Chapter 11:

The Hand of GAWD

With silicon bumpers, long legs and an MG

*****

I worked at Mel’s as bar-back, doorman checking ID’s and acting as a laid-back bouncer. I wasn’t offered, nor wanted, the responsibility of bartending. It wasn’t miserable work but it gave me access to enough beer to keep the edge off the day. Customers or friends sometimes bought a drink for me now and then to put me over that edge. The pay was minimum wage but the bartender cut me a little off the top from her tips. It was a holding pattern but having a job of any kind more than that required that I have an address and an available shower.

I eventually tired of barely scraping by so I shoved my situation up to the cosmos in the form of a prayer; “C’mon, O Great Whazoo, I need a break here. Give me some direction and I will take it.”

It was at this time that something inexplicable happened that I was unable to explain. It had to be the work of the Hand of Gawd. These inexplicable things are rare and usually come out of the blue. It is like the old adage that says: “When the student is ready the teacher arrives.” One day, while I holding on to my bar-stool an old friend, Laura, who was a former Vegas show-girl (blackjack dealer, fortyish, boob-job, long legs and all), came in the bar not knowing anything of my situation. I hadn’t seen her in years and I haven’t seen her since.

“Mickey, are you looking for a place?”

“Well, lookin’… but I have to make more money than I am making here to afford one in this town.” I was halfway hoping she’d let me crash at her place or maybe know of a job that would pay enough to rent a flop.

“You know Don of Don’s Jon don’t you?”

“Yes, but not very well.” Hell, I knew every bar owner in town. In fact, my list of bar owners and bartenders I knew, along with the phone numbers I kept in my head, is what enabled me to get out of jail on O.R. Don wasn’t on that list.

“You know his house on Anacapa Street?”

“Yeh? I sure do.” After all, I’d hauled a handful of drunks and coke dealers that lived there around town in my cab.

“He has a little place in the back… more of a shack than anything… it ain’t much but it’s cheap.”

“How cheap? I haven’t much.”

“$300 a month … or so.”

“Shit, my VA check covers that.” the light turned on. I hadn’t had a break like this in a long time.

“Well, let’s go up there. I’ll introduce you.”

It was settled. We checked out the place. It was small: A shared bathroom and shower. The kitchen amounted to a fridge and sink with one small cupboard and a drawer for utensils at one end of the place and room for a dresser, couch or bed at the other. There was also a closet big enough for a single sized bed and some room hanging clothes. The place smelled of mildew and there was a petrified rat I found when we inspected the closet. But the place was a palace to me. Laura jumped in her MG and sped off into the night to disappear from town forever. Truly, she was an angel, the Hand of Gawd, to me.