Moorpark Palms Letters - 4. Chapter 4

1996

At Liberty

Even in conception, this building was never classy. But lately people are right: it’s become an immobile home. If I did more than sleep here, I’d move out. But what would I write about?

Apartment 1: Cyndi threw Tim out in August. Of course, Tim insisted the police arrived to escort him to safety. “Can you believe she threw a 400 dollar sub-woofer at me?” he yelped,
ducking CDs. “You don’t work!” Cyndi wailed. “You lie! I bought you a car! I buy you movies! I order pizza! You use more drugs than the whole Olympics team! My cats have better
sex! (And more frequent: at one point, the crawling creatures in Cyndi’s apartment – excluding Tim – totaled 11.) After Tim was banish-ed, Cyndi changed the locks and bolted the windows. When Tim tried to retrieve his clothes, pleading through the unresponsive door, “I’m wearing nothing. I’ve been in these jeans for a week,” Cyndi howled, “I hope they cremate you in them!” Still, by September, Tim was back – which mightily pissed off Franck, our resident grandfather. One day, Cyndi was threatening a restraining order. The next, she and Tim were decopauging frames together in the courtyard. (It’s one of Cyndi’s side businesses – along with tabby farming). She had no explanation for Tim’s return. They still yell as regularly as government deficits. Tim had a job – briefly – delivering serviced Humvees at a local dealership (Weren’t they afraid he’d wreck one?) then he quit.
“The sales people kept ordering me around,” he whined. “‘Make the coffee! Water the plants! Sweep the showroom!’ I was a licensed driver, not serf!” He slumped on the couch,
adding, “Now, I’m so bored, I rented Frankenstein. But can’t watch it. I know how it comes out.”
“Maybe the dealership will take you back,” I suggested.
“They wish!” he said, tossing me a tape. “Have you seen Mary Reilly? Malkovich is great, but I can’t get into the story – too much Jekyll and Hyde.”

Apartment 2: In case you haven’t heard, I’ve left Wheel (and the Berlin wall’s down). For two months, I worked on the limited run of Pauly, a misconceived sit-com starring the actually fairly funny Pauly Shore. Now, as unemployed vaudevillians used to say, I’m “At liberty.” Happily. For the first time in nine years, I can sleep till ten, stay up till two, and read. I actually know what’s on page C-16 of The New York Times. (It’s financial stuff; I didn’t say I understood it.) If I were better at it, I’d write another novel. But as my friend Karen said after starting to read the mystery I wrote ten years ago, “Larry’s the murderer, isn’t he?”
I said, “Karen, you’re on page three. No one’s dead yet.”
She said, “But Larry’s the murderer.”
When I had to admit he was, she said, “Needs work.”

