MANNY & JUNIOR

Part One

It seemed like a good idea at the time. The bottom had fallen out of the real estate market in Southern California, but my Volkswagen parts business was thriving. If they were evicted and had to live under a bridge, Southern Californians were going to take care of their VWs. Nowhere in the world did people identify more with their cars. Whether it was a little Deuce Coupe or that So Fine 409, they were going to have fun, fun, fun, ’til their daddy took their T-Bird away.

But in the middle of all of the Mercedes, Beamers, and Lexi was their true love -- the Volkswagen Beetle. They were everywhere. They were at the beach, in the desert, in the valley, and all over the freeways. They were all over the student parking lots at U.C.L.A. and Southern Cal, and were parked in the circular driveways in front of Brentwood mansions--right between a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud and a Lamborgini.

And if the love of their life started to show a little age, they all came to me. When Volkswagen decided in 1979 to stop producing the Beetle, everyone who owned one became a collector. As the VWs aged, just like humans, their parts wore out and had to be replaced. Instead of hair transplants, nose jobs, face lifts, and breast augmentations, the VWs would get new rag tops, sun visors, seats, and rubber.

Rubber is everywhere on a VW. From the gaskets around the parking lights in the front, to the lining around the rear windshield, there are hundreds of rubber parts that keep the water and squeaks out. I owned the dies for these parts. My rubber was the best rubber -- everything else was just an imitation. Southern Californians wanted the best rubber for their VWs and I got rich because of it.

So, what in the hell does any of this have to do with the crash in the Southern California real estate market? Well, plenty. When real estate prices plummet, good deals abound. Anyone with some spare cash laying around can pick up some pretty good property at fire sale prices. I had two things going for me that got me into the real estate business -- spare cash and Sandy.

Sandy’s my sister-in-law. She’s bright, articulate, and has a nose for a good deal. Sandy and her sister -- my wife, Chris -- are both Doris Day look-alikes. Tan, blonde, with a light sprinkling of freckles across the middle of their faces.

Sandy had told her sister about a house she had found in Laguna Beach. Two bedroom bungalow with skylights, oversized windows, and just a block from the beach. It was a foreclosure, and for over a year it had been just sitting there like an abandoned child. Weeds were growing in the expansion joints in the driveway, and supermarket circulars littered the front door. The small front yard had long ago surrendered to the relentless California sun, and was very brown and very dead. It hadn’t yet fallen victim to vandals seeking a window to break or the homeless seeking a place to sleep, but the invasion was imminent. Also, it was killing the bank.

As partners, Sandy and I made a ridiculously low cash offer to the bank. The next day we got the call -- we had a deal. We were shocked. No counter-offer (which we expected), no negotiation (which was unheard of), just "Bring us your check and take this albatross off our neck!"

It took less than a month to complete our make-over on the house. Fresh paint, new carpet, a little landscaping, and the abandoned child looked bright, cheery and inviting. All it needed was a tenant.

Tenant. What a benign, unthreatening word that is. By definition, a tenant is a human being. When the status of tenant is conferred on a human being, it simultaneously creates a parallel status in another person -- landlord. You can’t have one without the other. If you own a house that no one lives in, you’re not a landlord -- you’re just another poor sap who owns a house. When you rent your house to other people, you are now officially a landlord and they’re tenants. It all seems so convenient and simple.

In my quest to cease being just another poor sap who owns a house, I placed an ad in the Laguna Beach newspaper and sat back waiting for the phone to ring. Unfortunately, it did. "You’ve got a nibble," Star told me when I walked in the office early one morning.

