"Where is Perth, anyway?" I asked. I’m not sure why I gave him a penny. I think it was because I told him it was the foundation of this country. But he took it, and the smile was one of true gratitude. I was glad I gave it to him.

"It’s in the west. It’s the most remote capital in the world," he said proudly.

"Ok guys, last call, last call, if you’re gonan drink, do it now please," the loud voice boomed in the small British pub.

"Jesus, is there any place open past bloody two in this city?"

"Not legally," I told him. "And you have to know the right people."

"Well this is your town," the guy from Chicago said. He was on his fourth Absolut and Tonic in five minutes; he was just getting started as far as he was concerned.

"Yeah, but I’m not one of those people," I told them.

The guy from Chicago pushed his glasses higher on his nose. "Shit, well, I live in Redondo Beach now and this ain’t my area."

"They’re open ‘till five in the morning in Boston," the artist/mason from Boston said.

So, while these three guys boasted how late they could get drunk in their hometowns I sat there feeling responsible they were down to their last drink. I went to the bar.

"Four shots of tequila please. And another one of these," I said, holding up the Sierra Nevada.

The aged British woman nodded and grabbed four small glasses. She proceded in pouring nearly full the small galsses and cracked a new beer. I tipped her accordingly and carefully brought the glasses to our standing booth we had take over. I heard a bell ringing and I turned to see the British woman nodding at me and putting the money in her silver bucket. My new friends were on to a new topic.

"You’ll have to go up north or to Mexico for the good surf," the guy from Chicago was saying. I was beginning to think he talked out of his ass a lot.

"Here you are Roland," I said and handed him his shot. "Bart, Julian," I said to the other two.

"Is this for me?" Bart asked.

I nodded.

"Well you’re all right mate," he said and I could tell he’d forgotten about the curfew for a moment.

"Excellent," Julian said. "I used to split a fifth of this shit with a buddy of mine back in Boston." He readjusted his Red Sox hat. "You never know what’ll happen with this stuff."

"I do," I said. It can make a girl forget her name."

Bart laughed. "And her chastity belt."

"To chastity belts," I said.

They raised their glasses.

"Wait, wait," Bart said. He licked his hand and poured some salt on his palm. "this is how you Americans do it, right?"

The three of us laughed.

"What?"

"No, no," I reassured him, "it’s close enough. Hell, you came the furthest to drink this shot. What do you want to drink to?"

He smiled and looked up into the ceiling. "Let’s drink to girls. Because no matter what language or color, I want’em all."

"Right on," Roland said. "In the immortal words of Kool Moe Dee, ‘eight to eighty, young crippled and crazy’."

Then Julian said, "I’ll take the young Roland, you can have the rest."

We drank the tequila. It wasn’t smooth at all. It was harsh and it was late but we got it down.

"Bloody hell," Bart said. "This shit hurts my throat."

"But it’ll make a man out of you." I grabbed the empty glasses and brought them to the bar. "Come on folks, thanks for coming but now it’s time to go." The security guy was large and hulking; his goatee was trimmed in such a way to make him look imposing and he stuck his chest as if it was his resume.

A few minutes later, along with eight or nine other people, we stood outside the bar and looked around for possibilities.

"This bloody sucks."

"I need a cigarette," Roland said. His glasses were low on his nose and it made him look tired.

"Bard, come here, check this out." I had walked out onto the black street and sat down. There were cars parked but the activity was dead.

"What’s up mate?"

"Have a seat." He did. The two of us sat on Santa Monica Boulevard, a street that led from the ocean clear to the other side of Los Angeles. We are most important than the streets and buildings we’ve built, I explained.

"Yeah," he said, his eyes in a lamppost-glared awe of how far he was from home.

"Get out the way, police will ‘rest you," a cabbie from the other side of the street called. His yellow car was a banana shark, sliding on the late streets looking for drunken prey to charge ten dollars for a two mile ride home.

"We’re all right," I said. "Come on, let’s get outta here."

Back on the street, Julian and Roland were talking to two British women who were snockered.

"Do you like it here in the States?" Julian was asking one of them. She was holding up the hair of her friend who was crouched face down near the sidewalk.

"No ‘treally," she said, but smiled anyways.

