Uncle Phil wasn’t really all that older than most of the people who passed in and out of his pad, he just seemed like it, in a way he looked like it. His body was hard and youthfully lean, it was the face where the age was, the grooved lines and wrinkles, the pounded eyes. And he had a kind of rattling laugh, as if something was loose inside, and it often led to coughing spells. Gene had the sense of him sort of dying on the hoof. Of course we all are, he knew, but Uncle Phil seemed to be going about it faster, more relentlessly, not caring, much less worrying about it.
There were all kinds of different stories about him, Gene never knew which if any were true. Some said he once had killed a man. Or a woman. Or a woman had killed herself on account of him. Or a woman took a kid she had by him and went back to live with her wealthy parents in Pasadena and got a court order so he couldn’t even come and visit the kid. Some said he had killed a man but it was in a war, either Korea or Vietnam, and he got a big medal for it but then got sick of the whole scene and deserted. Some said he was the illegitimate son of Errol Flynn. It was certain he had grown up around Los Angeles, so it was possible. Those who held to this theory supported it by pointing out that he never went to the movies. He wouldn’t talk about it he just wouldn’t go, which to the Errol Flynn theorists suggested there was some terrible thing in his past connected with the movies or with someone who was important in them which embittered him to the extent that it created this peculiar aberration.
He was not a real pusher. He just used a lot of dope and he bought it in large quantities for economy’s sake and then sold what he couldn’t use himself right away. There was always somebody coming in or out who wanted to buy something. And Uncle Phil usually had it to sell. That’s all. It was all on a casual basis, rather than a business-type operation. More or less what you might call a community sort of thing. A service.
One day when Gene dropped by Uncle Phil’s he found him in the midst of snorting some white lines off a mirror. Gene figured it was coke, and wondered why he hadn’t been offered any. When Phil finished, laid the mirror down, and turned to Gene with a beatific smile, Gene asked, “Coke?”
“No,” Uncle Phil said. “Skag.”
“Oh.”
Phil didn’t offer any and Gene didn’t ask for any.
Another time, out of curiosity, Gene asked him:
“What’s it like? Heroin? I don’t mean what it does to you if you’re hooked, I mean how does it make you feel?”
Phil thought awhile and said, “Are you familiar with the term ‘peace of mind’?”
“I’ve heard it mentioned,” Gene said.
“That’s how it makes you feel,” Phil said. “Like you have that. Peace of mind.”
“Wow.”
Maybe he’d try it sometime. Peace of mind. That would be a new trip all right. He knew of people who’d just had a snort or so and never got hooked, and every once in a while he heard of some guy who supposedly was able to shoot up regular maybe once a week and still be able to take it or leave it. He’d never actually met the guy, though. But he figured with Uncle Phil, if he only snorted from time to time he probably wouldn’t get hooked because his body must be so confused by this time from all the different shit he put in it, heroin might not have the same effect it did on everyone else.
Well.
It was something to think about.
One afternoon at Uncle Phil’s he met a woman named Lottie. She bought a lid of grass and stayed to share a joint with Uncle Phil and Pepper and Gene. She was small and tan and angular with high cheekbones that gave a kind of Indian cast to her face. Her hair was short and she wore big hoop earrings, her only jewelry, a neat blouse and skirt and sandals. She sat very straight. Prim was how she seemed to Gene.
He was surprised when she stood up to go and asked him if he’d like to get a beer.
Why not?
They went to the bar on Washington Street with the free popcorn.
She told him she had been a housewife in Toledo and one day when she was taking out the garbage she realized someday she was going to die and nothing would have happened to her, so she packed one suitcase, took the $2000 some dollars out of her personal savings account and split. Now she collected unemployment, made pottery, and lived in a nice funky house with two other women, one who sold vitamins from door to door and the other a student at an unaccredited law school in Santa Monica.
“Why would anyone go to an unaccredited law school?” Gene asked.
