Cupcakes in the Sandbox.

Let me tell you a story, about some friends of mine who live here in L.A. They are a great couple, with one little girl, almost age 6…..

To the Ocean

She was on Olympic Blvd., a crowded road, driving fast, through the blinding light, headed to the ocean, the waterfront location where the yoga class was due to start at 6pm.

She controlled the dark green S.U.V., so fast, so well equipped, with its satellite directional system, filtered air, Bluetooth phone, DVD player, tinted windows, and heated seats. Air bags surrounded the driver, ready to inflate in 1/1000 of a second, a life-protecting pillow. A song by Sonic Girl Nation, her favorite artist, was playing. The lyrics spoke to her:

Now you know, you have it all
The love, the freedom, the life
When you lose it all, you won’t know
But you will lose it girl, yes you will.

At Lincoln and Pico, she ran through a red light, but of course, nobody collided with her. She had ran through many lights, the same way she ran through so many stories. They were made up quickly, improvised, without much thought, and just passed out to whomever was listening.

“We can’t make it tonight. I have food poisoning.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. We are going to another birthday.”
“Josh bought tickets on that night. Sorry about missing your wedding.”

Cipriana LaMonica was a lucky lady. She was from an island, not far from Italy, and her poor family had come to America and settled in Boston, opening a grocery store and ice cream parlor that soon became a destination for both tourists and locals. Her parents moved to Concord, into a large house on two acres. She went on to Harvard, the first in her family to attend college, and she got into the best one.

Cipriana pulled her S.U.V. into a handicapped parking space. She hung a blue “wheelchair” card onto the rear-view mirror, grabbed her yoga mat, and ran into Venice Green Girl Yoga. She made her class, just in the nick of time.
A new hour of physical and spiritual enlightenment.

Josh at Home

Josh Rubenstein.
Everyone loves Josh Rubenstein.

How could you not?

Josh is married to Cipriana, and they have one 5-year-old girl, Linda Vista Rubenstein.

At 6pm, just as his wife was starting her yoga class, he was at home, slicing onions and garlic and frying them in the pan with extra virgin olive oil. He was in a hurry to make a tomato sauce, and get Linda fed.

Josh is someone you may have seen before, if you’ve lived in Los Angeles, west of the 405. He is dark haired, which he keeps closely cropped. He doesn’t shave, but if he did, he might shave every three weeks. He drives a Prius, and wears baggy, slouchy jeans. He spends most of his day looking at his Blackberry or his MacBook Pro. He does something really successfully, which involves the web, TV, online games and offline finance.

He has a closet full of graphic print, cotton t-shirts and many pairs of cool, colorful sneakers. He wears tiny glasses that cost $450. He has three pairs of them.

Josh grew up in Scarsdale, NY and went to school at Harvard. He majored in English, with a minor in computer science. He met his wife in college, moved into an apartment in Cambridge with her and then after five years, they married and settled out in Santa Monica, CA.

How could you not relate to this story? It’s universal. And so easily understandable and wonderful.

The Connections

I knew Josh and Cipriana because Mark knew Josh and Cipriana. Mark Ripofsky was my boss at Gee-TV when I was working on the show “Whorse Race” for Fox.

Do you know “Whorse Race”? That enormously popular, highly rated, phenomenally successful reality show was created by Mark Ripofsky and the premise is this:

Six young dudes and six young ladies.

The dudes place bets on young ladies, who are taken out to a race track, and must run races. The winning girl and the winning bettor win a million bucks. The girls must run around the track, like race horses, and undergo a humiliating obstacle course of mud, animal feces, climbing walls, and weigh-ins. They are treated like animals and only the strongest survive.

Josh Rubenstein was brought on in mid-season to EP (that is Executive Producer, for all you non-Hollywood peeps).

The show was exhausting, because of what Josh called, “all the bullshit.” Josh was so straight on in his personality. He just tells it like it is. Very rare in Hollywood, where most everyone is not full of so much integrity and good-will the way Josh is. He almost makes you feel like the job you do is the best anyone could ever do. He will build you up to be great, especially when he is your boss. Which is so cool.

Freckles McFarley

Freckles is a 35-year old woman, with freckles, of course.

She has red hair, pale skin, a hoarse voice, and really muscular legs. She played soccer in high school and college. She lives in Manhattan Beach and swims, runs, plays volleyball and does almost everything athletic that a person can do. She is also one of the most aggressive and annoying friends of Josh, but I should keep my mouth shut, because she is quite powerful.

Her first offense, in my book, is that she came into “Whorse Race” and was made into a co-Executive Producer. Secondly, she socializes with Josh and Cipriana and says that “Linda is the child I would want if I had any child in the world.” She has also said that Cipriana is the most gorgeous woman in Santa Monica and that Josh, “is probably the sharpest mind in reality television today.” She is a brown nose, but she does it so cheerfully and so eagerly, that the object of her compliment will never feel patronized.

Freckles is not always in top form though. At a large party, which Josh threw for Cipriana last year, Freckles ate too much curry chicken and ended up barfing on Josh’s laptop.

Freckles was humiliated, but Cipriana insisted that she sleep over. In the morning, Josh said he would simply go out and buy another $2500 Mac Book Pro and he forgave her.
The Birthday Party

I was in my little cubicle inside my little office on Little Santa Monica in Beverly Hills, just wrapping up my shoot schedule for the day, when Josh and Mark Ripofsky walked over.

“Dude,” Josh said, “You know about Evite and sending out invitations right?”

“Sure,” I answered.

Mark put his hands in his pockets, uneasily. “We got a little problem. Maybe you can help,” he said.

“My little girl, Linda,” Josh said, “She is turning six next week and we want to have a little party for her in a park in Santa Monica. Just something casual; like cupcakes, hanging out at the sandbox. Nothing big. Very low key.”

“Cool,” I said. “How can I help?”

“We don’t want everyone to know about the party. My wife is very busy. She doesn’t want to stress herself. So we need you to send an email to some people who won’t tell other people about the party. It has to be very hush, hush,” Josh said.

“Here is the catch: We need you to craft, or make-up a fake name and identity and then send out the invitations so nobody will know who you are,” Josh said.

“Anybody who is rejected will email you,” Josh continued,”if they find out, cool, but since you don’t exist, we won’t have to deal with the hurt feelings. Isn’t that cool?”

“You guys need me to lie then?” I asked.

“Basically, yes!” Josh said with a wide mouthed toothy grin.

They promised to email me the location, time and guest list. It was billed as “Cupcakes in the Sandbox” or a little girl’s Hollywood birthday party with a guest list winnowed down and edited like a bad b-movie. Characters and non-speaking parts would be eliminated so the executive producer could have total control.

Wanting to keep my job, I got to work immediately.
Just Checking In. Touching Base.

The guest list for the little six-year-old girl’s birthday party included 30 adults and no children. Attendees were asked to bring wine or beer and they would meet at Abraham Lincoln Park on Calle Perros de Mentira in Santa Monica Canyon at 3pm Sunday.

An email arrived with a plunk. Cipriana wrote:

Thank you so much for your help! I’m just checking in and touching base. Josh said you are doing a wonderful job. We appreciate it so much! Since we are so BUSY… Can you run by Pink Lady Cupcakes in Santa Monica, and pick-up our dessert? Also, please do not tell Freckles that you are coming to the party.

Thanks again!
Cipriana

I closed the email and checked the time. It was 4 o’clock on Friday, and I was looking forward to my time-off. I got up from my chair and walked over to the bathroom and bumped into Freckles… coming out of the men’s room.

“They are cleaning the ladies’ room,” she said.

She wiped her hands with a paper towel and then reached to shake my hand. What could I do but maintain my sanitary demeanor?

“Do you know where Josh and Mark went?” she asked.

“No,” I answered.

“Oh. I was supposed to screen the rough cut with them at 4 and now I can’t find them,” she said.

“No. I absolutely don’t know anything about Mark or Josh’s whereabouts. They tell me nothing. Nada,” I said.

She pulled at her blue and red nylon hockey jersey and adjusted her barrette to reveal a reddish, horizontally lined forehead that had spent much time in the Southern California sunlight.

“I think something is going on,” she said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You know. Stuff. Hidden agendas,” she said.

“You probably know more than me Frecks. You are the co-EP. I’m a nothing AP,” I said.

“Josh and Mark are very secretive. Which is cool, because people need to be discreet. But if they think they are going to add a seventh girl and seventh guy to the show without consulting me, then I am going to be very angry!”

She walked away.

Something utterly important to her, had been revealed to me, and it had absolutely no interest or value.

I wonder if she realized that the real deception played on her was actually coming from me? I do believe that female intuition is not a myth.

The pussy knows what; the brain has yet to acknowledge.

Linda, Little Linda

I don’t know if I will have children yet. I’m only 28-years-old and the prospect of having to provide for mouths other than myself is not too enticing.

But I have to echo that banal and cliché ridden mouth of Freckles, who spoke so truthfully about the wonder of little Linda, the violet eyed beautiful daughter of Josh and Cipriana. Linda would be the ideal child if one could clone their boss and wives’ DNA.

Cipriana had instructed me to pick up the cupcakes and then swing by her home. She had also asked Zyrtecah, the elderly Armenian nanny, to accompany them to the park to assist with placing the cupcakes and blanket near the sandbox in preparation for the adult arrivals.

After fetching the desserts, I drove up Montana Avenue and turned right on 20th, the affluent and eternally spring-like section of the rich people’s Santa Monica.

The Rubenstein/LaMonica home was a white stucco French maison, with a mansard roof, casement windows and black shutters. It had an opaque glass door, anchored by two clay vases full of white geraniums. The lawn was immaculate and even the dirt had been recently combed with steel rakes. Not a leaf or branch dared cross the line separating sod from shrub. I rang the bell and Zyrtecah opened the door with little Linda holding her hand.

They had dressed Linda in some kind of marvelous, expensively casual, muddy green and rosy pink cotton dress, the kind of garment that is pre-wrinkled and pre-washed, and seemingly dipped into herbs and fresh violets, for when it was worn by the six-year old girl, both the dress and the child seemed in happy holistic harmony.

“Hello birthday girl!” I emitted in my best faker enthusiasm. Fucking little girl’s party interrupting my Sunday football couch time.

Well, who was I to hate little Linda for hitting the genetic and financial jackpot?

“You come vit us?” Zyrtecah asked.

“Yes. I have the cupcakes. So you just tell me where the sandbox is and we can get the party going!” I said. If there was any time to be sarcastic, this seemed to be it. With the Armenian nanny and the child, that is.

Cipriana appeared in the doorway, her black hair, miraculously oiled down with something that smelled like bergamot and lime.

“Hello there! Oh, you brought the cupcakes! Fantastic! Thank you!” she said.

She turned to Zyrtecah. “Let’s get Linda into her car seat. Josh is at work and he is meeting us at the park.”

“What time are the guests leaving?” She asked.

“Leaving?” I asked.

“Yes. I know they arrive around 3pm but I have a massage appointment at 5pm so I want to get everyone out of the park so I can get going. We can sing Happy Birthday, pour the wine, and then socialize. I think, basically, that sounds like a plan. Let’s just get it over with!” she said.

She dialed her mobile phone. “Hi, Josh, it’s me. Just touching base. Please try and start clearing out the party around 4:30, so I can leave. This is confidential, of course. Thanks.”

The Party

We drove up to a park with two large playing fields, and a shaded area with two sandboxes, comfort stations, playground equipment and benches. I had been drinking bottles of iced tea all morning, so I was eager to eliminate, quickly.

I dropped off the women, Cipriana, Zyrtecah and Linda, and the cupcakes, of course, and ran over to the bathroom facilities.

Just as I neared the men’s room entrance, Freckles McFarley ran up to the water fountain. She was carrying a soccer ball, and dressed in a sweaty, torn t-shirt and blue cotton shorts. “Dude! What the hell are you doing here?” she yelled.

“Oh, my gosh! Hello, Freckles! I have to take a pee so please excuse me,” I said.

I ran into the bathroom, and peed what seemed like the longest pee on record. I had hoped that she would not be outside when I emerged from the urine scented, mosquito filled park’s department toilet chamber.

She was sitting on the concrete, right in front of the door. “Well”, I said.

“That was such an exhausting game. We beat the shit out of the skins. I’m going to go home and collapse,” she said.

“I guess I will see you on Monday,” I said.

“You just came to the park to use the bathroom?” she asked.

“No. Actually, I am here with some friends,” I said.

We stood there, looking at each other, awkward and silent. The way her eyes probed mine told me that perhaps she perceived something.

“You are so cool,” she said, “I don’t know anything about you. So long honey.”

She walked over to an old, upright, basket-bedecked bicycle. It was locked to a steel post. She unlocked and mounted the bike, and turned it onto a path that took her further, not closer to, the dangerously conflicting drama of the child’s birthday party. Her biking figure grew smaller in the vanishing path of the parkway. She was unaware of how close she had come to being hurt and humiliated.

And what if Freckles had followed me to the sandbox party? Would I have a job and friends waiting for me at “Whorse Race” the next morning?

I washed my now sweating face in the drinking fountain and let the warm air dry my skin as I briskly strolled back to the sandbox.
Ode to the Birthday Cake

Once, when I was young, so many cupcakes ago, children had birthday cakes. They were baked, boxed, bedecked with candles. The cake candles were lit and blown out and removed. The circular pastry was divided into pie shaped pieces placed on paper plates and passed to each hungry person.

But I was living in modern times, here in Southern California, and the sweetened cupcake with frosting, individually pre-cut and wrapped in paper, requires no ceremony, no clean up. Just eat it and it is gone. Somehow it seems like a cheat, a cheap shortcut, a celebratory scam. The cupcake is feminine and frosty, but oh so crafty in its artfully tiny caloric form. Consume its emptiness and the joy dissipates quickly.

That is what I think about the cake and the cupcake.

Twin Sandboxes

The two-dozen or more adults had arrived at the party. They stood and sat around one of two twin sandboxes where a blanket had been laid out with chilled wines, plastic cups and boxes of colored green, yellow, pink, purple and red cupcakes.

The mixed crowd of mid 30’s men and women were dressed in casual play clothes, infantile sneakers, low cut denim that showed butt cracks, and visibly patterned underwear on the men. The sartorial show was vintage Angeleno: torn, ironic, silly, ersatz cool.

And there was a second sandbox, one that nobody played in, where little Linda sat alone, with a plastic shovel and pail, digging in the dirt. This was her party, or a party in her honor, yet the guests ignored her, as they networked and bullshitted about reality TV, yoga and the bad economy. I walked over to one athletic Latino man and his Asian girlfriend who were speaking to Cipriana.

“Oh, we really dig Silver Lake Cip! It’s very cool. Our whole block is friendly,” he said.

“I know Silver Lake, sort of,” Cipriana said. “Do you live near Silver Lake Cheese and Wine?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Obama Drive bisects Rowena just east of Hyperion!”

“Obama?” she asked.

“Yeah. We love him so much that our whole street got together and renamed it for the Barack Obama!”

“Oh, that is so cool!” Cipriana said.

The time moved swiftly. Cipriana motioned to Josh to light a single cupcake which was then brought over to the lone digger Linda in her sandbox.

All the adults moved, in a ritualistic way, behind the lit cupcake, and towards the child. It seemed vaguely satanic, but was full of laughter and the flip-flip-flop of the feet hitting the sand.

Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday, dear Linda!
Happy Birthday to you!

The sweet little girl blew out her cupcake as the nanny unpeeled the paper around it and fed the morsel into the child’s mouth.

Cipriana was already picking up the dirty paper plates and I ran up with a garbage bag to start cleaning up.

Josh stood on top of a picnic table like a street preacher. “Hi, everyone. We are so happy you came to our daughter Linda’s party. We love all of you. Unfortunately, my wife Cip has got a horrible stomach-ache that she has had since last night. So she has to go home and get rest. All of you are welcome to stay and enjoy the party!”

The crowd let out a visible moan of empathy for Cipriana’s affliction.

Josh walked over to me and put his arm on my shoulder.

“Dude, thank you so much for your help. We really appreciate it. See you tomorrow,” he said.

Cipriana waved good-bye to everyone as she visibly put her right hand on her stomach to sign in pain.

“I hope she feels better. Such a shame to leave her daughter’s birthday party early,” the Asian girl said to me.

The End

Facebook Summer.

“Facebook Summer”

By Andy Hurvitz

It began, as most events do nowadays, inside a mall.

I was eating lunch with my elderly Aunt Norma at the Olive Garden in Woodland Hills, CA. It was her 85th birthday and I had taken her out. I had not seen her for many months, and her sweet green eyes and regal disposition were often teary eyed. She was lonely and I was her only suitor.

We never discussed important things or personal things, only the breezy amusements that never touched on pain or loss or my hidden homosexuality. “So how are your parents doing?” she asked. My father Lester, is her brother.

These parents of mine were also old, but they were living back in Fawnwood, New Jersey, in lush surroundings, near a quiet lake, not far from Manhattan, in a part of the country of old stone walls, rolling hills and Dutch barns. My dad was slowly dying of an incurable illness.  Only his speech and ability to walk were affected.

I answered Aunt Norma in an upbeat, Southern California brightly newscasterish tone. “I think they are doing pretty well. Considering,” I said.

“Any chance they want to move to Los Angeles?” she asked.

“Not if they can avoid it,” I said.

Fifteen years earlier I had moved out to California, partially to avoid living near my mother. To have her faraway was some sort of sabbatical to me, a respite free of guilt, sadness and the implication that I had failed because I wasn’t married with children.

Ten years earlier, my younger brother Charlie moved out here and took a quick, sharp ascent up the Hollywood ladder of fame and success. He married a Persian Jewish girl, they have two kids, and moved to a 10 bedroom house in Tarzana.

“Don’t your folks miss you guys and their grandchildren?” she asked.

The waitress brought a large breadbasket full of buttery garlic rolls.  I went to grab one just as my vibrating mobile phone started dancing in my right pants pocket.

“Aaron?” the voice asked.

“Yes, this is Aaron,” I said.

“This is Mrs. Glenn. I’m a neighbor of your parents. Your mother fell and broke her hip. I’m here looking after your father. He is OK.”

I hung up. I called my brother Charlie who didn’t answer. I knew I would be on plane to New Jersey within 24 hours.

Marching Orders

I am mostly an unemployed writer. Though I try and work, my one big stumbling block in life has been the inability to choose one goal and try and reach it. My entire adulthood has been stuck in a kind of adolescence of confusion about how to earn money.

Charlie called me, barking orders from his Prius.

“You have to go back. Mom is in surgery tomorrow and if you could be there by Wednesday it would be a major help. I’ve got to be in Montreal to shoot a pilot. I can wire you two grand. Call my assistant Melanie and tell her what flight you want to take.”

I had hoped that I would never see the day when I might have to come back to New Jersey to close up my parents’ lives.

That day had arrived.

Tragedy in Lush Surroundings

I had mythologized my time 30 years earlier in Northern New Jersey. In my imagination, I was still 17 years old, and in the summer I would swim in the cool lakes up near Bear Mountain and eat corn-on-the-cob and white peaches from Van Every Farms.

But that was 30 years ago.  When we arrived there in 1979, the street was a dead end, surrounded by acres of woods and an adjacent azalea farm.

In 2003, a developer purchased the woods and bulldozed the trees and built those grotesque, ornate houses of no particular style, obese giants with protruding garages, circular driveways, double entry doorways, hanging chandeliers and SUV’s parked in front.

The quiet street was destroyed. It became a traffic artery of speeding women in sunglasses and Bluetooth headsets followed by Mexican workers whose high-pitched gas blowers and gaseous lawn mowers fouled the hot summer air.

The Day I Arrived

I landed at Newark Airport and a limo brought me to 12 Fawn Lane.

My dad was sitting in a wheelchair in the kitchen. Mrs. Glenn, 85 and widowed, was nervously setting out bagels and cream cheese in front of him when I walked into the house early Saturday night. Her husband of 50 years had just died earlier that year.

“Thank God you’re here Aaron,” she said.

The kitchen countertop was covered with newspapers, magazines, paper, binders, pens, Stickies. My parents saved everything and thus were at a loss to find anything.

Mrs. Glenn had been here setting up house and barely holding onto her sanity. She couldn’t wait to leave. “Your mother’s hospital room is on this piece of paper. She is in Valley Hospital in Ridgewood. Room #405.  Don’t call her tonight. She is sleeping.  I think the surgery went well.”

I dropped my suitcase on the kitchen floor. My father smiled at me and spoke in his disarthic, slurred English.

“Good to see you Aaron. It’s good to have you home,” he said.

Mrs. Glenn walked over to the front door. “I’m down the street if you need me,” she said.

Ataxia

My father couldn’t walk up the stairs alone. He could climb each one, but when he reached the top, it was a precarious and risky moment, as he stumbled to put himself on solid footing, grabbing onto the walls and the railing and reaching for the metal walker.

It had been a gradual breakdown in his health. For years, he had epilepsy, and then about age 70, it seemed that his speech was slurring. He would walk, and then suddenly lose his balance. But he never believed that he was becoming disabled. He held onto my mother for balance, literally grabbing her arms to right himself.

There was no admission that he needed a cane. But when it became impossible for him to stand alone, he was beyond the help of a single steel pole. Now he needed the double stabilizing walker, and soon the walker itself was inadequate for his declining mobility. He was destined for the wheelchair, for that time when one’s aloneness was dependant on the generosity and assistance of others.

He could not push his muscles to urinate and need to self-catheterize with a lubricated plastic tube that he precariously inserted into his penis when he needed to expel.  He carried his “plumbing” as he called it, in a brown purse that hung on the back of the wheelchair.

All these health crises transpired in New Jersey while we children lived in California. So every visit back home became a re-education in the transformation of our father. It was not just aging, it was the evaporation of power, of control, of his self-actualization slipping away. The all knowing, reassuring man who had created us and cared for us, was gone. He now basically was an infant whose very survival was in our hands.

