The Reward

Hello Everybody…

Surely some kind of metaphor.

A couple of weeks ago, my buddy, Scott, asked if I would build a chest-of-drawers designed to fit into a specific space in his house.

“Sure,” I said. Then I drove out to his house in Pasadena, took measurements.

“Oh,” said Scott. “Make sure you take the measurements of the doorways and hallways. I had something built for me one time and the builder couldn’t fit it in the house!”

I took the measurements of all the doorways and the hallway, then Scott bought me lunch and as we ate I sketched out a design to his liking – just within all the measurements taken. Then I gave him an estimate.

“Sounds great,” Scott said. We went back to his house and he cut a check, handed it to me. “See you in a couple of weeks.”

Well I sought gold and diamond rings

My own drug to ease the pain that living brings

Walked from the mountain to the valley floor

Searching for my beautiful reward

Searching for my beautiful reward

(Lyrics from My Beautiful Reward, by Bruce Springsteen)

A few minutes later, I waited at a red light, peering through the heat waves that made the San Gabriel Mountains dance before me. Hmm, I’ve already been paid for the job. I rarely get paid-in-full before building. The check swelled in my wallet, made me sit lopsided. When I got to Hollywood, I went to the bank and deposited the heavy, bulbous check – a process which felt very weird, disrupting the flow of my blue-collar blood. The as-of-yet unearned money also felt weird to spend, the following week. But I spent it nonetheless. I was low on money and I had bills to pay.

From a house on a hill a sacred light shines

I walk through these rooms but none of them are mine

Down empty hallways I went from door to door

Searching for my beautiful reward

Searching for my beautiful reward

The next weekend, I bought oak plywood and took my time cutting out all the pieces of the chest-of drawers. After the last cut, I stood back and viewed all the individual pieces. I hope it all fits together. It will…trust the math.

Tuesday, I began assembling the drawers, making sure all the pieces matched up perfectly. If they didn’t, I took them apart, shaved a little of wood here and there with my wood file until I had a fine fit. Next, I sanded and stained the drawers. Ah, look at those beautiful drawers…cough. I cleared my throat, certain it was merely sawdust. Then I coughed again. Then another cough. A lingering tickle remained in my throat the rest of the night. When I awoke the next morning, I was caught in the grips of a full-on cold.

By Thursday, the cold was raging. My progress slowed as I began assembling the main structure of the chest-of-drawers. I couldn’t find the rhythm that led me to Zen Mode. There was much starting, stopping, and the project remained work. There was no harmony. Everything was a distraction…

…the mailman, the couple next door fighting, the couple next door having sex, the bubbling of hot grease and smell of fried food in the late afternoon, Spanish language, rap music, Tejano music, the car horns and squealing tires of rush hour…

…just as the first patrol of police helicopters hovered over Hollywood on Friday evening, I stood back and surveyed the chest-of-drawers. The piece of furniture seemed much larger than my measurements. I took out my tape measure, double checked the length, width and volume. It should fit, but it looks so huge. I imagined carrying the piece into Scott’s house, through the front door, into the hallway, rounding the corner into…what?…rounding the corner into…uh, oh…rounding the corner. I neglected to take the measurements of a corner from one hallway to another hallway that led into the room where the piece would live. But if it fits through all the hallways and doorways, then, theoretically, it should round the corner. Trust the math.

Trust. I’ve learned to trust over the last several years, but it still is one of the harder attributes I’ve had to practice. Doubt sprung from deep down in the well that the piece would, indeed, round the corner. Trust the math. Trust the math. Trust…cough, cough, cough. Oh, f#$k it. Just do a good job. At this point, you can undo anything. I went inside the bungalow and heated up some quinoa and forced myself to eat it.

Serrano peppers, cilantro, garlic, onions, you should be very tasty, but I can’t taste you, I mused as I shoveled forkfuls of the quinoa pilaf into my mouth. My nose ran and I sneezed, coughed. Night had fallen and the view out the window was black night accompanied only by soft Hollywood noise. The kitchen light painted sharp yellow over the dishes in the dish rack, the stove, refrigerator and my forearms. Groceries, bills, parking tickets, etc. My money’s spent. I relocated the remaining pile of quinoa from one side of the plate to another. And I’ve already been paid. There’s no money at the end of the job. No reward. I got up and scratched the uneaten quinoa into the trash, washed the plate. What if it doesn’t fit. WHAT IF IT DOESN’T FIT, TODD?! I switched off the kitchen light and made my way down the hallway, imagining pushing the chest-of-drawers down it. How can I keep living this way, I thought. With no security, from job to job, jumping from one lily pad to the next, with no idea where the next lily pad lay. I turned on the light to my room. Stop looking at the Big Bad Future, Todd. Just do a good job.

