by Ry Cooder
I went back inside. I had written Lydia’s name on the outside of an envelope while the bright boys were going through their tough-guy routine. I put a nickel inside the envelope and sealed it; then I called the cops. Al and his fat buddy were real tough guys, but they talked so much. If you’re going to make a move, make it, as my stepfather used to say. Don’t sit there all night yakking about it, somebody might get the drop on you and get you hurt. That’s the last thing Daddy Rice said to me before he died. He was sitting in the living room, listening to Amos ’n’ Andy at the time.
I heard sirens headed down Culver: “Dinner’s ready,” Mats called out.
Announcer: “And now, here’s Truman Bradley to tell you about next week’s story.”
TB: “Next week, a Filipino stabs a man in a movie theatre, but
a Mexican gets blamed for it. Or is it the other way around?
Join us, won’t you, for I Love A Story.”
(Theme music up, actor credits, producer/director credits, Truman Bradley closes for Baker Boy.)
My telephone keeps ringin'
1956
SANTA MONICA IS Douglas Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft is Santa Monica. Three shifts a day, seven days a week means prosperity for all.
Douglas has contracted with the Fritz Burns Company to build low-cost tract housing for the workers and their families in the south end of town between Ocean Park Boulevard and West Pico. They call it “Sunset Park,” a nice place to live and work. Always a fresh breeze off the ocean, which you can almost see just over the hills of Ocean Park.
Sunset Park is a plateau, so the air is dry and the light is good, in a lower-middle-class sort of way. There are three grammar schools, two junior highs, and a high school, called Samohi. You can walk to three or four good-sized grocery stores that feature the modern shopping carts for your convenience, as well as drugstores (Airport Rexall), a movie theater (The Aero), liquor stores, coffee shops, and bars — especially the ones up on Ocean Park Boulevard that stay open twenty-four hours a day on account of the strategic work that’s going on at Douglas Aircraft twenty-four hours a day.
Over on Thirty-first Street and Pico Boulevard is the Gresham Building, headquarters of the Gresham Detective Agency. It’s a two-story stucco job with the entrance on the diagonal at the corner. Kind of ugly and squat looking. Here comes George Gresham in his 1950 Oldsmobile. George recently purchased the car from Ned Hillael at Hillael’s Used Cars, corner of Thirtieth and Pico, one block over. Paid four hundred fifty dollars in cash, which is a lot of money for a used car in 1956, but George thinks he really put it over on Ned with the cash offer. Got Ned to come down seventy-five dollars. George handled it just right; he’s on top this year. Got the building with his name on it, and he’s doing some bill collecting and credit checking just to get things going in a business way.
Ned is the only used car dealer in the airport vicinity, and he does good business with Douglas employees and the occasional professional like George Gresham. Finally got rid of that Olds — goddamn cracked block wouldn’t hold oil. Ned himself drives a late-model Cadillac Sedan DeVille. And there’s Herb Saunders, a mechanic, a colored man, who works for Ned. Ned gets these cars from repo auctions and police impound sales, and Herb doctors them up so they run for six months. All sales final at Ned Hillael’s.
Herb himself drives a Muntz Jet, a weird little sports car marketed unsuccessfully by Earl “Madman” Muntz, the king of cheap TV sets. It has a Cadillac motor and an orchid-pink paint job, and it runs and looks sharp. Herb lives in the little black and Mexican neighborhood over by Woodlawn Cemetery, down around Sixteenth and Michigan, in a 1900-era cottage on a deep lot, and he grows his own vegetables right alongside the garage where he works on bad cars for Ned.
The aircraft workers are doing good, and they want things nowadays, so Ned is doing good and therefore Herb is doing good. He trades vegetables for eggs with the Mexican woman next door, Andrena Ruelas, who keeps a few laying hens in her backyard. Andrena and Herb are about the same age, forty, forty-three, or thereabouts. Andrena’s husband was killed in the war, and she lives alone.
It’s eight in the morning, and Herb is on the lot getting the week’s work together.
Ned is sitting at his desk inside the little kiosk at the back of the lot. “Studebaker’s gone,” he tells Herb without looking up from his stack of sales receipts and credit reports.
