Category: Stories

When I was in college I managed the Egyptian Drive-In Theater near Herrin, IL. The theater is long gone, but there are some things I’ll never forget. I was in my early twenties, and I had two teens working for me, Monty and Jeff Rose. They were great kids and partners in conspiracy. Early on, when we were getting ready to open the theater for the first time in many years, we all had to go to the doctor for a TB test. Jeff was scared to death of needles. Monty and I had a plan. I went in to the doc first. I got my shot, and then I explained to the doctor to not mind me for a minute. Then I let out a loud scream. Monty followed suit and did the same. By the time Jeff got in, he was shaking like a willow tree in a hurricane. But I digress, that’s not the best story.

One night we were closing up the theater. The kitchen was cleaned, the film was put in cans, and we were all done. I made myself a scotch and water, the kids each grabbed a soda. We went outside to enjoy the summer sky and chat. Then, all of a sudden, a huge, and I mean huge, meteor appeared in the western horizon. That thing looked like it must have landed nearby, it was so big. We thought about trekking over to see it, but it was way too late, so we marked the direction using a speaker post and a far away tree so that we could make the attempt in daylight.

The next day we gathered by the speaker post, compass in hand. We made note of the direction on the compass and began our journey. We passed through a very short stretch of woods and came out into a farm field, each time noting a landmark in the distance to keep us on the right path. Farm fields are not very easy to walk in. The land is uneven, littered with rocks and stones, and the furrows ran counter to our path. Nevertheless, we forged ahead.

After maybe forty five minutes of hiking, we saw something unusual. It was a crater the size of a small swimming pool. This was beyond our wildest dreams. We started arguing over the naming rights to the meteor. I was the oldest, surely it should be named after me. Jeff thought he was entitled, as he was the first one to say “Hey, look at that!” Monty wasn’t as vain as us, he thought it should be named after himself, but only because of the alliteration. The “Monty Meteor” had a cool sound to it. Much better than the “Rob” or the “Jeff”. And screw the guys who would say it was a meteorite, “Monty Meteor” sounded much better than “Monty Meteorite.” We could go with that as long as we were all given credit for the discovery.

As we approached the crater, Jeff said “If this is it, how come we don’t see any smoke? It should still be smoking, shouldn’t it?” Monty said “How the heck should we know, we’ve never seen one before.” The first thing we saw was metal and glass, stuff that doesn’t come from meteors, or so we thought. There was also insulation, and styrofoam, and an old bike. But the thing in the bottom is what stoked us.

It was an old Volkswagen Beetle. Monty screamed “It’s not a meteor, it’s a UFO! The made the spaceship to look like a VW Bug!” We all laughed. It wasn’t a meteor, it wasn’t a spaceship, and the crater was not a crater. It was a farmer’s junk pit. As much as we liked to envision a VW hurtling through space, that wasn’t the case.

After we were done laughing, we turned around and went back to the drive-in, story in hand. We figured nothing could top this. This was better than a UFO, better than a meteor, better than a meetup with aliens, but swell for a few giggles around future campfires.

The Christmas season abounds with angel stories. I offer mine below, acknowledging that sometimes it seems the right words haven’t yet been discovered.

A couple of years ago during a time when I was unemployed, I took a trip to the supermarket. There was a soft storm approaching as I went in to shop. Having completed my shopping, I went out the side door to load my car. By that time, it was raining slow soft tears. There was a lady standing there trading glances between her bicycle and a loaded shopping cart. It was as if the bicycle was mocking her cart of hopes.

Now many of us have helped others, I’m not telling this story to secure accolades, as I’ve clearly fallen short on my list of charitable acts, but I want to relate what happened next. I asked her “Are you alright? Do you need some help?”

She said that she was new to town, and that she had purchased more than she could load into the bike’s baskets. I offered to load her bike and groceries into my Tahoe and to take her home, she countered that she could ride home, but if I would follow her with the groceries, she would be grateful. That’s what we did. She lived only minutes from the store. I backed the car up to her garage and unloaded her groceries. She explained that she had just moved to town, apologizing for the mess in her garage. I said it was no big deal. We parted.

