(Late Morning, Thursday, March 26)
It’s now been fifteen days since I entered my home without the use of a bathroom window.
Following Andy’s counsel, I have stayed away. Anything I needed beyond what I grabbed earlier, I’ve purchased. Lindsey has appreciated my efforts and said yesterday that she’d like to meet somewhere soon and talk. She sounded less intense. I’ve picked Jennifer up from school several times to have that time together I missed two weeks ago. Things seem to be getting better.
Back at the Marriott, I’ve trained housekeeping, through a series of daily notepad instructions and exorbitant tipping, to take care of my dry cleaning and leave a bowl of oranges on the counter each evening. I love oranges and probably worry I could get scurvy or something, living in a hotel. I’m also putting in a pretty consistent hour of weights almost every night in the exercise room downstairs, which is more than I was getting at home.
I gotta say, there’s something I’ll miss when I move out of hotel life. You make a mess and someone cleans it up. And they smile at you for the privilege of doing so. Nobody’s on you about making the bed, and you can watch whatever you want on TV. And people are nice to you. Everywhere you go: “Hello, sir.” “Nice day, isn’t it, sir?” “You think the Lakers will beat the Spurs tonight, sir?” Nobody calls me “sir” at home.
Today I’m supposed to meet Andy again. I almost called it off. I’m feeling manipulated by him. His revving engine drowned out any chance for response the other night. I don’t mind driving around in the evenings, but this is a workday. Monday through Friday is a nonstop blur of fifteen-minute meetings and cell messages. To top it off, I left the office yesterday feeling as if a coup is brewing between a couple of board members and our head of human resources, all aimed in my direction. I don’t get Whitney. She’s the head of HR, but she’s far more effective as director of rallying the board against Steven. I need to get there before they convene any more private teleconferences.
Andy is already there when I pull up to Fenton’s, sitting comfortably with his arm across the front seat of his car. He looks as if he slept in his clothes. I feel incredibly conspicuous in my suit. But I needed to wear it today for an earlier meeting. He’s wearing those same dated sunglasses. I’m wearing my Oakleys, but he hands me a pair of thick, heavy, old-school shades. “About your sunglasses,” he says. “Uh, how do I say this delicately? These might look better, don’t you think?”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Look,” I shoot back. “These are top-of-the-line. Light as a feather. The best out there. Yours look like you found them under a pile of old clothes at a thrift store.”
“Are you kidding?” He scrunches up his face in disbelief. “Who would throw away a pair of these babies? You’ll never find a pair of Wayfarers at a thrift store, buddy. These are Ray-Bans, my friend. The genuine article. Bob Dylan’s wearing these on the cover of Highway 61.”
He hands them to me again and says, “Humor me.”
I begrudgingly put on his twenty-pound sunglasses, and we’re off.
This whole thing doesn’t feel right. In daylight, this whole whatever it is feels really odd. I don’t know if I’m frustrated with Andy’s sunglasses issues or with having to cancel three meetings while he takes for granted that I will. I did appreciate our talk on the hill last week. It was good to get that all out. And as much as I wanted to choke him during that phone call from my house, what he told me was probably right. It sure seems to have worked with Lindsey. But it’s time to end these therapy rides. I need to tell Andy enough to let him know he’s in over his head. He already knows way more than I’m ready to let anyone into. I know how these things go. You let one person in on an issue, and the next moment you’re sitting in a circle with a bunch of slugs still living at home, one of them saying, “What Steven needs is a giant hug!”
So I’ll frighten the old guy a bit. Give him a few choice excerpts from the last fight with Lindsey. Then I can thank him for his concern and get back to my world.
“Andy, I’ve got real anger issues,” I blurt out over the noise in the car.
He looks over at me and smiles. “Really? Now, see, I never would have guessed that. Anger, huh? Shoplifting, maybe, but anger you say. Boy, you think you know a guy.”
I yell louder. “You’re not taking me seriously!”
He glances over again. “You are aware you’re yelling really loud, right?”
I kind of want to punch him at this point. “Are you hearing what I’m saying?”
“Yeah, I get it,” he says. “You could go postal on me at any minute.” Andy rests his hand on the steering wheel. “So what sounds good for lunch?”
“I mean it, Andy. Something is wrong. I explode at my wife, my associates, sometimes even my daughter, Jennifer. It’s a real thing. I’ve done it for a long time.”
“I believe you,” he says. “Do you want to rage right now? I could pull over.”
I look back at him blankly.
“Otherwise, I need lunch. What do you say we head out to one of my favorite places? They serve a shrimp cocktail that’ll cure rickets. This is not conventional shrimp cocktail. This puppy’s got huge purple onions, cucumbers, and big fresh shrimp. They serve it on a plate. On a plate, for crying out loud!”
“What is with you, Andy?”
“What’s with me?” he asks. “I’m not the loud, angry guy.”
He looks over long enough to see that I’m not smiling. Then slowly and clearly he says, “Steven, I understand that you have an anger issue. I get it. I understand it’s a big deal. It hurts people you care about. I believe you. I also believe you don’t have much confidence that I, or anyone else, can help you. And so you’re playing it like a trump card so I won’t get too close. You threw that out in hopes of ending our times together.”