Star was my secretary and -- I’m sure that it comes as no surprise -- it wasn’t her real name. Her real name was Wanda something, and she’s from Nebraska. Like millions before her and millions since, she came west almost twenty years ago in search of the twin gods of fame and fortune. She had the usual credentials that would qualify her for both. She’d been the homecoming queen her senior year in high school, a finalist in her hometown’s Miss Something contest, and had sung "I Did It My Way" at her graduation. When she arrived in L.A., she bleached her hair, got a job as a waitress at JoJo’s on Sunset Strip and waited for her Big Break. She had envisioned serving Stephen Spielberg a patty melt with fries and him asking her, "Have you ever done any acting?" Like all too many dreams, Star’s never converted to reality. Despite her name change (which included no last name, bleached hair, and a severely tailored waitress uniform that showed off her hourglass figure), Spielberg and his friends never showed up. Unable to bring herself to return to Nebraska, Star stayed in L.A. and married and divorced the assistant manager of Western Auto who gave her several black eyes and twin sons. I had taken her in five years ago much in the same way you would a stray dog. I’d stopped by McDonald’s for my coffee and Egg McMuffin one morning and, while standing in line, I’d noticed her alone at a table crying as she poured over the want ads for a job. I bought breakfast for her, listened to her sad story, and hired her on the spot. In five years, she’d never missed a day of work and as far as I knew, had never ever been late.

        "A nibble on what?" I asked as I thumbed through the stack of phone messages she handed me.

        "Your house in Laguna Beach," she answered, handing me a phone slip.

        I returned the call immediately. "Sunshine Decorators, this is Damon."

        "Damon, this is Loren returning your call."

        "Oh you good man!" he said in a lively tone. "Thanks so much for calling me so soon!"

Damon’s enthusiasm made me think that either he’d just downed a few Prozacs or had a serious testosterone deficiency -- or both.

        "Sure," I answered. "Do you want to see the house?"

        "Mission accomplished, sir!" He giggled into the phone. "My roommate and I went by yesterday and -- please don’t scold me! -- we trespassed a little. We did a few peek-a-boos through the windows and fell in love on the spot!"

        "That’s okay," I assured him. Like a total dumb ass I asked, "What did she think?"

That prompted another giggle. Another big giggle. "He you big silly! Darren’s his name, and he was so excited he couldn’t sleep last night!"

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been so excited about something that it kept me awake all night, but I seriously doubt that it had anything to do with a rent house.

That afternoon I met with Damon and Darren in a Denny’s in Long Beach. As I suspected, both were more than a little light in the loafers. Short hair, thin moustaches, tank tops, and pierced ears -- the whole bit. It was obvious that neither had any interest in concealing their sexual orientation or their relationship with one another. When I first saw them walking across the parking lot they were holding hands.

I consider myself to be an exceptionally tolerant person. I like people, and, as far as I’m concerned, the more different the better. I’ve got over three dozen employees in my business and when I get them all together each year to hand out their Christmas bonuses and take a group picture for my company calendar, they look like the United Nations.

But I have never understood gays. I don’t dislike gay people -- I just don’t understand them. Maybe it’s because my heterosexual roots run so deep. Two years in the Marine Corps and over twenty five working on and with cars never really exposed me to the gay community. I’d hung out with the beer and cheeseburger crowd, and I couldn’t imagine getting together with the guys after work for a nice slice of fresh quiche washed down with a Perrier and lime.

As I sat in the booth at Denny’s opposite Damon and Darren I felt more than a little self-conscious. From their side of the table, it was nonstop giggling, and laughter,with a few shrieks thrown in. These guys were really gay. I noticed that many of the other patrons around the restaurant were glancing our way, and I found myself cupping my chin with my left hand to give my wedding ring as much exposure as possible. But after a little while, I realized that I really liked these guys.

I had learned that they’d grown up together in San Diego, gone to college together in L.A., and both had degrees in interior design. After college, they’d worked two or three jobs each and saved every penny they could. When they had enough money, they’d opened Sunshine Decorators and were making a damn good living doing what they loved to do -- making things look pretty.

They signed a six month lease that afternoon. We agreed on fifteen hundred a month with a one month security deposit. After I paid for our lunch, I gave them the keys to the house and they each gave me a big hug, both excited as a couple of four year olds on their way to see Sesame Street on Ice. As I stood in the parking lot and waved goodbye to them, they drove past in their Mercedes 250 SL convertible and blew kisses at me. I just pointed at them and laughed, thinking to myself, just how could you not like two people who found life so enjoyable?

In less than a year, I was plotting their murder.

* * * * * *

Damon and Darren were perfect tenants. They sent me the rent check a week in advance every month, paid the utilities on time, and never bothered me with the small stuff. If something was broken -- the hot water heater, a light fixture, or a leaky faucet -- they fixed it. They had even invited Sandy, Chris and I down for dinner one evening. The house, as I expected, was immaculate. The hardwood floors were waxed to a high sheen, and Star Wars - type ultra-modern furniture was accented with tropical plants.

