The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women

by James Ellroy

There’s a world we can’t see. It exists separately and concurrently with the real world. You enter this world by the offering of prayer and incantation. You live in this world wholly within your mind. You dispel the real world through mental discipline. You rebuff the real world through your enforced mental will. Your interior world will give you what you want and what you need to survive.

I lived to read, brood, peep, stalk, skulk and fantasize.

Beethoven was the only artist in history to rival the unknown and unpublished Ellroy. He was a fellow brooder, nose picker and ball scratcher.

Shake yo booty—the times, they are a-changin’.

I possess prophetic powers. Their composition: extreme single-mindedness, superhuman persistence and the ability to ignore intrusions inflicted by the real world.

“Take note of what you are seeking, for it is seeking you.”

My credo: Expect nothing, risk everything, give all.

You will gain or lose commensurate with your deepest consciousness and the purity of your intent.

The gutter-to-stars arc of my life and its overall extremity had convinced me of the wisdom of absolutism and the folly of permissiveness.

Travel bored me then and bores me now. Sightseeing and the gourmet life were for geeks, freaks and fruitcake artistes.

My internal clock was de-sprung, re-sprung and un-sprung. My brain stuttered, sputtered, sparked and always caught ignition. The cities blurred by.

I did restorative yoga and got acupuncture. I got zero-balance massage and shiatsu massage. It didn’t do shit. I went to a swami’s health retreat in rural Iowa. I got slathered with healing oils and learned transcendental meditation. It didn’t do shit.

I was frayed, fraught, french-fried and frazzled.

I always get what I want. It comes slow or fast and always costs a great deal.

I learn things late—and only the hard way.