Roadmap Part 16

CHAPTER 40 - ANGELS AND PSYCHOS

A lot of people go through what I went through without a pause. After a reasonable period, they shake off regret and await love with fresh hope. Or grab a gun and start firing.

"There are some men who can just turn you inside out," Lani says as we dine on whalesize crabmeat handrolls at Namida (her treat). "But the only way they can connect is through sex. One time I went to bed with this pilot right after we got off the same flight. It was in a motel room and the sex was amazing. Afterward he was getting dressed and I found myself explaining why Oedipus Rex is such a great play...Can you imagine, Carrie? Oedipus Fucking Rex. He could not have cared less. I just really needed to tell myself we had a deeper connection."

"Roadmaps for the sexually challenged,” I mutter.

"That’s it, Carrie! That’s how we will finally make money in this stinking town! You know how they hawk Maps to the Stars’ Homes? Shit, we’ll be like “Get your Roadmaps for the Sexually Challenged! Get your ice-cold roadmaps right here!”

I can’t laugh. Kaiulani stops laughing. We both know what those maps would have on them.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

xx

So now I’ve been fired by the movie studio where I was a legal assistant. Corporate life does not allow for private-life meltdowns. For a month all I could do was cry and sleep. Katie would lie on top of me, the tips of her paws touching my neck, keeping me alive with her cat kisses. I force-fed myself potato chips and juice or potato chips and Snapple. I no longer looked to alcohol for solace. In the two years of my divorce, I drank more alcohol than I had my whole life. And it got me nowhere.

Roadmaps for the karmically challenged. Get your red-hot roadmaps!

Bills pile up like compost. Phone stops ringing. In that studio apartment on Sargent Court, I float in a self-imposed diaspora.

No idea how to pay rent, buy food, or survive the next month. 

Then for the first time in ages, the phone rings. Aunt Vermillion calling from New York to say We just paid sixteen thousand dollars for Cousin Lisa's dental work. Lisa’s the fifty-year old alcoholic daughter of Sadie, Dad’s oldest sister.      

I write to Vermillion’s son Melvin requesting funds. It’s Trust Fund money. I am a beneficiary. Then l go looking for a no-cost-intern-therapist. Fifteen years ago; I’d chipped away at the bedrock of my childhood until I finally found the courage to confront my father about his abuse. You know what his response was?

"I didn't beat you as much as your mother did."

Dad never met Boris. He was on a trip around the world with his new wife. when we eloped in L.A. His heart gave out six months later. I found out from Jeff, who left a message on my machine:

"Dad’s brain waves have stopped. I guess this is it."

No warm memories of a persimmon being cut to share at a family dinner table. No traditions honored in our household when I was growing up. Perhaps that is what attracted me to the Japanese culture that I witnessed in Shane’s family.

The sense of belonging. The Buddhists call it sangha. They say a lion who comes down to a village alone can be easily killed.

xx

Fall again. Cervantes’ cherry tomatoes are gone, the huge lavender bush that was the center of Reva’s garden has been cut back, and Elysian Park is again decorated in reds, golds and orange amid the year-round succulents. 

One day, I return home after the three-mile circuitous hike to find a postcard in my mailbox. It’s a black-and-white photo of hundreds of Chinese doing Tai Chi in a Beijing square. An arrow is drawn in red ink between two of the practitioners  with the handwritten "I WAS RIGHT HERE. " Dated a month ago. From Si Fu:

Si Fu calls.

"Where are you? "

"Ventura, visiting my mom. You get my postcard? "

"Today. You must’ve been in Heaven. I’m surprised you came back."

"Ran outta money. At had to wire me some to get me home." At is his hardworking L.A. Thai girlfriend. "Carrie, it was incredible. I visited hermits in the mountains, poured tea for the Abbey of a Taoist monastery, took pictures of a Buddhist shrine in a cave that was pitch black but you can see the Buddhas and everything in the developed photos. So how’s your freedom working out? Are you still with that guy in Echo Park?"

I give him the summation of my woes. He responds with a recitation:

"When the road is straight, I run ahead…” I finish for him:

“When it twists and turns, make the best of it…but what if you’re drowning in a tsunami?”