This is the part you need to know. For the rest of the day and for some time afterwards, this feeling settled on me that is a little hard to explain, one that is not of this world. It was as if I had touched Heaven. I’ve often told my kids to be kind to others as you never know when you are entertaining angels (an admitted plagiarism.) I look back and wonder if one was present that day. I think about that lady from time to time, and I wonder if she had any hand in the shower of graces that followed, or is it that God wants us to know what He thinks is important.

May your days be as blessed, and may you find peace and joy in those rare moments of quiet.

Merry Christmas to all!

I have to admit, I had very low expectations for this book, and I am glad to share how wrong I was. Two main thoughts stuck with me afterwards:

How many times do we ignore God’s gentle nudgings? This book was about the successes, when people see signs from God as more than mere circumstance, but I know many times I have missed those clues. I see others do it all the time.

And why is it that these mostly seem to happen during times of duress? I can only think that sometimes it takes trials and tribulations before we capitulate and yield our will to God. If only we could learn to suffer our will more easily.

One of my favorite God Wink stories is about the time Christa and I travelled to Ames Iowa to tour the school and review their Architecture program. We were very pleased with the school until we met one of the program’s directors. I’ll stick to nice words here. Neither the director nor the program was a fit.

We began our trip home during the first wave of Snowmageddon, that horrible snow storm from a couple years ago. We knew from the onset that the trip would be an adventure, as the snow and sleet fell almost from the beginning of the trip.

Christa was visibly upset that the school visit ended so badly. About a half hour into the trip, she teared up and cried out in a fit of anger “I just wish God would show me a sign of where I should go to college!” I don’t remember what I said, but I tried to comfort her, telling her that things would work out eventually. We had about seven or eight hours of snowy travel ahead of us. Lots of time to think about things. Lots of close calls, including a semi truck that was pushed by the wind into our lane just ahead of us.

We arrived home about ten or ten thirty, glad to be in from the weather and the messy roads, but a little sad to be bringing home bad news. As we walked into the kitchen, Sue was hiding a grin. There was a package on the table. A Fedex envelope. She handed it to Christa, who shouted “This is from Saint Mary’s!” She tore the letter open and read it. She was accepted! I reminded her of her plea for a sign from God, and I noted that this one was so important that He used Fedex instead of his angels.

Get the book. And open your mind to those little nudges from God.

Thirty seven years ago we were engaged on Catalina Island. On a return trip to California we rented a car and wound our way to Reno via Death Valley (where we took this picture.)

Thirty six years ago to this day we were married. We spent our honeymoon night at the Hilton in Lake Geneva. Shortly afterwards we jettisoned to Paris, Lausanne, Geneva, Lucerne, Zurich, Waltzenhausen, Salzburg, Munich, Weisbaden, Frankfurt, Cologne, Hanover, Luther Wittenburg, Gartz, and East Berlin.

We returned from that voyage to settle in Huntley, where we began a different journey, starting a beautiful family. We walked to church with the kids. We walked to the Dairy Mart for ice cream. We watched the kids play in the park behind us.

And there were dogs. Tank. Gertrude. Abbey. Flynn. Fergus. (notice I am not mentioning that darn cat that bit me.)

We traveled to Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Arizona, California, Nevada, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. We swam in the Atlantic from the beaches on Martha’s Vineyard, but our favorite pastime was watching the waves hit the shore on Lake Superior.

Would I do it all again? You betcha. I love you, Susann. Let’s do 36 more.

Yesterday I stopped by church to grab a bottle of holy water for a friend who is in the hospital. I said a few prayers in the chapel, picked up the bottle, filled it, and left. There was a sign that suggested a one-dollar donation to cover the cost, which I did not have at the time. I figured I could come back and make amends.

I was on the way to Jewel to get some cash, when I saw a guy out in the cold by the highway with a sign reading “Will work for gas.” My initial reaction was that this was a scammer to be avoided. But then, I started thinking about my own situation (in between job assignments,) and decided I would grab some cash for him, too. So I bought some bananas and a couple other things and figured to get $17. Ten dollars for the guy on the street, five dollars for the Salvation Army guy, and two dollars for a lotto ticket. I bought the lotto ticket, put five bucks in the Salvation Army kettle, and gave the street guy ten dollars. All is good. I figured this guy has to be real. A true bum would not sit out in the cold.