"What’s your name?" I asked a man who was standing on the other side of the women. He was well dressed, complete with a scarf in August and smoking a cigarette. He was apparently with the three other well dressed people who stood a little further up the street, away from his smoke.

"Why?"

"Because we’re human beings," I said. To me, it sounded like a great reason to know someone’s name.

"And your point is…" he trailed off, snooty as if he were the Prince of Wales.

I threw my arms up in the air. "Nevermind," I said melodramatically. I turned and walked back to the group around the drunken girls.

"Come on ya bloody drunk," one of my cohorts called. "We’re outta here."

As we turned the alleyway, we could hear the girl vomiting. We laughed and ran up the red brick alley and pissed in corners. We were drunk.

"I need a bloody smoke," Bart said. He was pulling his hair back into a ponytail.

"Me too," Julian said.

"Well," I said. I felt like a tourist guide. It wasn’t easy, especially because I didn’t smoke. "There’s a Vons up the street." We were on Broadway now, heading away easy, away from the beach. The breeze was cool and rushed through the streets. If we had been quiet, we may have heard the waves but four drunk men hear nothing but themselves.

We stopped, or rather some of us kept walking and talking and Julian and I stopped.

"Why did you move to LA?" I asked him.

He smiled a loose-lipped, slant-eyed, knowing smile. "Why does anyone move to LA?"

"The weather," I ventured.

He shook his head.

"The women."

"Nope."

The other two had walked back to us, two out-of-towners arguing where the closest places to get cigarettes was.

"Well?" I asked.

"There’s this," he began and his eyes were alive with the night, "this energy, this aura that you hear about. Ooooh, LA," he said mockingly. "It’s ahrd to explain but it’s like LA has all the things and possibilities and dreams that you hear about."

"Yeah, Baywatch," Bart said. "Everybody in Australia thinks LA is Baywatch."

"In Chicago, LA is the the Third City, behind us and New York.

"But the girls are way better here."

"You think?" I asked Julian.

"Oh, hell yeah. Maybe they don’t put out as much but they’re so hot here."

"And they show a lot more skin out here," Roland said. "But in Chicago, they are more accessible. It’s like they know LA women are there so they have to give it up a little easier.

"You mates should check out Australia," Bart said. "Those girls like to have fun." He played with his last cigarette.

"Where’d you get that?" Roland asked.

"It was in my hair, behind my ear. One of the benefits of having long hair."

"Yeah," I said. I’d been having thirst for more girls and more drinks. "We’ll drink some Fosters and get those girls Down Under, if you know what I mean." I was laughing at my own joke, and then slowly sat on the ground, still laughing.

"That’s the irony, mate."

"What’s that?"

"We don’t even have Fosters domestically," Bart said. The way he said ‘domestically’ brought more laughter. "We just ship it out and let you fools drink it."

"I don’t drink Fosters," Roland said defensively. His vodka and tequila had made him serious.

"Don’t worry, mate," Bart laughed, "neither do I."

"I need a cigarette," Roland said again, watching Bart puff carefree. He was twelve thousand miles from home and he had nowhere to be.

"Let’s go then."

"All right."

I was still sitting on the ground. Julian was peeing again.

The men started walking away, up Broadway.

"Where are you guys going?" Julian called.

"Getting smokes," one of them turned and called out.

"Not me," I said, standing up. "I’m gonna catch the bus and go home. What about you, Julian?"

"I think I’ll catch the bus too."

The four of us met up quickly and said our good-byes.

We made good eye contact and tried to commit the memory in our minds.

Bart shook my hand. "I’ll bring this penny back with me," he said. "I’ll tell our story.
"So will I."

Julian and I walked along the Promenade. It was still and quiet but many of the lights were still on. It was as if we were the only two men on Earth. Except for the homeless which lay like carefully discarded trash in doorways and benches. They were scattered and sleeping as we walked by them.

Up ahead, about a hundred yards, we saw the profile of a bus chugging past us.

"Do you think that’s our bus?" I asked. I wanted to run after it and make it stop for me.

"I hope not," Julian said, who had to ride it all the way to Hollywood. "But it’s all right, there will be another one."

Above us, in the center of the Promenade was a clock with the tired time of five minutes after three in the morning.