John Belushi Is Dead Read Free

said.
    â€œJanis 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.
    â€œYour aunt Lynette’s gonna be pissed when she sees your hair,” he added, swallowing a mouthful of food and juice.
    â€œNo, 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 the Beanery was filled with beatniks and poets, rather than drunken sorority girls. I finished my juice and watched Benji eyeing the girls at the bar. One of them bent over, exposing pink frilly panties beneath her tight leather skirt.
    â€œDo you mind if I check something, seeing as how you’re so distracted?” 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 Wi-Fi. I logged on to my favourite website, the Celebrity Autopsy Room, and checked my profile:
    N AME : Hilda Swann
    A GE : 17
    L IVES : Encino, CA
    M OOD : Apathetic
    I opened my personal preferences and 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.
    F AVORITE MOVIE :
Harold and Maude
    F AVORITE MUSIC : Nirvana, the Ramones, the Carpenters
    F AVORITE BOOK :
Hollywood Babylon
by Kenneth Anger
    I NTERESTS : Dead celebrities, living in LA, books about serial killers
    M Y Favorite Dead People (in no particular order):
    1. Sharon Tate
    2. John Belushi
    3. Chris Farley
    4. James Dean
    5. Marilyn Monroe
    6. Phil Hartman
    7. Kurt Cobain
    8. Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia, for those not in the know)
    9. Jayne Mansfield
    10. My parents
    â€œAre you done?” Benji took the laptop back. “I’m waiting for this dude to contact me.”
    I called the waitress over. “Can we get the check?”
    â€œThere it is,” Benji said, smiling. “Bingo.”
    He took a napkin and scribbled on it, then stuffed it in his pocket.
    â€œWhat’s that?” I asked.
    â€œYou’ll see. Come on. Let’s head up the hill.”
    It was a beautiful day, so we decided to walk all the way from the Beanery 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. They wanted to sleep in the same bed she’d puked on 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 backseat to make sure his bricks were still there.
    â€œWhat next?” I asked.
    â€œYou up for a little adventure?”
    â€œSure,” I said. “What did you have in mind?”
    Benji leaned 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