As I’m driving home, I realize that I forgot the dollar for the holy water, then I remembered that I had a couple of lotto tickets on the fridge at home. I’m expecting one of them to be a small winner which would solve my dollar problem.

I check five tickets. The last one was a two dollar winner. Great. I can bring that to church and pay it forward for the next guy who is short.

But then I got to thinking, we lit a candle a couple weeks ago and didn’t pay for that. No problem. I’ll give one dollar for the holy water and the other for the candle, and we’ll be even. So I march up to the candles, meanwhile, the grade school kids are in the church practicing for the Christmas pageant, and it brings back great memories of when my kids went to school there.

I get to the candles, and the sign says “Suggested donation three dollars.”

Crap. I put one dollar in and headed to the holy water table. The donation box is gone, and there is a sign that reads “This water needs to be blessed.”

Oh boy. I go back to the candle box and leave my last dollar. At this point I’m not sure if my water is blessed or not. Now what do you do? I went home and said a prayer asking Jesus to bless the water for me in case it isn’t.

I go to the hospital and give the bottle to my friend’s wife. She sprinkles some on his bed, I take a few drops and apply it to my friend’s forehead in the form of a cross. After a sufficient time visiting, I leave.

For those who are keeping track, I’m still two dollars short.

This morning I went and checked the new lotto ticket on the fridge. Wouldn’t it be fitting if it was a two dollar winner?

Guess what?

The lotto scanner says “Waiting on results.” The drawing isn’t until tonight.

It was the weekend of Thanksgiving, 1998. I was on my third week of ‘Catastrophe Duty’ for American Family Insurance, working in Appleton, Wisconsin. Not all that far from home, but working through the holiday made it seem even farther. You meet all kinds of people in hotels on holidays, but on this particular occasion, I happened to meet Santa Claus. He was working at the mall next to the hotel, listening to kids, posing for pictures, and generally doing a great job playing the part. He was from Montana, and would sign up for jobs like this every year. He really looked the part, too.

Sue and the kids were coming up to visit on Saturday. I asked Santa if he minded seeing my kids when they came up. He was more than glad to help. I promised we would not take up much of his time. He didn’t seem to mind.

It was in the late afternoon. The timing was perfect. Sue and the kids pulled into the hotel parking lot. Some other guest had a reindeer parked outside. No kidding. Not Santa’s reindeer, just some other guest. Hey, it was Wisconsin. Sue had told the kids that Santa was staying at the hotel, so when they saw the reindeer, they knew this was serious business.

Santa had just entered the building from the long hallway on the east when my wife and kids entered the lobby. I dashed down and told him we were ready any time, then ran back and gave Sue and the kids a great big long hug. Santa came in wearing his outfit, sans jacket and cap. This was Santa in suspenders, off duty, but ever the Santa.

He sat down with the kids on the lobby couch and they looked wide-eyed at this amazing man. Just then, they did something he did not expect. The children pulled out a small present for Santa. Now normally Santa knows how to handle every situation with kids as they always come up with surprises, but this made him come to a breath-taking stop. Later on he told me, no kid had ever given him a present. This had hit him in his core. You have to remember, he is still a man, it is Thanksgiving, he is far away from his home and family, and these two precious kids are giving him something from their hearts.

Each year after that, the kids would get a postcard from Santa, via the North Pole, somewhere in Montana. I don’t care what they say, he was the real deal.

Elmer was appropriately named. He looked just like Elmer Fudd, a round-faced keg of a little old man. He was a passenger of mine on the Chicago and North Western. He would board at Main Street in Evanston and exit at Central, where he worked at the White Hen. The cost for that two stop ride for a senior citizen was 65 cents.

One day I ripped and punched a ticket for him, shushing his attempt at payment with a hand gesture implying that I was doing so on the sly. The truth was that I was paying for it. 65 cents was a pittance given my salary. Later that evening I would pick him up at Central and take him back to Main Street.

One day soon after, he boarded at Central and shushingly handed me a paper bag. In it was a Coke and a Hostess Cupcake. We continued this thievery as long as my seniority allowed my holding of the job.

