Sanctuary

"I don't know," Din says. "All she did was breathe in my ear."

SATURDAY, 9 P.M.

WINTER AND JIMMY, WHO LIVE ON MAIN and Seventh, come in with their friend Brittany, who has a loft in Bunker Hill but has never been to King Eddy's. Winter designs for Trashy Lingerie, Jimmy's a musician who played with the original Avengers and Chris Isaak's band, and Brittany's a porn star, which is sort of apparent from her tits, which are muy grande, though her outfit is comparatively toned down, a pair of faded jeans and a tiny navy midriff.

"More or less, I produce, direct and write pornos," says Brittany. "Then I have Internet sales. I'm also a porn-star-slash-model and actress. And I give blowjobs for a living." She laughs like Fran Drescher. How many films has she done?

"Oh, jeepers, it's mostly softcore, but over 400."

Jimmy leans in and whispers, "Did you get that jeepers?"

"I was raised in Milwaukee, but I have like one friend that lives there who's a Christian with seven kids, and I send her money," says Brittany. "Along with everybody else in my family."

She and Winter talk about the exigencies of bleaching their hair blond.

"I'm really a redhead," Winter says, edging her pants over her hipbones, showing a wisp of orange pubic hair. "This part, I've never waxed, it's my teenage hair. The rest, all around, grows in black, but I leave this virginal."

She tells Brittany about a new look she's been doing. "First thing you gotta do is come up with your cholita name -- mine's Chuchi Loca. Then you go get yourself a gold necklace with the name in script. Then you get white eye shadow. Then we go to all these foofy fucking clubs in Hollywood, and say, 'Fuck you. What are you looking at?' It's all about the wifebeater and the Dickies hanging down and your thong hanging out. It's all about the Snoop Dogg thang."

"I got big tits, so I gotta do something with the tits," says Brittany.

"It's not a gangbanger look, it's a little hometown, a little Hollywood. Oh, and nails -- nails are big. And tattoos. The best tattoos are the ones you get from the supermarket vending machines. 'Laugh Now, Cry Later.' Or you get your boyfriend's name tattooed across your neck."

"Or around your asshole. 'Property of Big Bob.'"

"Believe it or not, I've never done it in the ass," says Winter.

"Man, I get raped in the ass for hours. Seymour Butts, this porn producer who does all anal, his girls get 'Seymour Butts' tattooed across their asses."

"At Trashy, I made so many dresses for this bitch that had to have the ass cut out so you could see her tattoo, 'Property of Seymour Butts,'" says Winter.

Back to the subject of breasts: Brittany doesn't like hers. She was 20 when she had them done, and they're too big. "I have to spend $20,000 to have them redone. They're so huge, they're four inches lower than they're supposed to be. They're bigger than my fucking head. I don't have any scars because they did it through my belly button, but to reduce them they have to take off my nipples. I fucking hate them. They're too big."

She leans over and lets them drop out of her top: At this angle, they look nice and smooth. Tan.

"I just want to go down to a D," she says. "I don't want small tits, I'm used to them big."

"You have saline or silicone?" Winter asks.

"Saline."

"I'm going to get silicone, silicone doesn't ripple," Winter says. "I'm 30, and they just don't have the oomph they used to." An acquaintance sitting with them mentions she'd never have hers done, that they seem to be hanging in there.

"Let's see," Winter and Brittany say. The acquaintance lifts her shirt and bra and shows the girls, and the entire right side of the bar in the process. There is no reaction whatsoever from the latter.

Winter cracks up. "You have to love King Eddy's. In five minutes, they've seen four tits and one bush, and no one even blinks."

MONDAY, 2:30 P.M.

A PAPER SIGN TACKED OVER ONE SIDE of the bar reads:

I can only please one person per day
Today is not your day
Tomorrow doesn't look good, either

Anthony is a 43-year-old Isleta Indian from New Mexico, living in a hotel room nearby until the money from the sale of his mother's house comes through.

"They sold it six months ago," says Anthony, pouring the last of a pitcher of beer into his glass. "My brothers and sisters, they're greedy."

Anthony used to work as a plasterer, before falling off a ladder in Montebello. He's disabled now. "I get $634 a month from Social Security, then I get a check from insurance."

This does not mean he is not going to work. He has a calling.

"I went to UCLA for 10 years, studied business. I have a business credential," says Anthony, wiping beer off his long mustache. "I'm gonna read the pyramids, for the Library of Congress. I hope. I need at least 10 credentials to read the pyramids, otherwise it will be a fallacy . . . I'm talking about the pyramids in Mexico. There's a section down there called the Blue Lagoon, right outside Guatemala, where the Incas were. I have an ability. If you look at a dollar bill, at the eye of the mesa, that's a shrine. The belief in tomorrow."