Chapter 2

L.A.’s whereyou end up when you have nowhere else to go.
A long time ago I’d driven west from Missouri,a sixteen-year-old high school graduate armed with a head full of desperationand a partial academic scholarship to the U.
Only son of a moody¹, hard drinker and a chronic² depressive. Nothing to keepme in the flatlands.
Living like a pauper³ on work-study and occasional guitar gigs in weddingbands, I managed to get educated. Made some money as a psychologist, and a lotmore from lucky investments. Got The House In The Hills.
Relationships were another story, but that would’ve been true no matterwhere I lived.
Back when I treated children, I routinely took histories from parents andlearned what family life could be like in L.A.People packing up and moving every year or two, the surrender to impulse, thedeath of domestic ritual.
Many of the patients I saw lived in sun-baked tracts⁴ with no other kidsnearby and spent hours each day being bused to and from beige corrals thatclaimed to be schools. Long, electronic nights were bleached⁵ by cathode and thump-thumpedby the current angry music. Bedroom windows looked out to hazy⁶ miles ofneighborhoods that couldn’t really be called that.
Lots of imaginary friends in L.A.That, I supposed, was inevitable⁷. It’s a company town and the product isfantasy.
The city kills grass with red carpets, worships fame for its own sake,demolishes landmarks⁸ with glee because the high-stakes game is reinvention.Show up at your favorite restaurant and you’re likely to find a sign trumpetingfailure and the windows covered with brown paper. Phone a friend and get adisconnected number.
No Forwarding. It could be the municipal motto.
You can be gone in L.A.for a long time before anyone considers it a problem.
 
When Michaela Brand and Dylan Meserve went missing, no one seemed to notice.
Michaela’s mother was a former truck-stop cashier living with an oxygen tankin Phoenix⁹. Herfather was unknown, probably one of the teamsters Maureen Brand had entertainedover the years. Michaela had left Arizonato get away from the smothering¹⁰ heat, gray shrubs¹¹, air that never moved, no onecaring about The Dream.
She rarely called her mother. The hiss¹² of Maureen’s tank, Maureen’s saggingbody, ragged¹³ cough, and emphysemic eyes drove her nuts. No room for any of thatin Michaela’s L.A.head.
Dylan Meserve’s mother was long dead from an undiagnosed degenerativeneuromuscular disease. His father was a Brooklyn-based alto sax player who’dnever wanted a rug rat in the first place and had died of an overdose fiveyears ago.
Michaela and Dylan were gorgeous and young and thin and had come to L.A. for the obviousreason.
By day, he sold shoes at a Foot Locker¹⁴ in Brentwood.She was a lunch waitress at a pseudo-trattoria on the east end of Beverly Hills.
They’d met at the PlayHouse, taking an Inner Drama seminar from Nora Dowd.
The last time anyone had seen them was on a Monday night, just after tenp.m., leaving the acting¹⁵ workshop together. They’d worked their butts¹⁶ off on ascene from Simpatico. Neither really got what Sam Shepard was aiming for but theplay had plenty of juicy parts, all that screaming. Nora Dowd had urged them toinject themselves in the scene, smell the horseshit, open themselves up to thepain and the hopelessness.
Both of them felt they’d delivered. Dylan’s Vinnie had been perfectly¹⁷ wildand crazy and dangerous, and Michaela’s Rosie was a classy woman of mystery.
Nora Dowd had seemed okay with the performance, especially Dylan’scontribution.
That frosted Michaela a bit but she wasn’t surprised.
Watching Nora go off on one of those speeches about right brain–left brain.Talking more to herself than to anyone else.
The PlayHouse’s front room was set up like a theater, with a stage andfolding chairs. The only time it got used was for seminars.
Lots of seminars, no shortage of students. One of Nora’s alumni, a formerexotic dancer named April Lange, had scored a role on a sitcom¹⁸ on the WB. Anautographed picture of April used to hang in the entry before someone took itdown. Blond, shiny-eyed, vaguely¹⁹ predatory. Michaela used to think: Why her?
Then again, maybe it was a good sign. If it could happen to April, it couldhappen to anyone.
Dylan and Michaela lived in single-room studio apartments, his on Overland, in Culver City, hers on Holt Avenue, south of Pico. Both theircribs were tiny, dark, ground-floor units, pretty much dumps. This was L.A., where rent couldcrush you and day jobs barely covered the basics and it was hard, sometimes,not to get depressed²⁰.
After they didn’t show up at work for two days running, their respectiveemployers fired them.
And that was the extent of it.