Then one night when I picked him up at Main Street, he confessed that he was a little angry. His wife had passed away a few days before, and his boss would not let him have the night off to attend the wake.

The petty larcenies continued until I bounced to other assignments and lost track of him. I wonder how much longer he lived after his wife’s passing. I’ve often thought about how my actions caused him to steal, while staying within the boundaries of legality myself. But this morning, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, he was paying for his “thefts” too.

Christmas time in Chicago always had that neat feel about it. Trees twinkling with festivity, shop windows pitching their solution to your Christmas needs, and commuters sharing a bottle of cheer on their train ride home.

One such night I was working a passenger train from Chicago to Waukegan. On a typical job the crew would make 2-3 round trips during the course of a shift. This run was the last of the day, with our final stop in Waukegan. I was working the last three cars. Each car held about two hundred passengers. Clybourn was where we started our “sweep,” where we went from car to car punching tickets, collecting cash fares, and nodding to those with monthly passes.

Somewhere around Evanston this guy gets up, bible in hand, and walks up and down the aisles telling everyone they are all going to hell and that they had better repent. I tried to make light of the situation, responding that actually some are going to Winnetka, which is pretty nice, but I might concede on Great Lakes. Sailors called that the armpit of the nation.
The passengers, however, were not amused. They were tired. Theirs was a long day, waking and boarding an early train in, and a late one home.

I tried reasoning with the guy, telling him to quit, that these folks needed a rest. He would not have any of that. Then I made a bargain. If he promised to quit harassing my passengers, I would attend his church that evening. Somehow it came out in the conversation that they were having a service that night in Waukegan. He agreed with the deal. The rest of the ride home was quiet. I let the remaining passengers out at Waukegan and threw a few switches to put the train away.

The church was only a few blocks away. It was the Pentecostal brand. I would go in, but in no way was I going to dip my hand in a bucket full of snakes. It was a small church, probably repurposed from a more successful one that had grown too big.
I saw the guy there and nodded in his direction. He faded into the crowd. I’ll bet it wasn’t five minutes into the service they all started speaking in tongues, the whole bunch of them. That was just a little too weird for me. I split.

I picked up a six pack of beer and a couple of tacos for the one hour fifteen-minute trip home. The Pentecostal guy did not show up on the train the rest of the week. After that, my assignment changed to another route. A different conductor probably would have thrown the guy off the train, but, you know, back in the time of Christ, they thought John the Baptist was a kook too.

January, 1977.

I was a brakeman on the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad, working at West Chicago on the night shift,11:30 pm to 7:30 am. It was nineteen below zero. Reports factored the wind chill to be minus seventy. Normally we would be switching cars for thru freights to pick up, but on this night we were ordered to cease activities and remain in the yard office, due to the extreme cold. There wouldn’t be any outbound trains anyway, it was much too cold to keep the air brakes operating in that weather.

A report came in that there was a derailment between Geneva and Elburn. The crew was able to save the engine and thirteen trailing cars. The conductor and rear brakeman were safe in the way car (caboose), and were relieved of their duties when the West Chicago car knockers arrived. They were dead anyway (no, not dead physically, this was a term we used when your twelve hours had run up and you could no longer work according to the FRA regulations.)
We took our old switch engine west of Geneva, where we found the thirteen head cars. I hooked them up and rode the point (holding on to the iron grab bars on the end of a box car) for what seemed like an hour, using only a lantern to signal back to the engineer. The wind was brutal, blowing freezing snow. It was damn hard to see with only a lantern. Fortunately, I had popped in a heavy duty bulb, one that would drain a six volt battery in eight hours. Those were the brightest bulbs you could find, so much better than standard issue.

I was wearing a pair of Carhartt insulated coveralls, Sorel boots, Navy issue earmuffs, a leather face mask, wool hat, wool socks, blue jeans, thermal underwear, t shirt, heavy sweater, and a pair of leather railroad mittens. The humidity from my breath caused my beard to freeze to the leather mask. Despite all of that, it was darn cold.
Finally we came upon the rest of the train. The car knockers had already pulled the lead car back on the tracks and had changed the knuckle. I signaled to the engineer to connect the cars, hooked up the air brakes, and hopped back into that ever loving warm switch engine.

