by William Poe
“He might need a transfusion.”
“Has anyone checked his insurance?”
“He doesn’t have any. No card in his wallet.”
“Why’s he here, then?”
“Bandage him up. Send him to County.”
The nurse who had given me the water and taken my blood pressure wrapped my head with surgical bandages. The smell of antiseptic began to replace the aroma of the dried blood.
“This might hurt a little,” she said, “but I’ve got to pull tight to make sure you don’t bleed out. We’re sending you over to County Hospital.”
The intensity of my rapidly beating heart drowned out all other sounds. No one had given me any pain medication. With each heartbeat, it felt as though a knife was sliding through my skull.
Orderlies strapped me onto a gurney, and I was taken back to the emergency room. Paramedics loaded me, torpedo-like, into an older model ambulance. They shipped me to the pauper’s hospital and put me in a noisy ward alongside a couple of Latino men with gunshot wounds. One stretcher had a body on it, covered with a white sheet. Rooms were in too much demand to use them for the dead waiting to be carted off to the morgue.
Hours passed, and I began to worry that I had been forgotten. I yearned for a familiar face. Where was Lyle? Why hadn’t Scott and Sandra shown up? Did they know where I’d been taken?
Someone took my arm and pressed two fingers into my wrist. It was a nurse. She unwound the gauze. When she reached the layers close to my head, her ministrations became more gentle and deliberate. “This might sting,” she said. “There’s a lot of caked blood. But I’ve got to get this off to see what I’m dealing with.” When she lifted the final layer of cloth, she asked, “What time did this happen?”
I held up my left hand and showed all five fingers, then three.
“Eight o’clock last night?”
I wobbled my hand to indicate approximation.
“We need to sew this up right away. One piece is barely hanging on and it’s not getting any blood. We wouldn’t want you to go through life without an ear.”
The words barely registered as fantasies of Vincent Van Gogh roamed through my thoughts.
The nurse went off to get a tray of sutures. “I’ve never worked on such a delicate job,” she said on her return. “But there isn’t anyone to do it at this time of morning. Do you want me to work on your ear?”
I gave her thumbs up, though I thought I was answering a question about getting morphine. The nurse cleaned the side of my head, applied a local anesthetic, and began to work. She carefully teased out pieces of ear from the mass of drying blood and puzzled them in a proper formation. A wall clock told me it was five in the morning.
“This is going to take a while,” the nurse said. “Let me know if you feel any pain. I’ll give you more anesthetic.”
“Thanks,” I said. It was the first word I’d been able to articulate.
An hour later, the nurse was done. “It was a lot like sewing a dress,” she mused. “I make my own clothes. I know how to get a tight stitch.”
I tried to smile but wasn’t sure how it came out.
“Now. Don’t take off the bandages for at least three days. You should see your doctor about keeping the ear dressed. I’ve got prescriptions from the emergency room physician. It’s for a painkiller and an antibiotic. You should start taking these right away.”
The nurse brought a wheelchair into the room and rolled me to the front desk. I signed papers saying I would pay what I could. Then they released me. I’d lost a lot of blood and was so tired I could barely make it to the pay phone. I dialed Scott.
After endless rings, someone picked up.
“Scott? Is that you?”
“No. It’s Lyle,” a sleepy voice responded. “Simon?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Where in the hell are you? Those ambulance guys wouldn’t say where they were taking you.”
“Where’s Scott?”
“He’s here, asleep on the floor.”
If they had been in the hot tub together, I’d have killed Scott.
“I’ve been worried about you,” Lyle said.
His tone melted away my fear. There was genuine concern in his voice.
I let the receiver dangle while I found my keys and counted the money in my wallet. There was just enough to catch a taxi to Hudson Street, where I’d parked the car.
“I’ll get to my car and drive to Scott’s. It should take an hour or so.”
Lyle said something with his hand cupped over the receiver. “Sandra’s here,” he said, returning to the line. “She wants to come get you.”
Sandra took the phone. “Honey! Thank God you’re all right.”
I began to cry.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Sandra said gently. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you. We can get your car later.”
Sandra found me collapsed on a chair in the waiting room, surrounded by whole families piled atop each other asleep on the couches. I had hoped Lyle would come with her, but she was alone. She looked like a fifties vixen, wearing a man’s shirt with the tails tied below her breasts and jeans rolled up four inches at the cuff.
“Nice to see you without bloody clothes,” I said.
“I looked like Sissy Spacek in Carrie,” Sandra laughed. “Scott loaned me these clothes. I was so worried about you, I just couldn’t go home. I figured you would call Scott’s, so I stayed on the couch.”
“Did Scott and Lyle do all the drugs?”
“Don’t worry about that right now,” Sandra said, lightly touching my bandages. “Did they take care of your ear? Your head looked like it passed through a meat grinder.”
“A nurse stitched me up.”
Doctors and nurses scurried about the area as shifts changed from the night crew to the daytime doctors. The nurse who’d patched me up was signing out. I waved her over.
“I didn’t properly thank you,” I said.
