All About Lulu (31 page)

Dear Will,

Philosophical traffic report: Still stuck in the intersection of free will and determinism, but I’ve put eternal recurrence in the rearview mirror, at least this time around. I’ve been trying to reduce life to arithmetic, but the equations are too often illogical. I find myself adding and subtracting and multiplying, but I never get to the sum.

The one thing I know for sure, and you showed me this truth, is that anything, even hot dogs, can be a transcendental experience. Say hello to Eugene and the crew!

Semper experimentum,

G.S.

But that was the last I heard of my old mentor Gerard. People just slip away if you’re not careful. Big people. Everything is smaller in the end.

One Friday morning when I was in the bathtub reading
Forum
(a little yarn about a sorority initiatio
n involving dog collars and sod
omy), I thought I heard a knock on the door, but I couldn’t be sure because there were at least three washers in spin cycle downstairs, and the apartment was quaking at a seven-point clip.

As the knock persisted, my manhood wilted, and I
fi
nally wrapped myself in a towel and went for the door, certain that I would discover Eugene on the other side in coveralls and a Hot Dog Heaven hat, holding a pipe wrench or a rake, or a new brand of mustard from the former Czech Republic that was forty percent cheaper even with shipping. He would be impatient about something. Something would need to be done. Something would need
fi
xing, or preparing, or replacing. Or just moving around. Whether here or in Venice, something would need to happen, somewhere, as soon as possible.

Making dreams happen is not about sitting around on your ass, it’s about the tireless pursuit that never drains you.

“Zis is what make American world go around.”

Eugene was undrainable. He was Ragged Dick on steroids.

A week earlier Eugene had caught me in a similar towel-clad, semi-erect disposition when he came to my door before work to tell me that Frank was haunting, among other people, the Ramirez family in 214.

“You need keep an eye on for that cat. Now he bugging people in other building, even. Miss Boswell saying she hearing bumping in her closet at night. I telling her maybe mice. But I know zis is Frank bumping around.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Maybe you not let him out so much at night.”

“He’s a ghost, Eugene.”

“Zis is no matter. He your cat. You better keep an eye on for.”

My last thought before I opened the door was that I hoped Frank wasn’t in trouble again. Instead, when I swung the door open, I discovered my brother Doug standing in the causeway in clean pressed military attire, hefting a giant green duffel bag.

Before I could ask him what he was doing there, he was bear-hugging me, even though I was wet and practically naked. He didn’t smell like armpit. He smelled like lavender and leather. I felt tiny in his embrace.

“What’s happening, big brother?” he said, releasing me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m on leave. Four days. Got the hell out of Dodge.”

“So you came here?”

“Where else would I go?”

I had about
fi
ve answers off the top of my head, but the more I thought about each one, the more sense his answer made. “Well, come on in,” I said, stepping aside. “Let me throw some clothes on.”

Doug stepped in with his duffel bag and took a long look around my dark hovel. The apartment had stopped shaking for the time being, but the dryer vents under the window were working overtime.

There were dishes in the sink, laundry scattered on the
fl
oor. Frank had knocked over a lamp during the night.

“Not bad,” he observed.

I must admit that Doug cut a handsome
fi
gure standing there in the living room. He was all grown up—and I don’t mean in terms of size, but overall carriage. He stood straight. His mouth wasn’t hanging open. His skin was unblemished. But I was most impressed by the
fi
t he’d managed to achieve with his military wardrobe, in spite of his hulkish build. Big Bill could never have pulled such a thing off. He would have looked clownish—the cuff of his pant legs would have been halfway up his shin, the material would have been stretched tight over his massive quads, the shoulders of the coat would’ve been cinched up around his neck. But Doug’s uniform hung like it was tailored. His hair was cropped short and neat, but not too short. He looked pretty sharp.

“What smells like diapers?” he said.

As if on cue, the washers began their gurgling drainage.

“It’s the laundry room,” I explained.

“Jesus. How can you stand it?”

“Somebody has to.”

