Condo Conversion, Chapter 9

            We awoke fully dressed in the same bed, my brother and I, feeling bad but not annihilated.  In the first hour several waves of nausea washed over my body, but I never vomited.  I jogged in place, did push ups and crunches, all in an attempt to exorcise the minor demon.  It worked.  While showering I reminded myself that this was precisely why I had quit getting high.  Cocaine had the capacity to add a sinister glacial layer to my hangovers, filled with grains and pebbles of depression and boulders of self loathing.  This was absent when my hangover was merely alcohol fueled.  Now I just felt like shit.  And that, believe it or not, was progress. 

            Nicholas and Rick were absent, as they had been when we returned to the room the night before.  This was no surprise.  During dinner, I had overheard them talking about a trip to one of the out of town whorehouses outside Reno in the desert.  To tell the truth, I was pondering a similar move myself, just not on this trip and not in the company of other men.  That had always confused me, the testosterone-fueled camaraderie that surrounded the event.  I had always thought of it as a private, though hardly shameful, affair. 

            We went down to the coffee shop and ordered breakfast.  I was having the Denver omelet, my brother a short stack of pancakes.  We heard our dynamic companions stampeding through the lobby before they saw us.  Moments later, they were sitting in our booth.

            Rick was a vision, an exemplar, the paradigm of the robust partyer.  The night had taken its toll, there was no evading that.  His eyes were bloodshot red, his face droopy.  His hair was out of place and his clothing wrinkled.  But he had a glow, indeed a healthy one, which only emanates at the end of a long and satisfying bender.  He sat down opposite me.  Nicholas appeared far more wounded by the events of the night, but amazingly was still hanging in there.

            “The things I did last night,” Rick exclaimed, shaking his head.  “They would make your head spin.”

            “We’re all ears,” I said enthusiastically.  My brother rolled his eyes.  He worked day in day out with Nicholas and Rick, and tired of their ways more quickly than I.

            “Well, where do I begin?”

            “At the beginning,” I encouraged.

            “After you guys went to gamble we retired to the suite.  After a fat joint and some more powder I just had a hankering for some pussy.  You know what I mean?  So Nick and I, we took a cab out to the Squirrel Ranch.  You wouldn’t believe what they do there.  When you walk through the door they ring a bell and all the available girls line up for your inspection.  I let Nick go first.  Would you believe he picked the ugliest broad in the bunch?”

            “I liked her,” Nicholas interrupted, “she was a real person.”  A truly excellent statement, I thought, especially coming from a guy so good looking.

            “Whatever,” Rick continued.  “I chose not one, but two hot blondes.  They took me up to what they call the Jacuzzi room.  There was a menu on the wall listing every possible sexual perversion along with the price.  We fucked for what must have been two hours.  I had one of ‘em licking my balls while the other one tounged my asshole.  I felt like a Roman emperor.  It was the best thousand bucks I’ve ever spent.”

            “How many mortgages does that come to?” I asked sarcastically.

            “Let me tell you something, you can’t put a price on an experience like that.”

            I took his word for it. 

 

            By four o’clock, we were driving home, my brother at the wheel, me in the front passenger seat.  Rick and Nicholas were passed out in the back, mouths agape, faces pale, limbs limp, a couple of inanimate marionettes.  We passed high above Donner Lake and I looked down at its azure quietude.  On the mountain in the distance a train made what appeared to be a precarious journey through tunnels and over passes.  It was summer, but there was still some snow on the peaks.  A hundred and fifty years ago crossing the Sierras was a mortal risk; now we did it in absolute comfort, completely detached from the elements.  I wondered if this was better or worse. 

            We had gambled for a couple of hours before our departure, but it wasn’t the same.  The casino had regained its primacy; the laws of statistics could not be resisted.  Luckily, we were playing very small, in the hopes of escaping with a profit.  In the end, I left up eight hundred dollars and very happy.  It is not a bad thing to give back a few bucks when you have won big – the God’s of gambling demand and indeed deserve their sacrificial tribute.     

            “Are you gonna say it or do I have to?” David asked.

            “Say what?”

            “You know.”

            “I already told you that you were right.”

            “Let me hear it again.”

            I laughed.  “Fine: you were right.  I would have been a fool not to come on this trip with you.

            “Remember that next time.”

            “Okay.” 

            “So, what are you going to do with your new found fortune?”

            “I don’t know.  Stave off starvation and homelessness, I guess.”

Condo Conversion, Chapter 8

There Nicholas stood, resplendent in his tall, dark and handsome magnificence, shaking the dice wildly in his clenched fist.  There are few men that I acknowledge as exceptionally good looking but he was certainly one of them.  He was the kind of guy who could have any woman he wanted.  A light shone behind him, giving him an almost divine appearance. 

            “Eight, come on eight,” he repeated several times.

            “Hit it for us Nicky,” my brother called out.

            “Four-four,” I chimed, “do it the hard way.”