The doctors at Columbia, the ones at Rutgers, the others at UCLA, none of them could diagnose anything specific. They called it Ataxia, but there was no medication, no surgery, no real certainty about how to defeat this insidious vandal of my father’s central nervous system.

I brought my suitcase upstairs and put it into one of the three empty bedrooms that once were full of young and courageous and impetuous people. I collapsed on a dusty comforter covered bed set under a window open to a dark night of humming crickets.

I lay on my back, looking up at the ceiling, tears falling down my face, moistening the pillowcase.

Home Care

“I’m getting you some home care worker. They are going to start tomorrow,” Charlie said.

He was calling from Vancouver, the city he flew to after Montreal. “We are just taking few days off and Sarah came here to stay with me,” he said. “We ate at this awesome sushi restaurant on the water.”

Charlie was hiring a home service that he found online to come into the house to cook meals, to look after my father so I could “have some free time so you don’t go nuts”.  It was $2,000 a week and Charlie was paying for it.

It was peculiar to me, a 45 year-old man, to be back in the place I had lived in during my late teens and early 20s.  This was the house I came back to during summer vacations in college. This was the house I escaped from when my mother vomited after I confessed to her that I preferred to sleep with men.

But that was 20 years ago.

Rewind.
Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan.
A time.
Back in space.
Before the Internet.
Before mobile phones.
Before I had gray hair.

My father was in his bedroom. He walked from the iron posted bed and used his walker to navigate himself into the bathroom. This is also when he sometimes remembered to put his dentures into his mouth. But most mornings, he dressed and brushed his teeth, self-catheterized himself, and then made his way down the long hallway, down 13 stairs, along the central first floor hall and into the kitchen, where he sat down to his usual breakfast of Cheerios, banana, wheat germ and lactose free milk.

A fat Peruvian woman, Berta, came to work. She had remedial English skills but seemed genuine. I struggled to translate my bad Spanish and asked her to make coffee, to help my father upstairs, to give him a shower and assist him with getting dressed. She annoyed my father by shadowing him at his every turn, by waiting outside the bathroom door when he took a shit. “Get out of here!” he shouted and she smiled because she couldn’t understand what he was yelling.

I was living in a nursing home, working as a nurse, a cook, a maid. It was summer. The house was not air-conditioned and my physical endurance toughened as I began to run up and down the stairs to retrieve my father’s dentures, or if I heard a thump on the floor and he had fallen out of bed.

I came to the house weighing 175 pounds, 5′9. Four months later I was 162. But that is getting ahead of myself.

Fawnwood Manor

Most of my life I have known my mother as a dark haired woman, but when I saw her at Fawnwood Manor Rehabilitation Facility, she has patch of white hair and was sitting in bed that she was too weak to climb out of.

Charlie had flown in from Houston, after his Vancouver and Montreal trips, to see about how the family was doing. He was on his mobile phone, talking to a realtor because he was determined to use this time to make my parents sell their home.

“So we are in agreement that they have to move?” he said. I agreed but inside I was not in agreement. The whole world I had believed in, the quiet house near the greatest city in the world, was going to be sold, and my dream of inheriting a lovely home was no more.

My mom had been through her surgery already, and her hip was somehow screwed back together. Her right leg was swollen. And when the nurses lifted her into a hydraulic four-wheeled scale, her water-bloated weight had increased 20 pounds above normal.

Mom had been immobile and there was a fear that perhaps a  clot might form. The physician on duty prescribed a blood thinner, but my brother frantically believed she should be taken back to the hospital for a scan.  She steadfastly refused to be taken by ambulance back to the rotten medical center.

“I’m not going! They said I was OK here!” she said.

“Mom, it’s for your own good,” Charlie yelled.

“No. I trust that I am fine here. I’m not going to the hospital,” she said.

Stephanie Romm

A blonde, middle-aged lady with a strong Long Island accent, her hair scented with Donna Karan perfume, and a beautiful diamond ring on her left finger. This was Stephanie Romm, the best-paid realtor in Fawnwood.

She drove up to our house and met my brother and I on the front porch. “Hello, howawya?” she asked.

She had been circling around my parents for a year, salivating eagerly and awaiting the day when the old and decrepit might finally put the house on the market.  We were there to tell her that we wanted to sell, and that my parents would be agreeable to selling, but that my mom, from her rehab bed, would set the final price.

“Your parents have a lovely home. The bathrooms are old. The kitchen needs remodeling.  I think six-ninety-nine is good. A house just like your parents sold on Old Kinderkamack Lane near the Old Mill for six-ninety-four. But it had air-conditioning,” she said.

Charlie looked at me. “I think that price sounds good. What we need is to get everything in writing and then I can show it to my attorney and hopefully we can get this thing moving.”

On the Front Porch

With my mother in rehab, and my father at home, I couldn’t go out.

I would bring my laptop outside, sit on the front porch wicker chair, and log onto Facebook.

Charlie had set up my parent’s house so that everything was wireless. For this act alone, I was quite grateful. For I literally had nobody to socialize with except my Facebook contacts.

It was strange to see people who were now in their early forties, people I had previously known as young singles living in Manhattan, who now had children and wrinkles.

This was my summer of solitude, punctuated by visits to the rehab center, oriented towards the care of old and disabled people. And yet, here, online, was Facebook where every summer weekend would see the addition of new photo albums like “Amazing Summer Weekend” and “Casper’s 8th Birthday Party”.

They were swimming and smiling, drinking martinis, boating, water skiing, eating cake. These Facebook friends of mine sent hourly updates, updates I could read about after I brought my father his dentures, or drove to the rehab center to deliver my mother fresh underwear. Verbs were expunged, the noun was the action, and I was seeing it online:

“LINDA IS CARNEGIE HALL CONCERT!”
“MARTIN IS BUENOS AIRES VACATION!”
“STEVEN IS GYM THEN DRINKS IN TRIBECA!”
“RICH IS NEW CONDOMINIUM WITH RACHEL LOVING IT!”

There is a modern myth that our Internet has made privacy impossible, that who we are and where we go, and where we’ve been are now public.

But I learned that what we show matters more than who we are. Facebook is not a secret look inside a secret world, it’s anybody’s presentation of what reality they want other people to see.

I was not yet old or sick. But I was surrounded, by these aged and ill humans, and saw that a more youthful time of blithe indifference and ungrateful blessings might end abruptly.  The walker by the stairs, the wheelchair at the kitchen table, the bottles of medication on the counter, the nurses aides, the home health care workers, the eyeglasses, canes, and urine scented air decorated a home that once recklessly entertained lives full of motion and passion, procreation and intoxication.

The air was hot and still this Facebook summer. And the only young and beautiful life was online, in my laptop.

“SAM IS SUSHI IN THE HAMPTONS WITH BEN, BILL AND DYLAN!”

“GINA IS RAIN AND RUNNING AND GETTING IN SHAPE FOR THE MARATHON!”

“PATRICK IS BROOKLYN BRIDGE CHAMPAGNE AND 10TH ANNIVERSARY KISS WITH CYNTHIA!”

“GLOTTY IS LOVE WITH SPRINKLES AND SEX AND MIMOSAS!”

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"Where I Come From" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

What would I tell him? That I was still unemployed after three years? That damn bastard. He was flying in from Denver to L.A. and had to call me up. The same drippy ass, lethargic, nasal Midwestern voice, “Hey Mike, it’s me Larry. I’m going to be in LA next week.”

Larry Kramer had a rich dad. They did something with printing. They had a factory on Fullerton on the NW side of Chicago. Then the father bought a lot of buildings, in depressed areas like Wicker Park. Then this dad died and the real estate became expensive and the rents went up and Larry was swimming in dough.

Larry was a slob. Even in the fourth grade he had a 36-inch waist. He had asthma and a “weak heart” so he was excused from gym class in our Highland Park grade school.

Larry’s mom, Joannie Kushner Kramer, was a beautiful woman. She had red hair, piled high and sprayed solid. She wore Guerlain and pleated, pressed gabardine trousers and smoked Camels.

They lived in a custom-house, built in the late 1950s with a double height living room and a two story deep basement. At the very bottom of the basement they had a freezer stocked with Mounds and Almond Joy bars, and a ping-pong and pool table.

You had to take off your shoes when you went inside the house. The windows, the “Pella” windows, were never opened, but the house was cool inside in the heat of the summer and toasty in the Chicago winter. Rich people live in air-conditioned houses if they can afford it. They never bother with natural weather conditions.

Marv Kramer was a gruff, bow-legged, cigar smoking, Eldorado driving 60-year old. He had fought in the big war and then he fought his new war at the printing plant. They had the contract for every synagogue newsletter in Chicago. It was some kind of tradition going back to Russia. The congregants prayed on “Kramer-print” and when you drove on the Dan-Ryan past Fullerton, you would see a 30 foot high neon sign with a printing press and the words, “K-R-A-M-E-R”.

Mild

I guess if I had one word to describe my own life it would be mild. I was not terribly angry. I was not very ambitious. I laughed easily and drove slowly. I didn’t get upset. I just thought things would come along and eventually I would get married and get a job and have kids and die.

In grade school I regularly earned B- or C+. I sucked at mathematics, but managed to get a C+.
My grades and demeanor and popularity were mildly successful.

My dad died when I was very young and my mother raised me. She worked in the Jewel as a cashier.
We got discounts on ground chuck, milk and produce and even though she earned around $4.50 an hour, we managed to live in a fairly clean and well-kept ranch house near Lake Avenue.

My mom kept a little collection of cameras on a shelf in the dining room. This was a little hobby of hers. There was a Zeiss-Ikon Contaflex, a little Nazi lens from Germany. There was also a Nikon F Mount, a Leica, and an Agfa Automatic 66.

She had once had aspirations to become a photographer, and during her young years in Grand Rapids, Michigan had worked in the Photographer’s Club. Then she met my handsome father, a thin Italian with a pencil thin mustache and a thin waist. They were married ten years, he made her give up photography. They fought a lot. Divorce followed. We moved to Chicago. He stayed back in Michigan.

She brought the cameras along. Put them on a glass shelf. Dusted them weekly. She never shot with them. They just were there as reminders of what she had never been.

Practical Advice

I found, living in the Midwest, that the most mundane people are the most self-assured.

Marv Kramer was like that. He knew just how to get a handle on life. And let you know it.

“If ya want to make money, sell something.”

“I never believed in education. Work is where it’s at.”

“Just pick something and pick at it.” (advice on work)

He pontificated when he walked into his house, after he laid his hat on the hall table, and went into the bathroom to wash his hands.

He was not bothered “by the road less taken”. He was on the crowded highway, the one that most ambitious men took, speeding along in the left lane, passing most of them.

I used to look at him, and think I never want to grow up into someone like that.

Mr. Kramer, as I called him, might ask some questions of me, but they were never probing, and perhaps they weren’t even sincere?

“Whom do you like, the Cubs or the White Sox?”

“Whom do you think is tougher, you or Larry?”

“Where do you want to go to school, Harvard or Yale?”

They were questions not to make you think, but to make sure you thought just like he did.

Regret

One day, when we were walking home from our last day of class in 9th Grade, I told Larry something I regret to this very day.

“I hate your fucking father ,” I said.

He suddenly was injured, sick, cheeks desaturated. His face seemed to nearly collapse. “Why would you say a fucking thing like that?” he asked.

“He’s a fucking ass hole. I just think he sucks,” I said.

“I ought to pound your face in,” he said. But he still couldn’t understand why I said it.

“He makes a ton of money, and you live like princes, and your mom doesn’t have to work, and you keep your fucking air-conditioning on all summer and you vacation in Florida or Arizona every year,” I rattled it all off, the damning evidence of decadence.

“So! I can’t help it. What do you want me to do about it?” he said.

“Just take what I said and think about it. My mom works as a cashier to support me and I don’t take any of it for granted,” I said. Somehow my moral superiority excused me from gross insensitivity.

“You know what! We aren’t friends anymore! You aren’t coming over anymore. You aren’t my friend,” he said. He pushed me and then ran away.

I was lying on the grass. I had just ruined a friendship and I was just thinking of how I kind of liked ruining good things for no good reason.

Retirement

Mom worked at the Jewel on Touhy in Skokie. Then she was transferred to the Jewel in Edgebrook where she stayed for a year. Then they put her up in Glenview, closer to our home in Highland Park.

She had worked as a cashier for so long that she trained the new cashiers on the automated scanning machines. The lasers: a miracle device that were supposed to make it easier to ring up customers.

But they caused the older customers discomfort. It went too fast for the old biddies who couldn’t see how much they were charged for each item.

Then the automated SKUs sometimes didn’t compute and the cashier had to enter each number on a product by hand. The lines grew longer, the impatience of both the workers and shoppers increased.

Mom was older and she earned $20 an hour, plus benefits. She was part of a union. She wore a special brass pin that said, “Genevieve/1970” the year she started at Jewel.

If she retired, in 1995, she would collect a pretty good pension for the rest of her life. But if she could stand on her feet until 2000, she would greatly increase her retirement income. The choice was easy.

She rang up groceries until the millennium.

Grades

I hated to study.

I had this recurring dream: that I was in a classroom and the teacher was passing out a math test that I had never studied for.

Only it wasn’t a dream. This was exactly how I went to school.

I wasn’t doing drugs. I wasn’t studying. I wasn’t playing sports. I’m not sure what I was doing.

When I think of high school, it is a blur of hallways with lockers. Bullies and bitches and running to the next class.

And the holidays! So many of them in America: Columbus Day and Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, Martin Luther King, Abe Lincoln, George Washington, Passover, Easter, Spring Break, Summer Vacation. God and heroes, harvests and resurrection. The beach….

The Mirror

People told me I was good-looking. It was a blessing, so I was told, to have clear skin, lots of thick hair, a wide forehead, a lean body, broad shoulders.

But when you are born like this, you don’t have any other image of yourself to contrast it to. You aren’t old yet, so your youth is just what it is. You eat badly, you don’t exercise, you don’t have to try hard, and still…..

“Wow, you are really handsome.”

It’s a good thing. You don’t have to try. It just pours in like a dividend or an inheritance.

Before Graduation

In my Senior year, almost as a throwaway, I decided to run cross-country. There I was, running everyday after school, with a bunch of other guys who ran much faster than me. The coach, Harold Serban, was an earnest blue-eyed Lutheran from Arlington Heights, with a close-cropped hair-cut and aqua eyes. He stood along the track eyeing us all like the rotten fuck-offs we could be. When his gaze locked onto you, you were in his sights, marked for assassination.

“I don’t like the way you run,” he said to me after one particularly breathless and exhausting spin around the track.

“I’m sorry?”

“No. This isn’t about an apology. It’s about your attitude. You have to stop skipping. You are relaxing in the end, instead of giving it your all,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Damn it!” he said as he pulled me by my sweatshirt hood into his face space. “Don’t apologize. Take action and show me what you can do! I don’t want anybody on this team who isn’t trying their hardest!”

The next week, I ran my hardest. I really pushed myself. At the Niles North meet, I ran the 800 meters. I came in last.

The week after that, I ran myself ragged. I loaded up on carbs, like spaghetti, and ate chocolate bars and drank Gatorade, milk shakes and cheeseburgers. I gained 3 pounds.

But I didn’t win any races. I dropped off the team. I wasn’t going to let any coach tell me that I wasn’t trying.

About a week before graduation, I drove over to the Jewel on Waukegan Road in Glenview to pick up my mom.

Sitting on a lawn chair near the front entrance was Joannie Kramer. She was smoking a cigarette and seeming to enjoy the spring sun. I walked up to her.

“Hi. I don’t know if you remember me Mrs. Kramer, but I am an old friend of Larry’s,” I said.

She got up and grinned and extended her hand. “Why how are you? I wouldn’t have recognized you. You grew up so much! You boys played together, you were such good friends.”

“Yes. I still see Larry in school but he runs around with a different crowd than me,” I said.

“He got into Yale. Yes, he’s going east in the fall!” she said.

“What brings you all the way up to Glenview?” I asked.

“The club. I just played tennis and I’m waiting for my husband to run inside and grab us some dinner,” she said.

I was here to pick up my mother, the cashier. I didn’t care to tell her that.

Marv Kramer walked out with two paper bags of groceries. He immediately saw me and put them down. He hugged me.

“My boy! We thought you had dropped off the face of the Earth. Larry still talks about you,” he said.

“I heard he’s going to Harvard,” I said.

“Yale. Yale University in Connecticut,” he said.

I had my hands in my pockets. I was smiling at both of them while shoppers went in and went out. We were momentarily united in an awkward moment.

“Please say hi to Larry,” I said.

“Yes, yes. We will,” Mrs. Kramer said.

“Well good-bye,” I said. They waved and walked to their car.

I went inside the store and picked up my mom.

I don’t think that either of the Kramers had remembered my name.

The Flat Streets

Almost every street in Chicago, except for a few, runs in a straight line. I can think of a few, like Lincoln or Milwaukee that are diagonal, but only one curves and it is called Sheridan Road.

Sheridan Road was where I escaped to when I dreamt of leaving Chicago. I would drive up, starting in Evanston, and pass through Wilmette, past the Bahai Temple, and then enter that green, lush, verdant, elegant precinct Kenilworth, past Winnetka, Glencoe and back home to Highland Park.

As an admitted failure, I would see the rows of identical yellow brick homes on our street and think not of how I might avoid living here, but of how I might one day end up in one of these.

There is nothing wrong with living in a clean, sterile ranch house, with crew cut shrubs and polished aluminum storm windows. This is what makes Chicagoland great in its entirety.

But after high school ended, and I graduated 464th out of a class of 530, and knew that I would never be inside the hallowed walls of Princeton, Yale or Madison, I had to plan an escape.

Woodland Hills

I now live in Woodland Hills, California deep inside the San Fernando Valley. On Friday nights, I eat in the Olive Garden, and I buy my books at Barnes and Noble and shop for groceries at Whole Foods, and rarely go west of Calabasas or east of DeSoto.

We had another day of 110 degree heat, our 15th in a row. It’s October 11th and I don’t think the temperature has gone below 99 in four months.

I applied for a job, not long ago, at the new giant Ralphs Market they are building up on VanOwen and I think I’m confident that I might be hired as a cashier there.

Mom died last year and I flew into Chicago and we had a quiet service at the chapel, and then she was buried way out in St. Charles.

I hope I have a job by the time Larry Kramer comes into LA. He told me about a big Brazilian steakhouse where you can get huge portions of food merely by putting a green light in front of your plate and then the waiter will slice another slab for you.

I really like LA. It’s so much better than Chicago. There is just so much more to do out here and I am really confident about where life is taking me. I’m not going to shovel snow, or look at gray skies ever again.

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"The Young Lady in the Range Rover" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

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Zzyzx Road, originally uploaded by slworking2.

The Angry Ones

There are a lot of angry people in Los Angeles. They are also pissed off in Pasadena. Short tempered in Sherman Oaks. Annoyed in Manhattan Beach. They are enraged when you are on the 405 and trying to get over to the right lane to exit. They are furious when you drive too slowly down Ventura Boulevard and they want to pass you. They are irate when you take too long at the ATM and choleric when you use your ATM to pay for groceries in the checkout lane.

It’s 3pm and the young lady in the Range Rover is pulling out of Ralphs market and the light is green. She is annoyed that an old woman is crossing the street, taking her time. The young lady just got into an argument with the cashier at Ralphs who told her that the coupon for Tide expired yesterday on October 31st. “Who the hell is that bitch to tell me that I can’t use my coupon just one day after it expired?” The Range Rover gets stuck behind three Latinos in a pick-up truck and the young lady is damned angry. “Who the hell are they to drive in the left lane?” She honks her horn and gives them the finger and they honk and wave back.

In LA, there are seemingly more mad people per square mile than anywhere else in the United States. How they got that way is anybody’s guess. Maybe they moved to California with the idea that everyone out here is stupid and then they found out that people here are not stupid—they are very stupid. Maybe the angriest ten percent of the population here is tired of too many cars on the road. Maybe they are angry that a ballot initiative to limit public transportation funds actually just passed.

The young lady is driving a Range Rover equipped with:

· Three-point belts and headrests that swing down from the ceiling.

· A 3.9-liter V-8 with a new “Thor” intake system for an extra 6 hp and 18 pound-feet of torque.

· A new four-speed electronic automatic transmission with a sport mode when the transfer case is in high range and a manual mode when it is in low.

It is 5pm on the 405 “San Diego” freeway. The young lady is stuck in traffic again. An overturned milk truck dumped its cargo on the road and Caltrans is cleaning it up. The highway is backed up for 4 miles and the young lady is angry because she won’t get home in time to change for dinner and meet Gina for a drink. She is breaking up with Mike, the angry boy from Indiana, and wants to talk about it.

This Magical City

Wilshire Boulevard extends miles from downtown to the Pacific. Some of the landmarks on this fabled street include:

· Bullocks Department Store (closed).

· The Miracle Mile, the Museum of the City of Los Angeles, the Petersen Car Museum, the La Brea Tar Pits.

· The May Co.(closed).

· The Ambassador Hotel (closed, may become a high school).

· MacArthur Park: open to derelicts and druggies.

Wilshire is the arterial heart of Los Angeles. It is the Michigan Avenue, the Fifth Avenue, the Champs d’Elysee of this city. Dead at night with its shuttered shops, dark streets, missing pedestrians. Not one outdoor restaurant. Not one lively stretch of life. Neon signs from the 20’s hang on buildings with no inhabitants. Even the beautifully built, Moorish style synagogue is out of business.

10pm on Wilshire Boulevard. The young lady in the Range Rover speeds by. She is going 60 miles per hour. She runs through every green light. Her foot is slamming the accelerator. She runs through every red light. She is traveling faster than a bullet train. She doesn’t know where she is going, but nobody better get in her way. She is in control. She has a cell phone, a satellite navigation system, a pistol in her glove compartment. She has her bottled water, her cold Starbucks coffee from this morning, her half eaten Power bar crumpled on the floor. She is 11% body fat and trying to get down to 9%. She doesn’t have time to talk. She is on her way home to Brentwood, the former home of OJ Simpson and Joan Crawford.