He continues looking ahead as he speaks. “Look, Steven, I have no desire to be your fixer. I want to be your friend. And friends learn to trust each other with their stuff so they can stand together. That and they borrow tools. So the more you can let me know the real Steven and the more I can let you know the real Andy, the sooner we can begin to sort things out. That’s it. That’s my angle. Period. I’m not scared off by your arrogance, your anger, or your rudeness. Now, you start ripping up my upholstery with a box cutter and that might freak me out a bit.
“If you want, we can turn this car around and be done with the whole thing. Or a guy with a real anger issue, sitting next to an equally flawed man, can go have some lunch. Angry people eat, don’t they?”
I stare at the floorboard and sigh. “Yeah, angry people eat.”
“Good,” he says with a nod, and the Electra seems to pick up speed a little. “I’m telling you, it doesn’t come in one of those little parfait cups. But on a plate.”
Once I resolve that I’m trapped, I actually find myself relaxing a little. I put my phone on vibrate and allow myself to calm down… as much as I can without a shoulder harness. I fold my arms and lean back against the Cary Grant upholstery. Behind the oversized sunglasses, I close my eyes and try to let the sound of the wind block out everything.
I must have nodded off for a few minutes because when I open my eyes Andy is parking the Electra across from what looks like some kind of impromptu street market.
Where are we?
Makeshift booths and little trailers with rolled-out cloth awnings line the street. The people inside are selling flowers, fruit, vegetables. It’s like a throwback to an earlier era. Locals are out walking dogs, riding bicycles, and buying zucchini. It’s like this market is giving the neighborhood an occasion to get out and introduce itself. It must be a regular thing because the people in the booths call out to customers as if they’re old friends.
Andy’s not saying a word. He’s allowing me to figure out the scene for myself.
The folks look like working people, chatting, laughing, yelling loudly. A smiling guy in a flannel shirt heaves a crate of nectarines up onto a counter. Behind the counter, a woman with her hair covered in a bandanna and wearing dirty bib overalls and a very stained apron is chiding him about the quality of the fruit he brought her last week.
In the center of all the activity, a delivery truck is unloading fish into the side door of a restaurant. They’re taking the occasion to make their fresh catches available to the locals. Two men are hauling huge, bloody cuts onto several nearby tables covered with newspaper. Two teenage girls are shouting, laughing, and throwing around what appears to be yellowtail tuna like bags of sand. The guy’s daughters, I imagine. I think about Jenny. I can’t picture the two of us slinging fish together. She’d never relax around me enough to keep from dropping them.
The smell of fish is heavy but not bad. It’s kind of nice. Something real. I’m struck that not much of my life is like this. When was the last time I walked through a street market? When was the last time I walked around without my laptop on a Thursday afternoon?
Suddenly someone begins to yell in our direction from across the street. An immense, bearded, dark-skinned man is approaching us, and he’s not smiling. “Andy Monroe! What the deal is? You bring the suit down here to audit us?” He’s signing for the fish delivered into his restaurant.
“No!” Andy yells back. “You have to actually make money for someone to audit you. The suit’s here to foreclose on you.”
The immense bearded man leans back and laughs hard. “Git on in here now. Tell the suit lunch is on me.”
Immediately we’re ushered through the front doors of a seafood restaurant called Pacific Bayou, which Andy tells me everyone calls Bo’s. The large man is Bo. He is as loud as he is intimidating. We’re whisked through the dining room and out onto a patio, where several tables and some standing heaters sit on a deck.
Bo, with a firm grip on my arm, guides me to a nearby table. “Your friend, he sits right here at this table every Thursday, summer, winter, rain or shine. What the deal is with that? Don’t ask me, cher. Git you a seat. You need a menu?”
But Andy’s at my side again. “Bo, this is my friend Steven. He has an anger issue.”
“Like I don’t?” Bo says, fixing me with a devastating stare.
“We need a bucket of clams,” Andy says. “I’ll have the jambalaya and a glass of ice. My friend needs your shrimp cocktail.”
“We got us none of dat,” Bo bellows. “We got us carp. You git you some six-day-old carp, and you’ll like it.”
With that Bo disappears back into the restaurant, barking out orders, insults, and greetings in every direction.
“He says that almost every time, no matter what I order. One day I’m gonna order six-day-old carp and see what he does.”
I shake my head a little. “The guy’s pretty intimidating. I guess he’s kidding, but he sure doesn’t look like it.”
“He’s a pussycat, trust me,” Andy says, grinning. “He came out here about twelve years ago from New Orleans with two thousand dollars and a headful of recipes. And he’s done well.”
“Yeah, Cajun was catching on about then. Who ever heard of the stuff before that? He caught a good wave apparently.”
“Not just a wave,” he says. “A guy like Bo will do well no matter what the current rage is. Sorry about the word rage,” he mumbles under his breath. “I know it’s a sensitive area for you.”
I smile. “Good one,” I say.
“But really,” he continues, “he loves what he does and loves seeing people smile when they taste his food. He’s the kind of guy who takes care of his customers. When you do the job for the love of it, it’s hard to go wrong.”
“So where does a name like Bo come from?” I ask.
