HOLLYWOOD ENDING.

Kathy Charles.

ONE.

We hung over the fence at the Ambassador Hotel, watching the demolition. Benji stood beside me taking photos, his mouth open in disbelief. He was determined to document every moment. The bulldozers tore into the side of the hotel and the sound of crushing mortar made me feel sick. The Ambassador had a long, star-filled history. The building was a holy shrine for us, and this was like watching a death.

For the past year we had attended protest marches and signed online petitions. During that time the hotel had been used as a movie set and a cheap location for sci-fi and comic book conventions. But finally the decision had been made. The Ambassador had no future and the demolition was to go ahead. Los Angeles is a town that exorcises its demons-cursed properties are seized and razed.

In the golden days of Hollywood, the Oscars were held there. Marilyn Monroe lounged by the pool. In 1968, the allure of the hotel was tarnished forever when Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered a heartfelt victory speech in the ballroom after winning the California primary, only to be gunned down as he tried to make his exit through the hotel pantry. Some people thought the CIA was in on it, but the general consensus was that RFK was assassinated by a Palestinian immigrant with a beef against the Kennedys, just another run-of-the-mill nut job in a town full of them. I preferred the theory that the Palestinian was just a patsy, that he'd been hypnotised into killing the Senator, like something out of The Manchurian Candidate.

Benji said he had a piece of the floor from directly beneath RFK's head. He bought it off eBay from a seller who claimed to be one of the workers hired to tear the building down. Benji said the dark stain on the corner that looked like barbecue sauce was actually Kennedy's blood.

Our mission for the day was to remove something from the demolition site with our own two hands. Benji had dressed in combat fatigues, convinced it would help him blend into the scenery. A couple of ex-cops in black T-shirts patrolled the perimeter, German Shepherds on short leads trailing beside them. We looked for ways to get through the fence undetected but couldn't manoeuvre around the guards. The Ambassador was just a skeleton now, its guts removed. After we'd stood around for an hour, hands in our pockets and staring through the chicken wire, one of the guards came over. He was wearing aviator sunglasses and had a gun in his holster.

*Can I help you kids with something?' he asked.

*Good morning officer,' Benji said politely, pointing at the crumbled ruins of the Ambassador. *Any chance we could come in and watch history unfold up close?'

The guard shook his head. *Private property,' he said, tipping his head at a sign that read WARNING-DEATH. *Dangerous, too. Why, a piece of rock could come flying off one of those bulldozers and hit you-bam!-square in the eye.' He threaded his thumbs through his belt, chewed gum with the gusto of a cowboy and stared into the sun like the sheriff of Deadwood. It was then I knew we would get what we needed.

*Can I make you a proposition?' Benji suggested. He removed a black, studded wallet from his back pocket, snapped it open and pulled out a ten-dollar note. The wallet rattled on its chain. Benji lived to negotiate.

*What do you mean, proposition?' the guard asked, adjusting his cap.

Benji handed him a note: freshly minted, clean and crisp.

The guard paused for a moment, took the bill and examined it. He held it to the sun as if the light would confirm it was real. *What the hell is this all about?' he asked, looking around to make sure no one had seen the exchange.

A crane crashed through the ceiling of the hotel and a dust cloud made its way across the lot, shrouding everyone in ash. Benji coughed and brushed dirt from his clothes. *We want some bricks,' he said.

The guard stared at him. *Bricks?'

*Flooring too, if you can find any. But bricks would be a good start.'

The guard gazed out across the site, incredulous. His boss was sitting in the watch-house taking a nap, feet hanging out the window.

*Make it twenty,' he said, turning back and licking his lips.

Benji had been expecting this, too. He took another ten from his wallet and handed it over. He always carried many denominations, always started small. Once people knew what we were after they would jack up the price-capitalism at its finest.

*All right then,' the guard said, and grinned. He folded the bills and put them in his top pocket, then set off at a jog across the lot. Benji let out a high-pitched whistle and the guard turned around.

*Not that way,' Benji yelled over the bulldozers and cranes. *That way.'

He pointed to where the ballroom had been and the guard changed direction. A minute later he was running back, two full bricks in his hands. He carried them against his chest, puffing and wheezing all the way. He dropped the bricks on the ground and started to cough.

*Careful,' Benji complained. *I paid for those.'