Apartment 3: “Will the guest resident please sign in?” We started with Eran and Gali, then Gali went back to Israel, pissed because Eran wouldn’t marry her and return to Tel Aviv where he was a prosperous electrician. But Eran came to the United States to better his life (better than seventy bucks an hour and all the attitude you can stand?) and had a young son (as well as an ex-wife who’d provided the American citizenship). Besides – as he exploded to Gali one evening (we have thin walls) – “I didn’t come here to study at the University of Judaism just to become a cab driver!” But that’s exactly what happened after Gali left in June. When Eran’s son arrived for the summer, they moved to apartment 11, a luxurious one-bedroom (3's a studio).
Soon after, Asaf (ah-sav) and Maya (maya), another set of Israeli students, moved into 3. Asaf had long dark hair. Maya was blonde and spent lots of time nearly naked at the pool,
helping Marla make up for our lost Swedish beauty of years past. But summer ended, the pool cooled, and Maya and Asaf must have decided that $495 a month was too much for rent. So they skipped by the light of the moon, the moon. They skipped by the light of the moon.
Two weeks and a fast cleaning job later, Steve moved in – kind of. I say that because,
other than clothes, his present possessions consist of a TV set, an end table (on which sits the set)
and a folding foam “chair” which opens into the sheetless narrow “cot” he sleeps on. Except
when his two kids visit: then, his eight-and-three-year-old daughters share the cot, and Steve
sleeps on the floor.
I offered them my futon. “I mainly use it for guests,” I explained. “It has sheets.”
“No, sir,” Steve said, in the politest Virginia drawl. “I’m fine. I’ve been sleeping on a couch for a year – since my wife, sorry, ex-wife, and I moved here.”
“Messy divorce?” I wanted to ask, but all news comes to those who wait, and when I knocked on Steve’s door Halloween – to offer him a tiny dining table someone had abandoned in
the parking lot – I got another piece of the rock.
Steve answered in Roy Rogers drag and Herman Munster make-up. “Waiting for your kids?” I asked, physically unable to say, “Trick or Treat” (it’s my anti-Martha Stewart gene).
“No, sir,” Steve replied. “I program at Wells Fargo, and for the holiday, management decided we should all be cowboys and ghouls.” (So that’s what management does.) While we
waited, Steve dripped Munster blood and explained his pending divorce.
“We moved here ‘cause my sister-and-brother-in-law told us there was better work. We were having marriage problems even then, but figured extra money might help. We sold our
house, put everything in storage, and – ‘temporarily’ – moved to my in-law’s. Found great jobs all right, but our marriage kept getting worse – I think we plum don’t like each other. So we kept putting off buying a house, and I kept sleeping on the couch. And sleeping... and sleeping... Which it turns out kinda pleased my wife – she was all comfy sharing the bed in the guest room with our daughters. Finally, I moved out.”
And that’s when Steve’s kids showed up – screaming happily at their decorated dad. So that’s all I know about Marital Things Virginian.

Apartment 4: Lindsay’s big crisis this year was “putting her cat to sleep.” “She was barely a year old,” Lindsay mournfully explained, “but I’d already spent nearly a thousand dollars, and the doctors weren’t even sure what was wrong yet – they thought maybe cat cancer.” She sighed. “Not that I minded spending the money,” (!!) “she was like my best friend. She knew exactly what I meant when we talked. I’d say, ‘Don’t sit on the counter,’ and off she’d scoot – I didn’t even have to point. I’d say, ‘I’ll be home at eight,’ and there she’d be, sweetly waiting by the door (it’s a one-room apartment). I’d need to be up at six, and right on time she’d nuzzle me, or lick my nose – so much nicer than an alarm clock.”
“You could get another cat,” I tried to say, not too callously. “God knows, we have enough around.” (At that moment, three were grazing our courtyard).
“I could never replace her,” Lindsay promised solemnly. Yet, three months later, two of Cyndi’s coven simultaneously calved, and we were swimmin’ in kittens. “They’re so cute,”
Lindsay squealed. “I just want to eat them up.”
“Good thought,” I suggested. But no one took me seriously. Soon after, Lindsay “adopted” one pair of squirmy mewers, while Annie (Apartment 9) took another set.
“You know,” I told Cyndi, “when I mentioned you might have too many cats for one apartment, I didn’t mean to simply redistribute them.”
“You’re right,” she giggled. “I’ve got to get them fixed.”
But she didn’t.

Apartment 5: JB’s still my friend, so I can’t say much. Currently, he’s in the tricky process of changing careers and spends more time studying animation at his computer than there is time. Still, occasionally, we pass in the parking lot. He looks pale.