“Bodinet LaCombe,” a booming voice returns just behind my ear. I about jump out of my skin. Bo is there with a glass of water and a glass of ice. “Now who gonna go around with a name like Bo-din-day?” he says, mocking the pronunciation. “Not dis Creole!”
Bo disappears again and Andy leans in toward me. “Steven, a lot of my friends come here on Thursdays. Sort of a regularly scheduled meeting you don’t have to show up for. So usually everybody does. I wanted to introduce you to some of my world. There’s someone here I’d really like you to meet. The person who helped me through a lot.”
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the deck begins to fill with dozens of people who all seem to know Andy. The interactions are so fast and fun, I’m almost afraid to speak. Andy smiles and whispers, “Relax. Just be you. They’re all mostly harmless.”
I’m so overwhelmed at first that I fail to notice that the deck is in front of an ocean. And the restaurant marks the entrance to a pier. I suddenly know exactly where we are. This used to be my world. We’re at Washington between Marina del Rey and Venice Beach. This cul-de-sac has been home to impromptu farmers markets all the way back to my childhood. There’s nothing like this stretch. The pier has always separated Southern California wealth and opulence from maybe the most bizarre strand of post-hippie culture anywhere in the world.
Wow! I haven’t been here in a long time.
As Andy works the deck, I replay memories of riding bikes down here with childhood friends.
My gaze is interrupted as I notice a striking and stylishly dressed middle-aged woman at the table next to me. She is beautiful in the way all women should be when they get to their fifties. Her hair is as wild as her colorfully flowing peasant dress. On both arms she wears a bundle of thin silver bracelets, which make light clinking sounds as she moves. She isn’t trying to hide the gray that has crept in, which makes her even more cool and beautiful. I want to take a picture and tell Lindsey, “Remember this. This is what you must look like twenty years from now.”
Maybe I’ll wait on that for a bit.
She looks so totally at peace and comfortable with herself in the midst of a noticeably younger crowd. She is tapping away at a laptop. She glances over and gives me a kind smile and nod. Andy notices my staring as he returns to the table.
“That’s Cynthia. I wanted you to meet her first. She’s working on a book. Something about first-generation immigrants in America.”
“Working, as in laboring, as in plodding… ,” she adds, drifting effortlessly from her table to ours. “Forgive my rudeness, but I have a flair for overhearing conversations.”
Andy stands. “Cynthia, this is—”
“Steven,” she finishes without missing a beat.
Great. Another mind reader.
She reaches for my hand, her bracelets making that jingling sound. Cynthia looks as if she could be my sixty-two-year-old mother—if my mother were a lot hipper, flamboyant, and attractive.
Cynthia is at once incredibly disarming and overwhelming. She’s one of those rare people who can sit too closely (as she is at this moment), without you minding much. She seems to be studying your eyes, reading your personal history while casually mulling among any of seven different thoughts that might come out of her mouth.
Andy interrupts. “I’ve got to wash up. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Suddenly the moment is broken. What have I gotten myself into? I’ve got to get back to work.
There is an awkward silence for a few moments. Cynthia is very content to just smile and stare at me.
“So you’re writing a book?” I ask, mostly to stop the silence and the staring.
She rolls her eyes. “Ohh!” she says. “I’m never going to survive it.”
“It’s about immigrants?”
“Refugees, mostly. Dear, there are rather consistent characteristics to every people group that most easily adapt into a new culture. Did you know that?”
Before I can answer she continues, “Of course you didn’t. That’s why I’m writing the book, isn’t it? Somehow I convinced the publisher there’s a market.” Her eyes twinkle a little. “Who knows? Maybe I’ll get rich. More likely they’ll make nice Christmas gifts. It’s really just something I enjoy doing.”
More silence…
“My dear, have you noticed you’re not saying anything? One of the primary requisites for a conversation is the back-and-forth part. I can’t do that on my own. I would if I could, as my husband will tell you. But right now you’re going to have to step to the plate.”
“Right,” I mutter. “Sorry, I’m a little new here.”
She laughs out loud and jumps up to smother me in a hug. “Well, if you aren’t the most precious thing in the world. ‘I’m a little new here.’ Honey, that’s like being a little engulfed in flames. No, you’re completely and utterly new here. And in a ridiculously nice suit, I might add!”
She laughs some more. Then she sits back down, gathers herself, and looks into my eyes again with great sincerity. “Steven, you were new seconds ago. But now you’ve been willing to let a silly old woman laugh at you and hug you. From this moment on you are no longer new. You’re a regular. Welcome to Bo’s, young man.” She hugs me again, jingling all over.
I mumble something back to her, but I am stunned. Less than an hour ago, I was trying to end the ride that brought me here. Now I’m taking in ocean air fused with the smell of shrimp and corn on the cob, smiling at this woman who is completely delighted at my awkwardness. She’s staring again, contentedly waiting for me to catch up. I’m not used to catching up. I’m also not used to noticing the way the waves crash against pylons on the pier. But that’s what I’m doing.
“Steven,” she eventually calls out.
My eyes come back into focus. “I’m sorry, Cynthia. I grew up around here. I’m just taking it all in.”