Midnight. The young lady in the Range Rover is on her way to Vegas for the weekend. She called the Bellagio and got a room for $110. The roads are packed. The 10 Freeway is bumper to bumper with everyone trying to leave LA on Friday night. There is only one way to cross the desert at night, according to the young lady, and that is in your Range Rover. It is equipped so that you can pull off road, sleep in your car overnight and feel totally safe with the alarm turned on and the gun in the glove compartment.

The Boys

Just a few miles behind the young lady in the Range Rover are Angus Kim, Chuck Sweeney, Ryan Ho and Johnny Sporzie. They are all 19 years old and fresh out of high school. They grew up in Bella Vista and are in the same gang. They call themselves “The Warriors”. They don’t like Bella Vista, but that’s where they are from and they aren’t going anywhere else. Angus Kim has a three-year old daughter, Dedonna, and Johnny is also the father of a baby boy. Ryan just got out of prison– he served 9 months for burglary. Chuck is the good guy—he wants to be a prison guard because prisons are a “growth industry.”

The boys don’t remember when Bella Vista had truck farms with orange groves, acres of lemon orchards, walnut trees, lettuce, strawberries, broccoli and cantaloupes. They don’t know about wooden houses with wide framed porches, the 4-H club, the old Presbyterian Church founded by the earliest settlers. They don’t know about the Southern Pacific train, the streetcars, the artesian wells underneath their hometown. They don’t know about irrigation, squatter’s rights, the history of Bella Vista. They don’t remember when Marlon Brando played in “The Wild One” and a generation fell in love with movie rebels on bikes who rode out into places like Bella Vista and took over towns for a few desperate days.

The young men are not like young men once were in Bella Vista. Angus Kim has never tied a necktie around his neck. Johnny has never read a novel from cover to cover. Angus Kim never met his own father. Chuck cannot name the states on California’s eastern border. These young men were born when Jimmy Carter was in office but cannot tell you whom Jimmy Carter was.

Last year, Ryan Ho got angry. His girlfriend had asked him to help her fill out a driver’s license application and he couldn’t understand what the abbreviations “ht.” and “wt.” meant.

The young men are driving Angus Kim’s car, a 2002 Chevy Suburban. His car payments total about $450 a month and he lives at home. He doesn’t save a penny but he has the baddest ass car on his block. Angus Kim hangs a cross from the rear view mirror and has strawberry air freshener glued onto his dashboard. His hair is cut razor short—like Lou Diamond Phillips. Angus Kim thinks (at least people tell him) that he looks tougher with a goatee. Chuck teases Johnny about his growing gut and then they all decide to pull into a Taco Bell and get dinner. Taco Bell sucks–but it is better than Burger King because Taco Bell has baked beans and Frostee Freezes.

The boys haven’t been outside of Bella Vista much. There was a road trip down to visit a couple of buddies stationed at Camp Pendleton. There was another trip to Santa Barbara. “Shit that was a long fuckin’ ass trip.” Never again! Staying home is better.

Bella Vista is pretty cool. They just opened up a new pastel stucco Bella Vista View Mall with some good shops like Ross Dress for Less, Athlete’s Foot, Starbucks Coffee, The Sneaker Outlet. The boys hang out at Bella Vista View Mall almost every Saturday afternoon and they check out the girls who work at Donut Queen because Angus Kim loves the Chocolate Cream filled donuts there. The Bella Vista Mall is painted pretty cool colors on the outside. Lots of pinks, yellows, ochres, blues, greens. Jutting angles and diagonal designs. No big boxes for Bella Vista. There are huge palm trees, fountains, and an enormous indoor skating rink when the desert gets about 112 degrees.

Young Lady in the Desert

The young lady in the Range Rover is driving in the desert in the dark. The yellow lines on the two-lane highway are lit up with her headlights. She is going about 80 miles an hour and should be in Vegas in about two hours. She just passed Barstow and the young lady had stopped to take a leak in the Chevron station near the 15 Freeway. She thought about staying overnight in Barstow. It was too tacky.

Barstow was in the lyrics of the song “Route 66″ but the young lady has never heard that song or Nat King Cole. She doesn’t really give a shit about old songs and she hated Frank Sinatra and was glad to see him die. She only cares about the here and now and what she can hear on the radio now. It’s very annoying when you are 120 miles from Los Angeles and you can’t listen to the radio and its the middle of the night and you are lonely.

The young lady takes out a cigarette and lights up. The nicotine keeps her calm and keeps her thin. She isn’t dating anyone– so no man is going to be offended if she smells like nicotine– so fuck ‘em.

Boys in the Desert

Angus Kim, Chuck Sweeney, Ryan Ho and Johnny Sporzie are going 85 miles an hour on their way to Vegas. Finally. Angus Kim had to stop in Barstow and buy a lottery ticket. They pass the young lady in the Range Rover and barely notice that she is driving alone. Chuck is driving, Ryan is asleep in the back seat, and Angus Kim and Johnny are awake but unthinkingly dreaming. Angus Kim opens a Corona and takes a swig. One beer isn’t going to hurt him—he can drive intoxicated. Last year, he drove all the way from San Diego to Bella Vista without an accident after he drank three martinis and two beers.

Seat belts are a hassle and the young lady in the Range Rover would rather not wear one. But Range Rovers are about safety and so are seat belts. That is why she keeps the AAA card in the wallet, the spare tire in the back, the flashlight on the floor, the gun in the glove compartment and a phone in the car.

The four boys are speeding. They are going 95 miles per hour and should be in Vegas in another hour and a half. They will arrive about 4 am but who cares? The casinos are open all night and so are the restaurants. They are really excited to get into a casino and win big. Johnny’s friend, Roberto Demisson, won $500,000 at a slot machine last summer. That’s the way Vegas is—you never know when you are going to win big.

At the Nevada-California border, in the town of Cauldron, a new giant outlet mall has opened with last years discount excitement merchandise from Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Swatch and Guess. These shops are on the girl’s mind.

A New Morning

The sun rises and the desert is lit with a faint orange light. It’s a new morning in the Mojave, an ecologically endangered desert. The young lady in the $50,000, two-ton vehicle, shares her environment with threatened desert tortoises, golden eagles, Nelson bighorn sheep, Gila woodpeckers and Mojave ground squirrels. She doesn’t care about the Bighorn sheep habitat, or even what a Native American is. She hasn’t looked at the scenic mountain range, valleys, bajãdas, washes, and hills all around her. She passes the piñon but wouldn’t know its name. She is minutes from the Avawatz and the Soda Mountains and the Kingston Range– but their colors and shapes can’t compare to the neon at Caesar’s Palace and the big buffet at the Paris. All this girl knows is that she has to get to Vegas by morning to hit the stores and the casinos.

The last giant sloping mountain pass at Nevada’s border looms ahead. The young lady is tired and will probably stop at Vodka Viktor’s for breakfast. The boys are a couple of hundred feet behind her. They also want to stop off at Vodka Viktor’s and get a bite to eat.

An Evil Mirage

Cauldron is a desert mirage constructed by corrupted architects and pure hearted mobsters. A twenty-story hotel in the shape of a red barn sits on the east of the highway. A roller coaster cuts through the lobby. Giant tractor- trailer trucks sit in the parking lot. Acres of cars and simmering asphalt greet the visitor. A 40 foot wide neon sign advertises, “Prime Rib: $4.50″ Everyone eats like a winner here.

According to the owners of Vodka Viktor’s, there really was a Vodka Viktor! Years ago, a two-lane road crossed the desert to Las Vegas. Hot, dusty travelers used to stop at the California-Nevada state line at a two-pump gas station on the spot where Vodka Viktor’s Casino stands today. The gas counter was run by an ornery, old-west character who got his nickname from the vodka cases he stored in a hidden cave across the highway from his filling station.

A Place to Park

The young lady pulls off the highway and parks in Vodka Viktor’s parking lot. She sees a parking space near the entrance at the same moment that the boys see it. The two SUV’s stop to see whom will grab the prize. But she accelerates, cuts them off and wins it. She puts her gun into her purse. She grabs her bottled water and her car keys and purse and goes into the hotel. “Fucking bitch!” yells Angus Kim. “Cunt!” screams Chuck Sweeney. Johnny Sporzie adds, “I’d like to kill that bitch!’ The boys find a spot further down, park and pile out of their car.

Styled rage

This is what the boys looked like as they entered the Casino:

Angus Kim: White oversized T-shirt creased in the middle, LeTigre type knit shirt (oversized) and worn buttoned to the top and un-tucked. Brown oversized Dickie work pants.

Chuck Sweeney: Oversized starched and creased Levi jeans. His pants are worn low, “sagging” and cuffed inside at the bottom and dragging on the ground; Backwards baseball cap (black with the initials “TW” or THE WARRIORS). Hair combed straight back, extremely short cut; Cut off work-type, under-the-knee, short pants worn with knee-high socks.

Ryan Ho: Black “Kings” jacket. Pin-striped imitation baseball style oversized shirt; Black stretch belt with chrome or silver gang initial belt buckle. Unfastened overalls.

Johnnie Sporzie: Oversized plaid, dark Pendleton-type long sleeve wool shirt; All white tennis shoes with black shoelaces; Black woven cross worn around the neck.

Angus Kim, Chuck Sweeney and Ryan Ho go to play blackjack but Johnnie Sporzie goes to the men’s room. He is the first to spot the young lady in the Range Rover who stole the parking space outside of the restroom. She is wearing black silk Ralph Lauren trousers that hug her tight butt. Johnnie hasn’t jacked off for three days and is horny as hell. The young lady doesn’t know she is being watched. She is looking for the rest room and she found it. Johnnie follows her into the ladies room.

The young lady goes right into a stall and sits on the toilet. She can hear someone enter the restroom. She looks under the stall door and can see a man’s legs. She feels threatened. She looks inside her purse and makes sure her gun is inside. Angus Kim hangs out next to the restroom, looking for Johnnie and suspects that he might have gone into the ladies room to get bonus points for rape and murder.

Johnnie is indeed inside and has a sharp Henckels German made knife ready for use when the young lady comes out of the stall. The knife is extremely lethal. It cost $129.00 and was purchased at the Bella Vista View Mall last week.

Vodka Viktor’s casino had a horrible murder in late 1995. A seven year old girl, whose father was gambling, wandered off in the casino and was abducted and later murdered by a 19 year old boy from Long Beach, Ca. This young murderer stuffed the girl’s face into a toilet and then strangled her to death. He later was apprehended, tried and sentenced to death.

As Angus Kim nervously waits outside, he hears the sound he had heard so many times. A gunshot. No screams, no struggle. That was a gun he heard, wasn’t it? The young lady in the Range Rover emerges from the rest room elegantly composed. She combs her lustrous blonde hair back and calmly walks up to a security guard and takes him inside the ladies room.

Angus Kim knows what’s happening. All of a sudden, he runs to the tell Ryan and Chuck. Shocked? Shocked. But nobody is going to wait for Johnnie or the police or to see what went on in the ladies room. The three boys dash out of the casino and into the Chevy Suburban and are off into the desert, without Johnnie.

Johnnie lies mortally wounded on the floor of the ladies room. Blood covers his oversized plaid, dark Pendleton-type long sleeve wool shirt. His once all white tennis shoes are splattered red. His dying hand clasps the black cross around his neck.

Two cops enter the bathroom with two more security guards. The young lady in the Range Rover is escorted out of the bathroom and into a waiting sheriff’s car outside of the casino.

She cannot believe what has happened to her. But she is thankful that she carried a gun and thought about her own protection first. She will never again think of canceling her NRA membership. She carried a firearm because she was prepared she beat the odds.

Cauldron and the Vodka Viktor’s Casino offer a night’s free accommodations to the lady. She spends several hours in the casino and actually walks away with an extra $5,000. Naturally, she will hire a lawyer and probably sue the casino– but for now she is satisfied. The casino even offers to ship her car back to Brentwood and fly her home first class. She politely declines. She would rather drive back to Brentwood in her Range Rover.

# # # # #

"The Roundhouse" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

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Sliver…, originally uploaded by freelancevirtuoso.

The Roundhouse
By Andrew B. Hurvitz

2040 A.D. I am riding on the magnetic train at 2 am. I can see the lights of the San Fernando Valley in the distance, the yellow stars of houses, cars and the twinkling flickers of the firmament. The train I ride is so smooth, so quiet. The blue carpets smell fresh, the pure air is spiked with oxygen, courtesy of the LAPE. (Los Angeles People Express)

I am 40 years old and have lived in this city my whole life. When I was very young, things were very different here. The traffic was horrendous. One of my earliest memories is riding in the back of my parent’s 1999 Chevy Suburban as my dad screamed at my mom.
“Sarah, I can’t stand this city anymore.”

“Quiet, the baby is sleeping.”
“The baby is up! Can’t you see him smiling? I see him in the rear view mirror! Hi, Hobby! Daddy hates this traffic and wants to move his family out of L.A! Don’t you think we should get out of here? Hobby, do you want Daddy and Mommy to move you to Las Vegas?”

Naturally, I couldn’t really respond rationally. I just knew from an early age that Dad was miserable in the City of Angels. He was a frustrated film- maker, enjoying little success and depending on his wife to earn the bucks as an architect. Mom made good money and quietly supported us through Dad’s tantrums and ejections from the studios of Hollywood.

We stayed on though. California’s population grew from 35 million in 2000, to 60 million today. Los Angeles was losing people early in the 21st Century but that was before the Roundhouse. God bless the Roundhouse, that’s what people say all the time. Without it, Los Angeles would have died. California might not have become the nation it is today without the Roundhouse.

The train begins its gradual descent into the Valley and I see the Roundhouse in the distance. What a beautiful sight it is! Ten stories tall, round, built of red brick with thick Roman arches at the base. The roof is built of Spanish tile and lit up with a thousand tiny lights.
The tracks go right through the building and curve around.

I get out of the train and look around the dazzling interior. It is ten stories tall inside and the walkways curve around the building. It’s like the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Except our Roundhouse is a mall. No wait! It is more than a place to shop, it is our holy cathedral. The architecture recalls the interior of the Bahai Temple in Chicago, St. Peter’s in Rome and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.

It is so late, and my eyes are heavy, but I want to go say a prayer. My choice tonight: St. Jude. I step before the altar and kneel, and his lovely image comes on screen. I push “Byzantine Jude” and he appears before me as he was painted in 1450. I recite a prayer which I know by heart:

“St. Jude, please intercede upon my behalf and pray to the Holy Father for my liberation. Please free me to leave this city which I love, so that I might again know freedom.”

He responds with animatronic grace: “My child, I shall ask our Lord to answer your request. I must ask you one question though: Why would you want to leave this paradise on earth, this city of angels, which God himself has given to St. Disney?”

I cannot answer Jude, right now, for I don’t have an answer really. I just know that I want to get out of this place. I am 40, restless, tired of perfectly sunny days, efficient public transportation, guaranteed health care and the cult of Mickey.

Yes, I work for Disney. But isn’t that obvious since I am a resident of Los Angeles, and a citizen of the National Entertainment State? I live and breathe–the religion of entertainment– which is one and the same as the holy state. A perfect trinity of celebrity, fame, money. We are all famous here in LA, but mostly we are well taken care of. St.Disney sees to that.

I walk around the Roundhouse in the wee small hours of the morning. Every shop is open, staffed by robots. I pass by: The Shrine of the Gap; The Church of the Holy Banana Republic; Our Lady of Victoria’s Secret. I can either pray or shop. I might do both. Using my fingerprint as collateral, I pick out a handsome brown sweater from the racks at the Gap and pause to light a candle as I leave the store. A voice from inside intones:

“In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, thank you for shopping here.”

When I was little, I remember being told that the church was separate from the state which was something different than the corporation. But the War of Passivity (2015-2019) abolished all that. The passive American fell asleep and abandoned his voting rights, his opinions, his public spirit. He became a mere viewer of his country and the result was the bloodless revolution which made America into a National Entertainment State where consumers and viewers live under a Holy Entertainment empire.

Enough of my history lesson.

I’m walking again and I stop at my next favorite shrine, the Church of Samantha which is in Our Brother of Warners. There she is! My favorite saint. She was born over a hundred years ago, a human actress, Elizabeth Montgomery. She lived on Morning Glory Circle and married a mortal named Darrin. Darrin and Samantha had two children: Tabitha and Adam (who were also witches).

I grab a prayer card and recite the following: “May Maurice and Endora bless you my child, for you are the fair haired beauty who weareth the white mini and disappear into the mists of time to work magic upon the world. May Uncle Arthur bring you laughter, Doctor Bombay good health, and Gladys Kravits a concern for thy neighbor.”

Ever since I was a little boy, the holy spirit of Samantha has infused me with the greatest hope. I looked to her and imagined that I too could disappear and escape this perfect place. But alas, it was not to be.

A year ago, in 2039, I was arrested. I was riding on the Dreamworks line and had just got on at Culver City and was heading west towards the Airport. I had planned to get to LAX and tell the customs officers that I had official business in Las Vegas. Secretly, I was planning to get to Vegas and hike across the desert to Utah, which is still a part of the United States. If I could get to Utah, the Mormons would consider me an asylum seeker and I might finally get out of Los Angeles.

But I was stupid. I was openly carrying a map of Salt Lake City and reading it on the train. An overhead camera recorded my illicit reading and I had no answer when the policeman in his mouse eared hat came up to me on the train.

“Hi, son. In the name of Eisner, where are you headed?”
“Uh, I have no real destination….”
“What do you mean? What category are you? Producer, director, or consumer?”
“I’m a producer, I think. I’m doing research on Utah for a project in development at Burbank Center. This map is for a script I’m writing for an elderly actor, Leonardo.”

“That’s easy enough to verify. May I see your NES I.D. card please?”
“Yes sir. Here it is. As you can see, I am in the Sherman Oaks district on Funicello Street.”
“Nice area. You guys won an award for the prettiest geraniums on Ventura Blvd. I think.”
“That’s right. We will do anything to make our company proud.”
“Let me take your card and I ‘ll just phone into Burbank. I’ll be right back.”

He took my card, my ID, and I was suddenly on the verge of arrest. When he came back, I could tell that Burbank didn’t confirm my work record and I would be arrested.

“I’m sorry Hobby. You don’t have any script in development. Why are you on your way to the airport and carrying that map? Be straight with me boy!”

I looked at his Seven Dwarf pointed badge and the engraved medal of Jenna Elfman and knew he was quite devout. He would be a tough cookie to lie to.

Maybe honesty would be the best policy…

“That’s right officer. I lied to you. I was on my way to LAX to escape to Nevada so I could run across the Utah state line and claim political asylum in the United States.”

“Son, please stick your arms straight out.”

I stuck my wrists out. The cop flashed a laser gun at my hands. My arms froze. The train came to an emergency stop. At the Centinela platform, a dozen mouse cops met us at the train doors.

I was in a jail in Santa Monica. Not like the jails of the 20th Century, but a cartoonish prison full of wacky effects. This branch of the National Entertainment State Penitentiary was one of Michael Graves’ last projects. Picture a turquoise box on flamingo’s feet. The very top of the building (where the guards tower stood) has pink wings which jut out. The sides of the box are painted with red and white stripes like candy canes.

The prison interiors are equally as childish to remind you of what you are missing outside.

If you spoke up and insulted the guards, you risked treason charges. I saw one lady prisoner who laughed when she was first brought in and the guard said, “Lady, laugh all you want because you aren’t going to watch another TV show again! No Internet, no trailers, no US magazine, nothing!” She collapsed right there in the hall.

My trial was speedy. I was brought up before Her Video Honor, Judge Barbara Eden. The Judge was a perfectly preserved specimen of time that could think and rationalize like a human being but instead peered down at me from atop an elevated wide screen TV.

“Oh, my darling Hobby. How it irks me to see that you want to leave our little kingdom! What a naughty boy you are! Perhaps I should blink my eyes and we could go into the bottle and do a little talking! Would you like that my evil sweet?”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or shit in my pants. I was terrified and excited to think that I might be transported into the bottle of the Jeannie and have her rub up against me in her harem pants. But I was also scared that she might blink me and put me onto a bed with a thousand nails as she had once done to Major Nelson.

“Please Jeannie, I mean Judge Jeannie. Do not punish me. I am guilty of wanting to run away. Just as Amanda Bellows wanted to escape Doctor Bellows when you put a spell on her to make her like Roger Healy. I am just like Amanda, I was under a spell. But I am better now. I won’t run away.”

“Very good answer. You are well schooled in the tenants of our faith. Were you an altar boy at the Church of the Rerun? It says that you were quite a brilliant theologian who knew all of the episodes of “I Dream of Jeannie” by heart.”

“Yes, Jeannie. I would say that I bow in your presence. You are one of the holy spirits of this kingdom and I often light a candle in the Roundhouse at your altar.”

“Ah, the Roundhouse! Is it not the greatest gift of his Eisner to the people of Los Angeles?”

“Yes, Jeannie. It is a most high honor to visit the Roundhouse and pray and shop and shop and pray.”

I was getting calmer even as I tripped and repeated my words. But something must have worked, for I was released on a first offense charge and put on probation. I would have to report to the Nielsen house of Community service two days a week for the next year.

I kissed the image of Judge Jeannie on screen and then the doors of the prison opened to the glorious sunrise over the Pacific Ocean.

The Nielsen house was in an old section of Van Nuys where gangs had once sold drugs on the street in the early part of this century. A museum called, THE HOUSE OF REMEMBERENCE had many photos on display of the awful conditions present in Los Angeles circa 2000. I was assigned to the photo collection.

An elderly woman, Mrs. Nielsen, told me that her father had been a photographer and taken many pictures of the city and she herself was a keen historian. She knew the history of the old ranchos, the orange groves, the onslaught of smog, the post WWII suburban development, the freeways, thetax revolts of the late 20th century. With great emotion, she explained how Los Angeles life was in the “old days”.

