I
was standing in the express line at the Ralph’s on Sunset, a bottle of fruit
juice in one hand… a bottle of rum in the other. It was, after all, one of
those days: the type of day where you needed to head home at the end, slide
into a cocktail glass, and drown out the monotony and mediocrity. And when
better to do this than as the sun sets? For in the blaring light of day, the
sacrifices we make and concessions we take just seem all the more dreadful. As
I said, it was one of those days…
As I put my two
items down on the conveyer belt, I couldn’t help looking at the items in front
of me. They belonged to a woman, easily in her forties, with sun-baked skin and
frizzy blonde hair. Not the atomic blonde hair typically seen in Southern
California… the kind that’s reminiscent of a Chernobyl sunrise, but the natural
Scandinavian shade that fades with each passing year. She was wearing a loose,
jade green sundress, huaraches, and a pair of tortoise shell wayfarers. She
looked haggard overall, like a woman who has seen far too much for her years.
And yet, lurking beneath the surface was an attitude of an insatiability
towards life.
I took a
mechanical step forward as I noticed the conveyer move my items further from
me. Out of boredom and the gumption of someone only physically awake, I stared
at the woman’s goods before mine: wheatgrass, Perrier, cilantro… the
quintessential ingredients for the new-aged mid-lifer.
“Don’t worry, hon.
I won’t take your booze.” I jerked my head up, realizing that the woman was
talking to me.
“Excuse me?”
“I said don’t
worry,” she replied. “I’m not going to take your bottle.”
“Oh,” I said. “I
wasn’t even thinking that. But even if you did… there’s always more.”
“Isn’t that the
truth,” the Latina checkout attendant chimed in as she clicked away at her
keypad.
“Trust me,” the
burned out blonde retorted, “I’m well aware of that fact. I’m a bartender,
after all. I’ve seen and served more booze in the last 24 hours than anyone
ever should.”
“That could be up
for debate. You should see my days.” I shrugged, betraying a general cynicism
to her and admitting a foreboding futility to myself.
“Oh, darlin’…
self-pity is a sad cologne for anyone to wear. Especially for a youngster like
yourself.”
“Believe me… the
years are nothing. It’s the mileage.”
“You’re trying to
prove your case to the wrong person,” she countered, cocking her head in the
universal ‘I-told-you-so’ sort of way. “Trust me, sweetie: things always look
grim at your age.”
“Is this the point
where you tell me things get better?” I couldn’t avoid sounding sarcastic.
“Sort of,” she
replied with a smile. “They get better, then drop off and get significantly
worse. You just learn to deal with things better.”
“I guess you’ve
got a point there.” I flashed a sincerely sardonic smile and turned my
attention to the teller as the bartender began loading her shopping cart. She
loaded as I paid, and by the time that I received my change, she was waiting at
the elevator. It just so happened that I was taking the lift as well, so I
ambled over and stood beside her. The lift doors creaked open and we both
boarded in silence. The doors closed behind us and the steel box lurched on its
ascending journey.
“God this place
has changed, hasn’t it?” I turned to meet her gaze, finding her staring out the
small windows overlooking the store.
“Can’t say I know
too well. This ain’t my town.”
“This area used to
be rock and roll heaven. I was a hairdresser in the 80’s, working for all the
bands playing down the Strip. Anyone that hit the Whiskey or Rainbow in the day…
I probably did their hair for them at least once. But it was more than just the
cliché places. You had Rockin’ Denny’s right down the street, and the whole
neighborhood in general was about nothing but the music.”
“I’d say it’s
taken a change for the worse,” I said, leaning against the wall.
“Tell me about
it,” she retorted. “Now it’s all eastern European immigrants. The guitars have
been tossed into the pool, I guess.” I look washed over a face… a façade I’ve
seen in the mirror hundreds of times before. It was a look of an infinite,
mournful nostalgia: the face of one trapped in a long-deceased past.
The elevator door
opened and I pinned the door back, trying to seem chivalrous. She smiled,
nodded her head, and pushed her cart out of the lift. Before I could exit, she
turned back to me.
“Beg pardon,
sugar… but could you lend me a hand?”
“Sure thing.” I
returned the nod and followed her to her car, an off-white Chevy that had seen
many better days. In contented silence we stood side by side: she holding the
trunk lid up, me loading the groceries. When I was finished, I pushed the cart
into a nearby return cage.
“Thanks a lot,
sweetie. You don’t see many gentlemen these days.” She slammed the trunk lid
closed and moved towards the driver side door.
“Anytime,” I
called back, giving a casual salute. In turn, she held up her right arm and
bore a fist… her finger and pinkie fully extended. Anyone who’d ever loved rock
and roll could never mistake this gesture. It was, after all, the universal
sign of ‘rock on’. She smiled once more and hopped in her car.
I listened to the
struggling engine of her Chevy as I walked to my own car. Behind my RayBans, I
watched as the unrelenting tangerine sun dangled lower over the Sunset Strip.
“Rock on,” I said
to myself as I approached my car. I chuckled, grinning like a madman, as I contemplated
the lesson I’d just learned. “Rock on,” I repeated as I opened my car door and
got in…
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