Sunset

     "Nice shoes."

     Is he complimenting me or mocking me?  He's got this edge, so I can never tell with him.  I decide to assume it's a compliment.  "Thanks.  They're new."

     "Perfect for stepping out on the town."

     I say nothing, still unsure where he's going with this.  He and his wife just picked us up.  We're driving to a hip new restaurant on Sunset Blvd., or so they say, for my wife and I have no idea what's new and what's hip.  Our prior contacts with Sunset Blvd. have been inadvertent, usually when we're on the way to somewhere else and we forget about that alternate route and find ourselves stuck in Sunset's perma-jam. 

     The wives chat in the back while we sit silently in the front.  Thirty minutes to Sunset and nothing to say.

     I used to blame myself for these long pauses.  It was somehow my responsibility to keep the conversation going.  The minute it flagged, I feared, they'd notice me immersed within myself, not caring at all for them or what they think.  Then I got older and realized that the silence was mutual, that they too are immersed within themselves, not caring at all for me or what I think.  So I embrace the silence.  And the longer I sit in silence, the more likely they are to take the lead, telling me all sorts of interesting stuff. 

     The silence is particularly welcome now, for we have very little in common.  His wife is friends with my wife, their kids are friends with our kids, more than enough glue for a suburban acquaintanceship.  But there's little else between us.  He's at least ten years older than me, but in appearance he's my age and in outlook he's ten years younger than me.  He's always decked out in clothes that, like him, have an edge.  Tonight he's wearing biker boots with buckles, tightish pants with a zillion zippered pockets and a wildly striped untucked shirt.  Next to him I'm a frump.  Actually I'm always frumpy, but when I'm next to him the contrast highlights my frumpiness, so I'm even frumpier. 

     And he's lived The Life in a way I never have, single 'til his forties, work hard party hard, been there done that.  A man with a past.  It's given him a world weariness I'll never have.  And that edge.  He can be fun but I feel awkward around him.  He makes me uncomfortable.  I think I amuse him, even though I'm not trying to.

     He is cool.  I am not.  It's really that simple.

     Speeding through Beverly Hills, he comes to life, pointing out a mansion where he'd once attended a party.  "That was one wild party," he says.  "We saw Axel Rose running across Sunset so we followed him into that mansion and it was this wild record release party.  Chicks everywhere.  Tons of blow.  A real blow-out."  He laughs.

     We cross the line into West Hollywood and slow to the Sunset crawl.  He's pointing out bars and dives and hang-outs from his past.  He asks me whether I've ever been there or there or there, but after my third or fourth no he stops asking and starts reminiscing.  "You could find the hottest babes there," he says, pointing to a particularly divey-looking dive.  "High-priced call girls over there," a conspiratorial whisper now, pointing across the street.  "The Viper Room.  I was there the night before River Phoenix died," he says, a touch of regret in his voice.  I don't think he's mourning River's death.  "That was my favorite Sunday brunch place, you could sit there on the deck with your buds and nurse your hangover with a bottomless Bloody Mary."  Those were the days, I guess.

     His wife taps him on the shoulder.  "Honey, it's over there."

     We pull into the driveway behind a black Ferrari.  "Who's that?," he asks, as the doors open and a corpulent Asian guy gets out.  "Software developer," he says, derision mixed with disappointment.

     As he pulls his SUV forward, I overhear him muttering "here come the dorks from the 'burbs in their mommymobile."  He says it again.  I wonder whether he's including himself in that group of dorks.  I can never tell with him.

     We're early so we're lounging by the pool bar, a tiki type of place, hundreds of young stylin' hipsters hangin' and reclinin' on futons.  Every futon and seat is taken, so we stand by the pool, a couple of middle-aged couples sipping martinis while the young and beautiful stroll by, as if on display, studiously ignoring us.  He was right, this is a very hip place, hipper than I ever was, hipper than I'll ever be, so hip that their interest in me matches their interest in the drainage vent I'm standing on.  I'm so out of it I'm into it.  I feel as though I'm observing exotic creatures in cages at the zoo.  I enjoy being the invisibile man, the dork from the 'burbs, privileged just to soak in this bizarre scene.

     Unlike me, he looks like one of them.  Kind of.  In fact, the more I observe him and them in the same shot, the more I compare and contrast him with them in this context, the less he's looking like them.  His clothes now look like a costume.  Next to them, he's become a frump.  In five minutes he's aged twenty years. 

     His eyes are elsewhere, scanning the bar area.  Is he looking for a futon?   He triumphantly points to an older woman lying next to an older man on a futon.  "Get a room, grandma!"  He's chuckling.  His wife looks away.  His edge is now serrated. 

     "This place has really gone downhill," he says. 

     "In just six months?" I ask. 

     "Before you know it, the Persians take over," he answers.  "They're so quick to swarm the good places.  And so goddamn rich." 

     He's heating up as I turn away.  His edge is now so rusty, I don't want it to infect me.  Time to tune out and turn inward for the night, I think, as I look over the edge to the city lights sparkling through the gloaming, the sun dipping below the horizon, the sky a deep red and orange tinged with dark blue.  Another sunset on Sunset.  At least this one's beautiful.

Comments

[DarkoV]

I believe you were Party carpooling (partypooling?) with the designated "When I'm old I don't want to be like him" guy. Good thing that you peeled away from him before the infection started. A half hour more or so and it was his party-invite duty to jump into that pool you were skirting around. You wouldn't want to be showered by his lame cannonball. That's his new status; the old party cool gig. He's the Barnum at today's Cirque de Soleil.

[Michelle]

Did you roll down the window when you puked on the way home? What a loser! Cool? Not in my book. More like over-the-hill hipster wannabe.

[stephenesque]

Allthose multi-zippered pants are currently on sale at my local discount clothing store.

[R J Keefe]

Pathetic people can be dangerous.

[D]

I'm sorry, I think you have such a talent, but when I come back here (almost every other day) it is beginning to be a downer. Specifically, why were you wasting your time at such a place?

If you remember an earlier response I gave, this is more of the prison wall description. Misery loves company, as they say, and this kind of thing drags others down into more misery. You see, what you are doing is circling the negative and ignoring the positive, or the forward motion, which risks the reader to go away. I am not saying everything is to be rosy all the time, but think of a play: of course a few characters are to be villains, and arguments will abound, but remember what a mentor told me once, and I believe it to this day: "If it doesn't inspire, it's garbage."

All your writing is doing is pulling me down into a spiral of a wasted life. Show me the gold.

D

[e]

poor guy

[Susan]

What I love is the juxtaposition of identifying with your insights and private thoughts about a culture more foreign and exotic to me than Switzerland was to Mrs. Nungazer's Fourth Grade Class. If you think you're unhip, try hick! Juicy juicy! (I'm new to your site via Portifex, and you're the first non-friend's blog that I now read regularly, meaning my second blog ever. Cheeky picture, P.G.!)

[s.a.]

well. your writing certainly is not pulling ME into »a spiral of a wasted life«!
(i believe i'm perfectly capable of doing that all by myself anyway.)

[Julia]

I couldn't agree less with "D"--I don't think this entry was a downer. I loved it. Insightful as usual, but also particularly well crafted (I especially like the different descriptions of "the edge"). Besides, inspiration is where you find it--it isn't always in positive happy things like puppies and rainbows. Some of my best inspirations have come at the darkest moments of my life.