“That’s a bad car. I couldn’t get the brakes to set up right. I put glue on the linings, but that won’t hold too long,” says Herb.
“I know all about that. The guy paid three hundred dollars down from three hundred twenty-five dollars,” Ned replies.
“Traveling man, I hope.”
“Address in Venice. A machinist.” Ned checks the paperwork. “Douglas man.”
“Should have known better.”
“His wife liked the color.”
“Got anything for me?”
“ ’48 Chrysler Windsor, two-door.”
Herb drives south on Pico, getting an impression of the car. Compared to his Muntz Jet, the Chrysler feels like a bathtub on wheels. Sluggish off the lights. Fluid drive, a transmission for church ladies, Herb thinks. He pulls into the alley behind his property and unlocks the gate. He drives the car up onto a pair of streetcar tracks and scoots underneath the car on his mechanic’s dolly. “Fluid drive needs fluid,” he says to his little dog, Scrubby. Scrubby sits on her pillow in the sun and watches Herb work. He replaces the transmission fluid, spark plugs, and fan belt. The engine oil looks good and the brake linings look fair. “Do the minimum” is Ned’s motto. Ned pays Herb time and materials, but you better be right: “That radiator hose looks fine to me, put it back on”; “That oil was definitely clean, Herb.” Ned knows where his next dollar is coming from, you can’t fool him.
After lunch, Herb drives the Chrysler back to the lot. An unmarked police cruiser is out in front, a Ford, dark blue in color. Herb pulls around to the back alley and waits. After a while, the sound of voices coming from the kiosk tells him the officers are on their way out. He waits a minute more and then walks around to the office.
“What’s up?”
“Studebaker.”
“What happened?”
“Guy crashed into a bus and fled the scene this morning. I’m still the owner of record.”
“Told you that’s a bad car.”
“I know all about that.”
“The Chrysler’s okay, needed trans fluid and plugs.”
“See you later.”
Herb walks down Pico toward the cemetery. He thinks, Ned’s a worried man today, got a worried tone, like a bad main bearing. Didn’t even argue about the plugs.
Spring evenings in Santa Monica have a softness, a gentleness on account of the marine air that builds up toward the close of day. Down around the cemetery, it’s just right for having your dinner outside, which is what Herb and Andrena are doing. Herb has fixed up a nice outdoor barbecue for her, using bricks from the reject pile over at the brick factory. Andrena has made cabrito with garden tomatoes and guacamole on the side, cilantro for sabor, and beer. On the radio, “It’s time for The Hunter Hancock Show, with your host, Old H.H., and Margie too, bringing you the finest Negro singers and entertainers! Swing to sweet, and blues to boogie! But first, This Is Progress. And progress has no ending, but it does have a beginning.” Right in the middle of This Is Progress, Herb’s telephone starts ringing. He hates the sound, it’s always been bad news. He walks through the gap in the rose hedge and into his house to pick up the call.
“Herb, Ned.”
“Yeah, Ned.”
“Job for you.”
“Night job?”
“Yeah. Need you to take the Chrysler over to a customer.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now.”
“Where?”
“Venice.”
“Special sort of customer?
“Yeah.”
“Why can’t he com
e get it himself?”
“Car’s right out front, address and keys on the seat.”
Herb goes back next door and explains. “I watch Scrubby,” Andrena says.
The Chrysler is out front and the keys are right there on the seat. Herb heads south on Seventeenth, then west on Pico Boulevard, toward the beach. It’s 8:30 and getting dark. A ’50 Oldsmobile pulls around the corner and follows along two car lengths behind. Here we have George Gresham joining the party, Herb thinks.
Aside from Watts, Venice Beach is the most overlooked place in Southern California. It’s a jumble of beach shacks and old wooden apartment houses built in the teens or even before: dive bars, dope addicts, beach bums, jazz musicians, and a little community of concentration camp survivors. These people fit right in simply because Venice is not “family” and the old Jews don’t have families anymore, just each other. They sit around the boardwalk speaking Yiddish in low tones and soaking up the sun.
