Category: ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

PART TWO, MY LOVE, MY GANGSTER

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

MACEDONIO

Mace and I returned to San Rafael and rented a little cottage of our own. Mace painted the rooms lemon yellow, and I glided around in dreamy domestic ecstasy.  In the sensuous seventies, the preamble to the essentials of living was not a prospering career, and getting ahead. It was with a minimal amount of work, improvise, meditate, and stay high. Some Indian guru coined it, “going with the flow.”

I learned to cook fettuccine, entertain Mace ’s guests, and polish tennis shoes. Above all, I learned how to read adults, in a way I had never considered before. Mace explained the concealed messages in spoken language, and how to recognize the signals of deception, arrogance, racism, and affectation.  He was continually pointing out, people’s affectations, while he drove me around in our vintage MBZ 250 SEL.

For money, resources fluctuated between teaching tennis, calling his agent in San Francisco, (he did commercials for Gallo Wine) and working on various deals.  There was never one steady job, he was the Rocket Man, and people gravitated towards us. After meeting someone one day, they would be at our dinner table that night.

Amidst all the activity, I was suffering the guilt of watching my college funds vanish. That was the tragedy, but there is always sacrifice in this kind of passion. Just as my father had warned me, Mace did not refrain from spending my money.  I withdrew from the College of Marin, and for a while worked part time in a small bohemian cafe in Mill Valley.

One very early morning, while we were still sleeping, the doorbell rang. Mace rushed to the door prepared to admonish whomever was knocking.  When I came striding over in my silk Rita Hayworth negligee, I was astounded.

“Luellen, who is this guy, he says you know him?”

“Dale, it’s all right Mace, I know him, he’s a friend of my father’s.

“What kind of friend?” Mace demanded. Dale stood there in the archway, dressed in a wrinkled suit, his sandy hair heavily slicked to appear arranged, and eyes shaded behind rose tinted sunglasses.

“Mace , I’m just here to make sure Luellen is all right.”  Dale shifted his weight between both legs. He looked taller than I remembered.

“She’s fine, you can see that.” Mace replied.

“Mace , let Dale in the door.”  I embraced Dale momentarily, as I always had in the past. His edginess did not alarm me; he was always burdened by some desperate measures. My father was continually counseling him about his tribulations.

Mace hustled Dale into the living. I went into the bedroom to get dressed. My mind raced between images of my father and Dale, the run-around guy that obeyed orders. He did not resemble a tough guy; he was the Sterling Hayden type, the guy always on the run. Mace appeared in the doorway, and rushed over to me.

“Who is that guy?”

“He’s just a friend of my Dad, don’t worry he’s not dangerous…. I don’t think. ”

“He came to get you, your father sent him Lue,” he looked at me apprehensively.

“Is that what he said?”

“He doesn’t have to. We’ll take him out to breakfast; I want to be in public, just in case.”

“In case of what?”

“Just get dressed quickly.”

“You won’t let him take me will you?” I said panicking.

“NO! I can handle it.” Mace assured.

We drove into Larkspur to our favorite café. Mace led us to a table outside in the garden, in the warmth of sunlight. Mace orchestrated the meeting, so it was relaxed and enjoyable for Dale, and slowly Dale began to unwind. He removed his suit jacket and ate heartily after the long drive. They talked, and I confirmed what Mace offered.

“We live modestly now, but not for long, I’m going to manage the Tennis club, and Lue’s going to get her real estate license.  Isn’t that right honey?”

“Yes, that’s right.” I acknowledged. Mace had been advising me to get a license.

“Dale, you should hang out with us a while, I’ll take you around. You can see for yourself what our life is about. I’m not hiding anything Dale, I love Luellen, and her father knows it.”

“How is my father Dale?” I interrupted.

“Luellen, your father isn’t angry with you. He just wants to make sure you’re all right.”

“Why didn’t he come with you?” Dale hunched over the table and looking directly at Mace .  “He was afraid of what he might do.”  Mace stood up suddenly.

“ Dale, I’m not a stupid man. I know about him too.”

Things deteriorated from there.  Mace and Dale argued, I pleaded to leave the restaurant. In the car, I managed to dissuade the arguing with a hysterical outburst, and tears. Then I mediated Mace and Dale, whose conflicting assignments were bordering on a hit in an alley.

“I need you both to calm down. Dale has to return without me, and my father is going to be angry. Mace , Dale needs our help.”  Mace responded by retiring his grudge and substituting some personal stories along with several rounds of backgammon. When Dale was ready to leave, I took him aside.

“ See Dale, I’m happy here,  I can’t go back with you.”

“Are you sure? I can still take care of Mace !  I will not hurt him, just stall him so you can get in the car. I’m not coming back again Luellen.” He said.

“Dale, he won’t let me go. He really loves me.”

“If that’s so, let him prove it. Come with me now, he’ll follow after you when he can handle things.”

“Dale, I just can’t go with you.”

“Luellen, your father’s gonna blame me.”

“I’m sorry Dale, please understand.”

“ He’s going to be furious.”

“Well, you’ve seen him that way before right? He’ll calm down.” I spoke with feigned confidence. I had no idea how he would respond, but I knew he would blame Dale. He passed me his telephone number on a piece of paper, shook hands with Mace and told him to take care of me. Then he took of in his Cadillac.

Mace returned to the living room boasting of his conquest.

“Dale was supposed to threaten me with a gun, but he liked me too much to go through with it.”

“Did he show you the gun?”

“Yea. Lue, I told you-I am not easily intimidated.”

In the next six months, I passed my real estate exam and Mace was setting up a business.  Mace had a friend who owned a Mortgage Banking Company in San Francisco. I was going to sell new residential developments and Mace was going to secure clients.  We moved into a charming little house in Ross and commuted to the city to have meetings. We dined with successful men and their wives and I tried to read all the signals. Soon my father would see me on the sophisticated side of the street, leaving the hippie hibernating spell for good.

Then one day the meetings stopped. Mace retreated to the tennis court and played the rocket man. He ignored my questions and concern for our future.  The car was sold, the guests stopped coming over, and Mace lived in stubborn silence.   The day came I had to make the phone call.

“Hi Daddy, it’s me.”

“Yea, what is it you want?”

“I want to come home and start over.” I replied.

“On one condition.”

“What?”

“You never go back to him; you have to be absolutely sure.”

“I’m sure; I want to leave right away.” I said.

Within a week, I was back in my father’s apartment sitting on the blue and green crushed velvet sofa.

“Look now sweetheart, stop your crying, at least you didn’t come back pregnant. There is nothing to cry about now, you made a mistake and it’s over, you got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t bury yourself in the sand, nothing to be ashamed of; you ought to know the mistakes I’ve made. You couldn’t come close.”