            He threw the dice.  One skidded and tumbled on the felt, never more than half an inch off the table.  The other bounced two feet high, spinning in mid air.  I watched it twist and turn.  It was almost eye level.  Time slowed down.  This must be how a great baseball hitter feels, watching the movement of the seams as the ball catapults toward him at ninety miles an hour. 

            Then time accelerated.  Both dice hit the back of the table and magically flipped over: four-four.  Hard eight.  The entire table burst into screams of elation.

            We received our chips and walked away.  Everybody was up big.  I was up about seven hundred.  My brother put his arm around my neck.

            “What did I tell you?”

            “You were right,” I admitted.

            “Let’s go upstairs.  Rick is probably there.”  

            We cashed out and went to the suite.  And sure enough, there was Rick hunched over the glass coffee table chopping up a gratuitous pile of cocaine, several long lines already prepared: four, to be precise.  I had been drinking heavily.  These things were always hardest when you’ve had a few drinks. 

            “Let’s get this party started,” Rick said, extending a rolled up bill my way.

            “Ahh, thanks anyway, man.  I’m on the wagon.”

            “But not this weekend,” he argued.  “We’re on vacation.”

            “I’ll just stick to my drinks,” I responded, proceeding to kitchen to make myself a bourbon and coke. 

            “Well I’m not waiting any longer,” he said, snorting up the biggest of the lines.

            Nicholas was next, taking the bill without comment and sucking up another line.  He offered the bill to my brother, who politely declined as well.

            “What the hell is going on here?” Rick said, outraged.

            “We haven’t even eaten dinner yet,” my brother replied.

            “So?  This won’t have any effect on dinner.”

 

            An hour later we were at the steakhouse.  And damn it if Rick hadn’t been perfectly correct in his statement.  Despite having enjoyed two more huge helpings of Columbia’s finest, he was attacking his porterhouse with gusto.  It was quickly devoured.  He even picked up the bone in his hands and gnawed on it, just to make his point clear, in my opinion.  He downed the last of the expensive Cabernet, some of which trickled on to his chin and meaty jowls. 

            “Jesus,” my brother said, “you fucking killed that thing.”

            Rick smiled contentedly.  His face was a deep purple, which contrasted dramatically with his light blonde hair and pale blue eyes.  His hefty arms were crossed in front of him as he belched soundly.  “It’s my Norwegian heritage,” he said proudly.  “We’re a stout people.  I’m a goddamned Viking.”

            “You know what else you are?” I asked.

            “What?”

            “A bon-vivant.”

            “What the hell is that?” Nicholas, who was completely drunk by this time, asked.  He always tried to keep up with the pace of the party, but invariably fell short.

            “A person who lives luxuriously and enjoys good food and drink, a lover of life” my brother answered perfectly.

            “You really mean that?” Rick asked.

            “Of course,” I replied.

            “You’re all right, man.”

            “I call ‘em as I see ‘em.”

            We split the bill between the four of us and got up to leave. 

            “I’m going up to the room,” Rick said.

            “Me too,” added Nicholas, swaying back and forth.  He desperately needed a pick-me-up.

            “I’m gonna go play the tables,” I said.

            “Yeah,” agreed my brother.  Rick shook his head in consternation.  All that coke and here he was with two abstainers: what had the world come to? 

            Dave and I proceeded to the roulette table, where there were no other casino patrons.  I like to play alone or with a friend.  Large groups crowded around ruin the experience for me: too many arms and fingers invading my domain.  I always play the same inside numbers: 0, 00, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 17, 18, 21, and 24.  Sometimes I play the outside as well, red or black, odd or even.  But for starters I generally stick with my numbers.  They’re all lucky to me in one way or another, hand selected, containing personal significance.  Numbers are important to me, imbued with portent.  Anyway, it’s easier to just stick with the same ones time and time again.  That way you don’t lament your choices because you don’t really have any.  Either you are lucky or you are not. 

            My brother was wagering on the outside bets, playing small.  He doesn’t enjoy roulette as much as I do.  He thinks it’s a bad proposition, which is perfectly true.   The player suffers a disadvantage of close to five and a half percent on most American wheels, much larger than on craps or blackjack.  But if you find a run of luck on the roulette table you can increase your money exponentially, unlike any other game in the casino.  Besides, I like facing the tough odds. 

            I spread two dollar bets on all my numbers and the croupier gave the wheel a spin.  My brother and I began to talk offhandedly as I scrutinized every movement of the ball.

            “Rick’s on fire tonight,” he said.

            “He has an incredible constitution.  It makes me jealous.”

            “You’re really sticking with the no-drugs thing.  I’m impressed.”

            “I just couldn’t take it anymore.  But I could fall at any moment.  There are times when the desire is very strong.”

            “What holds you to your resolution?”

            “I just weigh how good it would feel immediately versus how bad it will feel tomorrow.  Nothing is worth that pain.  Nothing.”

            “Seventeen,” the croupier exclaimed.