“Men carried guns and children went to school afraid for their lives. Many people lived without health insurance, and there was no public transportation or clean air. It was a real angry, violent, crazy place. People would deface the walls and gangs would kill you if you looked at them the wrong way.”

“Is that why there were bars on the windows that you see in some old houses?”

Her face lit up. “Oh, yes. You couldn’t live normally in those days. They would just break into your house if you didn’t protect it. Thank goodness we have the National Camcorder Act for everyone’s protection.”

It was my silly job to provide tours for the busloads of school children who came to tour the museum. I would scare them with the ugly photos: the pit bulls, the shaved heads of the punks, the bloody murders, the graffiti scarred walls.

You could hear the children’s disgust with the old Los Angeles.
“Icky! Who would want to live in a house with prison bars?”
“How come all of the cars are stuck in traffic? Didn’t they have mandatory carpools?”
“Look how ugly the kids were! They probably didn’t pray to Mickey did they?”

Clean hearted, clean intentioned, the children of the National Entertainment State were perfect little automatons who would grow up to become movie watchers, Internet surfers, web producers, and virtual athletes. They were in spirit most close to the vision of his eminence Eisner, but to me they were fanatic in their intolerance of imperfection.

I would get off work around 5pm and usually take the Magnotrain up to the Roundhouse for dinner. I loved the Old Carrot Cake Factory, because the cakes there had beautiful images of Bugs Bunny on top. This restaurant was free to members of Our Brothers of Warners but I had to pay.

Standing outside of the restaurant one night, as the trains streamed in and out of the Roundhouse, I spotted a gorgeous young blond girl with long denim clad legs and a skimpy cotton lacey top. She couldn’t have been more than 20 years old. I felt ridiculously old, but she was also looking at the carrot cake and seemed too poor to buy herself a piece. I approached her.

“Would you like a piece of that?”
She jumped back as if I had startled her.
“Uh, no. I am just on my way to LAX. I mean I’m going to Pasadena. Good bye.”

Something seemed terribly wrong. I thought I had frightened her. I followed her through the crowds in the Roundhouse, careful to not be too conspicuous.

I could see that she was carrying a book: New York, 1960. It was a big book, probably full of photographs of New York in 1960, I thought. She seemed to have trouble walking, maybe it was her two inch clog heels.

She was 20 feet ahead of me, and I dodged in and out of shoppers to try and hide and follow her at the same time. I suspected that she was not on her way to Pasadena, but going to the Airport as I had done a year earlier.

There was no law against riding the rails to LAX, but if you were going there you better have a good reason as it was always under high security alert.

She and I were now riding on the Magnotrain through the Sepulveda pass on our way to the Airport. Traffic was light(as usual) on the freeway. The train ride took 20 minutes and we pulled into LAX and she got out. I followed her and kept one eye on the girl, and another on the invisible cameras which recorded everyone’s moves.

At Mormonair, the young woman stepped up to the ATM and inserted an identity card. The machine spit out a green ticket and she carefully put it into her purse. She smoothed over her blond hair with a deft swing of her left hand and then disappeared into the ladies room.

I waited outside the restroom for her to exit. But 15 minutes passed and I still hadn’t seen her come out. I heard an announcement for a flight to Salt Lake City and knew that the one flight of the day was boarding and the young woman was nowhere in sight.

But suddenly, a dark curly haired woman in a flowered dress emerged from the restroom. Was it her? I couldn’t tell, except this young woman carried a black backpack with a half open zipper.
Again, the flight to Salt Lake was announced and the woman ran to the gate.

I stepped up my pace and tried to keep my eye on her. As she slowed down, she tripped on the floor and a huge copy of the “New York: 1960″ book flew out of her bag. Indeed, this was the same blonde woman who was now a dark haired vixen!

She had bloodied her lip on the granite floor and I couldn’t help but run up to help her.

“Excuse me. Are you all right?”
“Yes, yes. Please! I have to make this flight!”
“Wait! I want to talk to you!”

This was the most ridiculous thing for me to say. How could I, a perfect stranger, hope to stop her from catching a flight? But the momentary delay had been fatal to her connection. The doors to the on ramp at Mormonair closed, and this young woman was destined to spend at least another night in Los Angeles.

“Damn! Damn, damn, damn! I wanted to get on that plane!”
“Shush!”
I looked around and hoped that we weren’t being followed. I quickly told her who I was.
“Miss, if anyone asks you. Just say I’m your boyfriend and you are staying with me. I have a National Identity Card with a guest pass and you can stay with me.”
“What? I don’t even know you! I have to get out of this fuckin’ Roundhouse, fuckin’ Mickey mouse land!”
“Miss! Please! In the name of the Eisner and the Holy Church of Perry Mason please obey the law!”

Her ruckus had already caused us to stand out. Two mouse eared security attendants gingerly approached us.

“Hi, folks! Hope you’re having a nice day!”
“Oh yes,” I answered, “quite fine.”
“Is the missus all right? You seem to have a cut on your lip? Would you like a little Red Riding hood band aid?”

She declined. Politely.

“No thanks. I’m OK. My boyfriend and I just were deciding on whether to go to the Roundhouse or go home and watch The Lion King.”
The guards seemed pleased.
“Oh, the Lion King. What a lovely picture. Have a good evening folks.”
The guards left. The girl looked at me with gratitude.
“I just saved your ass honey. Why don’t you come with me to dinner?”

It was just we two at a little French restaurant downtown on Mary Poppins Place Blvd. As the musicians strummed, “Super-cala-frag-ilicious” on violins, we drank red Merlot and talked in hushed tones about our paranoid feelings.

She confessed that she wanted to run away. Her name was Junia. A beautiful name.

“Did you know that Junia was an apostle of Jesus?”
“Jesus? Was he in PRINCE OF EGYPT?”
“No, you’re thinking of Moses. Jesus was pre-Disney.”
“Oh, PD.”
Junia, Junia, oh my Junia. 20 year old with green goddess eyes, and dark curly hair. Pretty as a Barbie doll.

“I first saw you and thought that you were blonde.”
“I know. I sometimes wear it to piss off my parents. They want me to look like Snow White and she had dark hair. It’s kind of rebellious huh?”

I ventured to find out if she was unhappy at home.
“Do you like you parents?”
“Of course. Doesn’t everyone?”
“Yes. Of course. And we are all happy, well taken care of, and always entertained.”

As I spoke, a dancing Dopey came over to the table and sang the Marseilleaise.

We walked after dinner on the lovely Wilshire Boulevard. Couples were arm in arm, reassured by the dozens of mouse cops walking the beat and the cameras which watched over us as electronic chaperones. A restored park with a lake beckoned us onto the grounds. The night air was redolent with jasmine, roses, and her perfume: L’Air d’Ellen Generes.

“I want to kiss you,” I said.
“No, Hobby. No.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to get into it.”

“Don’t you think I’m attractive? I mean I’m forty, but I work out and I drink creatine shakes everyday.”
“Hobby. I’m not going to kiss you.”
OK. OK with her. Fuck her. I was an ex-con, over the hill, a peeping Tom, a stalker, a treasonous loser who didn’t even belong in the park with a beautiful doll like Junia.

“Fine, Junia. I’ll get lost.”

I started to walk away. But how wonderful reverse psychology can be on an innocent 20 year old girl! She started to run after me! Me! Imagine that.

“Wait! Hobby get back here! I want to be your friend!”

I looked back at her and she seemed so alone and lost that I couldn’t pretend to be tough when I really wanted her so badly. Even ‘friend’ was enough to ensnare me.

We went back to my apartment on Funicello Street in Sherman Oaks. It was 4 am and we were both exhausted. I respectfully (though disappointingly) laid out an air mattress for Junia in the living room. She slept like a stuffed animal or a toy doll. It was too late to call my landlord and tell him that I had an overnight guest, but the hall camera or the elevator camera or maybe the garage door camera had recorded our arrival. All I wanted to do was go to sleep…..

9 am. The Magnotrain platform in Sherman Oaks. It is a perfectly clear day, with the Santa Ana’s blowing from the east. The sun beats down on the gorgeous purple mountains. Electric trains whoosh by the platform and I am eating a tangerine and sprout sandwich on whole wheat bread. I am dragging a large trunk next to me, which has several air holes inserted so that the secret occupant inside (Junia) can breathe.

The trunk is covered with Mickey Mouse stickers and says in bright orange lettering, “For Filming purposes. Camera equipment.” I am going to make a movie, or so the world thinks, and this is one of the noblest things I can do in the National Entertainment State.

We are taking the high speed train to Vegas which will get us there in about 2 hours and 40 minutes. It runs almost 175 miles an hour and is really nice.

On the train, I am sitting next to a big tinted window to watch the scenery speed by. On we zoom to Vegas through California towns: Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, later on Ontario, Apple Valley, Barstow, Baker. Finally, down a huge incline into Nevada and we arrive in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s a small town of a million and a half residents.

Vegas reminds me of photos I saw of West Berlin after World War II. There are border guards everywhere and the city has a decadent and spy saturated feeling going around. The casinos are full (so I heard) of double agents, and American spies who are trying to get into the National Entertainment State by sneaking across Utah into Nevada.

Proud to say, Junia and I will attempt to emigrate to Utah. I know I want to live in Provo, but I love Salt Lake as well. Maybe we’ll ski and become Mormons. That would be lovely.

I check into Hotel Bellagio, a fine old place with 6,000 rooms and a lovely lake in front with filtered water— and live hummingbirds in the imported olive trees. I carry the trunk with Junia inside and enter my room and unlock this lovely doll girlfriend of mine.

She gets out and looks around the room. Her hair is a mess and her complexion is lobster red, but other than that, she looks fine.

“I want to take a shower.”
“Sure.”

She goes into the bathroom and turns on the water. Before I know it, there is a knock on the door. I go to open it.

Two security guards are standing there. They are wearing mouse badges.

“Yes, officer. What is the trouble?”
“Sir, the front desk alerted us that you signed in as a resident of Salt Lake City. Your fingerprint indicates that you reside in Sherman Oaks, CA. Care to explain that?”
“I don’t know if I can.”

They smile at me.

“Would you kindly come with us.”
“Now? My girlfriend is taking a shower!”
“We can have the front desk call her up and alert her to your absence.”

I leave the room and officers follow me close behind.

What will I tell Junia? I march down the casino halls past the card tables, the video poker players, the backgammon players. The casino is a whirl of the sounds of money, of change falling into metal, and a thousand smoking players throwing their life savings away.

They handcuff me and chain me to an ATM machine in the back of the casino. One of the guards is laughing at me. Laughing behind my back, because another guard is carrying an inflatable doll through the casino. The doll is in his arms, a beautiful blond doll with hair like Junia’s.

Up close, I can see the face and it’s………………… Junia!

The guard carrying Junia walks up to me.

“Say good-bye to your friend. Guess she knew you better than you knew her! She was just such a doll, wasn’t she!”

I had made friends with an animatronic doll and now I was alone. Trapped and arrested again. There’s no escaping the happy kingdom is there?

The guard carries Junia away, as her still wet hair drips along the casino carpet.

THE END

"The Matterhorn" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

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Entrance., originally uploaded by Here in Van Nuys.

HARRY WEINER was nervous. Only 28 years old, Harry was the executive producer of a new NTC (National Television Company) sitcom, “The Matterhorn.” The Matterhorn took place in a fancy Madison Avenue clothing store with crazy customers and silly salespersons.

Five weeks into the new season, “The Matterhorn” was doing terribly in the ratings. It was ranked 59 out of 70 programs in the Nielsen ratings. Reviewers pronounced the new show “dead on arrival”, “sickening”, “juvenile”, “like warmed over pea soup.”

Harry’s work load was excruciating. He would drive, an hour each way, from his apartment in Brentwood to the NTC studio in Burbank.

He would get to work around 10 am. Immediately, Harry would get pounced on by schmoozers, agents, writers, assistants, emails, secretaries, publicists, producers, executives, guests. He barely knew how to manage his time. It seemed that every little problem was a top priority.

Some of these problems included: a strike by lighting technicians which threatened to darken the show on the night of taping; a pregnant head writer who objected to a line about abortion in the final script; a hypochondriacal director who feared getting germs on his coffee which had been served to him by an HIV positive production assistant.

######

Harry had arrived in Hollywood, 4 years earlier, with a recommendation from the Director of the School of Communication at Boston University. Harry had interned at Warner Brothers in the Director’s training program.

He had “tailed” a senior director on “Friends” for a year. Harry joined a “writers” group and met LISA SCHNITZER, the head writer of the hit show, MEET MEGAN ROONEY. Lisa liked Harry. Harry showed her a spec script he had written for MEET MEGAN ROONEY
Lisa read it ,liked it and hired Harry to be a staff writer.

To Lisa, Harry was reminiscent of her ex-boyfriend from Syosset. Harry played up his “eastern” background, continually reminding Lisa how close Toledo was to the Jersey Shore (only an hour and a half by plane.) They constructed a private reality of worldly and well read easterners in a dumb, ignorant, superficial, silly city. They were both destined for great things, Harry told her, and he pushed Lisa to develop new shows, new ideas and—- introduce him to her agent at William Morris.

Lisa was having trouble on MEET MEGAN ROONEY. The lead character didn’t think that Lisa understood her well enough— so ” Megan Rooney” told the executive producer to fire Lisa. Lisa came in– the next day– and found out she and Harry were gone.

Luck intervened. A 21 year old assistant at William Morris liked Lisa (because Lisa had a really great Tibetan tattoo on her navel drawn with henna ink) and the assistant recommended a pitch Lisa and Harry wrote about an expensive store on Madison Avenue with crazy customers and funny employees called “The Matterhorn.”

The pitch made its way to SIMON SHARON, the hottest television agent at William Morris. Simon was born on the day that the hostages in Iran were freed from captivity and considered himself destined for great things.

Simon liked Lisa. She was only a few years older than him and she had a nice butt. Lisa worked out at Simon’s gym and sometimes bumped into him there. Lisa thought Simon was cute, even though he had an annoying twitch. When he spoke, he turned his head on an angle, as if he were a basset hound who didn’t understand his master’s orders. One night, Lisa went home with him and they made love and quickly downloaded their intimacy into each other.

#####

Things move fast in Hollywood, especially when you are under thirty and don’t know where you are going, but are determined to get there.

That summed up Harry, who teamed up with Lisa, post-coital Lisa, to pitch Simon on “The Matterhorn” sit com. Simon immediately christened Lisa “THE MEGAN ROONEY” writer and that was the equivalent of a master’s degree at William Morris. WM had placed many of their clients on the staff of the MEET MEGAN ROONEY show.

Disney agreed to finance THE MATTERHORN, with Harry and Lisa as executive producers. NTC bought the show from Disney and put it on their Tuesday night prime time roster. This Tuesday line up became infamous as “TUESDAY SCHNOOZEDAY” because the programs were so boring, so banal, so juvenile, so unfunny. They were written by young, unread, unschooled boys who thought toilet paper, tits and teenage tantrums were the quintessence of laughs.

Harry and Lisa desperately tried to make “The Matterhorn” more sophisticated. To make sure that the program had some Manhattan appeal, exterior still photographs of an 1889 Rococo Madison Avenue mansion were placed at the beginning and end of each ½ hour. The show was filmed in a dark studio in sunny Burbank but the program took place in New York. This was quite intentional. The most successful sit coms took place in New York City: MAD ABOUT YOU, SEINFELD, FRIENDS, etc.

The writers were graduates of Manhattan prep schools and Eastern colleges. The average writer was only 22 years old, but that was what they reported on their w-4 forms and some rumors went around that one writer was as old as 33.

The acting talent was top notch. William Morris placed the young, wacky and busty blond comedienne, VIVIAN VON VECTOR, as the head of the posh emporium. Her assistant was played by the plump and rosy cheeked CHARLES LEADER who was on Broadway last year as a gay baritone in “I’LL SING TOMORROW.” Other William Morris clients became guest stars including: YOLANDA CHUTNEY, an ex-Sri Lankan former stripper who was in an episode where the owner of The Matterhorn was embarrassed when he was caught on videotape with Yolanda in a sexual act by the store security.

Seven shows had already been aired as November sweeps came on. The Matterhorn was slipping further down the ratings barrel. NTC was impatient and doubtful about the show’s survival. Commercial spots, which originally sold for $250,000 for thirty seconds, now were discounted at $175,000. The Matterhorn was also an expensive show to produce with all the costumes, beautiful mahogany store interiors, antique furniture, crystal, perfume, glass props. It was a drain on the budget of NTC. Cancellation seemed at hand.

#####

One balmy, misty November evening, Harry met Lisa at the bar of the HOTEL Peninsula in Beverly Hills. Lisa drank echinaccea flavored water while Harry opted for a pink grapefruit Kava herb cocktail to calm his nerves. Lisa heard from Simon that the NTC executives thought that the show lacked “ethnicity.” Simon said a New York show needed at least one Jewish character. All of the actors were white and Waspy, except for Yolanda, who was Sri Lankan. Who even knew where Sri Lanka was?

Harry and Simon agreed that it was the eleventh hour and time was running out. As Simon spoke to Harry, actress and client RHODA MOSKOWITZ walked in to the office. Rhoda had been huge at William Morris back in the 70’s when her New York, Jewish, schmaltzy and hamische voice charmed and annoyed audiences on such shows as: RHODA, MARY TYLER MOORE, BOB NEWHART, and THE LOVE BOAT. Rhoda was friends with Simon’s mother so this was more of a social call. Simon looked at Rhoda and thought that she might be the one to re-invigorate THE MATTERHORN.

Simon could only look at this 6o-year-old friend of his mother’s and laugh. She had black hair which she piled up like fancy croissant atop her head. She wore big glasses with dainty chains, a huge “chai” necklace, and several large rings with opals, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. She preferred tailored clothing a la Ralph Lauren, with cashmere, fine woolens and Italian shoes to her liking. She was in excellent shape and followed a diet rich in fresh fruits, fish and eight glasses of water a day.

Rhoda had been on the stage in New York, and on the tube in LA. Now living in Sherman Oaks, CA she was asked by Simon if she would like to appear as a guest star on The Matterhorn? “Sure.”
Immediately, Simon’s brain waves started to spin with 15% commissions and the possibility of more to come.

Simon and Rhoda hopped into his Porsche and drove to the Peninsula. Harry and Lisa met Rhoda and Simon and the foursome decided to develop a character for Rhoda which would make the audience stand up and laugh, advertisers buy spots and the executives dance with delight. Simon, Rhoda,Harry and Lisa shook hands. Harry went home to try and dream up how to convince his boss that Rhoda was needed and more importantly, might just be the saviour of the show.

#####

Just 31 years old, Helene Reisman had a reputation as one of the toughest S.O.B.’s at NTC. She was paid well over $1,000,000 a year and had put MEET MEGAN ROONEY on the air over the objections of her entire junior staff.

Harry met HELENE REISMAN at her large glass and synthetic white panelled home in Encino that evening. Harry pitched the idea of “Rhoda” while Helene played patty cake with her 3 year old son, O’RYAN.

She barely contained her glee at her young child’s smile, but grew angry as Harry laid out his plans for Rhoda.

Helene was blunt: “Listen I don’t like it when you say a typical Jewish older woman in New York who has a lot of money and is very demanding. It’s Anti-Semitic stereotyping.”

Harry grabbed a rattle and danced it in front of O’Ryan’s blue eyes. The child laughed and tried to grab it. Harry wouldn’t back down. “Helene, they’ve had successful Jewish characters on TV for years. You know them by name: Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Reiser, David Schwimmer. None of them admit being Jewish. It’s like a joke. Act Jewish, but don’t celebrate Jewish holidays, don’t wear a yarmulke, don’t let the audience know what they already know. It’s like its Ok to have a Jew on TV as long as he or she is in the closet.”

Helene cooled off. She picked up the baby and danced with some rhythm around the nursery. “O’Ryan, what should Mommy do? Should mommy say yes to the nice man?” O’Ryan seemed to point at Harry. “He likes you Harry. My son thinks you’re OK.” Harry smiled that broad, salesman’s smile ready to close the deal.

“O.K. Try Rhoda. If she doesn’t work, which she probably won’t, it will just be a one time thing. Don’t say I let you have an anti-semitic character on the show. Leave me out of it. If the ratings go up, then by god we either have a real dilemma or a godsend.”

With Helene (and O’Ryan’s)blessing, Harry was back at the studio for an all night session with Lisa and the writers to come up with a story which would eventually revolve around Rhoda as a pushy and wealthy woman who is furious when her grandson’s bar mitzvah suit is lost in the store’s alterations department.

The new character would be called MISSY MISHKIN, the doyenne of Park Avenue. Missy was no push over, had a strong Bronx accent, and was not above arguing with a sales clerk if she thought she had been ripped off, treated unfairly, or paid little attention to.

Rehearsals began. Vivian Von Vector put her best WASPy accent and superior attitude on. Charles Leader made sure that his vulnerable gay sensitivity was on full blast as the assault of Missy began on stage. After four days, Harry and Lisa were pleased with the chemistry between Rhoda’s guest character and the rest of the leads.

But Yolanda Chutney was disturbed by some of the dialogue. One late,fatigued Thursday night, the cast had been rehearsing all day. Yolanda asked if she could please not refer to Missy as “that demanding and annoying woman from Hadassah.” Yolanda had always been a liberal person, and had battled color prejudice her whole life as a darker skinned person with sub-continental hues. Harry refused to alter the line, and Lisa backed him up. Yolanda threw the script up in the air and walked right up to Harry and thrust her finger in his face.

“You as a Jew, of all people, should know how mean, how vicious these words sound. Are you gonna tell everyone that the dialogue is funny and that’s how you’re gonna worm out of it this bigoted bullshit?”
Harry was unmoved. “Yolanda, you are totally fuckin’ out of line. Missy is a fictional character who is only a guest star. She is not a representation of all Jews any more than Charles Manson is a stand in for the Christians!”