Mace continued to pursue me. He was met by my father’s warning, ”If you come within ten feet of her, I’ll scratch your eyes out and stuff them down your throat.”  Any dice to throw Email:folliesls@aol.com

MY LOVE, MY GANGSTER

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

I was 20 years old in 1973 and living in Marin County. I was an Au Pair for a family of five, living in a hillside suburban neighborhood, overlooking Tiburon. I lived downstairs in the converted wood paneled library.

I drove a faded yellow VW Bug and dressed in a long wooly vintage coat. I attended classes in Women’s studies at The College of Marin, and my father was a good two thousand miles away.

During the hours I was not in class or tending to Inge’s three children, I sat in the coffee house across the street from the college, reading, smoking and drinking coffee. Each of these was an enormous, individual adventure, but to have all three together, was a star spangled banner sort of freedom. There in the café, at the varnished wood tables, I could read, write, study, and practice solitary delight.  These were the activities my father tried to beat out of me, with all good intentions.

One day in April, while sitting at my table, I was approached by a man in a tennis outfit. He was dark skinned, with birch brown eyes, thick defined lips, and wavy, blue black hair that draped one eye. He could have been Hawaiian, Italian or Spanish, all those ethnic features melted in his face.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“Play It As It Lays,” do you know of Joan Didion?”

“I think so. Why do you like it?”

“What, the book you mean?”

“Yea.”

“Her character, the woman in the story takes risks, she’s not afraid.”

“Are you?”

“I … sometimes.”

“What for? You can have anything you want.”

“What about you?” I replied, blushing.

.           “I’m a man that lives by my own rules. I have a lot of fun, and that’s how I live my life.”

“That’s nice.”

“Why the sarcasm. Don’t you believe me?”

“Why should I? I don’t know you.”

“Yes you do.” Then I lost his attention, and his eyes scouted the room.  I stood up to leave.

“Why are you leaving?” he asked.

“I see you are looking for someone else.”

“I’m not interested in anyone except you.” He said twirling his tennis racket.

“I’d like to see you again. Do you want to give me your number?”

I stalled him, glancing at his muscular legs.

“I have nice legs don’t I?” he teased.

“You have okay legs, what’s your name?”

“Macedonio Batzani Obledo.”

“What?” 

“Oh don’t be so American, it doesn’t suit you. Are you a student?”

“Yes, are you?”

Laughter ruptured out of him. I didn’t think it was so funny.  He quickly regained his composure and added that he was a student of life, and he studied all the time. He added something clever that diffused the next question, which was, “how old are you?” He continued to pinball my mixed up emotions, until I handed him my phone number on a piece of paper. He walked me to my car, twirling the tennis racket,and I could not take my eyes off him.

Mace called several days later, and we made a date. Inge greeted him with bubbly European warmth, followed by Espresso in the living room. The children emerged from their playrooms to meet the stranger. Inge engaged in conversation for several hours, without ever sacrificing her smile or sparkle.  She found out Max’s age, that he was recently divorced, had lived in Brentwood and played tennis at the Riviera Country Club. I was on the verge of a rebellion jackpot. Not only did I find a man 17 years older with a mysterious past, who was divorced and his ancestry unknown, but he embodied a brand of sensuality, that either enraged or imprisoned women.

Mace unhooked the lid that had caged my spirit, and opened the door. He was the wild card, the impostor, poet, musician, and artist of life. He embraced my insecurities, questions and doubts, and then gave them back to me with a seal of approval.  My flat chest became sexy, my lanky frame elegant, and my restraint classy. I was 20 years old and in a hurry to understand what love was all about. We rode around San Francisco in my VW singing, “Midnight at the Oasis”. I dressed up like Rita Hayworth and he bought me a vintage silk negligee.  He was 37 and worldly, my sexuality burst threw the ceiling.

We moved into a stately mansion in San Rafael, befitting of his grandiose dreams and my romantic vision. We lived with ten other outcasts, sharing the same traditional vintage Victorian furnishings.  All of the characters were acting out parts; Jimmy wore a white tunic and spoke in clipped passages from books.  Gail was her hometown Queen, a single mother and skilled husband hunter.  Terence was the pensive astrologer, living crossed legged on the floor of the den amongst a pile of books and charts.  Katie was a sharpened New Yorker recently stripped of conventions and migrated to California.  Invisible Doobie lived in the attic and spent all day sucking laughing gas. Ann, an alternating fragile and fierce aging hippie with utopiaian ideas, managed the house.

Mace decorated our room and I posed on the canopy bed.  At dinner sometimes all twelve of us sat in the formal dining room and conversation scintillated around crystal chandeliers.  It was a bohemian Great Gatsby commune, complete with volleyball matches on summer evenings, piano concerts in the parlor, and unconventional seventies living.  Mace played and taught tennis, and I lounged around Country Clubs looking for jobs. Just the environment my father had ordained for meeting the right fellow.

Six months later, I made the immutable decision to introduce Mace and my father.  Mace was not disturbed when I confided my father and his alleged Mafia connections. He alluded that he had known wise guys in Chicago, and was not intimidated in the least. Nothing I told him was shocking. He had heard all about my father’s closest friend, Johnny Roselli.

“ Lue, Johnny is the Mafia boss in Los Angeles, I know- I’ve lived there and read about him.”

“You shouldn’t believe the newspapers. Johnny and my father go to the barber shop, and out to dinner.”  I contested his allegation and insisted Johnny was a harmless retired Italian businessman and I adored him.

“Your father is Johnny’s right hand man.” He persisted.

“Can you prove that?”

“Lue, I’m not judging him, and neither should you.”  I was years away from understanding anything about my father.

We arrived at my father’s Hollywood apartment doorstep with mutual anticipation and excitement.  Mace thrust his hand out to my father.

“How do you do Mr. Smiley?”  I recognized my father’s feigned approval. How could he be indignant so quickly?  He put on his best social manners, but I felt the examination beginning.

“ Macedonion,  is that what you go by?”

“No, Mace is easier.”

“And your last name, how is that pronounced?”  My father sharpened his blade on Max’s elusive identity.

“ Spanish Italian, I am a mixture, Batzani Obledo.”

My father’s expressions are recognizable, and the one he uses when he suspects a fraud is equally deceiving. His lips purse together and he nods his head very slightly, imitating approval, but his eyes are unforgiving stainless steel blue.

I tried to ignore the signals; it was such a special day for me.  While I was preparing dinner, my father invited Mace to go for a walk. There I was in my dream world, cooking stuffed zucchini for my father and the man I loved, unprepared to accept the distortion of my father’s repellent reaction and Max’s eagerness for approval.

When they returned, my father went into the living room to watch television and Mace came into the kitchen.