Ferns - of course - were everywhere. They had replaced the front door with a masterpiece that one of their friends had made out of solid oak. Hand-carved in the middle of it was the sun, with rays radiating the length of the door. In the middle of the sun were two D’s in Gothic scroll. It was, for sure, the signature piece for the whole house. We sipped a damn good Chardonnay from crystal wine glasses as the Dynamic Duo proudly showed us around the place. The walls were covered with framed artsy posters, mostly of musicians I’d never heard of, and to no one’s surprise -- all male performers. The biggest surprise was in the master bedroom, which was the largest room in the house.

As we all stood in the doorway, Damon said, "Darren made it."

"It" was the biggest bed I’d ever seen. It was only two feet high, but took up the entire room. There was less than a foot between the bed and the walls, allowing no other furniture in the room. The perimeter consisted of massive planks of some kind that were pegged together at the corners. I squatted down for a closer look.

        "Eucalyptus beams from an old church they tore down in San Clemente," Darren informed us.

The irony didn’t escape me. One day they were supporting the roof of the House of God, the next day they were the Field of Dreams for two flamers and their pals.

After a dinner which consisted of raw asparagus, sliced baby squash, grilled eggplant and some kind of grainy white stuff I didn’t recognize, we said our goodbyes and started back to L.A. On the way we’d stopped at a McDonald’s for some double-decker cheese and bacon burgers so we wouldn’t starve to death during the hour-long drive.

The lease expired in April, but it was no big deal -- at least I didn’t think so at the time. The rent checks continued to arrive on time and, at least on the surface, everything seemed to be going fine. The VW rubber business was going gangbusters. I’d put the finishing touches on a catalogue that I’d been working on for over a year. We put full page ads in two national VW magazines, got an 800 number, and the orders started pouring in. I had to hire eight more people to work in the warehouse to keep up with all of the new business. The U.P.S. truck that used to come by once a week to pick up orders for shipment now came twice a day. The cash was flowing in too fast to count, and the ultimate sign of success occurred -- I had to hire a tax attorney. Life was good.

The second day of September was one of those days you live for in Southern California. A mild, but steady, east wind had blown all of the smog somewhere out in the Pacific, the sky looked like it does in one of those postcards where they touch up all of the colors, and the sun felt like a comfortable old sweater. I drove to work in a 1956 bug convertible I’d fixed up a year earlier, listening to Randy Newman’s "I Love L.A." tape, and sipping on some damn tasty cappuccino my wife -- God love her blessed soul -- had gotten up early and made.

        "They’re late again," Star announced as I passed by her desk heading for my office.

        "Who’s late on what?" I asked as I shuffled through my phone messages.

        "Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum," she answered as she fired up a Virginia Slim in blatant violation of the no-smoking policy I’d started over a year ago. Like every woman I’d ever met, Star knew exactly how far she could go with me, and she pushed it to the limit.

        "I thought you were supposed to do that outside on the loading dock," I reminded her, as if she’d forgotten.

        "Sure, Bucko," she said. Star never called me by my name. Every day it was something different. For reasons known only to Star, today my moniker du jour was Bucko. "I’ll just wander out there with the freaks," she referred to the warehouse people as "freaks", and most were, "and you get this payroll out by ten so they don’t riot on you."

        "Just stay where you are," I told her, and then, to change the subject since again she’d succeeded in having the tail wag the dog, I added, "Are you talking about Damon and Darren?"

        "Let’s see," she answered, looking up at the light fixture above her desk, "how many fag tenants do you have who’ve been late on their rent for four months in a row?"

        "Does that mean ‘yes, sir’ Star?" I asked, getting more than a little bit impatient with this former Miss Something runner-up from Nebraska who was sitting there blowing smoke in my face and making me feel like a world-class dumb shit.

        "Not quite, Bucko," she said, crushing out the last inch of her Virginia Slim in the souvenir sea shell on her desk that she used as an ash tray. "It means, ‘who else, genius?’"

        "Only by a day, Star," I reminded her. "Relax, they’re good for it.

Star folded her arms across her chest, leaned back in her chair, and scowled.