Well your hair shone in the sun

I was so high I was the lucky one

Then I came crashing down like a drunk on a barroom floor

Searching for my beautiful reward

Searching for my beautiful reward

I spent Saturday sealing all the pieces with polyurethane. As I waited for the first coat to dry, I set my alarm for 20 minutes and tried to take a nap. I was tired from coughing. But when I lay down, I couldn’t doze off, so I lay there with my eyes open…

…and watched my life passed before my eyes. Still frames from childhood to Now, as if someone were turning the pages of a family album in front of me. I saw things I did do, things I didn’t. My chest cavity sounded like a tire rolling over loose gravel, every time I exhaled. I’m hollow. There’s just a few pebbles inside. Hmm…I haven’t written a blog for a couple of weeks. I’m bereft of anything to say. I’m done writing. The room began to glow a bit, a little brighter at the apex of each inhale. What am I if I never write again? Cough, cough. My vision faded in and out. What if this is it? What if I died, right now? What if everything gently fades out for good? How do I feel about that? Am I satisfied? Am I satisfied, Todd? I…I…I think I…The alarm went off. The photo album slammed shut. I got up and went back to work.

I finished the job just as the sun was setting on Saturday. The rich, shiny wood shone in the golden light. A strong, beautiful piece of work. I built this? When did I do a thing like that? I put a blanket over it, cleaned up, took my tools inside, then I went out for some ice cream.

As I walked back to my bungalow, East Hollywood felt like a foreign land. People walked different, as if gravity were stronger or weaker than it had been the on Friday. The sound of cars motoring down the boulevard rang in the key of F-Sharp instead of F. The air hit my skin in a way I’d never felt before. A weeks old pile of human feces that’d stood just outside of the entrance to an open lot had mysteriously disappeared. The “L” in the neon sign of the Hollywood Premiere Motel had been repaired. For months, it read, Hollywood Premiere Mote. But now the “olly” in Hollywood was burned out, so the sign now read, H—-wood Premeire Motel. I walked toward the marquis as if I were navigating by stars. Or has it always been Motel, not Mote, and H—-wood, instead of Hollywood? Am I the foreigner? Was the pile of shit never here?

Tonight I can feel the cold wind at my back

I’m flyin’ high over gray fields my feathers long and black

Down along the river’s silent edge I soar

Searching for my beautiful reward

Searching for my beautiful reward

On Sunday, I delivered the chest-of-drawers to Scott’s house. My palms sweated in anticipation of maneuvering the piece around the curve in the hallway. I coughed, sneezed, my head pounded as I pushed, lifted and twisted…

…it fit just fine. I laughed in relief. Math is good, I said to myself. Math is pure, like string music, like supernovas. We should trust math.

Scott was very pleased with the final product. He also cut me another check for the extra time it took to build and for the extra materials I had to purchase. Then he tipped me generously. A nice, pretty, fat number graced the check. It felt good in my hands. But not as good as it felt sliding the chest-of-drawers around that corner.

“Thanks so much,” said Scott, as I left. “Hope you feel better soon.”

“I’m sure I will,” I said.

Be well…

So Close, We’re Already There

Hello Everybody,

The other day, I ran into the Vine St. Girl at a cafe in Hollywood. She looked the same as always: dirty clothes, dirty face housing fire-green eyes, hair styled like a cavewoman’s in a 1960s television skit.