“How’d it go? Did he ask you lots of questions?” I said.  Mace pranced nervously.

“Your father’s a heavyweight, but we got along.  I know how to talk his language. He’s a powerful man Lue, more so that I thought.   ”

“What did he ask?”

“What I plan on doing, he could help us you know.”

“That won’t happen, I’m sure of it.”

The evening was weighted, with long heavy silences, and jokes my father ignored.  I made nervous table conversation, and my father ate quickly.  He most likely used more restraint that night with Mace than I will ever realize. My father sent Mace to the motel and asked me to stay for a while. Some moments later my father began pacing the living room, and then all at once he exploded.

“He’s a filthy punk! A small time con! He gave me a lot of mumbo jumbo about his tennis, and some deal with a country club. Luellen, this is a gigolo, he will take you for everything you’ve got.  Drop him now before it’s too late.  He’s not qualified for anything, he has no business, and he’s a street wise nothing.”  His voice was threatening, face reddened in anger, and his entire body trembled. I sat limply on the couch caught between his truth, and my illusions.

“You’re wrong. He does have contacts with the Tennis Club in Marin and he knows a lot of people.” I argued.

“So what! He can tell you anything. You don’t have any common sense when it comes to him. I’m telling you what you’re dealing with, he’s a fake.”

“I think you’re wrong. You never liked anyone I’ve introduced.”

“You never brought a man I could look in the eye. You make a choice right now, if you want him after what I’ve told you, then walk out that door and don’t ever come back. I mean it now, you decide!”  I looked into his narrowed eyes.  I went into the kitchen, picked up my purse and opened the front door. He rushed over and slammed the door as I crossed the threshold. It was the first time I did not back down. After the door shut, the world looked different.

On the drive back to Marin, we stopped one night in Santa Barbara.  We had breakfast early that morning.  Mace was reading the newspaper, he pushed the paper to my side, “Read this,” he said.  I read the article, and was ejected out my dream all at once.  My father along with twelve other Mafia members were under investigation for their part in an alleged plot to extort money from various legal and illegal business enterprises. Smiley, it said, was indicted a year ago in an investigation of alleged Mafia activities in the Los Angeles area. The other names were Frankie Carbo, Frank Milano, Samuel Sciortino and De La Rosa.

“See, I told you your father is a powerful man Lue.” Something shifted in both of us after that. I couldn’t put the covers over my eyes any longer. I sat in the ray of sunshine rising above the mountains, and studied that newspaper article.  I realized then why the newspapers were hidden, why my father behaved as he did, why he distrusted everyone. I felt betrayed, I felt shattered, but I said nothing. I was tangled in my own family history, and it would take years to find a way out.

“Are you afraid of him?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t do anything to me, not with the government on his back,” Mace assured me.

MY MOTHER-A RACKETEER’S WIFE

~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

How could I have known 15 years ago?  Back then I had but a fingerbowl of resources, a blue chair, a desk, and a typewriter.  Everyday I wrote into the flame of discovery looking for my mother.  My notebooks were sketches of a  woman I never knew.   The absence of the most ordinary information, like where she grew up in Newark, what sort of neighborhood, what her father did for a living, what schools, she attended, and later on, what experiences she had modeling in New York.

The closest I got was by reading John Robert Powers, The Powers Girls,  about the modeling agency he started in 1923.   He assigned unemployed Broadway talent to his advertising agency to promote American products.  According to John he was the innovator of the modeling agency concept- beautiful women and men will sell products, the public never would have thought of buying.

I found her name in the index, Lucille Casey, and she joined the agency when she was 16 years old.   John groomed the models; they were assigned disciplinary perfection in dialect, manners, appearance, character, and intellect.  Powers Girls married anyone they wanted.  They were invited to all the important society events, they were given card blanche at the Stork Club, and the Morocco and they were transported to celebratory city functions. They met men of all means, character, and class.

After I read the book, I thought about what my father used to say,  ‘Your mother could have had any man in the world, but she picked me. Don’t you make the same mistake. “  That is a complex summons for a teenager to understand.

I sat in the blue chair and waited for flares of information to come down to earth.   After two years, I had very little to fill one page.  My mother’s history was lost, her friends had vanished, or would not talk to me.  She did not leave a diary.  Her photo album as a model was all I had.  What could I see in those eyes, and smile?   I gave up the search, and switched over to my father. The government documented his daily activities, and what they didn’t hear or see, was exploited in newspapers, documentaries, and books.

There was one woman who was alive, that knew intimate details of my mother, because I had met her, and she made it known to me she knew. That was Meyer Lansky’s wife, who went by the name Teddy.  Women have a distinctive look when they are withholding secrets.  Teddy always had that look when she brought up my mother.  I told her I was writing about my father and mother and she said, “Let them rest in peace.”    I didn’t take her advice.

SIDEWALKING TO BREAKING MY SILENCE

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

SIDEWALKING TO BREAKING MY SILENCE

 

This is the beginning of the journey, to write my way home.

“The fall was impulsive. All the misguided messages and warnings tumbled over me. When I finally found the bottom of self-defeat, the shelves of my soul empty, I was 43 years old.   Beyond getting married and having children, career, or stability, there were the untold stories of my gangster father and glamour girl mother. The struggle to break my silence began to erupt.  The problem was, they were both dead, and no one knew their stories.

The journey began one day in 1994. I was standing on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Barrington, in West Los Angeles.  This was the crossroads of my adolescence; a few blocks from my high school, where I learned to survive silently.

I was in the phone booth, the same booth from which I used to call my father, and report where I was going after school. The fellow next to me was talking on the phone to his agent, about a script.  I was dialing UCLA, Emergency Psychiatric Counseling, inquiring about treatment.  Choking on my tears and the lopsided humor of our juxtapose conversations, I screamed silently.  The next week I found myself inside the UCLA center, seated next to a woman with a clipboard ready to document what I said.  I kept looking out the window. The Hilgard House, where I lived with my mother, was visible from where I sat. I remembered the days we would all go swimming and would later walk in the village, eat cheeseburgers and shop at Bullocks.  I remembered my cats, my friends, my records and my joy.

“You have sadness and pain, how would you describe that?” the counselor asked.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you handle your sadness?” she said, leaning forward.

“By myself, I just live with it.”

“Do you feel pitiful?” she asked.

“Yes. I have nothing.

“Are you eating and sleeping properly?” she asked making a note.

“No, I ‘m not hungry and I can’t sleep. Today’s my birthday.” I said.

“You’ve made a conscious decision to change haven’t you?”

“I suppose.”

She put the notebook away, and with appeasing eyes assured me she would find a therapist suited to my problems.  I walked outside into the light of day. Across the street from the building was where the Hasty House used to be. We used to have dinner there with my grandmother.  I didn’t know if my grandmother was even alive. We had lost touch.  I lost touch.

