"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.

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"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.

"The All-American Car Wash" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

A dark brown BMW sedan sped down Ventura Boulevard past the sprawling mess of commercial Sepulveda Hills. Bronx born Larry Rivers, 40ish, a still aspiring screenwriter, was on his way to an appointment with a free-lance producer, Mark Evans. Passing the All American Car Wash, a booming business near the intersection of Casa Endora and Ventura, Larry turned into the car wash. A large, black Lincoln Navigator parked behind him. Rail thin Nathalie Newman and her four-year-old daughter Zola stepped out of the SUV.

Larry exited his car. The cell phone rang. He answered.

“Rivers here….Hi, Mark….Oh, you can’t make it. Listen no problem. Let’s do it again next week. I think you’re gonna love my idea. Ok. Bye.”

With hands full of orders for specialized car cleaning, Iraqi native Ali Hassan approached Larry. Ali Hassan is a charming man, one who easily persuades his customers to purchase vanilla air fresheners, tire detailing, hot wax protection, and steam spraying under the hood.

“My friend, my friend how have you been? Your BMW is what model? It looks like a custom car no?”

“Give me the $5.99 special Ali.”

“Larry, you say that every week. How am I supposed to make a living on $5.99?”

“Hey, I’m just a struggling writer. Give me a break.”

“Struggle? You are the best man! I saw your episode of Law and Order last week. Very clever!”

“You liked it? I worked my butt off for that.”

“It shows. Hey, how about I throw in the windshield protection? When it rains, the water will just drop off. Much safer driving.”

”OK, Ali. You always get your way!”

Inside the car wash viewing area, the procession entered under each owner’s watchful eyes. Larry watched as spray guns and brushes sprayed chemicals against the gleaming surfaces of chrome and metal. The electric conveyer chain grabbed the tires of the Lincoln Navigator, the car ahead of his. For a moment, Larry looked at the brushes, the soap, the blowing air and thought of Auschwitz. The passive march of the affluent vehicles as they entered a sterilization room………………..

A little girl with a reassuring blond and fresh face ran towards Larry. Her mother was running after her.

“Zola! Come here. You can’t run wild in the car wash!”

Nathalie swooped up the laughing daughter in her arms and looked at Larry with empathetic eyes.

“Larry, hi. I haven’t seen you in a while. As you can see, I have my hands full. Stop that young lady or you won’t go to day care!”

“She’s big enough for day care?”

“Yep. Right next door to the car wash!”

Larry asked, “ Are you and Eddie still living in Tarzana?”

“No. We moved to Sherman Oaks. We bought a house on Valley Vista. I love it there. Eddie is fifteen minutes from Universal.”

“Great. Is he still……”

Nathalie deepened her voice: “ He’s Vice President of Non-Fiction Television Development”

“That’s right. I remember pitching a show to him once. Did he ever do anything with that History of Ice Cream show?”

“No. I think they put it into the maybe category….. Zola! Stop pulling my hair!”

“I’m just getting done with a screenplay I wrote. It’s a suspense thriller about terrorists in LA.”

“Oh, pleasant” , was her disinterested reply.

Larry’s BMW entered the purification ritual, following the usual steps of detox prescribed by the car wash. Larry walked along the glass windows and kept pace as his transport vehicle moved along, dumb, mute and progressively prettier.

Fifteen years earlier, Larry had arrived from the Bronx determined to make a name for himself in the entertainment industry. He had answered an ad for a one bedroom guest house rental in Tarzana, and was awestruck when he arrived at the one acre estate with its orange groves, swimming pool and circular drive-way . The owners: Nathalie and Eddie.

Larry moved in and in that old Hollywood tradition of making friends to make it, began to “hang out” with Eddie. The good times turned bad. Larry struggled to write, becoming poorer as his output of words increased. He couldn’t pay his rent. The deep relationship between tenant and landlord turned hostile. Larry was thrown out and had to leave after six months. He vowed to never forgive the Newman’s cruelty, until the day he found out that Eddie had become a somebody in the senseless entertainment industry.

Now it was the new millennium—times were different—and the American dream still lurked beyond the next corner, even as its pursuer turned 40.

Nathalie stepped up to the cashier and handed her a coupon for the $4.99 special. Dark haired Leila Hassan looked at Nathalie harshly.

“I’m sorry. This coupon has expired.”

“What! I just got it in the mail last week.”

“Are you sure Miss? It says it’s good until July. This is November.”

“I want the $4.99 special. That’s what I told Ali outside!”

“I can’t help you. We don’t take expired coupons!”

“OK. How much is it then?”

“$8.99”

“$8.99! I only have five bucks in my wallet!”

“Do you have a credit card? We take Visa, American Express….”

“No! I don’t use credit cards! I have a debit card!”

“No debit cards. Do you have a check book?”

Larry stepped into the conversation. He handed the cashier a twenty-dollar bill.

“No. Larry you can’t pay for my car wash. This is ridiculous”

“No problem. You are my friend Nathalie. I don’t mind paying at all. And look I have a coupon here that hasn’t expired yet.”

“Thank you Larry,” Said she with due politeness.

Fifteen years after they had thrown Larry out for late-payment of rent, he paid for Nathalie’s car wash. Maybe she would go and tell Eddie about the newly Christened good Samaritan.

On this sunny and hot December morning, Larry was on his way to Starbucks to once again meet the free-lance producer Mark Evans. It was 9.30 am and Evans said he would be at Starbucks “around 9.30”. Larry ordered a decaf coffee and sat down. He had brought along his script: “Poison 818”.

818 is the area code for the San Fernando Valley. Larry had convinced himself that this special numeral would become the theme for a script based on Arab-American espionage and terror directed against the Jews in the San Fernando Valley.
“Poison 818” was the code used by the main protagonist, Ibrahim Abdulla, a Muslim fundamentalist who hides behind a seemingly placid façade though he is the head of an international terror cell.

“A timely and frightening story!”

“A bite-your- nails to the end saga”

“Do you know who your neighbor is?”

Larry ran the imaginary film slogans in his head. He pictured himself on stage at the Oscars thanking his widowed mother on Pelham Parkway for her patience and understanding.

