The little things and motel parties

An eight ball, a couple of 12-packs of Natty Ice, a toothbrush

We saved up money to rent cheap 24-hour motel rooms in the sleazy parts of the San Fernando Valley—usually on Sepulveda Boulevard—and get drunk and high for as long as we could afford it. Either from spanging. Or from the little bit of allowances some of us got from our parents. Or in other more fun and illegal ways.

Back in the 90s and early 2000s, the long stretch of Sepulveda Boulevard just north of Ventura Boulevard up to North Hills was to the San Fernando Valley what Santa Monica Boulevard was to Hollywood.

A stretch of liquor stores, poorly lit streets, piss-soaked alleys, cheap motels and the long-legged, high-healed women of the night hanging out on the corners, flashing the occasional nipple to prospective buyers.

The hookers were smart. They didn’t go too far from the motels. That way when they’d get their John they would just go rent a room for a few hours (paying the motel attendant his cut always, of course).

We never got hookers though. Maybe it was because we felt too young. Or maybe we just weren’t ready for that level of depravity at that moment in our young and trashy lives. Too much, too soon.