It’d been over a week since I’d seen last seen her: in the middle of a sunny afternoon, she was being carried across Vine St. by a man, screaming and flailing both arms. Foam spewed from the 24oz beer can that she was holding. Cars whizzed by the pair in both directions. Her struggling caused the man to veer in front of an oncoming car. The car swerved, then stopped. The woman driving the car rolled down her window, shouted something at her, at the man, then reached back and opened the car’s back door. The Vine St. Girl shook free of the man, threw the beer at him then jumped in and the two woman zoomed away. The man crossed the street in a manner like that of a child lost in a mall. When he reached the sidewalk, he ran hard to a corner then disappeared. So I was relieved to see The Vine St. Girl was OK, after that incident. And though it’s clear to see she’s fallen on hard times, she always seems to have a smile on her face, when not being kidnapped.

We waited in line next to each other at the cafe. After she asked the man behind the counter at the cafe to sell her two cigarettes, she turned her green eyes to mine, then began speaking through me to something far behind me in some language spoken by a higher species from a Cosmos a few Big Bangs back. I noticed similarities in the language, to ours, but the tongue was ultimately, absolutely undecipherable. So I just smiled back at her. She grabbed the two cigarettes and walked by me, out the door, and continued to babble as she stepped out into the Hollywood of the current Cosmos.

Later that night, I needed some beef jerky so I walked over to the all-night Walgreen’s on the corner of Sunset and Western Boulevards. In front of me at the checkout counter were two woman with a grocery cart full of panty-liners. They lifted armfuls of them out out of the cart and onto the counter.

“Can I interest you ladies in any a our specials on da countah?” Asked the old woman working the register, as she waved her hand across a display of assorted chocolates in the manner of a showgirl working a 1960s automobile convention. She wore deep red rouge and lipstick, and a fake mole. The deep creases on her otherwise pale face were as black as dark matter. The wrinkles broke her face up into fragments like shards of glass on a fun house floor. “Come aahn, dudn’t some chocolates sound good tonight? Special two-for-one.” The two women said nothing. The old clerk took a deep breath. “Alright, den. Well, buenos noches to da two a ladies.” The women smiled, shook their heads, walked out the store with the panty-liners.

Down one of the aisles, a vampyrical bone-thin transvestite deadlifted a case of Coca-Cola from a display and waddled up behind me. She twitched as she held the leadened case of sodas, her eyes darting around fast, like a bird’s. I moved up the counter so she could set down the case.

“Excuse me,” said the old woman, “can I interest either of you two fellas in our special two-for-one chocolates?”

“No, that’s ok,” I said.

“No, thank you,” said the transvestite.

“Come aaahn! Dey taste real good.” She leaned in closer to us, spoke lower. “You see, da clerk dat sells de most candies gets a gift cad at de end of da month.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m broke, so I want da cad. So therefore,” she continued, in showroom pose and with a sexy, wispy voice, “can I interest you two gents in some sweet candy?” Then she burst out laughing. “Oh, I tell ya, you gotta keep it fun, you gotta keep it fun, guys. Or else…” she mimics a pointing a gun to her head, shooting herself. “Right? You can’t get too serious…” she points out the doors into the East Hollywood darkness, “…one day you might get eaten up out dere by a cockroach. Or, by some giant baby on a big-wheel who forgotta who ring her bell as she’s coming at ya!”

“I’ll come in tomorrow and get some candy,” I said.

“Awright, you know I’ll be here. I’m always here…” she widened her eyes and continued in a Transylvanian accent, “…on the grrrrraaaaaveyaaaarrrd sheeeefft, mwah, ha, ha, ha…” Then she handed me the jerky, reached over, grabbed the transvestite’s coke. I left.

The night was thick. Dew had brought the streets to a shine. All was quiet except for the distant howls and screams of The Unfortunate. These voices always seem to be coming from another dimension, for every time I’ve looked in the direction of these howls and screams I find nothing. If I see anyone, it’s usually some solitary figure wandering about the boulevards like a monk who’d been silent for centuries or a zombie practicing abstinence. When focusing on such a figure, the howls and screams disappear, completely. Only when I look away and break my connection to those around me do the howls and screams resume. That is, at night. People are shouting all over the place during the Hollywood Day.

The next morning I took a hike up the big hill behind the Griffith Park Observatory. After I reached the apex of the hill, sweaty and breathing hard, I rested for a moment on a little bench on the trail. Then set my clock for twenty minutes, crossed my legs, rested my left hand on my right hand, focused on a cone hanging on the branch of a pine tree, then began to meditate. Breathe in, breath out, breathe in…Soon, the roar of the endless line of school buses on the road below me began to fade, the giggling junior-high students already on the trail dissolved, and even the bright chirps of birds soon disappeared. After a while, everything was gone. Only the pine cone remained, dangling in Nothingness.

