Why Aren't You Smiling?

by Alvin Orloff

  Jonas Valac, the tall, husky lead singer, put down the pickle he’d been toying with and looked up at Rick. “Hey, thanks, man. Always glad to meet a fan.” The subdued, mechanical way in which he said this implied the meeting was at an end, but Rick – fueled by existential desperation -tried to keep the conversation going. “I wish I had the album here for you to sign.” He instantly regretted his remark as teenybopperish. “Sometimes I play along with my flute, you know, improvising freestyle…” A pair of arms grabbed Rick from behind. “What the…?”

  Aunt Sylvia spun Rick around to face her. “Irving, dawling! How’s my handsome nephew? You look wonderful. So slender! I wish I had your metabolism. Me, I just look at food and it adheres.”

  “Oh, hey, Aunt Sylvia. I’m just talking to, uh, my friends here. I’ll be right with you.”

  “I see,” huffed Aunt Sylvia, offended (though when wasn’t Aunt Sylvia offended?). She stiffly sat down next to Rose and picked up a menu.

  Rick turned back to the table, but Jonas was now intently dissecting a potato pancake and wouldn’t catch his eye. Face flushed hot with shame, Rick pulled off the sweater (ugly, ugly, ugly!) and wedged himself into the booth with his family.

  “Who are your friends?” asked Rose nastily. Rick, busy plotting his escape, didn’t even hear her.

  Rick felt the tiny, foil-wrapped ball of hashish in his front pocket push into his thigh with every step. He looked down and saw that it produced a noticeable bulge in his skin-tight jeans. His supplier always suggested hiding the goods in your underwear or socks, but Rick wasn’t wearing either. He decided the bulge wasn’t really suspicious. It could be anything… a lighter, lucky rabbit’s foot, keys. He glanced up and down The Strip. The miserably hot day had given way to a cool, clear, breezy evening, and there were people everywhere taking the air. Mostly there were loitering teenagers decked out so exotically they resembled tropical birds. No worries there. The adults, though, all looked suspiciously narclike. The bald man eating an ice cream cone, the sunburned dad-type in Bermuda shorts, maybe even the fairy walking his icky little lap dog – any of them could have been undercover. It was always someone you’d never expect in a million years, or so they said. He had to be careful. He’d get tried as an adult now if he were arrested.

  A nondescript man wearing a paisley shirt that was years too young for him (he was pushing forty and balding) stepped out of nowhere and handed Rick a pamphlet. The man’s face was plastered with an animated smile, a smile that kept moving instead of staying fixed like smiles were supposed to. “Something to read?”

  Rick took the pamphlet. It was too dark to make out the text, but the crudely drawn picture of an emaciated man with a crown of thorns nailed to a wooden cross said it all. Rick tried to hand the pamphlet back. “Not interested.”

  The man didn’t take it back and kept smiling. “Yours to keep, friend.”

  “I’m Jewish,” Rick stated firmly waving the pamphlet in the man’s face with a righteous fervor meant to suggest he’d been horribly insensitive and that people of his ilk were responsible for restricted country clubs, pogroms, and the Holocaust.

  “So? Jesus was a Jew!” said the man, now smiling a little too hard. “God’s not interested in where you’re coming from, he’s interested in where you’re going to.”

  Rick glared and deliberately, ostentatiously, let go of the pamphlet, which fluttered to the ground. The man’s eyes followed it down with dismay but his mouth kept smiling, though in a sad way now. “I’m trying to do you a favor.” He looked up and stared right in Rick’s eyes, which had severely dilated pupils thanks to the half-dozen of his mother’s prescription diet pills he’d popped that morning. “Anyone can see your soul is in turmoil.” Rick felt a twinge of paranoia. What could this man see? “I’m not telling you what to do with your life,” the man went on. “Just filling you in on some basic facts. I’m on your side.”

  “You sound like a salesman,” Rick sneered, comfortable with his contempt. “You should be selling used cars or aluminum siding.”

  The man chortled. “Guilty as charged. I am a salesman, a salesman for Christ.” He stopped and thought for a second. “Except that’s not quite right because God’s Love is free. Won’t cost you a penny.”

  “Get whatcha pay for,” Rick snapped.