There were two people to call, Rudy, my ex-boyfriend and Florence, my adopted Jewish mother, whom I had known fifteen years.  My choice was guided by instinct.

“Hi Florence, its Luellen.”

“Darling, how are you? Oh for heaven’s sake it’s so good to hear your voice. What are you doing?”  I didn’t have an answer.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, fine. Well, you know since the earthquake, the place is a mess and I don’t have time, I’m so busy. Oh, everyone keeps asking me if I’m all right, the girls think I should go to a therapist… did I tell you I was pinned under my oil painting for three hours before the paramedic arrived.”

“You feel all right though?” I asked.

“Well, to be honest, I’m scared– who wouldn’t be all by herself.”

“What are you doing, you haven’t told me a thing?” she said.

“Florence, I quit my job at the Terraces, and moved out of the condominium.  I was supposed to take over an Art Gallery in Laguna Beach; it’s not working out well.  Do you think I could stay…..?”

“Oh would I love it, come right over. I’ll be home.”
That’s how I ended up at Florence’s home in the summer of 1994. We hadn’t spent much time together since I moved back to San Diego from Los Angeles.  Though 30 years separated us, she was the friend that could be mothering one minute and girlfriend the next.

***

“Oh darling you look wonderful,” she cooed.

“You do too Florence.”

“You think so… really?” she said glancing down at her waistline.

“Yes, you look gorgeous.”

“You’re so skinny? Have you lost more weight?”

“A little, you can fatten me up.”

We sat in the dining room, drinking coffee and I answered questions.  I told her selected chapters from the last scene in my life.  I left out the part about PJ’s alcoholic binges and his partner Aaron’s daily dosage of marijuana.  There was the twisted, anti semantic charge between PJ and all Jewish people, and why I fell into a hole with all the alarms of dysfunctional behavior ringing at once.   Florence told me how she survived the earthquake, and how her daughter Madeleine had sensed she was in trouble, and sent the paramedics.  We were both afraid; we needed daily encouragement to face the unsteadiness. Florence put me upstairs in Sam’s old room, her husband who had passed away several years prior.  I flopped on the fold out bed. I was as close as I’d ever come to giving up on myself.”

 

MOB MEN AS ROLE MODELS

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

 

 

I was marinating chicken breasts and watching the cherry blossom pink sunset splinter into a montage of broken clouds. In that instant, the men whom I now consider close irreplaceable friends — as much as my girlfriends — surfaced all at once.  They hung down like a shadow over the men my father brought home, the gangsters that formed my first impressions of men.

How different these groups are. Do children with fathers who are doctors or stockbrokers perpetrate the same associations as adults? It is a lot more complicated to find characters as defiant, vocal and audacious as the men my father brought home to dinner. That is where my love for men started, and today I still delight in characters larger than life.

Doc Stacher was one I loved. He was right-hand bodyguard for Abner Zwillman, aka Longy, meaning the tall one in Yiddish, the head of the New Jersey outfit. Longy managed Newark all through Prohibition and on up until the 1950s. He and Doc were rumrunners and then became associated with Joseph Reinfeld, who allied himself with the Canadian Brofman Brothers’ distillery. They ran the largest bootlegging operation in the United States.  For protection, they used Benny Siegel. For tactics, they consulted Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. Doc was just over 5 feet tall, bald as an egg and so heavy lidded he looked like he was on dope. I remember him in white deck sneakers, without laces and bathing trunks, a Cuban Cigar sprouting from his lower lip and a permanent growl forming in his throat.  He saw only one person, delighted in only one person, and that was his daughter, Joanne. She was my childhood buddy, the girl who would walk up to Frank Sinatra and demand that he take notice of her.

Doc was appointed headman at The Sands in Las Vegas. Joanne led me into pranks and casino sprees that drove everyone in the hotel nuts, except Doc. He rarely smiled and was forcibly tolerant of the world when Joanne was in his presence.  I loved him for that. Without Joanne, he was gruff, cantankerous and he made me repeat every word, “Louder, I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

Doc showed no interest in non-threatening surroundings. He had the eyes of a man who’d seen everything. He was always looking down to the ground, lost in some private thoughts, his hands pinned behind his back. He paced the hotel lobbies and pool grounds waiting for Joanne.

The government tracked him all his life. In 1963, they caught up to him with an IRS tax bill. He settled and, instead of prison, Doc had himself deported to the Sheraton Hotel in Tel Aviv.

The next man to make a lifelong impression on me was Johnny Roselli. He came into my life on the day of my mother’s funeral. He was a man who filled the entire room. Everyone else vanished, even conversations stopped when he walked in the door. It wasn’t the fear, like I’d felt with other men, Johnny’s aura was electric, like a wire ran the perimeter of his body, and if you got too close, you’d be shocked. His power was his defense against the world leaders he managed in politics and crime. He got tangled up with the Kennedys, Castro, Hollywood and Hughes. Because of his high-wire act, he landed in the bottom of Biscayne Bay.

I searched for my own Johnny-style man for many years. I didn’t know he was all wrong for me, for any woman with sensitivity to extravagance and danger. He was my father’s protector, against the inevitable death threat of rival gangsters. I wanted someone like him in my corner.

When I think of how these men filled in the open spaces of my impressionable mind and took shape, it makes me laugh. I didn’t know they were gangsters. What I witnessed was the fearlessness, the enormous generosity between them, the loyalty and trust, and the respect for each other’s families. I thought the ones outside our circle were the losers. They didn’t have the privileges, the money, the connections that we did.

When I finally woke up from the long sleep, it was all right. I walked out of the dream with the same bottomless love for men, but now I choose the good guys,  as long as they’re not too good.