The young woman, now in street attire instead of the white uniform, shook my hand. “Well, Mr. Powell, you can thank me by staying out of trouble. Let the Lord give you strength to stay away from alcohol.”
“How’d you know?”
“Your breath,” she said. “You’re lucky not to have bled to death. The Lord saved you for a reason, that’s for sure.”
Before I could respond, she took off toward the exit. A man greeted her at the door and gave her a kiss. They disappeared into the morning light.
Sandra took my hand. “Simon, Lyle and I aren’t sleeping together. I wanted to tell you last night.”
“Scott told me you were living together, that you told people Lyle was your boyfriend.”
“Oh honey, come on! You’ve seen my type. Smooth chests don’t do it for me.” She smiled, running her finger along her lower lip as she considered her type. “Lyle called after you left Hollywood. I let him stay with me in the valley. He said you had spoiled him, and that he just couldn’t go back to the street. He genuinely cares about you. He was very hurt when you walked out.”
My drowsiness must have come off as disbelief.
“We didn’t have sex,” Sandra insisted. “Now that’s that. I’m not going to say it again. Lyle cares for you. If he’s what you want, go for it. The kid might even be able to love you someday.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, realizing that Sandra didn’t think I believed her. “When I was in Arkansas, I missed him terribly. The news that he was with you tore me up. That’s why I never called. I thought you two were a couple.”
“Well, now you know the truth.”
Sandra helped me to her Trans Am. Getting in, I bumped my head on the roof. Waves of pain shot along my arms.
On the way to Scott’s, Sandra said, “Did I tell you that Mitsui’s office contacted Maury?”
Mitsui was my boss during the final period of my church experience.
“Seems you are to get payments for some church property. Maury is drawing up the papers for you to sign.�
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“That’s one of the reasons I came back.”
“It will be the last thing Maury does for the church,” Sandra said.
“What happened?”
“Mitsui accused you of spending money while you were out here. He blamed Maury for allowing it to happen. Like Maury was supposed to be your nanny or something. And…there’s something else.”
“What else?” Already, I was fuming that Mitsui would blame me for anything. He was the reason Reverend Moon went to jail. He’d forged documents to make it seem as though money held in Reverend Moon’s name was made through fundraising, when in fact, Japanese church members had smuggled it into the country. The money had earned interest while sitting in the bank, and the taxes on it weren’t paid. That was the crux of the prosecutor’s case.
Sandra continued. “Maury told Mitsui that you were homosexual. That you were, in his old-fashioned term, ‘catting around’ Hollywood and that he couldn’t stop you.”
“The bastard!”
“Maury thought that exposing you as a homosexual whom he had to deal with on behalf of the church would get him sympathy. The tactic didn’t work. Mitsui’s going to drop him. I mean, you’re the second member who left the church after starting to work with Maury.”
It was true. I’d taken over the responsibilities after Mitsui’s first legal liaison met a woman in Los Angeles and left the church to live with her.
“Maury leveraged the situation. He said he would only help with the property transaction if they paid their outstanding bills.”
“Any word on when I’ll get the first installment? Now would be a good time.”
“I think it will be soon. The church president wanted Maury to have you sign a paper saying you wouldn’t use any information that you took from the church. But Maury convinced him that might provoke you.”
“Damn right it would,” I said. “I have documents that the IRS could use to take away their tax exemption.”
“Let’s get Lyle and go to my house. You two can use the bedroom that Lyle’s been sleeping in.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“There’s just one more thing I need to tell you,” Sandra said. “Masako is in Los Angeles.”
“What? How do you know?”
“She left the church, too. Mitsui thinks she’s out here to find you. That’s what he told Maury. It seems like every day Maury hears either from Mitsui or the church president. I thought they hated each other.”
“There’s so much politics in that group, who knows what’s going on these days?”
“And who cares?” Sandra confirmed.
“Do you know where Masako is living?”
“Maury knows. I can find out if you want.”
I wished that Masako didn’t mean anything to me, but she still did. I owed her an explanation for why we had to divorce.
CHAPTER 8
During the first week at Sandra’s, I was in such pain and so weak from loss of blood that I rarely got out of bed. Lyle spent most of his time watching television and swimming in the pool. At least we had a good time at night, even though I had to be careful about positioning. Every turn of my head brought agony.
When Sandra came home, she and Lyle prepared the evening meal. Knowing my appreciation for good red wines, Sandra made a point of stopping by Greenblatt’s on Sunset Boulevard to pick up a good vintage when she got off work.
After dinner, Sandra took a nap, then dolled herself up and was on the road into Hollywood by eleven o’clock. She wouldn’t return until sunrise. How she managed her job while keeping hours like that was a marvel.
Over dinner, Lyle and I were treated to the tawdry details of her previous night. Scott was often part of the narrative. Some nights, he met her at the Princess Lounge in Century City for happy hour, or he would start out the evening with her at Dan Tana’s on Santa Monica Boulevard.
During my recuperation, Lyle never asked for drugs. He didn’t even pilfer the codeine prescribed for me by the emergency room doctor. I hoped the dire experience might be a new start for us.
