My controlling boyfriend was my mentor in Los Angeles. But was that enough?

When I read the news that Tropical Cafe in Silver Lake was closing suddenly, memories came flooding back – memories of a time, a place, and a friend. I met John in a dimly lit duplex in Los Feliz, at one of the “friend of a friend” parties I found myself frequenting during my first year in Los Angeles.

He was tall, soft-spoken, and had long brown hair that reminded me of Jim Morrison. His eyes wouldn’t let me go, and soon we were locked in the bathroom, John whispering poetry to me between candles and lamps covered with scarves.

I was a welder helping to build the Getty Center, and I was accepted into the Directors Guild of America training program, a training program that put me on TV and film shoots for about two years. John wasn’t my type, even though I was 22, and my spotty dating history didn’t mean I knew my type exactly. He kept a huge snake named King in his bedroom. He told me without irony that he owned eight rifles that he dismantled and hid all over his house in Silver Lake. Our attraction was intense, and the sex tinged with an air of danger.

John introduced me to Los Angeles. Silver Lake and Los Feliz were our playground. We started every Sunday with café con leche and guava pastries at Café Tropical. We watched movies at Vista and drank at the Smog Cutter, and John took me to sweaty punk shows at Spaceland. Our late nights always ended at the Ranch, an old-fashioned Hollywood house tucked behind the old Albertsons at Melrose Avenue and Vine Street, filled with John’s rowdy buddies.

John was light years away from my East Coast upbringing and liberal arts college friends. I imagined us as the characters in a Beastie Boys video, especially when we were dressing up and spending a night at Netty’s on Silver Lake Boulevard.

That part of Los Angeles in the mid-90s was its own ecosystem. “Swingers” was about to turn my neighborhood into a hipster getaway, but before that, you could rent a two-bedroom apartment on Los Feliz Boulevard for a steal. I used Thomas’ guide to learn about Los Angeles’ sprawling streets, but John was my guide to everything else: where to eat, where to drink, and how to find community in this fragmented city.

John actually grew up in L.A. He regaled me with stories of living in a downtown loft, where he used to shoot rats in the alley from his window. One night, he took me to a dance on a deserted stretch of Jefferson Boulevard, where we danced inside a huge warehouse among twisted metal sculptures.

He also insisted that I couldn’t live in Los Angeles without driving the entire Mulholland Drive, so we spent the whole day in his Bronco dodging motorcycles and tourists, and taking in the views on every side.

My professional training and my relationship with John became more serious, which created tension in my life. Working on set was extremely consuming, and John wanted every moment of my free time. He ignored any efforts to see my friends. We always ended up with him on the farm. Although I appreciated getting to know the famous and hidden parts of Los Angeles with John, I felt irritated by his control.

We quickly reached a breaking point. John and I argued more than we didn’t. His hair had turned into a mess, and sharing a bedroom with a snake was no longer exciting. Nights at the Ranch lost their punk rock appeal, as if someone had suddenly turned on the lights at closing time.

John gave me a hard time about my schedule, which meant I was ignoring him in favor of my career. I graduated from a production training program and got a good job on a movie that was supposed to be “the next big thing.” Despite my outward success, I was confused, exhausted, and needed space to clear my mind. Something had to give.

When my best friend from college called me and said she was going to spend the summer organizing service labor unions in rural Ohio, I saw an opening. She rejected the movie, broke up with John, and drove him out of town. I put my LA dreams on hold for a few months, getting the time and distance I needed to move on from John and recommit to my career.

When I returned in August, I set out to rewrite my story in Los Angeles—in Dresden, at the House of Pies, and in the winding hallways by the Griffith Observatory.

I created the career I wanted. I met my husband on set and have a daughter who is discovering her own city. Once upon a time, I swore when I was younger that I would never live west of La Brea Avenue. Now, my oldest lives in Culver City and rarely returns to Silver Lake or Los Feliz. The area has changed and so have I.

My memories of that time and place are bittersweet. I miss the guava pastries at Tropical Cafe, I miss my early 20s, I miss the endless promise of a night out in Los Angeles

I don’t miss John. But I have only one big regret: turning down work on this “next big thing,” a little movie called “Boogie Nights.”

The author is an assistant director/producer for television and film. She lives in Culver City and is writing her second novel. She is on Instagram: @metaval_la

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