She pats my hand. “Forgive me, Steven. I can be a little much all at once. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But my friend Andy… he cares about you. So now you’re important to me. It’s kind of that simple. I don’t know if what I’m about to say will make any sense, but here goes.”
She is sitting too close again as she says, “Don’t miss what is being offered to you. It would be easy for you to miss it. You’ve got deadlines and quotas. When life is moving fast and in a straight line, it’s easy to discount anything slow and circular.”
“Miss what?” I ask.
“Forgive me again. I’m rushing ahead. It’s just that I wanted to get this out while Andy wasn’t at the table.” Cynthia’s smile and the way she puts her hand on my arm is reassuring.
“Let me back up a little,” she says. “I was Andy’s wife’s best friend—”
“Excuse me,” I interrupt. “Was Andy’s wife’s best friend?”
“My wife died, Steven,” Andy answers as he returns to the table. He turns his chair backward and sits, his arms folded across its top. “She contracted a quick-moving form of cancer. She fought courageously, but the cancer won.”
I blink once. Twice. “I’m sorry, Andy. How long ago did this happen?”
“It was about six years ago.” He stops. His mouth starts moving like he’s going to speak, but nothing comes out. He looks over at Cynthia.
I interrupt my own question. “We don’t have to talk about this right now.”
Andy continues as if I haven’t spoken. “When Laura died, I was a mess. I drifted away from almost everyone. People reached out, but I just wanted to be alone. Somehow I managed the bills and continued to work. But I was walking around like I was wearing several heavy winter coats. Each day my goal was just to make it back home and to bed.
“One night, about four months after her death, I was alone in that big house where all our life had happened. I was just overcome with grief. Blackness. I heard a knock at the door. It was Cynthia and her husband, Keith. They had takeout from a favorite Mexican place where the four of us used to go.”
Andy’s words lock up again. Tears come into his eyes. After a few moments he sighs and is able to speak again.
“We all sat down, and I started pouring out how depressed I was and how much I missed Laura.”
“Then I broke down,” Cynthia adds. “Oh, honey, we were basket cases, the three of us.”
Andy looks at me. “Steven, I didn’t plan on bringing this up.”
“No, go on. Please,” I say. This is the first info I’m getting on Andy apart from what I found on the Internet.
“I told Cyn and Keith that Laura had been my strength. I was the successful one out in the world, but now I was completely undone without her.
“Cynthia began walking me through some painfully good stuff that night. In the middle of wrestling with her own grief, she took the risk to tell me some hard things about myself that I’d avoided for a long time.”
“Wait,” I say. “Cynthia is the friend you were talking about who helped you?”
“Yeah,” he says, wiping his eyes. “She and Keith. But mostly Cyn.”
Before I can stop my words I say, “I didn’t think you were talking about a…”
“A woman?” the two of them say in unison, then laugh out loud.
I’m embarrassed, but I start laughing too.
“Oh, yes! A woman!” Cynthia says. She smiles at me—a smile that tells me she can see right through me and is fully prepared to enjoy me anyway.
At that moment two men appear and sprawl out at our table as though they’ve been there for days and just got up to use the restroom. One is a dark Hispanic man. Strikingly handsome, he has a big, beaming smile. He has on an old sport coat over a T-shirt tucked into jeans. He wears canvas shoes with no socks. Most can’t get away with this look, but this guy doesn’t really seem to care, which kind of makes it work. The other man is sturdy and bald with a forehead that could stop a truck. A linebacker’s forehead. His clothes have the rumpled look of a refrigerator salesman who does his own deliveries. The Hispanic guy is bantering with almost everyone—part English, part Spanish slang. I have yet to make out much of what he’s saying by the time they’ve settled in at our table. It’s all motion, jargon, and fun.
The handsome one extends a hand. “My man! You must be Steven. I am Carlos Badillo, at your service. And the Cro-Magnon–looking gentleman to my right is Hank.”
I’m half-tempted to look down to see if I’m wearing a name tag again. Carlos leans in, points at Hank, and under his breath warns, “Careful with him, man. He just got out from a stint in the slammer for a number of violent crimes against the elderly.”
Hank grunts back without smiling. “I was innocent on most of them charges, I swear.”
Carlos has thick jet-black hair, combed straight back. He looks to be thirty-something. Hank, easily ten years older than Carlos, appears fully capable of what his friend has accused him of. His piercing eyes and heftiness match his apparent intensity. He looks like a cage fighter on a lunch break.
“So talk,” Hank commands, gesturing to me.
Carlos nods in agreement. “I’m with him, man. Spill.”
They both sit there, staring at me, fiddling with packets of soup crackers as though they can’t go on with their routine unless I give some kind of response.
Andy rescues me. “Steven, these are two of my close friends. We’ve been meeting here on Thursdays, at this table, for a long time now.”
Like a kid, Carlos jabs me in the shoulder. “Hey, man, has he fed you the ‘bumping into furniture’ speech yet? It’s one of our favorites.”
Hank joins in. “Yeah, I love that one. Show him, Carlos. Show him. You do it best.”
Sheepishly, Carlos stands. “You think so?”
Both Cynthia and Hank nod in agreement.