You don’t easily forget nights like that.

July 17, 1981
Other than that, it was a typical trip on the North Shore line of the Chicago and North Western Railroad suburban system. The passengers ended their usual workday, boarding the train in Chicago, bound for various stops along the way to Waukegan. I was working on the train as a collector – a fancy term we gave to brakemen who served on commuter trains. Almost everyone would address us as “conductor”, but most of us ignored the misnomer. We were employed as ticket collectors, not language correctors. Working on the rear cars, it was also my job to open and close the doors at each and every stop, ensuring that passengers boarded and detrained safely.

On this evening, this train had an extra stop scheduled for Ravinia Park. It was normal to make the stop on nights when there was a concert planned. But it didn’t make sense for the train to stop this night, you see, the singer/songwriter Harry Chapin was scheduled to perform, and he had passed away the day before as the result of a tragic car accident. I could only guess that the train dispatcher hadn’t changed the train orders, and that neither the engineer nor the fireman had radioed for instructions. Maybe they didn’t know.

The stop was coming up, and I figured that I would perform my duties as usual. As the train came to a halt, I opened the doors and stepped out onto the platform. It was quiet, no one in sight. Silently, I offered a prayer for Harry. After an appropriate pause, I boarded the train, leaned out, and waved an all clear to the engineer. I closed the doors, and we left. In the end, it made all the sense. Waukegan could wait. Seven hundred tons of steel had paused in the rush of things, marking the only time a train would stop and pay homage to a deserving artist.

I heard a very touching story yesterday about an older teen. He had been withdrawn for years, listless. He was there, but generally unresponsive to the proddings of others. His parents had run the gamut of taking him to various doctors and psychologists. For some time, he was on psychotropic drugs to treat what they thought was depression. When classmates tried to approach him, they were met with hostility. “Fuck off. Leave me alone.” he muttered, head bent downwards, reflecting his unworthy state.
Then one day, he is in English class. The bell rings. All the other kids leave. He stays in the back of the room, motionless. His teacher asks him if things are all right. He says “I’m afraid.” “What are you afraid of?”, she asks. “There’s someone behind me. There always is. I’m afraid.”

The teacher calls his parents and tells them about this. They take the child home. More testing. More doctors. Finally they find one who understands. He is not depressed. He has paranoid schizophrenia. The prescription changes. And all of a sudden, he becomes a young man. He opens up. He speaks freely to others. He is sorry about the transgressions from his former state, but he understands. “That’s how I was before.”

He is an artist. I’m told he has a vision into things you and I would never see. His teacher asks him to draw a pencil, and to give the pencil emotion. He draws a room, three dimensional. Or should I say four? There is a pencil on a desk, all shriveled up. Bent. Unworthy of attention. And on all of the walls, on the ceiling, on the floor, there are hashmarks, drawn with pencil. Four vertical lines, one slash. Counting the days the pencil was in this prison.

Ed and I used to talk about art a lot. The question was always the same “What is art?” Ed’s focus was on the visual arts, mine on the written word, but to us this was irrelevant. We agreed that art was something bigger than us, something holy in a sense, something us mere mortals were trying to capture or convey. There was lots that we disagreed on, but you have to remember this took place during more civil times, when folks could suffer different notions without staining conversations with greasy invective.
So what is art? Actually, I don’t think I’m any closer to answering that question than when we raised it some time ago. Just as there are good and bad influences, there is good and bad art. Or maybe there’s no bad art at all, it being so removed from the influences of the angelic that we are simply experiencing poorly arranged medium, be it from the stroke of a pen or of a brush. We know when it is good. The artist has conveyed to us a moment of us in our fallen condition, or he has shown us the beauty in a fragment of time.

Around that same time, Ed and I made a bet. The goal was to see who would move to California first. The loser would have to pay the winner a million dollars, provided that he felt comfortable doing so. Ed was one of the first ones that I called when I moved onto a boat in the port of Los Angeles.
“I beat you, Ed. You owe me a million dollars.”
“Fuck you, you’re on the water, that doesn’t count.”
“No, fuck you, I’m well within the 12 nautical mile limit.”