I retired to the bedroom to put some boxers on, and when I came out, Doug was sitting on the sofa, an ancient kelly green castoff from the Pico house, perusing Hegel’s
Phenomenology of Spirit
. His lips weren’t moving. The book looked small in his clutches.

“I gotta hand it to you, Will. You’re a pretty smart cookie if you can make any sense out of this crap.”

“I can’t.”

“You hungry? Sizzler’s got an all-you-can-eat buffet going for $6.99. I saw it on TV.”

“It’s 9:00 AM. You wanna eat at Sizzler?”

“Why not? You gotta work or something?”

“Actually, no, but I don’t even think Sizzler is open for breakfast, are they?”

“Yeah, maybe not. Hey, let’s call Ross and go play some pickup down in Venice. Like old times.”

“What old times? When did we ever play pickup at Venice?”

“Well, I did a few times, anyway.”

The thing about sports was that I listened to them, I knew the language, I could talk about them
fl
uently, from baseball to bodybuilding. But the stars were never Magic Johnson or Kirk Gibson, the stars were always Vin Scully and Chick Hearn, the beautiful storytelling voices. I deplored basketball, begrudged it, actually, for being, like everything in the athletic realm, so far removed from my skill sets.

Yet, Doug’s plan sounded agreeable to me, if only because it would allow me to demonstrate my prosperity and
fi
nancial independence.

And besides, I had a case of napkins and three gallons of sweet relish from the commissary in the back of the RX-7 that Joe and Eugene would be needing for the lunch rush.

Ross called in sick at the shoe store. He met us at the apartment.

Knocking once, he walked through the door with his black gym bag and was immediately tackled by Doug. They crashed to the
fl
oor like a couple of elephants, and wrestled around madly, scrambling for leverage, upending the coffee table, huf
fi
ng and grunting and trailing strings of saliva in their wake.

They were evenly matched. Surprisingly, Ross had a slight size advantage in terms of muscle mass, but Doug was more agile.

In the end, it was Ross who gasped “Uncle.”

Doug lent him a hand up, and they both brushed themselves off.

It was all rather gentlemanly in its way. No one farted, or called each other “ass-clown” or “knuckle-dragger.”

“You got me when my weight was up high.”

“Yeah,” said Doug. “But it wasn’t really fair. I caught you napping.

Plus I had you pinned in a defensive posture up against the couch. I think you might have had me, otherwise.”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Ross, untangling his long wavy hair.

Doug looked him up and down. “Dad said you were training again, but I wasn’t expecting this. What are you benching?”

“Two ninety.”

“Ten reps?”

“Sometimes twelve.”

“Wow, not bad.”

“What about you?”

“About the same. But never twelve reps, usually eight to ten. And I usually need a spot near the end.”

After a little catch-up—talk of jet engines and women’s shoes and more iron pumping—we out
fi
tted ourselves for Venice. Doug wore some military cargo shorts, an olive drab T-shirt, and lace-up boots.

Ross wore a Slayer shirt cut into a muscle tee and some neoprene shorts worthy of
…
well, Doug. A dearth of athletic wear left me in Levi’s, Docs, and a white T-shirt.

The three of us squeezed into the RX-7. Doug, upon his own insistence, wound up crammed in back with the napkins and the relish, his chin wedged
fi
rmly between his knees. But unlike the Doug of even the most recent past, he was not whining about it. Ross kept asking him if he had enough leg room. Doug kept saying he was okay, but thanks for asking. Maybe it’s true that we grow more cautious with age, but we also grow more considerate.

I’m proud to say that the Thrill Mobile was roaring like a tiger that morning. I’d just had her lubed, plugged, and timed. Even Doug was moved to comment, and being a jet-engine mechanic for the United States Air Force, he ought to know.

“Rings sound tight,” he said. “I’m starving.”

The hatch was open and Eugene was prepping onions when we got there with the napkins and the relish. I always tingled with the pride of a father when I approached Hot Dog Heaven. Just as I had hoped, Doug was impressed by my heavenly domain.

“Great location,” he said, casting a vague look around. “But somehow I don’t see you selling hot dogs your whole life. Let’s eat.”

