True story alert:
Technically, I had an apartment in Fullerton, but I was working/crashing in Hollywood during the week at a pal's apartment not far from The Rainbow on Shoreham Drive. (Later on around 1988 I moved into a rented hilltop house at 35051 Orange Avenue in Wildomar.
We worked a few jobs then, besides music, one of which was a lighting and sound company that erected concert stages. We met a lot of people through that job.
One night, we are at The Rainbow and we're just chillin' and these two girls sit down and start talking to us. I hit it off with the blonde and the other girl was gelling with my pal, so we decided to go for a drive. The blonde has a Chrysler Cordoba, and I'm sober, so I'm driving.
The two chics are buzzing pretty good and they start talking about some hi-rise hotel in Long Beach with a restaurant and night club on the top floor, so we head out there.
We partied so hard that night...drinking, dancing, eating...it was extreme. I guess it's about 4am at this point and I'm trying to find my way back to Hollywood. I was stopping at donut shops for coffee and to ask directions.
Finally get us back to the apartment and we gotta carry the chics into the pad. Both are wasted, my buddy is puking in the potted plants on the porch and I finally get everyone in bed and kinda start unwinding with some coffee. The sun is coming up at this point.
The blonde chic comes out in a huge dress shirt she must have found and sits with me and I'm telling her about all the hummingbirds that come to visit the feeder outside the kitchen window.
She smiles and asks me, "What planet are you from?" I was embarrassed and she saw it, so she immediately said, "I mean, you are different in a really good way," then kinda laughs.
So, I tell her all about my life story (I was 22 or 23 at the time and she was 35, IIRC) and we had a really cool morning just hanging out and talking.
I'll never forget this part...at one point in the conversation, she told me, "all night, you've looked in my eyes. You are the first person in a very long time that really talked to me and listened to me. I like being around you."
For about a year, we saw each other here and there as our schedules would permit. She ended up giving me a long distance calling card so we could keep in touch. We would spend weekends out at her apartment in Avalon on Catalina Island and we just basically hung out and had fun.
I recall her telling me that her job as an actress made having a personal life tough. I told her that being a poor farm kid made life tough too, which made her laugh. I knew a lot of secrets about her and I was comfortable with that.
Our two favorite spots was the '321 Club' in Padadena, a night club called "Studebaker's" (I wanna say it was in Anaheim?) And a car hop joint called Angelo's.
We kinda drifted apart amicably around 1990. The music scene was changing and I was missing my son that I hardly ever saw, so we met, talked and had a misty eyed goodbye and I drove back home in my 67 Dodge Coronet.
Fast forward to around 2003, I went through a devastating divorce and my life was turned totally upside down. While packing up all my stuff, I found her number scribbled on a cocktail napkin.
About a week later, I decided to call the number and got a message that the number had been changed. I jotted down the new number and called it after 13 years.
The voice on the other end of the line was familiar. I said, "Hey, what planet are you from?"
She replied, "Hayden!" (My middle name which she called me by) and we spent all night, literally from about 9pm until 6am on the phone. The long distance charges back then were staggering.
She tells me she's now living near Santa Clarita and invites me up to visit. We had some great times up there. I would often request to be sent to police training in the L.A. area so we could hang out.
Sadly, she passed away in 2009 at only 56 years of age.
Out of respect for her memory and her daughter (whom I knew about, but did not know) I'm not going to drop her name in this post, but if you PM me, I will tell you who she was, so long as you respect my wishes to not identify her publicly...