            “Yes!” I pumped my fist and jumped up from the table.  I noticed a pretty waitress behind me. 

            “Would you guys like something to drink?” she asked. 

            “I’d like a jack and coke, please,” I said.

            “Scotch,” requested David. 

            I tipped the dealer and doubled all my bets.  The ball was alive and moving once again. 

            “People are surprised when they hear about you,” David said.  “There was even a rumor going around that you’d quit drinking too.”

            “I hope you dispelled that one quickly.  I’d hate for people to think I was a twelve stepper or something.”

            “I never realized what a huge reputation you had.”

            “That was precisely the problem.”

            “Eight!”

            “Fuck yes!” I yelled, my hand shaking nervously.  I was now up almost two hundred since sitting down.  I doubled all my bets again. 

            “What about you?” I asked David just as the waitress quickly returned with our drinks.  I took a long pull.  “You’re not indulging either.”

            “I never really liked it to begin with.  I just did it to be a part of things, you know?  If you were partying I probably would, too.  It makes it easier that there’s two of us.”

            I raised my glass.  “Cheers to that.”  We toasted and felt good. 

            “Double zero.”

            “You have to be kidding me!  I can’t lose!”  I was beside myself and David was jumping up and down screaming, scotch spilling on the floor.  The croupier had run out of roulette chips in my color and paid me in twenty five dollar green chips.  I tossed one his way, now up over five hundred dollars in five minutes.  

            After that the spell broke.  The next spin missed my numbers and we both knew the time had come to leave.  I colored up my chips and we walked toward the blackjack tables. 

            We played for about forty-five minutes.  It was a good even run: win one hand lose the next and so forth.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  It keeps the drinks flowing, the entertainment alive and the conversation civil.  It also keeps a steady stream of tips moving toward the dealer, which I consider important.  If you are going to piss money away gambling, some of it at least should go to the people working. 

            I was getting drunk and very happy.  It had been a great day for a gambler.  I knew that time was short and I wouldn’t lose it all back, my once full tank of compulsion having been emptied by the action.  Our dealer’s name was Clarissa.  She busted on a sixteen.

            “Clarissa, we love you,” Dave said, also very drunk.  He gave her a five dollar chip.

            “My brother shall not exceed me in generosity,” I said, also giving her a red.

            “You are the two sweetest guys I’ve dealt to all week,” she responded.  That was probably partially true and partially her desire to extract more money from us.  If so, her plan was working.

            The Billy Ocean song “Caribbean Queen” began playing.  I hadn’t heard it in a long time, but I consider it a real classic of 80’s pop.  My brother and I looked at one another and simultaneously began singing along and dancing awkwardly in our seats, unwilling due to our intoxication to stand up.  Clarissa continued dealing the cards as we sang.  The song and our exuberance worked in our favor somehow and she busted every hand.  Soon we were singing directly to her, serenading her with our drunken adoration.  Players at other tables, pit bosses and other dealers stared our direction and laughed, some mockingly.  We clearly looked like idiots, but at least we were pleasant idiots who weren’t trying to hurt anybody.  Our joy leaped in a crescendo of broken notes and good energy.  It was a sublime moment neither of us would immediately remember the following day, but would recall when reminded by the casino manager.  No more love on the run…

 

Condo Conversion, Chapter 7

 

I awoke to the sound of the phone ringing.  I answered it groggily. 

            “This is Peter.”

            “This is your brother.”

            “How ya doin’, Dave?”  My brother David is two years younger than me but vastly more successful.  He is a mortgage broker in the city and has been on a very good run of luck these past few years. 

            “The question is how are you doing?  Have you banged any seventy year olds yet?”

            “Not yet, but I’m working on it.”

            “I expect details.”

            “Of course.”

            “The reason I’m calling is I’ve lined up a suite at the Reno Peppermill this Saturday.  Rick will be there, as well as Nicholas.  You should come.”

            “Oh, I don’t know,” I answered hesitatingly.  “I don’t really have the dough.”

            “What do you mean you don’t have the dough?  Didn’t you just score a retainer today?”

            “Yeah, but that has to go to rent and supporting myself for the next little while.”

            “Listen, don’t be difficult.  The room is free; the drinks are cheap. I’m paying for gas.  All you need is gambling money.”

            “That’s what I’m worried about.”

            “What worry?  If you get down you can always borrow more money from me.”

            “Then I have to pay you back.”

            “So?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “All right, I didn’t want to have to say this, but I’m going to anyway.  I’m worried about you, Pete.  You’re not the same.  You’ve lost your gambling spirit.”

            “No, I’ve lost the losing spirit.  I haven’t won on the table games in like two years.”

            “See what I mean?  You have a bad attitude.  You can’t win with a bad attitude.”

            “That was a low blow, what you said.  Nobody has more gambling spirit than I do and you know it.”

            “So, are you coming?”

            “Yeah.”

            At six-fifteen I was getting ready for my dinner with Marion.  After brushing my teeth I scrutinized my countenance in the mirror.

