There is a spurious vitality about all this noise. But under it, when you come back, you can sense another more significant and more enduring vitality. It has been somewhat hammered down of late. The bell ringers and flag fondlers have been busily peddling their notion that to make America Strong, we must march in close and obedient ranks, to the sound of their little tin whistle. The life-adjustment educators, in strange alliance with the hucksters of consumer goods, have been doing their damnedest to make us all think alike, look alike, smell alike and die alike, amidst all the pockety-queek of unserviceable home appliances, our armpits astringent, nasal passages clear, insurance program adequate, sex life satisfying, retirement assured, medical plan comprehensive, hair free of dandruff, time payments manageable, waistline firm, bowels open.
But the other vitality is still there, that rancorous, sardonic, wonderful insistence on the right to dissent, to question, to object, to raise holy hell and, in direst extremity, to laugh the self-appointed squad leaders off the face of the earth with great whoops of dirty disdainful glee. Suppress friction and a machine runs fine. Suppress friction, and a society runs down.
As I holed up in the City of the Angels, I was also aware of a comforting feeling of anonymity. In the world’s biggest third-class city I could pass unnoticed. I spoke the language. I was familiar with the currency. I could drink the water. I could almost breathe the air, late April air, compounded of interesting hydro-carbons.
I wanted transient accommodations, of a very special kind. I did not want to sign in anywhere as McGee or anybody else. I did not want to impose on old friends and get them implicated in anything.
I did not want to be within that strata subject to routine police checks. I wanted anonymous transportation and freedom of movement. I wanted to be the nearest thing to an invisible man I could achieve. It might turn out that all such precautions were unnecessary. But I had to follow my hunch. The hunch said that this might get messy before it was over-0r, more accurately, might continue to be messy.
I got in at six in the evening. By seven I was prowling the area where I hoped to work something out, the trash end of Sunset Boulevard. My luggage was in a bus station coin locker. By nine o’clock, in several assorted bars and lounges, I had surveyed several groups, ingratiated myself with a few and then given them up and gone on. By ten I had a promising group in a crowded corner of a place called The Pipe and Bowl.
Extremely local cats, in the restless middle twenties, overdressed and slightly stoned, trying to look as if they hadn’t spent their week in insurance agencies, department stores, dental labs and office buildings. They accepted the amiable stranger, with the usual reservations, indirect challenges, the waiting to see if there was any angle, any kind of hustling.
I did my verbal card tricks, and struck the right attitudes, and bought my share. I was Mack, a boat chauffeur by trade. They shuffled me around to one of the two free lassies, perhaps on the basis of a girls’ room conference, and amalgamated me into the group. Her name, unfortunately, seemed to be Junebug. She had a round merry face, a lot of gestures and animation, cropped brown hair. Her figure, as revealed by a little beige stretch dress, was quite pretty, except for a potentially dangerous case of secretarial spread. She was careful to tell me her boyfriend was an engineer working on some kind of rugged project up in Canada.
From time to time, according to mysterious signals, we all left and piled into cars and went to other places which seemed to be identical to the ones we left, the same music, the same drinks, the same faces at the bar. We had drop-offs, and we picked up some new recruits. By the third stop I had become an old time buddy. At the fourth stop, well after midnight, I had her trapped in a dark corner and made my pitch.
“Junebug, I’ve been living a little too much tonight. This check will take me down to cigarette money.”
“Gee, Mack, I’ve got a few bucks in my purse if…”
“It isn’t only that, honey. What happened, this isn’t home base for the boat I was running. And I got fired today. It’s no real sweat. The owner got a wrong idea of me and his wife. I’ve got money coming. And no problem about a job. The man said get off my boat, and I got my gear and got off. But now I am definitely hung up for a place to stay. My gear is in a bus locker.”
She moved as far away from me as she could get, which was about six inches, and she stuck her underlip out and said, “if you think you’re going to shack with me, buddy boy, if this is one of those cute ideas, I haven’t had that much to drink. No sir. Oh-you-tee. Out.”
“Honey, believe me, you are a very exciting woman, but that wasn’t my play. I want a place where I can hole up until the money comes through. That’s all. Not your place. I thought you might know of a place. As soon as the money comes through, I’ll pay you a going rent.”
“So how long is that supposed to be?” she asked with great skepticism.
I unstrapped my watch and handed it to her. “This is a solid gold case. You can check it anywhere.”
“No. I don’t want it. Look, I just thought you were trying to make it cute. Okay? Maybe one of the guys has an open couch.”
“As a last resort. But maybe if somebody is away. How about your engineer?”
“No. He lives with his folks in Santa Barbara. Let me think.”
She sat and pulled at that protruding underlip and scowled into her drink. Then she glowed with inspiration and went off to phone. She came back and wedged herself in again and in a conspiratorial tone said, “Bingo. And we’re neighbors yet. The girlfriend I phoned was sore as hell at being waked up at all hours. But she’s the one Francine left her key with. And she’ll go over and put it in my mailbox she said.”
“Who is Francine?”
“Oh, she’s away on this thing. What it is, the executives where she works, they take this trip and go to a whole mess of regional offices and have sales meetings. She’s gone every year for a month about this time. It’s pretty nice, going in a company plane and all, and they ball it up pretty good. She sacks out for days when she gets back believe me. She shouldn’t be back for another couple weeks anyway.”
When the group decided to hit one more place, we broke away. Junebug had a little grey English Ford. She drove it with slap-dash efficiency. When I came out of the bus station with my bags and put them in the back seat, she said, “You know, Mack, I damn near drove off. I was thinking, this is pretty stupid, not knowing you or anything.”
“I wondered if you would drive off.”
“What would you have done, baby?”
“Had some naps in the bus station.”
“Am I doing something real stupid?”
“I think you’re smart enough to have a pretty good idea of whom you can trust.”
“Well… I guess that’s the way it has to be.”
The place was off Beverly Boulevard, not too far from City College. It was one of those depressing little residence courts, small attached bungalows, about thirty of them, in a hollow square, facing a common courtyard. You drove in through an ornamental arch, from which hung a sign saying Buena Villas. There was a weak night light and a dead fountain in the middle of the court. Cars were parked in front of most of the bungalows. The bungalows all had shallow porches, one step up from minuscule yards with low iron fences.
She parked in front of hers. Number 11. While I got my gear out of her car, she went onto her porch and got the key from her mailbox. Then we went diagonally across the court to number 28.
After she put the key into the front door lock, she turned and whispered, “Honey, honest to God, you got to promise me you won’t make me regret this. I mean no big phone bills, or messing the place up, or breaking stuff or stealing stuff. I told Honey it was a girl friend I wanted it for. Even so, she dragged her heels.”