He shakes out his hands like he’s about to perform a platform dive. “All right, this is my impersonation of Andy doing the ‘bumping into furniture’ speech.” He clears his throat. “ ‘It’s like you’re stumbling around in a dark room, bumping into furniture.’ ” Carlos leans over to me. “Then he’ll wait a few seconds, just to add drama, before he asks you—”
Carlos and Hank say in unison, “So how am I doing?”
With that, Carlos and Hank start slapping each other’s hands, laughing and wheezing. Several people on the deck seem to be enjoying the bit as well.
He was just guessing that night, I think, unsure whether it makes me feel better or worse.
Almost involuntarily, I ask, “Has he ever used the ‘pound of coffee’ thing on any of you?”
Carlos moans. “No way, man! You’re kidding me, right? He’s used that on you? Andy, I’m hurt, dude! I thought that was only for me. What, man? You stealing this stuff off the Internet?”
“I told you I was,” Andy protests.
More laughter rises from the deck.
The next several minutes are all aimed at Andy’s expense. He doesn’t even try to stop the barrage, laughing along at the ribbing. The waiters and busboys are joining in too. The deck is definitely out of control.
Sitting here amid the laughter, I realize I’m watching something pretty uncommon. It’s obvious that everyone on this deck deeply respects Andy. Their humor seems more of a way of honoring him. It’s very different from the kind of mocking humor at work. There’s no hard, cynical edge. Nothing competitive. They aren’t really ridiculing him at all. Quite the opposite, actually.
Not long after I down the last bites of a truly great shrimp cocktail, Andy, Cynthia, and Hank excuse themselves, promising to be back in a few minutes. I am left at the table with Carlos. He appears in no hurry to go anywhere.
“So, where do you think they’ve gone off to?” I ask.
“Hank, he sells drugs and munitions out of the back of his car,” Carlos says, not looking up from his food. “I’ve tried to steer Andy right, but he can’t resist. It’s a deadly combination, man.”
I laugh by myself. “So, Carlos, how long have you known Andy?”
“A few years now. Maybe five. We met down at the marina. I was checking out a place to keep this little boat I have. The place was way too expensive for this Mexican.”
“He owns a boat?”
“No. He works there.”
“Andy works at a dock?”
“Yeah. Just down the street, on Tahiti Way. Why?”
“Nothing, really. I guess I just thought that, well…”
He leans back. “That my man would have a more impressive career?”
“Well, yeah, maybe.”
“Well, suit, you’ve stumbled into a long story. You in a hurry?”
“I was about a half hour ago,” I say. “It’s starting to look like today’s going to be a wash at work. And Andy’s driving, so until he gets back… you think you could stop calling me ‘suit’?”
He chuckles. “I don’t think so, but I’ll try.”
“Fair enough.”
“You see the people around this deck?” he asks, leaning back in his chair to point at various people. “Most of them know each other. You got your doctors and lawyers. There’s a sheet metal guy, a city council member, a couple of plumbers. Tech nerds chillin’ with hospital workers. Shop owners, students from Loyola. See the woman in the purple top? She was on the Olympic volleyball team at Seoul. Now she runs a physical training center in Newport Beach.” He turns back to the table. “See that? We’ve got, like, celebrities here, man. And then there’s Hank. You wouldn’t know it, but he’s an environmental detective for the state attorney general.” He laughs hard. “That single fact alone should keep you up at night.”
“I think it will from now on,” I say.
“So most of us have, like, at least a couple things in common: One, we can’t live without Bo’s cooking. Two, most of us believe in God, or at least aren’t hating that the others do. It’s all word of mouth. And your new friend Andy, he’s kind of at the center of it. The whole shindig never probably would’ve happened without him. He’s had a pretty stinkin’ huge impact on a lot of lives.”
“I’m starting to catch on to that.”
Carlos slides his chair closer. “I think he figures most people don’t have someone safe enough when things go south. So the dude kind of watches for people who might be discovering they need something like that.”
“Kind of like me?” I ask.
Carlos ignores my question. “Everyone needs it. Everyone, man. Most just don’t see it. He’s always watching for it. May not seem like it. The cat sometimes seems like he’s listening to music in some other town. He doesn’t always seem…”
I try to help. “Focused?”
“Yeah, focused. Sometimes he seems to be answering questions nobody’s asking. Other times he’s not answering what you did ask. Right? That old dude drives me nuts sometimes. But don’t let the clothes and the slouching fool you. The old dude is sharp. He’s listening. I’ve figured out he’s waiting.”
“Waiting?”
“Yeah, he’s waiting to hear if the person is ready to risk letting someone inside, past the show, past the dance.”
“So the people on this deck—they’re the ones who have let him in?”
“Yeah, sort of, but not all. I do it now too—listening. Cynthia does it. Even Hank. A bunch of us. We’re all listening.”
“You doing that with me right now, Carlos? Are you listening to see if I’m ready?”
He laughs so hard he leans back and hits his knee on the table. “Oh, no, man! You kidding me? Carlos can’t be listening to everyone. Carlos loves to hear himself talk. I’ll let Andy do the listening with you. Till they get back, you’re stuck with me eating and talking. Comprende?”
“Yeah, Carlos, I’m good with that,” I say. “So what does he do when he meets with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, what does he talk about when you’re together?”