        "Last month it was ten days late. The month before two weeks. Are we beginning to see a pattern develop here?"

It was absolutely fruitless to argue with Star. She was always right.

        "Just give me their number," I told her. "I’ll call and see what’s up."

Damon answered on the first ring.

        "Sunshine Decorators, Damon at your service!"

Every time I’d ever called, both of my tenants had this breathless enthusiasm that sounded like they’d just won the lottery.

        "Damon, Loren," I said, trying to sound just a little bit stern.

        "Darren!," he called out to his significant other, "it’s Mr. Wonderful!"

Somehow, in less than five minutes I’d gone from Bucko to Mr. Wonderful. Einstein was right -- everything’s relative.

        "And how are we this morning, Mr. Wonderful?" Damon asked, sounding a lot like Mr. Rogers does when he sits down in his easy chair and changes into his house shoes.

        "Mr. Wonderful is wondering where his rent money is, Damon. Mr. Wonderful is wondering why your rent’s been late for four months in a row."

          "Loren, Loren, Loren, Loren, Loren," he said rapidly, like he was talking to a first grader who’d asked "Mommy, do you love me?" "You know we’re good for it, you big worry wart!"

        "That’s what I told Star," I said, "But she’s not happy. And when Star’s not happy, she makes everyone around her miserable. Right now, Damon, I’m getting a little bit miserable. What’s the problem?"

        "There’s no problem, Loren," Damon answered. "As a matter of fact, we’ve got an absolutely huge job we’re working on right now at the Hyatt Regency. They’re remodeling. They’ve added the cutest French restaurant and Damon and I are doing the decorating. It will be finished in about a month and we were going to invite you, Chris, and Sandy down for the grand opening."

Somehow things didn’t add up. "If you’ve got such a huge job, Damon, then why in the hell can’t you pay your rent on time and keep Star off my butt?"

        "Because it’s a cost - plus contract dear," he explained. "We submit our costs at the end of the month and it takes them forever to process our bill for payment." Then he added, "You’ve got slow paying customers, don’t you?"

        "Nope. My customers pay me first and then they get their rubber." Then I suggested, "Why don’t you use your next check to double-up on the rent, and then you’d be a few weeks ahead every month?"

        "Brilliant!," Damon exclaimed. "We’ll send you a double payment next week and maybe Star can relax."

Well, it didn’t get me any money, but it did buy me another week of not having to put up with Star’s crap.

The problem was, a full two weeks later I still hadn’t heard from my renters. Worse yet, I’d started finding excuses for staying away from the office as I knew that Star would force the issue. Unfortunately, I still had to answer the phone at my house, and that’s how she nabbed me.

        "Hello," I said as the call interrupted the Monday night football game I was watching in my living room. The Cowboys were beating the snot out of the Giants at the Meadowlands, and an orthopedic surgeon and a handful of trainers and worried assistant coaches were bent over the Giant fullback whose right foot seemed to be pointing in the wrong direction. Worse yet, they’d put him on a backboard, taped his forehead in place, and driven an ambulance right out on the field. As usual, Frank Gifford decided that he needed to inform us of the obvious. "Looks like he’s through for the night." No shit, Frank.

        "We’re in Condition Red, Commander," were the first words out of Star’s mouth.

        "What the hell does that mean," I asked.

        "They didn’t pay the utilities. Pacific Gas & Electric, the water department of the City of Laguna Beach, and the garbage service -- they’re all raisin’ hell."

        "Who didn’t?"

There was a short period of dead silence. I could feel her exasperation over the phone.

        "Tinker Bell and Peter Pan, Commander," she said finally, with sarcasm dripping from every word. "Your renters who promised you a double payment."

        "Goddamn it," was all I could think to say as the ambulance slowly drove off the field, carrying the fullback who looked like he was through for the night.

        "Oh, save your anger, Mr. Nice Guy," she said. "It gets much worse."

        "How?" I asked.

        "I called Sunshine Decorators twice today and only got the answering machine. The home phone’s been disconnected. I think they’re doing to you what they do to each other on that wall-to-wall bed you told me about."

I paused for a few seconds. Then I told Star, "I’ll be in late tomorrow. I’m driving down to Laguna Beach."

