It was still light outside. An old man sat in a shadowed spot on the padded bench that ran the length of the restaurant’s interior wall. Three diners sat together at a table in the center of the room. Two heralds of the evening entertainment set up the sound system on the small stage.
A young waitress crossed in front of the old man toward the kitchen. He followed with his eyes. Mostly now, he lived without pain, but the waitress reminded him of his wife fifty years in the past and the thought caused a pang in his spirit. Purple Syrah reflected gleams from dimmed overhead lights, as the old man lifted the glass to his lips for a long drink.
Because he tipped them individually, the bus boys hustled to his table often to refill his water glass and clean off used plates.
Two bus boys stood against the outside wall waiting to service the few customers.
“¿Qué significa?” the younger bus boy said – who spoke Spanglish when relaxed and pure Spanish otherwise.
“I don’t know. He’s retired.”
“He must be rico.”
“He only comes once a month.”
“Va other lugares.”
“The old man likes it here. It’s a satisfying place. He stays home most of the time.”
“How do ya sabes all this?”
“I don’t, but I believe it true.”
The old man looked at the slanted light in the courtyard. It had been a pleasant evening, except for the mostly forgotten pang caused by the sight of the passing waitress – as pleasant as he could know in the twilight of the day and the twilight of his life.
He courteously addressed an approaching waiter: “More wine,” and then in a lowering voice, “more women.”
The waiter stopped before him, surprised and unsure of the request.
“What?”
“I apologize. More wine.”
“Yes,” the waiter said, and departed as though there had been something in the conversation he did not understand.
Soon, the elder bus boy carried a glass of wine to his table. The old man checked his watch. Time enough. He sipped the wine.
The two men wrestling large loudspeakers onto the stage attracted his attention. The restaurant specialized in a kind of mannered, cool jazz performed by semi-famous musicians (meaning other jazz players knew their names) from longer than a decade ago. The two men doing the set-up didn’t look the part – ragged hair hung down from their scalps and off their faces, unkempt clothing, not children, but not old. He thought on it, and decided he didn’t have a way to explain what he had observed. He finished the wine, and again checked his watch.
The next event in the evening was a short walk up the block to Colorado Boulevard and the Laemmle Theater across the street. The theater was showing a revival of Paths of Glory, a favorite movie from his greener college years when women did matter. He finished his wine and called for the check.
###
After the movie he stumbled a little as he left the theater, and turned right to the corner of Colorado Boulevard and El Molino Ave. The final scene where the young fräulein sang to the French soldiers had moved him. He recovered himself at the curb and when the light turned green, he began to replay in his mind his favorite scene in the film – one that he watched and thought about often in these last days of life:
Staff Sergeant Boulanger and guards enter the cell of the three condemned prisoners. Sgt. Boulanger greets Corporal Philippe Paris.
The two men face each other up close, and Paris says: “It just occurred to me. Funny thing. I . . . I haven’t had one sexual thought since the court martial. It’s pretty extraordinary, isn’t it?”
Paris falls to the ground in a huddled, weeping ball.
Boulanger stares straight ahead and speaks: “Act like a man – Paris. Are you listening?”
Paris: “Yes.”
Boulanger: “There will be a lot of dignitaries, newspapermen out there. How do you want to be remembered?”
Paris: “I don’t want to die.”
Boulanger: “Many of us will be joining you before this war’s over.”
Paris: “I don’t care. I don’t want to die. Please save me, Sergeant.”
Boulanger: “I can’t save you. No one can now. This is the last decision you’ll have a chance to make on earth. You can act like a man, or we’ll have to drag you out of here. In the end, it will all be the same. It’s up to you.”
Paris struggles to his feet and stands in front of the sergeant.
Boulanger: “Let’s get busy. You and Ferol take your coats off. No use hanging around here.”
The old man came to the colonnade leading to the restaurant under the spell of that particular scene. Then he turned into a gale of sound from the restaurant door a few yards distant – the band was blasting away on a cover of Ray Charles’ “Hit the Road Jack.” He involuntarily put out his left hand to support himself against a faux Moorish column, and struggled to reach the restaurant.
He had to push his way through people standing at the door. Inside every table was packed; every open space on and near the outside wall occupied by a standing body. In the old days the place would have been jumpin’ and jivin’. These aren’t the old days – only the band was jumpin’ and jivin’. The young standing audience, being Californians, studied the band like a flock of swaying penguins. Some of the older customers – those packing the tables – seemed to dance while sitting down, but the rest were as politely attentive as the standees.
