The cream cheese bandit sweating out his cyber space sins andno phone ding a ling apps via the Palm Springs tennis tourney, hoping to get a renewal of his youthful aggressions….”if in doubt call it out” driving his Dune Buggy thru Rancho Mirage toward 29 Palms and Joshua Tree Jimmy Cagney’s museumand Pinto Mountain.
II
It seemed as though it was only 24 hours ago in his yesterdays:his kid brother buying ten acres of the Mojave Desert The plumbing constituted water pipes, electrical lines overhead, andGunga Din dunes everywhere.
H gave 5 acres in Desert Hot springs to his older brother, the brunt of his bullying: the sadistic aftermath of the Columbia Midshipman’s debacle ,his flunking out “retardation”, his parents, the Name Detective and his “What’s in a name?” mother, used to characterize that period of depression in their first son’s birthright..he driving his Dine Buggy thru the dunes, his mind on the Marine Base as far as his aging eyes could see.
Of course, he wasn’t obsessed with the “Star is born” celeb addiction like his kid bro. He had his own demonic addiction. You weren’t ID’d the “the cream cheese bandit” for nothing!
III
He made a U turn, the Sand Buggy groveling like the big crowds screaming their lungs out as the once hot rod throttles booming, the cars like salmon shooting the rapids : screaming exhausts, as the drivers hit the throttles, the race car circuit thrilling the patrons. Identifying vicariously with the sound and fury..
A euphoric gung ho Gunga Din …. Van Nuys Air National Guard, George AF Base, Norton, March, San Bernardino AFB….. As he remembered the tides he and his kid brother had, sharing space in the Air Force bases outside Dusty Acres ,stashed away in the Mojave. And San Fernando Valley..
IV
The cream cheese bandit forgot about the mirrors in the Safeway market ceiling, as he put the Philadelphia cream cheese packet,in the pocket of his Arm y Navy foul weather jacket, his kid brother bought for him, to protect against the City of Angelsdewy nights.
How could he live down his bullying rep.. The fastest 6th grader at Booty Junior High. The leading role of President GeorgeWashington in the Senior play. The first tennis team Capitan at Tilden High School…. a half scholarship in the same role at Long Island University L.I.U.’s basketball heaven, coach and athletic director Clair Bee: Picareeli , (“Pic) his loyal alter ego at the DeKalb Avenue, Brooklyn sidewalk campus..
V
A “Star is b orn”, Janet Gaynor. Fredric March…Charlie Farrell, Jack L. Warner’s contemporary: playing doubles and the acting game, the President of the Palm Springs Racquet club…. to be seen with these clean cut celebs and tennis immortals.
Not Sampras and Agassi. Nor Steffi Gray. Or controlled power”Pancho” Gonales, “Pancho” Segura, Jack Kramer, Ted Schroeder, Ted Olewine…. Upland’s Davenport…Ivan. Lendl,Martina Navratilova from Czechoslovakia, Stefan Edberg from Sweden, Chrissie Evert, McEnroe, his kid bro….Billie JeanKing, Arthur Ashe, Jimmy Connors, Herby Flam, Gene Garret, , Boris Becker, all following in the dream stuff of Janet Gaynor’sa “Star is born” the original with Frederic March as her discoverer, actor Norman Maine.
VI
Judy Garland’s subsequent words on the planet “ Hello everybody. This his Mrs. Norman Maine”, her alcoholic husband …,James Mason as Norman Maine, his dissipation into“drink”, diving into the Pacific waves and eternity. 1954.
His wife identifying with Moss Hart’s “ Hello everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine” a curtain call, in more ways than one.
VI
The Cream Cheese Bandit” hardly knew what was playing out as he gazed upon all these stars in their own racquet and racketorbits...
Janet Gaynor arm in arm with her agent hubby. The silvery hairtall handsome Charlie Farrell and Racquet Club president,former Mayor of the status oriented community.
Where was Frederic March a 1937 Norman Maine ? Didn’t he once identify with the binge driven obsession of the leading man’s down loaded stupor.
VII
On his Dune Buggy, driving back into his Mulholland Drivemile high digs, the cream cheese bandit, his foul weather jacketon, with the Philadelphia cream cheese caper in mind, may have finally realized the error of his ways. That moral providence was playing out. But how could he know for sure.
He drove the Dune Buggy into his driveway a mile high above the San Fernando Valley denizens and natives, living out their dreams below.
Not knowing Aldo Ray, a former North Dakota deputy sheriff was in the hills, searching for a drive way where he could park his station wagon overnight…. winding down from his screen test for former Van Nuys Air National Guard Sergeant Jack Nicholson’s “One flew over the cuckoo’s nest”
September 20, 2014. The city that never sleeps
