The Listening Man

Copyright © 2002 by Donald J. Young.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of

the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons,

living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

The fine cover picture is a watercolor by the well-known

artist, Bob Newick, of Aptos, California.

FOREWORD BY THE AUTHOR

I feel I should say a word about myself, since I’m the main actor in this narrative.

First, you see many faces like mine in a crowd—attractive enough, signifying a stable individual. I’m tall, muscular, with a pleasant enough demeanor, a good mass of dark hair for my age—thirty-four. I have slanting, weak eyes—which kept me out of military service.

I wish I had some deep demonic trait—which Freud says we all have. But actually my personality is obvious—clear as a lake.

I’ve written several books on words. I also taught at La Playa University, where my colleagues considered me a nice guy who collected offbeat words, rare maxims, and lively anecdotes about famous people. They thought I was a good audience for their views. They loved to instruct me. And I’d listen to anybody who gave me a reasonable explanation why we’re on this earth. That’s how I got the nickname, The Listening Man.

Lately I was teaching less, getting away from the University. I felt stifled in academia, where despair became the only password. I was between worlds, like the tourists from San Francisco who stopped off at La Playa for a relaxing break, before going on to the rare plush beaches of Monterey.

I guess I wanted to take off for a new Monterey of the mind. At least that’s the attitude I had when I wrote this story.

Chapter 1

I wanted to start the day off on a new tack, and shake the morning blahs. From the window of my breakfast room I saw a blue sky full of barely moving clouds, like sails in a lull. I longed for a sunny spring day after a week of relentless rain.

Roscoe had called me early that morning, suggesting we meet in La Playa around eleven at the Coffee Heaven on the beach. He liked the cappuccino there, which he usually spiked with whiskey. I wondered for a moment if it was a good thing to see my old prof since he was partly responsible for my morning blahs, with his article in The Times.

Yet my friend had sounded relatively cheerful on the phone. I thought maybe he’d found a new purpose in life—or a new woman. But I knew he was still wary of any close ties, perhaps still agonizing over the fateful affair with one of his students years ago.

I left home, driving down Jewel Box Hill. I rolled down the window of my old red Targa, which purred softly on the macadam, and I breathed in the refreshing ocean breeze. I usually love the Hill when I feel that salt tang in my nostrils, but as I coasted down Bayview Avenue, I cried out, in my somber, hammy mood,

Down, down I come in my glistening Targa, Wanting the manage of unruly brakes.

I hadn’t lost a throne like Richard II but I’d caught the real blahs from Roscoe’s review of a book by a European artist—whom I’d never heard of before. Roscoe had written:

Any attempt to find hope in the world today, in the 70’s—as the author of Man’s Hope is trying to do—is ridiculous. In this century we have endured the nightmare of two World Wars. We have witnessed the slaughter of six million Jews. We have seen man’s cruelty to man in the savage battle waged by the United States against the tiny peasant country of Vietnam. Yet man is blissfully unaware of any evil in himself. So, artist, take refuge in despair, as the Russian does in vodka. Hold the mirror up to man’s absolute evil.

I was so sick of this kind of palaver. How long would Roscoe go on trumpeting his sad song of despair? And most of his hand-wringing lately was a result of his devotion to the sauce.

I parked under an old palm tree, which reminded me of the early days of La Playa shore life, but which was now dry and withering, like a pole with a wig on top. The parking lot was next to the Venice Nights Motel, with its imitation canals that took the water of the Land’s-End Creek to the sea. The Motel cabins, purple and orange oddities, always made me think of a Fellini bordello, huddling shamelessly beside the shining waters of the bay.

I figured I had time before meeting Roscoe to do a few sketches for my new book of characters. From the car—my observation booth—I looked out on the beach. I didn’t want to miss anyone. As Sterne says, in A Sentimental Journey (quoted in my new book of maxims, Wisdom in a Nutshell):

What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in every thing, and who, having eyes to see, what time and chance are perpetually holding out to him … misses nothing he can fairly lay his hands on.

There’s nothing frivolous about my projected book, Char acters of La Playa. I’m trying, through my character sketches, to illumine the dark corners of life. A bearded, homeless person walked along the beach—a heavy pack on his back, with his life’s possessions. He was earnestly plucking a guitar, singing his song with a nasal twang, à la Bob

Dylan:

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, Youth’s a stuff will not endure.

I wrote in my notebook:

How odd it is that the balladeer should be singing this particular song of Feste, the clown—which I quoted in my previous book on unusual words, Momes and Meacocks. Only a month ago I’d heard it sung in the university production of Twelfth Night; and long after I’d forgotten the horsey business with Sir Toby, the clown’s peculiar lingering note of sorrow haunted my dreams.

Perhaps now the homeless man is serenading the two women sunning themselves—in bathing suits too tight for their large bodies—on the red and purple stucco balcony of Venice Nights. Like painted mannequins, they stare at the ocean, indifferent to the balladeer’s song—resting, I guess, before the next onslaught of johns from San Jose.

Perhaps my balladeer is lost, I thought, projecting my bleak mood onto the singer. Perhaps he’s the wanderer the poets speak of, who, strumming his lyre, sings the sad song of separation from the light.

I wasn’t completely satisfied with what I’d written. Roscoe, who taught me English at the university, said I always sounded a bit rococo when I got up on my high rhetorical horse. But I was trying to say exactly what I felt. I was still weighed down, though, by Roscoe’s article.

I had an hour before meeting my friend and, lowering the car seat, I settled back and turned on the car radio for some music to relieve my mood. I heard a woman say, Hello, this is The Voice. I’d like to be your guide for an hour or so. I want to reach out to all of you, so we can search for the sacred in life. If you wish to take part in the program, call our number—collect—99VOICE. She sounded sincere,