“Hmmm.” Carlos stares past me. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t think about it. We eat. We always seem to eat.”
He motions to a busboy walking by. “Jorge, when you get time, mi bebida con sucar. Gracias.”
Carlos turns back to me. “Here’s something. Maybe it’ll help answer your question. Andy was the first dude I ever met who had more confidence in the grace of God than in the power of the crap I was dragging around.”
I shake my head. “What?”
Carlos laughs. “Oh, yeah. Get your head around that one, amigo. It’ll set you free. Steven, most people want to fix stuff in others so they don’t keep embarrassing them no more. You know what I mean?” he says, smiling and nudging me. “It’s true, man. It’s like if they can’t just get away from you, they’re afraid of you stinking up the place. And that won’t look so good for them.”
I reply, almost to myself, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that before.”
“You need to get out more. See, man, we want others to think we’ve got it all together, like we don’t need a handout. So we stack the deck, we bluff, we cover up the stuff we don’t like about ourselves. We make ourselves a nice little mask. And then we hide behind it. It’s who we wish we could be, who we wish others thought we were. What a joke, huh?” Carlos shakes his head. “One of my masks was my position. I wouldn’t have known then to say that. But I know it now.”
“Your position?”
“I was the pastor of a big church in Covina.” He sits up and puffs out his chest. “El jefe. El camaron! Lots of people looking up to Carlos, wanting to make me somebody bigger than life, like some kind of pope or something. Make me out to be this magic dude of faith… all squeaky clean and together and shiny. It’s like you know better, but you start thinking to yourself, Carlos is the man! Yeeesh. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so stinking stupid.”
“You were a pastor?” I ask.
“Still am,” he says. “Different church. Back then I had the badge, but I probably caused more damage than good. Or, well, you know, God had a plan, and in that part of the plan, Carlos Badillo was a pastor in Covina. Right?” He shrugs his shoulders and takes a big bite from the plate of fish he’s working on.
“I met Andy before I started pastoring this church in Hermosa Beach. Go figure, huh? Me in Hermosa Beach. George Lopez hanging out with surfer dudes. I didn’t have none of the lingo or nothing, man. Growing up, my people didn’t show up at Hermosa Beach ’less they got lost.”
He wipes his mouth with his napkin. “Anyway, Andy was the first person able to handle Carlos with all his junk. See, the dude was convinced that God in Carlos was enough. You gotta be kidding me, right? Really, man, that one thing, that someone saw me that way—it knocked me over. You know? For maybe the first time, like, ever, it gave me something strong to hold on to. Like there might be a way to face the lies tearing my insides apart.”
He takes a quick drink from his water glass and continues, “And they were tearing me apart. Bad. Before then I didn’t know how to just do each day without hiding or acting all big. Nobody knew me, not really. I’m smiling all the time like I’m in the know, like I’m in on the joke, you know? But the whole time Carlos is sitting on the outside wondering when people will see through him.”
The busboy moves in, taking plates and refilling the water glasses. I’m noticing that Carlos is talking loud enough that people several tables away can easily overhear his confessions.
My voice instinctively drops. “So what happened? What changed?”
“Oh, man!” He slaps his knee and starts talking even louder than before. “I was the preacher guy. But I was a phony. I was a joke. I was standing in the pulpit week after week, all puffed up, all macho, talking all confident about God like I knew how to do life better than them. But I look back… . Yeeesh, I didn’t know nothing. I was spouting clichés I heard from other people who didn’t know nothing either.”
Carlos mops up some of the sauce on his plate with a piece of sourdough bread. “I’d tell them all every week to be better, you know, ‘be-worthy-and-walk-the-talk’ kind of stuff. Real ‘man up’ power talk. But it was just loud words and fake authority. I didn’t know how to help anyone be anything—except some fake dude like me, some dressed-up pigeon strutting around.”
He bites off a hunk of bread, chews, and holds out his hand as if to hold me off.
“But then one morning, right in the middle of my ranting, I look down and see the people in my audience. For maybe the first time I really look at them. I’m just staring. It’s like God won’t let me talk. He wants me to really see the people who come week after week, hoping maybe this time something will change for them. Most are looking back at me with this sad expression. Their eyes are saying, ‘Carlos, I’m trying so hard to do what you preach. And I can’t. I don’t know how to do it. Help me. Don’t keep telling me more stuff to do. I haven’t been able to do what you told me to do last week. I’m always failing. Please, help me, Carlos.’ Right then it hit me—I didn’t have nothing to give them. Just slick words, tough talk, and some fancy gestures. That morning I started to hate stepping into that pulpit.”
Carlos is talking faster and faster. Most of the deck can hear him.
“Andy broke down all that madness,” he says. “He’d say things like, ‘So, Carlos, my preacher friend, what if you told them that God was crazy about them, that they didn’t have to look over their shoulders? What if you told them that they didn’t have to walk around carrying this big bag of religious ‘ought-tos’? What if you told them that they weren’t just saved sinners trying to appease a God who’s way over there—” He gets up and runs across the deck. “ ‘What if you told them that they were saints?’ ” He strides back with his chin up. “ ‘That they were saints with a built-in ability to do great things? What if you taught them that if they believed, it would actually start to keep them from the wrong that’s tearing them up? What if you told them that? Huh, big fella?’ ”
He’s back in his chair now, peering right into my eyes. “Andy’s telling me this while I’m this big-time preacher at a church where every row is filled and everybody’s stroking my ego and telling me how great I am.”
