Stay Interesting

by Jonathan Goldsmith

  “Okay, brief me: How old is she again?” I asked.

  “Early sixties,” Rita said.

  “Early sixties? I thought you said fifties!”

  I was nervous, embarrassed, a bit ashamed, but curious to see where this adventure was going and too desperate to turn it down.

  Steal Nothing but Hearts

  I walked into the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel and called up to her room on the house phone. “Hello, Beth, this is Jonathan,” I said, feeling the pools of sweat gather in my socks. Could I really spend an evening with a woman in her early sixties? And the wife of a casino mogul, perhaps a gangster with mob ties? I thought about escaping, running back through the lobby of the hotel, with its marble columns and mahogany-and-walnut-paneled walls, and past the Oak Room, the famous bar and restaurant and a Hollywood bastion, the place where I really wanted to go.

  “Hello, dear,” Beth said, and the aging quiver in her voice put me into a state of mild shock. Beth was too old to be in her early sixties. She must have been in her midseventies.

  “Come on up, dear,” she croaked.

  I walked into the elevator, my new shirt sopping with sweat. How could I do this? What had I become? Would Rita be upset? How could I let her down after she’d been so nice and cooked me all those eggs with cottage cheese? Maybe I could cut the evening short, feigning a migraine.

  The elevator door opened. She was waiting to meet me, sticking her leg out of the doorframe—a leg that reminded me of the atrophied chicken drumstick my uncle once left in the countertop oven for far too long.

  I inched closer to the door and could see more of Beth now. She was closer to eighty and had a twinkle in her one good eye. She was wearing an expensive blue dress, and her bone-gray hair was pulled back in a chignon.

  “Come on in, dear,” she warbled, extending her hand, the bony fingers coming my way like a claw. I recoiled, and then I saw it. On one of her talons was the largest diamond I had ever seen. That rock must have been worth millions. Her husband probably didn’t just own a casino. He could have been a capo too.

  “Let’s have a drink, dear,” she chortled, ushering me to the couch and wriggling toward me, pulling up her blue gown and revealing her knobby knees. Beth wasn’t as old as my mother. She was as old as my grandmother. She leaned in closer and I panicked and stood up.

  “Perhaps we could get something to eat,” I said, thinking that a retreat to a restaurant would allow me the chance to slip away from this old crone. To this day, I feel guilty talking ill of people, but there is no other way to describe her.

  “Splendid idea,” she said. “Why don’t we order room service, dear, and get to know each other?”

  Room service?! Damn it, Beth knew the drill. How to escape?

  “You know, Beth, I’ve never been in the Oak Room,” I said, referring to the famous restaurant downstairs. I went on about how all the stars went there and how I’d always wanted to go.

  “All right, dearie,” she said, and she creaked slowly and laboriously to her feet. We walked out of the apartment, a mink coat draped over her skeletal frame. Down toward the elevator, she grabbed onto my elbow.

  The beginnings of an anxiety attack swept over me. What if anyone saw me? What would they think? It looked as though I was dating my grandmother. Surely, someone in the hotel would tip off Mr. Mogul, her almost certainly mobbed-up husband. Had Rita said he was from Chicago? I thought about the added pain. How low had I fallen?

  The Oak Room was as I’d expected. The light was low, the wood dark and rich, the waiters in white coats. In the banquettes around us, I spotted a mix of Hollywood elite sipping martinis, and around the room, a covered silver-domed wagon passed with hors d’oeuvres.

  I ordered a spread of appetizers, the smoked salmon with dill sauce and Italian salami—none of which I was able to enjoy despite being famished. Under the table, I felt Beth’s knees searching to connect with my own. To slow her advances, I looked down at the table and commented on her diamond ring.

  “Oh yes,” she said, admiring her stone. “This is bigger than Liz Taylor’s diamond.”

