The Mentor

by Pat Connid

  When we finally landed in Los Angeles, it was about eight and by the time I called the theater— after eleven o’clock back home— it was closed and everyone but the spooky, Polish cleaning crew (“‘Ders bee-emm in da girls batt-room!”) had gone home.

  The phone at Pavan’s just rang and rang. Guess he hadn’t gotten the bleach yet.

  From the airport, I took a shuttle bus to the hotel closest to Sunset because if I had to stay up the night, Sunset was the place to do it.

  There’s something about Sunset Avenue in Los Angeles that I love. Years ago, a buddy and I drove out to L.A. and stayed for a week. Well, I stayed for a week, he just stayed. My lift back was via Greyhound.

  We spent more time wandering up and down Sunset than in the cheap hotel. He’d popped a handful of mushrooms and spent the next couple hours bitching he’d been ripped off. To me, not a magic mushroom advocate, sure, but you didn’t need mushrooms to enjoy Sunset Avenue. Hell, it could even be dangerous.

  For the past several hours, I’d been getting pretty hungry. The flight had a dinner but the feast of unidentified white meat, with white gravy, and white dinner roll (obviously the head chef was from the U.K.) didn’t really fill me up. Driving the flight attendant crazy, I subsequently chomped through enough salted peanuts to induce high blood pressure.

  Now, peanutless, I wandered Sunset.

  Years ago, I’d read a Hemmingway book. Not a fiction but one where he was recalling a time when he’d been living in earth twentieth century Paris. Can’t recall if he’d been married, I think so, but he was broke so he and his wife or girlfriend would have very little dough for food.

  When he was really hungry, Ernie'd go to museums. He said something like you appreciated art more when you’re hungry. My grumbling stomach and I stared through the display store windows at the shiny, whirring gadgets of The Sharper Image. Sure, it was hard to argue that electronic, chrome-plated nose hair clippers with NeverCharge™ LED (for the deep 'uns) was exactly art, but it seemed fair to judge them on the same principle.

  I had to get something in my ample belly. There are a bunch of these little sidewalk cafes on Sunset, one after another, so crammed together you can’t really tell where one ends and one begins. Walking down the sidewalk and weaving through the occasional sprawl of awning, I could see as one group of four was leaving that they’d left behind a basket of bread.

  Then one of them, a woman with bug-eye sunglasses, caught the sight of me staring at the food they’d left behind and looked way, frowning.

  Pathetic. I jammed my hands in my pockets and took a couple big strides up the street, out of the woman’s glare. Was I really scoping people’s discarded scraps, like a dog, looking for food?

  Every now and then, there's a moment that stops you, as if your life were being played back like your own, personal Zapruder film in some smoke filled room.

  A guy in an overly starched dress shirt, buzz cut, black-rimmed glasses and with a pipe jammed between his teeth is up at the screen and calls out, "Stop!" and says things like, "See it's right about here, in frame 842, where our subject-- the chubby fellah, you see?-- he realizes, 'by golly what in the holy hades has my life become?' It's a corker, for certain. Roll film!"

  Finally, my thoughts went back to the conversation with Reggie the Drunkard Pilot back at the airport in Honolulu. I'd purposely kept that at bay for hours so I could let it brew a while in my subconscious. Yeah, that was the main reason.

  After he'd spoken with his friend at the hanger in Bergerac, France, where a bachelor party of ex-pat Americans living in Germany were dropping in to soak up the local wine, Reggie and I had a final beer together, and I left.

  But not before the pilot regaled me with his little proprietary tricorder. The flight data, all of it, was sensitive in one manner or another, so it had to be jumbled-- encoded-- before it was dropped onto the wireless carrier. The primary function of Reggie's device-- which looked like a big, blocky cell phone-- was to decipher the encoding and then display it on the little four inch screen.

  Naturally, my name was not on the manifest. Neither was "the big, black fellah," as he'd called him. Listed only the passenger count: two.

  Reggie has said that it's not any of his business to check identification, so he's doesn't get into any of that sort of paperwork. Besides, with a company like the Solomon-Bluth Foundation, as Reggie has put it, "with all the good they do, who's going to question them anyhow?"

