by Michael Nava
In the hills, the houses were bigger and commanded greater privacy and nicer views, but unlike comparable neighborhoods, there was not the stunning disparity between hillside wealth and flatland poverty. Rather the hills seemed inhabited by old-fashioned L.A. bohemians, the kind of people who had always given the city its reputation for benign looniness—health cultists, guru followers, past-life regressionists, mediums and spiritualists of every stripe. Their houses were hidden among the trees like hermits, or worshipfully faced the sun with broad decks and multilevel terraces where neglected gardens scented the air with roses and jasmine.
I followed John’s directions to a rutted private road that plunged through a thickness of manzanita, eucalyptus and pine. His was the third driveway off the road. The driveway ascended up a small hill and dead-ended at a clearing where his truck was parked. I emerged from my car to dusty silence and still light. All that was visible of his house was a flight of redwood stairs that disappeared into a stand of pine trees, the edge of a deck and, in the shadows, the glint of glass. I climbed the first steps and discovered there was not one, but two flights of stairs. The first ended at a landing, from which I could see, in the gloaming of the trees, concrete pilings. I started up the second flight and heard music. At the top of stairs, I came out onto the deck I had seen from below. The glint of glass was revealed as a sliding door set into a wall made, like the rest of the house, of weathered redwood. Through the glass I saw a large, sparsely furnished room with a hardwood floor and a stone fireplace. I slid the door open, walked inside and called out above the music, “John?”
He emerged from the kitchen wiping his hands on a dish towel that he tossed over his shoulder. He was wearing freshly pressed khakis and a midnight-blue pocket T-shirt that showed off his biceps and broad chest. His hair was brushed and his face was shaved and he had never looked handsomer. He turned down the stereo and met me at the threshold.
“Hey,” he said, giving me a hug. He had steeped himself in cologne. “You made it.”
I held out the bouquet of white roses I had purchased from a flower shop where the clerk had winked and told me what a lucky gal my girlfriend was.
“These are for you.”
He took them with a warm smile. “They’re nice, Henry. Thank you.”
I looked around the room. The ceiling went up a second level where, behind a railing constructed, he later told me, of posts salvaged from a Victorian staircase, there was a loft bedroom. I could make out the edge of a bed covered with a quilt, an iron floor lamp and an old, unpainted dresser. This room was furnished with a swaybacked brown leather sofa so old that the leather was cracked; a couple of newer armchairs, one deep green leather, the other striped canvas in a vaguely southwestern design. There was a big frayed Indian rug in front of the fireplace and a cane-backed rocking chair beside it. On the plank coffee table was a scattering of newspapers, mail, a coffee cup. Built-in bookshelves held books on architecture, landscaping and baseball, and framed snapshots that I guessed were family pictures. Off to the side a door was partly opened to reveal a smaller bedroom. The kitchen was also partly visible and I assumed there was a bathroom somewhere, but I realized that these four rooms were basically all there was to the house. The high ceiling made it seemed larger, while clerestory windows and skylights filled it with light and lightness. The air smelled faintly of lemon wood polish. Tree branches scraped gently against the outside walls.
“This is like a grown-up version of a treehouse.”
John grinned. “That was the idea. I built it myself mostly out of salvaged material. I lived in a tent down where the cars are parked for months. I love it up here.”
“Was this where you lived when you were married?”
“No, Suzie got that house. This is mine. I put in the second bedroom for my son when he comes down from school. Come into the kitchen with me.”
The walls of the kitchen were painted a warm orange, the tile was blue and white. On the stove was a skillet with rice and peas in tomato sauce. A handpainted ceramic bowl on the counter held a green salad. There was a second, glass bowl in which two pieces of fish were marinating in a clear oil. A door opened out to the deck, where there was a grill and a small wrought-iron table set with pale green plates and blue glasses. I was aware that the things in John’s house had not been chosen at random, but the effect was casual rather than calculated, and though the eye that had arranged them was masculine, it was also capable of delicacy.
John came up behind me and put his arms around my waist. “What are you looking at?”
“The guy who put this house together is an artist,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said, relaxing into my body. “Since I started contracting, I’ve become interested in all kinds of design—architecture, landscape, interiors—but I don’t have the education and I’m too old to go back now. Anyway, I like what I do.”
“Putting in guest bathrooms?”
He bit my ear. “They’re good guest bathrooms.”
“Ow, is it going to be that kind of night?”
He let go of me. “Hope so. You want something to drink? Iced tea? A Coke?”
“Tea,” I said. “Can I help with anything?”
“Everything’s done, except grilling the fish. It’s tuna, that okay?”
“Sounds great.”
He got the drinks and we went outside, where he sat me at the table, put the fish on the grill, and brought the rice and salad from the kitchen. He put the roses in a blue vase and set them on the table.
“So,” he said, watching the fish. “You had a rough day.”
I looked around at the sun-dappled trees, the weathered deck, the bright kitchen. “I’m happy now.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“No, I’d like to forget about my family for a few hours. Is that all right?”
“Man, that’s why I built this place. You can shrug everything off and just kick back.” He turned the fish.
“You really don’t seem like the kind of guy who needs to get away from it all.”