  The man wheezed out a little laugh, more sincere this time. “OK, smart fella. I get it. What I’m doing is obnoxious. I’m saying I’ve got the Truth, and that means you don’t. It’s a put down, of sorts. I get it. But ask yourself, why is this old codger going through all this trouble? Why is he standing on a street corner passing out religious tracts that 99 percent of everyone throws away? You think I wouldn’t rather be home in my easy chair, rather be with my wife? I know I’m a pest, that people laugh at me. But you know what? I don’t care. I do what I do out of Love. That’s right, Love. You hippies didn’t invent the word…. ”

  The man was enjoying himself now. His eyes smiled along with his mouth as he delivered his well-rehearsed spiel. “Jesus preached Peace two thousand years before the first anti-war march. He preached Brotherhood two thousand years before anyone heard of integration. And he preached Love two thousand years before the first mixed-up kid tried to figure it all out by dropping LSD. So maybe I seem like an old-fashioned square ’cause I don’t get high on pot, but I do get high. Oh, yes, I do! My name is James Foster Ferguson and I’m here to tell you I get high on God. Yes, I get high on God and I am stoned on Jesus!”

  Rick couldn’t help but laugh. Ferguson was absurd and a lunatic, but he’d found a way to enjoy it and you had to respect that. Still, the mention of drugs reminded him that he was on a mission and needed to keep moving. “Thanks for the groovy sermon, man, but I gotta split.” Rick started to walk away, but Ferguson put his hand on his arm. “What’s your name, son?”

  Rick hesitated, but what could it hurt? “Rick.”

  “Look, Rick, if you ever want to rap about anything, anything at all, find me here.” Ferguson gestured to a small storefront a couple of doors away. The plate-glass windows were painted with day-glo flowers, swirls, and peace signs. Inside, a dozen young people lounged on a beat-up sofa and a few brightly colored beanbag chairs. One teenager in particular caught Rick’s eye – a thin, almost delicate, and unnaturally pale boy with straight blond hair that flopped over his eyes, making him look childlike, innocent, and winsomely vulnerable. The boy was about seventeen. Just shy of draft age, Rick thought with a shuddering panic. It felt essential that nothing bad should ever happen to this creature of otherworldly purity, this flaxen-haired seraph, this angel.

  “We call this ‘Christ’s Crash Pad,’ ” said Ferguson. “And you’re welcome here any time. Our doors and hearts are always open.”

  The strange encounter with Ferguson and the sight of the angelic boy so consumed Rick’s consciousness that he was actually startled when he found himself at the door of Jonas’s apartment. He rang the buzzer and the door swung open to reveal Jonas with wild, unfocused, I’ve-been-tripping-too-long eyes. He was dressed like a 19th century European peasant with an embroidered vest, puffy-sleeved shirt, and bushy mustache – the band’s new Transylvanian look.

  “Finally!” Jonas exclaimed, by way of hello.

  “Hey,” said Rick, slipping inside and quietly shutting the door.

  Jonas cut to the chase. “How’d it go?”

  In answer, Rick pulled the foil-wrapped hash out of his pocket and tossed it to Jonas, who grinned like a happy idiot. “Hallelujah!” They stepped carefully over the random guitar cords and drum pedals filling the cramped hallway into the tiny, ill-furnished living room. The windows had been cracked open a few inches, allowing the stifling summer air to enter, but the smell of sweat and stale beer was still overpowering. Jonas plopped on the sofa and began stuffing a tiny clay pipe he found sitting on the messy coffee table. Rick pushed a bunch of magazines and old mail onto the floor, and sat beside him. He pointed to the room’s other occupants – Andy, the bass pl
ayer and Mark, the drummer – both of whom appeared to be passed out in their respective chairs. “Are they awake, asleep, tripping, or what?”

  Andy opened his eyes, blinked, and closed them. “Or what.” He coughed a little. “Hey, man.”

  “What about Mark?”

  “He’s not, uh, talking right now,” Andy muttered.

  “But he moans every few minutes,” Jonas added. “I don’t think he’s in a very good headspace.”

  Rick tried to look like he cared. “Bummer.”

  Jonas shook his head mournfully. “We are prize chumps, dropping acid the night before a gig.”

  Rick gestured to the pipe. “Don’t worry, this shit’ll mellow you out.”