            Not a bad face, I thought, but one of a person nearer to forty than thirty.  Premature lines in the corners of my eyes, small hairline red cracks and splotches on my large Roman nose, a lack of color in my face and barely visible but burgeoning freckles on the top of my head where male pattern baldness had laid waste to my once great forest of hair.  I had gained some weight as well, which gave my neck and cheeks a paunchiness I was not used to.  When I was younger I was so skinny and all I wanted was to be able to put on a few pounds.  Now that I was older I realized how hard it was to lose weight once you had it. 

            But still, not a bad face.  God had not been unfair to me.  It had character; it was a face that merited female company.  I wondered what Marion must have looked like fifty-five years earlier.  She was probably a decent babe in her day.

            At six twenty-nine I exited my bungalow and walked across the small lawn to hers.  The door was open a couple of inches, but I knocked anyway. 

            “Come in,” she called.

            I entered.  There was a small card table that had been set with a lace tablecloth, old floral plates and antique silver wear.  As Marion was nowhere in sight, I indulged my interest by picking up and inspecting a knife off the table.  It was heavy, real silver: stamped Tiffany.  She had brought out the good stuff for me. 

            She emerged from out her bedroom dressed in dark blue sweatpants, a soiled baby blue sweater and white slippers.  I was glad she was comfortable.  If she had been all dressed up it would have made me uneasy. 

            “Hello Peter,” she said softly.  “I’m so glad you came.  Tonight we’re having a dinner of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and green beans.  I hope that sounds good to you.”

            “It certainly does,” I replied.

            “I’ll get started on it after Jeopardy.”  And with this, she turned on the television and offered me a seat on the couch next to her. 

            The program began.  I like Jeopardy.  It is truly one of the great game shows of all time.  I don’t watch regularly, but when I do I like to play along.  I’ve always been under the assumption that everybody plays along.  That, I believe, is what makes it such a compelling program.  On this particular night I was on fire, hitting more than half the questions to the answers. 

            “What is Liberia?”

            “Who is William Randolph Hearst?”

            “What is a sonnet?”

            “Who are the Carthaginians?”

            “Could you please stop that?” Marion snapped.  I was totally confused.

            “Huh?”

            “You are ruining the show.”

            “Oh,” I responded, embarrassed and a little taken aback.  “Sorry.”

            We watched the rest of the program in silence.  I guessed at the answers in my head, but it just wasn’t the same. 

            When the show was finished Marion rose from her seat. 

            “You just stay where you are.  Dinner will be ready in fifteen minutes.”

            Fifteen minutes? I thought.  How could that be?

            “No, Marion, allow me to help you.”

            “Absolutely not,” she responded pleasantly.  She walked over to the refrigerator, opened the freezer and removed two blue boxes: frozen dinners.  I understood and was pleased that she wouldn’t be straining herself.  Anyway, I like frozen dinners. 

            Soon the plates on the table were removed, replaced by the plastic boxes that contained our dinners.  She poured two waters for us to drink.  So there we were, eating Swanson’s Hungry Man with fine silver.  The steak was a little chewy, but the green beans and potatoes were quite palatable.  The meal even included an additional treat: a chocolate brownie.  What more could be desired?  A beer, perhaps. 

            I took responsibility for keeping the conversation rolling, asking her about her family.  When she tired of this topic I queried her on some of the events and personalities of her lifetime: FDR and Churchill, Hitler and Mussolini.  She had remarkably accurate and clear memories of this history.  She recalled the Prime Minister’s visit to the White House during Christmas 1941 and the heroic welcome he received.  “He was a very great man,” she said.  “He understood the danger in our world before anybody else, even the President.”  I listened intently, as I am always enthralled by these increasingly rare first person narratives.  Those were truly weighty times that forged great men.  Today we live in a historical cesspool.  Our leaders, I think, have diminished accordingly. 

            When dinner was finished we cleared the table together.  We sat back down on the couch but had little left to discuss.  She yawned, which I took as a sign to make my exit.

            “Marion, thank you so much for dinner.”

            “It was my pleasure.  We must do this again sometime,” she said as she led me to the door.

            “I look forward to it,” I replied.

 

            Two days later I was awakened by loud noises outside my window.  It was fairly early, eight o’clock in the morning.  As I don’t like to rise unnaturally unless I have some business to conduct, I was perturbed.  I put on my robe and went outside.  Three men were crowded around Marion’s open door, shouting at one another.  They were strangers to me.  Two of them were young and dressed in blue uniforms, the other a middle aged fellow in plainclothes with an expression of complete anguish on his face.  I walked toward them.

            “What is the meaning of all this racket?” I asked. 

            They turned as a unit and looked at me dumbfounded, as if my very presence was surreal.  Just as the first whiff of that foul odor penetrated my nostrils, I peered over the shoulder of one of the men and saw the source of their dismay: there was Marion, dressed exactly as I had left her two days earlier, dead on the couch.  She had a strange look frozen on her face, a look of surprise.  At least she had been sitting, I thought. 

