New Phase 10: Milt & Mitch
Woodland Hills, California
Kaiser Permanente Hospital
February 14, 2011...
...which kind of saved me from having to buy Marsha an expensive Valentine’s Day dinner.
6:47 AM
Strange thing: I remember lying on a gurney in the surgery waiting area with Marsha sitting alongside when a male nurse came in and, “This will help you relax.” put a needle into my IV tube.
The next thing I remember is asking Marsha. “Wonder when they’re going to take me in?”
“Oh…” Marsha said “...you’re back.”
“Huh?”
“It’s all over. You’re in ‘Recovery’.”
“ ‘It’s over’?” I said disbelievingly. “No shit!”
“Yeah. No shit!”
“What time’s it?” I asked.
Glancing at her watch. “Nine, forty.”
Westlake Village, California
1:05 PM
Marsha pulled onto our drive way at the same time Si and Sy’s black ‘Hummer’ was backing out of their garage.
“Hey, Mitch…” waving through the open passenger window “...glad to see you’re back home!”
Only gone since five thirty this morning, but leaning past Marsha. “Hi, Sy…” I said “...me, too.”
Putting the huge vehicle in ‘Park’, walking around the rear, Si came to my window. “Over with, huh?”
“Yes. Glad to say.”
Elbow onto the window ledge. “How you feeling?”
Wearing a, actually artistic looking ti-die, ‘make love not war’, short sleeved pull over shirt and denim, bell-bottom slacks. As usual—having no idea where they bought this — attire out of the sixties.
Elbow onto the window ledge. “How are you feeling?”
“Still a little dopey.”
“Not exactly like ‘cookie’ dopey, though, huh?”
“No. Not like ‘happy’ cookie dopey, more like…” giving Si a hint “...want to go to back to sleep, dopey.”
Taking the hint. “Okay…”
Backing away from my— considering everything I had as both Marsha’s ‘and’ mine … ‘our’ old Lincoln.
“Okay…” Si said, asking “...you and Marsha still have any cookies left?”
We did. Two actually. But, “No.” I said.
“You’ll probably be having some pain yet. If you want to hold on, I’ll get a couple for you now.”
As time seemed to slow down for us when Marsha and I— so to speak, ‘got together’, and our, literal, ‘coming’ seemed to be more intense.
At our ages, whatever helped, so long as we were not harming ourselves or any one else…
While on ‘pot’ getting a boner seemed to be much easier — Possibly because I wasn’t thinking about not getting a boner.
Simply stated; Marsha and I enjoyed fucking all the more while stoned, which does not mean we didn’t fuck while not stoned when it seemed…? Routine. Like going from black and white to technicolor.
If you want to hold on, I’ll get a couple for you now.”
“Thank’s Si. But I’m kind of anxious to lay down. So would it be okay if Marsha came over later on?”
“We’ll be gone a couple of hours… Actually we’re heading over to our ‘weed’ contact in Ventura, then like to sit at the beach for a while.”
We don’t mind giving you a couple more, but what if Si and me buy you a half dozen…” Sy said “... that’ll run you about seventy bucks.”
Thinking, Cookies about twelve bucks each. “I owe you sixty bucks then!”
“For what?”
“For the five cookies.”
“Fuck it…” Si said “...those were a gift. But if you want us to buy you some?”
Glancing at Marsha, who nodded her head.
“Yeah. That’ll be great. Get us…”
“Six...” Marsha said “...but don’t have the cash right now.”
“Nah. Don’t worry. You can pay us when you’ve got the money.”
Getting back into his ‘Hummer’. “See you later.”
As they pulled away, “Bye!” Sy waved through the window.
“Hold on, baby.” Coming around the side, popping the back, Marsha lifted the walker from the trunk, then helped me out of the Lincoln.
Unlocking and opening the front door. “Twelve bucks a cookie…” she complained “... even for ‘that’ kind of cookie is rather steep, wouldn’t you say?”
“Don’t know.” Hobbling towards the bedroom. “Weed is still illegal, even in California. So guess we’re paying the ‘street’ price.”
“And maybe those two are taking a cut.”
“I don’t think so, but guess we’ll never know.”
Marsha and me, we liked SI and Sy as: ‘Hi, how are you?’… ‘Fine! How are you?’ kind of neighbors — that apparently knew where to get maharajah — but we did not want to get too friendly with them because, even considering our twenty plus year age difference, we thought they might want to become, uh, sexually much closer kind of neighbors.
Milt, Sherry, Marsha and myself had discussed the possibility that if the ‘swap’ suggestion should ever come up, we decided the best avenue would be to just be honest and say, ‘no’!
Some may wonder of Milt and my friendship, and our friendship as two couples.
It’s been some time, so a little refresher regarding my best — and so far as I know, my oldest living friend.
Milton Abrams and I first met on…
Tuesday, June 16, 1986
Woodland Hills, California
6:33 PM
Earlier… This the same day Marsha, my wife for thirty-one years had flown from my life without so much as a proper ‘goodbye’.
Moving from the old to my new home with Lita Warner’s help, four of the now remaining cartons shoved into the rear of the Ford Station Wagon. Her small overnight bag onto the seat between us.
