Dog Beach by John Fusco Page A

porch, looking at the surf and the Las Flores Beach walkers while Troy and the boys downed more brews in celebration, never taking their eyes off him. Life is very strange, he thought to himself. You just never know. Yesterday, he was in a low-rent neighborhood in Monterey Park, convinced his miserable life was going to end there. Now, here he was in Malibu, in a fancy beach house, making a movie deal with Hollywood’s new generation. Maybe, he mused, he had been meant to come to Southern California all along. . . .
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    It was 1993 when he left Hong Kong for good. His escape destination was a natural choice, a routine flight plan in the business: Vancouver. A thirteen-hour trip to another continent yet familiar enough to Louie that he could call on a favor, maybe find a gig.
    On the plane, feeling safe and wishing he could just stay up there, he carefully dislodged business cards from his battered wallet. Some of the cards were so old they were faded and stuck together. One of them, the one he was hoping was still there, had a logo of an exploding car and the title: Sean King, Stunt Rigger.
    Sean King was an Englishman based out of Vancouver. “You think English are sissy boys, all the time drinking tea?” Louie used to say in the days he worked with Sean. “Tough boys. Like to fight. Mean.”
    He did stunts up in Calgary twice with Sean’s crew, but he couldn’t remember the films now. Just a lot of wire work and free tumbles from cliffs, rock-climbing action. So he put Sean’s card in a wallet pocket behind a photo of an infant girl and took a deep nap. When he got to Vancouver he would ring Sean, let him know he was available. Canada was a good place to work.
    He checked into a crappy motel outside of Chinatown, not in Chinatown because those places made him anxious.Just close enough so he didn’t stand out to anyone who might be looking for him, or bump into anyone who might recognize him. It took Sean a week to return his call.
    â€œSorry, man, I was in fucking Romania.”
    â€œRomania is good,” Louie said. “I come work for you.”
    â€œWe’re about wrapped,” Sean said. “I’m back in Vancouver in three weeks. Let’s get together then and get jolly drunk.”
    â€œJolly drunk is good,” Louie said, and they made plans to meet up when the tough Englishman was back. Three weeks became four, then five, and Sean had still not called. That was normal in the biz. Most movies ran over schedule, especially second unit crews that had to go back and shoot pick-ups. So Louie didn’t take it as a slap. He was low on money, though. His one credit card was now rejected, and he cashed in all his Chinese money to get a disturbingly thin wad of Canadian notes.
    He had to take a job.
    At a restaurant in Chinatown, a large, tacky place all red and gold called the Monkey King, he applied for a dishwashing job. The owner, a tiny Fujianese woman with a pretty face and angry scowl told him no, right then and there. He was standing at the bar while she mixed a vodka with lychee and stabbed a plastic umbrella into the froth.
    â€œI don’t like your face,” she said.
    Louie lingered while she glided off in her emerald silk to deliver the tropical drink. He walked out into the night and felt terrible. Not so much about being broke and out of work as he did about the woman’s remark. Mean lady , he said to himself. He wanted to get jolly drunk, but didn’t. He went back to the motel and looked at the newspaper ads again. A few calls later, he had an interview with some industrial painters. Two days later he was on scaffolds and ladders, painting buildings. The French brothers he worked for were nasty suckers, but he stayed quiet and soon earned their respect for his agility up on the scaffolds. They would gaze at him with a kind of bewildered amusement as he painted eaves with one foot