In the real world, at Starbucks, the intended meeting looked again as if it were cancelled. Mark didn’t ring, but in the time-honored etiquette of Hollywood, he simply did not show. Larry was left drinking his coffee alone. All around him were customers; many of them black haired men with black mustaches living on their own diet of coffee, conversation, cigarettes and cell phones.

The All American Car Wash, with its thirteen American flags planted on thirteen pillars, might have earned praise for its vernacular style. In the land of the hot dog shaped hot dog stand, and the donut shop shaped liked a donut—the All American was simply another wonderful example of the triumph of commercialism over symmetry.

It was impossible to pass by the wash and miss its patriotic theme. Here, a family named Hassan had fled Baghdad and by way of Damascus had emigrated to Los Angeles. Six brothers: Ali, Hisham, Jordan, Saddam, Esu, and Abdullah had settled with their wives and children into a section of the US that had once been Mexican territory. The newly arrived men, looking for a sure way to ingratiate themselves with other transplanted customers, chose the red, white and blue for their business.

They had struggled to find the capital, the $150,000 it took to open the car wash. They had to deal with enormous bills—the water alone amounted to $4,500 dollars a month. Working 12-14 hour days, these brothers had unique personalities, interests and ambitions that ran beyond the car wash.

Ali, the oldest, wanted a stable business for his brothers. Hisham was the good-looking one, who hoped that his exposure in the car wash, might lead to an acting career. Jordan was the intellectual, he had once hoped to study physics, but his sudden flight from Baghdad had dashed his hopes of scientific higher education. Saddam was a liberally political man, who read every book he could on the American Revolution. He hoped that rational and enlightened thought might help him understand his new and weird surroundings. Esu was a lost child, he smoked pot and came to work without ambition to progress to either affluence or self-worth. Abdullah was the angry one. He had a quick temper and resented the power his older brothers had over him. He longed to make a name for himself outside of the car wash. He hated American life, with its promise of material wealth. He imagined himself as a spokesman for the powerless, the downtrodden, the ones without education, money or political freedom.

It didn’t escape the brother’s notice that Abdullah was sullen and withdrawn. Many times Ali had tried to talk to him, only to have Abdullah lash out at Ali with charges that his brother had hijacked the family to pursue a worthless American life. Why did they have to leave Iraq, Abdullah demanded? They had been there for hundreds of years, and now they lived in America and worked washing cars. What humiliation! Ali did not have an answer for his youngest sibling. It was simply inconceivable to Ali that Abdullah would fight against betterment and riches. What was so bad in America? All six brothers and their wives had s, they drove nice cars . Only last year the entire Hassan clan took a vacation in Arizona, where the desert environment recalled the Mesopotamian plain in Iraq.

Larry read the trade magazines with envy. There was a recent item concerning a story that had been optioned for “the low six figures”. It described a plot about “a college guy who hides out in the broom closet of a sorority for the weekend.” The idea was written by a 24 year old recent college grad named Dylan Weed. Larry felt himself in the grip of the old low self-esteem.

On lonely Friday evenings, the 40-year old man would walk around the plastic and insipid confines of Sherman Oaks, dodging skateboarders and stroller-pushing couples. Hamburger eating punks –who wore oversize pants exposing their ass crack– sat on the sidewalk in front of McDonalds.

It had been a decade and half of wandering around in an arid wilderness and still there was no deliverance. Los Angeles was Egypt without God, crowds of faithful without a Moses. The miracle of fame and fortune, was a special effect, like that cheap trick of parting the Red Sea they performed for the tourists at Universal City.

He couldn’t hide his anger anymore when he met “successful” people. Almost everyone seemed more fulfilled than he. If they were younger, they might be unemployed, but they had six pack abs and 30 inch waists. If they were older, they had children , a wife or a career. He had none of the above. He could go on pretending to take calls from important people who might be interested, but eventually he was just fooling himself.

He thought once of just leaving Los Angeles and returning back to New York. But the metropolis on the East Coast was a dangerous place. It had old memories and people who knew who you really were. He couldn’t hide out and affect achievement. The jaded facades which run so deep on the West Coast, seem like stage make-up to the battle hardened veterans of the Bronx, Brooklyn and New Jersey.

“Poison 818—-how far will they go to destroy America?”

“Poison 818—one psychopath who could murder children unless he is stopped.”

“Ok, enough already. I get your point!”

Sally Sheinman sat behind the glass-tabled desk with the white orchids. A polished and no-nonsense William Morris agent, she had been pushed by her mother Ida to meet with cousin Larry.

“What else do you have Larry?”

“What do you mean, what else?”

“What ELSE do you want to pitch?” she screeched.

“That’s it. I wrote a 110 page screenplay and I want you to take it and sell it!”

“Larry, darling…..I only work with clients who can bring me a lot of great material! I can’t just go out and sell one thing. You haven’t even sold one thing!”

“You know what Sally? I thought you would have a little heart. I come here and pitch my heart out and you slam the door in my face.”

“I’m not slamming the door! I’m trying to OPEN it!’

“Just because your Uncle Dan’s daughter, you grew up in Scarsdale and you came out here with a silver spoon in your mouth…..”

“Good bye! I said get out of here. I don’t need to have me or my father insulted!”

“Fine! I knew you would never help me. You’re too self-centered. It runs in all the Sheinmans!”

He walked out of her office and to the elevator where he punched the button so hard that his thumb almost broke off from the hand. Inside the mirrored elevator on the descent to the parking garage he muttered to himself: “Fuck you! Fuck you!”

At the car wash, Abdullah was the vacuum man. He had first entry into his customer’s cars. In the affluent world of Sepulveda Hills, he could temporarily sit inside a procession of recent model Jaguars, BMW’s, Infinitis , Lexuses, Lincolns and Mercedes. These cars came with a variety of gadgets: GPS navigation system, DVD / CD players, and speaker phones. The smell of leather often mixed with French perfume. On the seats of these cars, errant and forgetful men and women might leave behind Armani glasses, Dior scarves and even $100 dollar bills.

He was a good Muslim. He did not steal. He left everything where he saw it. He knew that God was watching.