“Hold your breath until you float to the top.” 

 “Scott, I have to see you! When will you be in L.A.?” Oops, called him by his first name. He has already told me that he prefers “Si Fu” (teacher/master).

"I’m kicking back at mom’s writing my memoirs until At can sell her restaurants and we’re off to Thailand to get married.  I’m going to make you a copy of the diary I kept on my China trip and send it to you. Could really use a professional opinion.”

Hearing him call me “professional” is like getting a fresh chi injection. 

Therapist shopping. I find one who wants me.  But the feeling isn’t mutual.

She fills up page after page of a legal notepad while I talk, and after twenty minutes, ventures, "Well, your husband and your father were both sociopaths."

"What are you talking about? A sociopath is someone who has no conscience. Like a serial killer.”

"Technically. I'm saying on a scale from one to ten, your father and your husband were probably a 'TWO.'"

I walk out. 

She follows me into the lobby: "Well, I wish you'd reconsider...” I turn away muttering, "I think I’ll forget therapy."

In front of waiting clients, the therapist yells after me: "WITH ALL THE PROBLEMS YOU'VE GOT, YOU'RE JUST GOING TO FORGET IT?"

xx

Glen finds me crying.

"Man trouble?"

"Therapy trouble!" 

He knocks on my door later and hands me a paper with addresses on it.

"This group helped me a lot. It’s 12-Step.."

What the heck? I’m desperate.

Carrie's Lab.

xx

Codependents Anonymous. Like Tony and Glen, they really hammer home what a boundary looks like, how it should feel. My favorite definition is on a bookmark they gave me:

Codependency is when you die and

 someone else’s life flashes before your eyes.

xx

Aunt Vermillion calls in response to my letter to Melvin. No, Mel can't give me money from the Trust, but he can loan me the money out of his personal account.

"How much money is left in the Trust?"

"That's not the point. Melvin says the money can only be used for medical bills, not for rent."

"But last fall, he gave me money from the Trust to help me move."

"You can't pull money out just because you can't pay your rent!"

"I'm a Beneficiary," I tell Aunt Vermillion. "I’ve got the Trust document right in front of me. Do you want me to read it to you? "

"Will you stop with the Beneficiary?" I've never heard her so annoyed with me.  "That's some boilerplate Will that your father got from God knows where.  I have a multimillion dollar estate and my Will doesn't have half the garbage that his does."

I hang up and cry.. Katie in my lap, telling me it’s all right now. It’s all right. When my tears end, I light a candle. Close my eyes and the mantra comes, unbidden and right:

I SURRENDER… I SURRENDER…

I SURRENDER… I SURRENDER…

xx

Before I can hear the Roosters of Echo Park crowing, I get dressed and drive through the darkness to Chinatown. The playground where I saw the Tai Chi master a year ago is empty, surrounded by barbed wire.. A sign says a new gym will be built on this site.

I look around at the scads of older Chinese who line the sidewalks--their padded jackets make them look like little moving bundles as they wave their arms and legs, twist their waists. But no Tai Chi.

Unwilling to give up, I walk a couple blocks until I’ve left the exercisers behind. There he is. Behind Hop Li in the Buddhist Temple parking lot. Graceful and handsome as ever, leading a handful of Tai Chi practitioners. I wait until they finish and then approach, bowing from the waist, feet together, the way Si Fu taught me.

"I want to follow your Tai Chi. He frowns, not comprehending. I repeat it.  He glances in confusion at a tall man dressed in dark pants and white shirt who translates. The master gives a resolute shake of his head.  No.  I press on:

"I already know Tai Chi and just want to follow him." 

I keep insisting, feeling foolish but I can’t leave now. I’m not asking to be his student. That would be too audacious. Traditionally the master offers learning to the student. It’s clearly his decision. His choice. You can’t just pay up and get lessons.

More Chinese have gathered around us, eyeing me with naked curiosity.  The Si Fu laughs and speaks to his English-speaking Chinese student (an older tall stringbean of a man with a ready smile).

"He say, ‘Go home.’”

It's like I’m in a weird dream, standing on this littered, potholed asphalt, a foreigner among Asians several blocks from my home. Begging to be part of their world.

