CHAPTER V.

Carla was nursing her coffee. I'd finished eating. She was silent, which made me nervous. I stood and gathered the dishes. "I'd like to clean up, pay you back."

I can't afford a servant," she said curtly.

The change in her was so intense that I wondered if she was bipolar. "Then how can I pay you back?"

"The flowers will do for a week or two. After that, i haven't a clue. I plastered this room, put the tarpaper on the roof, there's not much I can't do myself. Wait, I'll tell you how you could pay me back. By learning to survive. By not being dependent on me for your next meal. Don't take offense, be flattered that I tell you the truth. You very simply don't appear to have street skills. What is it, ten a.m.? By now you should have had a few crates of fruit in that kitchen and be helping me make jam.

"Fruit? How? I don't have a dime.

"You really want to know how? Come with me."

*****

We walked the short blocks from Hollywood Boulevard to Sunset. Except for one whore, the boulevard was vacant at that hour. The transexual whore waved to me, 'Hi Avery," he/she it said brightly. I waved back just as brightly.

Carla blinked. "A friend."

"I bow to your street abilities. You've walked this way only once in your life and you already have friends. I'll take that as a good omen." OK. "A' on my first test paper. Could I survive the class and not flunk?

She pointed to the Safeway Supermarket. "Usually, I just back up a truck to the back door of any market and make it easy for the boys to dump, not in the dumpster but in my truck but I don't want to put you on overload, learning wise. Just show you the fertile fields that we 'freegans' plow. If I'm not around, you can hitchhike over right after breakfast, always taking two huge empty shopping bags with you. By the way, hitchhiking's safe as long as you only accept rides from men under eighteen and women and couples.

"If a man stops?"

"Well, if your thumb's out, pretend you caught something in the air that you were fishing for like a mosquito, smash it between your hands, throw away the corpse and just turn away. It'll be two blocks before he figures out you don't catch bugs with your thumb ."

"Ok, See those cans? Lesson one. Keep your eyes open. Look both ways cuz it's illegal to go in trash. In Beverly Hills or Santa Fucking Monica they take you to jail, it's not just a ticket. But here in Hollywood, it's a ticket or warning. Catch you twice it's a ticket. But chances same cop …..never happen. So we are going to DUMPSTER DIVE for edible TRASH and you'll note I said TRASH reverently. Trash is full of interesting things. Look, here's a spatula. Good, if we had meat, we could make burgers. Let's take that as a good omen, too. Oh and look, we got fruit just below, you always gotta use a fingernail to rip open these black plastic bags and peek in. HALLELUJAH! Fifty pounds of fresh strawberries."

A whiff of strawberry overload hit my nose. "Fresh is cutting it close. I wouldn't eat berries out of a trash can." I plopped plastic boxes full of red berries into her bag.

"Sure you would, when you're hungry, you'll eat anywhere there's clean food and hey, it's all wrapped in plastic. Often in original boxes just not refrigerated like at Avery's mountaintop aerie currently occupied by a chink. So God sent us Hollywood. Don't argue with God. Dive on in, the food's just fine. Come late in the day, you get it when it's just been placed here. And trash isn't all." Carla crossed the alley to a plum tree loaded with purple fruit. Its branches were high above the fence. Carla grabbed a stick. "Gimme a lift." Avery made a foot basket with her hand. Carla shot up to the top of the fence and hockey pucked plums down. She leapt down, we picked up the fruit. "even the smashed ones. Think JAM. My four hundred bucks a day merchandise for the farmers' market. Plumberry I think I'll call it this week and those society ladies will believe it's my Irish grannie's recipe when all the time it's dumpster jam and recipe came from God himself. Or is it the alley's recipe? Let them wonder. We don't tell our secrets."

We moved down the alley. "Now, there are blackberries up on top of that fence in August but if the old gal is in the yard, she goes bats even though the canes hang over into the alley which is public fucking domain. We do try to avoid her but the berries are insane. The problem is Blinky Ramirez, her dog. You always bring bones to shut the mug up.

<----- PROCEED TO CHAPTER VI.