Rene
I was on a trip through Southern California with my new girlfriend, Sanita, (soon to be my wife) and introducing her to all my old friends and when we reached San Diego Phil was on my list. He was glad to see us, the past forgotten, a very changed and sober man, living in a tiny apartment, a radio host on a classical music station, on air several times a week, explaining how satisfying it was.
The morning before this ugly parting, in that dark bar, after he’d downed five bloody Mary’s (In Dylan Thomas style) to my three in a matter of about twenty minutes and insisting on paying for all of them, (as was his machismo custom) before the lines of coke were laid out that got us kicked out, I swore an oath that I’d write his biography someday, as a debt I owed him for all the drugs and drinks he’d bought me over the years, far more than I ever bought him. He suggested the idea, to remedy this trade imbalance. I know this account doesn’t begin to repay it. But money means nothing. It’s the friendship and adventures we shared over the years that meant something.
Those I record. I doubt he had many experiences or years he’d want me to biographize. He’d partied so hard, he was a burnt out shell of his former self when I saw him last, both of us thirty two. His face seemed gray and his speech sullen, sitting on his carpet floor by his record collection, (the one thing he was proud of) in the tiny one room apartment, as we sat on his bed listening to him describe his job.
He was proud of that too, the fact that he landed it. But this was counterbalanced by the details that they only gave him ten hours of airtime a week, and the pay barely met his living costs. He had been sober for years, he told us, but wished he had more airtime or work with other stations. So much free time weighed on him as he had little to fill it, no girlfriend and no one he could visit that didn’t drink. We left after an hour and I explained to Sanita how changed he was from his former self. I’d have no need of such explanations if I weren’t moved and disturbed by his altered state.
But I will mention a few brighter events I recall from his prime. It’s almost as if I don’t want to leave his story on this sad note, as it saddens me still. I remember visiting him one Sunday evening at his apartment, shared with Doug and Dennis, in our third year at university. They were sitting at the kitchen table, drinking away and I joined them. Doug kept mentioning: you’d better get started on that term paper. It was due the next morning, for a biochemistry course and meant half his grade. But he kept rolling joints and drinking beers, saying he could pull it off in two hours. Then, about nine, he got out his pen and pad, laid down on the floor near our table and ignoring our loud talk and distraction, wrote out page after page in one draft.
I stayed till eleven that night just to watch this curious scene. I went back four days later. It was the break between quarters. He told me he aced the course and showed me the paper with a big ‘A’ on it and ‘excellent work’ written underneath. I could hardly believe it, composed under such circumstances. But that was Phil in his prime, brilliant even when half-drunk.
A few months later he was on a beach and took a dare with a total stranger that he could beat him in a high-jumping contest. A stick was set up and they went at it. Phil won the contest but took a hard fall on his side on the final jump. He felt nothing at the time, went home, drank his usual six-pack and went to bed.
The next morning, sitting at the breakfast table, he felt as if he had just been stabbed, doubled over, and Doug drove him to the hospital. The doctor, after the operation, told him how lucky he was. If it had ruptured in his sleep he would have died, he was told, and this happened in half the cases like his. You didn’t wake up right away, before the internal bleeding was too far gone, or you didn’t wake up at all, and felt nothing, you just died.
While he was in the hospital recovering, I visited once along with his girlfriend Rene. As soon as we came up to his bedside Rene opened her purse and handed him a pint of rum, which he began to swig, asking us to look out for the nurse. The doctor told him he couldn’t drink at all for a month, that it would be extremely dangerous, with his liver and kidneys having to readjust, but, as he put it, ‘he wasn’t going to put up with that bullshit’. A few weeks later that summer I took a one week tour with them, in Rene’s Volkswagen, right after finishing my Greek workshop, visiting Hearst castle on our way to friends in L.A., a very pleasant trip. Rene lasted about a year in that relationship, drawn in by his charisma, constant good humor and his jokes. She laughed and drank with us like a trouper, but was finally put off by his serious overindulgence, being a pragmatic, level-headed, university girl, bent on a degree and a career, and seeing the dead-end in him. I’m sure she achieved it.
But she was cute, intelligent, close to our height, with short, light brown hair, thin-rimmed glasses, thin lips and nose, and fine cheekbones. She looked like some Nordic athlete, a long distance runner, perfectly fit. This probably accounted for her stamina to keep up with Phil in his barhopping, drinking sprees. She was his driver and an angel to him when he needed one. I admired her devotion, saw the sacrifices it involved and we became close, with secret nods and smiles, fellow sufferers in the hard pilgrimage, following in the footsteps of Phil.
He had one other love. I never met her. But it was a wild, tempestuous affair that happened just after he came back to San Diego, soon after Kim and I moved there. She lived a few doors down in the apartment complex he chose. He was on a roll. First he scored the well-paying job at the science lab, with his biochemistry degree, involving enriched uranium. Then he met the redhead two doors down, equally volatile and unstable, a beautiful wildcat. He was so excited with this affair, he came by and spilled out the details to Kim and me that Spring, unable to contain himself, the only two times he came by our cottage until the final visit. The first time he was two weeks into the affair and in an agitated state, told us what a stunning beauty she was, how great at sex and how she even outdid him every night, going at it for hours. Then, a few weeks later, he came by to tell us the affair was over that she just called it quits one night, without any explanation, and told him she never wanted to see him again.
He was sad but also relieved, as it would have killed him, (as he claimed) if it had gone on much longer. He said his heart would have given out. He still had his job and his booze and a future filled with glowing possibilities. Four months later he was let go, but under suspicious circumstances. He was following instructions and pouring some small amount of a liquid from a graduated cylinder into a long, sealed stack in a small room at the top of the building, in full hazmat gear and an explosion occurred, knocking him off his feet. He wasn’t hurt but filed a lawsuit, expecting a big settlement. I never knew the outcome. But it couldn’t have been much, if anything, considering his situation six years later.
Now with all my true friends gone, and a gang of people I really didn’t like or trust visiting my house every day, the police began knocking at my door. The first occurrence happened one evening. There were two officers and they were looking for a certain person. There were several people smoking a joint in my living room. I turned, told them to put it out, mentioned the name, and one girl walked to the door and gave them information as to where he might be.
A few days later they returned again, the same two young officers, polite but serious. I was alone and this time they wanted to know the whereabouts of Gary, (the Viking). They knew he was involved in drug deals and that he visited my house frequently. They left but said they’d be back that evening. I told this news to everyone who dropped by that afternoon and they all fled away, except Gary’s girlfriend, who wanted to find out what trouble he was in. She hadn’t seen him in a week. We cleaned the place up together, the cops came back, were invited inside and told us that the matter was serious. His girlfriend gave them all the knowledge she had of him, over fifteen minutes worth, sitting on my couch, one hundred percent compliant. They listened politely but then they lectured me on the reputation of my house, the company I kept, and left off with the declaration that the next time they had to visit this place, it would be me they were going to arrest. They left, she gave me a warm hug, said she was sorry for everything and told me what a nice person I was, then she left.
That night I tossed in bed quite a bit. The next morning I packed up all my belongings, my few clothes and all my papers, drove to the unemployment bureau to give them my Canadian address, then headed north to Marin, in my beat-up Barracuda with bald tires, which, once again, much to my surprise, didn’t fail me. I pulled into Norma’s driveway that night, unexpected, handed her the keys and asked in return that she drive me to the Greyhound station the next morning, where I purchased my ticket for Niagara Falls, another chapter in my life come to an end, this one thankfully so.
