Clothing Optional Read online

  Mrs. Kirschenblatt decides to sleep with Jack Davis. Not enjoying a second of it. She feigns both affection and ecstasy. She tells Jack that she loves him. That she understands him. And that yes, Momma was right—pharmacists do make the best lovers.

  When it is over, Jack closes the drugstore for the evening and escorts Mrs. Kirschenblatt home to show her how to administer the medicine. It is a lovely evening and Mrs. Kirschenblatt begins to ruminate about the vagaries of life. How unpredictable everything is. After fifteen years of faithfulness to one man, she is now walking with a stranger whom she has given herself to, to save the man she loves. But would Mr. Kirschenblatt understand her decision? Would he forgive her? Would he rationalize that it was his well-being that motivated her and ultimately justified her immorality? Yes, he would. It might hurt at first, but in his heart he’d know that her violation was committed only because she loved him—and that the act itself was meaningless in the long run.

  This realization comforts Mrs. Kirschenblatt until they return to her home to find her house on fire—with Mr. Kirschenblatt and the black boarder trapped in two adjacent rooms. Entering the house, she realizes that she can save both of them, but only if Jack Davis assists her. She looks beseechingly at the beleaguered druggist, who now has a moral dilemma. Should he risk his life trying to save two people whom he doesn’t know or really care about? Or should he ignore the pleas of a woman who, in effect, charged him the outrageous price of a thousand dollars for fifteen minutes of cheap, insincere sex?

  Jack Davis grabs the medicine, pushes Mrs. Kirschenblatt into the fire, and goes home. What would you have done?

  Stationery Stores

  I believe stationery stores—that’s right, stationery stores—are the most romantic places in the world. More so than an empty beach in the morning, a moonlit park at night, or a sunset at, well, at sunset. Mind you, I’m not talking about the big kinds of so-called stationery stores like Staples or Office Depot with their high ceilings, wide aisles, and shopping carts big enough to transport small homes from one zip code to another. I hate those places because they’re cold, impersonal, and don’t even remotely smell like stationery stores.

  Yes, it’s an olfactory thing that my receptors respond to—the same way they do to the proper kind of bakeries. But in order for the subtle aromatic mix of composition books, reinforcements, pencil cases, and protractors to effectively evoke sense memory the way old songs do, they must be contained within more intimate confines so their magical scents cannot dissipate. Places that can carry only six compasses, not six hundred. Where pens that cost more than $4.99 are locked inside of a display case, as opposed to living in big bins. And where the smell of blue loose-leaf books is not polluted by the plastic emissions of those impostors made of fake leather and referred to as binders. It’s comparable to the way a baseball game smells at Wrigley Field as opposed to how it smells at one of those huge new stadium complexes. One smells like baseball, the other like an office building.

  My favorite stationery store is about a mile from my house. It’s a small place that’s sandwiched between a Blockbuster and a Circuit City—both of which I also hate. So whenever I’m experiencing writer’s block, all I have to do is step into that store and I smell third grade. And Mrs. Kasarsky’s hair. And the state capitals. And the phrase “cursive writing.” And my crush on Barbara Graber. And how I wrote her name a thousand times on a book cover that said “Green Bay Packers” on it. And how she once needed to borrow a pencil for an arithmetic quiz we were having. And how I tried to get on Barbara’s good side by quickly unzipping my pencil holder, pulling out a freshly sharpened #2, and handing it to her before Steven Snipper, who also had a crush on her, could lend her one of his. And how I blew any chance of her liking me back because, in my haste, I accidentally stabbed her in the hand because I forgot that pencils (like scissors) should be handed to the other person with the sharp end facing the person doing the handing over. The pencil point broke off in Barbara’s palm and remained there for the rest of elementary school, junior high, and high school. A subcutaneous, graphite reminder that I saw close up whenever I asked her out and she held up her hand and shook her head. I tried to apologize. I even wrote her a sonnet once (on really nice stationery) waxing poetic about how Leonardo da Vinci accidentally poked Mona Lisa with a pencil point and that’s why her hands were folded in the painting, but Barbara didn’t budge. Was it possible that she simply wasn’t attracted to me and was using the pencil incident as an excuse to spare my feelings? Possibly so—which made me love her that much more for being so considerate of my fragile emotions.

  Today, my three children think I’m insane when I tell them that I can smell my entire life in that little store and that they may very well starve to death should it ever go out of business. But having shopped for stationery only at Staples, and for pastry in large supermarkets, and for shoes in even larger department stores, they can’t really be blamed for not relating—though I must confess that I consider it their loss and truly worry that they may not have any nostalgic smells in their futures.

  By the way, I recently ran into Barbara Graber. My thirtieth high school reunion. She was there with her husband, Steven Snipper, the guy who didn’t stab her with a pencil at the exact moment that I did. And though I am happily married and have a great family, when I saw that pencil point, which is still embedded firmly (and at this juncture I guess it’s safe to say permanently) in her palm, I couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened had I handed over that pencil with the eraser facing her.