 

RADIO INTERVIEW

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

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GUEST ALERT: Daughter Of Reputed Mobster, Making The Radio Rounds

THE MOUTH, NOVEMBER 8TH, 2011 — Luellen Smiley is the daughter of reputed mobster, Allen Smiley. Smiley’s dad was a close friend and confidant of famous Las Vegas mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and he was sitting on the couch just feet away from Siegel the night he was murdered. While Luellen Smiley hadn’t been born at the time of the shooting, she’s conducted research on her father’s life and the events leading up to the shooting and wants to dispel the common belief that her father might have been involved in the shooting. Luellen Smiley has contributed artifacts to the Las Vegas Mob Experience and she joins us to discuss her family history. She’s out promoting the fact that the gangsters of old were not trigger-happy murderers and that J. Edgar Hoover was someone who was out to get them in a big way. Not letting them go straight, etc. She also believes that J. Edgar Hoover was behind the killing of Bugsy Siegel. (Bugsy’s killing was never solved). This week, she joined KNPR for chat. LISTEN TO AUDIO HERE To set up, contact Scott Segelbaum HERE

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WAITING

~ LouLou ~ 3 Comments

 

 

 


As children our waiting depends on how long it takes Mom and Dad to finish what they’re doing and pay attention to our needs.  It takes hold of us, like a fever, and we resort to nudging them, whining, even sobbing, if we are made to wait longer than we expected. During the school year, I waited all semester for the summer.  In Los Angeles that meant it was hot enough to go swimming in the ocean.  When I lived in Hollywood, I rode two buses, to get to Santa Monica.  The second bus dropped me off on Ocean Avenue, above Santa Monica Beach.   I ran down the ramp that connects to Pacific Coast Highway, and headed north to Sorrento Beach,   another long block away, and when I got there I stumbled in the sand in  my tennis shoes trying to run,  and find the place where my schoolmates clustered,  in a caravan of towels, beach chairs, radios, and brown bag lunches. I couldn’t just run to the ocean, I had to sit and talk and have something cold to drink, and then  I made myself wait, until I couldn’t stand it any longer, and then I ran down to the shore, and embraced the waves, tumbling inside their grasp until I lost my breath, and floated into abandonment.

After I moved to New Mexico, I stopped thinking about the ocean, I had to remove the memories from my thoughts, and so I could continue to experience this spark of the world. The dry sage ocean of pink soil, and radiant blue sky that pinches your eyes when you’re driving,   the sunlight, and the warmth of a desert night  and the white snow on pink adobe.  It has postcard perfection, even now, with fallen leaves spread like trash everywhere, and the trees almost naked, and the dead plants in the garden.  I try not to think of the ocean, the look of the sea from watery suntanned eye lids, or from the bluff at Del Mar, or the splashing of waves around my shoulders as I sink beneath the surface.

I waited, like I did as a teenager, for that summer to come, so I could return to the sea.

Last week,  I stood at the water’s edge in Del Mar,  it was like summer without all the kids playing ball and screaming, hey dude what’s up, and the running of the dogs, and  lifeguards  thrashing the beach in their jeeps shouting, , no swimming, no dogs off the leashes, no glassware,  and no surfing.  They were missing, so as the caravan of beach runners, and surfers. In fact, I was only one swimming, on that first day at the beach.   Before I went into the water, I reclined on a big black boulder, and faced the sea, and let my eyes wander amongst the scenes of the beach on a Tuesday afternoon. In front of me was an older man with graying hair, in a wal-mart beach chair reading. He must be retired, he looked perfected adapt to his spot about five feet from the shoreline.   I thought about that Dennis Hopper commercial, about retirement, and how I still cannot come to grips with retirement, and spending my days on park benches or in cafes watching younger men and women live.

There was one swimmer, on a bogey board, he was far out, and floating along, and I wished I’d brought mine with me, but it was in SC’s van, and the last time I used it was when I lived in Solana Beach.  I also wished I had a new bathing suit, because the one I was wearing was ripped, and the neck straps were tied together in a knot so I could swim without losing my top.   The sun baked my body, and I let it without abatement, without shading my limbs,  or wearing a hat, just enough sunscreen to keep the rays  from trotting over to my skin, and I closed my eyes and I opened them, and this is when the waiting business suddenly felt so important, so much so that I began to think about waiting as an aphrodisiac or something like a good cocktail that you have to make last for sometimes, years, while you wait for that moment that makes you feel immortal, and childlike, and senses sharpened as an animal.

I felt the beach flies, and the tang of salt water on my lips, and the when the seagulls swarmed above the water’s surface, like so many beads of a necklace, I thought, that this is about the most beautiful day I could have, and it’s all because I WAITED, I didn’t give up on the ocean, or my place in it, or believing that I would have my day in the sand, under a faded denim blue sky, with cotton ball clouds floating above me.   I baked until the sweat drenched my pours, and then I raised myself up, and walked slowly to the edge of the water, the flat surface made tiny breaks not enough to shatter my body warmth and I felt the first sting of the water on my feet, and then my knees, and then I submerged, and found that the best way to celebrate this day was to keep flopping backward on top of each wave as it crashed, and I did this for a dozen rounds, until I felt silly and weak, and dented with the surf, and I found that waiting thing again, meant something that I should write about because  all of us are waiting for the election, and the economy to recover, and our real estate to be worth something again, we are all waiting for this big change so we can feel secure and optimistic about the future.  There is something useful about waiting, something predisposed, that gives us the support and substance we need, so when the waiting is over, and we are all flush with success again, it will feel like the first time, it will overwhelm with us with power and joy, like the ocean.

When I left, I had enough jubilation  bouncing through my blood to take the risk of driving by Maurice’s home, the one he left three years ago, when he died under his favorite orange tree.

 

MY SANTA FE NARRATIVE

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

***


GALLERY LOULOU 20th Century Photography
The Royals & the Rebels
343 E. Palace Avenue Santa Fe NM 87501

The Santa Fe travel narrative I was going to write appeared in the New York Times the same week.  Sunday Travel Section, “ Is Santa Fe Ready For a Makeover.?”   If you read it, then you know, that mod is flowing through the alleys and walkways of Santa Fe, more so than adobe mud.  My answer is yes, Santa Fe is already under the mask of revival.  My perspective comes from the duality of being a tourist and a resident. I have not lived here long enough to shed the distinctive air of a gambler whose just won the jackpot.  It feels like a home I left years ago.   I still walk through the Plaza in summer once a day to see the groove of live bands on the stage. I snap internal photographs of the conversations, expressions, and festivities surrounding Spanish and Indian Market month. Maudlin hippies slack on park benches strumming on  untuned guitars. Children scatter between the adults, and third generation families sit under trees, sipping cool aid from a thermos, and eating home made tamales.

As you cross over to  San Francisco Street past Starbucks,  you will step over the hillbilly from Arkansas, whose sidewalk show includes, a dog, cat, and several  mice playing nicely. His message is; animals get along why can’t people?  You will never read this sort of description in the travel narrative.  Just before dusk, the city streets empty for an hour, and the shinning light spreads evenly over the adobe walls and rooftops. That is if it is not raining.  When showers greet us they pound the tricky brick walkways, and the lighting and thunder shake the windows, and everything not pinned down blows away.

I stood on the porch and watched, mostly because summer rain is the most romantic of all weather moods. That comes from a distant memory under raps.  If you have a balcony, or find your way to the Rooftop of La Fonda, or Coyote Café, take a seat. Just watch and listen to the operatic electrical storm. They do not last too long.