Next to the Car Wash, was a day care center operated by the Jewish reformed Sepulveda Hills Congregation. In the rounds of chores performed by mothers in their 30’s and 40’s, was the depositing of children at the center, kids who ranged in age from 3 to 6 years old. A steel fence, about 10 feet high, separated the day care center from the end point of the car wash. As the dried autos exited, the children often stood on the other side of the fence, their hands grasping the metal, as Mommy’s car emerged with a temporary hydro facelift.

To those who think they know what Jews look like, the Southern Californian experiment in assimilation and inter-marriage has produced some surprisingly varied offspring. Many of the wives are Non-Jewish, as a result some of the kids look Scandinavian. For many months, Abdullah had smiled at the children, just thinking they were sweet young innocents. He stopped grinning when he found out that the day care center was operated by a Zionist entity.

It bothered him that these Jews had money. Here they had everything—beautiful wives, fancy cars, and they seemed to live in a world where politics was somebody else’s problem. For the Hollywood elite, the only things that mattered were self-empowerment. He felt pity for himself, his Iraqi people, and for the persecution of the Palestinians. How could the world ignore the suffering that existed in the Middle East? Surely it was not the fault of the good works of Islam that kept people impoverished. A malevolent force had to be working to keep the Arabs down.

He also “knew” that the Jews conspired, especially in the entertainment industry, to help one another. He “knew” that the Jews looked out, for family members, and helped to promote “their own kind” to influence in the media. Their goal was eventually world domination.

As Abdullah ruminated on those thoughts of the evil Jews, up drove Larry Rivers, one of the great beneficiaries of Hollywood family benevolence.

“Hi,” Larry said. He handed a coupon to Abdullah.

“This has expired sir.”

“Oh. Is your manager around?”

“Yes sir.”

Abdullah motioned to Ali, who came over with his widest smile.

“Hello, Larry! My friend, what can I do for you?”

“I think my coupon has expired.”

“How about a special? I have the $11.99 herbal car wash. We put retinol on your leather seats to preserve the youthful appearance. We also have aloe vera for the dashboard. You should see how beautiful and sexy a moisture rich car can look!”

“No thanks. I’m not feeling too rich today!”

“Oh, c’mon, you’re a successful screenwriter!”

On the seat of Larry’s car was a copy of “Poison 818”. Ali smiled as he looked at the script.

“I bet you gonna sell the script my friend. Come, let’s get a real car wash for you!”

Before Larry could answer, the hulking mass of the Newman family’s SUV pulled alongside the gentlemen. Eddie Newman, not seen since 1986, flew out of the car and shook Larry’s hand.

“How are you doing! Nathalie told me that she ran into you here! My gosh, it’s been what– ten years?”

“Fifteen!”

“Well, I’ll be damned. What are you doing these days? Still working free lance?”

“Yes. But I’ve got a couple of deals that may come through…..”

Eddie was tanned, trim and dressed in ninety eight dollar Lucky Brand jeans. Nathalie sat in the passenger seat and waved daintily to Larry. Ali looked to lock this newest deal.

Eddie pulled out his calfskin wallet. “Let me pay for Mr. Larry’s car wash. What kind of specials do you have Ali?”

Ali beamed, “I have a two for one! I’ll do both your cars, detail work with the herbal wash and the aloe vera. The works! Normally, this would be forty dollars—you two together, I give you for twenty five!”

“Wonderful!”

As Ali wrote up the receipt, Larry briefly protested.

“This isn’t necessary Eddie. Really.”

“No. I think it’s the least I could do for you. You took care of my wife and little girl. And now I’m repaying you. Besides you’re poor!”

Larry immediately felt reduced and gratified. As Eddie sauntered happily into the car wash viewing area, with wife and tyke in tow, Larry slouched outside with hands in his pockets.

Meanwhile, Abdullah watched everything from his seat against the wall. The mind hummed. Those people stick together, they even pay for each other’s car wash.

Abdullah grabbed the long plastic vacuum tube and started to clean Larry’s car. “Poison 818” sat on the front seat. Abdullah felt annoyed and insulted that Larry had gone over his head and asked for Ali. In revenge, just slight revenge, Abdullah took the script and put it into his pocket.

Fifteen minutes later, the cars emerged freshly washed and ready for a mating dance on the streets of the San Fernando Valley. Eddie hugged Larry, a physical bond ten times more real than the emotional connection.

Eddie bit his lower lip Clintonly, “In all sincerity. I really missed hanging out with you. I’m going to have you over to our new . You should see what we’ve done with the kitchen, Lar—“

Larry waved good-bye to his old friends. He got into his car and looked for his script. It was gone. Oh well, the hard copy was on his PC at . No biggie.

Leila Hassan was worried. For six months, her brother-in-law Abdullah had been back in Iraq. He also sent post cards from Hamburg, Germany; Turkey and one from Damascus. She didn’t understand how her husband Ali could allow his brother to take so much time off from work.

“He should be here in the US! He is supposed to be an American citizen. Why is he all over the Middle East! Why don’t his own brothers know where he is?”

Ali was staring blankly at the large screen TV. In a living room with thirty-foot high ceilings, the black box and the man watching it looked miniature.

“I don’t have the answers my wife. He said he needed a break. Too much stress.”

“What about his older brother? What about your worries?”

Handsome Hisham walked into the room wearing a muscle t-shirt and basketball shoes.

“I just got an email from Abdullah. He is flying back to New York this Sunday and will be in LA on Monday afternoon!”

“You see Leila. You worry about nothing!”

Spring came to Los Angeles, but nobody was sure when it had actually arrived. The roses had bloomed in December. By January the trees were sprouting buds, and in February the nurseries displayed racks of geraniums, marigolds, and vegetables for planting.

Another season had passed, and emerging from winter, Larry felt as if he were on the verge of some new possibility. He had been tough on himself, lonely and despondent—but now he knew that if he were to succeed he’d have to marshal his strengths once again.

Before his latest rerun episode of self -confidence wore off, he made a phone call to free lance producer Mark Evans. To Larry’s surprise, Evans agreed to meet him at Starbucks because “it’s on the way to my dentist’s office”.




Almost nobody in Hollywood had really read Larry’s work. If they did, it was in a cursory, dismissive way. But one reader took every last word of Larry’s and absorbed it totally: Abdullah Hassan.