  Solomon-Bluth had picked up the tab for our charter. And it made no sense whatsoever.

  So, I had my breadcrumb. But what next?

  First things first-- walking Sunset in Los Angeles, I still had a small hunger problem to solve. I thought about getting off the main road because the smell of the food was making me nuts.

  Then, up ahead, I saw a possibility.

  “Hey, you got any spare change?”

  The guy may have seen me coming up to him but didn't acknowledge it right away. He and his sign were on the sidewalk, leaning up against a music store that had closed for the night. Bum break, I guess.

  The hair on his face was bushy but not caked in food or anything. The whites of his eyes were pretty clear—I’d seen plenty of bums back in Atlanta, and like my guy in the Marietta square, this guy looked pretty good for being homeless. Maybe it was some sort of part time gig.

  I smiled, struck giddy by the irony. I said to the bum a second time, “Can you spare a couple bucks, buddy?”

  He looked at me with a strange smile. His eyes darted away for a second, and then opened his mouth to speak, but words seemed to be stuck on his crooked teeth. He rubbed his face with the palm of his hand and squinted up at me.

  “What?”

  “I asked you if you had a couple bucks. I got jacked— no bank card, no plastic, no cash.”

  He stood quickly, wobbled for a moment, and for a second I thought he was going to run. At full height, he still had to crane his neck up to see me.

  “Ha, that ain’t gonna work,” he said, waving me toward a shadowed gap between two buildings. Leaning against the mud-caked brick, he pulled out a soft pack of smokes. Pointing to my left with the cigs he said, “Watch my sign for a sec, will ya?”

  I nodded, looked up and down the street. Pulling out a zippo with a Harley Davidson logo, he lit his cigarette, snapped the metal top down with a flick of his wrist and eyed me through smoke.

  “Now, I’ll give ya a couple tips, but you gotta find a different corner.”

  “What? Bum tips?” I said, taking a step back. “I don’t want tips. I just--“

  “An' don’t work anything from La Brea to Fairfax Avenue because that’s Drew’s area. He and I bunk together, and I don’t need no excuses from him about not coming up with his share.”

  I crossed my arms, sickened that I’d even started the conversation.

  Somewhere, deep in my brain, I heard: "Stop! Oh zow-wie, look at our man here. Frame 1311. Consorting with ne'er-do-wells? The indigent? It seems his desperation knows no bounds. Tears your heart out, it does. Roll film!"

  The scruffy man had more: “And, you don't just ask for cash. You gotta imply that you'll blow outta there if they just come up with a buck or two.”

  Imply? The bum had just hit me with ‘imply.’

  Suddenly I’m like some homeless intern. “Here’s the thing—“

  “Like,” he continued the Bum 101 class, “you need just one dollar more and then you got bus fare back to the valley or something. If you think you can shake ‘em for more, tell them you’re going to Washington. Then, they don’t know if it’s city or state, so that can work both wa—“

  “Listen,” I said, exhausted, my anger draining from me. “I’m serious. I lost everything, and I was just hoping to get a burrito or something. You got a good wad of dough in the can there, I just need like two bucks for dinner.”

  His eyes went wide for a moment, and then he quickly stuffed the rattling stew can into his greasy jacket, now realizing that I wasn’t looking for
the Panhandling for Dummies excerpt.

  “No way, stay away from what’s mine.” He stepped back into the alley a little.

  “I’m not going to rob you man, just need a little bit until tomorrow when my friend can get me some cash.”

  The bum’s eyes darted up and down the street for a second, and he fingered a button on his coat. “Boy, that does sound pathetic,” he said but I don’t think he was talking to me. Suddenly angry again, he said, “Man, you’ve got to work for your dough. I ain’t just gonna give you what I got.”

  “How about this,” I said and his face darkened. “I work right here. You and me, side by side, partners.”

  “This ain’t a partnership kinda deal!” He said loud, then blinked away frustrated tears. “You don’t get anything working in groups. People won't fork over—“

  “Okay, then it’ll cost you two bucks to get me off your corner, man.”

  “What?”