The best time to walk is early morning. There are several roads to hike just beyond Canyon Road that lead to the Audubon Society. From there, you can choose from a dozen rated hikes from beginners to Aztec Indian strength.   When in Santa Fe walk as much as possible, bring a pocket umbrella, and keep your eyes on the road. There are dazzling surprises everywhere you look.

***

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MORE ON MICE AND MAYHEM

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

ADVENTURES IN LIVINGNESS

The throw of the dice this week lands on Part Two of Mice and Mayhem.

“John, I found a place! Let’s go tomorrow to check it out. This will be such an
adventure! It’s next to a riding stable, and creeks, and trees… and DH Lawrence lived up the hill.”

Part Two

Highway
64 toTaos…

My anticipation smoked from the back seat where I sat, listening to Rudy and John
in conversation, the kind that ripples like a stream, as Rudy evokes his fervor
for New Mexican history, the battles, and bravery, the legend of Billy the Kid,
and Geronimo. The summer scenery galloped past as we headed up the canyon
through Pilar, as bobbing rafters walloped the Rio Grande, as tourists snapped
photographs, as hitchhikers and wayward hobos staggered on the death trap
shoulder turn-outs… a sort of carnival that makes driving to Taos interrupt the
mundane repetition of asking myself questions I cannot answer: Why do I gamble?

“Turn left here, Rudy.”  We were on the last turn into the Writer’s
Retreat in San Cristobal.
It was virgin land, spindly wild flowers, unpaved roads, no-name streets, and
the three of us, searching for some sign of life.

“This is it,” Rudy climbed out of the car,
while John and I remained seated, unbelieving.

“Rudy, this isn’t it.” I shouted. He turned
around and on the edge of hysterics, and said, “Oh yes, it is.”

“LouLou, you threw the dice off the table
this time.” John’s laughter stunned the silence as we viewed the three attached
leaning log cabins, with barred windows, beat up furniture, and week old trash,
glaring back, as if to say, “Well, whatta you expect for $600.00 a week.”

John and Rudy went off in the direction of
the barn, and that was when I had the feeling we needed to get out fast before
the owners approached us with rifles or crack needles.

The
image of Rudy and John, poking in the field, exploring the barn, two men that
rescued and wrestled with pieces of my persona, were now joined. For most of
life, I went solo, everywhere. There
was in my mind the resolution I would remain unattached, out-of-love because
“love is more painful than lust,” a phrase I took out of this mornings NY book
review of “A Book of Secrets.”

I wandered into the multifarious pasture where
I was greeted with chickens, goats, and manure, and with a sudden rush of
urgency, I shouted: “Let’s get the hell out of here,” and dashed back to the
car. I could hear John and Rudy’s crackling laughter, and that solidified the
momentary disappointment that follows a lousy throw of the dice.

I followed my interior compass, that has been
known to deliver supreme surprises, and we ended up on Kit Carson Road, in a shower of sunshine,
and cotton balls drifting down like snowflakes.

“Turn there. Look Rudy, San Geronimo Lodge.
We made an offer on it, remember?’

“Wow,
I forgot about that one.”

“How
many places have you guys made offers on inTaos?” John asked.

In the course of remembering the different
times we lived in Taos, and the real estate agents, like Linda from Texas who
accused of us being charlatans, until our friend David kicked in and warned
her, “They’re morons, they’re not that smart,” we landed at the cross bridge to San Geronimo.

“Twelve. We forgot about the Martinezplace; the one I wanted to fix up
into polished efficiencies.” I said.

“What were you planning for the Lodge?”

“The Woodstock House, concerts in the field,
performances in the dining room, musician rooms. There was a grand piano in the
main Salon.”

The
Lodge was devotedly remodeled. The slimy green pool had turned Mediterranean blue, the grounds were riddled with pathways,
the mammoth lobby was now comfortably appointed with antiques, and the grand
piano, well, that was shut-down and used as a plant stand.

The owner, a rugged beauty with brimming
passion for her turf, showed us half a dozen rooms to choose from.

“You must have spent a fortune fixing it up.”
“You have no idea! What we were told
going in, wasn’t what we got.”

I left with resumed faith in my compass, and
knowing we made the right decision not buying San Geronimo.

Decisions about traveling, joining, meeting,
and moving, drop me in the path of mental collision. Instead of applying
academic analysis, calculations, or tried and true pragmatic reasoning, I try
to beat the odds, because I am a gambler.

John and I headed up to Taoswhile Rudy took refuge in a friend’s
casita. I suppose most vacation renal owners have alternate accommodations; but
this is a work-in-progress, like a play that doesn’t have an ending yet.

For the next six days, I wandered from the Geronimo
pool, to the terrace, to Taos on foot, and
during those hours, we rewrote the script in the privacy of our steadily silent
working room, or on the second story terrace, overlooking the fields and the Jemez Mountains.

When Rudy
called and said Mike, our renter, invited us to the reception party at the
house, I called Mike to decline. He turned me down.

“Loulou you have to come, everyone wants to
meet you.”  Everyone is a lot of people;
seventy-five guests inside the house when I am not the host stirred up my
imagination.

When we arrived, the reception party was
sprouting on the front porch, in the driveway around bistro tables, on the back
porch at a buffet table, and in the garden movie theater.

Suddenly, this face comes at me, up close: “Loulou,
I’m Mike. Come-in… What are you drinking? We love it! Come meet everyone.”  Mike has a light bulb personality, one
hundred and twenty volts of unplugged warmth and sincerity. I followed him into
the living room, and was immersed with questions and praise, at rapid
fire.  Within the hour I wilted and
tugged on John and Rudy to cross the street for dinner. “Why’d you leave?” Rudy
asked. He was eyeing a pretty blonde in the driveway.

“I don’t feel it’s right; presiding in our
house while it’s their house. I’m afraid I’ll start cleaning.”

I returned to the party when a vintage Galaxy
pulled into our driveway, and I was abandoned because John led Rudy over to see
the automobile.

By now, the party was surging and as I
recommenced my socializing the trepidation vanished. In every direction were
handshakes and hugs, conversations zigzagging from Mike’s family to Erin’s, the
bride and groom, and their friends, who came from Los Angeles.
But these were not just friends; they were neighbors.

“Neighbors inLos Angeles?” I jested.

“Oh yeah, we live in the Hollywood Hills. We
have parties every weekend. Are you THE Loulou?” I nodded. “I am THE Carlos,
and you must visit us inHollywood.”

“What
do you do Carlos?”

“Everything!
I sing, act, cook, and make trouble!” In every party there should be a Carlos.
The evening crescendo curled into a wave of anticipation when Carlos took
center stage and sang arias, from Turnadot and La Boehme. His bravura tenor
voice raised the guests from every cavity of the house. Strangers out strolling
stopped to listen and guests from La Posada spilled out in the streets.  The house was transformed, in some ways to
former visions of the artist salons I imagined and once held at Follies House.