I do a few Tai Chi movements from the twenty-four movement Yang style to show them..

The Master turns his back on me. Speaks to the Translator.

"You follow," says the Translator in his good-natured energetic way. “You follow him!”

This new Si Fu with the soft countenance and smooth grace moves and I move.  Years of dance training have taught me how to look at movement. How to break it down. How to note details. But I can’t shed my awareness of everyone's eyes on me. The familiar movements now feel clumsy as I perform with trembling legs. The New Si Fu stops and walks off the asphalt, calling to the Translator over his shoulder.

"He say you come back tomorrow morning. Six o’clock. "

Elated, I begin to babble, "But I can do the hundred-and-eight and push-hands and weapons and..."

"You come back tomorrow."

Driving home, I realize I've just convinced a Tai Chi master who doesn't speak English to teach me in an all-Asian neighborhood. Nothing the future can invent will ever be as challenging and scary as this.

xx

At six the next day, I find my new Si Fu sitting on an old TV set next to a yellowing, stained once-white wall. 

Waiting.

xx

A week later, Aunt Vermillion sends me a money order for two thousand dollars. Her note says:

I had to borrow this from friends so Uncle wouldn't know.

I accept it with deep gratitude. Sometimes a Knight in Shining Armor is a woman who loves you. I must make them proud of me.

 xx

I awaken to Katie's hysterical meows.  As I swing out of bed, water swishes over my feet as they sank into the carpet.

"At Sargent Court, there are two things that will strike fear in your heart,” Glen told me on Day One. “One is the plumbing which often bursts. And the other is the words, Cervantes fix. One day you’ll wake up and find your cat doing the backstroke.”

Right now everything leather or cardboard that was on the floor is soaking.  Grabbing Katie, I run to Gertrude. She didn't seem surprised.

Nothing to do but sit at the picnic table while firemen vacuum the water out.

Glen sits down across from me and says, “Carrie, you must get Gertrude to pay for a hotel until it’s all dried out.” But I hardly hear him because I’m seeing for the first time in months....

Shane. Standing in a puddle of water in front of my apartment, talking to Gertrude. Wearing CHP mirrored shades and looking pissed off. “Just ignore him,” mutters Glen. But I get up and move closer to the man I used to love.

Now I see his print shirt isn’t silk as I first thought but polyester. Or maybe it’s silk and he’s wearing it like polyester. Skinnier too than I remember. Has he lost weight or did he always look like a junkie? 

Nevertheless, my heart rate increases as I smile at him and say, “Hi.” He keeps talking to his landlady, holding up a hand that looks like a warning meant for me (or is that his idea of a weak, uninviting hello)?

"If you build it right in front of my window, you'll block the view."

Gertrude turns to me and says, "Guess what? The sink just backed up in the next building. And the plumber just got here. Isn’t that lucky?" Hurrying off to the peach building that sits behind the blue one that I live in.

Not making eye contact, Shane drags on his cigarette. Against my will, I hear myself ask, "What's wrong?"

"Aw, she wants to build a scaffold to reinforce the balcony for the apartment upstairs and it'll go right in front of my picture window."

Glen makes his presence known beside us with “I love the dulcet tones of water being vacuumed in the morning." I turn to him: "You were right. Katie was doing the backstroke when I woke up." Glen places authoritative hands on his narrow hips:“Yes, your water heater broke and apartment flooded right on schedule.”

Shane gives me a sidelong glance: “Oh. Is your apartment flooded?"

"Well, yeah!" I gesture down to the water we’re standing in, relieved to have him here in spite of myself. Glad for the company. 

"Better have someone vacuum that out," he says, walking away. Calling over his shoulder, "Put in a good word for me."

I can feel Glen's eyes on my face and I think This is how it will always be." And I say to Glen: "On a scale from one to ten, I'd say he’s a FIVE."

So now I’m living upstairs from Shane. The landlady offered me the keys to this place which is now vacant. Giant fans are blowing on wet carpeting at my apartment, and it will be close to a week before I can move back in. I’ve brought lamp, sleeping bag, clothes…and Katie who loves running up and down the stairs. 