Herb is looking for an address in the canal zone, where the oil derricks are. The unpaved streets wind around the derricks, and it’s hard to find house numbers or even street signs. Dudley Court turns out to be a cluster of five bungalows in very bad shape. There is no sign of life around except for the sound of a radio coming from the back somewhere. “Crazy Arms,” Ray Price. This must be it — Jewish folks don’t much care for Ray Price, and they don’t usually require sudden nighttime vehicle deliveries. He leaves the keys on the seat and walks back up Neilson Way toward Ocean Park. The oil rigs make a groaning, whining sound — “watch out, bad break, watch out” — a chorus of old men nodding their heads up and down, like trouble is one thing they’ve seen plenty of.
Crossing Washington Boulevard, Herb spots the Oldsmobile parked in a gas station. In the darkness, George Gresham is just a fat shape in the front seat. So, the machinist’s wife liked the color, did she now, Ned, old buddy? Detective George Gresham on stakeout? Herb shakes his head. Clowns, definitely.
Herb walked as far as Main and Rose, the boundary line between Venice and Ocean Park. The delivery had caused him to miss dinner, and he was hungry. At 9:30 on a Monday night, Olivia’s Soul Food Café, on Main, was empty except for Olivia.
“Herb Saunders, what a pleasure.”
“How are you, Olivia?”
“In the pink, Herb, in the pink! What can I get for you?”
“I believe I’ll try the short ribs, with greens and sowbelly. Been eatin’ too clean lately.”
“Why don’t you play something on the box for us? Something of yours? Seeing you puts me in the mood.” Herb went over to the big old Wurlitzer in the corner, the one with the 78 records, left over from when the place was a wartime dance joint. He selected “My Telephone Keeps Ringin’ ” by “Atomic Bomb” Saunders, on the Imperial label.
My telephone keeps ringin’, sound like a long-distance call
Yes, my telephone keeps on ringin’, must be a long-distance call
Sayin’, don’t look for me in Heerosheema,
Ain’t nothin’ left down there at all.
Well, I’m goin’ to Nagasaky, see if my good gal is down there
Tell yuh, I’m goin’ to Nagasaky, see if my good gal is down there
Well, if she ain’t in Nagasaky,
Must be down on Central Avenue somewhere.
“You felt that one, Herb, I can see it still.” Olivia brought Herb his food.
“I had a handle on it. Maxwell Davis had a great band, top notch.” Herb said. The record turned itself over and the flip side played, a jitterbug number with a crazy fast tempo.
Here comes Robert Oppenheimer, got his finger on the timer,
Droppin’ by to let you know, we ain’t got long to go!
Two minutes to bomb time,
Two minutes to boom time,
Two minutes to bust time, got two minutes to go!
Two minutes to shake time,
Two minutes to bake time,
He’s gonna hit the switch and let it blow!
Got a minute to pray, Oh Lordy! Got a minute to say, Oh Baby!
Got a minute to pray, a minute to say, and two minutes to go!
Got a minute to spend my money! Got a minute to call me honey!
Got a minute to spend and a minute to blend, and two minutes to go!
J. Robert just wants to let you know,
Only got two minutes to go! Baby!
“Solid, Herb. I remember that one. You nailed it.”
“That one nailed it down tight. They wouldn’t play it, even on KGFJ. Said it was subversive. Said I was duped into it. The man from the record company put another cover picture on it — a white girl in a nightgown holding a tomato-soup can — and called it Rock and Roll Bomb Shelter.”
“You wasn’t rock, Herb, just ahead of the times.”
“You know something, Olivia? I don’t regret leaving the business, it’s a bad old road. I’m a happier man today. This guy I work for now, he’s a little tricky, but those record guys had tricks nobody could see. This little used car man here, seems like he’s always about to trick mostly just himself.”
George Gresham was getting hungry. He was thinking about a plate of spareribs and greens like you get at the colored joint in Ocean Park. Tailing the colored man down to the canals made him think of it. It’d be a big plate, with pie. There was sweet potato, pecan, and rhubarb. What do I want? Try all three, that’s the ticket.