“I thought your people were sad and discouraged,” I say.
“Yeah, but I could still preach, man! Religious folk love getting the crap beat out of them by the preacher. It’s like entertaining. And Carlos could flat-out work a room,” he says, almost singing. He’s up again. “My man, most of them are looking for guilt. Makes you look like you know what you’re doing. And Carlos, my friend, Carlos always looked like he knew what he was doing.”
He sits back down again as he says, “So I thought, I can’t preach what the old dude is saying. If I told my people those things, I’d be out of a job. They wouldn’t need the magic dude of faith anymore. That’s what I thought. Sad. It was like I was living in two worlds—what Andy was telling me and what I was preaching. You know?”
I nod my head and look out at the buoys.
“No!” he suddenly blurts out. “Don’t do that!”
I’m stunned. I don’t know if this is part of his story or if he’s talking to me.
“Don’t do what?” I ask.
“Don’t nod your head like you know, when you don’t know. See, you don’t know.” His voice is rising. “Don’t act like you know. It’ll make you sick and fake and crazy… like I was.”
His words hang in the air. The entire deck is suddenly quiet.
Carlos leans back in his chair and runs his hands through his thick black hair. He sighs deeply and draws in close.
“Oh, man, I’m sorry. Listen to me. Spouting to you all about grace, and I’m blowing up like some prison guard. Steven, I don’t know you. I don’t get to do that, man.”
But I know he’s right. I do this all the time—smile and nod knowingly. It’s the worst form of insincerity. I insulate myself by pretending I get it.
“It’s all right, Carlos,” I say. “You were right. I was nodding and I didn’t really know what you were talking about. It’s a thing I do, like a reflex.”
“No, man, that’s not right. After you know me a while, maybe it’s all right if I act like a maniac. But you’re new here. You get to nod all you want. Forgive me, man?”
“It’s all good, Carlos. Keep going. You were saying you were living in two worlds.”
“Right. See, Andy was filling me with all this great truth. But it sounded too good to be true. It took me a while to be sure he wasn’t hyping me. I tried it on real slow. Nothing scarier for Carlos than starting to let out what was true about me. Maybe that doesn’t sound like much to a put-together suit with straight teeth. Oops. Sorry, I did the suit thing again, huh?”
I shrug. “That’s all right. Thanks for trying.”
“I mean, Jesus in Carlos Badillo on his worst freakin’ day? The whole time I’m thinking, You’re kidding me! I’m a pastor, a religious dude. People don’t want to know the real Carlos. People want to see a put-together Carlos. God may see me this way, but people don’t want to. They want the bigger-than-life religious guy walking through the room, giving them a firm handshake, pat their kids on the head and make them feel important. That’s what they want. Guys like me have taught them to see it that way. Right?”
Instead of nodding, I say, “Right.”
“I didn’t have no giant failure deal going,” he says, leaning in a little. “I wasn’t sleeping with the choir or nothing, okay? I was just messed up like everyone else. But I thought you weren’t supposed to let on. Like the moment we signed on—poof—you don’t think about women wrong. You don’t hate no one. You don’t judge that dude down the street always showing off his shiny new boat out in the driveway. You don’t resent people in your own church who can afford to hire people to mow their lawns. Poof, right? But you do, my man. You do! Everybody does. It’s just they do it over different junk!”
Carlos sits back in his chair again. “So, when I finally believed that God really could handle Carlos without the pretend, oh, man, I couldn’t run to it fast enough. It felt so good to not have to glue on the mask before I left the house. I couldn’t go back. It was scary, and for a long time I almost wanted to go back. Just couldn’t.”
“What did the people in your church do?” I ask. “Didn’t they judge you?”
“Yeah, some did. Big-time.” He points and shakes his finger. “And they don’t get a Christmas card from Carlos no more. But here’s the deal: most who judged didn’t really care about Carlos in the first place. Some people are always chasing ambulances, you know. Like they want to see others screw up so they can feel better about their own lives. How sad is that, man?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Think I’ve done it myself a few times.”
“Some did care, and they ran too. I’ve been tracking some of them down for a long time. But I caused that pain, man. I caused it by pretending, by hiding my failures from them. I regret the hurt I caused. A lot.”
He picks up his glass of water. “But a lot of people stayed. And you know what happened? We got proven to each other. We all got to find out that God was really big—that He could handle all of us, the real us. It’s like we looked around one day and said, ‘So, you’re still here, huh?’ From that day on, I started to know what real was, what community was, what faith was, who God was.”
He takes a big gulp of water. “Enough. You talk.”
I blink a few times, trying to shake off his stream of words and get back to my own thoughts. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I guess I just thought it’d be nice for an old friend of my family to help me figure some stuff out. It—”
“You were lookin’ for a good fixin’,” Carlos says, interrupting. “Weren’t you? A good fixin’.”