“Poison 818” was to him the ultimate story of terrorist glory. He imagined himself as the lead character who poisons and kills hundreds of innocents and is remembered in America as the man “who let the Jews have it”. While Larry wrote with the intent of illuminating evil, Abdullah fashioned the screenplay as his own life story. With Larry’s blueprint, Abdullah could fashion one of the most heinous crimes in American terror—and earn the respect of people the world over.

A short, slight and meek looking man, Mark Evans seemed the polar opposite of what Larry had imagined him to be. He seemed to be the quintessential nebbish. He actually had washed his hand with sanitizer before he picked up his mug of latte. He looked to be anywhere from 25-40, and might be gay—but again might not be. The important thing is that he showed up and kept the appointment.

“Larry I’m so sorry about last fall. I was busy with a million things—and you unfortunately came off my to do list!”

“That’s cool. I understand.”

”I read your script, Poison 911….”

“818”

“I mean 818.”

“It’s just too…..I don’t know….weird. I mean you’ve got a lot of good points: the terrorism, the domestic underground. It just doesn’t fit any type of genre. You look at the best movies, like Armageddon or The Rock—they fit into a pattern. Yours is just almost like a science fiction comedy drama suspense mystery. Life isn’t like that. Neither are movies.”

“I’m sorry that you didn’t like it. I kind of hoped that our meeting would be more productive.”

“No. I liked it. I just don’t think it’s right for me.”

As they talked, loud police sirens and fire engines raced west down Ventura Boulevard. Mark tried to speak, but the emergency vehicles seemed to be endless. Helicopters flew above.

“What the hell is going on out there?”

People inside Starbucks looked nervously at one another. The sick feeling of impending doom entered the cozy confines of the café. Mark’s phone rang.

“Hello…..”

Just as Mark was speaking, a screaming middle-aged woman spilled her hot coffee as she ran through the door.

“They’ve bombed the day school! The children! Oh, my god! The children!”

“Hello. Jennifer, what’s the matter? Oh, my God! Oh, my God. This isn’t true! Oh, my God!”

Mark stood up. His face was a ghastly alabaster.

“You said it in your script! What you said came true!”

“Where? What happened?”

“A car wash attendant detonated himself in the temple children’s playground! There must have been a hundred children there. It was suicide. Just like you said………”

Days later, the normally placid sunshine ennui of Los Angeles was covered in a blanket of mourning. The nation looked to the Golden State and wept. One actor in a script of destruction had died, hundreds of innocents had been murdered. The obscure writer who couldn’t sell a screenplay became infamous, not for his movie, but for the collateral damage it caused.

"Such Happiness!" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

A beautiful and privileged young girl is blissfully unaware of a shy man’s affection for her.

My mother told me that I’m one of those young men with low self-esteem who will always be grateful for the attention that any young woman throws my way. My mother told me that I did not have athletic ability, or the greatest mind, but that I was the most loyal friend anyone could have. “Women only love one man”: the last words I remember my mother telling me when I got on the bus in Omaha on my way to become a nobody in Los Angeles. Was Mom telling me to be faithful to my next love–or to remember Mom always?

Nobody ever said they knew me from anywhere. I was transparent, average, just a John Doe from the Great Plains. When I was in high school, people said I looked like Jeff Bridges. In College, they said I looked liked Beau Bridges. I had only one question for those people: Who are Jeff and Beau Bridges?

“I know I know you from somewhere…..Don’t I look familiar to you?”

One day I met Julie Cadogan, a tall, thin, regal looking young woman who had just joined our television production as a supervising producer.

“Honestly, I don’t think so. Where do you think we could have met?”

She was looking me over intensely. Her 5’10 frame and waspish waist was dressed in a long Indian print skirt and tight short sleeve burgundy sweater. Ingrid Bergman at a Grateful Dead concert. In the frantic light of a Monday morning at the office, this new arrival was taking her time.

“I think maybe….did you ever attend NYU?”

“No. BU.”

“Oh. Well, did you rent a house in San Luis Obispo, or Palm Springs last summer?”

“I did!”

“Right! Well I stayed in a house in Palm Springs last year with my best friend Bridget and she loved to go out and maybe we saw you at some bar out there!”

“I did grow up in Omaha, Nebraska.”

”No!”

“Why? Do you come from Omaha also?”

“No! But I lived in Omaha for a year after graduation and worked at WOMA TV! That had to be where I saw you!”

“When was that?”

“Last year!”

“I moved out of Nebraska in 1992.”

“Oh.”

It was late November in Los Angeles and I had been working on a horrendously stupid television show, “Beat Me.” It was an MTV program where young, dumb men posed questions to young, dumb women and if the woman answered right they got to date the young, dumb man. It was my job to go out and recruit young, dumb and good looking people. Fortunately, this was easy because I lived in Los Angeles.

We lived on a quiet, conservative street in Omaha. It was so law abiding, church going and upright that my mother once called the police when a poodle peed on our lawn. Three cruisers came out in about 4 minutes to arrest the poodle. “People should keep their dogs on a tight leash” my mother said, the next day on her way to church. I remember another thing about growing up in Omaha: I was never awakened once during the night. It was so quiet, so peaceful, so dead.

“Hi ya Charlie!” It was Julie waking me up at 2 am. I was sound asleep and pulled the covers over my head when the phone rang so horribly loud one early Saturday morning.

“Who is this?”

“Julie! I’m in your neighborhood and I have a big favor to ask! Could you pick me up? My car broke down on Fairfax and Beverly and I know you live right around here and I was wondering if I could crash at your place and then in the morning I could call a tow truck company to come and get it…Please, please, don’t say no!”

I grabbed my jeans off the floor, wacked some Vaseline on my electrocuted hair and ran out with my keys, sandals and wallet. I drove only 4 blocks to where Julie said she would be waiting.

At the corner of Fairfax and Beverly: 2:45 am and Julie was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t stay awake much longer. I had been waiting 45 minutes, didn’t have a phone and was losing my patience. I went home.

On Monday morning we were having a production meeting at 9 am and the news was pretty good. “Beat Me” was doing well in the ratings and it looked like we were going to go to a full hour. This meant more work and more weeks of work. But it was lousy because I would have to get more contestants. My job would be harder but my pay would stay the same.