Westlake Village, California
6: 40 PM
Passing through Calabassas and Agoura and the Los
Angeles and Ventura county lines, fifteen miles west of Woodland hills on the ‘101’.
Driving through tree lined neighbourhood streets, then pulling onto the garage driveway of 2821 Waterview Lane, the car stopped.
Wanting Lita to enter through the front door, I did not open the garage door.
Coming from the Ford, taking a few seconds to look about. “
Though attached units. “Wow, Mitchie, this is some nice neighbourhood!”
“It’s really pretty here, Lita, and wait till you see inside.
Unlocking the door, I stood aside.
“Mitchie, my God...” seeing the view from the Spanish foyer, through the living-room, through the glass wall looking past the redwood deck to the water of West Lake Lake “...this is ‘beautiful’!”
I loved Lita! Actually enough to want to marry her, and now wondered if she’d like to live here with me?
“Hi, there!”
An older ‘Lincoln Continental’ had pulled onto the neighbouring driveway and, the driver side door opening, a middle aged man lifting himself off the seat… “Hi, there! You our new neighbour?”
Stepping over the three foot wide grass meridian separating our two properties, holding his hand forward, “I’m Milton… ‘Milt’ Abrams, and this is…” motioning over the roof of the Lincoln “...my wife, ‘Harriet’.”
“Hi, Milt…” moving forward to shake hands and, nodding my greeting to “… ‘Harriet’!”
“I’m Mitch Lipensky and…” crossing the meridian strip “… this is my, uh…” not really knowing what Lita and I were to each other...
“I’m Mitch Lipensky and this is my, uh, girlfriend, Lita.”
Human and prejudicial conditions and reactions outside of the ultra liberal nudist fields of Elysium much different in the ‘real’ world and a show of non acceptance can happen in split seconds. Sometimes it might be no more than the crinkle of an eyelid or the temporary tightening of lips…
The split second change in the ‘welcoming’ attitude of my new next door neighbour’ flashing from the faces’ of Milton but much more so from the face of Harriet Abrams…
Which I did not notice, however apparently more attuned to prejudicial attitude, Lita certainly did.
“Uh…” Milton said “...nice meeting you, Mitch.”
The near unnoticed turn of Harriet’s mouth downward. “Welcome to ‘our’ neighbourhood, Mitchell.”
The Abrams’ entered their home through the garage, automatically closing the garage door behind them.
Knowing that she could never live in this hundred percent white world, and I could not live in her world, Lita tearfully said ‘goodbye’ to me the next morning, and to this day we had never again seen each other.
For the next four years, on those rare occasions when Milt Abrams and I accidentally ran into each other, it was: ‘Good morning, how are you?’… ‘Fine. And you’?’ … ‘Well, see you around’… ‘Yeah.’
It wasn’t until the death of his wive, Harriet, sometime during that fifth year of Milt and I being… Not even next door neighbours, but attached wall neighbours, that Milt invited me for a boat ride — that I hesitantly excepted.
It was while into our second round of ‘Beefeater Gin martinis’ when Milt confessed that, in order to keep peace in his home, he’d gone along with his wife’s prejudicial attitude towards Lita and had been ashamed and sorry ever since he’d met her and me and hoped that we could be friends.
And Milt and I have been friends…
Very good friends that respected each other and our privacy meaning, on those occasions throughout the years when us two old guys in the boat would pick up, or were picked up by a couple of old ladies— whom in most cases were no older than Milt and me, Milt would take his lady into his home and me, into mine.
Never even the ‘thought’ of a ‘foursome’.
There was never a hint of impropriety regarding Marsha when she came back into my life, nor when Sharon was introduced into Milt’s life.
The four of us no more and no less than two elderly couples living within the bounds of our special respectful friendship.
So when...
Milt, Sherry, Marsha and myself discussed the possibility that ‘if’ the ‘swap’ suggestion by Si or Sy should ever come up, we decided the best avenue would be a firm, honest ‘no’!
So far, however, gladly no such suggestion by Si or Sy had ever come up.
February 19 through 2011...
Dropping the walker after a day, then using a cane for four or five days, then giving the cane up, though limping, I was just about fully mobile in a week and back to my normal routine — whatever that was.
Through the balance of February; through all of March and April right into the first week of May, remembering she was seventy-five and I was seventy-seven, having no on to ask — suppose we could have asked a doctor if having super great, marijuana induced, breath taking sex once a week was a good or bad thing for a seventy-seven year old man and seventy-five year old woman?
However not knowing how to put the question, we never asked the question.
But did rationalise that if some old men and old women —some even older than Marsha and me run marathons and survived — some really hot old time fucking once a week couldn’t hurt… Even if occasionally it was done more than once a week.
We’d split a cookie into quarters, each take a quarter, Wait a half hour then screw like sixty year old’s.
Nothing fancy, you understand. Nothing you need a ‘how to’ diagram or a book to say, and most certainly not a ‘where there’s a will there’s a way, kind of way.
Just good old fashioned ‘missionary’ positions. With sometimes our old: ‘You want to eat my pussy?’ ‘You want to suck my cock’, thrown in.
“Hell..” we rationalised “...couldn’t hurt! The exercise might even make our hearts stronger.
Which apparently it did because we would come away breathing hard, but never did have a heart attack.
Next: Phase 11: Watergate Concert