  I wish I’d never heard her say that. My mind started spinning. Liz Taylor’s diamond was a monster of a stone, more than thirty-three carats, and worth millions. After driving a garbage truck and hauling insulation for three dollars an hour, a fortune like that was powerfully seductive. One rock alone could purchase a home in Los Angeles, a home back east, a nice car. I could pursue acting, perhaps even consider directing or writing like Jimmy Boanes, a friend who’d made a career writing Westerns and television shows. Nobody had heard from Jimmy, though—not after he went for a weekend in Lake Tahoe, fixed a game of keno for twenty-five thousand dollars, and then fled to Borneo, where he was probably living like a king. Borneo wasn’t too bad a place, I figured, having dark thoughts. Perhaps if I could get away with Beth’s monster diamond, I could sell the stone for a fortune and meet up with Jimmy. Or find my own paradise.

  I hated myself for these thoughts ricocheting around in my mind. I quickly and silently cut a deal with God Almighty. Just this once, God, please, and I’ll never do anything like this again. I’ll send half—no, a quarter; that’s still a lot—of the proceeds to charity: the Red Cross, St. Jude, etc. And of course, I’ll never have to worry about a paycheck for years. I could act full-time. That’s a good deal, right?

  The restaurant was clearing out, the waiters closing up. I couldn’t stall any longer.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” Beth said, placing her hands on top of mine.

  I started to cough and grabbed my throat as if it were having a spasm.

  “You know, Beth, I have acute pharyngitis, right here,” I said, having learned long ago that if you’re going to lie, be specific. “I need to walk; I need the night air.”

  I stood up from the table and put on my trench coat. It had been raining outside.

  “Okay, dearie,” she told me, ogling me hungrily with her one good eye. “We’ll walk first and then we’ll go upstairs.”

  “That’s fine, Beth,” I said, helping her with her mink, blinded by the shine of that fucking diamond.

  Outside the hotel, the night was cool and damp. A light mist swept over us as we walked down Wilshire, the path of the stars. The traffic passed us as we turned on the sidewalk, listening to the sound of tires splashing in the wet street. I put my hands inside my raincoat to keep them warm and wondered: How am I going to get out of this? What will Rita say? Then it hit me again: How much is Beth’s diamond really worth? Could I get away with it? I felt ashamed of myself. After all, my great-grandfather had founded a yeshiva.

  My musings on morality and riches were disturbed by a sensation inside my raincoat pocket. It was Beth. The old girl was persistent and had burrowed her clawlike hand into my trench coat. She was holding on to me, nestling her fingers between my own, and as she did so I felt that damn seductive ring. I could feel the cool, spiky gold crown holding up the jewel, just another trophy rock for Beth, but a stone that could elevate me from poverty and finance the rest of my life.

  I decided to go for broke. I actively began to manipulate her hand, trying to coax the ring from her finger inside my jacket pocket, a gesture she mistook for an amorous advance. She was caressing my fingers, desperate for tenderness, and I was caressing her fingers too, desperate to pry the band of the ring loose from her bony finger. I felt the diamond and pushed it just so, trying to ease it off her finger and into my coat pocket.

  The stone wouldn’t budge.

  I tried harder and she started massaging my hand even faster, digging deeper into my pocket, continuing to confuse my efforts for advances of ardor. Then her hand and ring were out of mine, as she continued through my pocket and proceeded to grab my balls.

  I panicked. I saw the light of a taxicab and jumped out into the street, the dazzling luminescence of traffic lights and high beams shining on the w
et pavement.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said, delivering an apologetic salute and disappearing inside a cab. I cursed my poor luck, but I was fortunate. If it weren’t for Beth’s arthritic knuckle, I’d probably still be in prison. I had the chance to play my cards right, but the hand I was dealt turned out to be more of a claw.

  I’d been in Los Angeles for only a few months. Already I was losing my grip. My morals were slipping. I had to change. I had turned into the kind of young man even I could not respect.