  True Crime: Me on the Streets of L.A.

  Writing is rather precarious work, given that the margin of error between what’s considered a classic and a folly can be ever so slight. For example, it’s a well-known fact that the screenplays for The Godfather and Bubble Boy used the exact same words but in a different order. Still, I never really knew just how dangerous my chosen profession was until one of my credits recently came back to haunt me.

  Back in 1987, I was a co-writer on the film Dragnet, which inspired a magazine editor to ask if I’d like to write a piece about True Crime: Streets of L.A.—one of the most popular video games since its release last year.

  For those of you unfamiliar with this game, the object is simple. An indescribable hell has been unleashed by ruthless gangs, so it was my job to drive, fight, and shoot my way through 240 miles of Los Angeles streets in an attempt to rid our city of this scourge. And the tour guide is rapper Snoop Dogg, whose presence made perfect sense. The music of this former Crips member would provide the experience with a hard-driving, realistic score in the fight against urban evil.

  But here comes the wrinkle. I was asked to imagine what would happen if Sergeant Joe Friday, the stiff, monotoned character from Dragnet, had inexplicably found himself in the game—and his partner was no longer Officer Bill Gannon but Snoop D-O-double G.

  JOE FRIDAY

  9:56 A.M. I’m patrolling the streets of this city. Los Angeles, California. Four thousand one hundred and thirteen square miles of constantly interfacing humanity representing every race, color, creed, and persuasion.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Who you talkin’ to? And why the hell we up at 9:56 A.M.? Ain’t no gang activity going on in the morning. Homeboys be sleeping.

  (starts rapping)

  If you’re white or if you’re black,

  This is something to groove to,

  Made to move to, ensue you, like Snoop do.

  JOE FRIDAY

  The fact is, Officer Dogg, “ensue you” is not an expression that exists in the English language. You can’t ensue someone. And if you could, trust me, buster, you wouldn’t be the one I’d want to ensue me.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Chill, biatch. You gettin’ my doggy underwear in a bunch. Let’s just blunt out and relax. Fo’ shizzle?

  JOE FRIDAY

  Fo’ what?

  So after I had Timothy (the nine-year-old kid who lives across the street) come over and hook up the
game, I began to play. But once their ride started, Snoop Dogg and Joe Friday found themselves confronted by a danger far greater than the militarily armed thugs they were assigned to combat. Specifically, that a fifty-year-old sedentary writer who barely had the hand-eye coordination to use a Q-tip without incident was now at the controls of the PlayStation.

  Backward and forward I sent them. Crashing into a bus. A FedEx truck. And one of those little vans that transport blind people. The car then jumped a curb, bent a fire hydrant, pinned a mailman to the side of the Staples Center, entered the Ahmanson Theater through a third-floor balcony window, then somehow found its way onto the 10 Freeway after mowing down a troop of Cub Scouts on a field trip to City Hall.

  JOE FRIDAY

  10:38 A.M. I just soiled my Friday underwear.

  What amazed me the most at this point was that I was now driving the car upward of 200 mph during rush hour on a freeway that I’d sat in bumper-to-bumper traffic on for an inordinate chunk of my adult life. And because I had a relatively clear road ahead of me (with the exception, of course, of the occasional sniper), I began to get a feel for the controls and was actually enjoying the ride. La Brea. Robertson. Overland. I leaned back and relaxed as the exits whizzed by me. I would have put the top down had it not been armor that weighed about seven hundred pounds.

  JOE FRIDAY

  Traffic’s light today.

  SNOOP DOGG

  That’s ’cuz this tricked-out pimpmobile just waylaid the whole town.

  JOE FRIDAY

  This is no pimpmobile, Junior. This is a standard-issue LAPD undercover vehicle with minor modifications to accommodate investigation and pursuit.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Damn, Friday. You gotta learn to chill. Take some free time and kick it with your boys.

  JOE FRIDAY

  I chill just fine, hophead, and I spend my free time at church, “kickin’ it” with my boy upstairs.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Yeah, which church you go to?

  JOE FRIDAY

  All of them.

  It was when I got off the freeway to see if my own neighborhood was depicted that I got into trouble. I took the Bundy exit at a brisk 210 mph, flipped over onto the 405, slid upside down to Wilshire Boulevard, and the car didn’t right itself until after I leveled what used to be my favorite Japanese restaurant on San Vicente.

  Deep into Brentwood the car sped. Past familiar shops. The post office. Whole Foods. And though steering was no longer a problem, slowing down was, and the ride became increasingly painful as the car took flight every time it went over one of the extraordinarily high speed bumps that couldn’t have been more than twenty feet apart.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Damn it, Flattop. What’s with all the road humps?

  JOE FRIDAY

  Customary in a residential neighborhood to reduce vehicle speeds without adversely affecting intersection operations.

  SNOOP DOGG

  In my neighborhood, we want to slow down traffic, we pop a cap in somebody’s butt. Hustlas and Gold Teefas be chill when there’s a 187 investigatin’. Ah, shiz-nit. I think I just bit my tongue.