And the band – instead of Cool Dude Holloway: he of the combed back conked-and-greased black hair playing a low key jazz guitar – a crowded bunch of proles in clashing costumes: one part dressed as Tobacco Road white trash, the other part dressed as 1930s laborers down to their dark brown shirts and crushed newsboy caps. The band played one raggedy-ass blues cover after another driven by a hammering blues keyboard, bass guitar and drums, accompanied by lead guitar or harmonica, or vocalist as the song demanded.
The old man turned to the bar behind a divider wall that didn’t reach the ceiling, but provided a back wall for the bandstand, and on its other side, a back wall for the bar, creating two spaces in the long rectangular room – a smaller place for the bar, and a large space for tables and benches in the restaurant. He found the last open bar stool nearest the drummer.
The old man began beating the bar top in rhythm with the drum. He could be seen beating the bar top, but not heard in the general racket. The band launched a Roundhouse Richards cover: “I’m jammed up in St. Louis, Because I Missed the Bus.” The song went on about making it to Oklahoma and Texas on his own.
The bartenders were run off their feet by the pressing mob. The old man finally lunged across the bar to pluck the sleeve of a passing bartender. The bartender pulled away to serve two drinks, but returned.
He shouted: “Three gin and tonics.”
“What gin?” the bartender shouted back.
“Dry, whatever.”
The bartender disappeared into the fuzz-ball activity behind the bar. The old man settled into his seat, where he looked for all the world like a retired Dracula observing the forgotten morsels of young flesh.
Outside the door an off-duty policeman stalked up and down surveying people as they came in. From time to time he stopped to say something to the two bus boys at the door, promoted to bouncers by the crowded bacchanalia of the evening, and then resumed his stalking patrol.
The bus boys now wore tight black jackets which stretched across their ample bellies, and bulged at their muscular shoulders. Where they stood, they could study both the restaurant and the bar, as they looked for trouble. The crowd swayed a little more, clapped louder, but remained determinedly civilized and polite. The old man downed his first drink and continued to beat the bar top in time with the drummer.
The young bouncer yelled into the ear of the other: “¿Quien es la momia?”
The older bouncer didn’t speak Spanish. “He was here earlier.”
The young bouncer watched the old man down his second drink. “Mantener un ojo sobre él.”
“Yeah,” older bouncer said.
The old man picked up his third drink and tried to bring it to his mouth. It spilled. He jerked his head forward to catch the liquid with his mouth, then lost hold of the glass. He lunged to catch the glass and fell off his bar stool, landing on the gritty floor on his hands and knees.
He said to the floor: “I don’t want to die.”
The older bouncer watched the old man fall from sight among the tall pressing bodies behind his bar stool.
“Man down.”
He tugged the young bouncer and they forced their way through the swaying crowd. They found the old man on his hands and knees. The crowd marginally opened to allow them to squat down.
“Qué pasa?”
“We better get you out of here.”
A young woman crouched beside them.”
“I am his niece.”
¿Qué le pasa a él? the young bouncer said.
“He’s in despair.”
The bouncers looked at one another.
“I’ll take care of him.”
She helped the old man from the floor to his bar stool, and wedged herself in beside him. The bouncers returned to their post.
Three gin and tonics arrived on the bar. The bartender waited.
“Pay the man,” she said.
The old man fumbled for his wallet and it fell from his hand. With a quick stoop the young woman caught the wallet before it hit the floor. She snatched two twenties from the cash, and shoved them at the bartender.
“Keep the change.”
The old man watched with bemusement.
“Do you know what you are doing?”
“Taking care of you.”
She handed him his wallet.
“Listen,” she said. “There’s an open bench against the back wall. You would do better there.”
The old man turned around to see the empty bench.
“Why?”
She looked at him with amusement.
“You won’t fall as far off the bench. It’s clean. There’s less light; the bouncers won’t notice you so much.”
“I like the light.”
“Not your time of day for much light.”
She helped him from the bar stool, and turned him in the right direction before shoving him to get him started. She followed in his wake carrying the three drinks.
A middle-aged blues diva wailed from the band stand, “I woke up this morning, and you weren’t there.”