            “Oh,” I said.  I turned and walked back into my apartment.  It was impossible to get back to sleep.  I felt like getting high.

Condo Conversion, Chapter 6

           I kept nodding off at the wheel. Redwood City is a good hour and a half drive from Rohnert Park, and that is if there's no traffic. Today, of course, there was traffic. When I reached Petaluma I saw the sign: Rohnert Park Five Miles. I was there but I wasn't. This made me even more tired. And when I'm really tired every minute spent concentrating feels like ten. I slapped myself across the face to stay alert, but it did little good. The car sputtered violently. I couldn't be out of gas already, could I? Dear God, I thought, not now. Was there ever a good time?

           Finally, I arrived.  I left everything in the unlocked car: jacket, briefcase, case file.  I was hustling to the door of my little bungalow apartment when she came out of nowhere: Marion.

           “Well hello,” she said with a strange smile on her ashen, withered face.  “You must be my new neighbor.”

            I did my best to fake it.  “Hello, Dear.  Why yes.  My name is Peter.”

            She held out a shaking hand and I took it.  She began talking.  I wasn’t really listening, but some of it sunk in.  She was ninety-two years old.  Her grandchildren visited her regularly, as well as her son.  She wondered if the rumors that the apartment complex was going to be sold were true.  I told her I didn’t know, even though I probably knew more about it than she did.  She kept talking.

            “I guess it doesn’t matter much from my point of view,” she said.  “When you reach my age you don’t think too far off into the future.”

            That made sense to me.  It must be liberating in a way, standing on the edge of the abyss, when every day really could be your last.  There was nothing left to defend, even your own existence. 

            She kept talking and I stopped listening.  All I wanted to do was jack off and go to sleep.  It had gotten so pathetic for me that I actually visualized it like I used to visualize fucking.  Me jacking off.  Afterwards, the land of dreams was only a few moments away.  I could hardly contain myself. 

            But I didn’t want to be rude.  What if today was her last day and her final human interaction was with me?  I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I was inconsiderate.  She had lived through world wars, raised a family, been somebody important to other people.  I had nothing to do all day.   Nobody relied on me. 

            There was a pause in the conversation and I took it.

            “Well Marion, I guess I’d better be going, then.”

            “It has been so nice meeting you, young man.  It would give me the greatest pleasure if you would join me for dinner one night.”

            I was tired and had to extricate myself from the conversation.  And who was I to turn down a free meal, anyway?  “I’d love that,” I said enthusiastically.

            “Good.  Tonight at six thirty.”

            “I’ll be there,” I replied.  I had seven and a half hours.

Condo Conversion, Chapter 5

I was running out of money when Lars called ten days later.  I felt as if my desperation permeated every aspect of the conversation.
            “Pete, I’ve got a case in Redwood City for you.”
            “What is it?” I asked.
            “A DUI.”
            “Why don’t you want it?”  His firm specialized in DUI’s, five grand for the first few hearings and associated motions, ten grand more if you wanted to go to trial.  Steep.  But they were among the best in the business.  Despite their prices, I believed they fought the good fight. 
            “He can’t afford our fees.”
            “What can he afford?”
            “Fifteen hundred: you do the early hearings, convince him to take whatever deal they’re offering and you’re finished.  His arraignment is tomorrow.”
            “I’ll take it,” I said.  I hardly had the gas and bridge toll money to get to the courthouse in Redwood City.  But Lars assured me the client would greet me with a check when I arrived.  Hopefully it wouldn’t bounce, like numerous others had in the past. 
            Lars and I had entered law school together eight years earlier.  We had been, I would say, contemporaries and equals.  Neither one of us showed much drive to compete for the best grades.  We both had an interest in criminal law.  But at the same time we were more interested in women and partying than the rigors of academia.  But we had our talents.  We did well in moot court and could hold our own in classroom debates.  Both of us graduated and passed the bar exam on our second try.  There was no shame in that.  There are people I went to law school with who are still trying to pass the bar and are on their tenth go around. 
            Two years ago he was calling me for advice on how to get cases when you didn’t know shit and had no connections.  We were basically in the same boat then, each of us trying to establish a private practice as young attorneys.  But since that time he had taken an unpaid position with the Public Defenders office and had gotten hired by a criminal defense firm in downtown San Francisco.  He had half a dozen trials under his belt, one of which he had won outright.  He had surpassed me as a lawyer in every way.
            And while that fact bothered me a bit I didn’t hold it against him. He had always been decent to me and I responded in kind. And anyway, here he was, bringing me business. Fifteen hundred bucks was a big score for me. Shit, my rent was only five hundred a month.  
 
