Moorpark Palms Letters - 10. Chapter 10

2001

Moorpark: The Next Generation

I recently talked with several of my still-resident spies, so here’s a filling in on what’s been going on. Not the usual epic. More a snack.

Apartment 1: Summer and Cole finally moved, despite Meg’s prediction that they’d live there forever, like vampires, never getting organized enough to pack. And they’ve been replaced by, yes, you’ve guessed it, another pair of Israelis. It’s been at least a year since a duo of former desert dwellers occupied the building. “They’re nice enough,” my first spy, Kristen, tells me. “Young. Friendly. Except for the wife’s sister,” (If the couple’s actually married. Traditionally, our Mideasterners haven’t been.) “The sister visits a lot,” Kristen continues, “and she always brings tons ‘o laundry. And now we’re stuck with one lousy washer and two half-dead driers, since Megan refuses to do any upkeep. And the sister doesn’t understand the rules about finding someone’s wash done and moving it to the counter. She just tosses it on top of the drier. So everyone hates her, and she doesn’t even live here.”

Apartment 2: (My old place, now occupied by a young woman and her probably three-year-old.) Spy number two, Lindsay, reports: “The husband left after less than a month, but the daughter’s just the cutest thing – all you’d ever want in a kid. And you never hear a sound. I don’t know how her mother does it. They’re both polite as can be. I’m guessing the parents are splitting up, ‘cause there’s now a new name on the mailbox, and it’s not the guy’s.”

Apartment 3: Still Steve, edging a bit towards grey. And almost completely divorced from his wife, but a little too slowly to please his maybe ex-girlfriend, because she’s been seen around less and less. And his daughters are huge – but tall, not fat – and beautiful. Steve finally got a car again, too, used, but fairly recent and nicely impressive. Only it stays in the carport, under a custom-fit tarp, because he seems afraid to drive it.

Apartment 4: Eternal Lindsay, in one cute room with a cat, perpetually giving notice. Still, driving her pale green, slightly beat-in Tercel and unmarried but looking. Franck didn’t know if Lindsay’s continued to see “that oil derrick guy” who comes alternate weekends, or if it’s another man who looks a lot like him. Lindsay still seems to attract floaters, like seaweed.

Apartment 5: JB, the reanimator. He finally made his studio film debut on a military blockbuster, with six seconds of CG clouds glimpsed through a fighter jet window. Definitely up from being the Keebler Cracker texture king. The extra cash funded a long-sought air conditioner for his often torrid office, though he didn’t buy it for comfort. “That’s what skivvies are for.” The new AC actually keeps his many computers from crashing. He also decided to swap his office and bedroom for the extra storage space, meaning he had to move a 35-year collection of vintage Playboys and other carnal memorabilia.

Apartment 6: Torrie and Alex have settled some since their baby was born. No more late parties. No dancing friends on the balcony. Some of their menagerie’s even gone. Though the last didn’t happen voluntarily: Megan-the-Mean decided they were sheltering too many endangered species and threatened to triple their deposit. And they couldn’t pay.

Apartment 7: Two guys from Boston, would-be actors, right out of Emerson. “Not a chance,” Kristen evaluates. “One does the usual non-industry day jobs. The other’s a bookkeeper – for Hustler. But it’s not like he’s in Hustler,” she quickly defends – meaning she thinks he’s cute and would kind of like him if she ever had time to date. They also arrived sans furniture, so inherited the gypsy mattress abandoned by Cyndi and Tim a couple years back. It’s had a varied afterlife. Plus, they got the futon couch Kristen bought when she first moved in. “Can you believe it’s been five years?” she asked. Hell, I still can’t believe I made it safely out – rescued by a man and his dog.

Apartment 8: Samantha – and Adam. “He around all the time, though I almost never see her,” JB said. “She quit studying marketing and switched to sociology. Doing pretty well, too, jumping ahead and even planning for grad school.” Though it seems she still has issues to resolve – mainly why she wants to murder her downstairs neighbors, Marie and Isabelle.”

Apartment 9: Annie and the incredible growing Edan – the jewel in the frown. Annie was all set to move to Maine last summer, with her purportedly millionaire, definitely lumpen boyfriend – the one Annie’s dad Franck hates. Annie was packed, and that involved billions of tightly-compressed boxes. JB had even brokered a deal to buy her old air-conditioner for 50 bucks, since it would be underused in Maine. Then Annie didn’t move.
“It’s never gonna happen,” Franck predicts. “The guy’s scum.”
And now Annie’s ex-husband – the 6'-8" first one, not Ed the skinny card loser – is suing to keep Edan in state.
“At first, he didn’t mind her going,” Franck went on. “Then he got a bug up his crack about the real estate jerk not making a good step-dad for Edan. Seems the guy has a 12-year-old son he leaves home alone every night when he comes to nuzzle Annie. Meanwhile, Edan, who’s showgirl size, has swapped wiffle balls for dance classes and can tap the shit out of anyone in fifty paces.