The old man sat down on the bench. The young woman sat next to him. He downed his fourth drink as soon as he could get his hands around it. He resumed beating time with the drummer, and swayed his trunk back and forth as though a leaf moving in the wind, as he observed the dappling light on the faces between him and the bar.
The old man became conscious of the young woman – but maybe she was a girl, or perhaps quite old – she seemed like all three, but he couldn’t tell.
“Who are you?”
“Your niece.”
The old man started to protest: “I don’t . . .” He stuttered to a stop. “You must be an angel. I’ll call you Angel.”
The girl studied him with intelligent eyes.
The band started in on a Sonny Boy Williamson song – “Nine below Zero” – harmonica and vocal. The old man caught the meter with his beating hand and began to chant as in church: “Our nada who art in nada, nada by thy . . . “
Angel slapped his beating hand, pinning it to the table-top. “Oh, cut it out. You made your decision. Live with it.”
“You’re not afraid of dying in the dark?”
“I don’t live in the dark.”
“Where do you live?”
”In the light.”
“I don’t know the address.”
The old man picked up his drink and downed it in one long gulp.
The crowd in front of them parted like the Red Sea to allow the roaming cop to come to their table. He smiled like Officer Friendly, but the old man didn’t buy it.
The officer had to shout to be heard: “Sir, it is against the law to be publicly drunk in the city of Pasadena.”
The old man staggered to his feet and poked a long bony finger toward the officer’s face.
“Based on historical observation, Occifacer, it is impossible to be arrested – physically, metaphorically, and metaphysically – for public drunkenness in the city of Pasadena.”
Angel, with surprising strength, jerked him back to his seat. She stood as he was going down. “It’s all right officer. I’ll see him home.”
The officer looked at her with surprise. The band burst into “Every Day I have the Blues.” A deep baritone blared out: “Nobody loves me. Nobody seems to care.”
The officer studied the old man, and then her.
“Keep him out of trouble.”
He left.
She sat down muttering, “I was doing that.”
“What was that about? I’m not drunk.”
“You fell off a bar stool.”
“I slipped.”
He took a sip from his last drink. “I’d better order more.”
“You’d better not. You still have to walk to the car.”
“Oh.” The old man stretched out his arm in front of him and waved his hand dismissively. Then he squinted, trying to see the hand at the end of the arm. He gave up and turned to Angel.
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“You didn’t.”
He abruptly downed his drink.
“Where is your car?”
“I don’t remember.”
He tried to rise. She helped him.
“I’ll feel my way.”
“Put your arm over my shoulder.”
He put his arm over her shoulder, and they pushed themselves through the crowd, toward the door.
The band launched into “Can’t Find My Way Home.” The old man tried to stop and listen. A reedy tenor beat out the lyrics: “But I’m near the end and I just ain’t got the time. Oh, and I’m wasted, and can’t find my way home.”
She pushed him on through the crowd and out the door.
The old man’s memory fragmented after that. He knew that they walked down the sidewalk away from the lights of Colorado Boulevard. He had to brace himself against the store with his extended right hand, while Angel supported his left arm around her shoulders. When they passed parking lots, he would press his key button to see if any lights blinked. Finally, a car blinked back. He had asked Angel if she wanted to drive, and she had said, “I don’t drive.”
He remembered clearly that on the way home she had asked him when he had adopted his nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada conviction.
“I read Nietzsche in college.”
“Were you even twenty?”
“I was twenty.”
“When you were twenty.”
He remembered being confused as to her intent: a question or a statement?
Later, they discussed whether he had just hit a homeless man or a dog on the berm of the 210. He thought it was a dog. She said it was a homeless man. He didn’t remember another thing until he woke up in his own bed at noon the next day – a day his mother would have called the Sabbath.
He peered out his front door – and there was his car. It had a broken right headlight.
The house was empty, upstairs and down. He looked in the garage. Only himself and pictures: the picture of him and his wife fleeing the church under a shower of rice – it might as well be a bas relief on the side of an Assyrian temple, he thought – then he grimaced at the fact that he hadn’t had a sexual thought for more than two years, since that day . . . that day. He shook his head and went upstairs to make the bed.
He was troubled enough from the night before that he spent the rest of the day searching the internet to see if a homeless man had been hit by a car on the 210. There was none, so he felt vindicated, but he never did find his wallet, and he blamed Angel for that.
The End
With apologies to Ernest Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place; and Stanley Kubrick: Paths of Glory.