“They can’t get in the other kind,” she explained.
There was something kind of flat about her, weary and drained. What the hell, she probably thought the same about him. Maybe they were well matched.
They went to his place and balled, perfunctorily, he felt. Which was OK, too.
Afterward, smoking a cigarette, she told him for a while she had a filing job in an office in Santa Monica, but one day when some strange man came up like men sometimes did and asked to buy her a cup of coffee, instead of just telling him to get lost she told him she didn’t have time for the coffee but if he wanted to spend some money they could go to a motel. They did. She charged him $25. After that she quit the filing job.
Gene asked if she dug the hooking.
“Better hours,” she said, “than the filing.”
More time for doing her ceramics. What with unemployment and a trick now and then, she got along fine.
He liked her attitude. Which was more or less Fuck It.
Thinking of her getting $25 a trick turned him on a little, and the next time they made it it was better.
She was just the kind of woman for him, the way he felt now. He wouldn’t hurt or get hurt. He wouldn’t have to feel anything. There would be no entanglement. If they wanted to do something they would. If they didn’t they wouldn’t. They saw each other two or three times a week. They didn’t have a whole lot to say to each other. That was all right, too. The whole thing between them was bland but safe. It was sort of like cottage cheese. Sometimes that’s all you want.
Gene answered the phone at the A&W one afternoon and it was Barnes.
“Hey, old buddy!” he said with what sounded to Gene like too much heartiness. “Guess what?”
“I can’t.”
“I’m your neighbor now!”
“In Venice?”
“No, no. The Marina. I got a place over in the Marina.”
“Where? What street?”
He knew some of the phony-named nautical streets next to Venice. Near the border.
He could hear Barnes clearing his throat.
“Well, actually, I’m staying here at Single Shores.”
“You shittin me, man?”
“Listen, it’s not for that, the whole thing is I had to find a place real fast and this thing is all completely furnished. All you have to do is get your suitcase and walk in the door. In that way it’s like the Marmont. It’s convenient and saved a lot of hassle.”
“Sure, man.”
“Fuck you.”
“OK, man, I’m sorry. Couldn’t resist. What’s up?”
Barnes had split with Belle, for real, it was all over, the movie thing had been shelved but they paid him for the script, he was going to forget about all the movie shit now and get down to work on a new mystery novel. He might even set it there, have it take place in one of these huge singles apartment complexes. Anyway he was making a new start, he wasn’t just drinking and mooning over Belle, it had to end sooner or later so it really was better to have done now, he had already met a cute chick there at Single Shores and he wanted Gene to come over with a girl and the four of them would all go for dinner. Gene said yes. For old-times’ sake.
It loomed ahead of him, an ordeal. He would have to try to explain it all to Lottie, they would have to get dressed, Barnes would take them to one of those lobster and candlelight joints. Dinner and dates. Thinking about it was like preparing his head for an expedition to the Yucatán.
Lottie was appalled. She couldn’t believe that Gene had a
friend who would actually live in a middle-class, fraternity house, organized fun and games, Miss American, nineteen fifties Cutesy-pie infamous supersquare place like the Single Shores.
Gene tried to explain. About Barnes. The background of the thing. Lottie looked suspicious. He told her to just relax and enjoy it, pretend you’re looking at a movie, think of getting the free booze and food.
She said she’d try.
When she came by his place that night to pick him up he at first didn’t recognize her.
She was wearing a platinum wig, a sheer see-through white minidress with black bikini underwear, and black vinyl boots.
“Like it?” she asked.
“What’s the idea?” Gene said.
“You said to try to think of it like a movie.”
“To see it that way,” I said, “not be in it.”
“Well, at least I’ll be a ‘conversation piece.’”
He figured it was no use to argue.
“Mymy,” she said, “aren’t you the hip young stud.”
He was wearing a jean-jacket outfit from his days working for Ray Behr. He was trying. Anything for a friend.