There
were times over the last two years when Rudy and I discussed selling Gallery
LouLou, leasing it long term, and even renting rooms; options that occupied
sleepless nights, and never materialized. Now we know it is a vacation home, a
party house, a reception salon… all the things that I imagined came together
here, even Rudy and John.

Any dice to throw email: folliesls@aol.com

Out of Control

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

This week is on control, and losing it. You hear that phrase often enough, “she has control issues.” I’m not sure what that means. I don’t understand how a society of rules and regulations that delivers more commands every day is expected to produce a society without control issues. I lost control of my life and so I am getting in touch with “out of control.”
Bohemian living was always in my dreams, having been raised in a perfectly pressed pinafore and seated on fragile furniture. I am not really very gypsy like when it comes to home. Once upon a time I lived in a suitcase, but I have since been corrupted by the joy of controlling all the things that come into the house and find a place there.

Once faced with this alarming epiphany I vowed to give up control and accept the disorder and disruption. What I’ve rediscovered is that without a lot of stuff to organize the mind is free to think. The house chores are minimal, leaving more time to create and effect important things. Narcissism is sacrificed and replaced with more visceral reflections.

Once I place myself inside the double yellow line of society, I feel those controls closing in on me. Losing control is a replenishment of youthful spirit. It’s free and painless. Try it, take off the leash and run free.

Two days later I was in a hotel, preparing for a reunion, a day of shopping, and luxuries of a woman on the road, when the news broke.. How did you feel when you heard the news. John and I went silent, and drove two hours in more conscientious silence.

JAMMING UP HIP-HOP

~ LouLou ~ 2 Comments

Free your mind and the rest will follow; the words from EnVogue’s latest release played all day on the radio. Every time I got in the car to hunt up real estate listings, I heard that song.
I worked in an industrial building along an industrial highway in San Diego. I shared a warehouse with twelve men, eleven of them tall, weight trained football on Sunday guys, who ate at expensive restaurants amongst a club of commercial real estate agents, where they’d be noticed. They were pretty decent guys, except the partners who each had severe a case of ego malnutrition and competed for attention like two tottlers. Greg was the only short one in the bunch, and he wore a rug, manicured his nails, and surfed on the weekends. He was always talking about his Karate black belt, and how he knocked guys out. He rarely laughed and when he did he sounded like a chirping bird. Greg used to give me his wife’s unworn clothes and waited in my living room while I tried them on. It was sort of strange, but he never played the trump card and asked for anything in return.
One day in the summer of 1992 I called the office secretary.
“Gail, I’m not coming in for awhile. Will you forward my calls to my home?”
“Are you all-right?”
“Oh yea. I’m fine.”
“What should I tell Sam?”
“Tell him I’m on leave of absence.”
I lived in a little cottage house in North Park. It was all white with a picket fence and a squared grass yard where my dog played. The front room was small but the carpeting was new, so I could curl up on the rug and watch the clouds from the windows.
I threw my nylons and navy pumps in the garbage, and folded the business suits into boxes. I knew I wasn’t going back, but where I was headed was a throw of the dice.
Mornings I ran through Balboa Park before the crowds arrived, and got to see the zoo keepers feeding the animals, and the actors going into The Old Globe Theater. I filled my senses with virgin light and morning silence, unfamiliar sensations to office workers living with florescent lighting and partition walls. In the afternoon I lounged around in sweats watching music videos, reading magazines and dancing.

I watched some new music videos, maybe EnVogue or Bobby Brown, and tried to imitate the hip-hop moves on the carpet. It was like watching a cat in the snow. I called all the dance schools, and no one was teaching hip-hop. I didn’t know back then my mother was a dancer; so this impulsive and implausible scheme to start a dance troupe startled me as much as everyone I told.
The last lease deal I did was for a group of soccer players from Jamaica. They needed a space to open a reggae dance club. They told me they’d called other agents and no one would take their business. I found a disheveled warehouse and struck a deal for them. They fixed up the warehouse themselves, with colored lights, and some tables, but Rockers was really about the dancing. I walked into the club one night, and they were all doing their part; greeting customers, spinning vinyl, and serving drinks. I danced with Leroy, the leader of the group, and watched him unfold from the waist down. He danced so low to the floor, he appeared boneless.
“Leroy, I’m going to start a dance troupe. You guys inspired me.”
“What kind of dance?’
“Hip-Hop and jazz funk.”
Leroy covered his mouth with one hand and laughed.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re a business woman; I didn’t know you was a dancer.”
“Well, I took lessons a long time ago.”
“Hip Hop?”
“No, Jazz. I’m going to find the dancers to teach. I know there out there.”
“Yea, they out there all right; lots of them.”
“Well see! I’d like to use your space, pay rent of course, when you’re not open.”
“Well that’s all right. You don’t need to pay me.”
I hugged him, and he shook his head. “I don’t think there’s much money in teaching hip-hop.” he said.


At the community college I posted a sign for dancers, and observed some classes. When I got the call from Piper, he asked me to come see him teach at the Church on University Avenue. I drove over one night, and found Piper in a little room upstairs, teaching Jazz Funk to one woman. He was tall and lanky with a smile that creased his whole jaw. He came over, shook my hand, and said, ‘How you doing? I’m Piper.’ He wore an immaculate shield of confidence that defied his nineteen years, and moved at the intersection of Michael Jackson and James Brown. The groove spiraled through his body.
“I’ll help you get it started; if you’re not a trained dancer you need help.”
So Piper and I met every week and finally landed on a group that incorporated Jazz-Funk, Hip-hop and Afro-Cuban. I named the company United Steps Dance Productions, and the Jammers were the hip-hop troupe.


I’ll never forget the look on the partner’s faces when I told them I was starting a multicultural dance troupe. They just stared at me blankly. Then within weeks all five of my unclosed lease deals were signed at the same time. I walked out with enough money to live six months. That was real security in my mind.


Piper and I held our first audition at Rockers. When I opened the doors that morning, dancers were already lined up outside. They came dressed in street clothes; wearing scarves, baseball caps, loose pants, and tank tops. I watched them leap, kick, split, and turn inside out for the job. I knew that I was in the right spot.  One dancer walked out, stood still for a moment, and then leaped into a break-dance pop-lock routine that silenced the crowd. “Him Piper, definitely him.” He’s bad, yea he’s real bad.” At the end of the auditions, Piper mocked me.
“Lue, we can’t sign every dancer just cause they hip-hop. Anyone can do that.”
I can’t hip hop and it’s my company.”
“Yea, and you’re crazy. I swear, Lu you’re crazy.”
We agreed on pop-locker Vince-Master Jam, and Monique, a young Afro-Cuban dancer. That was the beginning.
When Vince and I met, he told me he lived in Escondido.
“But that’s an hour away.”
“It’s cool, I’ll be here. Just give me the chance.”
Vince showed up twice a week at night for his class. Many times, we sat in the cold damp club, listening to music and Vince tried to teach me to pop-lock. I apologized for not having students and he looked at me, and said, “ Don’t worry Lue, will get it going on.”


