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Good night Westlake Village
by
Harry Buschman
It stays light in Westlake Village until 9 PM in July. The time, of course,
is a figment of our imaginations - something we make up, as synthetic a vision
as Westlake Village itself. The planet ignores the clock on the wall and pays
no attention to the embedded metronome of our routine. Our time may not be
your time, it is a purely personal time, and neither you nor I may realize that
other people are eating breakfast in Honolulu.
Oblivious to time, I sit out back on a plastic lawn chair in the cool of the
night with a Budweiser close at hand and stare dumbly at the parade of stars
that cross the darkening sky. I have a portable television set in my lap which
transports me to a baseball field in Denver, Colorado where the sun is still
shining. We live in an age of miracles.
This is Amerika, Mr. Kafka .... or should I say "Cafca?" You would have loved
living here in Westlake Village, Mr. Kafka. It is your kind of town, near
enough to the throbbing hub of noise and light we call “the city," yet far
enough
from it to be an impartial witness to it's wickedness. We are proud of it --
when it's good it is our kind of town, but when it's bad we will have nothing
to do with it.
An instant ago on the cosmic clock, white men in their plastic chairs, their
flickering TV's and their sweat beaded Budweisers fade from sight and we see
red men bedded down in deer hide tents, listening with masculine gratification
to the murmuring of their women and the chattering of their children. Some of
us can see back further still; back to an earlier tick in time's clock, when
the glacier, grinding its gritty path from what is now Quebec, paused for
breath in Westlake Village and left a terminal moraine here where I now sit.
Before
that who knows? Did giant predators with golden eyes prowl a steamy swamp I
now call my town? A tick of the clock, but eons before the man sitting in the
plastic chair staring in open mouthed wonder at the indifferent sky.
Corky, my neighbor's Basset hound greets me with a soft, "woof." We are great
friends, Corky and I, and comfortable in each other’s company. I think he has
gotten a whiff of my Budweiser. He would unhesitatingly die for a beer, and
as a tribute to his sense of values, I submit he would not be so quick to die
for his master or me. I upend the can and let him have the dregs and he catches
each golden drop before it touches the ground. Then he wants the can. Even
though I could get a nickel back on it, I give it to him and he lumbers off into
the night carrying it gently in his slobbering jaws.
My Budweiser is gone, my bladder is full, and my beloved and incompetent Mets
have come up short again. It occurs to me as I sit here in my plastic chair
that Corky and I represent the cream of universal achievement -- the feeders
at the top of the food chain -- the commingled dust of blazing stars, and the
organization of matter and space. I honor the numberless dead that havegone
before so that he and I might sit in comfort under the black velvety sky and
enjoy a beer together. We are forever in their debt. It is a great
responsibility
to accept theenergy and sacrifice of the Creation -- I shall have to give it
my careful consideration. But for the moment I must pee.
I do so. A long and magnificent Budweiser induced pee. One that sets me
thinking again. I might have done that outside my tent a tick in time ago, but I
am
a civilized man now. Technologically hip.
The night is young and I decide to walk a bit before calling it a day. The
windows of my neighbors are open to the midsummer air and if my ears were
sharper I would be privileged to share their intimate secrets. I already share
the
rubbish man with them, as well as their tastes in music and television, their
family disagreements and their barking dogs. Some houses are dark. Are they
away? Are they making love? Are they looking out of their interior darkness and
wondering who this strange, old man walking the night might be?
"Hey Pop! Which way's Magnolia Street?" Two kids in a Camaro with a tuned
muffler.
The driver looks at me with the fishlike stare of someone who really can't
see well without glasses. I am about to show him where Magnolia Street is when
the passive female at his side states loudly enough for all the street to hear
.... "Y'aint gettin nuthin’ outta him, Ritchie, he's lost too." She reveals
more of herself than any man would care to see. It is not a body she should be
proud of, but ten to one Ritchie will possess it before the sun comes up on
Magnolia Street.
Well, screw both of you. I know very well where Magnolia Street is. After all
I'm the cream of universal achievement. The curve topped out when I got here
and you two are perfect examples of what the world can expect on the downhill
run. How could I not know where Magnolia Street is? Nancy Grenoble lived
there, Tony Cannon, Frannie and Alex .... and you think I'm lost? I know every
sidewalk crack and every low hanging branch as intimately as the mailman.
The exhaust burbles aggressively and fisheyes guns the Camaro further on down
the slope. What will the future bring for fisheyes and his lady of the
evening? Do I see only their tragic side? Am I blind to a substance within them
that
may carry them to greater heights than I could ever imagine?
I hear the click of dog claws behind me ... Corky has decided to take a turn
with me on the outside chance I have an unopened beer on my person.
"That's the problem with you, Corky. Perhaps in the next few clicks of time
you'll be able to see the problem yourself. You can't depend on us. We're going
downhill. Just because we have electronic fingers that can put ones and zeros
together .... it's not a big thing Corky old boy, believe me, it won't buy
you a beer if you need one; and by the way, Corky, how old are you? ten --
twelve? You're as old as me in dog years. Don't you think you're old enough to
buy
your own beer?"
"Look at you sitting with your bare old ass in the gutter. You’re looking up
at me like I was God. I'm not your Master, Corky. You're not my slave. I'm as
flesh and blood as you are. I can not reach down and take your paw and give to
you what my God gave Adam." I point to the Camaro heading in the wrong
direction to get to Magnolia Street, "Look what it came to!"
"Look up at the stars, Corky. See how close they are." I pause to consider
what minor miracle of coincidence has brought us all together. I look into
Corky's brown beggar eyes, scratch behind his silken ears and pat his rump. "It
could have been a different man, Corky. A different dog and a different
configuration of stars; but one thing would be tha same. Love, Corky! That's the
same
-- anywhere."
In this soft summer night I think that might be the root of our problem as
well. We thought we were special just because Someone reached down to take our
paw. "But enough of this thinking, Come home with me Corky -- away to bed, I
shall pull this blanket of stars up to my chin and sleep all night in Elysium.
Good night, Westlake Village.
© Harry Buschman 1997
(1330)
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