Rhoda Moskowitz stepped up to the plate to defend herself, her role and also score with Harry. “Listen Yolanda, I’m Jewish and believe me, if I thought there was anything wrong with this I wouldn’t do it.”
Yolanda seemed to be slightly comforted by these words, and besides an argument (by a lowly actor) on principle in Hollywood assumes a ridiculousness when arrayed against the necessities of work, money and the imperatives of executive power.

Yolanda picked up her script.”O.K. let’s just get this fuckin’ scene over with.”

#####

At the Friday night dress performance, before a half empty studio audience, Harry and Lisa nervously watched as the first scene was shot. Director CAMERON SCHNITZER, a 24 year old MTV video editor, and Lisa’s younger brother, was confident and sure of how to direct his cast.

At Cameron’s personal urging, the costume for Missy was particularly elegant. A fur collared black knit suit with a velvet pill box hat anchored by a diamond pin, was sewn especially for Ms. Moskowitz. Missy would enter “The Matterhorn” with a retinue of servants: a driver, a maid, and her nurse. She would demand of Ms. Von Vector that the management provide a free bar mitzvah suit for her grand son or she would sue the whole store and possibly put it out of business.

Rhoda pronounced her words with the maximum nasal affect and made sure to drop her “r”s. Helene Reisman watched the show from the side of the stage and thought it stunk. She found Missy to be a cartoon. Helene blamed herself for the failure but outwardly she was livid at Harry and Lisa. Now Helene might lose her job in this universe of short memories, and her previous success would be buried under the defeat of THE MATTERHORN.

At one a.m., the show was finally wrapped. The cast went home, and Lisa decided that she was too tired to go out for a drink with Harry. Harry went up to Helene and kissed her, but she turned her face away. Helene just looked at him with wounded eyes. “I don’t know what you were thinking.” She turned and walked out of the studio and into the black Burbank darkness.

#####

A week later, the show aired. NTC Executives had put the cancellation on hold, awaiting the pleas and the desperate bargaining of Simon,his bosses at William Morris, Harry and Lisa. Word from the affiliates was encouraging. One station manager in Cedar Rapids called to say that they loved this new character. The station director in Uttica said that callers were phoning in their approval for Missy.

Fate intervened again on the day of the airing. A pro-basketball player, RILEY HIGHCALF, was shot and killed outside of the mansion which served as the exterior location shot for “The Matterhorn.” Folks in Seattle, Seneca Falls, Peoria, Tallahassee, Denver, and the Ozarks were saying, “Did you hear that Riley Highcalf was shot outside of the that Matterhorn store?” Suddenly, a real life news event created a buzz about the show which the writers, the actors and the producers could not.

The show had been typically earning a 15 share but after the “Missy” episode, the show almost doubled its audience to a 29. Harry and Lisa arrived at work on Wednesday to find a huge vase of fresh flowers sent by Helene Reisman. A note to Harry read, “Sorry about my lack of faith. I have a lot to learn. Helene.”

Her humility touched Harry.

Emails were pouring into The Matterhorn WEB SITE. KCBS sent a crew over to interview “the return of Rhoda Moskowtiz” and KABC did an interview with Vivian Von Vector who could barely contain her “love” for Rhoda and delight at the old lady’s return to the small screen.

YAHOO.com suddenly had two chat rooms with MATTERHORN themes. Amazon.com contacted NTC to create a link between NTC’s web site and books about: RILEY HIGHCALF, PRO BASKETBALL, JEWISH WOMEN, MEGAN ROONEY, NEW YORK CITY, MADISON AVENUE, TELEVISION SIT COMS, CHARLES LEADER, YOLANDA CHUTNEY.
#####

Three days after the “Missy” episode, a meeting was held in Helene’s office. Harry and Lisa were told that the show would be renewed for another six episodes, provided that Missy stayed. Rhoda Moskowitz jumped for joy when she found out that she would have a recurring role on the program, and Simon negotiated a contract for her paying $20,000 an episode with residuals and agreements to have Rhoda guest star on other sit-coms.

Everyone, it seemed, was happy. Ratings were up, NTC had new viewer interest and increasing advertiser revenues. The media jumped in to find out what the buzz was about. TV GUIDE did a small story about Rhoda’s return; VOGUE featured Charles Leader in drag; THE WALL ST. JOURNAL called NTC “the corpse who came in from the cold”.

Three more episodes were written with Missy as the main focus. One story was about how Missy took offense at a perceived anti-semitic remark by an employee of the store who accused Missy of being ostentatious after Missy spent $500,000 on a bar mitzvah cruise party. Another episode had an ALAN DERSHOWITZ look alike who dates Missy and defends serial killers just to get himself on television.

#####

RABBI MARTIN NIER was the first clerical voice to speak up. The dean of Los Angeles rabbis, his congregation had many prominent members from the entertainment community.

His grandfather had been the chief Rabbi of Cracow and had perished at Auschwitz. Martin Nier was a Rabbi who had travelled the strange and wondrous route of the the 20th Century from shtetl, to concentration camp, to the freedom of America. The freedom which promised that the voices of the persecuted would never be silenced. Now those voices took a vulgar and warped transformation into sit com hatred and Rabbi Nier was outraged.

Rabbi Nier contacted THE ANTI DESECRATION SOCIETY and began to circulate a petition to protest THE MATTERHORN and the character of Missy in particular. He preached a sermon entitled, “WHEN LAUGHING BECOMES DEADLY” which begged that his congregants understand that even in humor, there were messages which preached hatred regardless of whether they were intended as entertainment.

Reviewers in the BOSTON GLOBE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, MIAMI HERALD, all wrote about the show—which they generally thought had gotten funnier—but had somehow descended into the depths of meanness, vindictiveness, and anti-jewish scapegoating.

A particular warning came from THE CATHOLIC EYE, a conservative journal which wrote, “Our brethren in the Jewish faith cannot condone comedic hatred in the name of commercial success. For ultimately ideas conceived in the poison of bigotry pollute the author.”

While mainstream media fixated and debated upon the role of Missy and what she might or might not represent, the show jumped to third in the ratings. “It was unbelievable”, Helene said, “to see a show go from almost cancellation to the top of the game.”

Almost forgotten in the adulation, was the growing volume of hate letters pouring into the web site from around the country. At “www.matterhorn.com” such comments as, “you fuckin’ Jews deserve everything you have coming to you.” Other viewers were kinder. One 11 year old Nebraska girl wrote, “I used to be mad at my Mom for talking badly about Jews, but now I know cause of Missy, what my Mom is talking about.” At the University of Wyoming, Tuesday night Matterhorn parties the participants throw pretzels at the screen and shouted obscenities whenever Missy came on.
#####

At the annual NTC affiliates meeting in January, there was huge exaltation and applause for Helene Reisman who told the audience, “We will not be bullied by the army of the politically correct telling us how we to portray our artistic creations.” Joined on stage by stars Vivian Von Vector, Charles Leader, Yolanda Chutney, and of course, Rhoda Moskowitz, the entire cast and creators received a 5 minute standing ovation. Surely, the furor would die down.

As spring rolled around, and the final episodes were shot, there was little doubt that THE MATTERHORN would be renewed. Harry was exhausted, but he suddenly couldn’t believe how ironic his luck was: he was now earning over $400,000 a week with the prospect of earning tens of millions from syndication sales. He would be rich forever. But his heart was heavy from his complicity in creating something that he knew might blacken his name and the reputation of his people.

#####

Lisa was changing too. Once she had been a fairly devout Jew. She had looked forward to celebrating Passover with her friends. But this Spring, she hadn’t heard from her usual friends who conducted a seder and always had included her. Lisa went to see her girlfriend, MOIRA, a strictly Orthodox young woman who wore a veil outside of the house and walked her four children to shul every morning and kept a kosher house. If Moira fell out, then Lisa knew she might have made the fatal choice.

On a warm and smoggy Saturday, Lisa drove from her nice house in the Hollywood Hills over the mountain to the flat, hot plainness of Moira’s modest and mostly Orthodox valley neighborhood. Here, the timeless tableau of bearded men in dark suits said their morning prayers to the Almighty. Women dressed in modesty, with the children as the center of their lives. God was so present here, he supplanted the materialism, the artificiality that Lisa had come to expect of Los Angeles. Under these sturdy and rigid palm trees, respect for the Torah, the Ten Commandments, and the word of the deity were supreme.

Moira was only 27, but she had the dignity and repose of a 50 year old. She was alone on this morning, with her children at school.
She spoke: “So much to do about your program. I watched it myself just to see what all the fuss was about.” Lisa waited, wondering if Moira would point her finger at Lisa and indict her for inciting the hatred against the Jewish people which others had accused THE MATTERHORN of fanning.

Moira poured some hot tea for Lisa. It was served in a homely and old fashioned teacup. Lisa thought it could have been a teacup in a bubby’s apartment, circa 1920.

“Lisa, you obviously earn a lot of money. You can buy things. You have a beautiful car. Lots of nice clothes. You keep yourself thin…..” Lisa thought Moira was asking her at what price these goodies had been bought. But Moira had other things on her mind….

Moira asked:”So who are you dating?” Lisa was aghast. “Oh, nobody right now. I was seeing an exec at MGM last year. But he was so busy. And I’m so busy. You know.”

Moira wasn’t convinced. “You’re busy? What about me? I have four children. I’m 27 years old. And yet I have a husband, a home, a life.”

A life. It was that horrible phrase. A life. Moira had just put it out in the open. Lisa had a life. Or maybe she didn’t have a life. That’s what Moira meant. For what was life without a man, a family, children, a house, meals, memories?

Moira’s innocent and simple comment stung more than all of the months of incrimination in the press. Lisa was no anti-semite. She wasn’t guilty of anything. Lisa was just alone.

Moira seemed to offer no answer to Lisa about The Matterhorn. Lisa almost didn’t want to know what Moira really thought. Besides, hadn’t Lisa done as well as Moira? Lisa had a gorgeous home in the Hollywood Hills. She worked out five days a week and now had a personal trainer, a masseur and a dietician. Moira looked old, paunchy, frumpy—and she wasn’t even 30 years old! Lisa reassured herself that Moira was just jealous.
#####

Back in Burbank, Harry was leaving the studio when he decided to check his email. There was a message from his mother in Ohio. She wrote that she was pleased that he was doing well, but she could not endure the social ostracization from her friends who were angry and hurt about the character of Missy Mishkin. She wanted to talk with him, but she couldn’t bring herself to dial the phone. She was a mother shamed.

The success, the money, the ratings, the fame—he had done it all for his Mom. No matter how wealthy he got, Harry never forgot his mother in Toledo. Her disapproval was the fatal poison which could turn him from an optimistic man into a fatalistic basket case.

Harry sat in his corner office and he breathed heavily upon the surface of his glass desk top. He took his index finger and on the mist which his hot breath created, he wrote the word, “JEW”. Never particularly observant, never one to identify with the bearded, the learned, the Orthodox—he now had constructed a box which he could not break out of. He had reached for commercial success by using the one poison forbidden to him.

The phone rang. It was his assistant telling him that Geraldo wanted an interview with him. Harry would not keep Geraldo waiting. The few seconds of introspection were closed and Harry prepared to say yes to Geraldo. The show would go on…..

"The Lady on the Horse" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

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Riding Laura Ashley, originally uploaded by briancweed.

At the top of a windy hill near La Jolla, California, a light breeze blew off the Pacific. It ruffled the dark blonde hair of a 30 year old woman, Juanita Carl. She often walked along the beach by herself. This was her choice. She had been alone for six months now after walking out on her husband Johnse.

Johnse Carl was an inventor, a businessman, a high tech fanatic. He worked in computer related satellite equipment for space research. He had a lot of money. Juanita spent so many nights alone. While Johnse worked in the lab, she would walk along the moonlit beach in La Jolla and think of ending her life, so empty were her days.

They had met at Burger King where he managed the counter. He was the only worker with ambitions beyond fries. Juanita knew it when she walked in at sixteen and ordered a whopper. He asked her for a date and she came by later to hear him speak while he mopped the floor.
As he poured Pine Sol into the bucket, he exclaimed: “I want to invent something! Like those guys down at Scripps. Only I don’t want to be a poor researcher, I want to be a rich entrepreneur.”

“A what?”
“An entrepreneur. Someone who creates their own wealth.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“No. I’m not. I just can’t believe that’s all you want. To be rich….”
“That’s cause you already are Juanita.”

Juanita Adams was rich. Her parents had come from Oklahoma in the early 1940’s and took some of their meager savings and bought an old hotel downtown. When San Diego developed, the hotel was sold and they reinvested the land in the country east of the city. When the city finally overtook the country, they were wealthy landowners.

Just east of La Jolla, the Adams built a rustic California ranch with white board and batten siding, wood shingled roof, green shutters and a generous stable. The property was in a canyon, surrounded by eucalyptus, pine and firs. A gravel driveway, shaped like a horseshoe, lent an air of horsey wealth and quiet ostentation. This was the kind of house, where all Americans dreamed of living. It had a wood paneled library, a beamed family room, and French doors leading out onto a slate paved patio.

Lydia Adams, “Mom”, was a famous equestrian in Southern California. With her regal jaw and pulled back hair she was well-bred and polished. She had been in many horse shows in the 1940’s and 50’s. A fiercely competitive woman, she acted as horse trainer to Juanita as the little girl practiced dressage. A typical Saturday afternoon would find the two women in the spacious front yard, with Juanita on top of her horse Charlie while her mother barked orders.

” Put your whip down Juanita! Relax! Your arms are too stiff!”
“I can’t help it!”
“Yes you can! Don’t ever say you can’t help something!”

Johnse had ambition, Juanita had class. Johnse got into Cal Tech on a scholarship and Juanita went the liberal arts route at UCSD. In college, she would ride the still verdant hills around her parent’s house.

One foggy and cloudy Sunday in February, eighteen year old Juanita took Charlie for a ride on the beach near Torrey Pines. She loved the sound of the waves crashing onshore and how beautifully Charlie jumped over the large pieces of driftwood on the sand. She took the reins and steered Charlie in shallow water ,kicking up the spray and pulling back onto the dry beach again. Zig-zag, back and forth, wet and dry. It was a game of control. She was boss.

Her mother’s words echoed in her head: “Don’t ever say you can’t help something!”

That foggy day was her last moment of childhood frolic. When she rode Charlie home to her parent’s house in the late afternoon, she saw her mother being carried out on a stretcher. Two white suited men loaded her into the back of an ambulance.

She pulled the horse and tied him up to a front porch pillar. Running up to her father, she couldn’t catch her breath to speak.

“Oh, my God! What is this? Dad please tell me she’s all right! What is it?”

He only stood there with teary blue eyes. He stared at the ambulance and clutched an empty bottle of lithium in his left hand.

She would never understand why her mother had left her motherless at eighteen. At the cemetery, Mom was eulogized for all the right reasons: she loved her husband and daughter, she was a wonderful rider, she was active in the community, she was a friend to the animals. Why then did she kill herself?

Johnse had come down from Pasadena for the funeral. She hadn’t expected him, but when she saw the skinny and awkward physicist dressed in a black suit, she suddenly felt a wave of gratitude and fulfillment.

“I heard about your mother. I’m here for you.”

For months after the funeral, she went riding, almost every day. Johnse wrote and sent her funny cards from school. She did little studying of her own, but eagerly read all the Jane Austen she could lay her hands on.

Mostly, it was the horse that provided the strength for her to move on. Temperament is particularly important for dressage, and as she again started to compete in shows, her speed, endurance and discipline were called into action again.

By May, she had gone to Kentucky to ride. There were many distractions: horses, crowds, parties, and gin. Death and the empty grave were forgotten. At a bluegrass party, a tall and older southern gentleman in grey tweed coat, fawn breeches, boots, collar and tie walked up to her and put his arm on her shoulder. He reminded her of her father in confederate costume.

A terrific stench of Jack Daniels mixed in with the smell of leather, oats and tobacco stepped close to her.

“Young lady, you are just about the finest rider in these championships. Where y’all from?”
“San Diego.”
“How would you like to be my dinner companion this evening?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”

”Where we go to dinner. I’m staying right here in Bowling Green.”
“Marvelous. My farm is also in Bowling Green.”

That night, she found herself in a daring bet. She wagered that she wouldn’t sleep with this older, athletic and white-haired aristocrat. Was she was stronger than his flattering words, his fireplace, and three single malt scotch whiskies that he fed her upon arrival at the farm? Probably not……

A golden retriever came bouncing into a dimly lit living room, and lay his snout directly into her jodphurs. The dog smelled more than the lady could hide. A few minutes later, she left the dog behind and followed the master upstairs to his bedroom.

Kentucky was her trip her to moon. She came back to an empty house in La Jolla. Dad was out of town and visiting an old girlfriend in Oklahoma. She called up Johnse, who was at school, and he was deep in the throes of his final exams. Instinctively, she busied herself in a maze of gala events, charity balls and horse shows.

Yet she would go to the parties, ride in the events, and come home to the big empty house and walk into the bedroom where her mother had once slept.

Her father returned from Oklahoma in September. His old stoic selfishness flared up in quietly irritating ways. He had told her that he would return in late August, then he changed it to September 10th, finally to September 24th. One day, he just walked into his house and threw his coat on the floor of the kitchen.

“Hi.”
“Hello Dad. I didn’t know you were coming back today. I was just leaving to take Charlie out for a ride.”
“Didn’t you get my message?”
“The one about you coming back late?”
“No. The one about my leaving you the house and moving back to Tulsa.”
She dropped the whip and pulled a chair and sat down.

“Why would you do that?”
“Why? Oklahoma is my home!”
“You haven’t lived there in 3o years!”
“It’s still my home. My brother lives there. It’s also where I went to high school and its…….”
“Its what…Say it!”
“I met a lady….”
“Oh, I see. You found your next wife.”

“I called Irene, you remember, my high school sweetheart….she loves me…. I know you and I haven’t been that close in sometime…But I want you to come back to Tulsa and we can be a family again.”

“My god! I’m almost 20 years old. I’m not your little girl. I’m not leaving California, to go to god forsaken Oklahoma with its tornadoes, Baptists, and boredom.”

“All right. Tell me what you want.”

“I want to stay in my home, and get my feet on the ground. If you can’t be here with me, just let me alone!”

“Listen Juanita. You don’t understand. I can’t stay here. It’s too painful for me. Your mother lived here. This was her house.”
“Do you have to sell this house right now?”
“No. I just thought you’d want me to…..”
“Just let me stay here. If you want to move to Oklahoma then just go.”

He left for Oklahoma. He did buy her a present before he left: A coffee table book about English Thoroughbreds.

A horse’s hoof grows continually and will renew itself completely over a period of about nine months. In her father’s absence, Juanita began to rebuild some semblance of normalcy in her life. She grew tougher and learned how to get up from the couch and plant her feet on the ground again.

One mitigating factor was the return of Johnse. He started working for a new La Jolla company, Genetech. He was well paid, and renting a lovely new apartment with a swimming pool and a view of the ocean. His work was quite complex, involving computers, defense contracts and secret meetings. He started calling her soon after his arrival, and she pretended to be so busy with her riding that she had little time for him.

She was, however, awakened one morning, by two well-dressed men in pin striped suits, carrying briefcases and ringing the front doorbell. She cautiously peered through the peephole and was reassured by the clean-cut haircuts and their purebred appearance.

“Hi! Are you Miss Adams?” asked a shorter, 25-ish man.
“Yes. What can I do for you?”
“I’m Doug Einhorn and this is my associate Randy Weaver. We work for Capitol Development and we wondered if we might have a word with you about your land holdings.”

“Land holdings?”
“Yes. You own 30 acres not far from Del Mar racetrack.”
“I ride there. That belongs to my father.”
“Not according to this deed. You are the owner now.”
“Please come in.”

The men explained that this land was zoned for commercial development and that they were prepared to pay $90,000 an acre so that two large office complexes could be built. Juanita was completely shocked and not at all likely to sell the land which she considered sacred. She did promise to contact her father to discuss this and took the business cards from the young hucksters.

For a few days after the visit of the two men, poor old Charlie seemed to be depressed. The horse normally ate his diet of oats and barley, but he barely touched his meals. He usually whined and neighed when Juanita came close, but now he exhibited a defensive posture in his stable, turning his body sideways when she attempted to mount .
She took him up to the property near Del Mar for a ride. His natural gait of four separate beats, became irregular, and he would bow his head down so far that the muzzle almost touched his chest. She had difficulty controlling the reins and he seemed to want to break free of her control at every moment.

She dismounted and walked up to him and stared straight at him.
“You mustn’t do that! If you don’t behave, I’m taking you back home!”
She dropped the reins and he turned his hindquarters away. The English Thoroughbred was uncharacteristically moody, insolent and angry. She got back on the horse and they rode home.

“I think Charlie is sick.” She told Johnse.
“Why?” He asked as they dined on burgers on the boardwalk.
“He doesn’t eat. When I took him riding, he was just not behaving.”
“Well, if there is empirical evidence—you have to quantify it.”
“Stop talking like a scientist.”
“I mean”, he instructed, ” you better write down what he does and just keep a record. Otherwise, you won’t be able to measure the changes, if any.”
“You’re so logical.”
“Have to be.”
“How come?”
“Can’t live without logic. “

“Charlie thinks like you also.”
“How do you know?”
“You both want to upset me. Finish your burger.”
On the freeway, he asked her about selling the land.
“So what did you tell them?” he asked.
“I didn’t say anything. I don’t want to sell. I hate it when I drive around San Diego and all my favorite hills are being decapitated for some alien office buildings with horizontal windows, parking lots and security fences.”

“That’s called the free market. Companies expand. People get work. Offices get built.”

“And where do I ride? When do we say stop to the bulldozers? I don’t want to live in a place where I can’t take my horse out and feel free.”
“If you could make a little money, say a million bucks, maybe you’d reconsider.”

“No. I have money. How much do I need? I don’t want to develop my land for some god-damned company who makes something that I can’t understand or pronounce.”