  Jonas shot a serious look at Rick, almost glowering. “You’re still down for tonight, right?”

  “Sure,” said Rick, trying to sound cheerful rather than defensive. “I only flaked out that once. I said I was sorry.” Rick had befriended the band by offering to roadie for free, then slept through the second gig he was supposed to work. Tonight’s show at the Whisky would be the seventh, but Jonas still always asked if he was really going to make it.

  Three female voices called out from the kitchen in unison. “Heeeeey, Rick!”

  Rick looked around. “Who all is here?”

  Jonas’s voice was distorted by his efforts not to exhale any precious hash smoke. “Mary, Louise, and Lisa.”

  The band’s sometimes girlfriends, all barefoot and clad in granny dresses, single-filed out of the kitchen, Louise carrying a tray of snacks. “Ta-dah,” they sang out proudly.

  Jonas exhaled as he passed the pipe over to Andy. “They’ve decided they’re the Three Muses and have to speak in unison.”

  The girls draped themselves around their respective boyfriends. Lisa said, “We…” Beth and Louise quickly repeated, “We…”

  They all finished at more or less the same time. “…Are muses! We inspiiiire!” They erupted into stoned giggles.

  “They’ve been at it for hours,” smiled Jonas. “Trying to form a telepathic link.”

  “I’d like a soda pop,” rasped Andy. with lots of ice.”

  “Me, too,” said Jonas. He turned to Rick and raised his eyebrows expectantly. Jonas was always asking favors and sending Rick on errands, but this was the first time he’d displayed that Sinatra smugness about it. Rick wanted to think he was helping Jonas out as a friend, not as a hanger-on, but those eyebrows said differently. Humiliated, he trudged into the kitchen. A word echoed in his mind: lackey. He’d heard his parents use it often enough to describe Uncle Izzy, a pathetic shlub who worked as a personal assistant’s personal assistant at Desilu. To be a lackey was a horrible, humiliating fate.

  As he opened a Tab and poured it into some not very clean glasses, Rick brooded over his dilemma. He wanted to be in the band. Jonas even said he’d consider letting him join once his playing improved. But though he practiced his flute daily, deep inside Rick knew he’d never be good enough. The notes came out in the right order, but without joy or surprise, like squares on their way to dead-end office jobs. Hopeless. He tromped back into the living room and distributed the sodas to the tripping band and their trippy girlfriends, silently vowing it would be the last time.

  The next day, Rick found himself (by accident?) walking past Christ’s Crash Pad. Admitting only to an idle curiosity, he stopped and put his face up to the window. The room was somehow shabby without being funky. The green linoleum of the floor was cracked and peeling up in the corners, a tall bookshelf managed to be half-empty rather than half-full, and the dingy yellow walls were adorned with the sort of corny/ creepy inspirational posters you might see in a high school guidance counselor’s office. The crappy sofa and beanbag chairs in the center of the room were empty but for a pair of pretty young girls with long, straight hair. They were strumming guitars and trying to sing something, but having great difficulty. Rick moved on.

  A couple of days later, Rick once again found himself outside Christ’s Crash Pad. This time when he looked in he the place was deserted except for… the flaxen-haired seraph! The boy was sunk in a beanbag chair reading a book with a serious look on his pale, uncorrupted face. Rick’s heart began beating like a racehorse, and with no conscious plan he plunged inside. The boy looked up from his book, which unsurprisingly was the Bible, as Rick walked over to where he sat.

  “Hey. So, what the hell is this place?”

  The boy smiled, producing two superhumanly adorable dimples. “Welcome to Christ’s Crash Pad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I’m Lars.” The boy held out his hand, square and formal, but also kind of sweet.

  Rick shook it. “Hey, Lars. I’m Rick,” then sat cross-legged on the floor. “So, tell me more.”

  Lars gave a little speech about Jesus, forgiveness, compassion, God is Love, blah, blah, blah, that Rick couldn’t follow because he was transfixed by the boy’s face. That waterfall of blond bangs! Those clear blue eyes with those long, light lashes! Those rosy lips and that little pink tongue! Rick’s mind swirled to a happy place without words. The guitar girls he’d seen the other day wandered into the room from what appeared to be a back office. They nodded little hellos, sat on the couch, and started singing, “Michael, row your boat ashore, hallelujah!” while inexpertly strumming their instruments.