Julie came in smiling. She was dressed in a beautiful suede skirt with a cream-colored angora sweater and a stainless steel jewelry—bracelet. She hardly looked like a cad, a liar, or that disturbing bitch who woke me up in the middle of the night and got me into the cold to pick her up.

“I’m so sorry Charlie! I got back into my car and it started and then I didn’t know how to tell you, because I called your house and the machine wasn’t on and there was no way to leave a message. So here is a present.”

She handed me a small box of Godiva chocolates.
“You’re probably furious at me. You really have a right to be furious. I would be just as mad!”

“I’m not mad Julie!”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh!”

“Women who grew up with money love to talk about themselves son. Just remember to listen if you ever get involved with a rich girl.”-my father’s sage advice which he wrote down in a letter to me after he lost his job at the Ford plant.

Six months after Julie started, we had become the type of friends who go out to lunch and talk about work. But there was nothing else going on there. She would talk about her boyfriend and I would listen. I looked at my watch more than her eyes.

“He won’t commit to marriage because he is scared. So I told him that he has three weeks to decide—because if I don’t get a ring on my finger I’m going to move back to New York and work on my documentary! I told him I had a life before him and I meant it!”

How fortunate her life was, I could not have guessed. But I found out that her father was Anton Cadogan. He is a New York developer who built such landmarks as One Park Plaza Place and that enormous post-collegiate cellblock apartment complex known as Devonshire Court on Second Avenue in the 90’s. Julie didn’t like to talk about her family. Yet there was something in the ease and carefree way she talked about leaving jobs and leaving boyfriends and leaving town that let me know that she would never be down to her last nickel.

“I used to have an apartment on Second Avenue and it was so wonderful! Such happiness! A typical day for me would be…wake up, go to the gym, meet my friend Heather for lunch. We would hang out at the Met, go for a walk in Central Park, shop at Barneys, go to this fabulous cheese shop on Jones Street….Oh, I’m getting so depressed, I just wish I could move back to New York! Los Angeles is just not a city!”

“Oh, I agree. I’d like to move back to Manhattan myself. But it just isn’t easy with apartments so expensive. I think I read that some studio apartments start at $3500!”

“Well if it’s just an apartment that’s holding you back—they’re easy to get. I could find you one like that.”

She was so young. So used to luxury. Her work was just a hobby to fill time. What did she know about earning a living? I had graduated college 13 years ago and I was still paying student loans! Why did God create it so that some people have it so easy and still think it’s so tough for them?

When I think of people who have had it easy I think of people who have never shoveled snow. Yes, Julie Cadogan never shoveled snow in her entire god-damned life.

“Hello, handsome!”

“Hi.”

Julie was standing in front of my desk as I entered the list of possible contestants on the show. It was 4 O’Clock, an awful hour in the awful part of the day at work. She was smiling with just the widest grin this side of Montana.
“Look at what I’m wearing! Notice anything?”

I looked at her blue silk blouse, the grey nylon sweats, the open toed $250 dollar shoes…..Absolutely nothing unique. Expensive, yes. Different, no.

Then she extended her right hand in a screw like fashion aimed right for my nose. A glistening, enormous diamond ring was living atop the smoothest, longest, most polished fingers and nails I had ever seen.

“He did it. Wow. You must be happy.”

“Oh, my God! Charlie, I’m so happy! I have been waiting for this forever! We’re getting married in exactly six months on October 7th and I’ve got to get everything together and I just don’t know how I’m going to do it!”

“Wow. Julie, I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks Charlie. I’m going to go and show this to the receptionist. Isn’t it gorgeous?”

I was ready to quit my job the day that Sean the producer yelled at me after I forgot to write down the age of that stupid blonde from Witchita. I was through with the crap of television, with the utter mindlessness of the program. I wanted to be somewhere important, doing something brainy, getting somewhere. I was standing still, earning nothing, without health insurance, a car, a life. I was a free lance, hand out taking, goatee wearing, slouchy, sloppy, slob with no self esteem…. handing out vouchers to strangers on the Santa Monica promenade (and hoping that they would think that my smile was cute enough to come down to the fuckin’ studio) and stand in line just to be rejected for the stupidest program on earth. Why did I do this kind of work? To what end?

I finally got up enough courage to walk down to Sean’s office and tell him that I was leaving.
“Hi Charlie.”

It was Julie. She intercepted me as I was on my way to ruin my career. She looked upset. Her eyes were watery, puffy.
“I need to talk to you. Could we go for a walk down to Ben and Jerry’s? I’ll buy you an ice cream.”

My dad was quite cynical. He told me to never trust a woman that offers to buy YOU something. “They always are after you. They all want to be taken care of. So if any broad offers to buy you something…..watch out!”

We walked out into the eye squinting brightness of the palm-lined boulevard and she took my hand. Her gesture was so unexpected. Its intimacy broke down my natural inclination to believe that everyone is full of shit.
“I just got into the worst fight with Van Ness.”

“Who is Van Ness?”

“My fiancee! Oh, I thought you knew that. Anyway, Van Ness wants to move to San Francisco. And I don’t.”

“Some people have to be all fancy and give their kids last names for first names”, my father cautioned. “Don’t expect anyone who is called Henderson or Langley to be a good friend. You’ll find your friends in people with plain names like Steve, Bill or Bob!”
“O.K. Why does he want to move there?”

“He wants it because Michaelfish wants it.”

“Michaelfish?”

“His band.”

“Oh.”

“I said that just because your band is leaving doesn’t mean that you can leave your fiancee behind. He thinks that his career will suffer and Michaelfish will go on and become famous and he will lose if he doesn’t go!”

Then she broke down into tears on Ventura Boulevard.

“But what about me! What about us! I tried to talk to him, but he said I was selfish! I don’t think I’m selfish if I ask him to stay in the same city and that city is Los Angeles. I would go with him, but my life is right here! Oh, my god! What should I do Charlie?”

“What should I do?”, she asks! Geez, who the hell knows what anyone should do! I’ve been trying to figure out what I should do for my whole life. I moved out to Los Angeles, the most lost city on earth, to find out some definitive things about myself. What I found is that I hate the sun and hate work. What kind of an answer is that?

