At the same time, I doubt she had a guy like me trapped nine inches away.

The Hills of Beverly are inhabited by a bunch of soulless cocksuckers — sex-deprived scum. I’m just a fly making rounds unnoticed, see, so I know all. What’s going on in my brain other than

1. Refill that adulterer’s vodka soda, light on the ice “pal.”

2. Go home, have a drink and write poems contemplating my own suicide. Here — let me refill that for you.

One falsehood I hide behind out of some despicable joy, is when attending bar at one of my employer’s zillion dollar mansions, mausoleums, penthouses, etc., and some bimbo who swears she’s not going to succumb to the botox’d fossils swarming her blonde, curvaceous body, her words manufacturing an atom bomb pussy; all of whom have been straddling a Viagra-loaded cock since drink #3. Twenty minutes later and that chick is sucking some botox’d fossils’ wrinkly schwanz in a hot tub.

Anyway, my favorite white lie us “Help” hide behind is the Louis XIV.

Bitches (as they’re often referred to in this house) come in asking for top fuckin’ shelf booze like they’re the dead Maharaja’s wife resurrected from her Taj Mahal tomb; like they are Hollywood’s Lady Lazarus partying with her zombie friends. I mean…fuck off, anyone who goes to a party or backyard social thingy, you’re out of your fucking mind if you think you can

1. Handle it.

2. Even be allowed or offered a taste, you fucking trashy, out-of-actressing tramp who gave up far too young, bouncing crypt-to-crypt, dick-to-dick. It’s your truth, not mine.

Serving fourteen thousand dollar liquor to some “what’s-her-face” is a joke. Don’t kid yourselves. It’s Crown Royal. GOD! It is seriously so satisfying on a comedic level because it’s so meaningless — yet in a way, I am omniscient. And then they “test their taste buds,” contemplating like a wine connoisseur, puking out statements of “this is the greatest, I’ve ever had, and I know my cognac,” or the “mmm, I’m in heaven.”

But what the hell do I know? I’m just the Help, the back-up bitch boy for miscellaneous errands and time-wasting ‘social’ events among paper-faced people, dull and dolled up in new, re-flapped ’n’ botox’d masquerade — mostly botch jobs, sucking down vodka sodas, tequila sunrises, and bubbly after bottle of bubbly; like they’re royalty — or at least projecting they’re members of the royalty crowd. It’s all a game of who’s who that ultimately causes these rich fossils to meet their demise: becoming insignificant. (“Oh no! Anything but that!”)

I’ve been asked for dildos. I responded saying, “I’ll do ya one better — I’ll bring you a ball gag I discovered in the bathroom. It’s cherry red, Pulp Fiction.” I’ve seen a thing or two in my life, and this is just L.A.

I’ve seen these greased and tanned lice bend chicks over on all fours near the edges of pools on astro-turf putting greens. These lice proceed to shove dubious $100 bills along their cracks. And for what? To then have a random midget thrown into the mix and Eiffel Tower-dry hump the shit out of said, now monetized, women. This is Beverly Hills, folks. “Stuff it or don’t shoot.”

This isn’t something you want to Andy Warhol. Why? Because Nihilism could become your 4pm cocktail in front of a TBS marathon of King of Queens. Pseudo-celebridom is a nasty disease, swallowed down many a young lady. And to think that so many daughters in search of “being famous!” or “being a movie star!” are now at the trough of Viagra-riddled old men with saggy tits. The kind of men who, without the blue pill, can’t get hard unless they beat their prostitute-painted genitals with the excess skin left of the under arm, post-lap band or other competing gastric bypass fad.

Who am I? I’m like Val Xavier, soon to fly up, out and away. I’m the groovy Hermit on the Hill, overlooking Beverly and the greater Los Angeles skyline.

by Timothy Barnett