The following is the first campfire telling of how an innocent night at a bar between two friends/coworkers can result in a cornucopia of absurdities. No one died? But a lot of pride dressed in a lot of leopard print, a gentleman in a pimp suit, a gas company technician and a cholo named Steve were ready willing able to have us questioning our survival odds.
How it started...
In October of 2010, I lost my grandfather. I'd quit work to stay home with him after I finally got the answer to "What is on the kitchen ceiling and how did it get there?" (the answer: eggs left boiling and forgotten on the stove.) It wasn't a 'long years of ill health' that took Sergeant Samson, for that I will be infinitely grateful. The decline started that summer with out of nowhere drops in blood pressure. He was as fine as he could be for early 90's all things considered until the collapsing incidents. 15 years of "I'm bored, Naomi. There's only so much Lakers and Dodgers a man can watch." So boredom was the sergeant's lingering illness. That June on the way to a doctor appointment, he asked if I thought he was going to Heaven. It was not the last time he would ask, but hindsight would mark that question as the beginning of the end and is its own ghost for another time.
But that summer was just me trying to help a man still over 6 feet tall and 187 pounds be comfortable. I was still strong then, but his size tested me. The months though, they were the longest hours turned days turned months. There was a brief stint in short term care when pneumonia hit. It was made clear that it would get no better for him there, so I said fuck that, you're coming home. I did not ask the family's permission. A restlessness set in for the sergeant where we learned real time even healthy seniors don't handle opiates well; he would tell me he had spent the day with his brother John (dead 40 years) at the park down the street. "It's the damndest thing, Naomi." It took weeks to clear his system after only 2 days of dosing. CDIFF followed. I had never heard of it. Doctors said it was a growing issue. It is August crawling into September, I have no help and I am crossing my fingers every time I go to Target to get more supplies that Old Man Samson doesn't get out of bed. I leave a cd on repeat, Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on Greensleeves and Lark Ascending. I will break if I hear those songs again. The sergeant loved the violin; he "only played the fiddle" and got teary-eyed over quality violin solos in any capacity.
The mystery miracle no one ever solved- I am elbow deep in my proud grandfather's CDIFF storm trying to clean him and the bed- the waste is everywhere, when the house phone rings. Obvs I can't answer it. Minutes pass, I am struggling, he is drifting off and unable to help. He is sorry. I am only sorry I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. There's a knock on the front door. I have no idea what I am supposed to do here either, the river of shit coming out of my gramps is not stopping, for fucks sake, in impossible quantities. I can't yell, 'WHO IS IT,' and possibly disturb my gramps further, despite the old man being hard of hearing and out of it. I hear the front doorknob turn. The bedroom door is open, the line of sight is directly to the living room and by extension the front door. I am about to lose my own shit at whomever has decided to walk the fuck in my house in the middle of the day.
A man peeks around the door. I am sweating and indescribably gross, the sergeant (thankfully) is not coherent, all I can do is glare at the stranger.
"Hello?!" I am desperate and hostile.
"Hi there, I am sorry, I couldn't hear if you said something, I am Doctor So-and-so, I have a house call to see Lawrence?" his eyes fall to my grandfather and I am fucking mortified, like I just got busted doing I don't even know what.
The doctor comes lets himself in and beelines to the bedside. I try to explain the best I can what had been happening, and he understood. He helped me get my grandfather cleaned up. He asked why I didn't have help, and I said it had been denied days before. He excused himself and within moments Dr. So-and-so was on the phone yelling and swearing at someone about how fucked they left me stranded in a river of shit and that someone needed to be at my house by the end of the night. I have never heard someone be so unprofessional and I have never been more grateful. Within hours, a nurse was there. It was the worst day that summer until it wasn't. For a minute. The next weeks, the sergeant was present less and less. The family came around more to see but never to help him, their dad. I hadn't realized it yet, but I was simultaneously losing my not-blood brother of 12 years to a girl and on the verge of learning how deep the toxicity of my family.
A last breath. Sergeant Samson was gone. I fucking love that man.
My mom lived/struggled in LA and I seldom saw her, though our relationship had shifted for the better over my grandfather's passing. She'd been on her A-game advocating for my gramps, working all day and driving back here to deal with the bureaucracy and her a-hole sibs.
That winter, the economy was trudging around after the financial collapse. I couldn't find work other than 2 very ugly weeks at Old Navy until a dealership saw my resume on Monster. Finally mid-April of 2011 I'm back to work the first time in 3 years trying to claw my way out of debt. I can only speak to my not-brother during his business hours. Mark had moved to Austin (my idea that I was now not loving) days after my gramps passed, with his new girlfriend now ex-wife, who still hates me baselessly as I type this. My new job is a lot. I work my ass off. My bosses are cunts of the 5th order. I learn what it means to stress into sickness. Months pass. I am lonely, in a death loop of viral infections. I miss my not-brother. I had adopted two kittens, Malice and Magnus(aka Jimmy) and finally hit my stride at the gym. It was more therapeutic than I can articulate.
