CURRENCY

Cinder, gold leaf, and fence boards.

If easily offended, don’t read this. This story comes from a time when comedy and sarcasm were legal.
In my young adult ages, my best friend was one of those people who’s comic timing and wit devoured a room. I could barely ever breathe from laughter. When I was 19 years old working on my first film shoot, a young man I had seen only peripherally walked by me on the back lot of then Raleigh Stages. Fucking star-shaped sunglasses. I did not say “hello” nor did he. I only said, appropriately, “You’re NOTHING to me.”
We were inseparable for the next decade. He was the kind of friend you’d share a condom with, or at least sit down together with a dictionary to look up the meaning of the word. I have never been kicked out of so many places with anyone more. Some, we are still not allowed into; there should be a sign at Atwater bars telling you not to throw your champagne glass when it is empty. (We were young). We even got kicked out of the “taxi cab confessions” cab once, apparently “unair-able”, due to too much blood or nudity. I can’t remember. He was...my introduction to HollywoodLand. A rock star.
If ever you happened to be in the RedLion Tavern in the late 90s-00, and there was a small group of friends excessively paying the elderly German “Piano Man“ to play “Moonriver“ over an over until the cash ran out or dragged out by other patrons. That was us. I think we got him into the “teens” once. Sorry? Wasteful I know. We could have done other altruistic activities like normal people with our money. Virtue signaling. So I save the guilt. He got paid more then Johnny Mercer. He probably bought a fucking house. We had been through everything together. Girlfriends, work, travel, my windshield. Passion for art drove us. Ahh-The CinderBlock.
Once, he tried to convince an entire film crew that; “The city of Duarte’s only form of the accepted currency was cinder blocks. Seems appropriate now. If you live in Duarte, fuck I don’t know?, unfollow I guess?
D, This ones for you, If you are out there, and I hope you are not,
“You’re nothing to me.”

By Jason Koharik, 2021