Author’s notes: Suspend disbelief in this chapter a little. This is set in LA. I’ve never been to LA. I did a little on-line research and I made the rest up to suit my purposes. If you see inaccuracies in this chapter, it’s because they ARE there. I’m well aware of them and I only hope they don’t throw off the story too badly.
Journey of a Thousand Miles (Part 6)
Justin squinted and looked up and down the dark street uncertainly. The homeless shelter had to be here somewhere, didn’t it? He was positive that the man at the last shelter had told him to go to Cole Street. And this was Cole Street, so where was the shelter?
He sighed wearily and rubbed a hand over eyes that felt gritty and tired. He had gotten up early enough this morning to avoid running into Lance, not being quite ready to face him yet, and had been searching for Joshua ever since. It was now almost midnight and his body was trying to tell him to go home and go to sleep. His mind however, wouldn’t let him give up.
It had occurred to him sometimes around noon, when he stopped for a lunch break, that his behavior was bordering on being obsessive, and for a moment he started to worry about his state of mind. The moment passed almost as quickly as it came however, and he had finished his lunch as quickly as he could in order to continue searching.
Now, standing here on this dank, dirty street, those thoughts were coming back to him ten-fold. After all, he was a college student who hadn’t been to classes in three days and who hadn’t been to work in two. He was avoiding his professors, lying to his boss and fighting with his best friend in the world. And over what? A bunch of dreams. Granted, they were strange and disturbing, but they were dreams. And what if they were nothing more than that?
He had become so immersed in his thoughts that he almost missed the worn sign that indicated the shelter. It read "Dome Shelter for Men" in slightly worn lettering. He stopped and looked from the sign to the building then back to the sign again. This was definitely it, but the place seemed deserted. There were no signs of life outside of the building or any visible lights within it.
He shrugged and opened the door. He had come this far; he was at least going to check this place out. As soon as he stepped inside the threshold, he was glad that he had. The place was teeming with people and activity. He discarded his doubts and once again let his heart surge with the hope that this would be the place where he could find some answers.
He walked up to what looked like a reception desk where a young man was busy typing away on a computer. The man looked up when he heard Justin approach.
"You need a bed?" he asked as he looked Justin up and down appraisingly.
"No, I don’t. I’m looking for someone actually," Justin said as he began to pull out Joshua’s picture. He set it down on the counter. "Have you seen this guy around? Maybe staying here at the shelter? His name’s Joshua."
The young man looked down at the picture, giving it only a quick glance. "No, I haven’t, but you might want to ask Phil. I’m only here part-time. Phil practically lives here," he said with a chuckle.
"Is he here now?" Justin asked as he took the picture back and looked around.
"Yeah, told you he lives here. Just go on in and look for an older guy with glasses. No hair. Can’t miss him."
"Thank you," Justin said as he carefully folded the picture back up.
He walked into the shelter itself, into what appeared to be a really big living room. Old couches, tables and chairs were set up everywhere and the room was packed with men of all ages and races. In the middle of the controlled chaos, Justin spotted a man that fit Phil’s description. He was engaged in an animated conversation with two other men.
Justin walked up to him and stood off to his side, respectfully waiting until for the conversation to be over to say anything.
When the man finished, he turned to Justin and looked at him with obvious curiosity. "Can I help you?" he asked pleasantly.
"Ummm…yeah, I hope so. Are you Phil?" Justin asked.
The man nodded. "Yeah."
"The guy up front said that you might be able to help me. I’m looking for someone."
"Is that right?" the man asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.
Justin unfolded the piece of paper in his hands and turned it so that Phil could see it. "His name is Joshua. This is what he looks like."
Phil looked down at the paper and then quickly looked back up. His eyes were narrowed and full of suspicion. "And who are you?" he asked.
"I’m Justin. I’m a friend. Sort of. It’s really hard to explain but…I think he might be in trouble," Justin said as he tried to ignore the look the man was giving him.
"And you want to find him so that you can help him?"
Justin nodded and waited patiently, wondering where this was going.
The man looked him up and down again, then hesitated as if making up his mind. He finally sighed and said, "Well, you don’t look like trouble and if you’re a cop then maybe you’ll do some good, so…" the man shrugged and said, "I guess I’ll trust my instincts."
Just let out a breath of tension that he hadn’t been aware of holding. "So you know him?" he asked eagerly.
Phil nodded. "Yeah, but around here he goes by JC."