Just like you paid for the one off eBay, I thought...only this time he could authenticate it.

The guard spat on the ground then composed himself.

*What the hell do you kids want those for anyway?' he asked. *What's so special about a couple of bricks?'

Benji picked up the bricks and cradled one in each hand. He held the smooth, red surface against his face and breathed in, then cast a victorious glance in my direction.*Feel this,' he said, handing the brick to the guard, who gave me a quizzical look.

*Take it,' I said. *It won't bite.'

He took the brick, sniffed it, weighed it in his hand, then handed it back to Benji. *It's a brick,' he concluded.

Benji shook his head. *It's not just a brick. This piece of building, this element, is a living, breathing organism. This brick has witnessed some of the most amazing events in American history. It was there when Gone with the Wind received the Oscar for Best Picture. It watched Marilyn Monroe being photographed by the swimming pool. Perhaps it made up part of the room where Jean Harlow stayed, or Howard Hughes, or Nixon. Listen.'

He held the brick up to his ear as if it were a shell. The air was suddenly still and the crash of demolition momentarily ceased.

*It's telling us its secrets,' Benji said. *These pieces of building, they are part of history. They talk to us. They tell us stories. Robert Kennedy might have been our President if he hadn't died here, on this very site. Wouldn't America be a very different country today if that had happened? And how do we repay him? We tear the place down, as if what happened here doesn't matter one bit. People will forget it was ever there.'

There was an explosion and rubble rained down over the ground. The guard jumped and spun around as if he'd seen a ghost. Benji pulled a plastic bag from his pocket. I took some newspaper from my backpack and handed it to him. He wrapped the bricks in the paper, lovingly folded down the edges and placed them in the bag. The guard scratched his head.

*You kids are crazy,' he said, and started to walk away.

Benji looked at me and smiled, pleased with himself.

*Did you have to freak that guy out?' I asked.

Benji laughed. We walked over to his car and he put the bricks on the back seat.

*You wanna put seat belts on them too?' I asked.

TWO.

We drove to Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood where we sat at Janis Joplin's booth and ordered poached eggs with hollandaise. The food at Barney's wasn't the greatest but the ambience more than made up for it. In the old days Barney's was a hangout for Hollywood's rock elite, like Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. Now it was full of tourists and frat boys with their girlfriends, playing pool. No one cared about the significance of the place anymore, no one except a few educated tourists, and us. Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison were now members of the Forever 27 Club, along with Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin. It was kind of creepy how many awesome musicians had died at at the same exact age of twenty-seven, but at least they were in good company.

Benji drank coffee and loaded photos onto his laptop from his camera. I looked at the ceiling where one of Barney's old tables had been hammered up so that everyone could see it. Someone had scratched their name into the table larger than the others. The lettering was messy and jagged but the name was unmistakeable. Janis. It was rumoured she'd had her last screwdriver at Barney's, one final drink before departing this world in a pool of her own vomit. I imagined her in all her junked-up glory, plying her face with pastrami on rye and hacking at the table with a bread knife. I felt honoured to be sitting in her booth.

Although it was only ten in the morning the frat boys were drinking Coronas and the stereo was cranked to the hilt with an Elvis Presley song. A few tourists wearing Hollywood T-shirts and cameras slung around their necks waddled through the doors.

*Oh, Harold,' a woman said to her husband as she hooked her arm through his. *They say Jack Nicholson used to drink here with Dennis Hopper when they made Easy Rider.'

Her old hippy husband looked around in awe. *Far out.'

These people should have annoyed us just as much as the frat boys, but the truth was they were just like us. They were scavengers feeding off others, obsessed with lives that were not their own. They were our people.

Benji pierced his eggs with a fork, looked at me and took a bite.

*You look stupid with that pink hair,' he said through a mouthful of food. In a fit of boredom I'd dyed my hair the night before. It seemed like a fun idea at the time but the pink hadn't really taken and my head looked like Hello Kitty threw up on it. I tossed my napkin at Benji.

*You said you liked it this morning.'

*I've changed my mind. It looks cheap.'

*Well, you look disgusting. Finish your food before you open your mouth.'

He stuck out his tongue, revealing the saliva-coated remnants of his meal. *Have some respect at Janis's table,' I said.