At eight o’clock on Tuesday morning I was flying down the Pacific Coast Highway in one ultra-foul mood. The weather was shitty. A light drizzle made the trip treacherous. It wasn’t enough rain to wash things off and slow everyone down -- just enough precipitation to muck up your windshield and make the road slick. On the passenger’s seat next to me were my weapons; a legal pad, a black felt tip pen, and a hammer. When I got to Laguna Beach I found a hardware store open and bought one item -- a galvanized nail, ten inches in length.

As I expected there was no one home when I got to the house. I rang the doorbell several times, but got no answer. A quick check of the mailbox found it empty. There was no newspaper lying around on the driveway. Damon and Darren were still living here, they just weren’t paying the rent.

I returned to my VW, sat in the front seat, and grabbed the legal pad and felt tip pen. In large block letters I printed:

NOTICE OF EVICTION!

YOU TWO ASSHOLES OWE ME FOUR MONTH’S RENT. YOU’RE HEREBY EVICTED FROM THIS HOUSE. I EXPECT YOU TO BE OUT BY FRIDAY. IF YOU’RE NOT, I’M COMING BACK AND PERSONALLY THROWING BOTH OF YOU AND ALL YOUR FAGGOT STUFF OUT IN THE STREET.

-LOREN

I then stomped to the front door, and put the paper squarely between the double D’s, and drove the ten inch nail into it, all the way down to the head. As I stood back to admire my handiwork I noticed a large terra cotta planter to the left of the door that was overflowing with a Boston fern. With considerable effort, I dragged the planter to a spot directly in front of the door. They’d sure as hell have a hard time not noticing that I’d been there as soon as they pulled up into the driveway.

By the time I headed to L.A. the weather had cleared. I put the top down on the VW, sipped on a cup of French Almond de-caf I’d bought at a little coffee shop in Laguna Beach, and popped my almost-worn-out but much-loved Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band tape into the stereo. As I sang along with the Fab Four from Liverpool to "I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends", I had no appreciation for the nuclear shit storm that was about to sweep in and turn my whole semi-happy life upside down.

* * * * * *

Like the rest of the Free World, I like Fridays. I live for my weekends, which are usually devoted to some type of adventure -- riding motorcycles in the desert with my two sons and my friends, racing dune buggies all over the mammoth El Mirage dry lake bed, and sometimes just taking my surfboard down to Torrance and impressing the teenagers with the fact that an almost fifty year old dude could still take a great wave almost all the way up to the beach. Friday was The Day of Anticipation. I tried to make it a point to be in my office on Fridays. Outside meetings with suppliers, CPAs, advertising people, etc., were scheduled for earlier in the week, so that I could come in on Friday, sign payroll, and wander out into the warehouse and personally thank everybody for making me so rich. I’d also treat the whole crew to lunch. We’d have pizza brought in and all of us -- warehouse people, production people, office people -- would sit around the redwood picnic tables in the front of the warehouse, stuff our faces, and talk about our weekend plans. It always amazed me how much loyalty and productivity you could buy for less than a hundred dollars worth of pepperoni and mushrooms.

We’d also have some pretty good music going. Three years ago, I’d gotten a totally unexpected and whopping tax refund from Uncle Sugar. I’d put a chunk of it into a state-of-the-art, warehouse-wide stereo system. At first it caused big problems -- the freaks wanted to listen to heavy metal, the older guys rock and roll, the blacks Motown -- or more recently rap. The druggies were the easiest to please. You could play non-stop gospel music and they wouldn’t notice. One of Star’s duties was to change the channel on the stereo every two hours. Groans would go up when the timer on her desk went off and the latest classic from Hootie and The Blowfish was interrupted and replaced with Hammer’s "Too Legit to Quit", but, overall, the system worked.

On this particular Friday, we were munching our pizza, trading all of the filthy jokes we’d heard during the week, and listening to Smashing Pumpkins grind out a vocal that sounded like the sound you’d expect to hear if someone had a cattle prod on full throttle stuck up their ass. The sonata was interrupted by Star’s voice coming over the intercom, "Loren, line two. Loren, line two."

I grabbed the roll of paper towels from the middle of the table, ripped one off, wiped my mouth, and headed for the wall phone.

        "This is Loren."

