Here's a Story My Friend Told Me

Ike golfed his last round as president months before, uranium and krill were discovered in Antarctica, and Irene and Earl met at the King’s X off La Cienega, her day shift at Douglas tucked away with letters to the Department of Defense, the failed renderings of bombers. They would have strolled long at Venice Beach, skated the boardwalk. She would have thought of us, then put the thought away when that new man took her wrist and whipped her forward, like the crucial moment on "Roller Derby," the show she almost skated for ten years before, lanky and quick—then pregnant with her first.

It was dark on the sand except for the stray glow of street lamps. Irene and Earl looked west, black as the night swam west, and they smoked and necked. They got married in Tijuana the Saturday they found out about my sister. They told everyone else the next day: Louise was glad for a father again. Pat smiled, as always, at love. Then come the days or weeks I don’t remember, when we never left after all, grandparents steady in my mind, Irene alone a lot downstairs or late home from work. We must have neared Valentine’s Day—Alan Shepard three months from space, Marilyn Monroe taking her first nude swim in the White House pool—the night I rode with Pop to drop off Earl in Canoga Park. Long palm boulevards cut through orange groves scenting the night. The corner we left him at, his house forever a blank, I wonder why I went along. I didn’t say goodbye.

The actor Jack Elam still reminds me of his face: that wide smile, those eyes glassy with drink and enthusiasm. Earl turned around in exotic, citrus-smelling dark, February 1961—walked back to his ex- who never, after all, was ex-. Pop and I drove home the long way, not talking, windows open to each neighborhood, its barking dog, its bike in the drive, each neighborhood a heart, the streets where homes were dark enough for stars. Down thick bright boulevards we drove home, where I was sure, before we returned, the female ritual had already begun and ended.