  When Life Puts You Low, Start Climbing

  I decided to put the reins on my careers as a gigolo and jewel thief. I was in need of fresh air and a touch of salvation. While I was driving my garbage truck for the construction company, milling around the office one afternoon, I met Larry McGregor. He was a marine, about my age, and working for extra pay while on furlough from Vietnam. We became friends. Stuck in the noisy, smog-choked city, we always talked about taking a trip into the High Sierra to get some perspective, and one of the more popular hikes within driving range was Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the continental United States. Only the peaks of Denali (formerly Mount McKinley) and others in the Alaskan and Yukon ranges stood taller. The dangers of Mount Whitney were well-known. Even though it was common for novice hikers to put in for permits to make the climb, the jagged passes, thin air, and rapidly changing weather could turn Whitney into a death trap.

  Mount Whitney has a legend too. It is said that the Paiute tribe, the Native Americans who claimed the borders of Nevada and the High Sierra Nevada mountain ranges as their homeland, believed the mountain harbored the spirit of an old man. Too-man-i-goo-yah, they called him, which translates to “old wise one.” Long before mountaineers and alpine conservationists discovered it, the Paiute considered the mountain spirit a ruling leader, a supreme force who looked down from the craggy, majestic heights and passed judgment on those who misbehaved and did not live up to the tribe’s code of ethics.

  My recent dalliances with married women and brushes with grand theft were probably pretty significant evidence that I had not been living up to the tribe’s code of ethics—or any standard of ethics at all. But how bad could Too-man-i-goo-yah’s judgment really be?

  I was tempted to make the climb alone, inspired by the physical challenge, but when I mentioned it to Larry at the construction company, he wanted to come along. We agreed to make the hike together. We put in for a permit and were accepted. I started to train. I bought a Kelty pack, the type that had been used on one of the first ascents to the peak of Mount Everest. Kelty was rapidly becoming the choice of knowledgeable backpackers. They had a special frame that would take the strain off the lower back. Larry was stronger than I was, and to pull my own weight on the hike I had to bulk up. I then created my own alpine hiking regimen. I’d stuff my Kelty with books and cans and other stuff to make it as heavy as possible, then walk around in my short sleeves in sunny Southern California, imagining the chilly winds we’d soon encounter once we arrived on the mountain.

  Over the following months, Larry and I met often to plan the hike. We went over the topographical maps. I’d trace our routes as Larry followed along through his thick glasses. Without them, he could barely see.

  “How blind are you?” I joked.

  “Let’s put it this way,” he said. “Without them I could get lost in my own bathroom.”

  We did the research. Whitney commanded respect. The mountain was plagued by lightning. When the first official climb was completed in 1904, one of the first three hikers was struck by lightning on the mountain’s flat plateau, which towered high over California and Nevada. He perished. The hike itself was also potentially perilous. As the climb became more popular, so many hikers applied for permits that the parks department had to limit the number of camping permits to maintain and protect the area. Without permission to spend the night, many tried to speed up the process and make the eleven-mile hike to the summit in only a day. Rising before dawn, they’d race up the trail, only to succumb to altitude sickness and freezing weather. Without packing proper clothes or supplies, these hikers could find themselves dizzy and disoriented. Once darkness crept in, if the moon was hidden or bad weather set in, it was easy to lose one’s way on the narrow trail. Hikers would stumble around the trail and lose their way on the mountain’s edges. The drops were steep, and hikers simply fell off. A misstep could cause a catastrophic plunge. Fallen hikers’ bodies weren’t found until the mountain lupine were in bloom for the six weeks spring visited the area. Each year, the local newspapers would report yet another hiker who’d gone missing. In total, more than three hundred hikers had entered the Whitney Portal to climb Mount Whitney and never came back alive. Hopefully, we wouldn’t be among them.

  • • •

  It was fall when we left, the kind of day in late September that brings a deeper chill when the sun starts to descend in the sky earlier, and we made our way to Lone Pine, the closest town to Whitney Portal and an outpost on the way to Death Valley. We signed in at the rangers’ station, leaving our names and our time of entry—this way, the rangers knew who was out there in case they needed to send any search teams—and started the hike to Mirror Lake, which, at almost eleven thousand feet, many used as a base camp to acclimatize. Larry and I considered attempting the hike in a day, like more ambitious and experienced hikers, but decided we weren’t foolish enough to attempt it all in one shot. The darkness one hiked through to complete the ascent at such speed was a danger, but so was the risk of altitude sickness. I’d had it before, fishing nearby in the High Sierra at only half the altitude of Mount Whitney. The constant nausea, strange fatigue, and difficulty breathing are awful. The vomiting is never fun either.