Apartment 6: Birgit (burrr-git) the Swedish beauty is back! She reappeared in early September, too late for the swimsuit competition, but bringing along her near-twin sister, Britt.
“Our parents liked ‘B’ names,” they laughed.
Within a month, she bought a dog (too puny for cat-fightin’) and married Rob. “I’m now Robert Mitchell Kimball III,” she announced one twilit evening. “Isn’t that a great name?”
Now she, Rob, Bobby, Britt, the dog (Cody), and the boa (Mr. B. cramp happily in their two-bedroom apartment. It could be worse: Butch – Rob’s cat – ran away last spring. “Well,
not away,” Rob explained. “He’s next door. He comes back whenever he’s confused.”
“He likes their food better,” Bobby put in.
“Likes the fact they have food,” Rob corrected. “We never remembered.”
“Let ‘im eat cigarette butts, I say,” Bobby laughed, tossing his latest over the balcony rail. Rob, Bobby, Birgit, and Britt all smoke, but not inside their apartment. “Stinks up the
place,” they chorus. Instead, they stand on the balcony, whispering on Rob’s mobile phone, puffing, and flicking ash on us lesser folk.

Apartment 7: After greedily competitive bids from Georgetown and Columbia, Ben finally chose Tulane for law school. “I’m the first Israeli they’ve accepted. They’re so excited, they’re paying for everything.” He grinned – enormously. “I love this country.”
He moved out in June, though his brother Jonathan stayed on. Jonathan spent the summer working eighty-hour weeks as security director for El-Al – that mandatory army training
always feeds you. “The money’s great, but I never get to see my girlfriend,” he panted, heading up the stairs late one night.
Still, the rest of us always knew when she spent the night: her white Volvo played musical chairs with our parking spots. When you got hit, you knocked on Jonathan’s door, he
came out – often wearing a towel and a strained smile – moved her car, then scampered back to bed. His new roommate Ilai (eee-lie) – also an Israeli studying at the University of Judaism – looked a lot like Asaf (long dark hair; ubiquitous soldier’s build). Their main distinction was one had a birthmarked neck. But neither spoke, and both drove jalopies and favored ragged jeans and rotting T-shirts. I treated them as twins, mainly nodding, only risking conversation when one clearly had his arm around Maya. As it happens, Jonathan doesn’t much like Ilai, and for months they’ve argued over Ilai’s moving out. The date’s been repeatedly set, with a burly friend of Jonathan’s – Jewish, but not Israeli (he couldn’t pass the fitness test) – poised to move in. (Meanwhile, the friend also visits frequently, hogging our assigned parking spaces.) Still, each month Ilai claims he’s found no place cheaper to live, Jonathan relents, and the stolid friend continues to live at home with his mom (along with his even more tightly-packed kid brother. I ran into them once in the supermarket. They look like twin stacks of pink Michelin tires). Supposedly, in mid-December, Ilai’s moving out, the friend’s moving in, Ben’s visiting from Tulane, Jonathan has a break from both school and the airport, the girlfriend’s staying for ten uninterrupted days, and all will be right in this particular world. Whew!

Apartment 8: Meg and Quinn got engaged! On Valentine’s day! “Quinn’s so romantic,” Meg said.
“Actually, I was all kinds of nervous,” Quinn confessed. “Meg ‘n’ I have lived together two years. But I’d never spent time with her family.”
“They’re just happy I’m getting married,” Meg insisted. “I’m almost twenty-nine.”
“Past those peak child-bearing years,” Quinn quipped.
They told me this while standing on the balcony – where chic people meet – smoking.
“We can’t smoke in the apartment,” Quinn once explained. “It annoys the cats.”
Lately, he’s spurned tabbies and is cultivating tattoos. “Trying for the Illustrated Man?” I asked this summer by the pool. (It was July Fourth, and they were sponsoring the annual
Cannonball Off The Roof Bash.)
“Nah... I hate that look,” Quinn answered. “I’m just doing my arms (every last millimeter).
“This way he can leave his shirt open,” one of his friends joked. “Use them pretty pecs to pick up chicks.”
“Aw... pretty,” his biker buddies sighed while Quinn bristled.
“Body tats are butt ugly,” he soon fiercely announced, grinning wickedly at his friend’s splattered torso.
“Up your ass!” growled the pal.
“Guys!” Meg shouted.
Who’d have thought there was tattoo protocol?

