TMO: Time Marching On (TMO) 3

Westlake Village, California

May 13, 2021

In Retrospect

Woodland Hills, California

Country Club Realtor's

Thursday, June 12, 1986

1:15 PM

The #1 button on his phone flashing.

“Mitch Lipensky.”
“Mitch, it’s Marge Henson.”
“Hi Marge! So?”
“Got the telegram in my hand.”
Sensing his heart quickening. “Don’t keep me in suspense!”

“We got a deal…”

“No shit!”

May 13, 2021

After all expenses, Marsha and I each received fifty-one thousand, eight hundred, fifty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents (51,800. 22) at close of escrow.

At the close of the escrow on the house in Woodland Hills, my share was automatically transferred to my new checking account— the one in my name only. Then, as contractually agreed, added to the non-refundable five thousand dollar deposit, an additional thirty thousand dollars were transferred into the escrow of 2821 Waterview Lane covering my share of escrow fees— minus the cut of my commission, of course, along with the down payment, leaving a hefty chunk of money in my checking account.

Hell, I thought, maybe I’ll even take that super vacation by myself…

But never much of a loner, never did.

May 13, 2021

Me to you...

“Okay, okay already! So now you know how Mitchell Lipensky, a lowly real estate salesman ended up in ‘hoity-toity’ Westlake Village.

Along with... ‘I know’! What in the hell kind of passion there could be between two really… At least what you consider to be ‘really’ old people.

Used to be thirty, then fifty, then seventy. Amazing how that ‘really old’ number keeps moving upward.

So, just to let all you youngsters know, sometimes passion… ‘real’ passion — which, taking other forms, passion might not always mean sexual, and sometimes between people; particularity older people… and in particular the two older people referenced here, 'real'  passion can oft-rime come on rather slowly.

Sometimes even taking twenty-four years.

So, in keeping with this thought… If you’d be kind enough to remain patient, please know that I’ll get to that night on Westlake Lake eventually.

Hell, just to get it over with...”

Author’s Notation: Here’s what happened three years ago on that balmy summers night in 2018 when Marsha and me were banned from Westlake Lake… Uh?

May 13, 2021

10:07 PM

Me to you…

“Oh, Shit! Lost my train of thought so have to begin again.

Huh? You don’t think that an eighty-two year old woman and an eighty-four year old man could even ‘have’ passion, let alone to do something considered heinous enough to be banned from anyplace?

Especially a place that I, or rather we in part pay for with our home owners dues?

Which, let me tell you, are getting rather hefty.

Anyway, seeing as nowadays I seem to have plenty of time to talk, so guess I’ll have to go on back into past history to tell you about those twenty-four years between the time... Uh?

Oh, damn!

Amazing how sometimes I can’t remember shit, then little inconsequential things will pop into my mind like: ‘The weed of crime bares bitter fruit. Crime does not pay! The Shadow knows!’ Or, ‘Bryl-Cream, a little dab will do you! Bryl-Cream, you’ll look so debonair!’

You know, inconsequential stuff like that. But then clearity will set in and...

Yeah. I remember it was on June, sixteen in 1986 when Marsha chased after the ‘Red Cap’ carting her luggage at Los Angels International Airport until… uh, yeah. Until we renewed our lives twenty-four years later in…? Uh? Damn it! It’ll come to me.

So you know, Marsha and me reuniting was not only the absolute furthest thing from my mind, but factually also the most impossible. She wasn’t even a thought.

‘Oh, how the winds of fate blow in all directions.’

I was fifty-four when she left. Had money in the bank. Lived in this beautiful place. And, for the very first time in my life— lived with my parents… Joined the Coast Guard...Married Marsha before I got discharged— this was the first time I had to answer to no one and was responsible for and to only myself. My ‘Real Estate Associate’ license still hangs in a hundred percent office… You know, where I pay a monthly fee, but is paid one hundred percent of whatever commissions I earn, 
which always and still covers the, so far as I am concerned, minimal operating expenses.

Even now, at my age now, I’ll get a couple of calls each year from an old client asking to list their property, or their child or even the grandchild of an old client asking to list their parents property.

Still makes me feel useful, and I must tell you, sometimes it’s feels so nice to put money into my checking account rather than always taking it out.

Anyway...

Hell, my life in those twenty-four years was great.

At least I thought it was great.

Hold on a minute. Don’t want to be rude, but you ‘do’ have some time to sit and talk?”

“Yeah, I know! You want me to get to the point about when and why Marsha and me got kicked off Wetlake Lake.”

“Okay, I know! But I feel like talking and it’s up to you if you want to hang on till I get to it.”

10:20 PM

“Okay, you’ll hang on. Great!. You care for another drink?”

“No? Okay. Hold on, then. Give me a minute med check on Marsha to see if she’s still up, waiting for me.”

10:22 PM

“No, she’s sound asleep, so where was I?

Oh, yeah. Those twenty-four years between Marsha leaving in 1986 until…? Uh.? Oh, yeah when we got together again in… Uh? June of 2010.

