PIT #24: Outside Life
Points In Time
Elysium Fields
Topanga Canyon, California
May 25,1986
1:33 p.m.
Morgan…” I asked “...you said that you were ‘CIA’ dung ‘Vietnam’.”
“Can’t talk about it too much, but yeah, I was.”
“Can I ask, in what capacity?”
“ ‘They’ came to colleges and universities looking for us.”
This gruff bear of a man appearing to be more a ‘drop out’ than one that would be ‘looked for’ in colleges or universities.
I’d suppose noting the nonbeliving look on my face…
“Guess you wouldn’t believe if I told you I’ve a ‘masters’ in ‘structural engineering’.”
The group intrigued by this,
Tilting her head upward, Janice looked at Morgan.
Never expecting anything ‘anywhere’ near this degree of education pertaining to Morgan.
“ ‘Really’? A ‘masters’…” I said “...where from?”
“UCLA.”
“That’s where they looked for you?”
“That’s where the recruited me.”
“Like you were sent there to build bridges?”Ken asked.
“Or knock them down.” Morgan said.
Still finding it hard to believe. “Like Bridge on the River Kwai?” I asked.
This wholly new revelation opening an entirely new interest in the life of this — so we’d thought, ‘sixties’ ‘stoner’ throwback.
Reaching beneath the battery acid spotted T-shirt, gently caressing the old burn scars. “That’s where you got these?”
“Yeah. Got the word a couple of seconds too late and didn’t get the hell out quite fast enough before a napalm dump.”
Looking upward, onto Morgan’s face.”Had to hurt like hell!”
“Oh, yeah, baby it sure ‘did’ hurt like hell… literally like hell.”
“This is ‘so’ interesting!”
“Might be, Sandy, but believe it or not, some stuff is still classified so can’t talk too much about it…”
“Like ‘Cambodia’?”
Looking at me. Shrugging his shoulders in a non-committal way, Morgan made no comment.
“Where’s Evie today?” Ken asked.
“With her husband, I guess.”
“Didn’t know she had one.”
“That’s kind of what you told me the first day we met, Ken: Keep all personal ‘outside’ of Elysium’ stuff to ourselves.”
“Know what?” Marsha’s eyes touching on all here. “Looks like we’ve got our own little clique going, so screw ‘keep all personal outside of Elysium stuff to ourselves’! I’d like to see how you all look in clothes.”
“Sure, okay…” Ken said “...if we all agree.”
“Yeah, I’ll go first. I’m ‘Sandy Murray’ and I’m a ‘dental assistant’.”
“I’m ‘Kenneth Kahn’ and I work for ‘State Farm’.”
“As a salesman?”
“No, an appraiser.”
“An ‘appraiser’?” Janice asked.
“Yeah. Car gets into an accident, I check to see how much we want to pay to have it repaired.’
“Marcie and me, our last name is ‘Lipensky’ and I sell real estate basically in the ‘valley’ and occasionally West L.A. and Marcie is still recuperating from having four, now, adult kids.”
“ ‘Four kids’, Marsha!” Sitting up. “You look ‘great’!”
“Thanks, Janice. Coming from you that’s a real complement.”
“No! It’s the truth…” Sandy said “...I’d ‘never’ believe it., Jesus, ‘four kids’!”
“Yeah…” blushing beneath her tan “...and you ought to see me when I’m not naked..”
“Yeah…” her husband added “...loved those micro-mini’s!”
“Morgan?” Janice questioned.
“Can’t really say too much about myself. My name’s ‘Morgan Joseph’ and I own a package liquor store off the ‘101’ and De Soto in Van Nuys.”
“You own a package liquor store…” said humorously “... and all we get is this shitty wine?”
“Gotta get rid of it somewhere.”
“Only kidding, Morgan…” Sandy said “… your shitty wine does it’s job.”
“Along with that rot-gut moonshine in that little flask of yours.”
‘And it don’t cost us nothin’, Mitch.” Ken added.
“Hey, if my stuff wasn’t rot-gut moonshine it would be ‘really’ shitty rot-gut bourbon.”
Straightening her body while pulling the floral T-shirt to below her hips. “My Name used to be ‘Janice Kim’ before it became ‘Janice Berger, the wife of ‘Doctor Seymour Berger’ — up until six months ago. When he rushed me through the divorce I figured ‘the hell with it’ and decided to use my real name.”
“A ‘doctor’. What kind of doctor?”
“Marsha, would you believe ‘oncology’.”
“ ‘Oncology’? And he divorced his wife because she had a mastectomy ?”
“Yeah… Guess old Sy thought having a wife with only one tit would be bad P.R. for a high class oncologist.”
“And divorcing his wife because she had a mastectomy when he’s an oncologist is ‘good’ P.R.?” Morgan asked sarcastically.
“When an oncologist has a sixty year old, millionaire-girlfriend-widow that wants to marry him and open an ‘oncology clinic’ in ‘Beverly Hills’, who needs P.R.?”
“Oh, that’s how it is?”
“Yeah. Sy was becoming a ‘literal’ real pain in my ass anyway, and I guess he figured that a woman almost two and a half times my age would be better suited to his ‘needs’ and ‘trust me’, I really ‘don’t care’ and only hope the old bitch has hemorrhoid's.”
“ ‘Especially’ if she’s a loaded old bitch with hemorrhoid's.”
“Yeah. I knew he’d been fucking around with her for the last year and guess the mastectomy gave him the excuse to say ‘bye-bye’ to me.”
“Baby…” running her hands through Morgan’s bushy hair and whiskers “...tell me don’t ‘really’ need all this hair!”
Independence… No one telling me what to do… No one telling me to get a shave and a haircut… What the hell, I was beginning to feel like an old bum anyway.
“No, baby…” Morgan said “...it’ll be gone by the next time you see me.”“
‘Thank you’!” Thinking a moment. “ If no one has anything to do this evening that you ‘can’t’ get out of, how’s about diner at ‘The Valley Inn’!” Posed as a statement not as a question. Adding, “I’m… or rather Doctor Sy is buying, so drink as much ‘not shitty’ wine as you’d like.”
‘The Valley Inn’ an exceptionally good, exceptionally expensive restaurant.
One that over the years Marsha and Mitchell had frequented once to celebrate the anniversary of their fifteenth year of marriage and once the twentieth. Having no problem going a third time as a guest of ‘Doctor Seymour Berger’…
“What time should we be there?”
“Seven-thirty okay with everyone?”
“Never been there, so it’s okay with me.” Looking at Ken. “Should I meet you there?”
“No. I’ll drive.”
“Remember where I live?”
After a ‘blind date’ meeting, the first time they’d had— by mutual agreement, non-committal sex had been in her Sherman Oaks apartment… After their second ‘non-committal’ date, both discovered they not only liked each other in their sexual, no pressure, platonic way, Kenneth and Sandy also discovered that they liked each others company and both being rather avid bicycle riders, had discovered ‘Elysium Fields’ about a year earlier while on a ride through Topanga Canyon.
“Sandy, how could I forget? Of ‘course ‘I remember where you live!”
“Well, you haven’t been there for a while.”
“We’ve had Elysium….
“Pick you up at seven?”
“I’m only about ten minutes away. How’s about a quarter after.”
“Okay.”
Standing. “I better get going then!”
“Morgan…” Janice asked “...what’s your hurry?”
“Got to find a good barber shop and a cleaners to get some clothes pressed.”
Next PIT # 25: Naked Again