  “Gimme two bucks, and I’m outta here.”

  “No wa—“

  “Okay, price just went up. Three bucks.”

  Mr. Bum leapt for his sign, but I blocked him. He tried running around the other side of me, and I stopped him there, too. For as out of shape as I was, he was worse. But not by much.

  “Gimme my sign!”

  “Now it's four bucks.”

  He raised his hands. “HOLD on there. Just stop that!” He eyed me, glanced at his sign, eyeballed me again. “You said two bucks at first.”

  “Yeah, now it’s four. You wanna go five?”

  He reached into his coat. “How about three, asshole?”

  I'M NOT USUALLY SOMEONE who gets grossed out by stuff. You know, gum on the sidewalk, dog poop in the grass, and people that booger-mine at four way stops. Whatever. But the public payphone I was using had a fungus growing on it. And, damn, it smelled. I wondered if Pavan’s Uncle Rolo had come to L.A.

  Carefully dialing up Pavan's number again, I held the phone a few inches from my ear and tried to not let the smell bring up my dinner.

  After my bum spat, I’d left Sunset looking for a fast food restaurant and ended up in a Mexican neighborhood. Lots of car repair joints and people sitting out on their porches in the warm night air.

  I found a place by smell alone. It didn't even look like it had a sign. The guy behind the counter actually greeted me in Spanish. I pulled out my dough, glanced at the menu written in green magic marker above his head and told him I wanted two burritos. His eyebrows jumped and held there.

  He’d said: “Two?”

  “Yeah, I haven’t eaten since the middle of the Pacific.”

  He shrugged, nodded, and barked something over his shoulder, his gaze not breaking from mine the entire time, as if I were some apparition that could poof into the ether at any given moment.

  When the burritos came out, each was as big as my forearm.

  No joke.

  I mean, seriously, we send a couple of these guys to Africa and hunger on the entire continent is history in one day. Fuck Bono.

  “Damn, man, you could have told me how big they were,” I’d said poking at one with a spork. It looked like I was trying to harpoon Moby Dick with a plastic garden rake.

  He’d said, “Yeah, 'cept I don’t speak any English.”

  I paid for my food and left, seeking out a phone to call my friend.

  Payphones are hard to come by these days but there are a few gas stations that will hang them on a corner because illegal aliens, drug dealers and twice-abducted-nearly-killed-by-lava types still need them.

  Pavan waited patiently as I explained what Reggie the Drunk had laid on me. After a moment, he asked: "Who's Sampson-boof?"

  "No, man. Solomon-Bluth," I said. "The pay phone is probably just all jacked, sorry if it's hard to hear."

  "Doesn't help. Still don't know it."

  "Big charity. Remember that guy, Marion Bluth, he went into China and started up that microprocessor business back in the nineties. Government poured dough in-- the Chinese government-- and he was the big project manager."

  "Do you know who you are talking to? This is stuff that was, like, on the news or something?"

  "Yeah," I said. The burrito shifted in my stomach, trying to get away from the smell of the phone, my best guess. The handset looked like someone had used it to beat someone else to death and neglected to wipe it off. "Bluth made billions and built China’s version of Silicone Valley."

  "Hey, silicone! That's what they put in tits, right?"

  "Yeah, something like that," I said and couldn't help but laugh. "Christ, man, when was the last time you got laid?"

  He growled, and then laughed. "I'm saving myself 'till marriage."

  "Fine."

  "Doesn't have to be my marriage. In fact, if a married lady wants to do it, that's fine, too."

  "Upstanding young man. Glad to call you my best friend, Pavan."

  "If you're my best friend, you should take me to that Valley of the Titties for my birthday! That sounds awesome!"

  "Okay, anyway-- so now Bluth just sits back and counts his billions but the government-- the U.S. , this time-- they have some questions about whether he brought some of American tech know-how over to the Chinese, now threatening the American chip dominance."

  "Sure."

  "So, he starts up a philanthropic trust… that's a charity, and--"

  "I know what that is. My sister used to play clarinet."

  Somewhere in the ether, to my friend, this line of conversation totally made sense. I let it go.

