Read Online Hollywood Boulevard by Janyce Stefan-Cole - Free Book Online

the13th , Elvis, Batman, Darth Vader, Tinker Bell out trolling for tourists dumb enough to pay to have their photos taken with them; why not a pseudo TV shoot? I assumed I was supposed to be impressed, flattered, the tourist rube from Podunk suddenly on TV. "Why me?" I said, sarcastic. "Do I look stylish?"
    Â Â Â Â "Yes," he said, "as a matter of fact, you do." And, pronto, a camera was thrust in my face, and a miniboom. Out of nowhere the personnel appeared, including the babe who would interview me, made up to seduce: coiffed, petite, pretty and perky. The director took over, telling me what questions I'd be asked. "It's about a new perfume," he explained, upbeat and positive, as if he were making an important feature, not a grade- B infomercial. Another fellow held high a smoky- glassed bottle of perfume, reached for my wrist, and sprayed two clouds of an organic, peaty, nighttime scent.
    Â Â Â Â The camera started to roll. "No!" I said palms up to protect my face. "No, no, no!"
    Â Â Â Â The camera stopped. The operator peered out from behind his giant lens. "Hang on a minute," he said, "isn't that—" He turned to the director. "Isn't she—"
    Â Â Â Â "I'm sorry. I have to go."
    Â Â Â Â I hurried away, past the pretend made incarnate: Darth and Elvis, Edward Scissorhands, Freddy Krueger, Dorothy complete with a stuffed Toto. I walked on. I stopped when I came to Frederick's of Hollywood, still selling sexpot lingerie after all these years. I looked in the window, remembering seeing a Frederick's catalog as a child, but where? Whose? My long- widowed grandmother? My mother ? I remembered a sense of arousal, looking at the pointy brassieres and revealing nighties at a time when I was only just becoming aware of arousal. Busty women with blond, bouffant dos; breasts pushed into bra cups, nearly spilling out; pasties and G- strings and see- through panties— it got my attention then and now. I moved on when a guy sidled up to me and I saw us reflected in the window, him too close. I pictured the unsheathed penis- under- a- raincoat cliché and moved on, past other sex boutiques with names like For Play and Naughty, and bong shops and cheap eateries, the seedier part of the boulevard where you might not want to be immortalized with a star. Here stains and chewing gum marred the pink stars trimmed in gold. If they ever get around to giving me a place on the Walk of Fame it'll be in this unglamorous, stagnant stretch: punishment for quitting. I didn't slow down again until I was at the corner of Vine.
    Â Â Â Â I was just walking. I had nowhere to be and was in no hurry to get there. I stopped in front of a kiosk of postcards, two for fifty cents. They were not the most up- to- date and they'd been out on the rack a while, curling in on themselves and sun- faded. I picked out four. I asked the man inside who took my dollar what else he sold. "Posters," he said. "Pictures of the stars, gen- U- ine autographs ," he added, emphasizing the last word as if letting me in on a steamy secret. Would he have an autographed image of me lying about somewhere, on the off chance? There were photos of me in existence, even posters, but I doubted this fellow had any.
    Â Â Â Â "A real Hollywood store," I said, peering briefly over my glasses, letting him think I believed him. Plenty of suckers would.
    Â Â Â Â "Yup," he said; a friendly schlump in his dump of a shop. I'd bet an arm he didn't have a single original autograph, but a truckload of fakes. The whole concept was sickening anyway: a sorry, sad public willing to play along, to be photographed with an actor posing as a character from a movie, twice- removed- from- reality Tinsel Town. And the fans: praying to touch the magic, shamelessly begging for a glance, a smile, the contact of a handshake equaling bliss, waiting hours along the ropes for their favorite star to stroll by in a tux or sequined gown, roaring as the