Apartment 9: Things have been strangely quiet with Ed and Annie – makes me want to hide the chain saw. Ed’s had no unexplained “sales” trips. Annie’s Stepfordly polite when chatting in the courtyard. Even nine-year-old Edan has stopped torturing Barbies and has turned sullenly pretty, maybe heading for her Lolita phase. They did get a new car, willing Franck – Annie’s father – their old one, though I’ve yet to see him drive. (With his money, of course, Franck could buy Detroit and still afford a small baseball team). I think claiming the car is Franck’s is Annie and Ed’s way of scamming an extra parking space. (They’re also eyeing the storage closet with fascist enthusiasm). Still, Franck’s entitled to park. Hell, Isabelle – Apartment 10 and also carless – deeded her space to a Joad-like family next door (though not the folks harboring Rob’s former cat. This inbred clan couldn’t nurture barnacles).

Apartment 10: Isabelle and Marie have also been quiet. (Marie’s so quiet I don’t even know her name. I call her Marie in these letters so you’ll think I know everything about everyone.) The kid – Ricardo, sometimes Richard – continues to grow, though short and stout. He’s only four, but I sometimes want to give him a mask and wrestling magazines. Isabelle and Marie also call me Richard, probably in connection with the boy, though it’s a formal name I usually reserve for immediate family or people I’m sleeping with. (I’ve just made myself a target, haven’t I?) Marie’s tow truck-driving boyfriend either hasn’t been around much this year or is learning to slink like a cat burglar. I think he still calls me “Shithead,” but, hey, mi Espanol es weak.

Apartment 11: Holly and Kaz were finally evicted in May. “We’re moving closer to work,” Kaz confided, studiously packing their van. (Were they planning to live in the van?) It’s not that they never paid rent. They just lived on a sixty-day cycle. We got so used to seeing eviction notices on their door, we considered them set dressing. Management barely inspected the place before Eran and his son took possession. (The boy must have been claustrophobic in Eran’s studio – he constantly played stickball off the walls. Still, all summer, pieces of violently-trashed military toys littered the courtyard.) By mid-September, strangely, there was another eviction notice up, this time for Eran. Seeing it, Tim whispered, “Deja vu,” then hummed The Twilight Zone theme, a connection I never made. “They shouldn’t have done that,” Eran scowled, tearing down the notice with the rage of Martin Luther. “I flew my son to his grandparents in Chicago, then searched all of San Francisco for work.”
“Find anything?” I asked, pleasant under assault.
“I’d rather drive cabs on those goddamn hills,” he hissed, “than live one more day in this pisshole!” (The building or the city?) Heaving the crumpled notice toward the trash, he
slammed into his apartment.
And that was his final bow: keeping his threat, the next morning he was gone – leaving only a cheap halogen lamp, a polyester shirt (quickly acquired by Tim), and a pastoral painting we attributed to the artist Gali. A month later – it’s a slow market, and several applicants’ credit ratings rivaled Charles Keating’s – Korki moved in. An athletic blonde from Missouri, she owns a huge black Lab named Edge. They sport matching red bandanas. Have to see about this.

Apartment 12: Claire reigns (at least temporarily). Franck recently mentioned that, deep in the night – Franck never sleeps – Claire and her latest boyfriend seemed to be relocating the contents of her apartment to the guy’s truck. Still, I saw her in the courtyard this morning (a rare daytime sighting: she’s mainly visible after twilight’s last gleam) and she gave no hint of moving out. Besides, I’ve been in her apartment – bobbing for a lost earring in her garbage disposal. (Don’t ask.) She could easily lose half her furniture and still have plenty for several houses. (If she left things near the dumpster, Steve in Apartment 3 would be grateful.) Also, Claire has ample reason to leave: Tim and Cyndi live just across the way, one flight down, and Tim’s music frequently tornadoes through Claire’s living room. This summer, one afternoon when everyone else was gone, they had a decibel war.
“I propped my stereo speakers in the window and blasted Vivaldi at him,” Claire told me
proudly. “The Four Seasons!” (What else?)
And while I’m sure her effort was noble, how much damage could her tinny Panasonic do against the five-grand-SenseSurround system Cyndi’s bought for Tim? One evening this winter, Tim was screening Tora! Tora! Tora! – who knows why? – and a minor battle scene brought Kaz and Holly tearing from their apartment, sure we were having another quake.

