THE PERENNIAL FRESHMAN
George S. Whiteman 13
radio, the perfect blend of opiates, a tranquil night and a receptive awareness that was new to me. Clearly I was out there. I cruised Lankershim Boulevard past my former halls of higher learning— grades K through Crypt—the Valley and El Portal theaters—where movies wrote odd chapters in my personal bible and the radio shows scratched in the evens. The skuzzy Pepper Tree Motel, where Mom, Dad and me—a sister in the womb—first stayed after driving fabled Route 66 from New York during WW II (a lifetime ago) was surrendering to the assault of progress. My memory lane drive took in several apartments, the foster home where lasting resentments were fostered and Pickwick Swim Park where I worked my way through Hollywood High as a hunk-lifeguard. I drove by the adjacent drivein theater where all things new and wonderful happened, and along Valley Heart Drive past our house number one, where daughter Stacy was born. We, my ghosts and I, passed a few of the hovels they called homes, dives that are best forgotten. Then up the winding drive to the ‘Starlight Bowl’ and its commanding view of “The Valley.”
* * * From that pinnacle my mind took flight back in time when crushing loneliness was a way of life and night flying over the valley in dreams was one of my few real adventures. I ranged the sparkling landscape, counting the five grammar schools I attended and the shacks I was stashed in for the convenience of my estranged and deranged parents. And over the all too few brighter spots, those beacons that guided me from poverty to financial comfort and on to spiritual bankruptcy. The Royal abode now competes with a beachfront house in San Buena, Ventura, and a set of new friends who have yet to figure me out, although they reluctantly accept me because their kids say I’m cool. Soon Dotty and Stacy will be comfortable living there full time when my final stage husbandry rockets fizzle out. The Ventura lifestyle was a concept of reality that eluded me—upright citizens, good and safe schools, three-hundred-and-sixty-five normality, with the free-range maniac leading an annexed life that defied description. I landed. The young lovers’ steamy cars were thinning out, and a Burbank patrol car faced me. I returned a pleasant smile with my own cryptic message, “Goodnight, officers, and by the way the Hillside Strangler doesn’t drive a Bentley or look as chilling as I do.” I’m never disrespectful to those who serve and protect. One of my good friends is a Vice Cop in South Central Los Angeles, laying his ass on the line, only leaving the precinct for coffee and doughnuts. If I had departed Hollywood High with passing grades, I planned to don L.A. Blue. Scary. Goodnight, officers.