But everything was also still there, and I came to the realization that I was not separate from anything. I’ve felt this kind of thing before -written about it – but every time I sense it, it’s as if I’m coming to the realization for the first time that I am merely part of a giant event. Not even a part, I’m thoroughly stirred into the Big Soup, as are you and everybody and everything in Existence. But it’s not something I can hold onto and use for another day, it’s something I have to come to realize everyday. REALIZATION – Finding The Real. When I fail to Realize The Big Event, I slip into the Artificial Self. By identifying as a seperate being, I attempt seperate from the Big Event. But separation of the Self from The Big Event is impossible. It is delusional to think one can, and when delusional thinking comes in contact with Reality, suffering ensues. Therefore, letting go of the Self leads to, ah this is so simple…Life’s a piece of cake…at that moment, I became aware that people were staring at me when they walked by. Through their eyes, I saw my Self: jogging pants, sweater, hiking boots, sunglasses, sitting cross-legged with my hands together, staring at a pine cone. I quietly laughed out loud. The old clerk was right. My alarm rang. I hiked down the hill back to Hollywood.

When I got back, I saw my neighbor, Edith, outside her bungalow, on the phone. She’d just finished washing her family’s clothes in the driveway, hung them all up to dry on the barbed wire strands that run atop the wall separating our bungalows from the neighboring apartment complex. The smell of detergent lingered. Times were hard for Edith & family and apparently getting harder, because I used to see her at the laundromat. By the doorway to her bungalow was the chair on which she gives her husband, Miguel, a bath. Miguel was paralyzed from the waist down, from falling off a ladder on a job site (see the Jamberoo: Oh The Ramparts We Are). Aside from family bread winner, she’s his caretaker, 24/7. Edith sat on the step, leaning back against the wall, speaking tired Spanish into the phone. When she saw me she leaned forward and waved.

“Ola, Todd…hello.”

“Hello, Edith…ola”

“God bless you.”

“God bless you, too.”

I’m not sure which God she meant, because – though she wears a Christian Cross, I sometimes I see her in the driveway, huddled in the corner, burning sage, or something like sage.

“Yeah, she practices that…what is it…” The Great Warrior told me one time, “…oh, Santeria. She’s really been into it since Miguel got hurt.”

I went inside, cleaned up. When I came back out Edith was gone. The clothes fluttered on the barbed wire in the wind like ghosts killing time in ghost prison.

Down the street, I ran into the old lady that usually offers me a can of corn every time I see her. But this time she stood in front of me on the sidewalk, holding a broom, though she still stared into me like she always does, as if she knew me but didn’t know me. The neighborhood leaf-blowers had finished for the day. One fellow was loading the leaf blowers onto the truck, and another was sweeping up the leaves on the curb along with the empty prescription bottles that find their way on Serrano Ave. He looked up at me, then to the old lady, rolled his eyes, shook his head and continued sweeping. When I turned back to the lady, she’d moved on, sweeping the driveway as she walked, her gaze up and far away.

A little later I saw the Vine St. Girl, crossing the street with an older man. She didn’t move in her usual manic rhythm. More so, she looked very lucid and walked with intent, like someone walking to their car after work, or to a cafe to meet someone. She still wore the ragged clothes, but her hair was a bit more tame than usual. Just like that, she seemed so unknown to me…as if I’d gotten her wrong. And I did. That’s what I get for trying to get her in the first place.

So close, we are already there…

That evening, on my way back to the bungalow, the sun hung just above the palm trees, glazing East Hollywood with tear inducing pinks, blues and yellows. The obese homeless lady that’d recently taken up residence at the corner of Sunset and Western sat Indian-style, smiling at something in the sky. I looked up to see hundreds of seagulls flying above us, squeaking and squawking across the pink-blue-yellow sky. Ah, we are near the Ocean, I thought. It’s so easy to forget the Ocean is so close. I looked back down on East Hollywood and it was beautiful – the suffering and our subconscious aching to let go of it and come together. All of it. And we are so, so close to The Ocean.

RIP Phil

Be well…