Andrew laughed throughout the reading. That had been my purpose. “I figured that one would cheer you up.”
Soon, libidos overwhelmed all other considerations for the both of us, activated by the presence of female faces and physiques destabilizing to vulnerable male glands. The ensuing conversation, and discussion of the exigency of Andrew’s lust led to mention by him of a dalliance of mine on a recent evening. I confirmed that it was an encounter that would live in infamy, and fondly, causing him to ask, “But you still like your woman in the Valley…or not?”
It had never occurred to me anyone would think otherwise, despite the longing, liberty and enticements of separation, and despite the liberties taken, the opportunities indulged, the pleasures not rejected and the senses actively seeking and receiving attention. Besides, neither of us was capable of jealousy, entitlement or possession, fundamentally, constitutionally incapable. We were also lazy, yes. We were also jaded, yes. We were also inured to a lot, yes; and even over the bend on the skimpiness of our realistic expectations of others and of the world at large, yes, yes, yes. But still, these petty obsessions weren’t part of the make-up of either one. I reiterated this to Andrew, for I’d told him all of it before. I also reaffirmed that Lila and l remained a lovesick, if sweet and sour item, and were so simpatico we likely would remain so as far as the eye could see.
“I understand that people just need to DO IT, no matter what,” he said.
“There’s more to it than that, I think there is anyhow, even though, you’re right.”
“What’s the rest? I mean, I believe you, but what do you think it is, really?”
“I thought you were going to explain it to me.”
“Well, women are too wonderful. I know that’s part of the problem.”
“Way too wonderful. But I wouldn’t call that a problem, exactly.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, too wonderful.”
“In too many ways. But I still don’t think it’s an exquisiteness thing entirely. The part about there being more to it…that to me has to do with what I’d call…life chemistry, or chemistry of life, or something, whatever makes the whole dance with women, in our case, too powerful to be resisted…definitely to ignore. It’s like the most normal behavior, doing what you’re doing. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say.”
“Life chemistry…I like that.”
“I suppose a better way of putting it would be that what’s beautiful to us is beautiful to us for a reason…there’s almost a feeling of committing a crime in wasting that feeling, in not responding in a natural way. I think what it really is, the need for closeness, the desire…all of it, it’s another form of the medicine. We need it to get by, a lot of us do…need the eggs, as Woody would say, no matter what our situation is.”
“I don’t know if even I could come up with rationalizing that flowery. Not bad. Sort of ‘Love is the Drug.’ But I’d add: the strength of this impulse with women, even when you’re involved with somebody else already, even if you’re married, even if you’re too old to do anything about it for instance, has to do with the power of curiosity. In this case curiosity could be synonymous with vitality. There’s a sharp, really sharp desire to find out what a person you’re attracted to or you find enthralling in one way or another is like, up close…who they are. The scenario of establishing intimacy followed through, is to some degree what it is to live; at least in a sense, it’s the essence of life distilled. What it leads to may be as illusory as everything else, but it has an incredibly strong pull.”
“Don’t sell yourself short on flowery rationalizations,” Andrew said with a laugh. “Curiosity could be synonymous with vitality,’ I like that,” he complimented.
“Mutual admiration,” I said.
“As long as we’re admiring, you and what’s her name…”
“Lila.”
“Lila…you and Lila are very enlightened.”
“There’s hardly a choice.”
“Why not?”
“Because the conventional model doesn’t hold up against the way things are anyhow.”
“Some of the time it does, some of the time it doesn’t. But I’m with you. It’s easier and even makes more sense to beat your head against a convention than a fact of life.”
“That’s how I see it.”
“On the other hand, like a lot of us you’re beating your head against quite a few of those.”
“Concussions and skull fractures are a small price to pay for peace of mind, remember that.”
“I will. Along with ‘curiosity is an aphrodisiac’. And by the way, how often has that curiosity led to discovery of a personality interesting enough to warrant your curiosity?”
“Ha.”
“I was a little serious.”
“What would you expect? It varies. Sometimes you’re more perceptive or more considered when you make your overtures than at other times. And some times you look harder than others, and for longer,” I told him, smiling.”
“Yeah, over and out in what is, coincidentally, an overnight stay.”
“That coincidence has occurred, yes.”
So much dissection of the human condition and our own inner parts created an appetite for red meat, so we took a bus to the place Andrew liked to call, “The Meatery,” on Santa Monica. Afterwards, we took another bus back to our own neck of the burg. We had walked six or seven blocks from the bus stop and still were a couple away from The Essex when two men in sweatshirts and hoods running, plowed between us, and sent us sprawling all across the sidewalk. Our exclamations and expletives quickly were drowned by sirens.