“If I told you that I wanted to build my company on your land would you let me?”
“No.”
“If I asked you to marry me, would you let me do that?”
“What?”
“I said if I asked you to marry me, would you say yes?”
“You ask me to marry you? On the freeway!”

A year passed and Johnse was living in her house and she rode and he worked and they made money and things seemed fine.

The wedding had been a simple affair, they had simply decorated the front yard, with flowers, chairs and about 75 guests. Dad flew in for the wedding, and naturally he refused to stay in the house. He and his new wife Irene rented a hotel room in Carlsbad.

When Juanita most yearned for her father, he was in Oklahoma, now that he came back for the wedding and was staying close by, she realized how unnecessary he really had become.

Johnse was barely able (or interested) in attending to the details of the wedding. At the last minute, he asked a friend of his from college,

Doug Einhorn, to be his best man. Juanita met Doug for the first time the day of her wedding. Or at least she thought it was the first time. Then she remembered that Doug had been one of the real estate brokers at her doorstep and she experienced a quiet discomfort at his reappearance that she could not vocalize.

A veterinarian came to the house to look at Charlie a year after the wedding.

He went out to the stable and stayed there for about an hour. He came back to Juanita with sad eyes and bit his lower lip like Bill Clinton.

“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news. Charlie has equine infectious anemia, commonly known as swamp fever. This is a viral disease that attacks the horse’s immune system.”

“Oh, my God. I’m gonna lose Charlie aren’t I?”
“Well, right now there is no cure. It’s caused by a retrovirus closely related to the HIV virus in humans.”
“My horse is HIV?”
“No, not exactly. You see he might have picked up this disease at the shows, from other horses.”
“It’s my fault then…”

“No. In most cases, a positive EIA test is the first time a horse is recognized as being infected by the virus. The Coggins test is the name for the agar gel immuno-diffusion test that determines the presence of EIA antibodies in his blood. Charlie tests positive and is a carrier of the EIA virus. My fear is that he could infect other horses. Especially horses at shows. That’s what Charlie has. I’m sorry Juanita. I really see no other choice than to put him out of his suffering.”
“No! You can’t do that! I won’t let you. Are you absolutely sure.”
“Positive. The test is 95% positive.”

“Then go ahead….Don’t tell me about it……”
“I want to go back out there and take him into quarantine. He shouldn’t be outside anymore. It’s too dangerous. A fly or a mosquito could land on him and then……”

She grabbed her head and screamed.
“Just do it!”

The vet put on a surgical mask and went back into the stable. Juanita came running behind him. She didn’t want to go into the barn with the doctor who was taking her friend away forever. She wanted to remember Charlie as the vigorous horse who had galloped through the salt spraying waters on the beach.

Johnse had been away at a software conference in Seattle. When he came home, he found the stable empty and the house unoccupied. A note was on the counter. He took his calculator out of his pocket and put on his reading glasses. He read an official notice of Death / San Diego County signed by the animal coroner. He knew she would be upset– but he couldn’t get stirred up about a dead horse.

He peered out the kitchen window and in the distance he could make out the faint figure of his wife sitting on the hillside. She seemed to be holding a glass of wine. He was about to open the door and walk out to comfort her, but then he picked up the remote control. He sat down to watch a news report on a new Mars astronomy find. Juanita sat out alone. On the windswept field she felt dazed , confused and mournful. She was quite unaware that her legal soul mate was yards away engrossed in the evening newscast.

A few weeks later, Dad called from Oklahoma. Juanita picked up the phone, and exchanged the usual banalities about the weather, the difference between the flat land in Oklahoma and the mountains of California, etc. Dad asked to speak to Johnse. Juanita asked why and was given a rather cryptic answer.

“Do I need special permission to speak to my son-in-law?” he snapped.

“Johnse”, she yelled, “Get in here, someone wants to speak to you.”
Johnse picked up the phone in the library and she stood within a few invisible feet from his conversation.

Here is what she heard:
“Yep…..well I think it would be a good idea to finally sell it. I mean they’re building all around the area…..I think if Juanita was more logical she would see the tax benefits….well Charlie died….she isn’t going to be riding forever….I know it’s like a little girl thing with her favorite riding place…..my company is really hot on LaJolla….they need the space…oh, its’ very suitable….high tech…near the freeway….flat land….easy to build….Oh, you’re talking about a million….”

Johnse never mentioned the phone call again, but Doug Weaver continued to play golf with Johnse, and the two men would go out together and in a strange display of male bonding, would often spend the night together, “Just the boys” as Johnse would say. Juanita often spent Saturday night alone “the loneliest night of the week” while her husband might be off with his best friend fishing, drinking beers, or shooting the shit in Tijuana.

Johnse worked long hours, and many times ate dinner at the office. He might work Saturdays also and if he spent Sunday at home, he watched football. The stables were empty now, and the house had a joyless air compounded by her husband’s inattention and domestic inactivity.

It was time for Juanita to do something, and as she neared the mature age of 27, she felt the pressing need to overturn the status quo of helplessness that seemed to haunt her.

Out of the blue, Juanita was startled to hear Johnse suggest something that seemed outrageously incongruous.

“I think we should start having a baby.”
“Great. Are you sure this is something you want?”
“Well, its logical. We’ve been married for five years. I mean when I start a project at work I always examine the variables and add up the numbers and I’d say that we are statistically at the exact point that we should begin procreating.”

It was a better offer than he usually made, albeit with some coldness and scientific rigidity. If he made love as he spoke, she imagined that it might feel like a car engine pumped by a piston. Her orgasm would be like exhaust from a car, a byproduct of combustion—as far from love as Venus is from San Diego.

There was one thing that bothered her. Why did he care about children when he seemed to care so little about her? Would this be the man that would father her children? Why should she lay down and allow herself to be impregnated by the man who couldn’t bring himself to put his lips on her mouth?

She practiced a most unholy deception. She took her birth control pills and told him she had stopped. They made love every night and she was made happy by the fact that once more she knew something that he did not.

After a year, she still was not pregnant and he stopped asking why. He was now deeply involved in trying to create a software program for NASA to help measure whether there was any possibility of life on Mars. He traveled constantly to the great space cities of Houston, Cocoa Beach, Seattle and Ontario, Calilfornia. While his wife remained unfertilized at home, he eagerly set forth to conquer the mystery of whether life existed beyond this planet.

He began to get involved in the early 90’s with a fascinating new project called the “Internet”. It was, she heard, some new computer that would connect all the computers around the world and allow people to trade information with anyone who had a “modem”.

The developers continued their assault on the land around San Diego. There was not a hill left within 20 miles of downtown San Diego that wasn’t sliced off with a flat topped building and asphalt. Sloburban development tore into the hills, flattened the curves, introduced 24/7 traffic jams to the metropolis and robbed the once sunny settlement of its peace of mind, slow pace, and courtly manners.

She opened the paper and read about Doug Weaver who was now the largest commercial office broker in La Jolla. His office had leased a record amount last year. He was odious to her because the land was just a commodity to him. But land was treated cheaply and sold expensively all around southern California.

The sameness of the super housing, built for repetition, cheaply and inhumanely, deeply disturbed Juanita. She yearned for the open lands that she and Charlie had once traversed. The alien names on the office buildings gave off a sinister air of secrecy as if they were evil marinated in technological conquest: Softech, Genuscape, NetWatch, Hypercalm, Seaecotech, Digital Industries.com. The new construction didn’t sit on the street, it invaded the hills, pockmarked the land and destroyed the once verdant beauty surrounding San Diego.
“Honey, are you sitting down?”


The phone call had come in just as Juanita was done filling out her application for environmental studies at UCSD.

“Hi. Where are you?”
“I told you. Portland…….. The Mainframe conference. Weren’t you listening when you dropped me off at Lindbergh?”
“How’s it going?”

“Fantastic. I got the head of a Stanford think tank who is working with Microsoft on a new space shuttle project and they want to use my software. Bill Gates himself sent his one of his people from Washington to talk to me. I have to go honey. I just want you to know that we might be going to the moon!”

This was great. More money, more prestige, more science. If it was leading her into a brave new world, she could only guess. She only knew that when she opened the windows of her house, the constant drum of trucks, cars and fumes were audible from the never ending freeway rush that was now the official outdoor orchestra of La Jolla.
Johnse rented an apartment in Palo Alto, Ca. He needed to be there because he was constantly in meetings with technology companies in the newly named Silicon Valley. Once the valleys of California had been named after flesh and blood Spanish missionaries and explorers, like San Fernando , San Gabriel and San Joaquin.

Now they bore the names of the new rulers whose hearts were made of silicon.

He never invited her to spend the weekend in Palo Alto. It was strange, but no stranger than the nights he spent with Doug Weaver. He was a loner, after a buck, and he wanted to get to that place in the heavens so fast that he couldn’t stop to pick up his wife.

Weaver continued to try and make friends with Juanita. He sent her bottles of Sonoma County’s best wines and little notes about how he drove past her vacant lands and imagined beautiful office parks with sparkling fountains.

She wished that she might get happiness from shopping, or trading stocks, or something more tangible. She had land and money and security and the promise of computer wealth. But everything with a living heartbeat was gone, and the greed that consumed the people around her left her alone. She was the lady on the horse and there she stayed alone.

In spring, one year after he rented the Palo Alto apartment, and six months after he signed the contract , and three months after the first check arrived for $2 million dollars, she told Johnse that she wanted a divorce. He was calm and collected and told her that they could discuss it when he returned later in the week.

Why had she stayed married to a man for whom she had no love for so long? Was she so afraid of being alone that she would settle for this? She needed to invigorate her life with the passion that had once animated her. Only one relationship had ever animated and excited her……

She opened the paper to the classified section and saw this ad for a horse:

4 year old Thoroughbred/Trakehner mare -
”Jovial” for sale at Temecula Farms:
Very quiet and sweet, easy to ride and handle, no vices.
15.3 hands and growing, great mover, always sound, ties, trailers.
Jumping 2′6″, successfully competed beginner novice combined training.
Confident, Bold Jumper, comfortable in the ring and on the trail.
Jockey Club Performance Horse registered, great eventing prospect!

She drove out to Temecula and pulled up to a sprawling, sunny ranch set amidst the wineries and mountains of this blessed land. Mary Beth, the lady who took care of Jovial was careworn, a widow and her whole life had been spent here. When she saw Juanita go into the stable to meet Jovial for the first time, she knew that the horse and its new owner were a perfect match. Jovial was only $15,000 but the price of the horse could not be appraised as the happiness it brought Juanita was beyond words.

They brought Jovial out of the stable and into the sunshine. A cavesson noseband was affixed to the horse, and a well balanced saddle was placed gently atop the spine of the animal. Though it was a hot day, and the sun was beating down, it was dry, desert weather, just fine for a test ride.

As Mary Beth watched, Juanita led Jovial out of the confines of his cell block and onto the trail which led into the open lands and out they rode so happily….

The End

"The House of Hollow Pillars" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

In every town, there is one young lady whom everyone knows and expects great things from.

Carla was Mansfield, Ohio’s mascot of bigger things to come. The town knew of Carla even when the little girl was 5 years old and tap danced her way to win the Little Miss Mansfield contest.

The town again heard of Carla when she was 7 and won the best young equestrian goldmedal in the Allegheny Mountains Horseman’s League.

She was an only child and not competitive with any sibling. She didn’t have to be. She beat out her friends, her cousins, her classmates to try and win whatever she could. She had a need for recognition. She also knew how to kiss ass.

When the Mansfield Town Star paper held a “If I could meet Santa Claus” essay contest, Carla wrote in:

“If I ever met Santa Claus, I’d tell him that he has already given me the best present any little girl could have: my favorite teacher in the world, Miss Lockhart.”

Carla got straight A’s from Miss Lockhart, incidentally or coincidentally.

Her childhood was not all rosy though. When Carla was 13, she and her friend Caitlin were arrested for shoplifting. They were accused of taking aspirins from Long’s drugstore. Carla later defended herself by saying, “My mother has horrible migraines and I couldn’t ask her for any money because she was so ill. I felt I had to help her any way I could.” Judge Norma Johnson looked benevolently upon the young defendant and said, “Young lady, if all of the young people who passed through my courtroom were as sincere and kind as you, then I might retire from this bench.” Carla had kissed ass again—and won.

But good little girls, in good little small towns, can get bored. Carla had gone to a local college and looked ahead a few years and didn’t like what she saw around her:

Early marriage.
Hamms Beer.
Fat asses.
Stretch pants.
Pickup trucks.
Barcaloungers.
Smokers.
Passive living.
Many children.
Drudgery.
Secretarial work.

She had to escape this, somehow.

#####

She matured into a five foot nine inch woman with athletic legs and a narrow waist. Her hair was cut short for she liked to shampoo and towel dry. She didn’t have time for lengthy grooming. She had more important ambitions.

She was indeed in a hurry and one day her mom was suprised when Carla told her that she was moving west to Los Angeles. Mom had expected her daughter to leave, but still the thought of her lovely, only child going to the land of the lost was frightening.

If Mom had fears, Carla only had hopes. Where Mom was cautious, Carla conquered. So it was off to the West Coast, without a second thought for Carla…

Three days later, she stopped to eat at the Main Street McDonalds in Barstow, California. It was a frying pan day with a 109 degree temperature and a sun so enervating that she took cover under a large umbrella in the McDonalds front yard and went to sleep for two hours. When she awoke, she found that someone had stolen her car and all of her belongings. It was also night . She was alone and a woman. No money in a strange desert town.

Twenty-two years old, torn jeans, pink tank top, dirty sandals. She hadn’t showered since her stopover in Tulsa. She had hamburger stains on her behind. Her breath smelled of onions and mustard.. No: wallet, purse, car keys, driver’s license, credit cards, cash. Yet somehow, luck would be hers that night.

#####

Across the desert, just outside of Vegas, 48-year-old Caneer Iverson had left a business meeting and was headed home for Beverly Hills. He had just purchased, for two million dollars, the “Little Chapel by the Lake Casino”. It was far outside of Vegas, near Hoover Dam, but it was a good buy. Forty rooms, a small casino, and a loyal and free spending clientele made up of local residents, retirees, RV nomads, and wealthy divorcees from the area.

Coming down the steep mountain, into the dark night of the desert valley, Iverson put his Eldorado into low gear. He had money, a new acquisition and he didn’t know it but he would soon find a mate..

Back in the 1970’s, Iverson ,a Chicago native, had moved to Los Angeles because he mistook his impotence for prostate cancer. He heard of a cure for the cancer, called Laetrile, or Vitamin B-17. It was outlawed in the States, but conveniently for sale in Tijuana. Iverson thought that he could take this wonderful substance, derived from ground up apricot pits, and it would cure his cancer.

He met another believer: 65-year-old Beverly Hills furrier’s widow, Irene Markowitz, who had lung cancer. Iverson pretended to find the smoking, cancerous, hoarse and rich woman attractive. Lonely, lovable and quite vulnerable, Markowitz was appreciative of his attention. Iverson proposed marriage to her, she accepted, and he moved into her comfortable but nicotine stained apartment in south Beverly Hills. He fed her Laetrile extracts and gave her almond oil massages every night. The health of Irene Markowitz continued to worsen. Two months passed, and Markowitz entered Cedars Sinai, where she expired on August 10, 1981.

Iverson emerged from his wife’s death a much wealthier man. He was worth over 10 million dollars, much of it invested in his late wife’s prime Beverly Hills real estate: office buildings, retail stores, restaurants, gas stations. His wife also still owned No. 2 Timbercrest, a once palatial but now shabby mansion near Rodeo drive. He had been told by his late wife that the house was in horrible condition, so he didn’t even look at it. Now he was the owner and he had to go check it out and get it ready for sale.

The colonial had once looked like “Tara” but now mice encamped in the rotted out beams of the roof. The plumbing was antiquated and leaky. The physical appearance was sad and everything about the property said, “tear down.” Yet Iverson, standing outside of the still dignified home, was reminded of the open air rides in his father’s Cadillac deVille convertible through the shaded streets of Evanston, Wilmette and Winnetka. He kept an idelible memory of the green lawned beauty of Sheridan Road as it traced the shoreline of Lake Michigan. In Chicago, money walked with stoicism, it didn’t shout as it did in Beverly Hills. Iverson suddenly changed his mind: he would restore this home and move into it himself. He could pretend he lived on the North Shore of Chicago but enjoy the eternal sun of the southland.

#####

By the spring of 1983, Iverson had renovated the wonderful Palladian artfulness of No. 2. Iverson was 48 years old, wealthy and comfortable, with a fine house and security, privacy and dignity to match. He moved in and briefly relaxed.

One night, on his newly polished burnished parquet floor, Iverson lit a fire and reclined on a wool blanket. He poured himself a brandy and put on a CD of Rachmaninoff. As the piano played lightly and melodically and Russian enchantment overtook the room, Iverson looked around a wished for a little girl who he could make love to. Iverson made the list of the best bachelors of Los Angeles in 1986. He was approached by Playboy centerfolds, curvaceous waitresses, wealthy widows, poor widows, middle class divorcees. He got laid a couple of times. Then one night in the desert, driving though Barstow, on his way back to LA, he got a terrific taste for a hot,steamy and ketchup gushing Big Mac……….

#####

A milk shake, fries, a Big Mac and Miss Shallow. That’s what Iverson got that night in Barstow. It was 11:30 at night. He pulled into the drive-in window of the McDonalds on Main St. in Barstow. As his headlights beamed into the empty eternity of the desert, a dirty faced young woman approached his car.

“Excuse me, I wonder if you could help me. I’m from Ohio and trying to get to LA. My car was stolen and I haven’t got enough money to eat. Could you buy me a hamburger?”
He looked at her: hungry, desperate. Pleading with a pancake flat accented voice of decency and deprivation. Just one hamburger. He reached into his pocket.

“Get into the car honey. You look like you are upset and afraid.”

She looked at him: middle aged, with a kind, open and beaming face. He could have been her father, or Coach Hanna, who taught her how to sprint in high school. Yet, he also could be a serial killer, a rapist, a druggie. God knows.

Dull of mind,hungry and exhausted, she got into his car. They pulled up to the drive-in window together and he ordered two Big Macs, large fries, a chocolate shake. She gulped down the two burgers and then she promptly collapsed into a deep sleep.

An hour later, they were driving towards LA. She woke up and told him her whole misadventure. “I thought I was going to end up in the Barstow morgue.”

Carla was young and spoke young: “At Malabar High School everyone hated me. I was too ambitious. That’s why I got the hell out.” Caneer liked her moxy. He eyed her tanned legs with their chromelike smoothness.

“What about your mom? Doesn’t she miss you?” Iverson asked.

“Oh, her. She’s into do onto others and all that crap.”

#####

He offered her a bed for a night and her own room at the house. This is what she remembered from her first evening in Beverly Hills: the smell of the lavender. White lights shining upon the red brick. A butler, Darrin. A fresh closet full of white, fluffy towels. A warm bath. Swiss bath oils. A queen sized bed. A white linen canopy.

A mass of pink roses which scented the air.

A stranger had invited her into his home. She did not know him, yet she felt safe, warm and protected. Carla had never been bullied, she won battles. She had won a spelling bee, in the seventh grade, by spelling the word, “conquistador” correctly. Carla went to bed in Beverly Hills that night with a vow: she wanted to stay in this house and she was going to earn the right to stay there.

#####

On her first morning in her new home, Carla awoke to some good news. The police had found her stolen car, with all of her belongings intact. Better still, the car was parked on a residential street in Beverly Hills, about ½ mile from No 2. Timbercrest. The thieves had also been on their way to Beverly Hills.

Caneer was beaming as Carla descended the winding oak staircase and joined him for a breakfast of fresh strawberries, a basket of sougherdough bread, raisin muffins, and cranberry scones. The butler was on hand to serve coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice.

She finished her breakfast. Caneer offered help.

“Carla, don’t worry. Anything you need—a car, cash, just ask.”

He offered to drive her to the towing yard where she could reclaim her car. It was in Mar Vista, and she obviously didn’t know her way around Los Angeles. She also didn’t have any clothes to wear. No problem. The butler came back with all of her previously dirty clothes freshly cleaned and pressed.

Caneer’s keen eyes saw a crack saleswoman. Carla might just become the kind of money maker that he needed in his real estate ventures. He would wait quietly though, like a bobcat stalking his prey, before proposing to her that she join him in selling houses to the very, very rich.

#####

Six months passed, sunny summer turned into sunny fall. Carla had stayed with Caneer, and had joined him as an “assistant” in his real estate ventures. “Caneer and Co.” as he now called himself, moved into a Rodeo drive office. He was the man whom Demi Moore sought out to purchase her first home in Los Angles.

Caneer and Carla now regularly showed up in the columns. They attended charity events, studio premieres, hospital benefactor dinners. They were a power couple in the marble-paved Reagan era.

Carla now watched what she ate. The days of Roy Rogers, Arby’s and McDonalds were over. Her new daily prayer: “How many grams of fat are in this?”

Caneer set out to break the two million dollar mark every month and he held Carla to his goal. He needn’t have feared her dedication. For Carla surpassed the two million dollar mark and doubled it. She sold four houses in one month—but she wasn’t satisfied. She told him, “If I’m not producing, I want you to throw me out— of your office and your home. I need to be producing.”

She was equally as tough on Caneer. She cleaned up his sloppy bookkeeping with Microsoft Excel. There wasn’t a number, a dollar, a transaction that she wasn’t aware of. Every night, she worked well past eight o’clock and would not leave the office until she had made the last sales call.

She ribbed him about his computer illiteracy: “Excel is so easy. How could a multi millionaire like you be so good at business and so dumb in computers?”
She also hated imperfection and fired an accountant with 20 years experience who didn’t inform them of a deduction.

Carla possessed tremendous drive and physical energy. As she told LA MAGAZINE, “I run 5 miles a day, work out with a trainer, and I can outrun my Porsche.”