“No? Why?”
“You’re pretty outgoing. I wouldn’t have figured you for someone who likes a lot of time alone.”
“I never used to be,” he said, smearing the fish with marinade. “Fact, I hated being by myself. I was always looking for the party or at least someone to distract me. Hand me the plates one at a time, okay?”
He slid the fish onto the plates. I took one then the other, while he went back into the house and came out with small bowls of salsa and guacamole, a bottle of dressing and a stack of corn tortillas wrapped in an embroidered dishcloth that I knew had to have been sewn by his mother.
He refilled our glasses and we served ourselves. He lifted his glass and touched mine. “Buen provecho, Henry.”
“Buen provecho, John.” I cut a piece of fish with the edge of my fork.
“When I was alone, I started thinking,” he said, picking up the conversation. “I didn’t like to think.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Because then I’d have to start thinking about the future, or why I had these little feelings about other guys or maybe that I was drinking too much or about my marriage. Grown-up shit. I tell you, Henry, I did not want to grow up. I figured if I grew up, I would stop having fun.”
“Something change your mind?”
“No. I was right! You do stop having fun, or maybe the things that were fun when you were a kid stop being fun. For a while I just did ’em more, faster, harder, trying to get the fun back, but it didn’t work. I bet you’ve always been the kind of guy people can count on.”
“I try to be.”
“Me, I was the kind of guy you could count on not to count on.” He ate a forkful of rice, a piece of fish. “That shit catches up with you.” He stopped eating and looked at me. “It caught up with me the night I ran into that telephone pole and almost crippled that girl. Since then I’ve been trying to walk the straight and narrow.”
“I’m no
t sure about the straight,” I said, “but you do okay on the narrow.”
He laughed, but then in a serious voice said, “I have my slips. You gotta know that about me.”
“Anyone who has standards has slips, John. Only good people worry about being good.”
He smiled. “Is that why your hair is gray?”
“My hair started going gray when I was twenty-five. That was a long time ago, by the way.”
“Lucky for you I like older men,” he said.
When we finished eating, I helped John clear the table and together we washed up. I went to put the leftover salsa in the refrigerator. On the door, in a magnetic plastic picture frame, was a snapshot of John in a silvery-gray suit with a white carnation in his lapel, standing with his arm around a very pretty woman, a blonde about his age who was wearing a bottle green silk sheath dress. They were standing against a railing. Behind them was the ocean and sunset. I put the salsa away. When I turned, John was standing at the sink, drying a bowl and watching me.
“That’s Deanna,” he said. “The girl I told you I was dating.”
I took the picture off the fridge. Deanna had the look of a woman who believed she’d earned the laugh lines that bracketed her mouth and wasn’t ashamed of them.
“She’s not a girl, John, she’s a woman,” I said. “You told me you thought I was real? She looks pretty real, too.”
He came up behind me and took the picture. “She’s good people.” He stuck it back on the fridge, in a slightly less prominent spot. “You upset?”
“No. Does she know about me?”
He shook his head. “She knows I’ve been with guys, but she thinks it’s in the past. I did too, before I met you. I was gonna tell her when things were more solid between you and me.”
“That’s cool,” I said. “You know, John, I don’t have any expectations.”
“That’s funny,” he said, putting his arms around my waist. “Because I do.”
We went into the living room and stretched out on the couch. Twilight deepened into night, the music ended. He sat up and switched on a lamp. His hair was rumpled and his shirt was lost in the cushions. I pulled him back down and he lay with his head on my chest.
“I can hear your heart,” he said.
I smoothed his bristly hair. “You’ll tell me if it stops.”
“Don’t joke like that.” He lifted his head and looked at me. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were dying.”
I kissed him. “I’m not dying, John.”
“Are you sure it’s all right for you to have sex?”
“Yeah, as long as it’s not very exciting sex.”
I could see he thought I was serious, but then he figured it out. “Payaso,” he said. “Clown.”
I embraced him. “It feels good to hold you.”
“You, too,” he said, stroking my chest. “You have nice skin.”
“You have a great chest.”
“You don’t mind my potbelly?”
“A little meat on a man looks good. I’ve always been a scarecrow.”
“You got the right build for a distance runner,” he said.
I squeezed a massive biceps. “And you’ve still got a pitcher’s arm.”
“That was a long time ago,” he said. “I don’t think you would have liked me when I was playing.”
“Then I guess I should be happy that part of your life is over,” I said. He stirred unhappily in my arms. “I’m sorry, John. That was a stupid thing to say.”
He raised his face above mine and caught my eyes with his. The lamplight darkened their green flicker and made them even graver. When I looked into John’s eyes, I saw the depth of feeling that lay beneath the easygoing demeanor with which he faced life. Sometimes it floated closer to the surface than at other times, and I could see clearly how much it had cost him to leave behind the golden boy in the baseball uniform to assume the rigors and ambiguities of a man’s life. There was sadness but also strength, gravity and grace, uncertainty but courage. As if he had meant for me to see this, he smiled slowly and pressed his cheek against mine, scorching me with his heat. I closed my arms around him. Our chests filled and emptied at the same time. When at last we untangled ourselves, my pendant had pressed a heart shape into his skin.
