Girlie — Part 1 of 4

My one and only dog-sitting gig

It was the early Eighties. I had spent the better part of the previous year hitchhiking around the country. I was starting to get tired of that and wanted to stay in one place for awhile. There was a two-inch thick manuscript in my backpack that wasn’t getting any thicker on the road. I needed some stability so I could finish that novel.

One day I found myself in Palm Springs, California. I happened to notice an old motel that rented rooms by the week. I didn’t have much money but I had enough to pay for having a roof over my head for three weeks. When I hitchhiked out of southern Florida my general goal was to head to the Pacific Ocean. I almost made it. I was close. The important thing, though, was getting back to work on that damn novel.

I figured that if I could find a job I could extend those three weeks into a long enough time to finish the novel then head the rest of the way to the ocean. So I spent most of my first week walking around Palm Springs looking for work but no one would hire me. Then I blew off job hunting for a day and sat in a reclining lawn chair at the motel rereading my novel. I thought that if I reread from the beginning I would get back in the flow of it and then just continue where I left off.

But that didn’t happen. I was amazed by how good some parts of the novel were. It was a significant improvement over earlier works. Some parts definitely needed work, though. But when I came to where I had left off I was utterly stumped. I didn’t know where to go from there. I had been stuck in that novel for a long time and I knew where it was going but I was suddenly clueless on how to take the story to that conclusion. I was profoundly blocked. And it was imperative that I get unstuck from that story.

I tried to extract myself from that novel by finishing it but nothing was working. I had reached a very frustrating impasse. Finally, a couple of days before my three weeks were up I realized what I had to do.

I walked around the neighborhood gathering scrap firewood; any little bits of wood I could find. In the alleyway behind the motel I built a little bonfire and over the course of about an hour I fed that novel into the fire one page at a time. It was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life.

After it was over I felt so light, so free, so joyous. I was finally free of that novel and free to move onward.

The next day was my last day at the motel. I decided to do some carefree sightseeing and then I packed my stuff. It was good to realize that my stuff was a little lighter now; a whole manuscript lighter. Actually, it was way, way, way lighter in terms other than weight.

Early in the evening I dug into my pocket to see how much money I had left. It was a little under twenty bucks. I would need that for food for when I went out to the highway the next morning to, once again, stick my thumb out.

But there was something I needed to do first before I left Palm Springs. I needed to celebrate. When you do something as wonderful as burning your novel it is important to celebrate it.

So I went to a nearby bar for a drink — just one. That was all I could afford.

Little did I know how abruptly and drastically my life would change for having gone into that bar…

I sat down at an empty table in the middle of the bar and ordered a scotch and soda. The first sip was wonderful! I then looked around the bar. I noticed that almost all of the patrons were male.

I quickly realized that I was in a gay bar!

That did not really matter to me. I was only there for one drink so I just sat there enjoying it.

Very close to my table there were three tables that had been pushed together to form one long table. Everyone at the table was male except for one older woman who appeared to be in her sixties, pushing seventy. They were all about two and a half sheets to the wind and talking loudly.

From the snippets of conversation that I could over hear it became obvious they were in the entertainment industry — not celebrities, but behind the scenes folk (cameramen, directors, editors, grips, set designers and such).

I raised my scotch into the air and made a silent toast to the State of California.

About halfway through my drink a man from the large table scooted his chair back and stood up. (He was the man sitting next to the older woman.) He then began walking and almost immediately stumbled into the back of my chair. I was in the middle of taking a sip of my drink and most all of what was left of it ended up on my shirt.

Walking around my chair he looked at me, “Oh my goodness. I am so, so, so sorry. Please let me buy you another drink. I guess I’ve had a little more than I thought I had. I’m very sorry.” He then walked off and stopped the waiter in the middle of the bar and pointed at me then he quickly walked off to the bathroom.

The waiter brought me another scotch. My one drink just turned into one and a half.

When the man came out of the restroom he stopped at my table, “Again, I’m really, really sorry.” He looked at the empty table then back at me, “You waiting for someone?”

“Nope. I’m just sitting here.”

“Well that ain’t no fun. Come join me and my wife over at our table. Bring your chair and I think we can squeeze you in.”

I sat there motionless, not knowing what to do or say.

“Come on. All the drinks at that table are on me.”

My one drink just turned into a bottomless glass.

He introduced himself as Walter. He then introduced me to his wife who was an actress and seemed to be around twenty years older than him. He didn’t exactly introduce me to all the other men at the table but rather pointed at each one telling me their name and what they did. Three of the men had just come back from four months in Alaska shooting a documentary. The two men holding hands worked at Universal. Three other men worked at Disney and two men worked with Walter at NBC.

Walter then told me that he was the assistant director of a huge hit TV drama. He told me the name of the show and I had heard of it but it had been around 8 or 9 years since I had watched television so I had never seen an episode of it. I may have been the only person in America who had never watched that show and I was a bit embarrassed by that. It was impossible for me to have any kind of conversation with him about it.

I was profoundly out of my element with these people. So I sat and drank.

Soon Walter began barraging me with questions. What did I do?

“I’m a homeless writer.”

He seemed fascinated by this, saying that he always wanted to be a writer but he was terrible at it so he went into drama and, since he couldn’t act, he became a director.

What do I write? What was I doing in California? Where was I from? The questions continued.

So I gave him a perfunctory rundown, saying that I was trying to write the great American novel while hitchhiking around the country. I was in California because I loved the weather and because I had an unrelenting craving to once again stick my feet in the Pacific Ocean. I went on to say that I didn’t actually live in Palm Springs, in fact I was planning on hitchhiking into Los Angeles the very next day in hopes of finding a job and a roof over my head in order to get back to writing.

“Well, the wife and I will be returning to our home in Burbank in the morning. We’d be happy to give you a ride.”

“Really? You’d do that?”

“Sure. Hey, it’s the least I can do after making you douse your shirt with booze. Just meet us at the hotel across the street around nine in the morning. Oh, and I just might be able to hook you up with a temporary job. Do you know how to take care of a dog?”

“Uh… sure.” (At that point I had never taken care of a dog in my life.)

“Good. And do you know how to take care of a swimming pool?”

“Uh… yeah.” (At that point I had never taken care of a swimming pool in my life.)

“Well it sounds like you may be perfect for the job.”

“What is it?”

“Dog-sitting and swimming pool maintenance. The day after tomorrow the wife and I are leaving for a short six-week vacation in Spain before we begin shooting again. I need someone to babysit our dog and keep my swimming pool clean.”

See what I mean about the importance of celebrating major events in our lives? If I had not chosen to celebrate the fiery destruction of my novel by going to a bar and having ‘one’ drink I never would have met Walter. Instead of walking out to the highway and trying to hitchhike into Los Angeles to find a job I now had a ride all lined up as well as a job!

I was about to begin the second best job I’ve ever had. I was about to become a dog-sitter.

Continued here: Part 2 of 4: The Second Best Job I Ever Had Part 3 of 4: When My Paradise Vacation Ended Part 4 of 4: The One-word Letter

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