            The alarm went off at six o’clock but I was already awake.  Whenever I have to get up early in the morning I can’t rest properly.  They call it sleep anxiety.  I used to be a chronically late person in college and before.  Now I’m paranoid about tardiness, oversleeping.  Lateness is one of the hallmark insults of our age; nobody likes being on the receiving end but we all seem to do it.  It shows how little respect we have for one another and ourselves.  A culture can often be assessed by its observance of the little courtesies.  And I don’t generally think much of ours.
            The Volkswagen sputtered and shook as it has a habit of doing in the mornings.  Of course, I had the steaming cup of Starbucks in my right hand as I drove with my left.  The burning liquid shot out from that tiny hole in the plastic top and splashed on the cuff of my shirt.  Great.  I hadn’t been out of the house for five minutes and my shirt was already soiled.  The essence of futility.  It cost a buck-fifty to dry clean.  I have a hard time dealing with the little things. 
            I stopped at a red light and looked into the car next to me.  A pretty woman was sitting in a black BMW smoking.  She took a long drag of the cigarette and blew out the window.  As she did so, her eyes closed and a look of utter tranquility came over her countenance.  Satisfaction: her little piece of contentment.  I eyed the burning cancer cylinder lasciviously.
            I had given it all up six months earlier.  Well, everything but drinking, of course.  That was inviolable.  I had quit smoking: cigarettes and dope.  I had quit cocaine and all the ancillary drugs that would dart into my life from time to time.  Although I had been pondering this move for what seemed like an eternity, the decision, looking back on it now, appeared sudden and capricious.  What was the point?
            My hope had been that my lack of motivation had stemmed from sixteen years of drug abuse.  Maybe if I quit, the reasoning went, I would gain clarity and the inspiration to become somebody: the person with all that potential, the person my parents always wanted me to be.  I’d have more energy, exercise, think positively, fuck on a regular basis.  I’d be a member of society instead of the guy living comfortably on the periphery, a Pluto in the cold depths of the outer solar system: sometimes a planet and sometimes not. 
            But the reality was far from the ideal, as is the case with most things in life.  There were a number of positive aspects that were evident from the start.  I didn’t wake up vomiting three mornings out of seven.  That was nice, because I was getting really tired of that.  My paranoia was reduced by eighty percent.  The nosebleeds stopped.  I no longer spent time crouched over dirty urinals trying to snort that insidious powder.  I slept well and felt refreshed when I woke up in the morning.  I experienced and remembered dreams again, and realized how much I had missed them.  These little changes were very nice. 
            However, as time went by I noticed that certain other things did not change.  My place in the solar system, my irregular orbit around the sun, remained the same.  I didn’t become more engaged, more enthusiastic about my possible identity as worker, earner, head of family, member of society.  I was in fact more comfortable than ever with my peripheral role.  Instead of desiring more money, responsibility, possessions and authority I found that I was relatively comfortable with less.  I reread Walden and got far more out of it than the first time. 
            It soon dawned on me that the drugs had been holding me back, only not in the way that I previously believed.  Before, I thought that there was an achiever inside of me that was waiting to break out, but was being restrained by my bad habits, a Prince Hal just waiting to become a King Henry.  The truth was that this person within was a figment of my imagination; I had always been averse to the notion of a regular life.  Even as a child, I can remember a cold feeling of detachment from the goals and ambitions of the other kids.  “I want to be a pro baseball player,” one would say.  “I’d like to be a movie star,” said another.  I never wanted to be anything but free to do my own thing.  For a short spell, I thought I’d like to be a Catholic priest, which was for me the equivalent of wanting to be a philosopher, but this notion withered even before puberty.
           
