Her breasts were so big they came atcha like an an eighteen wheeler with the high beams on. The other one's smile was like an abandoned highway. One lived in a Beverly Hills penthouse apartment, the other on the streets of that same city. One drove a Mercedes. The other carried a throw rug with her wherever she went so wherever she was she could simply plop it down and say, "I'm home." As for the penthouse, it wasn't really a penthouse but it was the top floor of a fifties, four story, stucco apartment building, and so the developer called it the penthouse, actually, the penthouse suite.
It was an interesting period of time. Thanks to a Hollywood career that had more craters than the moon, I was again plying the raw streets as a social worker. This time my constituents were the male and female denizens of halfway houses before going on with the next phase of their lives, if they had one - the homeless, addicts, alcoholics, parolees, ex cons. That same period of time I was also hiring out as a writing coach to folks who could afford my rates, which is how the one I shall call Lorelei from Beverly Hills came into my life. One summer. Two women. One's name I can't remember. One's name I can't use. So. Ms. Agnes and Lorelei shall they be.
Lorelei had been a centerfold in a national magazine who now worked for that same magazine meeting potential centerfolds and welcoming them into the "family", making certain they were met at the airport and escorted through the motions, sure they were both cared for and safe. Lorelei had had a tumultuous and very public affair with a very famous actor, absolutely, positively the love of her life. He was a known curmudgeon and womanizer, but what they had was so special the world should know. Or so she fancied the world should know. She wanted to show what it was like when they were together, just the two of them, away from the spotlight. Oh, how lovable he could be! Not like in the trades. So beautiful. So beautiful. Perfect for the screenplay she was bursting to write, asked around, and hired me to help her write it. So, for a period of weeks, we worked together daily, in the penthouse suite, and, in the evening, I'd go see Ms. Agnes who'd just come in off the street.
I met Ms. Agnes when she was coaxed in by another worker. She had managed to acquire a small propane heater to ward off chilly nights, but it had been stolen earlier that day by some guy who punched her in the face, grabbed the heater, and ran. She could not remember whether she had spent the night with him, but he cold-cocked her hard when she looked the other way and scuttled off. "People ain't mean," she said, "But livin' like make 'em cruel to the point of death."
Lorelei augmented her income as a model in various states and stages of dress and undress. Even now, twenty years later, those breasts continue to amaze me. Kind of like a singular statistic, you know, like the tongue of the blue whale weighs six tons. Can you believe it? The tongue alone weighs six tons! She wouldn't tell me her age, of course. She was in her forties, I'm sure, but lookin' very very fine regardless of two score plus. And maybe plus again. I'm not sure, but the photographic range was astonishing from coy to near porno. Oddly, her sexuality was not on display when she wasn't modelling. It was like being in the room with a sculpture by Michaelangelo, the David, for instance - awesome but you don't touch it. It doesn't even invite you to touch it. Yet, it's naked. What it does: It says, "Stand back. Breathe. Just take it in."
She amazed me, Ms. Agnes did. She actually missed the street and intended to go back out. While we spoke she packed and unpacked her worldly goods on a decrepit baby carriage she pushed in front of her.
"Room ain't safe." She tried to explain.
"The street's safe?" I asked.
"Safer."
"But you were punched and robbed out there!" She shrugged.
"People livin' home get punched, too. They don't? I don't read the papers? What inside a damn room gonna do for me? I still got to hustle lunch. A job? Me? What I know how to do and who's gonna hire me and why do I want to work for 'em anyway? For a 'partment where the door ain't lock and the landlord ain't do shit? Don't need no Goddamn landlord. I got my rug."
"What about when it rains?", I asked.
"I get wet."
"What about sick?"
"Coroner know where I am."
A few months after working with both these women I left Los Angeles for good and settled on a creek in a valley in the Catskill Mountains. Decades later, from this vantage point, I am astonished at the parade of so many fascinating characters throughout my life. As a young teen I remember standing on the street corner in downtown Baltimore checking out all the passersby, making up stories about them, finishing their conversations. I'm still at it. My mother used to say, "You got a mouth? Use it." The key is to know when not to use it. One of my pleasures has been the ability to talk to anybody. Forget attitude. Just listen. I worked in the White House knee to knee with a sitting President of the United States, and I've talked with a bushman around a campfire in the jungle. The key? Get them to talk about themselves. I don't need to tell them what I know. I already know it. I need for them to tell me what they know. Whatcha got cookin' interests me a lot more than what I've got cookin'. I tend to over cook, anyway.
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