        "J. Blake Ellington...Beach...retained by...your conduct...beyond reprehensible." Someone had turned up the juice on the cattle prod and I was picking up less than every other word.

        "Hold on, buddy," I shouted into the receiver, "I’ve got to change phones."

I walked upstairs to my office, sat down behind the desk and tried again.

        "Sorry. Too much noise," I said. "Now what can I do for you?"

        "Mr. Peterson, this is J. Blake Elllington. E-L-L-I-N-G-T-O-N," he spelled it out slowly.

I grabbed a scratch pad and ball point and started writing, for no good reason other than it sounded like I was supposed to.

        "I am an attorney in Laguna Beach," he continued.

Whoops. There went the heart rate right through the century barrier.

        "I understand that you own a certain piece of real property in our jurisdiction," he said in a low, deliberate tone that sounded like a mix between Gregory Peck and James Earl Jones.

I took a wild guess that he was referring to the house in Laguna Beach.

        "Yes," I admitted. "I’m the proprietor."

A short pause, then, "No, no, Mr. Peterson," like he was politely scolding a grandchild. "You are a proprietor of your business. You’re the owner of the house."

Thanks for straightening me out, asshole, I wanted to say, but instead I just replied meekly, "Of course."

        "Well, sir," he insisted, "I represent Mr. Bright and Mr. Carmona."

In almost a year of landlordship, I’d rarely heard their last names. It was always just Damon and Darren.

        "Your clients owe me four months’ rent," I informed J. Blake Ellington.

        "To the contrary, sir, my clients owe you nothing," he answered. "It is you who owe them."

        "We must have a bad connection, Mr. Ellington," I said as my blood pressure began to skyrocket, "I thought you said I owe them money."

        "Our telephonic communication is just fine, Mr. Peterson," he assured me, "and I did say that you owed them some money."

Attorneys used to intimidate me. When I just started making a few bucks and found that periodic interaction with members of the legal profession was unavoidable, I was always uneasy in their presence. They always seemed aloof, cocksure, and controlling. There are all of these legal doors we have to walk through out there, and the attorneys had the keys. So whenever I met with an attorney, I would cower in submission.

But Gary Don changed all of that.

Gary Don Willis was my best friend in the Marine Corps. He was a tall, loud-mouthed hell-raiser from Texas, and if you looked up the definition of "bullshitter" in the dictionary, Gary Don’s picture would probably be right there. After we were discharged, he went home to Houston and went to college and law school, and became -- to no one’s surprise -- a very successful trial lawyer. For over twenty-five years, we talked on the phone monthly, and would get together every few years for some white-water rafting on the Rogue River in Oregon, surfing in Hawaii, or just sitting on my patio talking and laughing. Gary Don taught me how to deal with lawyers. He convinced me that lawyers were basically a bunch of bullies, and that the quicker you got in their faces, the quicker they backed off. J. Blake Ellington, without a doubt, was trying to bully me.

        "Well let me tell you something, Mr. Ellington, and maybe you should write this down: Mr. Peterson, P-E-T-E-R-S-O-N, thinks that Mr. Bright and Mr. Carmona had better be out of that damn house by Friday, or, as the eviction notice promised, Mr. P-E-T-E-R-S-O-N is going to drive down to Laguna Beach and throw all of their shit in the street -- them included.

After a few seconds of silence, J. Blake informed me, "I resent your tone, sir."

Now I was shouting at him, "My tone is the least of your clients’ problems, asshole."

Then, in keeping with Gary Don’s advice, I added, "Instead of paying me the rent they owe me, your fairy clients used their money to hire some third-rate, night school, shakedown artist, who’s thick-headed enough to try and squeeze my balls hard enough to convince me that I owe them money!"

        "You will regret ever talking to me like that, Mr. Peterson," J. Blake assured me. "I will see you in court, sir."

        "You couldn’t find the courthouse with a map and a tour guide, you giant prick," I roared at him. "File your lawsuit and let’s get it on -- I’ve got real lawyers who work for me!"

I slammed the phone down and took a deep breath. For the first time in weeks, I felt that I had the situation under control.

The feeling ended, however, when I was served at my home that evening with a lawsuit and a temporary restraining order.

The fight had just begun.

Continue to Part 2