It was a good natured argument between two old friends.
But Ed beat me to someplace better, and I concede the win. He passed away yesterday after a tough battle with cancer. The pain is gone, the suffering is gone, and the troubles that come with our human condition are gone.
Dear Ed, the expression you have while holding your beautiful granddaughter, that is art.
May you rest in peace.

Pennies from Heaven

Pennies would show up in odd places. Streets, sidewalks, Metro platforms. I’ve found them all my life, but never as pronounced as during the time while I was living in Los Angeles. One time I was walking on a diagonal crossing at 4th and Colorado in Santa Monica. I saw a very bright penny on the street. Then another, and another. All leading me back to the Expo line. I took these as small down payments on God’s promise to me that He would look after me during my exile.

And then one day…a charming French couple came to visit. But first, the back story.

I was becoming a regular at St Joan of Arc on Gateway Boulevard in Los Angeles. Curious about the namesake, I watched the 1928 restored film ‘The Passion of Joan of Arc’ , directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. I read Mark Twain’s ‘Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.’ I was taken by the faith of this young woman. And then, as previously mentioned, this lovely French couple came to visit. Actually, she was French, he was Turkish. One Saturday evening they prepared a feast, beef bourguignon. It was marvelous. We dined in the French manner, taking hours to consume what had taken hours to make. The wine and conversation flowed. And then, I asked our guest about Joan of Arc. As it turns out, she was from Rouen, the village where Joan of Arc was burned to the stake. A small coincidence.

At bedtime the thought came to my head (don’t ask me why,) that I should give a penny to her to bring back to France. My head met the pillow and my thoughts went into the netherworld. I woke up early the next morning and left for Mass at St Joan of Arc. Normally, I would enter in the side door of the church, but for some reason, I gravitated to the front door. As I walked up the steps, what do you think I found, on the very top step, at the very corner? Yep, it was a penny. This was just too coincidental for me. My insides laughed. In my mind, God has a sense of humor, and I said to him “Really?”

On the way home from church my mom called. I asked her what she was doing. She said she was looking at old photos of my aunt and uncle from the time they lived in Santa Monica. She said that she had found some pictures of the church they used to attend. I asked her the name of the church, but in my heart I already knew the answer. She said it was St Joan of Arc. So here I am after having just found this miracle penny, and God throws another wink and grin in my face.

I took the penny home and put it in cellophane with one of my business cards. Later that morning I told the story to the French gal and asked if she would return the penny to France. “Leave it somewhere, perhaps at the church, perhaps somewhere else. Leave it where your heart moves you.”

She said that she would do so gladly, and that she would take a picture and share it with me. I said that maybe some day I would return to France and find it, or that my children might find it.

So somewhere in France there is a penny that once sat on the steps of the St Joan of Arc parish in Los Angeles. Perhaps it will find its way to another church. Or maybe it will fall out of her purse, leaving it for someone else to pick up and see the message that God is with them.

This modern day Odysseus spends part of his exile at the Chowder Barge in the Port of Los Angeles eating cheeseburgers. Poseidon loosens his hold just long enough for Odysseus to land an apartment near Santa Monica, where he will spend the next five months in Hollywood exile. Calypso runs an AirBnb.  Meanwhile, Penelope keeps up the house in West Dundee with her Irish Terrier, Telemachus.

Up until the mid-year of 2017, I was living a predictable, somewhat comfortable, altogether normal Chicago suburban life. Then the shite hit the fan.  The client who I spent most of my time supporting decided to outsource all its application support in preparation for a merger.  There were warning signs well in advance which I had communicated to the CEO, but he had other concerns on his mind.  Six months later, the company folded due to financial duress.  I spent most of those six months looking for work, only to find at the end that I had only once choice and that was to move to Los Angeles to work for AAA of Southern California.

The job was a dream.  A small team of us were selected to assume ownership of a core business application.  Our offices were close to downtown LA, fitted with all the perks befitting a startup:  A gorgeous Spanish style compound in the middle of LA with a courtyard missing only Clint Eastwood’s presence to render it complete.  How I wished we could have had a Lee Van Cleef or an Eli Wallach for a project manager. There were no cubes, just electronic saw horses and liftable desks.  There was a ping pong room that was well used, a Keurig fitted with a king’s selection of coffees and teas, and a refrigerator stocked with water and sodas, and an ultimatum that our objective was to induce change in the culture.