  "Now, Solomon-Bluth is his charity. Big on fighting AIDS in Africa, T.B. in Cambodia."

  "Why'd they pay for your ride to Hawaii?"

  "Dunno. Maybe my guy stole an account number or, hell, just got on without the pilot knowing who was going where. That's something we'll have to find out."

  "Check," Pavan said, enthusiastically.

  "At some point, you or I have to get a computer."

  A tone rang over the phone that said we'd been speaking for a couple minutes.

  Pavan asked, “Man, how much is this costing me?” I’d called collect.

  “Okay, I'll talk fast then. Shoot me a Western Union note of what’s left in the bank and—“

  “There’s about seventy bucks left in your checking, Dex.”

  Closing my eyes, I rubbed my face. “Yeah, well send what’s there.”

  “Okay,” he said. “Listen, I was a kind of a dick, you know, before. I was a little drunk.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “But, still… I meant what I said.” Silence for a moment or two, then he said: “You know, I could sell some stuff. Lend you the dough.”

  “Nah, man. Thanks, though. That means a lot,” I said. “Just send what I got in checking, and I’ll work it out.”

  Pavan cleared his throat. “I, uh, spoke with Laura. She called here looking for you.”

  “Jeez. How’d that go?”

  “She’s pissed you didn’t call.”

  “I didn’t have a dime. I mean, really.”

  He hesitated. “Well, you called me collect.”

  “I know,” I said, embarrassed to admit that I’d forgotten my alleged girlfriend’s number. “Not sure what I’d say to her honestly. I have no idea what’s going on.”

  “Well,” he said and laughed. “You gotta long walk home to work it out.”

  “That’s the truth,” I said.

  “How long you think it’s gonna take you to get back to Georgia?”

  I was flipping through the yellow pages. “My guess, about two days, maybe three. By that time, I should have something worked out.”

  “Three days?”

  “Well, maybe not worked out but at least I should have, at least, an idea of how to come at this guy."

  I asked Pavan to check the library computers and see what he could find on Solomon-Bluth. Accessing the Internet is free, but they charge you for print outs. He told me one of his cousins was dating a girl at the library and if he went when she wa
s there, he'd get the printed stuff free, too.

  Worked for me.

  We both were quiet for a moment. Then he said, “What the hell does this dude want from you? Kidnaps you in the middle of the night, does all this weird shit? What the hell is all that about, Dex?”

  I looked down the road, people wandering aimlessly in the steely Los Angeles street light, looking as though they’d lost something but couldn’t quite remember what it was.

  “Man, it’s either me or him. That’s all I know. Me or him.”

  Pavan said, “Then, if we’re gonna take him on, I almost feel bad for the guy.”

  A smile split my face, and I hung up the phone.

  WHEN YOU'RE BROKE, YOU talk about being rich. Not so much about how to get rich (although there is some of that) but mainly just being rich. One night when me and Pavan were putting out our inner fires with beer foam at Wicked Lester’s, this cranked-out chick who sold tiling was talking our ear off about how the Kingsford family—the charcoal people—had some house in north Georgia. She said it was worth, like, two hundred million.

  I'm told one of the greatest attractions of my current home state is the low price of real estate. What would cost you three million in San Diego would run you about two hundred thou’ in Georgia. No joke.

  A house that costs 200 million in Georgia better be the lost temple of Solomon. With Solomon working a carnival-style Answer Booth, still inside.

  Anyway, tile girl told me about how the woman of Charcoal House was all big on Made in Japan™ china. Hell, the name alone was worth a long, protracted gut laugh. But, apparently, the rather rich and super rich in Georgia were all about this Made in Japan™ china.

  Now, as one could probably surmise, this particular china comes from one particular country. No, not China. And a lot of it comes to Georgia now. Maybe because of the Easy Lite lady.

  Well, that stuff has to go west to east via truck from L.A. Too expensive to go by plane and west to east rail can be bumpy. China no likey.

  So great big, beautiful rigs had to carry the Made in Japan™ china to the bored, wealthy housewives of the southeast. I planned on being on one of those rigs. Or at least one headed in the same direction.