The dealership I worked for was a local Penske group and if you aren't familiar with their corporate ethos, it can be summed up as, Penske Automotive Hates Their Hourly Employees. The building I worked out of was sold a few months in, we moved cattycorner to a lot situation that was nothing but a 'fuck you' with both fingers to the hourlys, who were now expected to park offsite at the mall behind us, a freeway overpass splitting the two properties which made early-sunset walks and shitty weather a grab bag of danger and mystery. Then some genius decided to rent space on a lot behind another dealership 4 blocks away, additional porters were hired to help shuttle employees to and from the lot.
One of the newer porters I'd seen at the back of our new car lot, smoking where I smoked. I talked shit. He talked shit. Occasionally we bummed cigarettes from one another during lean weeks, and I thought I'd overheard him say something about a match to one of the other porters. I'd been retired from wrestling and coaching for a minute and was not used to being in the vicinity of another human who didn't immediately say WWE if wrestling came up. (The dopamine punch is unmatched.) His name was Josh. He was maybe 22 on a good day, not much taller than me, subtle cauliflower ear and a head full of thick dark chocolate unruly waves. When he smiled, it was hard to miss his canines; straight teeth but somehow those points were just... sharp. Josh already looked "young" and smiling made it the kind of 'worse' young men loathe because people find even more ways to take them less seriously for no other reason than they're young.
Driving me to and from, Josh and I got to talking on the regular about his season coming up, he was a juco wrestler from Mesa, Arizona. As the world of wrestling is scary small, it turned out his head coach was someone I had known well from my time in the barrels. Loitering and inconsiderate co-workers afforded us the chance to bullshit, talk about movies, comics, wrestling, family. I wasn't thinking about his age. I wasn't thinking about mine. I wasn't thinking about his smile or his fantastic cauliflower ear or perfect forearms. Those were irrelevant facts that held no value. I was just connecting with another human over the things I loved most and that was a drug all its own. When we decided we should get beers on a Friday night, I was not thinking we could die.
The Seahawk Cocktail Lounge
Fifth grade I was moved out of the private school to public to prepare for middle school, make friends. The first friend I made was Tanya; she was new too. She kicked my ass at tetherball until I learned how to play. It was Tanya that broke the news to me that Brian my crush liked boys. She braided my rat tail while we waited for our turn to take over the handball court. I'd reconnected with her on Facebook not long before. She had announced the celebration for purchasing the bar she'd waitressed at through law school and it was local enough to Josh and I. Perfect. Josh lived in inaccessible to traffic apartments across from a 7-11. He jaywalked across the boulevard and I handed him a lit Marlboro Light when he got in the car. It was fun and so insanely stimulating how easy it was to talk with him. This was going to be a great night.
It wasn't a date. Even if it had been, I wouldn't have dressed differently. I'd lived in hoodies, t-shirts, board shorts and jeans big enough to fit a family of five. Any attempt to put on makeup was comical. 40 minutes trying not to sweat in front of the mirror certain I had on too much when I left only to get to wherever and catch a reflection to question if I'd put on any. I saw it as the effort to recognize that I was doing a thing some place. So for my not date, it was whatever favorite hoodie t-shirt combo, baggy jeans that I would start to walk out of at some point and Nikes that would be hidden by the wide-legged jeans I'd walked the heels off of. I was comfortable and that is always key, kids.
So we are chatting it up the whole 10 minutes in the car and arrive at the Seahawk Cocktail Lounge in Lakewood, California. It is a wonderful dive exterior of beige stucco, brown painted beam trimmed and neon beer signs. We go in, there's the start of a crowd and I head straight for the jukebox to buy that shit out. If we are shooting pool, nothing will kill my 8-ball skills faster than Hotel California and Freebird. I select greatness- Rumpshaker. Up in Here. A.D.I.D.A.S. That's Not My Name. Fun stuff. Josh waits at the bar and I am very pleased with myself. Tanya comes in from the storeroom, we are too happy to see one another and she buys us our first pitcher. Quarters are given for cash and put down on an available pool table.
Everything is easy. I catch myself making obscure references and quotes from old tv shows and movies like I would with my brother. Josh is unphased and at every opportunity, responds in kind and offers his own. I am incredulous. I am thrilled. A beer in, I am buzzed. It is Josh's turn to be incredulous. A few games and beers in, there are characters entering the bar. My attention is nowhere but on the game and my new favorite homie. Apart from tv, my dive bar experience was limited to months at a place just outside of Camp Lejeune during the separation-reconciliation-separation-reconciliation of my marriage a decade before. The patrons there were Marines and women that weren't.
The Seahawk Lounge patrons were non-descript locals right up until the 40-something black American gentleman in a black tailored suit arrived, purple pinstriped with coordinating pocket square, ribboned and feathered fedora and patent leather boots that took a seat at a bar table behind us. Then there was the SoCal Gas Co. technician, maybe late 20's still in his work clothes.
