Chapter

 49

The Cove was twenty-four hours behind me now. I was taking my pills and doing what Mathews had strongly suggested. “I want you to spend some time alone. Keep the distractions at a distance. Listen to some music, drink some wine, and just relax. Just you and your journal. Keep recording whatever comes into your head. We’ll talk in a couple of days. The operative word is relax, relax, relax.”

I don’t know if I was relaxed “plus” or drunk, but I sure wasn’t disturbed by anything going on that night.

I was in “Booboos,” a very quiet bistro on the Venice boardwalk, noted for its quiet jazz. A few tables, a small bar, and a raised platform for the jazz group, made for a comfortable place for anyone to rest their feet or their mind. Coffee or wine was available, but no hard liquor. So, for a few bucks, you could sit and listen, read a book, get a bite, drink some wine or coffee and let the time pass by with very little effort.

Everything had been quiet, mellow. By 11:30, a cool breeze was making the night air just the right temperature. I had been listening and working on the smell...the wet salt smell that had kept me thinking about The Cove. Just enough of it was drifting in from the ocean to keep me contained in my own world.  I was still “relaxed”. The wine was cheap, but serviceable. I wanted to get used to less than Latour Bordeaux. That had been Charlie’s favorite. I was getting okay with Charlie.  At this moment, didn’t have a clue why. Like I said, either I was spaced out with the pills, or the wine, or both, or maybe I was just plain relaxed. Whatever was doing it, I was following Mathews’ insistence, and it was working. I wasn’t taking any part of myself too seriously.

I even had this guy, Peaches, sitting across from me.  He was my quest for the night, but he had spent a lot of time telling me what an “asshole” I was. Strange language, I thought, for a man whose coat pockets carried worn books of Pound and Kafka. Of course; he said everyone in the place were “assholes,” too, so it was impossible to take him personally. Later, it became apparent; “asshole” was his way, as often as not, of saying he sort of liked you.

Peaches was a tired, worn-out, but young dwarf. Young...because he told me he was young. Twenty-two to be exact, but what did I know. He could have been twice that age. But for whatever reason, he made it a point several times to tell me he was twenty-two. To me he was just a little person playing the hell out of a battered trumpet on the boardwalk. I’d dropped a dollar on the small blanket he’d set up in front of him. His gimmick, aside from playing great blues on an instrument that was almost as big as him, was his pet cockatoo, Wally, who maintained a vigil on his shoulder, swaying his head side to side like Stevie Wonder.

Peaches would have been great without the bird, but the combination pleased both the adults and the kids. It was only when I saw him pass a good portion of the money for the night to some guy in a yellow double-breasted suit, that I knew he was just another of the entertainment whores on the boardwalk trying to make a living and keeping his nose powdered.

Earlier that day, I’d asked him, out of the blue, if he’d like a bite to eat. He took me to Booboos, a favorite haunt of his. He welcomed the meal as we sat and enjoyed the jazz group playing, all friends of his.

It’d been just before they took their break that he finished eating his bowl of house specialty “Stew” and had turned to me, “I take it back. You’re a bigger asshole than I thought.”

“Oh. Why’s that?”

“Because you just let me eat and listen and didn’t ask me about my bird or bug me about how long I been playin’. Thanks.”

He extended his small hand and exchanged a shake.  With a grin, he said,  “Mind if I stay another set? I’ll buy the coffee.”

I patted my glass. “I’m fine.” “You’re shit faced, ol’ buddy.”  “Just relaxed.”

“Just relaxed, my puny ass. Hey, you got a name just in case?” “Just in case?”

“You write it out and I’ll pin it on your ‘relaxed’ ass when you fall on it. Put your address too, so I don’t get tagged for fishin’ in your pockets for some ID or credit cards and cash.”

I laughed at this little guy who seemed to have a feisty handle on the world. “Okay...got a pen?” I couldn’t stop snickering.

Waving his hand, he said, “Jesus... hey…Tony, give me pen for a second.”

Tony, our waiter, handed me a pen and I started to write out, “Charles Randall” in a wild script that suggested, even to me, that maybe I was “shit faced” as he had said. I hadn’t heard that term before and the image continued to make me stifle a laugh as I stopped writing my address.

I was still suppressing the urge, when he turned to his parrot straddling his shoulder and said, “Hey Wally, help this guy, will ya?”

He took his parrot Wally from his shoulder and put him next to my hand. “Wally help...Wally help...Wally help” the bird repeated, pushing my writing fingers with his beak until even Peaches had to crack a smile.

I finished the address and decided to take him up on the offer for coffee. I hadn’t planned to get drunk, so having someone to socialize with who knew me only as a good guy with a buck for his blanket bank, gave me the chance to sober up and ask some questions I knew would be safe with the little man and the bird.

“Peaches...if you were crazy and you were in love, would you cut it off?”

“Shit man. If you’re in love you are crazy.”

“Ever been there?”

“In love?”

“Yeah.”

