The company had fired Paul Schildkraut after 37 years. He had seen three different owners but nothing had ever changed. Not for him. He didn´t think much about his future. He couldn’t change it anyhow. He believed in God. He would get a monthly pension and maybe the new owners would pay him a little compensation too. The only thing that troubled him was the daytime. He had stopped drinking coffee and tried to sleep the time away. One day his neighbour who he had rarely talked to asked him to look after his horse while he had to go to hospital. Paul said yes and promised to take good care of it. When the neighbour didn’t come back he called the hospital and learned that he had died. Paul kept the horse and called it „Daytime“.

These guys must have been out of their minds to call that shithole Sand’s. Like those Tinseltown idiots who calla church “Science” and a little beach strip “Venice”.

None of his dreams had come true. He couldn’t lease a horse so he got a pick up instead. He couldn’t get a loan to open his own little taco place so he became an employee at the local fast food branch. He couldn’t afford a place of his own so he had to move in with a junkie. The only dream still alive was the top one on the list. One day he would be rich.

Frank Stallone was a decent man from Victorville, California. He had left school after 10th grade and taken a job at Midas, where they treated customers like gold. Everybody at the garage called him Frankie. Even when he got drafted and handed out all the Rambo weapons he wasn’t thinking of his famous namesake. Only when Andy Iaccone, his fellow soldier friend in Iraq started calling him Italian Stallion he showed some interest. “You know Frank,” Iaccone had said, “Italians abroad all come from the same family.” Two days later Andy was killed by the same landmine that tore off his left arm. A year later Frank received the money from the insurance company and opened up a little pizza place in the desert. Stallone’s Pizzeria. One day a man walked into his restaurant and ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza. When Frank asked him for an autograph the man smiled, took out a photo of himself and signed it. “To my cousin, Sylvester.”

Liz loved the lake so much. Whenever possible she would take the little motorboat and go right to the middle of the lake, undress and take a dive. For Liz being alone and naked, surrounded by nature was everything she wanted. A holy experience which made her feel closer to God. She loved God. More than anything else. More than Jim. When Jim took a new job as green keeper at a golf club in Nevada, they had to move. She hated the desert and insisted on taking the boat along. What for? Jim yelled at her. Because I love my boat, she answered calmly. What the fuck you need the boat for in the goddamn desert? If you mention fuck and God in the same sentence once again, I’ll kill you. What you need the fucking boat for? The Lord moves in mysterious ways, wherever is a desert today was an ocean yesterday.

He was the biggest boy even then. Big and black. When he dropped out of school he got a job as a bouncer at a Downtown bordello. He soon climbed up the pimp ladder like King Kong the Empire State. White ladies, red corvette, King Kong had it all. And fell.

Bruce Markowsky could not even save a dime. He liked the booze and he liked the women and could barely afford both at the same time. One night he met a beautiful Thai at the bar around the corner. Her name was Blossom. It wasn’t her real name. She said she loved him and told him to invest some money in a nail studio her sister had just opened on Sunset. Bruce pawned what was left of his life and gave Blossom the money. Two weeks later he received a collect call from Bangkok.

When Mary parked her car on the parking lot in front of the mini market, she heard a distant whimper that sounded like it came from inside another car. As she walked towards the entrance of the market the whimper came closer. A little animal trapped in a trash bin next to the taco place. She walked over, looked inside and saw it.

His whole life people were mocking him about his clothes, the matted hair and the cheap frames. One day in college he met Betty who had the biggest pretty eyes he had ever seen. She asked him on a date. He picked the only fancy restaurant he knew and over dessert asked Betty why a pretty girl like her would date a guy like him. She smiled and said. “Because you seem like the real thing.”

Joni´s father had been a TV star back in the 60s. TV stars then seemed to be like some exotic flowers, when they blossomd everyone could see them but when the bloom was over they were almost invisible.

Linda loved blind dates as much as she hated dating one of her colleagues. Everybody seemed to date someone from the office or some other office in the building as if mankind outside of the building didn´t exist. Most of the time it was about sex. All the guys she met were either married or stuck in an unhappy relationship. Lucky them. She didn´t care, all she wanted was to be free and entertain herself.

Axochitl had always wondered why everybody was talking about the Gringos being so rich. For 16 years now she was living in America and it still didn´t make sense to her. Everybody in her neighbourhood complained about not having the money to buy the things they needed. A car, a TV set, a dish washer, a bed. The Americans leased everything. Why should rich people lease the bed they slept in?