Ben and Jerry’s was just ahead. I put my hand around her graceful and swanlike neck and guided her into the cool parlor of flavours. Her tears seemed to dissipate slightly when she saw the round, cold, chocolate mound of Cherry Garcia ice cream.
“Julie, let me buy this for you.”

“Oh, thank you.”

She was so tender, fragile and sweet. The unwrinkled and dewy complexion, the sudden emotion of a young woman afraid of losing her lover, the appealing vision of a virgin-like creature spooning down the creamiest and fattiest desert known to mankind…..A large Maraschino cherry stood atop the mounds of ice cream as the chocolate dripped down the sides and gathered lava like at the bottom of the dish. I wanted to kiss her and make love right there. This moment had cost me all of $3.50 but it was worth every penny.

“I think I want to go home Charlie.”

“You mean back to Hollywood?”

“No. I mean my parent’s house in New York.”

A House! A 17 room penthouse on Fifth Avenue! You call that a house?

“Do you think I should go? I mean my mother has already hired a wedding consultant and they might rent out this church in Pacific Palisades and then if I decide to hold the reception at the garden in back, they want a deposit. Oh, all these decisions! I just can’t stand it.”

“Your mother and I got married at the VFW hall just outside of Fort Pierce. We’ve been happily married for 34 years! We didn’t have no money, but hell, we were in love. Don’t think that you have to get married in some mansion on a cliff in Malibu! One expensive party never kept anyone happy for life!”
“My advice is not to do anything drastic. Just stay put. Don’t run away.”

“Ok. Ok. You’re right.”

I took a napkin, dipped it in water and dabbed away some chocolate under her lower lip.
“Michaelfish is playing at the Gardena Room tonight! Please come!”

It was Julie pleading for me to attend Van Ness and Michaelfish. She had made up with him, after he found out that he could rent rehearsal space cheaper in L.A. and convinced the band that economically it was better if they stayed in the Southland.
Julie was convinced that LOVE had won over Van Ness. She was so enchanted with Van Ness, so excited about staying in Los Angeles, so ecstatic about the impending wedding—that it seemed senseless and cruel to point out that $4 a square foot had won Van Ness over and preserved the sanctity of their relationship.

I’ve always thought that my clothes were among the homeliest ever. I mostly wear plaid shirts, with short sleeves and button down collars. I have a paunchy stomach that accentuates the cheapness of the fabrics I wear. My glasses look like something that an insurance adjuster would wear in Omaha-say about 1955. I have a chipped front tooth which I’ve never bothered to fix. I am not cool, not at all.

Outside of the Gardena Room, stood a crowd of black draped, gothic styled, cigarette inhaling young people. Many of them were tall, thin like models on speed. They were waiting to be picked to enter the exalted space where Michaelfish was to perform. Two enormous Black men dressed in woolen over coats, searched patrons for concealed weapons and illicit drugs.

A light rain was falling on a late Friday night in early December. Los Angeles, which had remained dry for six months, was inexplicably thrust into a new, temporary, chilly and wet season where the air was pure and such Northern inclinations as sweaters, red wine and contemplation come into fashion. The city, which wore a sunburned and gregarious face, now was forced to don waterproof rain-jackets and subdued emotion.

Inside the Gardena Room, it was dark, smoky and the band was warming up. The no-smoking policy was, as is customary, broken in defiance of state law. Julie sat in a corner, smoking a cigarette. I walked over to see her.
“Hi! I’m so glad you came.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t miss it. Have you found work?”

“No. I’ve been so busy with the wedding—buying a dress, choosing a caterer, flying back to New York to pick out invitations….I just don’t have time to earn money right now. How about you?”

My father once offered me this financial advice: “Just save a quarter every day. At the end of the week you’ll have $1.75, at the end of the month $7, and at the end of the year $84. In ten years, you’ll have $840, and in fifty years it will be worth $4200.”

“Well, it’s Christmas. Not too easy to get a job this time of year.”

“Right. Have you talked to MTV? Do they have anything else?”

“No. I’m mean yes…I heard they’re starting up a new show called BUSTED. It’s supposed to be about men who cheat or women who cheat on men and they catch them on tape. I think they need someone to find the cheaters so that’s the position. But I don’t think I’ll take it….And then I had…..”

Van Ness walked in. He was dressed in a black leather vest, cowboy buckled belt, tight jeans covering a wide load ass. A bald spotted ego with long hair, overweight, tattoos, mid 30’s. He smelled like the inside of a refrigerator filled with old meat loaf that hadn’t been cleaned out for three months. His biceps were big—but not muscular, merely wide. They were covered with eagles, Jesus ,the twelve apostles, and some Chinese letters. He gave me a great big bear hug.
“Nice to see you man! Julie’s been talkin’ you up man! Says you gotta meet my buddy Charlie! Shit, I need a light. Julie can you run out to the car and grab my lighter?”

“Sure honey! Charlie, you’ll still be here when I get back right?”

“Right!”

Julie ran out to the car. Van Ness sneezed loudly. He looked at me salaciously and wiped some mucus off his beard with his left forearm.
“Hey Charlie. I have to run backstage. Thanks for coming.”

I sat down at the darkened table, waiting for the opening number of Michaelfish. A waitress came by. I ordered a Becks and waited for the effervescent Julie to come back inside.

"Post Men" by Andrew B. Hurvitz

When did American men stop being men? Once upon a time, they strode this continent with inviolate manhood. Conquering the West, they killed and hunted and cut paths through forests and grasses. On top of horses, or on the rails, they rode unopposed by lesser mortals in a vast march to the Pacific. They built cities of stone and iron, dams to stop the mighty rivers, and took to the air like eagles. Men hung heads of animals they killed on walls, and drank jugs of whisky until they passed out. From Boston Harbor to Death Valley, they built the most noble and valorous civilization that history ever created.
* * *
The Mall is the place where they gather every weekend. The young and affluent North Shore of Chicago converges on Northbrook Court. Like a cattle drive, hordes of SUV’s pour down Edens Highway and head for the vast, untamed parking lot on Lake-Cook Road. Hungry for adventure, seeking trophies and displays of wealth, the suburban hunter-gatherers and many who make their killing at the Board of Trade, put down their credit cards and walk away with the greatest assortment of riches available in the world.