*Janis wouldn't care,' he snickered, chewing loudly. *She would fully appreciate someone enjoying such a hearty, lard-laden meal.'

He reached over and grabbed my orange juice.

*Your Aunt Lynette's gonna be pissed when she sees your hair,' he added, swallowing a mouthful.

*No, she won't. She won't even care.'

The waitress refilled our coffees and I ordered another OJ. I looked out the window. There was surprisingly little traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard. When the road was clear you could imagine it was the 1960s, and Barney's was filled with beatniks and poets rather than drunken sorority girls. I finished my juice and watched Benji eyeing off the girls at the bar. One of them bent over, exposing pink frilly panties beneath a tight leather skirt.

*Seeing as how you're distracted, do you mind if I check something?' I asked, pointing to his computer.

Benji unplugged his camera and spun the laptop around to face me. Another great thing about Barney's was that it had free wifi. I logged onto my favourite website, The Celebrity Autopsy Room, and checked my profile: Name: Hilda Swann.

Age: 17.

Lives: Encino, CA.

Mood: Apathetic.

I opened my personal preferences, changed my mood to excited. Summer vacation had finally arrived, and Benji and I were going to spend it doing what we loved best.

Summer vacation means different things to different people. To the popular girls at school it meant three months of hanging around the mall, playing beach volleyball in string-bikinis and being screwed by jocks under the boardwalk. To the neglected kids it meant being packed off to summer camp to battle the bugs and basket weaving. For Benji and me it meant days and days of glorious death.

Favourite movie: Harold and Maude.

Favourite music: Nirvana, The Ramones, The Carpenters.

Favourite book: Hollywood Babylon by Kenneth Anger.

Interests: Dead celebrities, living in LA, books about serial killers.

My Favourite Dead People (in no particular order): Sharon Tate John Belushi Chris Farley James Dean Marilyn Monroe Phil Hartman Kurt Cobain Elizabeth Short (The Black Dahlia, for those not in the know) Jayne Mansfield My parents *Can I check something?' Benji took the laptop back. *I'm waiting for this dude to contact me.'

*Don't mind me.' I called the waitress over. *Can we get the check?'

*There it is,' Benji said, smiling. *Bingo.'

He took a napkin and scribbled on it, then stuffed it in his pocket.

*What's that?' I asked.

*You'll see. Come on. Let's head up the hill.'

It was a beautiful day so we decided to walk all the way from Barney's to Janis's place. Janis OD'd at The Landmark Hotel on Franklin Avenue-now The Highland Gardens-on heroin that was cut too pure. The batch killed a whole lot of people in LA, but Janis was the only famous one. Benji had stayed in the room once before but every time I tried to make a reservation it was already booked. Sometimes it was booked solid for weeks in advance. People wanted to be close to Janis, even if all that meant was sleeping in the same bed she'd puked in before dying on the floor.

When we got to the hotel we tried to see in through the windows of her ground-floor room, but the curtains were closed. We walked back to the car, disappointed. Benji checked the back seat to make sure his bricks were still there.

*What next?' I asked.

*You up for a little adventure?'

*What did you have in mind?'

Benji leant over. *You ever heard of Bernie Bernall?'

Bernie Bernall? *I don't think so,' I said. *Was he in Plan 9 from Outer Space?'

Benji rolled his eyes. *God, you're such a lightweight, Hilda. Bernie Bernall was a silent movie star whose career was ruined when they introduced the talkies. Apparently his voice was so bad he became the laughing-stock of the industry. They tried dubbing another voice over his but it didn't work. He became a junkie and an alcoholic, then killed himself in his apartment.'

*How?'

Benji leant in close. *He stabbed himself.'

*What do you mean, stabbed himself? Like with a knife?'

Benji shook his head. *Scissors.'

Scissors. What a way to go. I whistled. *That's awesome.'

*Not only that, they were small sewing scissors, so blunt you could barely cut your toenails with 'em. He just gouged that shit straight into his heart and moved it around 'til the hole was big enough to kill him.'

*Wow. How could I have not heard about this?'

*It gets worse. His wife was in New York when it happened, and apparently she didn't give a shit. She didn't even come back to town for the funeral.'

*Damn.'

*She didn't even send flowers. She sent a telegram saying how "regretful" she was that it had happened or some crap like that.'