            There was a large group of people standing out in front of the twin wooden doors of the courtroom when I arrived.  I was five minutes early for the official start of court, which meant I was probably thirty minutes early.  Court starts when the judge says it starts.  Most judges take their time and start late, wasting the valuable time of the public that pays their salaries. This always pissed me off.
            Since I didn’t know what my guy looked like I just blurted out, “Is there a Tyler Green here?”
            A nice looking kid, early twenties, emerged from the crowd.  He was six feet tall, athletically thin, had pale white skin and thick, curly, blonde, almost yellow hair.  He looked like a young version of the guy who starred in the 1970’s TV show “The Greatest American Hero.”  I almost mentioned that to him as he offered me his hand to shake, but I refrained.
            “I’m Tyler,” he said.  “You Peter?”
            “I am.  Sorry to meet you under these circumstances.”
            “It’s not your fault.  I’m just glad I could afford your services.  That reminds me.”  He stuck his hand inside his white collard shirt and pulled out a bank draft (not a personal check!) in the amount of fifteen hundred dollars.  He had even spelled my last name correctly.  He handed it to me and I put it in my back pocket.  I immediately liked this kid.
            “Thanks,” I said, trying to be casual, trying not to let him know that this money was my life’s blood.  Ninety-nine percent of attorneys would have had a contract for him to sign, something stating exactly what the fee did and did not include.  Most attorneys would have covered their asses in case the client bitched to the State Bar later on.  I never bothered.  This was the apex of foolishness, but I just couldn’t be bothered.
            “So what’s going to happen today?”
            “It’s simple.  Today is what they call the arraignment.  It’s when you plead guilty or not guilty.  We’re obviously pleading not guilty.  The deputy district attorney in charge of your case will give me initial discovery – that’s some of the information they have gathered against you, the police report and what not.  We’ll set a future court date and we’re out of here.”
            “Will it take long?”
            “No.  I’ll try to push my way to the front of the line.  Once court starts it probably won’t take fifteen minutes.”
            “That’s great, cause I’m so hungover I can’t believe it.”
            I already knew that.  He reeked of it: that smell of last night’s latent booze still coursing through his system.  It’s a strange, familiar smell, almost metallic. 
            “Tough night, huh?” I inquired.
            “The toughest.”
            “I know how you feel.”
            We sat down on a bench outside the courtroom and waited.  We got to talking about the arrest, what he had been doing that night, what blood alcohol test the police had administered: all the basic B.S.  Then we got to talking about real things: his girlfriend, where he went to college, what he was doing for a living – it turned out he too was unemployed.  He really was a nice kid.  He even inquired after my own life, which is rare.  Most people only want to talk about themselves.  My father once told me that if I ever wanted someone to think that they had just had a wonderful conversation with me I should let them do ninety percent of the talking: some of the best advice I’ve ever received.   But Tyler was different.  He was genuinely engaged.  Time flew by pleasantly. 
            The courtroom was opened and the crowd flooded in.  We stayed back and took our time.  Hungover people don’t like crowds or enclosed spaces.  I knew that all too well. 
            As I had promised, I pushed my way to the front of the docket and had his case heard second.  Defendants who have an attorney generally get heard primarily; the unrepresented rabble waits to be called by the Judge.  The appearance was uneventful. Tyler had chosen a blood test and the results weren’t in yet, so I served the deputy district attorney with an informal request for the results when they arrived.  I had Tyler out of there in ten minutes, initial discovery in hand and a court date eight weeks off.  We walked outside together.
            “Thanks man,” he said.  “It went just like you said it would, and real quick.”
            “Piece of cake.”  I handed him one of my cards.
            “See you soon.  I’m going home to get some sleep.”
            So was I.

Condo Conversion, Chapter 4

         I hadn’t been laid in ten months.  And as is the case when you haven’t been laid in a really long time, I got to thinking about the last girl I had been with, Allison McRooney.  I was walking around Rohnert Park, trying to get a sense of my surroundings.  It was very flat, with wide boulevards that could accommodate far more cars than were in fact using them.  Having moved from crowded San Francisco, I liked that.  There is a surplus of space in Rohnert Park. 

          But the dominant impression is that it is flat.  Flat like we were taught people believed the world to be before Columbus, even though they didn’t.  Flat like a football field.  I walked over to the Safeway, then back around to the Raleys, then over to the Albertsons: three supermarkets and dozens of retailers and restaurants in one gigantic superplex.  Residents of this archetype of urban sprawl called it “downtown.”

          An angry old man rolled by in his electric wheelchair muttering something to himself.  On the back of the chair, on a flexible pole about three feet high, there was a little orange flag waving in the wind.  I recognized him from the day before: he was one of my new neighbors.  A moment later, a young handicapped woman rolled by in her electric wheelchair going the opposite direction.  Two young skateboarders cruised by me, hopping their boards nimbly over the curb.  A pattern was emerging.  Rohnert Park was a place built for rolling through.  This explained the endless number of shopping carts that littered every corner of the town.  Maybe I should get a little chair for myself, I reflected.  It might help me fit in.

           The thought of Allison’s gigantic breasts continued to haunt my mind as I aimlessly trolled the aisles of Longs Drugs.  And her ass; God it was huge.  When she was on all fours it was like looking at two Virginia hams sitting side by side: a glorious vision, it used to make me hungry with lust, all that magnificent, surprisingly taut, perfectly proportioned flesh.  

            She used methamphetamines.  She must have been the biggest girl in the world who used as much meth as she did.  Who knows how much bigger she would have been if she didn’t?  But her habit was one of maintenance and not absolute excess.  She was able to hold down a good job as an investment banker and appear to the rest of the world as if she were relatively normal.  She took two big hits in the morning before heading off to work, would rush home for a half-hour lunch of two more, and would be home at about eight o’clock after a few drinks with her coworkers and smoke a few more hits before getting three hours sleep.  On weekends she would catch up on her slumber, staying in bed until long after noon.  It was amazing, really, how she balanced her entire life around that little glass pipe.  

            I was mainly into coke at the time, but would indulge with her now and again to try to attain some spiritual connection.  People on speed can only relate to other people on speed, and I wanted desperately for her to relate to me.  There were times that she told me she loved me.  Once she even wrote a poem for me, proclaiming her love as infinite.  But I knew that it could never be true, even when I didn’t.  She needed an asshole to push her around, let her know she wasn’t worth shit, and I was basically a nice guy who wanted to tell her she was precious.  It was doomed from the start.  Still, it stung like a motherfucker when she left.  I have only been in love twice in my life.  She was one of them.  