Our first performance was at the Red Lion Hotel. I hired a video tech to record the performance. We got a free dinner and a hundred dollars. We had a good crowd, and everyone loved them. Afterwards in the dining room, they were talking, laughing and elbowing each other. Piper was ranting about Monique taking too much time, and Vince was telling Piper to chill because Monique was so good. I sat there just listening, with a big smile on my face.
The Jammers belonged to the no smoking, no drinking, no drugs group. For the first few months, they taught on tiled floors under a leaky roof, without any heat. But they kept coming back to teach and their dedication moved me to find a better location. We relocated to a well-heeled Health Club downtown San Diego and the classes filled up with students, dancers, and office workers searching for a new lunch. They came from all different races; Asian, White, Hispanic and Black. I danced with the classes and promoted our troupe. The Jammers laughed at my attempt to be a soul sister, and I laughed with them. We were reviewed by KPBS magazine, and a photographer took pictures of us and featured us in the magazine.
Searching for gigs proved to be an exasperating struggle. I called department stores, festival producers, shopping centers, nightclubs, hotels and everyone had the same line, “I don’t think hip-hop is right for our clientele.”
When I ran out of money I took a job managing a condominium project, where I lived rent free. After a time of observing the Jammers self expression, I asked myself, what is mine? I still refused to get on stage. Vince used to bawl me out because I made Piper introduce the group.
After two years Piper moved to Los Angeles to launch his dancing career, and I let Vince take the troupe where he wanted it to go. He turned it around, adding twelve dancers and broke more ground in San Diego. Monique developed into a serious stage actress and we all lost touch. They were the sparklers in my life; like that star you think you’ll never hold. I left the Jammers a different woman. They put the rhythm back in my spirit and soul.
When I recently located Vincent on an Actors website, I called him right away. He is a missing link in the chain of my life. Without that adventure, I might still be imitating the kind of business woman I wasn’t. We met in Los Angeles, and watched Vince perform in a club. He kept his vision and now acts on television and video. “ Lue, now you have to find Piper.”
It was Piper, who said to me one day after reading some of my poetry, “ Lu, you’re not a dancer. You’re a writer.”
Any dice to throw Email: folliesls@aol.com

ADVENTURES IN EXPECTATIONS

~ LouLou ~ Leave a comment

“It has been a time of writing for me. The doctors have all decided that my crippled leg must be amputated. They cannot do it right away because the hospitals are so full. So, in the nights of glare I just cuss out the doctors for making me wait, and cuss out my leg for hurting. I have read Sarah Bernhardt and her superb gallantry and courage have comforted me.” From “Illumination & Night Glare” by Carson McCullers.

More on the adventure in expectations.
I wonder how all of us really accept this incongruity of life. If we experience continuous disappointment, our inner oars, the ones that carry us over the tidal waves, must be accessible so we can bash back at the unsettling news, the absence of truth, the winter storms, the lagging economy, the pain of puttering, and expectations unrealized.
At a window table of Il Piatto, a favorite Italian bistro in Santa Fe, my friend Baron, (www.fotobaron.com) John (no website) and I fervently discussed the state of the people. What we observe, think, fear, and ruminate over at home when the lights are out, the street silent as a meadow, and shadows from winds through the winter branches play like puppets on the walls.
“Baron, if something doesn’t break soon—I’m going to need anti-depressants, or heroin.”
“Have you ever tried it?”
“Heroin? No, never. I tried Prozac for a few weeks years ago. It was ineffective.”
“Look, things are tough everywhere; the shops are closing, and the restaurants empty– look around. This is weird. And where’s the god damn snow?”
“It’s in New York. Rudy was there for a few days.”
“What the hell for?”
“Court. And guess what? He flies across country on Monday, appears in court the next morning, and is asked, ‘Why are you here?’ So you can see Rudy standing there in a cotton zip-up jacket, his face flushed with snow and wind. The judge informs Rudy he didn’t have to come to court.”
“How’s business for you?” I asked.
“Terrible! I keep inventing new prints, new sizes, new shows, a book, you just gotta keep it going, LouLou.”
“I keep it going; but it is beginning to feel like neat little circles.”
John tipped his head, the tip of understanding between two writers whose fingers are bleeding, amongst a country of bloggers, Twitters, and Facebook fetish writing. We wait, as all writers and artists, and in these times, everyone must wait, until our soil is fertile, and the illumination returns.
“Any bites on the script?”
“Yes, we get them, and then you wait, you may wait two or three months to hear anything.”
“Let me explain,” John interjected. “ It’s because ninety-nine percent of the scripts submitted are passed on, and the reason for that is the executive of creative development puts his job on the line when he green lights a script, so it had better be good!”
“In the interim, I repurpose the house as a vacation rental.”
“Then where will you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“LouLou!”
We talked about Egypt, Fox News, CNN, Tunisia, mobsters, photographers, business strategy, and the next Gallery LouLou event, a work in progress. There is visceral nourishment when you congregate over the same obdurate situations. The singular frustration festering inside is softened when commingled. We lingered over coffee, still unloading the burdens of a questionable wintry month.
That night John and I rushed through the front door, seeking warmth. I was on my way upstairs when I noticed a man with long black hair seated at my porch table. I could see his whole upper body through the drapeless French windows. His hand seemed as close to the door knob as my fingers are to this laptop.
“JOHNNNNNNNNNNN, there’s a man on the porch!”
Five “hurry up’s” later, John came running into the living room.
He opened the front door and announced in his radio deep broadcast voice, “We’re closed.” John nodded several times, and closed the door.
“What were they doing?”
“Attempting to light your kerosene lamp.”
“Why?”
“They thought the porch was charming.”
A few days later, another man appeared on the porch, this one wandering back and forth. After all the times a wanderer has been loose on the porch, in the garden, at the front door asking where someone lived (they do that in Santa Fe), and then the night someone climbed on the porch and ripped off the Stratocaster guitar from the hook on the eaves (a rock n roll prop), I had to apply more caution than negligence. If someone wanted to assault me, my defense would be worthless. When all the girls started learning self-defense, and carrying tear gas in their purses, I started locking the doors. Though I am not expecting intruders and assaults, it feels like it is time to take responsibility for myself. The fear of being alone is more tormenting than loneliness.
“I brought the shot-gun. Are you ready to learn?”
“Yes.”
TO BE CONTINUED