  In an attempt to slow down, I pressed a button, which I prayed was a brake. Unfortunately, it was a Gatling gun, which immediately reduced a neighbor’s cat to a pile of teeth and fur. Another button separated the president of our Neighborhood Watch from three of his limbs. And in a desperate attempt to avoid plowing into a boy who looked like Timothy, I swerved, shredded two people who looked like Timothy’s parents, and spayed what looked like Timothy’s collie before the car became airborne and eventually came to rest on what looked like my front lawn.

  JOE FRIDAY

  2:23 P.M. Brentwood, California. Home of the elite, and the elite’s accountants. System failures and equipment malfunctions have sabotaged our mission with unfortunate ramifications. Collateral damage was unavoidable.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Damn, Joe. I’m the first brother they’ve even seen in these parts since O.J. pulled that stunt, and look what we just did.

  JOE FRIDAY

  This is peanuts. You wouldn’t believe what we got away with when Willie Williams was still in charge.

  SNOOP DOGG

  Friday, you one crazy cop.

  JOE FRIDAY

  Fo’ shizzle, Officer Dogg. Fo’ shizzle.

  This is why I write. Twenty minutes behind the wheel and I had managed to cause more death and destruction to the City of Angels than the riots and the Northridge earthquake combined. It was just a game you say? Maybe so. But just the same, I know that if I was out on the roads delivering pizzas rather than locked within the confines of my office moving words around, the results wouldn’t be much different. So in the end, this assignment served a purpose—aside from calling attention to my general lack of dexterity. It drove home the point that despite the occasional critical backlash, I know that I am meant to write. Trust me, it’s safer for all of us.

  Between Cars

  SCENE: Two tollbooths on a deserted parkway exit. The lighting suggests that it is about 4:00 A.M.

  He (34) is in the right tollbooth. She (31) is in the left booth. Both are dressed in their Port Authority blues: blue pants, blue shirt, blue hat, etc.

  AT RISE: She is leaning out of her booth—her arm extended and her hand cupped; ready to accept a toll should a vehicle happen to come along. Meanwhile, he is standing at attention with his right hand over his heart.

  HE

  (singing)

  Gave proof through the night

  That our flag was still there…

  While singing, he leans back into his booth, leans back out, and throws a coin into the “exact change” basket, causing the tollgate between their two booths to rise with a dinging sound.

  HE

  Oh, say does that star-spangled

  Banner yet wave…

  Ding, the arm lowers.

  No response from her.

  He leans back into the booth, grabs another coin, leans out, and tosses it into the basket:

  HE

  O’er the land of the free…

  Ding, the gate rises and falls.

  Still no response.

  HE

  And the home of the brave.

  (imitates a “stadium roar”)

  Play ball!

  He leans back into the booth—this time producing a basketball, which he throws into the basket, banking it off the side of her booth—ding. The gate rises and falls as the ball disappears into the change chute of her booth.

  SHE

  (maintaining her posture)

  Could you please stop?

  HE

  Hey, she talks. You know, for a minute there, I was worried about you. Thought you couldn’t talk…. Hi. I’m Roger…. Roger Schwing…. And you are…?

  SHE

  Trying to do my job.

  HE

  Trying to do your job.

  SHE

  And you’re ruining my concentration.

  HE

  You gotta be kidding.

  SHE

  Why?

  HE

  Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s four o’clock in the morning. Maybe because it’s January and this road leads to the beach. Or maybe because there hasn’t been a car that’s even come close to this place since Labor Day and you’re standing there like the Statue of Liberty. That’s it! That’s why I think you gotta be kidding.

  She relaxes her pose.

  HE (cont’d)

  Come on, what’s your name?

  SHE

  …Robin.

  HE

  Good name.

  (obviously lying)

  My mom’s name is Robin…. My dad too…. They were gonna name me Robin, but people would’ve gotten confused between me and my brother, Robin Jr.

  SHE

  Why are you lying?

  HE

  Because I’m bored to death. Come on, let’s play Candy Land.

  He produces the game. She r
epositions herself with her hand out.

  HE

  Okay then. How about jacks?

  He runs out, bounces a rubber ball, and throws some jacks. He puts the ball into her outstretched hand.

  SHE

  Can’t you understand that it’s my first day of work and that I don’t want to get into any trouble?

  HE

  With who?

  SHE

  Our boss?

  HE

  What boss?

  SHE

  Don’t we have a boss?

  HE

  I’ve never seen a boss.

  SHE

  How’s that possible?

  HE

  Look, I took the civil service test in a room, all by myself. Then I got that letter saying that I passed the test and that I should come to this tollbooth for the midnight-to-nine shift. So, I get here at quarter to twelve, there’s no one here, I stay until nine while nothing that even resembles a car or a human being comes by, then I go home.

  SHE

  How long have you been doing this?

  HE

  Seven weeks.

  SHE

  So what do you do every night to keep from going crazy?