Those years between were not lonely and certainly not sexless because on that same day in eighty-six when Marsha flew from my life, there was a woman waiting for me that loved me and that I loved, and was more than ready to share my life with.”

“Yeah, really, there was! But two things happened on that day that ended both our thoughts of ever being together.

As we were unloading my old Ford, my new neighbors were pulling into their garage, and as I was introducing myself and Lita, my neighbor’s wife, Harriet, made a raciest comment. Then later, at a restaurant during dinner, another woman, a black woman gave Lita the one finger, ‘go fuck yourself’ gesture.”

“Of course this really upset her! So much so that on the next morning, knowings that she could not live in my all white world anymore than I could live in her all black world, Lita drove out of my life and…”

“Of, course! I cried over loosing Lita, but when I came to grips with my sadness, when logically thinking about t, I knew in the long run it was for the best…”

“No, I’d never seen or heard from Lita again.

Marsha and Lita both leaving my life left me to think maybe it’s better to cut it off clean than to drag on that which cannot be changed’, don’t you think!”

“Yes, guess it is kind of like the 'AA' motto.

And as for, Milt, my next door neighbor. Guaranteeing that he did not, in ‘any’ way share his wife’s prejudicial attitude towards Lita, and after Harriet died a few months later, Milt Abrams and I eventually became the best of friends and have remained so throughout the years, right up to the time he passed away last year.

As a matter of fact…”

10:38 PM

Thinking of Milt and how his two shitty sons all but physically forced Sharon out of their father’s home, chocking me up for a moment or two.

“As a matter of fact…” Going on. “...reminiscing and remembering all this is making me kind of thirsty… About that drink?”

“You will! Great! Brandy okay?”

“No, not some of that fruity stuff, just five bucks a bottle brandy.”

10:45 PM

Handing my guest a quarter coffee cup of brandy.

Sitting again. “Why a coffee cup, you’re probably thinking.”

“Because Milt and me… uh? I think it had to be in… uh, 2006 or 2007 when we began cruising … Not, mind you, that Milt and me didn’t do it before, but it was about then when it became kind of a game to see how often we could meet them, and then talk them into a boat ride around the lake and after a martini, or two…”

“Oh, yeah, I didn’t tell you, did I? We’d take either his or my boat, and Milt always brought along his old battered aluminum, eight cup coffee pot full of — I would truly say, rather on the dry side — Milt’s old coffee pot would hold martinis enough, well, for whomever wanted another. And we’d bring along an igloo of ice cubes to mix when needed… Oh, yeah, and to answer your question, coffee cups because it’s harder to spill a coffee cup of martinis than a glass of martini's while on a rocking boat…”

“Oh, it was a trick I learned from Morgan, an old Vietnam vet, when Marsha and I belonged to Elysium... uh, a nudest park we’d joined in ‘eighty-six.’. Only it wasn’t martini's, it was cups of wine on uneven blankets.”

“You don’t believe I got Marsha to go to a nudest park, huh? Well, believe me, it took a little coxing. But, yeah, Marsha did come along with me.

“Yes, of course she eventually got naked!”

“Marijuana? Yeah, we smoked a lot of weed back then, at least after Marsha met an old acquaintance from high school that introduced us to her group.”

“Yeah! Believe it or not, from ‘high school’! From thirty-five years and three thousand miles away, here’s Evie Dorfmann in the pool recognizing Marsha’s voice.”

“No shit!! That’s ‘some coincidence’!”

“Yeah, that’s where she met Morgan and I met Lita.”

“You want to know if we did some, uh, fooling around with each other? Well, I’d rather not get into that right now.”

“No, that’s not why Marsha left. I doubt Elysium had anything to do with that.”

Sitting back, taking a sip of brandy.

“I think that we were just tired of all the drama in our lives, and when Marsha’s cousin offered her the management job in her new nail salon in Chicago, she figured it was a good tome to end our marriage, and she took off. And as I had Lita waiting for me… Well, you knows how that ended.

Anyway, getting back to Milt and my game, of sorts. We’d cruise to the landing and tie up to one of the Landing Restaurants docks and just sit there drinking martinis — or maybe go up for dinner till a couple of lose old ladies… Now remember, when I say ‘old ladies’, it wasn’t because they were older than Milt or me; into our low and mid-seventies. It was because they sure as hell weren’t young ladies. Anyway if it was a nice evening— like patiently waiting for a fish to nibble at your bait, eventually a couple of old ladies — possibly spotting Milt and me while at dinner, would wander down to the dock to, so they would say, ‘look at the sunset’, or watch a flock of baby geese swim in mommies wake.

Amazing how easy it was to induce them to come aboard for a cruise around the lake, and a martini or two.

Old ladies almost always will not turn down a martini, or two. Then, of course, reluctant to let them drive home under the influence, ask if they’d like to come home with us until they sobered up when we’d drive them back to the Landing parking lot. Or…”

Amazing how many old ladies looked forward to the ‘Or’ that were more than willing to go home with us two good looking older gentlemen.”

“Yeah! Of course we did.”





Next: Time Marching On (TMO) 4