  Rick leaned over to whisper into Lars’ ear. “I really dig rapping with you, but it’s kinda loud here. Can we go somewhere?”

  “We could go to my place,” Lars suggested. “I live with my folks, but they’ll be out. You got wheels?”

  After a short ride in his VW bug, Lars instructed Rick to pull up in front of a nondescript ’50s ranch-style home. Moments later, Rick found himself sitting in Lars’ typical teenage bedroom decorated with surfing posters and a photo of the Dodgers. The relevant facts: Lars was a senior in high school, surfed, read science fiction. Though raised Lutheran, Lars never got into religion till he met the Jesus People. Ferguson opened his eyes. Now he understood that Christianity wasn’t just about acting uptight on Sundays. “It’s about grooving on Jesus every day of the week.”

  As Lars told his Rick his personal history, his eyes were telling Rick something else entirely, something so wonderful Rick couldn’t quite believe it. Lars was digging him as much as he was digging Lars! Despite the instinctive attraction, Rick felt he needed something else to seal the deal. He pulled a joint out of his pocket and held it up.

  Lars frowned. “Ferguson says drugs are a God substitute. We feel an emptiness inside and we think we can fill it with pot, but what we need is The Lord.”

  Rick wasn’t about to put up with that. “You ever get stoned before?”

  Lars grinned. “Well, sure.”

  “Was it filling a hole?”

  Lars thought. “That’s not how I’d describe it, exactly.”

  “Jesus drank wine,” Rick smiled. “How’s this different?”

  Lars stopped frowning, but looked nervous.

  “Look,” Rick continued in a soothing voice, “if God created the plants and animals, didn’t he create marijuana, too?”

  Lars quoted Scripture solemnly: “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.”

  “Right,” Rick nodded, as if in total agreement. “So you’re definitely allowed to eat pot, ’cause it bears seeds. So why not smoke it, too? What’s the diff?” He flashed Lars a sly smile.

  Lars laughed a little, like he didn’t entirely agree with the logic but didn’t want to make a point of it. “OK, if you say so.”

  Rick fired up the joint while Lars lit a sandalwood incense stick to mask the incriminating odor. Then the two lay side by side on Lars’ single bed and wordlessly traded the joint while staring at the ceiling. Underneath the silence, a roiling tension built in which the boys’ psyches began swirling together in a wordless narcotic communion. Then, miraculously, the same communion manifested on t
he physical plane, the boys’ legs and arms and tongues all twisting and twining together. Rick had made out with girls a few times, though truthfully he’d never pushed past second base. He’d liked that OK, but this, this felt entirely different. Electric and astounding. If he did nothing else but this for the rest of his life, that would be just fine. They shed their clothes hurriedly, as if they were on fire, and pushed their bodies naked against each other with violent urgency. Moaning and shivering with excitement, they finished their lovemaking in a state of near hysteria.

  Afterwards, Rick’s body felt tingly and supernaturally light, like something that could float away in a strong breeze. Though utterly content, he was also ready to start all over again. Lars, however, was already out of bed and pulling on his jeans. Glancing at his bedside clock radio, he announced, “My mom might be home soon.”

  Rick forced himself out of bed. “OK.” He put on his clothes though he didn’t bother buttoning up his shirt, as he liked the way his torso drew Lars’ eyes.

  Lars opened the door to the hall and led Rick out to the front door. Then, wearing a devilish smile, he said, “Hold out your hand.” Rick did as he was asked and Lars whipped a ballpoint pen and scribbled his number on Rick’s palm. “Call me. We can hang out some time.” He sounded ever so casual, but his eyes sparkled.

  Rick stared at the blue ink digits. “OK, sure.” He flashed a last smile at Lars and went out the door.

  Driving home along Hollywood Boulevard Rick saw the usual gaggles of tourists idiotically gaping at Grauman’s Chinese Theater and snapping photos of the stars on the Walk of Fame, but was surprised to discover that, for the first time in forever, he didn’t hate them. He realized he’d been angry with absolutely everyone for a very long time. Now, happily, he wasn’t. In fact, he wished that all these poor benighted people with their silly hang-ups could feel just as transcendently wonderful as he did.