Playboy Fiction: Between the Records

Los Angeles, 1987—trying to make beautiful music can get ugly

Playboy Fiction

Playboy Fiction: Between the Records

Dad and his new wife Elina were living in a one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood—mattress on the floor, filthy bathroom, clothes everywhere, dishes stacked in the sink. The front door opened onto a corridor overlooking a tiny fenced-in swimming pool. Don’t go out onto Hollywood Boulevard, Dad warned Adam and me—too many junkies, muggers and prostitutes. The other tenants were a mixed bag of Sid-and-Nancys and Ike-and-Tinas. Dad said he and Elina didn’t plan on staying long; they would get a proper apartment. You just couldn’t beat that $125 weekly rate. And it was all they could afford now. In a few months he would start seeing royalty checks from his first record, which had just gone gold, but it took time for that money to funnel through all those pipes into his account. He said that the next time we came out to see him, we should expect to go to sleep to the sound of something other than alley cats in heat.


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