The Single Shores apartment complex was as big as a miniature town, and Gene had to stop and study the map to figure out how the hell to get to Barnes’s apartment. He was in building F-2, Hall 6L, Room 127J. While Gene was trying to trace this fucker on the huge map at the entryway, Lottie was reading announcements from the large, lighted bulletin board with cynical relish:
“Hey, you bridge nuts! Remember the C-block tourney is coming Wednesday in Low Tide Lounge”
“Single Shores victorious water-volleyball club takes on Bali-Hey Club Saturday at nine. Turn out poolside to cheer ‘our boys’!”
“OK,” said Gene, “OK, enough.”
He took her by the hand toward what he hoped was the correct building.
“There’s a luau Thursday night,” she said. “Don’t you think we should come to the luau? Maybe your friend will invite us.”
Just before they rang the bell to Barnes’s apartment Gene said softly, “Please. OK?”
She sighed, nodded.
Gene for a moment forgot to worry about Lottie behaving when he got a load of Barnes. He was wearing the exact same clothes he was wearing the first day Gene got to town and saw him at the Marmont, but they looked wrong now. Barnes had already lost what little tan he had, and was fast getting back the flab, the jowly look. There were deep circles under his eyes, and a lot of little red tracks in the white of the eyeballs. Gene had the distressing sense that the new clothes were on the old Barnes. The two didn’t go together.
Barnes only blanched slightly at the sight of Lottie, and got drinks for them. His date would be along in ten minutes or so.
“So how you doin, man?” Gene asked.
“Terrific. Got out of that Belle business just in time. Next thing you knew I’d have owned some damn house in Hollywood. What the hell business have I got owning a house? Anywhere. Much less Hollywood. The movie stuff is all crap. I’m back to books for good now …”
He went on explaining, justifying, endorsing what he had done and was going to do.
Lottie kept looking around the room, a little smirk on her face.
It had a Spanish motif. The lamps were supposed to look like lanterns. The wallpaper had bullfight scenes. Gene hoped Lottie didn’t comment.
Barnes’s date was named Bitsy.
Gene didn’t know people had that name anymore.
She was curly blond, bouncy, and full of enthusiasm.
Just the thing to drive Lottie up the wall, Gene figured. He started drinking faster.
They went to dinner at Charlie Brown’s, one of the fashionable steak-or-lobster and candlelight places.
Bitsy was thrilled.
She was from Indianapolis, had attended Butler University in that same city, had eventually moved to Los Angeles because she had gone to Disneyland on her vacation and fell in love with it so much she wanted to live here. Of course she didn’t mean she only fell in love with Disneyland although that was certainly wonderful beyond words, but it was all of Southern California she loved, everything about it, the weather, the people, the food, the water, the freeway. Everything.
She clapped her little hands together.
Even Barnes looked glum.
Lottie had been totally silent, every once in a while staring at Bitsy with a mixture of venom and disbelief, but holding her tongue. Gene was grateful. He threw in little comments as best he could, agreeing with and admiring Bitsy’s views. He wasn’t proud. Peace at any price. But Bitsy, no doubt worried about her own social responsibilities, thought perhaps she should try to draw Lottie into the conversation. Bitsy apologized about how she’d been going on and on about how wonderful her work was as secretary and assistant to the social director of indoor sports at Single Shores.
“What do you do?” she asked Lottie.
“I’m collecting.”
“Oh! Antiques?”
“Unemployment.”
“Oh. Well, I’m sure you’ll find something soon.”
“I’m not looking.”
“Oh?”
“I get along.”
“On unemployment?”
“I do a little hooking on the side. Not rugs, darling. You know. Hooking as in hooker, prostitute, one of those chicks who open their legs and let men stick their pricks in for money. My own fee, unless there are extenuating circumstances—”
Everything came apart at once. Gene yelled, “Shut up, goddam you!” at the same time Bitsy, whose mouth had already been open in astonishment, let out a scream through it, Barnes dropped the carafe he was trying to pour more wine with, a waitress and the hostess came rushing to the scene. Lottie stood up and Gene stood up to grab her, knocking against the table and propelling Bitsy’s lobster into her lap.