The twins each devoured a cold foot-long while I tended to some un
fi
nished business with Eugene—namely, trying in vain to resolve the ongoing debate about lemonade.

“I can get concentrate for next to nothing at the commissary,” I insisted.

“Lemons cost nothing, too. I get almost two cases from tree behind complex. You give fresh for same price.”

“I’m telling you, there’s the labor to consider.”

He waved it off. “Bah! Cheaper not always better. Most times, yes, I admit. But not for freshness. You not worry about squeezing lemon. I squeeze lemon.”

The pride that Eugene must have tingled with made me sad for the rest of us.

They were running full court
fi
ve on
fi
ve on the near court. A father and toddler were taking up one of the back courts, rolling a Nerf football around in wobbly circles. Back in the far corner, three black guys were playing twenty-one.

They didn’t seem to notice our approach, but after a while, the fat one pulled a rebound, wheeled around to clear it, and happened to notice two muscle-bound behemoths and a little dweeb in dress shoes standing on the sideline. He nodded at us.

“You guys up for some threes?” said Doug.

“That’s cool,” said the tallest guy. He was wearing a Payton jersey.

“Mind if we shoot around a little
fi
rst?”

“Go for it,” said the fat one, delivering Doug a
fi
rm chest pass.

Doug dribbled twice and threw up a knuckleball that left the chain net ringing for a few seconds af
ter it hit the rim. The ball ca
reened off the rim right to me.

Here began phase one of the awkward dance. The sizing-up phase, in which Will the Thrill distinguished himself as a complete athletic poser—though not without a certain sprightly grace—hoisting a pair of scissor-legged air balls, and a confused layup attempt. The big dude tried to dunk my put-back, missed, and hung on the rim long enough for me to scurry out from under him like a hamster.

To my surprise, Ross had a pretty decent stroke. But he navigated the court like that big red Kool-Aid pitcher who crashes through walls. At one point, he went for his own rebound and came over the back of the short guy with the big shorts.

“Chill, homey. We just shootin’ around. Damn.”

After a few minutes, the fat guy suggested we shoot for teams.

“Eleven by ones. Winners after three.”

The fat guy passed the ball to Ross. “Shoot for outs.”

Ross missed.

The other guys jumped off to an early three–nothing lead before Ross lumbered into the lane with a hippity-hop dribble and nailed an awkward running jumper to put us on the board.

They called the tall guy “Big Smooth,” but it was his rotund team-mate, the obligatory “Tiny,” who accounted for all three of their early points. Tiny was light on his toes for a guy the size of a hippopotamus.

His footwork was precise. And he was a monster in the low post. Even Ross, of the 290 bench press, was no match for Tiny down low. Once Doug was pressed into double-teaming him, Tiny would kick the rock out to Big Smooth on the perimeter. Pretty soon they had a six–one lead.

I was assigned to the little guy who jabbered a lot and by all rights should’ve been wearing the Payton jersey. He was quick, and invariably eluded my coverage, but he couldn’t
fi
nish for squat.

Doug grabbed an offensive board at six–one and muscled it back up over Big Smooth for six–two.

The little guy clunked a wide-open jumper on their next possession. Ross cleared the rebound to me, and by some divine intervention, I slung one from the hip like Bob Cousy and sunk it from the top of the key.

“Pfff. Happy birthday,” said the little guy, tossing me the rock.

“Thanks, but my birthday’s in September.”

Just after I checked the ball, Doug rolled off a Ross pick, and I hit him in the lane for an easy layup, which brought us to within two.

We high-
fi
ved, mid
-
circle.

“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” said Doug. “That’s some chemistry.”

“That’s some ugly,” said the little guy.

“Four–six,” I said, checking it in.

Ross missed a jumper, but Doug hauled in the board and cleared it to me in the corner, where I was essentially hiding.

“That’s you!” he yelled.

“Shoot!” said Ross, muscling for position on Tiny.

I let one
fl
y from the hip again. It hit the corner of the backboard but ricocheted right to Doug, who banked it in over Big Smooth, for
fi
ve–six.

“Pfff. Nice pass,” said the little guy.