Justin almost fell backwards with the shock. He had gotten so used to people telling him that they had not seen Joshua that for a moment he simply could not comprehend what the man had said. His heart was beating desperately as he repeated the name. He spoke the two syllables softly, taking a moment to taste them on his tongue.
"That’s a really good likeness by the way," Phil said as he pointed to the paper in Justin’s hands.
"Oh, thanks," he said as he tried to pull himself back to reality. "So does JC stay here?" he asked eagerly.
"Sometimes," Phil answered.
Justin’s fingers were itching to take this man by the collar and just shake all the answers out of him, but he forced himself to be patient and ask the next question normally. "Has he been around lately?"
Phil paused to think the question over. "No, actually I haven’t seen him in about a week."
Justin cursed inwardly. "Is that unusual?" he asked.
"Not really. It just means that things are going ok for him."
Justin nodded. "Is there anyone here that would know where he is? Anyone I can talk to?"
Phil shifted his weight from one foot to the other and looked around thoughtfully. Finally he said, "Actually, the best one to ask about JC is Sammy. If anybody’d know, he would."
"Sammy?"
Phil nodded. "Yeah, his pimp."
Justin simultaneously felt his jaw drop and his cheeks redden. Homeless he was expecting and prepared for – prostitute he was not. He knew he sounded impossibly naïve when he asked, "His pimp? He’s a prostitute?"
Phil chuckled. "Guess you don’t know him very well at all huh?"
"I guess not."
For a minute there was silence as Justin digested the new information. Phil finally broke it by asking, "So, do you still want to find him?"
"Huh?" Justin said as he came back to reality.
"JC. Do you still want to find him? Cause I could tell you where to find Sammy. If you want."
Justin nodded his head vigorously. The surprise notwithstanding, he still had every intention of finding Joshua.
After he had gotten the address from Phil, Justin walked outside and leaned against the wall of the shelter. To his surprise, his legs gave way and he found himself sinking to the ground. His hands shook as he brought them up to cover his face. He was crying. But they weren’t tears of sadness. They were tears of relief and joy.
Relief because Joshua was real and that meant that he was not losing his mind. Joy simply because Joshua was real.
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Justin stared up at the old building for a moment before gathering his courage. According to Phil, this was the best place to find Sammy.
Sammy the pimp.
He almost laughed at how crazy his life had become. It was one in the morning; he should have been in bed sleeping, but instead he was about to talk to Sammy the pimp about the whereabouts of one of his male prostitutes. He wondered briefly when exactly he had wandered into the twilight zone as he swallowed his laughter.
He began walking towards the door when he heard a voice come from somewhere to the left of him. He turned his head to see a young man, maybe a few years younger than him leaning up against a lamppost.
The man was tall and thin and sported short, spiky blond hair. His face appeared very young, but his eyes were old and weary.
"What?" Justin asked.
"I said – Sammy’s not there."
Justin took a step away from the building and turned around fully to face the young man.
"Oh. Do you know when he’ll be back?"
The young man shrugged. "Hard to say. He comes and goes."
Justin’s heart sank a little at the unexpected problem. He was about to turn away, intent on walking around for a bit and then returning when he heard the other man speak again.
"You lookin’ for JC?" he asked casually.
At the mention of Joshua’s alias, Justin sprang forward and covered the distance between them in three quick strides. He stood right in front of the stranger; surprised that the other man was taller than he was. At 6’ 1", very few people were taller than he was. "How do you know that?" he asked.
The young man shrugged again. "Word travels fast around here. So…you lookin’ for him?"
Justin nodded. "Yeah, I am. Do you know him?"
The young man reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a cigarette and a lighter. He waited until he had lit the cigarette and taken a drag from it before he spoke. "Yeah, I do. But I’m not tellin’ you anything about him until you tell me who you are first."
Justin sighed inwardly. Was everyone around here paranoid?
"I’m Justin. I’m a student at UCLA. I’m not a cop and I’m not out to hurt JC. In fact, I want to help him. I think he might be in trouble."
The young man took another drag from the cigarette. "I’m Wade. And how do I know you’re not lying to me?"
Justin rubbed his forehead in frustration. "Look, I…I don’t know what to say to make you trust me. It’s just that…I’ve gotten these hints that tell me that he might be in trouble. Big trouble, and I want to help him. I don’t really know him, but I want so badly to help…I need to help him." Justin shook his head in frustration. He wasn’t saying the right things, damn it! Why couldn’t he transform his thoughts into words?
"JC’s a great guy," Wade said softly. "I think he’s in trouble too and I don’t want anything to happen to him. Especially after all that he’s been through."
