Angry drummer
My first encounter with such a type (as I described in my last post, the uneducated and unfortunate wretch who is most likely prison bound) happened before I left Marin, while staying at Norma’s. Kim knew a drummer named Buddy who would sometimes drop by. He was short and muscular, hyperactive and hot tempered. One night he came by and told us his drum set had been thrown down a flight of stairs by another angry musician. He collected the broken pieces but he wanted revenge. He asked if we’d come along on a caper. Kim wisely said ‘no’. But I, feeling sorry for him and thinking he just wanted company, said ‘yes’.
I sat in his car with a sense of adventure but I could soon see it was only hate that drove him, a strong desire to do someone harm. I’ve never felt that emotion, except in the most slight and fleeting instances, for minor affronts, and gone and forgiven in minutes for the trivialities that they were. By nature I’m kindly and forgiving to a fault, to the point that I’ve been hit several times, physically, but never hit back, and ripped off, monetarily, and walked away only blaming myself. The one thing I did learn was to avoid bad places and bad people. It’s sad to say but some, many, are so crippled by ignorance and abuse that they’re beyond help. And to associate oneself with them in any way is to endanger oneself. Buddy fit this bill. I don’t know what warped his shallow personality but in his anger he was beyond reasoning with, beyond morality, only rage and trouble.
On this night it wasn’t the person he intended to harm, but his car. He explained this to me beforehand, as I would never go to watch some bloody fight. We went to a store and he bought a bag of sugar, drove to a quiet residential street, parked several houses away, snuck up and poured the sugar into the gas tank of a certain car, all of it. Just as we finished, crouching behind the car, the front door of the house opened, a late night visitor emerged and walked very near us to his parked car on the street, while the owner stood at his doorstep a curiously long time, peering around in the darkness, until his friend drove off. Finally the door closed and we made our escape, sweat pouring from our brows.
One other night Buddy came by and took Norma and Kim and me to a party in the East bay, the hills of Oakland. There I met a beautiful, tall, teenage blond, very young, perhaps eighteen. There were fifteen or so people in this living room, drinking, everyone cheerful, and I ended up in a corner with her standing and talking. Our talk led to kissing and making out. After an hour of this bliss she said she wanted to spend the night with me. She lived a few houses down with her parents so she agreed to come to Marin and spend the night with me. Right then there was a load crash. Buddy had knocked someone over a glass coffee table and broken it. Next he was pummelling the host beside him for complaining of the damage. He was told by everyone to leave right away and as he was our ride home we reluctantly followed him. The girl changed her mind at the door and walked home. She wasn’t about to get into that car. I wasn’t friends with Buddy anymore. The ride home was silent.
Back to Ocean Beach and six months later. I think my landlady doted upon me. She always wanted me to spend an hour with her, sitting and chatting, every time I drove to her apartment to pay the rent. She must have been lonely, so I humored her. When we first moved in she was busy helping us find cheap, used furniture. She went to the thrift stores every day. That was a major part of her life. She once showed me a room in her apartment that was packed to the ceiling with items she’d bought and stored away, like a pack rat, not for any use, just for the pleasure of purchase and ownership. After four months she changed our rent period to every week, thirty-five dollars at a time, and she changed the venue where the rent was to be handed over, from her apartment to the last pew of a Catholic Church just blocks away from our cottage, at exactly at five P.M. just as mass began, making me sit with her through it, and slip her the envelope at the end.
Being very much enamored with our residence and the ridiculously low rent, I graciously complied. At first I thought she might be trying to convert me. She probably was. But I had no fear of that. I found the mass tedious but brief. Had it been in Latin I would have been all ears, however inane the topic. But no such luck in San Diego. I did take a good look around at this Gothic spectacle, admiring the stained glass windows, a few sculptural reliefs and then peering through the semi-darkness to the front pews I found an unexpected surprise. There were always twenty to thirty participants whenever I came. I was the only male and far in the back.
The rest occupied the front pews and there were twenty empty rows between us. Though far ahead and the church dimly lit, I could make out two distinct groups. The old, wrinkled, shawled women in black, and then a set of young, colorfully dressed women who looked to be in their twenties. I could only see their backs from where I sat or glimpse a profile when one of them turned her head. But when mass ended they all filed out a side door into the broad daylight, a sight I stepped out to see. I remember many were absolute knockouts, with all their hats, hairdos and makeup, dressed to the hilt, as if God noticed such things. They’d stand there a few minutes in groups, on the sidewalk, exchanging greetings, till their rides came. And I would politely make my way right by this flock with nods and smiles, the only male leaving the church.
It was on my way straight to my favorite bar just down the street, a passage of sorts, brief but pleasant. At the bar, beer in hand, I told my drinking buddies what a set of beautiful, young women I’d just seen, all dressed up and perfumed.
None believed me at first, but with the church just a block away, I convinced a few to meet me at this corner the next Friday at exactly five thirty, wagering a beer if I was lying. A week later three of my wide-eyed friends gawked and stared from across the street. I greeted them, slapped them on the back and demanded my beers. All agreed some were knock-outs. A few probably weighed the idea of joining the church just to mingle in that crowd. There are perks of all sorts in unexpected places, even for an agnostic at mass.
One other thing my landlady enjoyed was doing charitable work for the soup kitchens and homeless shelters. One Sunday at her place she introduced me to a friend of hers, a skinny, wrinkled old man who had the most sparkling eyes. For many years he’d been a homeless, street drunk but was now several years sober. He asked my last name and when I said ‘O’Reilly’ he went off on a vivid and picturesque tale about someone else he’d known by that name and how they’d rode the rails together during the depression. The lucidity and length and details of his narration stunned me. What amazed me most was the thought that he could recall his youth and describe it so well, after years of being in an alcoholic haze. But the mind is a wondrous thing, as I keep saying.