These lucky Americans are the inheritors of those who laid down their lives at Omaha Beach, in Korea and in the swamps of Vietnam to preserve freedom. The beneficiaries of these soldiers of democracy are often seen on weekends making their way into the cozy and bland confines of the apparel smart “Banana Republic” store.

Inside the well-merchandised bi-sexual emporium little Emily and Zoe and Max and Dylan romp around the bleached blond wood floors as their parents try on solid colored robot garments in every shade of black, grey and dark brown. Scented candles in vanilla and lavender fill the air with a calming aroma. Soft lights flatter men who are persuaded and cajoled and belittled into wearing ribbed and solid crew necks and v-necks and flat front trousers and dark shoes. The guys, for the most part, have short trimmed hair, with just a dab of gel. The wives are aerobically thin, hydrated and slick. The Banana Republicans wear a uniform: prosperous, understated, cyber smart. These folks, are no longer very young, not quite middle aged. This store is a state of mind. It embodies a state of corporate caution.

Charles and Diana Spence belong to this club. Married seven years, the couple has one 3-year-old daughter, Elizabeth. They live in the town of Fort Sheridan, a former military base on the shores of Lake Michigan that has now been sensitively redeveloped for the Land Rover and Volvo set in shades of muted green. Residences are carved out of old officer’s quarters in homely yellow Chicago brick now lushly planted with elms, maples, hostas, and ivy. Ornate cast iron lampposts stand like sentries on curving streets paved in cobblestone. The train station is but a walk from the homes, and like the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, a privileged few are allowed to live in exurbia with all of the commuting conveniences.

Charles has been out of Notre Dame for almost 15 years now. He played fullback at the fightin’ school and took his testosterone and Celtic manliness to the Board of Trade where he managed to build a successful career as a commodities broker. Six feet tall, 205 pounds, green eyed and auburn haired, he has a sharp jaw that could slice a sirloin steak. Yet his manner is as convivial as his practical jokes. He likes people, likes to kid around and if he had his way would probably just go fishing in Oshkosh every weekend rather than walk around Northbrook Court.

He met his wife when he went shopping for a suit at Marshall Fields on Michigan Avenue. He walked into the men’s department and was immediately confronted by a blonde, confident salesperson. Diana Jakowski was only 26, but she was already the highest grossing employee in her area. She had green eyes, and a navy woolen suit and took him by the arm to the 46 regular suits. She had already sized her future husband up.

“I’m looking for a 44 regular dark gray suit,” he said.
“Take off your coat. You’re a 46,” she said.
“OK. But I’m not a 46,” he said.
“Uh-huh,” she answered, “Here this is a Hickey Freeman. It’s a little loose in the shoulders which is just fine for you.” He put on the dark gray pinstriped jacket. She walked around front and grabbed his lapels and slid her hands down to button the top of the coat. He felt like a little boy getting dressed by mommy.
“See, I told you lady. I’m swimming in it.”

“Did you ever hear of a tailor? We have the best in the city. Mr. Piaggi. Your waist is about a 33, and your jacket is definitely a 46. Your traps are pulling your shoulders.”
“OK,” he said. “Bring out Mr. Piaggi. I want a man’s opinion.”

She wasn’t insulted. She liked his assertiveness and refusal to be pushed into buying a suit. “Mr. Piaggi!” she yelled. Piaggi– a short, older and elegant Italian gentleman– walked out with a tape measure. He stuck the numerical string at the back of Charles’ shoulders. He opened the coat and measured the waist again.

“Perfecto. Now please try on the trousers,” Piaggi said.
“If you’re wearing boxers sir,” she instructed, “Please remember that you cannot wear briefs if we measure you for boxers.”
He looked at her directly. “I’m not wearing any underwear today.” She looked down at his crotch. “Yes. I can see you’re right.”
He bought two suits that day. He also purchased three dress shirts, five neckties, and some socks. Diana asked him for his driver’s license when he got ready to pay. “Oh, you live on North Avenue near Clark. We’re neighbors,” she said. “Give me your number Diana,” he ordered.

They went out and discovered that they had a lot of things in common. They were both Catholics. She was part Irish and Polish and he was Irish and German. He grew up in Arlington Heights and she came from Edgebrook, on the Northwest Side of Chicago. She went to school at a small Catholic girls college in Kansas but dropped out and became a retail sales clerk at 21. He attended Notre Dame on a football scholarship and barely graduated due to his poor grades. They both loved sports. He had season’s tickets to the Cubs. She was a big Bulls fan. They loved beer. He drank Becks and she liked Kirin. They took showers two times a day and kept their cars scrupulously clean. They believed in the Church, but disagreed with everything the Church advocated. He wanted to succeed very badly in business, and show up his older brother. She wanted to make lots of money and show off her success to friends. They were aggressive, motivated, honest, hard working, athletic, clean minded, sexually driven. They married only six months later, honeymooned in Hawaii and moved back to Chicago and rented a two-bedroom apartment on Fullerton and Broadway near Lincoln Park.

In the early years of their marriage, they fought a lot. What interests they had in common were opposite to how they lived in private. She was organized. He threw his clothes on the floor. She had all of her receipts in files, he crumpled bills in his pockets and never cleaned out his wallet. He liked to dress in t-shirts and torn jeans after work. She was forever after him to dress up nicer. He never cleaned the house. She dusted every day.

More than once she had threatened to leave him. He had answered that he would rather live alone than be bossed around. She often burst into tears, and he would hug her, and then she might slap him, and he would get angry, and they would slam doors, and he would sleep on the couch, and then he’d wake up and enter the bedroom and crawl under the sheets with her and they’d end up making love and making up.

Friends like Sari Garentz, a sweet Jewish girl from Skokie who worked with Diana at Fields, adored Charles. He was just so sexy, so masculine, so playful, so funny. Diana’s stories of their fights and problems didn’t ring true with Sari. One Wednesday, Sari and Diana went out to lunch and were walking along Michigan Avenue when Sari suggested they stop off at Banana Republic.