From then on Gene just tried to keep hold of Lottie’s wrist, and tried not to see all the people staring at them.
Somewhere in there with Barnes trying to soothe Bitsy out of her hysterics Gene made some signal to him with his hand or expression or both that he and Lottie were splitting, he knew there wouldn’t be any argument.
The argument was him and Lottie back at his place. He had never seen or heard her like that. Yelling. Transformed.
“Just like I thought, you gutless little prick, you’re ashamed of me, ashamed of me and how I live because of some birdbrained little piece of fluff who will never know her ass from her elbow and your stupid friend trying to cop a little young blond pussy that’s why he’s living there in that ridiculous playpen that kindergarten for grown-ups that Republican right-wing Chamber of Commerce bunch of pigs in their pen all that’s what I left what I split from spit on and I’ll spit on it again anytime I see it hear it look at it feel it touch it you’re one of them yourself goddam you the only way you ball me’s on top like it says in the Boy Scout manual I’ve had boring lays in my time but nothing to—”
“Goddam you, how the hell you ever got paid twenty-five dollars for a trick is something the goddam Better Business Bureau oughta look into, any poor john who—”
“Why you poor pathetic excuse for a cock you’ll never touch me again unless you pay and I’ll charge you extra for being such a goddam lousy lay goddam I’m bored no wonder I’m bored with you as an excuse for a lover who wouldn’t—”
He left, quick. He had to get out before he hit her. He saw it, he saw he would hit her and she would hit back and God knows where it would end and how bad.
He left quick and walked quickly, straight down Ocean Front Walk to Uncle Phil’s.
“What’s a matter?” Uncle Phil asked when he looked at him.
“I need some peace of mind,” Gene said.
“You sure?”
“Yeh. Just a snort, you know.”
“Sure.”
Gene sat down. Phil went to the kitchen. When he came back he had the mirror and a little packet.
“First one’s always free
,” he said.
“I know,” said Gene.
Uncle Phil started tamping out the little mound of white stuff.
“I know you know,” he said, “but I have to say it.”
“How come?”
Uncle Phil looked up at Gene and grinned.
“Tradition,” he said.
Gene thought about it. How after he snorted the skag he went back to his pad and found Lottie still there. She wanted to fight some more. But she couldn’t because there was no one to fight with. Gene wouldn’t, couldn’t. He wasn’t mad at her. At anyone. Ever. He was a man of peace. A man of peace of mind. He sat down on the floor against the wall, smiling. She tried to goad him but nothing worked. He only smiled, beatifically. He told her how he had gained peace of mind and first she looked shocked and then sort of interested, admiring even. Maybe it made her think he wasn’t one of those Republican Chamber of Commerce type freaks after all. He giggled a lot, everything seemed funny to him. Not hilarious, just funny. Gently funny. Smily. Smile. Soon she was doing it. Smiling. She said she was sorry. He said it didn’t matter. It didn’t. Nothing did.
“Really,” she said, “how do you feel? What does it feel like?”
“Peace,” he said, smiling like the Buddha.
Then he said he had to sleep.
The next day he woke with a terrible hunger. That, and an aching feeling through his whole body, an exhaustion that felt like all his vital juices had been depleted. Lottie was still there. There was only a hot plate in Gene’s place but she said she’d go get him something, make him some eggs or something. He said to get everything she could. He couldn’t move very fast. She put on a pair of his jeans and one of his shirts and went to the grocery. She came back with two big bags of groceries and started cooking. It was like feeding a maw. He had two quarts of milk and one of orange juice, eight scrambled eggs, four peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, a wedge of Monterey Jack cheese, and a quart of chocolate ice cream. Eating it, every once in a while he giggled.
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