  We started early enough, but we were slow. Years earlier, I had injured my toe. I was eighteen, working at the Herald Tribune Fresh Air Camp, whose aim was to provide participation in outdoor and aquatic activities for all kids, both able and disabled. I was carrying a child suffering epileptic seizures across a railroad track when I jammed my toe on a tie. It would never be the same. Now, here in Whitney Portal, the pain was increasing with each step. When we arrived at Mirror Lake, we set up camp. I was looking forward to a good night’s sleep and getting rid of the damn headache I’d had since morning, an early indicator of possible altitude sickness. The moonlight was bright, illuminating the mountains around us. I took a sleeping pill to help ensure slumber and drifted off. We would need our energy for the summit the following day.

  In the morning, we lightened our loads to just day packs, caching our big packs with the tent and clothing, except what we needed for the climb to the summit. We took our down jackets, water, extra socks, and a tiny medical kit with extra bandages for the blisters that would more than likely come, particularly on the descent. We started early enough, hoping to return to base camp, if not all the way out to the portal, in twilight. My foot was not getting any better. In fact, the pain was increasing. We moved so slowly that Larry and I were the last ones on the mountain before sunset. The last mile, with its ninety or so switchbacks, was exhausting. Three steps, one breath. As we finally neared the summit, we saw something. Something odd. It was another hiker, coming down the path, an old Speed Graphic camera and tripod over his shoulder. Why was he so late?

  Obviously, he wasn’t an experienced backpacker—folks have been known to limit the size of the toilet paper roll they carry, take only the smallest toothbrush and toothpaste. Some would even cut the handle off the toothbrush. They’d carry only dehydrated food. This guy had a heavy camera and tripod.

  We said hello. His name was Bobby Richards. He was an amateur photographer, a retiree from Tucson, Arizona, he said. He was there with his wife, and Bobby thought he’d hike up to the summit to take a few pictures.

  I couldn’t believe what he was wearing: thin sneakers instead of boots, a T-shirt instead of a sweater, and a jean jacket instead of a parka. He certainly wasn’t dressed for this kind of cl
imb. What was he thinking? I thought.

  The sun was falling, bringing a deeper chill. Bobby Richards disappeared down the trail, and Larry and I kept pushing on, needing to reach the summit and make our way back down the trail before dark, at least to Mirror Lake.

  Finally, we were there. The view of majestic peaks turning purple in the twilight was awe-inspiring. From here, the highest point in the lower forty-eight states, we could see the lowest point—Death Valley—more than a hundred miles in the distance. I produced a flask of brandy, brought along to make a toast on the summit.

  “My good man,” I said, passing him the flask, “we made it!”

  There was little time to celebrate, though. The sun was falling and it was turning cold. Just a few photos in the long shadows surrounding us, then we turned back down the trail, picking up our pace, my foot throbbing. I was very much looking forward to picking up our gear and flashlights and proceeding out to the portal, where my truck awaited, promising a long sleep in the back of the camper. Making our way down the switchbacks, we had to be careful—we were tired and going a little too fast. In the poor light with the shadows deep, it was easy to slip. Then I felt a tickle on my face.

  Snow.

  • • •

  Setting up camp at Mirror Lake had been wise. We arrived there and realized we’d have to spend the night on the mountain, but we had shelter and supplies. Our tube tent was there, along with our food and water. I checked out my swollen toe. I massaged it to ease the pain. We enjoyed a drink, the last of the brandy. Then we laughed together in the dark and the gathering snowstorm.

  “My hands are numb,” Larry said, chuckling.

  “How about we celebrate tomorrow in Malibu?” I laughed. “We can stop off and take a swim.”

  We settled in for some well-deserved rest. But I couldn’t rest. Something was bothering me. Bobby. Our photographer friend. The one in sneakers and a jean jacket.