Trickin’ on the Track

When I arrived in LA, I wasn’t a touring comedian yet. I was dreaming of becoming one, but dreams don’t pay shit, so I needed an actual job. I saw an ad asking for people willing to be “spa attendants” and I went for it. I always liked spas and didn’t mind the idea of folding towels at one while helping someone unwind from their hectic life. I imagined my days would be filled with the smell of eucalyptus and the sight of totally relaxed customers walking in robes and sandals from one treatment room to the next. This spa was called Splash—The Relaxation Spa. It didn’t take long to figure out that “Splash” wasn’t a spa. It was an hourly rental hot tub fuck spot. Rooms were given names like Barcelona or Japanese Garden with poorly thrown-together decorations to fit the theme. The Japanese Garden had a cheap fountain and some plastic plants so you might lose yourself in the illusion they’d created. You paid $100 an hour to use the rooms, which really means to fuck in them. That’s what people did. They either arrived with someone to fuck there or they’d meet someone there and then fuck them. And I cleaned it up. It was so awkward, but also exciting to watch people meet up who had only spoken on the phone. I love people-watching, and this felt like a bonus level. Most of the customers weren’t going on romantic dates, which is how Splash advertised their business.

“Looking for a fun thing to do on date night? Try Splash!”

The owner made it clear that he didn’t want people to think his place was a jizz factory, but that’s clearly what it was. Most people were going there for sex with people they had yet to meet.

It was almost like the time I was walking on Sunset Boulevard late and a car pulled over, rolled down the window, and a man asked me, “How much?” That’s right, yours truly was mistaken for walking the ho stroll. Sunset west of Fairfax, east of Crescent was and perhaps still is an active prostitution area aka a “track.” That is, of course, a track of your standard hoes. Females and sometimes the occasional male ho. There’s a very popular stretch on Santa Monica Boulevard of transsexual prostitutes. I know this because I lived on Mansfield, between Fountain and Santa Monica, when I first moved to Los Angeles. I’m only pointing this out so if you visit Los Angeles and you’re wondering which area to go to, well, what’s your preference? It was a dicey neighborhood to say the least.

I saw celebrities park their cars, get drugs and hoes, and then go back to their cars and leave. I’m talking A-list here, super famous. I’d just sit on the balcony and watch.

The Spa was a different story. I didn’t even realize what it was for a few days. I was twenty-two and had never been to or even heard of a place like this. The occasional couple did come in. It made sense to see this as an option to spice things up in a relationship, but the majority of people going there were just meeting up for sex that they paid for. See, the owner had one rule above all else—the entire party must be present before they enter a room. Like restaurants that won’t seat you until everyone is present. Only the spa rules actually made sense. If someone showed up, went to the room, and waited for the other person to show up, they could say their “time” didn’t start until the other person arrived. The owner didn’t like that, so he made it a rule. You enter the room together and that’s when the time starts. That rule led to a lot of super uncomfortable dudes in the lobby. I mean, pacing, sweating, and flat-out panicking. I’d stand there almost feeling for them, the anticipation building to a fever pitch, waiting for the door to open and their “date” to enter.

Sometimes she was an absolute smoke show, others she wasn’t so hot. One time a guy nervously paced back and forth, and then two guys walked in. One of them said, “Erik?” and then Erik(?) said, “Mario?” and then Erik and Mario and friend went into the Barcelona Room and three minutes later they all left. I went in the room thinking they had changed their minds, but wouldn’t you know it—there were three used condoms just lying there. Love connection?

I’m most surprised that more customers at this establishment weren’t alarmed by me and more specifically my face. I have been, for years, labeled by strangers as a cop or “looking like a cop.” It’s not a compliment. It started early. When I moved during my freshman year in high school from the suburbs of Milwaukee to Vero Beach, I did what most new kids would do at a new school—I asked who had drugs and where the party would be that weekend. I got blank stares until one kid asked me a question.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.”

“Really? You look older.”

“Yeah I guess so, but yeah, I’m fourteen.”

He rolled his eyes and walked away. It took months of not getting straight answers before someone who I befriended told me, “Everyone thought you were a narc.”

As a freshman in college I really did look older. Like, I looked thirty. This time I used it to my advantage. On the first day of school in the freshman dorms I walked down the hall, and two guys who had their door open flinched when I walked by. I immediately turned around and walked into their room.

“Where is it, guys?”

They were busted and quickly gave up their twelve-pack.

“Come on. You know the rules.”

I had just become a corrupt cop, and it felt great. A few years later after my time at Splash I was working a restaurant job in Los Angeles on Sunset Boulevard. It had some questionable types that would stop in, but of course we took care of them because hoes gotta eat too. One of the guys that hung with the working girls ordered, and when I walked out to bring him his food he said in a very clear and distinct voice, “Thank you, Officer.”

I stopped.

“What?”

“Nothing.” He sipped from his lemonade. I turned back and walked away.

“Officer.” He muttered it again.

I kept walking. Pissed. I went inside and told my coworker, Todd, what had just happened. I felt so slighted. His eyes widened and his face lit up.

“Bro! You look just like a cop!”

“I don’t see it.”

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