10.
“GOOD MORNING, HENRY,” Dr. Hayward said. “Nice hat. DeLeon and Son. What is that?”
“A friend’s contracting company,” I said. I removed the hat and put it on my lap. Hayward’s office was on the fourth floor of West-side Hospital, with a window that framed the Hollywood hills when they were visible. The gray June pall that hung in the air made the row of palm trees lining Olympic Boulevard look like leftover props from a Maria Montez movie.
“Leon, that’s the Spanish word for lion, isn’t it?” Hayward said. I didn’t know whether his chattiness was a good sign or a bad one. He had bustled in twenty minutes late with the results of my last series of tests, leaving me in his waiting room for another ten minutes before peremptorily summoning me. Now he wanted a Spanish lesson.
“Leon was one of the ancient kingdoms of Spain,” I said. “DeLeon means ‘from Leon.’”
He tipped back in a thronelike leather chair—no economically correct furniture for the head of Westside’s cardiology department. His feet, I observed, barely touched the ground. Other than the chair, the rest of his office was modest enough. White walls, framed degrees, a couple of art prints that appeared to have been selected by committee for maximum inoffensiveness. The only personal items I could see were pictures of his family—wife, teenage son, pre-teen daughter—all, like Dr. Hayward, small, cute and visibly of superior intellect.
“But it means ‘lion,’ too, doesn’t it?”
On his bookcase was a spiffy miniature stereo system—all chrome and sleek blond wood—on which he was playing, at very low volume, a somber piece of classical music that the CD propped against the stereo identified as Mahler’s Second Symphony.
“Yes,” I conceded. “It also means ‘lion.’”
He grinned triumphantly and flipped open my file folder. “Your results are fine. Treadmill was negative—ECG normal, no substernal chest pain reported. Your resting pulse is okay. You’re taking your beta-blocker faithfully?”
“Like clockwork.”
“And an aspirin every day.”
“To keep the doctor away.”
He smirked, flipped a page. “Lipids—well, you’ve got some hereditary problems there, but it seems to be under control with the Lipitor. Any chest pains, shortness of breath?”
“I did have a pain in my chest a couple of days ago that felt like a muscle spasm.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, then rattled off a series of rapid-fire questions as if he hoped to catch me in a lie. Fortunately, I had done at least as many cross-examinations as he, so I kept up. Then he fell silent, went back through my chart. “Well, Henry, I just don’t see any cause for immediate alarm here, but if it happens again, I want you to call me then and not wait three days to report it.” He cast a stern look at me. “Got it?”
“I understand,” I said. As I tried to frame my next question, a chorus burst out on the CD. “I have to ask you kind of an awkward—”
“Yes, you can have sex,” he said.
“How did you know I was going to ask you about sex?”
“It’s a standard question,” he replied. He glanced at the cap in my lap and said, “Hmpf. Did you have specific questions or should I give you my post-heart attack birds-and-bees talk?”
“All I want to know is whether I could drop dead in flagrante delicto.”
“Ah, the standard lecture, then,” he said. “Sexual intercourse carries a zero to negligible risk of cardiac arrest. In much older men, the beta-blocker may cause some dysfunction. Are you having trouble getting erections?”
“Uh—no,” I said. “Well, yes. A bit.”
“That’s probably psychological, Henry. Sex is not going to kill you—well, let me amend that. Safe sex
is not going to kill you. Your problems will pass. If they persist, then we’ll see if there’s a medical cause.” When he finished, he smiled and said, “Tell Mr. DeLeon if he has concerns, he can call me directly.”
“How did you know?”
“Usually it’s one of the first things men in relationships are worried about after a heart attack. You didn’t ask, so I drew the logical conclusion. Now you’re asking, so obviously your situation has changed and”—he raised an eyebrow—“you came in wearing that very red hat.”
“I’ll tell John he can call you if he has questions,” I said. “By the way, you scare me.”
Hayward flashed his smug grin. “I want you to accelerate the pace of your exercise.” He glanced at me. “Let’s avoid the obvious double-entendre.”
“I wasn’t going there.”
“Brisk walks would be good,” he said. “The idea is a progressive increase. Push yourself a bit, and unless I hear from you before, I’ll see you in a month.”
I got up to leave. At the door, I said, “Thanks for everything, Doc.”
“Enjoy yourself,” he said, and as he reached for the phone, added, “safely.”
On my way home, I had a thought and drove to the Beverly Center. Late that afternoon, when the-sludge had finally cleared from the sky, I put on my brand-new running shoes, an old pair of running shorts and an even older T-shirt from law school, the red Stanford lettering all but faded into the gray, and drove to a nearby high school. I made my way through the red brick buildings that had served as a backdrop for more than one teen exploitation film, and found the football field. It was ringed by a quarter-mile track. I went out to field, lay my cell phone in the grass and began to stretch. Over a decade had passed since I’d stopped running, so I was surprised at how quickly I remembered the sequences of stretches but not so surprised at how much more difficult they were. I was reaching for the big toe on my left foot when my phone rang. I picked it up. It was my investigator, Freeman Vidor.