“Had a little fling once.” He gestured with the tip of his pinky. “About that long. Wally saved me from a disaster.”

I nodded, smiling, a little unsure how I was supposed to take that one.

“Aren’t you gonna ask how?”

“Of course. How?” I answered.

“Wally got sick. Took all my money to pay the vet. No money for women when you’ve got a sick bird. Little lady got pissed. Told me to go fuck my bird.” He shrugged.

“Didn’t you feel bad?”

“About what? The bird or the bitch?”

“The girl.”

“Hell no. Telling me to fuck my Wally. Shit. Woman was out of her mind. Bird and my horn. All’s I need.”

He was stroking the bird as he said, “If you got woman problems, you’re probably not the crazy one. Palimony, alimony, ‘brokimony’. Get yourself a bird and some music. All you need.”

The waiter came with the coffee as the musicians started to file back in for the next set.

“Must be tough making a living out here...yellow suits and all,” I volunteered, wanting to know how he survived.

“Butch? He gets his cut like all the assholes. Little or big. Any business...grabs the profits, doesn’t pay any taxes, then takes their cut of the worker’s salary too with their bullshit handling of PH and W. Doo-doo. Been through it all. Gimme the bird and the horn and the cut for Butch too. Any day. Least I can see where the money’s goin’.”

“You play that trumpet good, Peaches. Incidentally, what’s your real name?”

“Peachario Enrico Donozetti. Try usin’ that at the unemployment line. My old man was drunk as hell when he forced that on my old lady. Sis says Ma started callin’ me Peaches before I was half way out of her whatsit”

“Big family?”

“All big but me.”

“No, I mean...”

“I know what you mean, Charlie. Seven in all. Pushin’ me out was one too many for my old lady. She never made it outta the hospital.” He stood up. “Watch Wally a minute, will ya. He hates the noise on stage.”

The little man with the quick mind, strange heart and lots of talent, jumped up on the stage as the lead trombone set the mic up next to the keyboard, then slid a foot stool over for Peaches. Some brushes on the snare were all he needed and you could close your eyes and swear it was early Miles or anytime Wynton.

The night passed by like a good hypnosis session. As the sun came up, I felt like I had slept twelve hours. My head was clean, even though the quarts of coffee left my nerves wiry. But I was open, free.

We left, or maybe I should say they kicked us out, about 5:30. Peaches and Wally walked me back to my bike still advising me to get some music and a bird. “Answer to all your problems.”

As I unchained the bike, I really hated to see the night end. Between the music and all-night conversation, I had fresh perspectives on Mathews, Sara, even Charlie that could have only come from a stranger like Peachario Enrico Donozetti, the little birdman with the horn. The man who didn’t care who I was had unknowingly taught me it was okay to just be. I wouldn’t forget him. He wouldn’t forget me. He didn’t know it yet, but his bedroll was full of hundreds and a note I had hurriedly written while he was on stage. “Thanks.”

Sleeping eighteen hours was an unknown to me. Waking up to telephone rings had happened often.

“Hello.”

“Mr. Randall,” came the strangely familiar voice.

“Yes.” I glanced around the room. It was still light.

“Hold for Ms. Sobel, please.”

I jolted up. All I could think was...I didn’t have a thought. I was so out of it...I didn’t know if it was seven A.M. or P.M.

“Charles?” came the even more familiar voice. “I told my secretary to call at ten, your time. It must be seven out there. I’m terribly sorry. Did I wake you?”

Suddenly I had my thoughts and the first was Peaches. I felt sure I had learned a lot last night. Try it, I told myself. “Ms. Sobel. No...well. Maybe. I just laid down for a nap.”   I fumbled for my watch. 7:00.

“My...we are having fun then with naps at dawn. I’m sorry. That must sound rude. I really called to tell you I got the revocation papers and everything seems to be in order. Taking effect immediately, however, it does pose some problems that you should be aware of. I was going to call your attorney but thought better. This is something we should discuss first...maybe with your psychiatrist. Charles, I’m going to be out there for some business over the weekend. It would be ever so much more comfortable to chat on the boat. The weather report sounds perfect and we could have some dinner and...well, how does that sound? Say four Saturday afternoon? Oh, it’s still at The Marina, slip one four zero.”

If I had learned anything last night about self-control and just being, it was being challenged now. I thought I had left her in the hands of an attorney. All that stuff was supposed to be behind me now. But here she was, like a cartoon cat with endless lives who still gets up after being knocked under a steam roller. Only I was the one feeling steam rolled now. “I’ll have to check.”

“Well, if I don’t hear from you, I’ll see you at four. Now get some sleep, Charles.

Naps aren’t enough for someone like you. Watch your health. Bye.” Click.

Now, I know I’m not much of a match to someone like Sobel, but even I knew she had intimidated me right into something I didn’t know “Doo-Doo” about, as Peaches would say. She knew it as well. I couldn’t help but wonder if she came onto Charlie that way.