Yes, Life is rubbing my nose in my dreams. How often downstairs I fantasized about moving in here with Mr. Wrong. How perfectly I thought it was all falling into place. I can hear Shane downstairs on the phone but not what he’s saying.  He can probably hear me too. 

“Roadmaps for the Karmically Challenged! Get yer red-hot roadmaps!”

I did call Shane that first night to let him know that I’d be upstairs from him. He never responded.

Guess he let it slide.

CHAPTER 41 - FULL CIRCLE

Scent of sandalwood incense wafts from the Buddhist Temple into the parking lot which is still wet from last night's spring rain. In potholes, craters of water lie everywhere but on the spot where we practice every day. Vuong Si Fu is seated on the TV set in the rosy glare of the sunrise reading his paper, waiting. He looks up at me and turns up his hearing aid.

"Yesterday no come?"

"Rain."

He studies me for laziness, comes to a decision, turns away. Begins the lesson in Chinese. So far I've only learned mung mung (slowly) and yet bo (weight on one foot at a time). Everything else, I've learned through sight, his inflection combined with what I learned from Si Fu Scott—energy spirals up from the feet, manifests in the body and is sent out through the hands...invest in loss…invest in yielding…but know how to strike and defend when the time is right.

Empty...full...empty...full...empty…

We begin the form. Twisting and kicking and turning. To the casual observer, it looks like slow-motion dance. To the initiated, it's one side of a sparring session.  The energy vibrates through me. Form ended, I take off my padded jacket.  In the far corner of the lot, a class of oldsters starts. They have no Si Fu, but follow whoever knows it best.

They wave to me in the midst of their movements, and call out, Djo Dzan!  Good morning. 

Now Vuong Si Fu sits down to watch me do the form. During my more confident moments, my mind wanders about the test shots I’ll do with my new video camera after the rest of the class arrives. I’m back filmmaking again…

Our Documentary-From-Hell (With this Ring) screened last month at the AFI Film Festival and will be the Official Selection at film festivals in Santa Barbara, Chicago, Denver, Florida, Berlin and Moscow. Tony came to the AFI screening. Right after the movie, he tapped me on the shoulder and I shrieked when I saw him.  He’d cut off his ponytail and was wearing one of those yellow alligator shirts, looking ready for the golf course. 

“Boris looks different than I pictured,” he said. “But it was great.”

“Stay for the Q & A and we’ll all go out for a drink.”

“Can’t. Suzy’s got a headache.” He pointed at a young petite, skinny Asian woman seated on a bench against the wall on the other side of the room—bent over, head in hands.

"So you brought someone back!"

"Nah. She was born in Orange County.”

"I thought you’d bring someone back from The Orient.”

“Came close.”

I could hear Boris calling my name, but I had to look into Tony’s eyes for one more second. He whispered, “This is most intimate I’ve ever been with a woman. If I’m not careful I might end up with her.”

Then he was gone.

Boris and I stood before the audience while they fired questions at us.

“How long did it take you to make this movie?”

“Five years,” saidBoris. “Difficult process.”

“Is that why you divorced?” Everyone laughed.

“First I vant to say to my dear ex-wife, I am sorry,” Looking at me. “Ending is bad because of me. I look like whining jerk. Carrie, we must shoot new ending. (to audience) What you think?” Cheers.

“I’ll shoot a new ending,” I deadpanned, “when hell freezes over.” More cheers. If my hair was super long and straight I could flip it back the way Cher used to on Sonny and Cher. Boris and Carrie.

“Yes, you in the back,” I pointed to the upraised hand. He stood. It was Felix the ABC.

"Boris, you explained the scenes shot in Moscow are grainy because of the way the High-Eight videotape processed and not because you planned it.  But that adds so much to the look of the film. The faded Russian scenes contrast with the sharp American images. Random accidents can enhance film in unexpected ways.”

"Good point," I said. "Thanks, Felix."

"Is this question?" Boris frowned.

"A compliment," Felix pressed on. "Carrie, you mentioned that the editing was taken away from you near the end and you lost artistic control. So it’s not the film you intended. I just want you both to know it's really good, and audiences will appreciate it for what it is. It stands on its own now, apart from the two of you and what you originally intended."

