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Unfortunately,
Not A Dream
February 3, 1980
Approximately 2:00 AM on a Santa Monica winter night. Top of the list of keeping me from being asleep: boredom, frustration, discontent. Lab work difficulties had obstructed my mind such that I couldn’t relax. Not a night owl usually, but a morning person. Get to the lab before anyone else is there and work unobstructed. But now sleepless, even with the afternoon at Will Rogers State park, relaxing, but apparently not enough for my brain to justify sleep.
But as I watched all seven of the T.V. channels, at least, scattered fragments of them, the wife was asleep, the only other light than the T.V. cathode ray tube was the back upstairs hallway light. The front of the apartment was dark to the street, still there came a knock, a loud knocking at the apartment door. A knocking that was uncontrolled but also tentative. Hesitant randomness? Cautious chaos?
I had ordered caution, as one would have at such an hour, as I moved toward the knock, knock, knocking on the apartment door. Improvised weapon was inadequate a defense, a broom accompanied me down the stairs to that nocturnal sounding. A weapon I had brought but had forgot my pants. But it was dark and my undershorts were shorts not briefs. Caution further prevented me from opening the door until I had looked out the side window into the night, onto the night knocker. What looked like a woman, or the shadow of a woman, waved at me in the dark?
I leaned my broom against the wall by the door, placed my bare foot at the base of the door, so it couldn’t be opened wider than I wanted it, and then I unlocked and opened the door. The shadow of a woman, turned out to be no shadow at all but a real, yet young, black woman. Her speech was slightly incoherent, as erratic as her knocking. She wanted to use the phone I eventually comprehended. With no danger obvious, except maybe to the English language, I let her come into the living room. She continued to be incoherent,
After a few minutes of periodic coherence mixed with accusations about the police doing something bad and a story about her white girl friend, that’s what she called her, being abducted by two fellows in a car. Their skin shade was unidentified. I finally asked her if she wouldn’t mind if I called the Police? No objection came out, so I did.
We talked as we waited for the Santa Monica Police. The story I pieced together was she and a girl friend (white) had been at the De-tox center of a hospital in the Valley. They had checked themselves out and wanted to go to San Francisco, but before that, the black woman (Kathy) said they should go to her sister’s in Gardena first. The two had taken a bus to downtown L.A. There they then started to hitchhike to Gardena. It was then that the two guys in a car appeared. In the car, they all started Re-toxing, smoking and taking various available drugs. The guys wanted to go to the beach. The white woman (Pat) wanted to go too, but Kathy didn’t. Kathy said she was afraid what might happen. Somehow she jumped out of the car and in a fit of fear she flagged down a cop. After relaying her fears to the cop, the cop took off after the two guys in a car and the white girl friend. And then she found herself knocking at my apartment door? The timing of any and all of these events was unclear.
While we talked, I kept checking, opening the front door waiting for the Police to arrive. The story sounded funny, but I didn’t know what it was all about. Then I heard a slight shuffle on the other side of the door and opened it. There was a surprised Santa Monica Police Officer with left fist raised as he was about to knock. The surprise caused his right hand to unsnapped the strap of his service revolver. I threw my hands in the air as I threw out apologies on my surprising him. Despite my apologies and submissiveness, he kept his hand on his revolver as he stepped in the door. His partner came immediately from beside the door and entered too.
The Officers were clean shaven with uniforms pressed to a crease and their faces tense. The first officer asked the questions. First was describe the two men, the car, the situation, and the girl friend. The situation turned out to be more of a party than a pick up. Kathy had apparently just got paranoid from the excessive re-toxification, and jumped out in needless fear. Her friends went on to the beach and subsequently arrested. They were now in jail. As this last information came in over the Officer’s hand-held radio, Kathy jumped up and said, “Take me! Take me!” It was a response that surprised all of us. Finally, all three left.
Then I started to wonder if this was real? Was I dreaming this? For one, as the Officer called in on his hand-held radio, as he waited for a response, he dangled the radio by its flexible antenna that he held between his front teeth. It looked like a giant black tongue hanging there. Secondly, as they were leaving, Kathy had left about two hand fulls of change on the chair cushion. I scooped it up and attempted to give it to the Second Officer. He shook his head at the mount of change in my hands. “No need for that sir.” He said. I shook my head, “No! It’s her’s.” I pointed weakly with my two index fingers over the coinage. “Oh.” He replied and held out his notebook as a receptacle for the change. Evidence maybe? I didn’t know. Thirdly, all of this commotion had happened over about an hour and the wife never stirred once. When I asked her about it the next morning, she denied having heard anything at all.
I didn’t check with the Police to verify my story to myself. It didn’t matter. I still can’t sleep.
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