The ladies eyed a table full of solid colored ribbed sweaters in such colors as black, dark gray, dark brown and dark blue. “Every guy looks great in one of these,” said Sari. Diana picked up a brown one. “My husband is too buff for this. Even XXL is going to be small on him.” Sari picked up a blue model. “Well, I’m going to buy Andy one. I hate it when he wears those horrible Western Shirts. He still has a closet of those awful rhinestone and embroidered Gene Autry shirts. Boots, Stetson hats, bandanas—in Chicago! Coming from Colorado he thinks he has to dress like a rodeo cowboy. Well he’s gonna wear Banana Republic from now on!”

Diana picked up the sweater again and pulled and stretched it. “I just don’t know. It’s so conservative. I think he’ll look just like every other guy in his early 30’s.” Sari rolled her eyes. “If you let him dictate what clothes he wants to wear, he’s going to dress like a slob. Your husband is gorgeous. I wish mine was half as sexy as yours. But you have to dress him up. You have to make him into the man you want him to be.” Diana bought the advice and the sweater.

The Lure of the Suburbs

They had been living on Fullerton Avenue for four years. One evening, Charles came home with a real estate magazine. There had been vague talk and rumblings almost inaudible of children and schools and “more space.” The double income couple lived quite well, their industriousness and energy had been marshaled into moneymaking and now they had the resources to choose where to live.

“Honey,” he said, “Look at this house in Evanston.”
She walked over to him and looked at color photo of a 1920’s Tudor home for 2.5 million. “Nice. If we move to Evanston, that wouldn’t be too far from downtown,” she said.
“Oh,” he said jokingly, “You do want to move. Last week you told me that Sari and Andy and Steve and Lisa loved it downtown and that you would never move to the dull suburbs.”
“I want to move to a nice town. But I don’t want to commute for two hours every day and raise a child. That’s why I like living here,” she said.
“Then we won’t move.” he said.
“We can’t raise a child in this small place?” she protested.
“What the hell! First you say we could move then you don’t want to move. Make up your mind,” he said.

Fort Sheridan

It was Sari who told Diana about an old army base that had closed down and was now being redeveloped with “exclusive homes.” Fort Sheridan, named after Civil War General Phillip Henry Sheridan, was going to preserve the historic architecture and landscaping of the “prairie style” while adding stylish and upscale new homes.

One Saturday afternoon, Sari and Charles and Diana drove up to Fort Sheridan home so they could scout it out.
What Diana saw was not only the beautiful grounds, and historic buildings, but her kind of people: white, pretty, thin and rich.

Two months later, Charles and Diana moved into Fort Sheridan. Sari and Andy chose a “Parade Ground” home with five bedrooms, approximately 5,400 square feet of living area and an attached three-car garage. Charles and Diana bought a “Deluxe Parade Ground” model that featured a fireplace in the master bathroom. What luxury!

Diana and Charles had a longer commute, but they had their best friends to keep them company way up in the burbs.

Baby Time

One humid June Saturday , Andy and Charles were driving back up Edens Highway after attending a Cubs game. At the Willow Road, Andy pulled his Explorer off the road. “Hey, Chuck. We’re going to have a baby!”

“That’s great news buddy!” Chuck said. He smiled broadly but in his heart he dreaded the consequences of this announcement and Diana’s reaction.

Diana reacted politely when Andy and Charles told her the news a half hour later. Andy left and Diana was free to tell Charles that she resented that her best friends had beaten her to conception. Diana had a fine house, a great job, a socially acceptable husband. The baby was next.

Saturday night Charles was at home but his mind was at Wrigley Field. He was still thinking about Delino DeShields hitting his game-opening homer and Moises Alou with that double that drove in two runs. Diana was cleaning, her usual behavior when she was preoccupied. The 10pm WBBM sportscaster was reviewing the game when Diana turned on the vacuum.

Charles shouted, “Turn off that damn thing Diana!”

She pulled the plug out of the wall and started winding the cord tightly around the Hoover. “You saw the game this afternoon. Can’t you pay attention to me tonight?”

“OK. Let’s go out Diana,” he said.
“Fine. Where should we go at 10 pm in the suburbs?” She asked.
“The lake. Let’s take a walk down to the lake,” he answered.
The night was balmy, the summer humidity still hung in the air. They walked outside, not even locking the doors behind them.
The moon cast its glow over the waters and calmed their nerves. “Do you still love me?” Diana asked. He looked her in the eye. “Sometimes.”

Later that night, they returned home and made love. Diana is convinced that her elevated hormones that June evening were the reason Elizabeth was conceived.

March of Time

Sari Garentz had Jayson (with a y) Ariel on February 5th. Elizabeth Montgomery Spence was born on March 30th (the middle name honored Montgomery Ward, the first store Diana had worked in).

Jayson looked like Sari, dark haired with “knowing eyes”. The son would seem to emulate his mother in looks and love, and the boy, as Charles said, “is being smothered.” The spelling of the name annoyed Diana, but she told Sari that it was unique and kind of cute.

Elizabeth was chubby and blonde and laughed a lot. Sari told Andy that Diana fed her baby too much and that the “kid was going to be obese.” Andy was bored with both his own baby and Elizabeth and longed to go back to Colorardo to ride in a rodeo.

It was a secret life and fantasy that Andy Garentz had. He was outwardly a prosperous Chicago dentist, but inwardly he hadn’t left his Western upbringing behind. His dad had been a Jewish cowboy in Durango, Colorado and Andy grew up with horses, dust, saddles, mountains and steaks on the campfire. It was a soft and constricting adjustment to live in the polished confines of the suburban North Shore of Chicago where barbecue flames were delivered by natural gas and steak came from Dominicks wrapped in plastic.

He had met Chicago girl Sari Sethbart at the University of Colorado. She was the only Jewish girl he had ever dated, because he was the only Jewish boy in his high school. He thought he would marry her, move back to Illinois temporarily and then set up practice back in Colorado. Yet luxury and malls and family and passivity glued them, like so many, to the Land of Lincoln.

Diana and Charles continued to live with their new baby in Fort Sheridan. Sometimes Charles would conjure up a secret fantasy life, where he was back at Notre Dame and just hanging out with the guys. He had no responsibility, and no schedule, no nagging expectations. He just did what the hell he felt like. He imagined a life where he never married and never had a daughter and remained a free spirit. But it was just a thought, that’s all.
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