"Pravda," Boris said with a twinkle. "Truth. Our leetle movie is now divorced from us."

xx

Felix surprised me back at Sargent Court with champagne. I saw the bottle on the picnic table as I walked up the path from the car. Then I saw the outline of his lanky frame in the New Moon darkness.

"What’s the occasion?"

"I just wanted to say you’re a real artist, " he said. "I’ve got a feeling you're going to do a great film one of these days. When that time comes, I want you to call me."

Art direction is Felix’s thing. Right now he assists in big films, but wants to work on an indie that will have "legs." Let’s keep in touch.

And where was the Keeper of the Gate—Felix’s beautiful wife? At the Cannes Film Festival. He has to stay and work on a Scorcese film.

Angel or psycho? I find myself asking now whenever I meet anyone here in L.A. Time will tell with Felix.

Now I see that all my life I have depended on the kindness of angels and psychos. Boris was an angel when he helped me move out of the first intentional household; a psycho when he put me down in front of our friends. Eva was an angel when she took me in; a psycho when she kicked me out. Tony was an angel of Love.  Shane was an angel of Sex who could only love when he was invisible like Cupid; and a First Class Whack Job when he stopped loving. 

Katie and Rosie and Kaiulani? They are my Angelic Greek Chorus. 

xx

I ran into Kaiulani last week at Namida. Dressed in fake leopard, eating spicy tuna rolls, and complaining about the O.J. trial’s Not-Guilty verdict. 

"Don't tell me he's not fucking guilty," she railed at two guys in Dodgers caps. "I want a bumper sticker that says 'WHERE'S LORENA BOBBITT WHEN YOU NEED HER?'"  Lorena Bobbitt. Castrating Heroine of the Nineties who cut off her husband’s dick and threw it out the car window. For cheating on her. At the sound of Bobbitt’s name, the men turned sober.

"Carrie Baby! So great to see you! Give this woman some sake. I’m buyin’."

"I thought you were in France..."

Ages since we’d last seen each other. When we celebrated her script sale. A million five. If it makes it to the screen. Half a mill if it survives "Development Hell." A hundred thou in her pocket for now. They’re talking to Julia Roberts.

"France, Schmantz. Home is where the action is. I’m too hot to leave town.  So how are things? Ever see anybody from that Relationship Shithouse?”

I told her Tony’s parting line:  If I’m not careful I might end up with her.

"Ha! He has ended up with her!"

But I no longer care. He might as well be a stranger now. Just as I’m sure I am to him. In our next lives, will we have to pay for our indifference when a psychic tells us that we lived in a Relationship House with two other misfits in a past life, and that ours was the most intimate relationship we will ever have in all our lifetimes? And if it was, did we blow it?

Roadmaps! Get your ice-cold...

"You did your karmic thing and moved on," Kaiulani said in her mind-reading mode. "Nothing wrong with that, Girlfriend."

 

In the parking lot, we sat in Kaiulani’s new BMW. "I'm smoking too damn much," she said, lighting up. These putzes give you money and think they own you.  You should see the crap they tell me to write."

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's thrilled.

"How’s the old love life, Lani?"

She threw a dramatic hand across her lovely face, "Oh, shit, Carrie, I don't know. I had this incredibly passionate affair with the producer, but he turned out to be too clingy. Plus he's overextended financially. I don't think he has a pot to piss in, excuse my French."

"Does he want a baby?"

"Ooooh, Girl, that was low."

"Since when do you care about money, Lani?"

"Since I turned fifty."

"I don't think I'm ever going to have sex again."

Quick as a Bible-Thumper pouncing on an atheist, Kaiulani sat up straight, stubbed out her smoke in the ashtray and said, "Never say never!”

Then Lani’s eyes rolled back, she gagged and siad, "Omigod, Carrie, I see him!"

"Who?"

"Your soulmate!"

Head back, body limp against the new leather. Eyelids fluttering.

"He's tall. Black hair, some gray around the temples. Around your age. Kinda mixed race. Mother’s Japanese. Father’s Japanese American. Not like anyone you've ever been with. This man is very special. And he's going to think you're very special. This one's for real, Carrie."