That was certainly a cool part, but there were other aspects much more entertaining, including a Russian colonel, an industrial port, and a Hollywood star.  A chronological peel will reveal all.

Let’s start with the journey.  I made my way to Los Angeles on the mid-northern route in late January, travelling through Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Nevada. The last leg of the trip was the shortest, and since I left around 5 am, my arrival in LA was in the early afternoon. 

My first stop was Santa Monica on a Friday afternoon.  I stomped my feet in the Pacific, then crawled up the pier to the end, contemplating this changed life.  Later on I sipped a glass of Cabernet on the rooftop of the Promenade.  It made no sense to drive to Huntington Beach in rush hour.  Besides, who wants to race to a Motel 6? 

The next morning, I got up early and faced the challenge of finding a place to stay.  I messaged an old high school friend, replying privately and late to a post of hers on LA life. Everything I found required extensive background checks, thousands of dollars per month in rent, with equal amounts in security deposits.  I had $300 in my pocket.  Like a good Catholic kid, I found a nearby church in Newport Beach and went there to talk to the Big Guy.

My usual calm demeanor held until my knees landed in the pew.  At that point, huge tears started rolling down my eyes.  I hadn’t planned on that.  I told God “This has to be your plan, because I would never dream up anything as crazy or stupid as this. This is certainly not MY plan!”  I also informed Him that “YOU have a problem, because I can’t figure this one out!” As usual, He listened and said nothing.  But that doesn’t mean He wasn’t working on it.

I got back to the hotel, and within the hour, my old acquaintance asked me if I had a place to stay.  I said that I didn’t.  This Heaven-sent friend then pulled every string she could, having her daughter put me on several Facebook groups for LA apartment seekers, until finally she messaged me that she found me a place.  It was with an old friend of the family. She gave me his phone number, so I could work out the details. 

A little later I called my wife Sue with the good news.  I found a place to stay.  She was at a party with the family present, so she put me on speakerphone and relayed the information to those who couldn’t hear, repeating my every word. 

“I found a place to stay.”

“He found a place to stay.”

“It has a small living room and a small kitchen.”

“He has a small living room and a small kitchen.”

“It also has a small bedroom and a small bathroom.”

“The place has a small bedroom and a small bathroom.”

“It also has an anchor.”

“It also has an anchor.  Wait, did you say anchor?”

“Yes.”

“You are going to live on a boat?”

“Yep, smack dab in the Port of Los Angeles. A cabin cruiser on a dock.”

Such was my entry to Los Angeles.  The boat had water, electric, and a large screen TV. I cooked on a microwave and bathed in a communal bathroom up on the hill.  The boat was in the industrial section of the Port of Los Angeles.  I was surrounded by an oil refinery, railroad trains, and shipping containers. A concrete river from LA emptied into the harbor, bringing with it all that LA had rejected, including an assortment of debris and homeless bric-a-brac. The trains bellowed all hours of the day, indifferent to the handful of people living there.  One resident explained it this way “You’ve heard of Darwin, right? In evolution the theory is that creatures crawled out of the sea and eventually became Man.  Us down here we are what the land spit back.”

The next month I flipped around on several Airbnbs, living in Norwalk, Altadena, Long Beach, and North Hollywood.  It was in the latter that I met the Russian colonel.  The house was weird.  It was managed by Ukrainians.  They had built walls inside of the living and dining rooms so that there was more space to rent.  But the walls didn’t go to the ceiling.  A person could toss a tennis ball over the wall and hit a person sleeping.  I was glad to get a normal room.  Boris (not his real name) and his wife Olga also got a normal room.  Boris explained that he was a former colonel in the Russian police. He had managed a SWAT team, provided security for the Soviet leadership, and managed hundreds of square kilometers in Siberia.  Boris was genuine and funny.  He was a strapping big guy.  I felt safer in this weird neighborhood. If anyone broke into this house, they would have to go through him first. 

A transient sort had checked into the house one night.  He was a young kid from Kentucky with colored hair and a hoop expander in his earlobe.  I’m not sure what the expander was for, but you could have hung an assortment of fishhooks and lures in the hole, it was so big. 