George almost missed the light at Ocean. The Chrysler turned right and headed up Broadway. He ran the light and made the turn, but a guy trying to cross the street had to jump back fast, and he yelled at George. That was bad, he hoped the quarry in the Chrysler hadn’t noticed. George didn’t do tail jobs as a rule, but Ned Hillael had mentioned a good-sized fee. Follow the colored guy, he’ll lead you to the white guy, tail him and find out where he’s going, who he talks to, call it in. No contact, no rough stuff. George was the man to find out just what it was Ned was up to, but that would come later. He was too hungry for any kind of thinking like that.
The Chrysler pulled into the parking lot behind the DanDee shoe factory at Third and Broadway. Downtown Santa Monica was deserted except for a few cars parked around the back door of the Embers cocktail lounge, a popular spot on Third Street. George parked the Olds and watched the little man in the hat get out of the Chrysler and go in to the bar. Next door to the Embers was The Huddle coffee shop. A man on a tail job has got to have coffee, George thought, got to have it. A man better stay on the job, Ned told him. Patty melt with fries sure would go good. Locate your man, call it in. The patty melt won out, like always. George locked up the Olds and walked in through the back entrance. The place was cheerful and kaleidoscopic: gold metal-flake lamps shaped like beehives, flashy linoleum tiles that sparkled, and blond waitresses in orange shorts. George sat at the counter and one came right over. “Double patty melt, double fries, coffee, apple pie. Double pie,” he told her. They had one of the little countertop jukeboxes. George hit Patty Page: If you like the taste of a lobster stew, served by a window with an ocean view, you’re sure to fall in love with Old Cape Cod. The waitress came by with more coffee. “Looks like you really enjoyed your patty melt,” she said.
George felt good after his meal and ready for some detective work. He checked his watch: 11:00 p.m. Out in the parking lot, the fog was coming in and the Chrysler hadn’t moved. He was unlocking the Olds when he heard a soft sound behind his right ear, something like a whisper. If George had been a real detective instead of an overweight bill collector, he’d have recognized it for sure. But as it was, he just crumpled to the pavement and sat there with one hand on the door handle and the other on the wet ground, the back of his head sapped wide open. His brain popped a fuse and he died in about two minutes.
Herb reached the corner of Third and Broadway at eleven thirty. He’d walked the five miles from the canals to downtown Santa Monica and he was getting tired. He decided to catch the number 7 bus, up Pico Boulevard. Herb
liked how the fog made the lights glow and sputter, especially the Dan-Dee shoe factory sign. It was a fancy neon affair with pink letters and little pink shoes that seemed to be walking forward along the side of the building. He sat on the wet bus bench and watched the shoes until the bus came.
A dark blue Ford sedan pulled up in front the next morning. Herb saw it, and he knew just who it was. He turned off the water and stopped the flow to the plants. Herb had installed a system of half pipes set into the ground that ran throughout the yard. When the water was turned on at the outdoor sink in the back, the open drain fed the pipes and the water was carried to the tomatoes, the onions, the chives, the lettuces, the squash, the eggplants, and the lemon tree. Herb could water the whole yard in a few minutes. He walked out to the front and stood on the porch and waited.
“Morning, gentlemen.”
“Herbert Saunders?”
“Check.”
“Yes or no.”
“That’s my name.”
“All right. You work for Ned Hillael.”
“Yes.”
“Doing what?”
“Mechanic work.”
“Regular employee?”
“Freelance.”
“A ‘freelance’ colored man.”
“That’s how it is.”
“When did you see him last?”
“Mr. Hillael?”
“I’m waiting.”
“On the lot yesterday.”
“What’d you do there?”
“I picked up a car.”
“Just tell it.”
“I did the work here and drove it back.”
“Then what?”
“I walked home.”
“Then what?”
“Ate dinner with my neighbor.”
“Where’s he now?”
“She.”
“Let’s go there.” Andrena was hanging clothes out.
“You know this man?”
“My neighbor.”
“See him last night?”
“We had our dinner.”
“What time was that?”