1 moody   

adj.心情不稳的，易怒的，喜怒无常的

参考例句：

• He relapsed into a moody silence.他又重新陷于忧郁的沉默中。
• I'd never marry that girl.She's so moody.我决不会和那女孩结婚的。她太易怒了。

2 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

3 pauper   

n.贫民，被救济者，穷人

参考例句：

• You lived like a pauper when you had plenty of money.你有大把钱的时候，也活得像个乞丐。
• If you work conscientiously you'll only die a pauper.你按部就班地干，做到老也是穷死。

4 tracts   

大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文

参考例句：

• vast tracts of forest 大片大片的森林
• There are tracts of desert in Australia. 澳大利亚有大片沙漠。

5 bleached   

漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的

参考例句：

• His hair was bleached by the sun . 他的头发被太阳晒得发白。
• The sun has bleached her yellow skirt. 阳光把她的黄裙子晒得褪色了。

6 hazy   

adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的

参考例句：

• We couldn't see far because it was so hazy.雾气蒙蒙妨碍了我们的视线。
• I have a hazy memory of those early years.对那些早先的岁月我有着朦胧的记忆。

7 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

8 landmarks   

n.陆标( landmark的名词复数 )；目标；（标志重要阶段的）里程碑 ~ (in sth)；有历史意义的建筑物（或遗址）

参考例句：

• The book stands out as one of the notable landmarks in the progress of modern science. 这部著作是现代科学发展史上著名的里程碑之一。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The baby was one of the big landmarks in our relationship. 孩子的出世是我们俩关系中的一个重要转折点。 来自辞典例句

9 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

10 smothering   

（使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的现在分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制

参考例句：

• He laughed triumphantly, and silenced her by manly smothering. 他胜利地微笑着，以男人咄咄逼人的气势使她哑口无言。
• He wrapped the coat around her head, smothering the flames. 他用上衣包住她的头，熄灭了火。

11 shrubs   

灌木( shrub的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
• These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。

12 hiss   

v.发出嘶嘶声；发嘘声表示不满

参考例句：

• We can hear the hiss of air escaping from a tire.我们能听到一只轮胎的嘶嘶漏气声。
• Don't hiss at the speaker.不要嘘演讲人。

13 ragged   

adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的

参考例句：

• A ragged shout went up from the small crowd.这一小群人发出了刺耳的喊叫。
• Ragged clothing infers poverty.破衣烂衫意味着贫穷。

14 locker   

n.更衣箱，储物柜，冷藏室，上锁的人

参考例句：

• At the swimming pool I put my clothes in a locker.在游泳池我把衣服锁在小柜里。
• He moved into the locker room and began to slip out of his scrub suit.他走进更衣室把手术服脱下来。

15 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

16 butts   

笑柄( butt的名词复数 )； （武器或工具的）粗大的一端； 屁股； 烟蒂

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。
• The house butts to a cemetery. 这所房子和墓地相连。

17 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

18 sitcom   

n.情景喜剧，（广播、电视的）系列幽默剧

参考例句：

• This sitcom is produced in cooperation with Hong Kong TV.这部连续剧是同香港电视台联合制作的。
• I heard that a new sitcom is coming out next season.我听说下一季会推出一个新的情境喜剧。

19 vaguely   

adv.含糊地，暖昧地

参考例句：

• He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
• He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。

20 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。