Apartment 10: A tale of anticipated woe – Isabelle lost her long-held nanny job. Not through misdeeds or poor attitude: she has the indisputable references of Maria Von Poppins. It’s just that the kids in the family she’s worked for since coming to the States are finally grown, and between last summer’s threatened show-biz strikes and the industry unrest after September 11th, people are being laid off faster than Robert Downey.
“At least, she’s able to collect unemployment,” Lindsay assured me. “I wasn’t sure she was even being paid on the books. And I can’t believe how little she’s made all this time – less than twenty thousand a year.”
That’s why Isabelle still shares her one-bedroom apartment with Marie and the finally lengthening Ricardo. I’d say “rapidly-growing,” but he really isn’t. Plus, he’s still sleeping in a trundle bed next to his mother. If they’re not careful, he’s gonna marry a duckbilled platypus.

Apartment 11: Korki went from being a personal trainer, to studying psychology, to becoming a rookie cop, and back to being a personal trainer. All this for a woman who’s really a poet-artist with Master’s degree. At least, the midget dogs she’s been housing are gone, which makes the courtyard litter-free. Peanut and company now have the run of an avocado ranch in Santa Paula. Though the way Megan’s stripped out the flower beds to save on gardeners, the place looks like a giant litter box.

Apartment 12: Kristen Madison. That’s not her real last name, but she may as well be Oscar Madison’s kid. “I can’t believe a woman lives there,” Orrie-the-never-phone-me-manager said when he ran into me while visiting. “And she seems so nice.”
“She is nice,” I defended. “But she’s works 90 hours a week,” – a concept alien to Orrie.
At the moment, Kristen’s not working at all, since she’s recovering from being elbowed in the jaw. “It broke a tooth I was having trouble with because, when my dentist replaced the filling, he drilled too deep, and I needed a root canal. Now, the tooth’s entirely gone, but I’m waiting for the bone implant to take, so he can attach a crown.”
An expensive hiatus.

Apartment 13: Franck is unfortunately down to seventy-eight pounds, one for each of his years. And he now carries radioactive seeds in his personal parts to treat a very private, if slow-growing cancer. Neither of which has stopped him smoking.
“But I’ve cut down to one cigarette every two hours,” he brags, showing me a sample of the seven cigarettes he lays out on his coffee table each morning.
He used to sit smoking near the bottom of the steps leading to his apartment, then Anthony, whose front door abuts the stairs, started being home days and asked Franck not to do that. Franck wasn’t pleased, because he felt he had seniority in any number of ways, but the truth is he’s rarely been pleased with Anthony. When Anthony worked days, he’d come home and blast his music when Franck was trying to go to sleep early. Now, he’s always home, so Franck never knows when he can sleep. On top of that, one morning recently, Franck came downstairs and found honey spread all over his favorite step.

Apartment 14: Anthony’s home for three months because he’s just had back surgery. “He’s needed it for a while,” I was told, without further explanation. It might be the result of an old car accident. Rumor has it there were several when he was younger, along with a suspended license. Or maybe he over-lifted. Short, compact Anthony somewhat over-compensates in obsessive ways. Presently, he’s in a Robocop, stainless-steel body brace – not much different from a full body cast. It holds his weak chin high and fits him like a rabbit cage. Not much fun for a man whose favorite sport is man’s favorite sport.

And that’s about the shape of it. Despite Megan’s grip, the two palms are still growing, if swaying slightly in recent tremors like arthritic hula girls. And the can’t-kill-‘em climbers I planted near the pool have finally covered the rebuilt gazebo, giving much-needed shade now that the shredded table umbrella hasn’t been replaced. Not that the pool beckons: in another lurch at thrift, Megan’s cut the pool man’s status to “when called.” Her definition of “hazardous algae” also differs greatly from the Centers for Disease Control’s. Though, astonishingly, there’s still some jade left in the courtyard, a last wisp of what Sally’s young daughters planted in 1957, when the building was new. I recently took a cutting myself. Which I’ll happily sell you.

End Note

2015

I was back this afternoon to take another picture I needed. The building looks terrific, and the grounds are beautiful, well planted and well cared for. If anything, they’re a bit too green, considering the present drought.

The palms still stand tall, fifteen feet higher now, and there’s even a bit of jade left in front of what had been Sally’s last apartment. I know the interiors have long been remodeled, the knotty pine and vintage appliances replaced by white walls, shuttered closets, and stainless steel. But I didn’t see the interiors.

So the only thing that hit me hard was the loss of the pool. It’s been filled and paved now into extra parking spaces. Ah, well. Otherwise, Megan did good.