"What do you mean?" Justin asked curiously.
Wade looked up, allowing Justin to really look at his face. His dark eyes were sad as he spoke. "JC doesn’t belong here. Doing this. But he never had a chance, man."
"I don’t understand. What happened to him?"
"JC’s a singer. A really good one. Have you ever heard him sing?"
Justin shook his head.
"Well, he’s really good. That’s why he came out to LA, so he could get in the music business. He was doing really good too. Getting gigs…people noticing him. And then it all went to shit."
"What happened?" Justin asked softly.
"His parents died. Both of ‘em, in a fire. I guess they didn’t have a lot of money, so JC had to pay for the funeral and everything. By the time he came back here, people had forgotten his name. He didn’t have any money so…"
"So he became a prostitute?"
"It’s the easiest way to make money, man. But once you start it’s so fuckin’ hard to stop. You get trapped. It’s like a fuckin’ cage, man. No way out."
"How do you know all this about him?"
"He told me. I think he just needed someone to talk to or something."
"Do you know where he is now?"
"No. I haven’t seen him for awhile. I’m worried about him too."
"Yeah? Why?" Justin asked as he unconsciously drew closer.
Wade took a long drag from the cigarette and looked around nervously. He then leaned in towards Justin conspiratorially. When he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. "The last guy that I saw JC go with…something about it didn’t feel right. I told him so but he went anyway. I haven’t seen him since."
"What didn’t feel right about it?"
The young man shrugged. "He was in a black van. Vans aren’t cool in this business, cause you can never tell how many people are really in there."
Justin looked down at the dust-covered street and tried to absorb all the information that he had just heard. JC was a singer. JC’s parents had recently died. JC had gotten into prostitution because he had no money. JC had gotten into a black van…It took Justin a moment to realize that Wade was talking to him and that he was supposed to be paying attention.
"I’m sorry – what?" he asked as he looked up.
"I was saying that I’m pretty sure the guy’s from Beverly Hills."
"Why do you say that?" Justin asked.
"Because I saw the van’s license plate. Those plates look different. We get a lot of those guys up here, you know."
"Beverly Hills," Justin repeated thoughtfully.
"Yeah."
Justin nodded, already planning his next step. Beverly Hills wasn’t too far from here. He could take a quick drive through it, look for a black van, maybe talk to the owner in the morning…"Listen Wade, I want to thank you for talking to me. You don’t know how much I appreciate your trusting me about JC," Justin said sincerely.
"No problem. Told you…I like JC."
"Well listen, is there anything that I can do for you? You know – to repay you?"
Wade suddenly fixed him with stare so intense that Justin shivered despite not being cold. "Just find him, ok?"
Justin nodded as he took a step back. "Ok, thank you," he said before turning around and walking away as quickly as he could. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason why, but suddenly he wanted nothing more to be far away from this dark eyed stranger.
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Justin drove through the darkened streets of Beverly Hills, feeling more foolish with every passing second. He was really losing it. Here he was driving around one of the most up-scale neighborhoods in California and searching for a black van that might hold a clue to the whereabouts of a male prostitute.
He would have laughed at the absurdity of it all, but he was too tired to make the effort. Too tired to think straight, to tired to see well…too damn tired, period.
‘Fuck this shit,’ he thought to himself as he made a u-turn that would allow him to get out of this neighborhood and back home where he belonged.
"Fuck this shit," he said out loud as he banged his fist on the steering wheel. "Going to go home and sleep and I’ll think of something else in the morning. There’s got to be a better way to go about this."
He maneuvered the car carefully as he concentrated on finding his way back through the deserted streets. It was almost unnerving how quiet these streets were at this hour. Especially after having come from the area around Santa Monica Boulevard, which had only come alive a couple of hours ago.
These were the thoughts that were running through his mind as he drove, so when he saw a pair of headlights turn the corner in front of him and then begin to head in his direction, he actually gasped in surprise.
As the other car slowly got closer to him, he had to shield his eyes with his hand. The guy had his brights on, making it nearly impossible for Justin to keep his eyes on the road.
Justin averted his eyes until the car completely passed him, then he turned his head around to take a look at it. What he saw caused him to hit the brake pedal so hard that the entire car lurched forward violently. He would have hit his head on the steering wheel had his seatbelt not instantly tightened. He cursed and quickly put the car in park before turning around as far as the seatbelt would let him go.
"Fucking A," he said shakily. He blinked heavily, not quite trusting what his eyes were showing him. But it was still there. It was real.
Driving down the street, moving further and further away from him, was a black van.