Now with open eyes: "Wow! I’ve got goosebumps, Carrie.  Look!"

"This perfect guy. When will I meet him? When I'm on Social Security?"

"Soon. Not right away, but it's coming. Just know that it is."

The next morning my phone rang.  Kaiulani.

"I saw him last night."

"Who?"

"The man you're going to be with. He came to me in a dream and I saw him just as clear as when I was giving you that reading."

"He looked the same?" I asked in spite of myself.

"Exactly the same. And he said, 'Tell her my name is Thomas.'"

"Thomas? First name or his last?"

"You’ll figure it out. Just, one thing, Carrie, please...remember...".

"What?"

Dramatic pause.

"Don’t go unconscious for Love."

"Unconscious."

"No matter how much you like him, love him…No matter how great he screws or how much money he has…"

Oh.

"I will try not to. "

"And you know if at first you don’t succeed... "

"Okay, Lani. Okay."

Silence. Is she thinking about her own life now?

"Hey, Kaiulani? Would it be easier if we were lesbians?"

"Nah. Everybody’s got their own shit to deal with. This is ours."

Now my memory reverie breaks in the Buddhist parking lot as Vuong Si Fu groans with displeasure. I stepped wrong. He gets up, a little stiff from arthritis, and comes to show me the subtlety that I’m missing. Foot not here, but here...forty-five degree angle, not ninety. Arm curved, not straight. Carry eggs under armpits. Must have air under armpits or no good. 

In this way, we work the details that bind student to teacher and vice versa.  Together we renew our daily willingness to endure monotonous repetition as we try to get the details right. We forge relationship.

Life is good. It may suck tomorrow, but right now it’s really, really good. I’ve got a video camera in the car and a California Humanities grant to shoot this film about the Tai Chi People of Chinatown: See You Tomorrow.

Full circle.

Tell her my name is Thomas.

EPILOGUE AND SNEAK PEEK AT SEQUEL:

The garage door lifts and I see it right away. There is not the usual clutter of old furniture and equipment that separates my car from Shane’s car. For the first time since he moved into Sargent Court I can actually walk right into his garage space. If I want to.

His car is gone.

A stack of old papers, envelopes, and notebooks on a small table near the wall draws me to it. Could one of these notebooks contain poems or thoughts written about me? Do I really care at this point? The guy has proven himself to be a hostile enigma. And whatever that was between us is thankfully over and has been for many years. But still...

It is right on top. A small notebook labeled: FRANCE TRIP.

Will one of my neighbors come by and see me? Will Shane return to catch my transgression into his private world?

My heart beats hard as I take the notebook. I flip through the pages for a mention of my name. There is none. On the last page is this diary entry:

"I leave Lou Ann, returning home with deep regret that she would not let me do more than stroke her magnificent chest all night long in that French room with the moonlight coming in the window to light up her radiant golden hair. But I know in my heart that we are destined to be together."

I read the rest much later. When I am in a safe place.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Marlan Warren is a writer, filmmaker and publicist living in Los Angeles. A graduate of USC Film School; the documentary she made with Chuck Workman and Pawel Kuczynski, "Reunion," was the Official Selection at the film festivals for AFI, Santa Barbara, Denver, West Palm Beach, and Taiwan.

She is currently completing production of the documentary film "What did you do in the War, Mama?: Kochiyama's Crusaders" which is based on her play "Bits of Paradise" about human rights activist Yuri Kochiyama as a young woman incarcerated during World War II in a U.S. Japanese American concentration camp. "Bits of Paradise" premiered at the Marsh Theatre in San Francisco.

Warren is also a journalist, blogger (L.A. Now and Then and Dancing in the Experience Lane), and a reviewer for Midwest Book Reviews. A certified Reiki teacher, she runs the Light Hands Reiki Studio in Los Feliz.

Her PR service works with authors in need of marketing and publicity (Book Publicity by Marlan).

Naked Roadmaps for the Sexually Challenged is her first novel.

She may be contacted through her blog at http://losangelesnowthen.blogspot.com/ or

Film Website: http://www.yurikochiyamafilm.net