When Caneer was hungry, and wanted to go to lunch, Carla stayed behind and drank bottled water as to not miss a single incoming call. When Caneer got the flu, Carla didn’t stay home to nurse him. Instead, she called him from the office with exciting news of new conquests and sales to perk him up.

Carla made friends with a couple from San Jose who were developing something she thought promising: micro processors which would eventually be installed in every computer around the world. She loaned this couple $10,000 and saw her investment explode 1600% in two years. Money magazine quoted Carla: “It was just a lucky accident.” Anything but……

#####

Home life was conducted with the organizational efficiency of a military operation.

In the month General Schwarzkopf was blasting towards Baghdad, Carla was organizing a fifteen- man division of salespersons who were selling over 30 homes a month in Beverly Hills, Brentwood, Westwood and Pacific Palisades. Her Porsche driving panzer patrol would drive up the streets of the Westside, targeting sites for invasion, setting up traps to ensnare buyers, strategizing, and conducting a propaganda campaign to sweep up the Westside real estate market and grab commissions.

Bitter rivals at other agencies nicknamed her “Leona” after Leona Helmsley, the New York hotel queen who ruled over her properties with imperious authority. Carla liked the name Leona and even had a brass plaque made for her office door with the name “Leona” inscribed.

The aggressive woman,however, turned into a compliant kitty at night. She made sure to flatter Caneer with reminders that he had made her success possible: “Darling if it weren’t for you, I’d probably be working at McDonalds.” She credited her drive to his encouragement: “I want you to become the biggest broker in Beverly Hills” Every day that passed saw her wealth, success, energy and fame increase—even as it occured under his rubric, “Caneer and Co.”

#####

Farsi speaking, internationally travelled, tall, dark and athletically handsome, George Shahran was already the talk of the Persian exile community when he walked in Caneer’s office and was hired on the spot to sell houses. Shahran was seen by Caneer as a key player in penetrating the hugely wealthy community of Iranians who settled in Beverly Hills after the fall of the Shah in 1979.

Shahran was something else too: a ladies man. He had played water polo at UCLA, rowed crew, and had been known as a track star on the UCLA team. He majored in business and finance and drove a fast,shiny red Porsche which regularly collected tickets in the vicinity of Bel Air. He had a legendary way with women. He kept a suite at the Beverly Wilshire for his romantic afternoon adventures and if you were a lady looking for property…..

Shahran was ambitious and driven in business. He asked Caneer to double his commissions if he sold a certain amount of property every month. Caneer was impressed. Shahran deserved the extra pay if he was indeed the rain maker that he presented himself to be.

Carla already knew about Shahran—and she considered him a territorial, financial and social threat to her hegemony. She would not confront Shahran directly, but she would let her beloved know that she had no intention of being displaced by this nouveau Iranian.

One of the first big fights and dramatic confrontations between Carla and Caneer occurred the very day that Shahran started work at the firm.

#####

Shahran had come over early in the morning for coffee, on Caneer’s invitation. Carla knew about the invitation, but had not been consulted first by her beloved. She was angry, jealous and feeling displaced by the “successful” newcomer. As Shahran rang the bell, Carla was upstairs getting dressed. Caneer went to answer the door. Before he could open it, Carla came storming down the stairs. Her face was blazing with meanness. Her still wet hair was imprisoned in a terry cloth towel. She pointed her sharp, red, polished index finger at Caneer.

“I don’t want him fuckin’ coming in here. It’s not his house. You hired him to work in the office. He’s not a friend! I don’t want my employees coming in here like they’re my best buddy! Who the fuck does he think he is just bursting in here like that?”

Caneer was stunned.

“My god, what have I done to deserve this?”

“Figure it out!”

She pounded up the stairs, her feet jabbing the treads like a jackhammer on asphalt.

Wisely, objectively and diligently, Caneer put his anger,shock and his left hand in his left pocket and calmly opened the door.

Shahran was smiling, sharp and unaware of the problems his arrival had caused. Caneer extended his right hand with firm assurance.

Caneer fibbed elegantly, “I’m sorry. Carla is very ill this morning. She might have food poisoning. She is so sorry because she wanted to meet you.”

Shahran was kind, “Oh, gosh. That’s horrible. I hope she feels well enough to come to work. I’m so anxious to meet her.”

Caneer had one foot inside the foyer and one foot on the front porch. He smiled at Shahran and held up his index finger to indicate one minute.

The door closed again and Shahran stood outside on the porch waiting for Caneer’s return. Graceful white columns stoically supported the mansion’s roof. Shahran imitated their architectural behavior and waited calmly. Curiosity, however, impelled him to walk away from the house and appraise the exterior with all of the curatorial thoroughness of his profession.

He leaned against the pillar closest to the front door and checked his watch. He had been outside fifteen minutes. It seemed rude but maybe there was a reason: The lover was sick, the house was a mess. He could hear yelling and it sounded as if it were coming down a pipe or through a bullhorn. He put his ear to a column.

Carla’s shrill voice came through the hollow pipe loud and clear: “Tell that big nosed, big cock hot shot that I will never work with him. ”

Shahran was shaken. He now understood that he was hated by the very woman he had once idolized.

Caneer came outside. Shahran feigned innocence. Caneer said apologetically, “Sorry buddy. Go on without me.”

Shahran was let down. On his first day, he had eagerly anticipated meeting his mentor and the legendary Carla. At high income levels, breakfast cancelled in Los Angeles is akin to pulling a veil off of a Muslim woman in Baghdad. An unforgivable insult.

#####

Months passed and Shahran worked hard. He forgot the breakfast slight and began to feel like Caneer and Co. was his home. But his usual good luck went bad. Women passed through and he made love to some, but sold little. His athletic dynamism seemed to cool as he sat on the bench in the office, watching the star player on the court, Carla, close the best deals.

Shahran became good friends with Nancy Johnson, a young,vivacious red haired girl from Portland, Oregon who charmed everyone in the office with her imitation of an Irish brogue. She was talented in impersonations and even could imitate the boss, Carla. Nancy was a fresh wind of humor in a deadly serious office and Shahran loved her kindness and wacky ways.

But Nancy walked into Shahran’s office one day. Her green eyes were bloodshot and she had been crying. She sat down and put her face into her hands.

“Carla says that I’ve been goofing off and she is firing me. I’m saying good-bye.”
“But you’re a really good salesperson, Nance…”
“It doesn’t matter. She said I was a stupid clown that distracted everyone from their work.”
So little Nancy was out courtesy of Carla. The office grew quieter.

#####

Caneer was also seen less his office. Rumors swept the company that he was sick with cancer. Other more unspeakable ailments were whispered about: he might be a closet fag and dying of AIDS; he might be suicidal; he once tried to kill himself. None of it was true, but Shahran suspected Carla might be secretly trying to depose her sweetheart.

When Caneer finally came into the office, after an absence of five weeks, he seemed considerably thinner. He had a strong orange tan, which only served to accentuate his martian-like appearance. He drank prune juice and carried a handkerchief which he constantly was blowing into. He limped and his white hair was much sparser. His murky eyes aged and his feeble voice sounded rockier and shakier.

One day, an office meeting was held with Carla speaking. Caneer, invalid like, sat in a chair while his lover stood and spoke:

“As many of you are aware my beloved, dear partner and your leader has been absent for many weeks from our company. As some of you may have surmised, he is ill. With his sad departure, I am assuming the leadership of Caneer and am confident that we will continue to progress and hit new levels of success and achievement worthy of our founder……..”

#####

Six months after Iverson’s last day, Shahran was doing quite well at Caneer and Co. His sales were right up there under Carla’s. She was still the top performer but he had just closed three deals in the past month and was feeling great about the coming year: more money, more opportunity.

What had not changed was the icy demeanor of Carla towards Shahran. She barely spoke to him. She affected an air of disinterest in his deals and if she mentioned them at all it was to convey Caneer’s appreciation for Shahran. The Persian accepted her personalilty, and though he wasn’t fond of her, he preoccupied himself with the details of his job.

Carla mostly stayed out of Shahran’s space, either out of distaste for him or something else. Yet one day, Shahran was suprised to get a voice mail from Carla with an invitation to join her for lunch at Le Dome, an expensive restaurant.

Shahran began to regain some of the old confidence. He asked of his reflection in a mirror: “Who was that woman to push me around? She would never fire me. She knows I’m good. ” He fed himself these positive reinforcements before he entered Le Dome.

Carla, on the celphone, had already arrived wearing a Dior ivory shantung silk jacket and matching skirt.

A bottle of chardonnay sat in a silver bucket next to the table. Shahran walked up to her, smiling broadly.

Carla pursed her lips in a sly way. No emotion but a veneer of civility. She crossed her legs and looked into Shahran’s eyes with a prosecutorial gaze.

“Congrats on your two big sales. I understand the LeBlanc sale is in escrow. That was quite a surprise, I didn’t think that the bank would approve the loan.”

Shahran was confused, but spoke immediately. “I was very happy for the LeBlancs They’re a young couple. Very hard working nice people. She’s expecting a baby in October.”

“So I heard.
“
The waiter brought Shahran’s water and it was promptly gulped by the still nervous broker. Carla was holding a Cross pen and jotting down some figures on a piece of paper.

“In the appraisal, the house was valued at $1,950,000. That seems a little high for that neighborhood don’t you think?”

“Oh, it’s a little high but nothing outrageous.”

Carla shook her head no. “No way. You are way off. $1,700,000 at the most.”

Shahran knew she was suspicious about something. “Are you saying that the LeBlancs are in over their head?”

Carla leaned over and stared at Shahran. She stuck her lizard’s tongue into the chardonnay and took a sip. “You and I both know that the appraisal was cooked. You can’t fool me with those figures. The LeBlancs were approved for the mortgage because the bank thinks the house is worth a lot more than it is and when they loaned them the money the “extra” cash covers the down payment. Those people couldn’t afford a fuckin’ condo in Alhambra for God’s sake!”

Shahran was stunned. He stammered as he struggled to reply to an obviously false charge. “If the appraisal is phony then the mortgage company and the appraiser are to blame. What difference does it make if we made the sale anyway?”

Carla kept her voice down, but she was furious. She drew her lips together and clenched her fists as her temper exploded.

“I am not running a god damn two penny house of fraud! I expect my brokers to be scrupulously honest and if I have to start fighting lawsuits and damn investigations from the California Department of Commerce or the state attorney general, or the FBI, I won’t stand for it! You and I know that if the LeBlancs find out that they were hustled or didn’t know the true value or terms of the agreement then the whole deal is kaput. Not only that but I could face legal fuckin problems up the wazoo.”

Shahran was grief stricken. He felt naked, ashamed and unsure of how this had escalated into his error and mistake. He struggled to defend himself. “I don’t know how this happened. I used Abby Josephson as my appraiser so many times. She doesn’t seem like a fraud.”

Carla calmed down, but only enough to indict him further. “If Abby can make a little on the side when the mortgage is approved and the seller and the broker are happy, why do you think that she would give a rat’s ass about ethics? I know a lot of appraisers in this city and I wouldn’t trust them any more than I would hire Charles Manson as a babysitter!”

Good Shahran was falling fast, he knew his job was on the line and now his good sales figures were evidence of a crime that he surely did not commit.

Shahran asked for a chance to explain. “I didn’t know what was happening. I think you should let me go over my records and then talk about it with you tomorrow. I had no idea you were going to bring this up.”

Carla was not satiated, yet. ” I have a bigger problem here. Trust. I have let you roam on a very long leash. I heard good things about you and your figures have been impressive all along. But details are the si ne qua non of our profession. You aren’t a success just because you make sales and fuck all the females.”

She had nailed him in the balls.

The inquistion continued, “If you close a bad deal and forget to check the details whether it is an inspection, an appraisal, a percentage on a mortgage, whatever, you are failing to do your job.”

“So are you firing me? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes. I want you out of the office today”

#####

With little emotion and mechanical ambition, Carla Shallow had built up her Beverly Hills real estate empire into the largest property management and sales firm in the West. But now with her dearest dead– she was selling her company to a Fortune 500 conglomerate, taking her wealth and moving, in a few weeks, to Maui.

She didn’t look a woman in mourning, this spunky, fit, purple sweatshirted woman. Her hair was tousled and her walk robust and confident. The house with the hollow pillars had been one of the stops for a supersonic woman whose achievements—in business, in marriage and in crushing rivals were breathtaking. There were boxes all around. The butler nervously packed bubble wrapping around glass trinkets.

“Mrs. Iverson?”

“Yes, Darrin?”

“I have all of Mr. Ivereson’s papers wrapped up neatly.”

“Good. Will you drop off the documents at the lawyer’s office today? They need everything to make sure that the will is in order.”

That evening, Carla left LA and flew to Hawaii just as CNN reported the acquisition of her company.

#####

Months after he was fired, Shahran, unaware of Carla’s departure, was driving past the house of hollow pillars. He thought briefly about getting a baseball bat and walking into no. 2 Timbercrest and smashing that bitch. He pictured the bloody teeth, the broken jaw, the cracked skull and how he might stomp his combat boots into her screaming face as she lay helpless on the floor. His heart raced faster as he imagined carrying her lifeless body up the winding staircase and then dropping her limp corpse from atop the landing and onto a glass table below.

But Carla wasn’t in that house at that moment. She was eating a mango and shrimp salad at the Grand Wailea Resort Hotel and Spa in Maui. Cascading waterfalls, tropical vegetation, formal gardens, and the lush life would relax most mortals.

But Carla had always been different. She would come to Maui, not to retire, but to expand her conquest. She had her eye on several properties, including the Grand Wailea .

She would continue to live and prosper as lesser souls around her dwindled and failed.

Back in Beverly Hills, the house of the hollow pillars would see new tenants, but none as smart , shrewd and savvy as Carla.
THE END

"The Head Shot" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

The head shot was there in the window when Hank walked by. A young blond man with pearly white teeth and the name “Joseph Atkins” imprinted at the bottom. Hank stopped to look for just a minute. This photo had been hanging in the former home of Molly’s Photo Lab for at least 10 years. This was about the only smiling human face on shabby Newsom Street the main drag of once proud Newsom, Massachusetts.

Hank worked at Nino’s Restaurant and it was his habit to walk from mother’s double decker house on Willow, to start his job as a waiter, delivery boy and all around worker at the only surviving business in this dying fishing town. Nino had survived because he was famous and even people who were scared of Newsom Street fought fear to eat his famous fettuccini now and then.

Nino was about 50, with a bald head, high cheekbones and a widening girth. He looked somewhat like Pope John Paul II. His restaurant specialized in Sicilian dishes: tomato based sauces, pizzas, garlic bread, red wine, etc. Nino’s was where you went for your first date, for a cheap meal, for reassuring home cooked dishes.

Hank had worked for Nino two years after high school. There weren’t many opportunities for success in this fishing town in southeastern Massachusetts. Hank was never a good student. He sucked at athletics. When other classmates were getting scholarships to M.I.T and Harvard, Hank was thinking about how he was going to support himself and his widowed mother now that he was out of high school and a man of 19 years of age.

Newsom Street had thrived in the years just after World War II. The town had many Portuguese with a mix of Irish, Italians and Slovaks who worked in the fishing industry and brought in loads of cod and lobsters. Newsom Street had a fishy stink that was legendary throughout southeastern Massachusetts.

Newsom was now a mostly abandoned street. Too homely to support renovation, too far from the high tech corridor to attract yuppies, it dwelled in memories and regret. Buildings still carried the names of their closed businesses: Schwartz Toys, McMann’s Hardware, Aiello Barbershop. The streetscape contained sagging double-decker wooden houses, peeling paint, broken windows, and utility poles covered with political advertising.

Yet Nino’s continued to survive. New Englanders are by nature attracted to the past and many families who had moved away from Newsom Street and vicinity would come on Sunday evenings and dine at Nino’s. Prices were still wonderfully affordable: $12.95 for a lobster dinner including garlic bread, salad, antipasto, entree and the famous bread pudding.

One Tuesday morning in October the chill of autumn was in the air. The maples were showing their red leaves and the smell of burning pine logs permeated the hazy air. Hank was walking to work again and thinking of how he could tell Nino that he wanted to quit.

This decision had taken even Hank by surprise. He had intended to stay at Nino’s throughout the winter and then by spring he was going to enroll in the Boston School of Computer Animation and take some classes. Eventually, he hoped to become a web page designer and move to Boston and work in the high tech industry.

But something inside was trying to dissuade him from learning HTML and the complexities of computer animation. It was the head shot that he had seen of the young blond man hanging in the window of a store that no longer existed. Maybe that guy was a famous actor. Maybe there was an easy way out of hard work. It was a picture that you could make up a story about.

Hank often imagined that he would be working in the restaurant and someone would just come in and tell him that he should be an actor and he could make millions, become famous and get out of Newsom forever. That was just a dream though…..

Nino was busy loading in tin cans of olive oil. He struggled to get them off the truck and down into the basement of the restaurant as Hank arrived.
“Morning Hank. Can you get these off the truck and just move whatever you need to down there?”
“Sure.”

Hank was eager to help. This was his nature to assist people. He was the delivery boy, the obedient son, the kind friend, a thoughtful young worker.
But on this particular morning, he felt resentful at this early exertion. He wanted to speak to Nino but there wasn’t a chance.

“I have to talk to you when we finish,” Hank said.
Nino looked at him and shook his head in disbelief.

“Hey. Just watch what you’re doing and don’t drop the oil. It’s extra virgin and I can’t afford to puncture any of these cans.”

“When is the pasta coming in?” Hank asked.

“I don’t know. Manelli said that there’s construction delays on that fuckin’ Central Artery and I don’t think they can get it down to me by tonight. I’m scared cause I only got fettuccini and I need some penne, spaghetti, and lasagna.”

“Did you see that some of the garlic has gone bad?” Hank asked.

“What? Why didn’t you tell me Sunday night?”

“I just noticed it when I went downstairs. Geez, it’s not my restaurant Nino!”

“What do you mean its not my restaurant? Of course it is! You work here you contribute.”

“I want to quit Nino.”

Nino droppped a box of artichokes and stared straight into Hank’s frightened eyes.
Hours later, over a few cups of coffee, Nino understood why Hank wanted to leave. He just didn’t buy his reasoning.

“Listen, you should get out of Newsom and especially waitering. You can’t make a living at being a waiter unless you intend to open a restaurant and from a man who has been running a joint for many years I’d advise you against it. But don’t you think computers is the way to go?”

“Yeah. I mean look at Bill Gates or that guy that started the bookstore Amazing or whatever it’s called.”

“Millionaires!” Nino yelled.

Nino pounded his fist on the table. He looked like a little godfather telling his son what the true way in life was.

“Up in Boston you got guys maybe 20 or 21 years old. Geniuses at M.I.T. making millions on some stupid computer game. My daughter said she went out with a Chinese kid whose father invented a language that all the computers use. Invented a fuckin’ language!”

Hank was laughing. He was picturing a Chinese man who couldn’t speak English inventing a language that everyone would use around the world.

“But Nino,” Hank insisted, “I’m not going to get into M.I.T.!”

“Why not?” Nino demanded.

“I’m not Chinese for one thing.”

“O.K. Funny. So when do you want to walk outta here? I need to know so I can hire someone else.”

“I need to go up to Boston to register at the BSCA….and maybe look for a place to live.”

“All right. Why don’t you go on Wednesday on your day off and take Thursday too. Do you need some money?”

“No. That’s all right Nino. I have some saved.”

“Nonsense. I’m giving you $200.”

Nino went into the back room and came out with two freshly printed $100 dollar bills. Hank looked at the money and wondered whether Nino had a secret counterfeiting operation. The bills just looked too good to be real.

Hank went home and told his mother that he was taking the bus into Boston the next morning and staying the night at the YMCA. He took out his homely green army duffle and threw some t-shirts, underwear, athletic socks and a pair of black leather shoes in. He took a Ziploc bag and packed toothpaste, toothbrush, hair gel, deodorant, shaving cream and razors.

In his closet, buried on the top shelf underneath all the winter woolens, he kept a cardboard box leftover from a long ago Christmas. He reached up and threw his sweaters on the floor and took down the box. Inside were 50 head shots of him which a photographer had taken almost 2 years ago. He looked at the photo and wondered if he still looked 17 years old. When you are 19, even a few months can change your looks radically.

He packed the box with his photo inside the duffle bag and the next morning boarded a bus for South Station Boston.

When he got to the Cambridge YMCA he was disappointed. It was a brown dinosaur from the 1920’s: homely, spartan, cold looking. It was neither welcoming nor hostile—just indifferent. Central Square was full of students, homeless men, delivery trucks, cars, noise and confusion. It was a hodgepodge of modern clinics, hospitals, M.I.T satellite buildings and fast food restaurants.

After registering, he showered, put on a fresh white oxford shirt and walked over to the Boston School of Computer Animation. When he got there he was sickened. He had expected a Gothic building or maybe a Colonial campus but instead the school was in a three story building next to the Mass Turnpike and shared its quarters with a McDonalds, a nail salon, and a accidental injury lawyer.

He entered the building and walked up the narrow off kilter stairs and into a florescent lit office. A purple haired punky girl sat at the front desk. Beyond the girl, he could see dozens of computers jammed into a small room with young hackers staring beetle eyed at flickering images on their cathode ray tube monitors.
The girl at the desk had a nose ring and tilted her head at an angle when she talked.

“Hi. I’m interested in your computer classes. Can you tell me anything about the courses?” Hank asked.

“What do you want to know?” she asked with her mouth full of gum.

“I want to learn HTML.”

“Uh huh.”

She handed him a course catalog outlining the classes offered.

“Do you need anything else?” she asked.

“No. I don’t think so.”

Hank walked out of the school and felt like vomiting. This shithole! Was this why he had traveled up to Boston and rented a room at the YMCA? To walk into a school where they didn’t even answer your questions, acknowledge your presence, offer you a tour?