At the beginning of the third week, Sandra brought my first check from the church.
“Five thousand,” she said. “Maury doesn’t know you are at my house, but he knows that you are in Los Angeles and that we are in touch.” She took a folder from her satchel. “You’ll have to sign these to get more money.” She placed an array of stapled copies of the deed on the coffee table.
Lyle sat beside me on the couch and pressed his knee against mine.
“And I have more news,” Sandra said. “I found out about Masako.”
At the mention of my wife’s name, Lyle recoiled.
“She can’t get any of this money, can she?” Lyle asked.
“No, Lyle. It’s all ours.”
“You’re letting that group off too easy,” he said. “You should have asked for a hundred grand.”
“Yes, Lyle, you’re probably right.” The dark wing of a fallen angel brushed against my cheek as I uttered the statement.
After a month at Sandra’s, I felt strong enough to drive. Sandra suggested that Lyle and I look for an apartment in the Belmont Shore area of Long Beach. Since first coming to Los Angeles, I had dreamed about living on the beach. Belmont Shore was within the price range of my windfall.
We located a furnished apartment facing Ocean Boulevard, one block from a popular gay disco called Ripples. Each apartment had its own stairway leading to a second floor. The ground floor was comprised of garages. The stairs to my place rose sharply to a landing at the front door that offered a broad view of the beach.
The landing was just large enough for two chairs, and the concrete wall forming the porch was low enough to allow a good view when sitting down.
I was excited about living there, but when I asked how he liked it, Lyle only said, “Whatever.” He preferred to live closer to Hollywood.
Though I was still tethered to the church because of the property and the fact that I was still married, I tried to imagine what it might be like if I actually got what I wanted. I had always known what that was, I had just set it aside when I joined the church.
One day I would be an artist. I had no illusions about bursting onto the art scene and making a name for myself. From the world’s viewpoint, I was a college dropout who’d been brainwashed by a cult. I was nearing thirty, and should already be well underway to a career in painting.
The greatest sacrifice I had made when joining the church was to destroy every work of art I had done since the crayon drawings produced at Bible camp during summer vacation.
In the belief system of Sun Myung Moon’s religion, new members were expected to “sacrifice their Isaac,” to give up whatever they held most dear. After I joined, I took my artwork to one of the abandoned bauxite mines that dot the landscape around Sibley and built a bonfire. I watched all my creations turn to embers. Yet I never truly let go. I remember thinking at the time, Somewhere in this universe, those paintings still exist.
If they were to exist again, I’d have to create them. I bought paint and canvases and let my earliest ideas guide me. I had always worked in an abstract vein, with washes of vibrant colors. Having turned the small dining room into a studio, I finished a few canvases and then began working on paper with India ink. Endless spirals invited the viewer to fall into a bottomless vortex. I was reminded of the drawings I had made as a child, using the sharpened end of an old broom handle to etch spirals in my sandbox.
Lyle told me I was losing my mind. “Why are you fucking doing that?” he challenged when I held up a drawing I’d just completed. The spirals wound so tightly at the center of the image that it darkened to pitch black. When I didn’t answer, he said, “You need to get stoned.”
In fact, I was beginning to feel like a fool. Lyle had simply stated the obvious. He lost all patience when I would pick up objects on the beach and begin painting them with enamels. Seashells, pieces of driftwood, broken bottles—anything with a curious shape became a canvas
.
In the back of my mind, I knew the freedom wasn’t going to last; the church money would eventually run out, and I’d have to face some hard choices again. For the moment, though, I sustained myself by living out the fantasy of being an artist living with his lover on the beach.
Scott got too drunk every day to drive to Long Beach. I didn’t hear from him for months. Then, one evening, he called to suggest that Lyle and I come to Hollywood and have dinner at Cyrano’s Restaurant. Sandra would be there. Cyrano’s had been our favorite restaurant on the Sunset Strip when I was paying for our nights out on the church expense account.
“Sandra’s got another check for you,” Scott said.
I went to Ripples and found Lyle playing pool in the back room. When I told him we were going to see Scott, he came alive. “We going to get high?”
I didn’t say no.
Sandra was dressed glamorously, if somewhat austerely, in a low-cut black dress. I’d never seen her wear diamond earrings. Silver bracelets dangled from both wrists. Scott was dressed in an ill-fitting suit, but at least he wore a tie—something required for Cyrano’s. I got around the requirement by wearing a Nehru shirt. Lyle wore a turtleneck sweater I bought him for the occasion. If I had bought him a necktie, he would have hanged me with it.
“You’re looking good!” Scott hooted. “Not you,” he said when I took a little bow. “I mean Lyle-the-smile.”
“Fuckin’ drunk,” Lyle said, scowling.
“Scotch?” the waiter asked Sandra. Then he turned to Lyle, raising his eyebrows.
“Same. With a water back,” Lyle answered.
“Did you and Sandra come here while I was away?” I asked. “The waiter seems to know you.”
He and Sandra exchanged glances.
When Sandra started to giggle, I said, “Maybe I don’t want to know.”