One night, the kid was gone, we were standing in the kitchen, and Olga suddenly stopped and pointed to the makeshift wall of the transient’s room.  “There he is!” she said in her native Russian.  All I could see was a small black spot on the unfinished drywall.  Boris crushed the spot with the back of his index fingernail.  He lifted his fingernail to his nose, sniffed, and proclaimed “Bedbug.”  “How do you know that, I asked?”  He replied “Bedbug smell like cognac.  I know, we have many in Russia.”  That prompted us to scramble to our rooms, lifting the bedsheets to uncover whatever.  Gladly, we didn’t find any more.  Boris reasoned that the bedbug came from the transient, as he noticed the night before when the transient was washing his clothes, most of them had grass and lawn clutter drifting off. On our last night, we celebrated with a few beers and shots. Boris entertained with his great sense of humor.  He and Olga sure made it easier to cope with the weirdness of North Hollywood.

What I haven’t mentioned yet is how much I missed Sue.  We were thirty years into our marriage.  In her absence, I could see how much she had become a part of me.  My weaknesses were her strengths, and vice versa. She would have found a more permanent domicile by now.  I examined it to death.  But after a month of moving around, I had to end my own life as a drifter.  Finally, I put an ad on Facebook, looking for a place. 

The ad was pretty direct.  It said:

“Ok, I’ve been following this site for a little while now and it is my turn to post. I’m looking to rent a room in Santa Monica. I’m a married guy so I’m not looking for any hanky panky. (Circumstances have placed me here in Los Angeles while she remains in Chicago.)

I’m Irish Catholic, I don’t smoke, and I don’t do drugs. I’d post a glamour shot of me, but I don’t want to frighten any children, including my own.

I work as a software engineer downtown, so I’m one of those early to bed early to rise folks.

Ideally, I’d prefer a spot in Jennifer Aniston’s pool house, as long as she would be OK with an aging pool boy living there.

One last thing, Erin go bragh everyone, but feck the green beer!”

The first response was from a girl who indicated that we would be a good match.  I replied that I was busy at work, perhaps we could speak at noon.  About fifteen minutes before noon, I looked closer at her profile.  Her picture was cropped, showing her face only from the mustache down. Holy smokes, welcome to Los Angeles.  The Kinks song “Lola” started running through my head “Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man but I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man and so is Lola. L-O-L-A Lola…” Needless to say, I passed.

Later that night, I was on my way back from Santa Ana and I called Sue.  We spoke every morning and every night.  Some nights we would hang on the line for minutes, not saying a word, just glad that we were connected.  A few minutes passed and I asked Sue what she was doing.  She said she was watching television. She was watching a show called “Fresh Off The Boat.”  I said ok, and then we hung up shortly after. 

Later that evening I settled into the Roach Palace.  I exaggerate.  There were no roaches, but the kitchen and yard were in dire need of a cleanup.  The bedroom and bathroom were actually ok. The neighborhood was a working-class area in Long Beach with a heavy Latino population. There was a grocery store a half block away that had great tamales. 

After dinner, I took a call from a very personable gal. She said she had a room in her house and maybe this could work out. We hit it off well during the call.  I could tell she was a normal person, not another Lola, and she could tell I wasn’t an axe murderer.  We agreed to meet on Sunday, and if all went well, I would move in.  But before she hung up she said, “You know that thing you mentioned about Jennifer Aniston?”  “Yeah?” I replied.  “Well, you won’t be living with her, but you will be living with another Hollywood star.”  “Who is that?” I replied.  “My son Hudson.  He is on the TV show “Fresh Off The Boat.”

That was a classic example of a Godwink.  It’s a way of God telling you, everything is going to be ok. And it was.  Heather was wonderful. Her family was wonderful. She gave me a home away from home, and she made my time away from Sue a little easier. She made awesome Asian dinners.  I’ve never had better rice in my life. 

And faith?  God was there the whole time.  On the boat, off the boat, and on my travels home. I’m back home now with a host of stories and an even deeper faith. Troy is in the sunset.  Telemachus has four paws, a beard, and an urge to lick my neck. It’s good to be back.