Description: Ralph

He’s named Allan Michaelson. No one has ever called him by that name.

His mother was a gypsy fortune-teller. “Mistress Lola.” No psychic powers whatsoever, real name Irene.

“Dave something Scottish” was his father, in his mother’s words. “I was fifteen, love. I didn’t write them things down.”

He was born in Britain. He came to the U.S. at eighteen.

Once I asked him if his kind of British accent was Romany. He said no, in his case, “gypsy” just meant “trailer trash.”

Once he spent a year in the Rockies, meditating, only coming to town to buy tinned meat, tea and gas for his pick-up. He ate wild mushrooms and burdock. He lived in a tent and meditated ten hours a day.

When I asked him what effect it had, he said, “None.”

He was good-looking like an excellent statue of a homely man. He moved well, just that, but it gave him status in groups.

6'2", broad-shouldered, baritone, that disheartening litany. White Male Deluxe.

A nice guy who wiped his shoes, who said “Gesundheit.”

Just walking around the car to Eddie’s side, he made me stare, I didn’t know what it was but

it made your throat hurt and your heart speed up, and you didn’t understand what he said.

He said something to Eddie and put one hand on the Hyundai, turned and first laid eyes on me. Then his face changed and he went absolutely still.

“Chrysa, my guru,” Eddie said, and lit his cigarette.

Ralph was absolutely fucking still.

“Hello,” I said, which is the very hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“Hi,” said Ralph, in this hoarse, carrying voice. Then he rubbed his eyes with one hand as if clearing an irksome misapprehension and turned to get his bearings.

The courtyard is overlooked by two stone towers, each with a belfry from which the bells have been removed. Between them runs the coastal wall. Each tower develops into a house: the main wing to the left, with its balconies and fancy ironwork railings; on the right the smaller guest wing, whose rooms, on the ground floor, are only separated from the pool by sliding doors. On fine nights you can sleep there with the walls open, breathing in the jasmine. The pool is Olympic-sized, with mosaic fish and mermaids worked into the tiles. There are palm trees and statues. None of this seemed to surprise Ralph. The pink bra in the tree, the many spoons – none of it.

He did stare at the keyhole doorway leading out onto the beach. It startles most people when they see it for the first time. Since we’re on a cliff, all it shows is greenish, yawning distance. It takes a while to put together the rumble of the ocean and the hole, which seems to open onto the Void.

This Void impression colors a person’s first appreciation of what the property must be worth.

Ralph seemed to ponder, looking up and down the high walls. At last he shook his head. “Jesus,” he said, “is this all yours?”

Eddie and I looked at each other. In that moment we were actually brother and sister. To anyone else, that house is one magnificent piece of real estate. To us, it’s, oh, that’s where you ate a snail when you were eight and Mom told you the snail was in hell. And remember doing Tarzan off the balcony with jump-ropes? All our lives, too, we have been escorting new friends into the real estate and watching their feelings toward us insidiously change.

Eddie raised his eyebrows and turned to follow Ralph’s gaze. “Yeah . . .” he drawled, chewing on his cigarette. “Doesn’t it make you sick, when you think of all the homeless people?”