Was he a loser? Could they look at him and see that he didn’t belong or wasn’t smart enough? Did he have small town written all over him? Were his clothes not hip enough?
Fuck that place! Fuck that fucking girl!

There was a consolation though. He was enjoying Boston. The sights were beautiful. He took a walk through Beacon Hill at dusk and saw the gas lamps turned on and the gentle glow of the setting sun against the red brick townhouses on Louisburg Square. Boston was incredible when you turned down the right street. At the Massachusetts Statehouse he could look over the gorgeous grounds of the Public Common and imagine Paul Revere riding up the street.

After a cheap dinner in Quincy Market, he walked around and stopped to buy a gift for Nino. It was a wooden frame with the engraving “Greetings from the North End.”

He wasn’t ready to go back to the YMCA so he stopped off at an Irish type bar near the wharf. The bar was full of Bostontonians, some men in suits, rowdy students, women in tight skirts with cardigan sweaters and push up bras. It was lively and loud and what he needed after a day alone in the big city.

He could barely edge his way to the bar to order a Becks. He stood on the counter rail to increase his height and caught the eye of the bartender.

A young and harried guy came over to Hank.

“What can I get you?”

“Becks.”

“Can I see some I.D?”

“Sure.”

Hank pulled out his driver’s license and handed it to the bartender.
The bartender looked at it.

“Sorry man. You still got another year. Can’t serve ya.”

Hank was really annoyed. There were girls, probably 16 or 17 around the bar. He just didn’t believe that he couldn’t get served here. Nino never cared. Why should this guy?

Strangely, the bartender motioned to Hank to come to the side of the bar. Hank went over to him.

“Where are you from kid?” the bartender asked.

“Newsom, Mass.”

“Newsom! No kidding! So am I?”

“I thought you looked familiar!” Hank said.

“Geez. I don’t know. I’m probably 10 years older than you.” the bartender said.

“What’s your name?” Hank asked.

“Joseph.” The bartender answered.

Hank wondered. “Joseph………Atkins?”

“Now how did you know that!”

“I think I’ve seen you on Newsom Street.” Hank answered.

“That’s so funny man. Hey Hank I’ve gotta get those two chicks down there. I’ll catch ya later.”

Hank walked out of the bar satisfied that he had finally met Joseph Atkins. The young man in the head shot.

The next morning, Hank went back to the school of computer animation to see if maybe he hadn’t been a bit too hasty in judging the merits of this institution of higher education.

END

"The Follow Along" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

“Oh, Hello Mrs. Edelman. I’ve got a UPS package down here from your son in California. Yes, Ma’am I’ll keep it right next to my desk.”

McEvoy, the doorman at 1099 Fifth Avenue, hung up the phone. A ruddy, middle- aged and perpetually officious Irishman, he had worked in this luxury building for 24 years.

The house telephone rang again.

”Hello. Mrs. Edelman? Yes, its still here. The weather? Let me look outside.”

He put down the receiver and walked out onto Fifth Avenue and looked across the gray, windy expanse of Central Park.

“It don’t look too good ma’am. I’d say you’d better take an umbrella. Well, even if you’re only going to Lincoln Center. When you get out of the cab, if it’s raining, you’ll get drenched. Yes, ma’am.”

Madison Parke, the red haired, affected and pretentious nighttime doorman, arrived for the evening shift.

Mr. Fagan picked up the UPS package.

“Great son, this Ron Edelman. He lives out in LA, makes a bundle producing shit TV and he sends his mother used books.”

“She likes books. She always tells me that Ron— the great Ron— knows just what his mom wants to read. She loves mysteries. Last year she went on that sleuth weekend where you had to find the body up at Lake Mohonk. Couldn’t stop talking about it.”

“Yeah. I remember. She was all excited because the “corpse” was at the bottom of the lake.”

“Charlie, I saw her come down the other day. She was wearing the tightest spandex exercise pants youse ever seen. I mean, if I didn’t know she was 70 years old, I would go after her myself.”

“Oh, she takes great care of herself. She told me she’s on the stair master 45 minutes a day. She also lifts weights, rides horses, swims in the pool, does yoga.”

“Then she’s always running out the door to plays, concerts, restaurants. She told even told me she ended up in a dyke bar down in Tribeca last week!”

“Mrs. Edelman! At a dyke bar!”

“She said she knew women like that at Vassar, but she was always afraid to socialize with them. Now that’s its cool….well she wanted to see a lesbo bar up close.”

The elevator door opened. Out of the mahogany paneled cab stepped a petite, blond, thin lady dressed in a tan trench coat. A Burberry scarf was gallantly wrapped around her neck. Her posture was erect, her tone direct and confident.

“Good evening gentlemen!”

“Hello Mrs. Edelman”

“Can you call a cab for me Charles?”

“Yes ma’am.”

He ran out the front door, stepped off the curb and stuck a piercing whistle in his mouth. As if on command to a deity, a line of yellow cabs came to a halt.

Mrs. Edelman stepped out . McEvoy held open the apartment door and Doorman Fagan got the cab. She smiled at these two servants who greased the wheels of elitism, on a cool October night on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

“I want two pounds of nova. Don’t slice it too thickly. Last time I came in you gave me thick slices. I almost choked.”

Mrs. Edelman was pushing her way through the competitively edible chaos of the Fairway. Even at midnight, the store was bustling. Shoppers aimed their carts like assassins with automatic weapons. A ridiculously opulent place, she thought. Stuffed with non-essentials like English creams, organic Greek olives, hand cut oatmeal, German black bread, Swiss preserves, French mustards, Japanese fish eggs and butter from Manitoba.

It was a ritual for her, the Saturday night trip to the Upper West Side for Sunday brunch. The dying and reborn rituals of Jewish cooking, family togetherness and religious symbolism joined hands with the secular machine of supermarket retailing.

She had done this when Harry was alive. He insisted on the best of everything. He simply could not eat a piece of Lox unless it had been purchased at Fairway. He was as biased in favor of the culture and food of this neighborhood. But as a successful shoe manufacturer and designer, he insisted on the stylish elegance of the Upper East Side. His January 1969 quote in Esquire: “The West side is for eating, the East side for living.”

He was a self-made and often arrogant man. But he inspired her love. There was not a day when some street, some store- front didn’t remind her of Harry Edelman. A walk past the Plaza brought back the moment he had proposed to her in the Oak Bar, a young man of 27, already selling shoes to Bergdorf under the Edelman label. His shoes were the pinnacle of stylishness, and when a woman wore $50 Edelman crocodile pumps, she had attained an important and inarguably affluent state of being.

Truman Capote had once written an unpublished short story for her called “Little Mister Shoe”. It was a wickedly cruel satire of a Brooklyn born titan who rose to the top of his profession by preying on the insecurities of rich Manhattan matrons. He would walk up Madison Avenue, find wealthy ladies and ask, “Are those Weinsteins you’re wearing?” The women, startled and surprised by this shoe interrogator, would usually say, “No they’re not.” And this questioner, would remark, “Well, they are so beautiful, I just assumed they were Weinsteins!”

That’s what Harry had done. He got Slim Hayward, Babe Paley and even Doris Day to wear his shoes. He walked up to them at parties or in restaurants and pretended to not understand why they were not wearing Edelmans.

On the day Harry Edelman died, his wife was walking home in blinding rainstorm, unable to hail a cab. Her shoes were soaking, the leather ruined. All she could think of was how he would kill her when she got home. When she reached 1099, an ambulance was outside, lights flashing crimson in the dark pounding rain. Two men were carrying him out on a gurney. As the doorman grabbed her beneath the arms, she fainted away.

Ron had been the apple of their eye. The only son. With his blue eyes, light brown hair, tall and athletic frame, he turned heads everywhere. He seemed destined for acting, or perhaps news casting. He had a deep and abiding loyalty to his parents, and especially was concerned about their health and safety.

At Yale, he surprised his parents when he switched his major from acting to business management. It was practical, he explained, the eighties were about making money, and he didn’t know any rich actors, only struggling ones.

He came home, to Manhattan, during vacations and long weekends. Always to see shows. He was passionate about dramas: Pinter, Albee, Shakespeare. Once they saw “Othello” out of doors in the park, when it was playing at the Delacorte. At the moment that the great martyred queen Desdemona dies, at the hand of her distrusting husband, Ron let out a mournful cry. It startled his mother, to see her son so moved by something so ethereal and artful.

Ron had one weakness that seemed to bother her immensely. He was picked up, bossed around and controlled by domineering women. There was Annette Hoffman, the chubby thespian who had dated him at Dalton in junior and senior years. She openly smoked, wore heavy make up and dressed like a shlep. She lived on Riverside Drive, and seemed openly contemptuous of Ron’s parents and their tony, aspiring life on Fifth.

To his mother’s gratification, Ron broke off with Annette. But again he was cornered at college by the needy, self- pitying and obnoxious Rosanne Harmon, a Connecticut WASP. Ron was taken with Rosanne’s blond hair and soccer toned thighs, but seemed to ignore her more destructive tendencies. When he brought her home for Thanksgiving, and Rosanne sarcastically remarked about the good taste of his parents, Harry took her comment to sound almost anti-Semitic, as if Jews just wouldn’t know good taste, and simply had to purchase the outward manifestation of it.

Harry’s dislike for Rosanne brought a chill to the relationship between father and son. Rosanne started to push for Ron to break away from his parents. Talk started about moving West, where the sun shined always, and the limestone structured rules and regulations melted in the heat of a perpetual Dionysian youth.

Ron and Rosanne drew closer to graduation. Los Angeles, with its insipid and empty promises of sunshine, fame and fortune posed a poisonously seductive charm to the graduates. 

Rosanne nagged him. ”Let’s get out of the East Coast. The weather sucks. We will always have your parents to deal with, and I just want to see whether we can make it in LA”

“I don’t know, Ro.” Ron would answer, “ I just think it’s awful out there. You need a car. The people are so dumb. Besides, I might want to work with my father. He needs a business mind. “

“That is just gross! You want to spend your twenties stuck on 7th Avenue? The humidity…. pushing carts and boxes on the sidewalk…… and working in the shoe business! You always wanted to act. Why don’t you live your dreams?”

When she spoke it made sense. Los Angeles would be their city. They could always come home. They could even become bi-coastal, with a home in both cities! Los Angeles didn’t have lots of things—Central Park, Broadway, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, Sardis, the Guggenheim. But so what! Angelinos had swimming pools, nice cars, and beautiful weather. That was enough! If they didn’t like it out West, they would come back to New York.

At Fairway, she grabbed the Nova Scotia. Then it was two pumpernickel bagels, two raisins, two sesame. A red onion, Jersey tomatoes, capers, and a half pound of Sumatra.

Tomorrow she was having an eclectic group over: Ingrid, a retired book editor at Knopf and her husband Arnie, who was a violinist with the Philharmonic. The guest list included portrait painter Edward Reese Hubbard, and his companion Maynard Forbes, an investment banker.

At the checkout line, the clerk remarked. “Look at that lightening. It’s gonna pour. Do you need any help with your packages ma’am?.”

“No! Not at all. I’ve got it all under control.”

The seventy- year old lady with the 26- inch waist, bountiful brain and the beating heart, carried two heavy paper bags full of provisions for a Sunday party full of witty, intelligent and urbane sophisticates. Independent, opinionated and free of encumbering alliances with husbands, lovers and even her own son, she stepped out unaware of the precipice ahead.

The cab crossed under the flooded park roads. When they got to Fifth Avenue, the rain was pounding heavily. It sounded like the steel roof of the cab was being hit by a thousand speeding nails maliciously tossed by the hands of an angry God.

At 1099, the doorman opened her door. Instead of helping Mrs. Edelman out of the cab, he instead grabbed the two bags of groceries and hustled them inside to dryness. She fumbled for her wallet, and took out $10 and paid the cabbie. She put her hand on the door of the cab and lifted herself onto the curb. But her right foot hit the gutter and suddenly twisted. A cracking bone and the instant signal of injury rushed through her entire body. She screamed loudly, and fell forward onto the sidewalk. The cab driver, recognizing her injury but fearing a lawsuit, pulled away suddenly with the door ajar. She lay helpless on the sidewalk, awaiting rescue.

“You’ve broken your ankle, Mrs. Edelman.”

The doctor at Lenox Hill spoke clearly and without empathy. “Look at the X-Ray”.

He continued, “‘The white solid area is your ankle bone, dislocated by about 5cm or so from the end of the broken tibia. The jagged ends of broken bones can be clearly seen.”

She was in a wheelchair. At her side was Edward Reese and Maynard.

Edward said, “Doctor, Mrs. Edelman lives alone. She is in an apartment and can’t get around without help. How is she going to take care of herself?”

“Do you have any children Mrs. Edelman?”

“My son lives in Agoura. That’s in California.”

“Oh.”

“He’s been telling me for years that I have to move there. But I hate it out there. I’m not going to leave New York. That’s final.”

“Mother, it’s Ron. How are you feeling?”

“Well. I have pain and tenderness. My leg is swelling. I can’t move around and when I try to move it hurts even more. How is Rosanne?”

”Never mind Rosanne. She’s fine. Let’s just talk about you. That’s my concern.”

“Well I’m just asking, because I haven’t heard from her. I just wondered if she’s all right.”

“What else did the doctor say?”

“He took a Doppler study.”

“What’s that?”

“To see about my pulse. Sometimes they get concerned because the injury can cut off your pulse and then you might have an amputation.”

“An amputation! Mother that does it. I’m coming home.”

”What about your show? How can you leave Rosanne?”

“She’s going to be all right. I’m coming into LaGuardia on Friday.”
“OK.”
————————————————————————————————————–
On Sunday afternoon, Ingrid and Arnie were sitting in the yellow walled living room. The park windows were open. It was a sunny Autumn day, when the warm winds carry faint scents of burning wood and fallen leaves. The dimming sun perpetuated a lie: that this fair weather would never end.

“I don’t see how she’s going to be able to stay here.” remarked Ingrid.

“A nurse? Don’t they have nurses who can stay with her?” asked Arnie.

“Around the clock! She can’t afford that.”

“She’s not exactly poor.”

“This is what kills old people. When the medical bills start piling up, they have to get people to take care of them all day. Emptying bed- pans, going to the grocery store, paying the bills. Who do you think is going to do all that?”

From the bedroom, the weary voice of the patient called out.

“Ingrid. Can you come in here please?”

“I’m coming.”

Her leg was elevated on pillows. Wrapped in a cast, it stood on top of a goose down comforter like some misplaced sculpture from the Museum of Modern Art. It covered a right leg that had been one half of a vigorous and seldom still pair of legs. The legs that had once danced at the Waldorf and skated around the ice at Wohlman Rink. Those legs had climbed the Statue of Liberty and ran around the Reservoir in Central Park.

“I’m sorry to bother you. Could you get me a Tylenol? These compound fractures. I think I ‘d rather just have them cut off!”

Ingrid handed her a glass of water and a pill.

“Don’t talk that way! In a couple of months, you’ll be out of this mess and back to your old self.”

“Old self. That’s what I am. Old. Look at how I ruined everyone’s brunch today.”

“You didn’t ruin anything! You had an accident. Ron will be coming home, and then you’ll have something to look forward to. Maybe with the winter coming you’ll want to spend time in California. Listen, it’s not bad sitting around the pool in the sunshine.”

The phone rang. It was Maynard.

“Hello, dear. How are you?”

“As well as can be expected. Where are you calling from?”

”Oh, we just left the ballet. It was marvelous. I usually hate modern dance, but this one was choreographed magnificently. The way they move on stage. Lucinda Capelli bounces like a kitten and she is so beautiful.”

“Oh, Lucinda. Remember when she performed Balanchine’s piece? I forget the name. See, I’m losing my mind.”

“Don’t say that. You’re going to be up and about in a matter of days. Edward was saying that he should paint you in bed. That would cheer you up.! He could hide your cast under some pillows and immortalize you for the ages! What do you think of that?”

“I think I’m tired. I have to go. Good-bye”

She hung up the phone and stared at the ceiling. Ingrid took her hand and tried to tell her she was not alone.

Ingrid and Arnie. Maynard and Edward. The doorman and the maid. The nurse from Blue Cross. All made appearances. They fed and bathed and emptied the bedpan. They listened as she cried and got angry. They fed her pills to relax her, pills to kill the pain.

Friday: The day that Ron came home. Only six days elapsed between her injury and his impending arrival. Every 24 hours felt monumentally long and physically and psychologically taxing. She wondered if he was really coming. She feared his plane would crash. Eating, bathing, thinking, all were actions of immense athletic exertion.

At last, 11.30pm on Friday, November 1st, Ron Edelman walked into his mother’s room and hugged her tightly. She was so relieved to see him. The anointed son and savior had come home at last.

He was sleeping soundly along side her, when she awoke at 7am. Once he had been an infant boy, and here he was today– a man, a tall, graying still handsome man in a fetal position sleeping next to Mom.

She couldn’t get up and make him breakfast, or even coffee. She reminisced about those years when Saturday morning meant Harry and Ron watching cartoons, laughing on the living room, eating the bagels and getting the crumbs on the floor. It had made her angry, the mess they caused on her good carpets. How stupid she had been! If she only knew then how briefly that interval of togetherness and laughter would last.

Now, she had to lay in her bed, helpless, as her infant child had once been. She was dependent and reliant on others. Once, she had figured out that most of the human race was selfish and self-serving, and she had acted accordingly, grabbing the richest man for herself, and taking advantage of all that Manhattan and the glittering crowd had to offer. Now she had to eat what was cooked, listen to the trivial patter of servants, and ask her son if he would leave his life, his wife, his job and home and spend time with his mother. How could she ask [and receive] all of that?

“There’s just so much to do here in the city, mom! God, I can’t believe that they’re doing another revival of “The Producers”. And look at the jazz festival on the pier at South Street.”

“Well you go. You only have a few days here. I don’t want you to sit in the apartment and watch TV. You need to take it in before you go back to that……..place.”

“Mom. Why do you hate LA so much? Isn’t it silly to waste so much time hating a city? It can’t be so bad if people keep moving there.”

“Well, I guess I should stop hating it. They say you don’t need to walk much out there, and that fits right in with my new disability.”

“I was talking to Rosanne……”

“Uh huh….”

“I was talking to Rosanne and she thinks, she agrees, that it would be fine if you stayed with us in Agoura.”

“And what do I do with this place?”

“Sell it. What do you need it for anyway? You can make a killing. Didn’t you and Dad buy this for like eighty five grand or something?”

“It was a hundred and twenty six thousand. A lot of money in 1967. “

“If you come to Agoura, you can have your own room on the ground floor. Remember when you visited two years ago? Rosanne painted the bedroom Martha Stewart brown and it has new French doors that open right out onto the pool. Isn’t that nice?”

As cold and gracious December roared in, the streets were full of white lights and snow flakes. The city was aglow with the yuletide spirit, and the windows of the stores carried their eternal wares of sweaters, candles, mittens, ribbons, lights, Santa Claus and reindeer. At the intersection of 57th and 5th, an electric white star hung spider-like above the traffic.

Tiffanys. Trump Tower. The St. Regis. Edward and Maynard pushed Mrs. Edelman down Fifth Avenue in the wheelchair. Then they passed the stone steps of St. Patricks and stopped.

“Please guys. Can we go in for a minute? I want to see St. Pats.”

“Shall we try and lift her up the steps ?” Maynard asked.

Edward frowned at Maynard. The lady in the chair caught the angry gleam of his eye.

Edward spoke: “ We cannot lift this chair up those steps! How about we take you across the street and watch the skaters at Rockefeller Center?”

“OK. That would be fine.”

At the edge of the skating rink, under the statue of Prometheus, a trio of singers sang “Silent Night.” The jagged rock of the Art Deco skyscraper, perhaps the same age as Mrs. Edelman, was lit up like a Christmas candle in the Manhattan night. Laughing children skated around the rink. Young lovers kissed, their lips warmed by the tender breath of passion.

She sat amidst the laughing crowds and a season of festive lights.

“Oh, fellas! How can I leave all this behind!”
———————————————————————————————-

The blinding sun lit up the concrete backyard of 29991 Avenida del Morte in Agoura Hills, CA. She stared at the blue pool water, its contents warmed by radiant doses of the ominpotent sun, germs hygienically annihilated in chlorine. Two lone backyard palm trees, bereft of shade or fragrance, stood against the backdrop of deserted mountains and endless clone like homes.

Ron had gone to work, and Rosanne went to the gym. There wasn’t a sound in the air, as the entire neighborhood had their windows shut and the air conditioning on. Only the hum of the cooling machines could be heard.

Under the awning, she wheeled her chair into place to escape the burning rays. She began to write a letter to Ingrid:

Dear Ingrid:

I have now lived here for two months. Ron is very good to me. We go to physical therapy every other day. The doctors tell me that I have to practice a range of motion exercises including flexion (bending of the joint) extensions, rotations, abductions, etc. I am gradually feeling better.

I read the NY Times everyday. Ron subscribes to it (of course)! Rosanne busies herself with exercise. She is very fit, and tries to eat well, and talks about how she intends to never be helpless, even in her old age. (Let’s just wait and see about that one.) She still has no interest in children, or culture, or work. She seems to only want to work out and get manicures and tans. But I think she has developed other qualities that Ron admires. When I find out what they are, I will certainly tell you.

Maynard told me that he went to a new Picasso exhibit and that he bumped into the still preserved Contessa Di Mario. She was always so elegant. Harry said that when the Contessa wore his shoes to an opening, the next day, every society woman on Park Avenue went into Bergdorfs asking for the same shoes! Oh, how I miss New York!

Anyway, I think………..

The writer stopped there. She put her pen down, left the letter open, and wheeled herself away from the table. On or about 12.30pm, on Monday, January 15th at the height of the mid day sun, while much of LA was swimming, tanning, driving, talking on the cell phone, eating, making deals………..a little lady of aristocratic bearing who had once been celebrated , loved and envied by much of Gotham….. wheeled herself to the edge of the deep end of the pool and threw herself to the bottom where she drowned.