We walked the two more blocks left to the Essex, where not far from the entrance a small phalanx of cops raised their arms and told us, “stay right there.”
Three or four police cars were parked in the street, lights swirling and sweeping across the scene. Two ambulances squealed around corners at nearly the same time, snugly threading the needle of patrolmen and rollers. Looking past the policemen in front of us we saw two people with their arms spread, stretched out on the sidewalk, blood trickling out of each of them onto the concrete. I recognized the face of one of them, a hotel resident I’d seen around but didn’t know. The woman beside him I had never seen. Both were silent, at least from where we stood.
Very quickly, men in white coats as well as cops had engulfed the pair. The stretchers were pulled across the curb, and rolled up through the circle, which parted in order to open access to the victims.
“Shot?” Andrew asked a cop.
“Knives,” the cop said.
When Andrew asked him who did it, the answer he got was, “Thieves? Junkies? Beats me.”
“Bad guys.”
“Bad guys,” repeated the cop
When the stretchers were being shoved into the ambulances Andrew said, “There but for the grace of God we go.”
We smoked, and waited till the rigmarole was done, the police had let the sidewalk open for business again and bolted inside the bar. As we were going in, others who had been huddled at the door to look through the tiny window were bulging out. Three drinkers were manning the stools at the bar. Before we could sit down the Professor said, “I know, I know,” as if the frisson of proximity to crime had faded quickly.
“No insights here on why it happened?” Andrew asked him.
“The best explanation I’ve heard so far is ‘thugs’,” reaching up to the shelf for the appropriate bottles.
“We heard that one,” Andrew said.
“Oh,” the Professor said, as if remembering something while he poured. “I did hear one other theory.”
“The theory being?” Andrew said.
“A guy in here…I guess he left or went outside…said he heard this man and woman talking down the street...not talking actually, basically raving, pissed off about getting caught in the shuffle. He claims he heard them say something like, ‘somebody in this ne
ighborhood is gonna take a hit.’ I doubt somebody pissed because of getting bounced at the end of a cycle, would just randomly stab a couple of other people, even though in this neighborhood, who knows.”
“That fucking 28-day shuffle…motherfuck,” Andrew snapped.
A deliveryman wetting his whistle a few stools down looked from the Professor over to Andrew, then back to the Professor again. He caught the Professor’s eye first, asking, “What’s the 28-day shuffle?”
“Hotels,” the Professor said, swabbing the bar with his rag, “residence hotels like the one next door…though that one doesn’t engage in the practice…make tenants vacate their rooms after twenty-eight days. People can check back in after a day or two, but in the meantime, they usually have to stay in a shelter, or stay on the street, or get a room on a single night basis, which costs them more. They also have to find a place to keep their stuff.”
“What’s the point of that?” the deliveryman asked.
Andrew wanted in, and told him, “Here’s the point: if they stay as long as thirty days they become official tenants, instead of hotel guests, meaning they are entitled to certain legal protections that tenants in other forms of housing get.”
“It’s not legal,” the Professor interjected.
“If it’s not legal, how come they’re able to do it?”
Andrew faintly smiled, and told him, “Surprising as it may seem, illegal things sometimes can persist.”
“It gets reported to the Housing Authority,” the Professor said. “Sometimes they actually take an action, sometimes all they do is send a threatening letter. Neighborhood groups and some city council people hound them about it. It’s better than it used to be.”
“I doubt gutting people on the sidewalk is going to help a lot.”
The professor rolled his eyes. “Good point.”
“The way the two people knocked us flat, I’d swear it was two men instead of a man and a woman,” I chimed in.
“Who knocked you down?” the Professor asked.
Andrew answered for us. “When we were walking back from the bus stop a couple of blocks away two people in sweatshirts, the kind with hoods, were tearing up the sidewalk…ran right between Donovan and me and knocked us both down.”
“Jeeez-US. I guess if it was the people who did the knifing, IF it was, you’re pretty lucky.”
“But for the grace of god,” I said, paraphrasing Andrew.
“It may have been them, and it may not have been. Like you said,” and Andrew looked at the Professor, “in this neighborhood, who knows?”
“Somebody stabbed somebody,” the deliveryman said.
“I think ‘thugs’ is the likeliest explanation,” the Professor quipped.
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