He offers a knowing smile. “Ever notice that when someone tries to fix someone else, that person don’t stay fixed? It’s like trying to fix a Slinky by straightening it out and sitting on it. You ever own a Slinky, man? Sitting there, you think you’ve really got a handle on straightening stuff out. You’re controlling your universe. You’re all that. But no matter how long you sit, when you get up that Slinky springs right back. Only now it’s all bent up too.”
He suddenly pounds the table. “Steven, people don’t ever get fixed. They either mature, or they just keep getting more bent up the rest of their lives.”
I think of the other night up on the bluff. “Mature?” I ask.
“Yeah. Maturity is different. You can only mature and get real wisdom in community. Isolation produces the Unabomber.”
I laugh out loud. And part of me realizes it’s mostly the surprise that I’m actually enjoying hearing this stuff I’d usually avoid.
“Otherwise it’s all information and arrogance, but no one gets wise and no one grows up. See, a guy like you, he’s got skills. And skills can get honed in isolation. Then you show up like the hero with a shiny gizmo or something that makes everyone go ‘Ooooooh!’ Nobody can fire you ’cause you got skills. Folks maybe can’t stand you, but they don’t have a choice. So they just let you stay hidden. You don’t have to go in for critique or nothing. And all the while you’re walking around naked with a big old mole on your butt.”
“What do you mean, they don’t have a choice?”
“Well, you’re the golden goose, right?” he says. “Because of what you can do, you start to think you’re untouchable. And that’s the problem, huh? You are untouchable. But there’s a price tag: your skill becomes more valuable than you. What you bring is what’s appreciated, not your presence.”
I squint and he cringes. “Ouch. Huh, man? Happens all the time in bad marriages. What you bring home becomes more appreciated than the fact that you are home.”
I stare at the table.
“I think I’m ticking off the golden goose, dude.”
“No. You’re fine.”
“Andy once said to me, ‘Carlos, what if there was a safe enough place where you could tell the worst about yourself and not be loved or respected less, but more?’ You know what happens, Steven? Hidden junk we’ve been carrying around for years begins to melt away. People come alive. They start to discover who they really are. They start doing good stuff with their lives. They find their future. They stop needing to be right. They stop trying to fix their symptoms, and stop pushing everyone away… . They get loved.”
Carlos chomps on another chunk of fish while speaking at the same time. “But trusting someone else with you? Come on. You gonna let someone start nosing around when you’ve been running the show for the last few decades? Ain’t gonna happen. No way. Not until you get tired enough of shooting yourself in the foot.”
Is he describing me?
He stops. “Hey, man, you gonna say something, or you just gonna grind those crackers into chalk?”
Before I can answer, Andy, Cynthia, and Hank are back at the table.
Hank pulls Carlos up out of his seat. “Let’s go get me something to eat, Carlos.”
“Something to eat? You’ve snatched food off every plate you’ve gotten near. Small countries would envy what you’ve had this afternoon.”
Carlos looks at me. “Hey, well, I guess we’re out of here. I gotta get him back to his probation officer.”
Hank shrugs, resigned to his fate.
Carlos gives me a light whack on the back. “Great talking to you, man. Maybe you and me—we get to do this again, huh?”
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I’d like that.” Though I’m not certain I would.
Carlos and Hank slowly start to exit the deck. Carlos pats several people on the back while Hank uses the diversion to grab more table scraps. Everyone seems in on their routine.
“Well,” Andy says, smiling. “Steven, you look as though you’ve had enough for today. Let’s get you home.”
Cynthia is back over at the next table closing her computer and gathering folders. “Another day, another half a phrase written. At this rate, I’ll be publishing a trifold pamphlet.” She looks over at me. “Dear, will we see you again? I really did enjoy meeting you, Steven.”
Her bracelets are making that beautiful sound again, as if they were designed to be played against lacquered wooden restaurant tables.
“Steven, you’re doing that thing where I’m speaking and you’re not. Dear, promise me you’ll work on the elements of conversation.”
I smile at her. “I’ll do better next time.”
She smiles and reaches over to squeeze my hand.
I squeeze hers back. “Thank you, Cynthia. I really enjoyed meeting you.”
With that, Andy winds me through brief introductions on the way out. As we step back into the Electra he asks, “So, how was your time with Carlos? He’s a trip, huh? What did you two talk about?”
“Nothing much. Just talk.”
Why did I say that? He knows better. I know better. I do this all the time. I lie. No need to—I just do.
And why did I let Carlos lecture me? I don’t do that.
Andy and I are both quiet the rest of the ride to Fenton’s.
I am surprised when he doesn’t make any attempt to set up our next time.
“Thanks, Steven. I know it costs you a lot to give up an afternoon like that. I’m glad you got to meet Cynthia and the gang. Stay in touch.”
As I step out of the Electra and back into my Mercedes it begins to rain. The streets are shiny and slick as I take an old and familiar route from Culver City into El Segundo. And I am alone again, heading back to Marriott room 643. The streets are whispering to me with the sounds of passing cars on wet asphalt. But it’s as if I can’t make out what’s being said. I miss my wife. I miss my daughter. I want to be back in my home. But something is whispering to me. And I don’t know what it is.
It’s a whisper that’s been there all my life.