Apartment 13: Franck went to Las Vegas last spring. “I don’t go often,” he started slowly, with all the time of a man long-retired (though he still isn’t). “I don’t really approve of gambling, but there’s one game I’m not bad at, and – fortunately – they have this Blackjack tournament every March.”
Franck didn’t notice, but I was on my way to a movie and glanced obviously at my watch.
“I always set a careful limit,” he continued. “Either something I’ve gotten as a bonus or picked up in overtime. (Franck’s fortune was built not by cleverness, but by union negotiations.) “I either win or lose,” he declaimed, “but never go beyond that limit – and I never spend what I win.” (He was becoming Polonius) “I’m very good at that.”
He’s also very good at Blackjack it seems: in the tournament, he won twenty-five grand.
“Twenty-five thousand dollars!” he repeated. Several times. “Now that’s a nice trip.”
“Sure is, “ I said, edging towards my car.
“I took it as a check,” he went on, oblivious. “Only a fool carries that much cash.” (And we all have the chance.) “I put the check carefully in my wallet, then – since I had time to kill
before my plane – I tried my luck again.”
I knew better than to ask how he’d done. His head was already shaking from side-to-side.
“Not so hot,” he admitted. “But what the hell!” – he grinned hugely – “I’d just won twenty-five thousand dollars!!
Again, he repeated the number.
“It went straight into Edan’s trust fund, of course,” he confided.
I boisterously jangled my car keys, trying to fend off this latest recap of Edan’s finances.
“Except I forgot to save money for a cab!” Franck finally finished. (The punchline!) “You believe that?!
To leave just then, I would’ve testified he was Eva Peron.
“It took me three hours to get home from the airport by public bus! With a check for twenty-five thousand dollars in my pocket! Three hours! Longer than it took to reach Las
Vegas, win all that money, and fly home!”
But less time than it took to tell the story.

Apartment 14: Marla and Lefty are also gone – finally off on their rock band’s frequently postponed European tour – leaving Titanic debris. Cyndi’s snooping proved correct: their
bedroom had been transmuted into a litter box for Jeri, their enormous Doberman (who fiercely serrated the edges of the fanciful “Beware of the Dog” sign hung humorously in the front window). Almost monthly, Lefty would toss the skeleton of another futon into the dumpster, but I naively figured futons were cheap, and maybe he and Marla had some Karmic ritual going. I never guessed they’d been feeding these cotton wonders to Jeri, like mice to snakes. With the litter box-bedroom, of course, came Biblical pests. When I went to inspect the damage, I immediately wanted to burn my pants and shoes. Holes in the walls, holes in the floors, “holes in our bellies, and holes in our clothes.” But how holes in the ceiling? Were terrified flying roaches trying to flee the hairy hound? Two cleaning ladies (ain’t it sweet how they’re still called “ladies”) took three days to sandblast the place – and they kept gasping into the courtyard for air. I told management if they didn’t tip those women heavily, there’d be an international incident (we should have just encased the place in concrete like Chernobyl). The refrigerator, carpet, sub-floor, and all the interior doors had to be replaced. An extravagant bribe coaxed two wary painters into hauling away the cushionless wreck of a creeping couch. (Jeri must’ve snacked on its stuffed delicacies while Lefty and Marla packed.) The apartment has now been restored and repeatedly fumigated, but – after several months – still remains empty. Rumor had Steven Spielberg planning to make Poltergeist 8 there, but he couldn’t get the Health Department permits.

That’s about it. I thought about sending some of these electronically, then figured a well-intentioned friend might post one on the Internet, ending me in a huge cyberlibel suit (even more repellent than seersucker). Still, that’s coming soon enough.