Condo Conversion, Chapter 3

3

The day after I settled into my new place, I was invited to dinner by another old friend, James.  I have known him since I was about ten years old.  Most of my best friends go back that far. 

            James had married Jenny, his high school sweetheart.  There weren’t many couples from way back then that had made it this far; I was happy to see them happy.  They made a handsome couple.  James was an all-American looking guy, six feet tall, symmetrical features and a full head of dark brown hair.  Jenny was only a little shorter than him, long curly brown hair, porcelain skin and a slender, lithe figure.  Although she had given birth to their first child, Chloe, only half a year earlier, she had immediately regained her figure.  James was lucky. 

            It used to make me uncomfortable, being the unattached guy going over to dinner at the married couple’s house, especially without a date.  Sometimes I felt like I was missing out, and that secretly they pitied me.  But I had recently gotten over my insecurities.  I was happy with who I was becoming for the second time in my life, the first being my wild adolescence. 

            Jenny held Chloe in her arms and then handed her to James while she stirred the pasta sauce.  I love pasta.  Then he carried her around for a while rocking her back and forth in his arms.  I played with her a little, too: lightly pinching her soft rosy cheeks.  She smiled at me.  Most babies like me, and animals, too. 

            James put her down for a moment and she scurried around the house on all fours.  We were drinking beer, following her around, making sure she wasn’t getting into too much trouble. 

            “You’ve got a cute kid,” I observed.

            “She’s a handful,” he responded.  There was an uncomfortable silence.  I could tell he was deep in thought.  “I gotta ask you something, Pete.”

            “Go ahead.”

            “I want your honest opinion.  Don’t pull any punches.”

            “All right.”

            “I feel like I’ve become boring, one dimensional.  I love Chloe, more than I can tell you.  But ever since she was born, it’s as if a part of me shut down.  All I talk about is the kid now.  Remember those long talks we used to have when we were young, drinking until all hours of the night?”

            “Those were good talks.”

            “They sure were.  We solved the world’s problems back then.  I never have conversations like that anymore.  It’s just eat, shit, work, feed the baby, clean up the baby’s shit.  I feel like time is speeding up, as if I’m hurtling toward nonexistence.”

            I understood where he was coming from.  Often I’ve observed the very phenomenon he was describing manifest itself in the lives of other comrades.  What is it about having a child that robs some men of their creativity and vitality?  Was it always this way?  Or is it a more recent development in contemporary life, the result of increased demands?  Not all fathers turned out like this.  But many of them did. 

            “That’s nonsense,” I told him. “Your existence is more relevant now than it has ever been.  You have the privilege of being responsible for another life.  What could be more important than that?”

            “You’re right,” he responded, pleased.  “Thanks.”  He patted me on the back and took a long drink off his beer.

            And I wasn’t placating him.  I had meant what I said.  It’s strange how two competing ideas can be equally true in the same instance.  One of life’s tradeoffs.

            Dinner was great: green salad with vinaigrette, walnuts and bleu cheese, penne in a thick meat sauce and good red table wine.  We were all sitting around the living room finishing off the second bottle, my elastic stomach bulging with fullness.  Chloe began crying from her crib in the bedroom and both parents excused themselves for a moment.

            “Take your time,” I said, semi-comatose.

            There were a number of magazines resting on the coffee table.  I picked one up; it was the spring circular for “Terracotta Shed, Bed + Bath.”  I began flipping through it.  Inside, there was the bathroom collection: the “classic console,” “accessories,” “monogrammed towels,” and “fixtures and sconces.”  It looked like nice stuff, very expensive.  “Obtain the bathroom of your dreams,” the magazine exhorted.  In the back was a price guide to all the products, complete with serial numbers to help the buyer place orders.  This guide was several pages long.  Here and there an item was circled: the “double console,” the “linen closet” the “mini vanity” and the “full length mirror.”  Also completed was an order for towels, monogrammed of course.  There was a neat little section where the buyer wrote out the appropriate letters and then chose from a variety of fonts.  It was Jenny’s handwriting.

            I soon left.  The baby was screaming.  It was good timing for all.  I promised to return soon.  Nice people.

            I went home to my tiny new apartment and looked around: tattered reading chair, 1980’s era love seat and cheap overstuffed bookshelves.  A true bachelor’s home, it declared “NO WOMAN HERE!”  I went to the bathroom to take a leak.  Afterwards I washed my hands and splashed my face, ruddy from wine, with cold water.  I tried to imagine the items from the bathroom collection in my inadequate space.  Nope, it just wouldn’t work.  I was glad.  I liked my apartment the way it was.  Inadequate: it reflected the way I felt about myself and about the world I lived in.  I threw a porno entitled “Dirty Sluts Young and Tight” in the old-school VCR and turned up the volume.  Good thing those seniors don’t hear too well.