He didn´t want to end up like „Old Coyote“, his father or his elder brother „Falling Rain“. They still lived in the Crow Reservation close to Billings. Each day they drove to town looking for work so they could get drunk and laid on the weekends. The city of angels was different. It had everything he dreamed of. The ocean, the movies, the fancy cars and all the beautiful girls who wanted to get drunk and laid on the weekends.

Lollipop had destroyed his life 50 years ago.

Not a single drop of water anywhere. They should have named the place Desert No Springs.

Hope had convinced him to spend the weekend in a little guest house up on Bear Mountain. It was her birthday. He couldn´t say no even though he hated the cold and had never learned how to ski. Grandma Ruth always said, jews should not go to the mountains, they’re desert people. “That’s why we like L.A. It’s a desert.” she said in her matchless German accent whenever one of her old immigrant friends complained about the heat. “All the bloody Nazis came from mountain regions!” To her it explained their character. Cold and merciless. Like the guest house. Hope still wanted to stay, so he drove down the road a couple of miles to buy some wood for the fireplace. “Firewood” said the sign outside a little roadside shed, which seemed abandoned. He stopped the car and wasn’t sure whether to get out and look for some wood or drive back to L.A. without Hope.

Home is where the heart is. That’s what they say. In America. Where the money is. Home is where the money is.

She had met Hans in college. He came from a city that sounded like a German castle. Oldenburg. He wouldn’t know Bloomington, so she told him she came from Indiana. It seemed to amuse him. “You know we still call people like you Indiana ?”

They had all kinds of specials. The Sassy Cheese with pickles and bacon, the Shy High with smoked turkey and apple jam, the Dipsy Doodle with cold pastrami, the Veggie with tofu and mushrooms, the Micky Mouse with tuna and grilled Swiss and the Archie Bonker, which sounded like a burger designed to please the guys from the United Nations. It was a Polish sausage serverd in a French roll with Spanish onions, Mexican tomatoes, English Mayo and Gardena Mustard. He had always thought about ordering one but never did.

Everybody called him the Picasso of porn, because he had the most beautiful brush.

They were tired so Greg stopped the car at a roadside motel. The Desert Inn. It seemed closed. They got out of the car and walked around the front to a fenced in pool area that smelled like it hadn’t been used in a long time. Green water under a blue sky, most unusual. Some chairs were still standing around, the colors faded from the sun. They were thinking about crashing in the chairs when suddenly an Indian guy in a black suit showed up asking what they wanted. „What do people want in a motel?“ Greg replied and smiled friendly at the guy. „No motel, no more beds, now it is restaurant. All you can eat. You want to eat?“ „If we can rest in those chairs afterwards.“ “One chair 4,99$. Towel included.” said the guy and smiled.

Nobody treated blacks anymore the way her grandparents did. They had called them family and let them do the hard work and look after the kids.

She was the best sales agent he had ever seen. Great attitude, relentless drive, irresistible smile and, most importantly, never bothered shit about the stuff she sold. Cars or pants, booze or shoes, dogs or bananas, she sold it all.

She felt sick. Too many hot dogs. It has been her problem for a long time. If she saw people eating an ice cream she wanted an ice cream, if they had a sandwich or a burger she wanted that, she could not even look at a food ad in the newspaper or on a billboard like the one around the corner.

He lived his whole life according to his mother. She had called him Tom because she loved the idea of her son having the name of a movie star. She didn’t know who his father was and married another man to be his dad. She made him stay home and start working in his dad’s body shop. She had made him take his dad’s blows and punches, when he was drunk and desperate. She had made him drink booze and smoke cigarettes too, when he was 14. Then she died.

She loved Thrasher. Like all metal guys he was sweet like hell.

You are. I’m not. You have. I don’t. You don’t. I do.

The guys had thrown him out of his own house. Linda had let them in so he didn’t have a chance to grab his gun which he stored behind the manuals on the bookshelf. What could he do? She’s gotten fucked up on those pills, crazy like a motherfucker, yelling at him the whole day, calling him a monster, telling him to beat her up until he did. Now she had called her “brothers” from Sunset. His gun was in the house so what could he do?

She didn’t like what she saw in the mirror. Every morning.

Chaim had the same accent her father had whenever he tried to pronounce the name of the company she worked at Warner Brothers. Like her father Chaim was born in Dresden. Unlike her father he wasn’t a Nazi. Unlike her father he had left the country as a young man. Unlike her father he had become a rich man. Unlike her father he wasn’t dead but dating women the age of his daughters. Like herself. Chaim was a winner.

All the stars were gone.