Datsun 240Z
Sanita first arrived on January 30th. It was nighttime. I picked her up in S.F. and we drove straight to my apartment in Piedmont. In the next few days, she met many of my friends, along with a whirlwind of lines and partying, especially at the warehouse, where Bruno, Claire, and Jim still lived.
After three days of introductions, we set off on a nine-day tour of southern California in the Datsun Z. My father and Muriel were impressed with her (just as she was with them) in their beautiful house in Westwood. It was fine dining and shopping and beaches for three days, all very elegant and polite. I finally had a girlfriend I was proud of and happy to show off, both for her kind disposition and cheerful company, (totally unlike Lindsey). This merited their compliments and attention. I could see my father and stepmother were impressed with my new partner.
We reconnected with a girlfriend she had in L.A. and drove, the three of us, to San Diego. The Datsun was a two-seater, and the back seat had the depth of a shoe box. The two pretty girls took turns sitting on the low, center console, on a cushion, the stick-shift exactly between their legs. You had to be careful shifting into fourth. We met Phil and then Harry ‘O’ (with whom her girlfriend fell in love) and my other friends, staying in motels, dining out, and seeing the sights, with Harry, suddenly, our eager tour guide.
He still had his long, curly, blond locks, well below his shoulders. He was working in a fancy lounge as a waiter, wearing what looked like some tuxedo facsimile, a white shirt, and a much too small black vest. He was all excited when we showed up, in his old manner (from 1980), a wonder of energy and enthusiasm, unable to contain himself in speech or gestures. He was serving us drinks, refusing payment after the first round, and grabbing the hand of Sanita’s dark haired girlfriend and telling her, (staring straight into her eyes with hypnotic intensity) that he’d met and shaken hands with the famous Jethro Tull just a month earlier, who played a set on stage and sat in the seat where she was sitting, a mind-blowing experience, as he declared Jethro Tull was the best musician who ever walked the face of this planet.
This impassioned speech was too much for her, for all of us, as we stared at him. She didn’t return to our motel that night. She was back the next morning. I mentioned to Sanita that I hoped this would be the highlight of her friend’s trip. Sanita agreed. In those early days we were wonderfully in agreement. Her friend hinted during our drive back to L.A. that it was.
Her friend was a vivacious and pretty girl. She was twenty-eight, Sanita’s age, a free player in the game of dating, an office worker in a large room of cubicles (as she described it) in L.A., most likely bored. I saw that she had a great trip. It was a glow on her face as we drove her back to her web. We dropped her off in downtown L.A. around noon and never saw or heard of her again as we sped off to Santa Barbara, to our hotel reservation that night, and our itinerary. We were selfishly in love.
The next ten days we spent back in Piedmont, seeing the sights of the Bay Area by day, partying with friends by night, or just the two of us together, eating out mostly, taking a few days between each party to catch up on sleep. I had lots of Valiums back then, so we could medicate ourselves to sleep whenever we wanted.
It was during this short span that a comic incident occurred with Lindsey, the last time I ever talked to her at any length. It was a rainy evening and Sanita and I were just getting dressed up in our best clothes for a romantic night of dining out, when ‘C’ calls and tells me Lindsey is at his house and needs to see me for ten minutes to settle some business affairs. She’d been working up north with ‘K’ and needed things. ‘K’ owed me a good deal of money for the lessons I’d taught her. I had all the things she needed, doling them out a bit at a time, in exchange for this debt, a little at a time. I couldn’t put this off. But Lindsey had heard of this new arrival in my life and her mind was rabid.
I told Sanita I’d be back in half an hour. I was dressed for dinner and not about to change. I drove ten minutes to ‘C’s place. There we fell into a long discussion which turned into an argument. Lindsey was fuming with anger (while ‘C’ was desperately, comically, trying to calm her down). She claimed I’d broken all kinds of promises to her and ‘K’. I hadn’t broken any, as I calmly addressed those accusations with the facts. But that had nothing to do with the source of her fury, which no words could change.
I wanted to leave but she was so livid and loud I told her we’d talk tomorrow in a calmer tone and that I had to go. I knew her anger was all about Sanita. The fact that I was all dressed up only maddened her more. It was now an hour since I’d left. I headed out to my car in ‘C’s dirt driveway and Lindsey rushed out the front door and tackled me into a deep puddle of mud, from behind. We wrestled about in this puddle, her screaming, till ‘C’ was able to catch up and pull us apart.
So, our relationship ended in violence, just as it began the day I met her mother, a year earlier. I returned to the apartment covered in mud and over an hour late. Sanita knew what was up, (no explanation needed) and all we could do was burst out laughing.
The reason Sanita knew was because I’d told her all about Lindsey. I was an open book back then, the same way I am now. It was the same trait that got me in trouble a few days later when she read my journal. Even in Mexico I talked about my long and stormy and finished relationship with Lindsey. I told her about Dale. At four or five days into our trip, when we were alone, I pulled out the little bag of silver jewelry I was going to take home and divvy up as gifts, the one from Taxco, about ten pieces, mostly bracelets and necklaces with in-laid pieces of Lapis Lazuli and Opals. I’d spent a hundred dollars on them in that silver-mine and artisan town but knew in the States they’d cost ten times that much. I asked her to pick out whatever she liked. She deserved them more than Dale or Lindsey (in my storm of fast-changing affections) and insisted she take most of them. She did, and I was glad such trinkets found favor. Given to the other girls they’d be nothing more than a small gesture of past affection.
