At Seventeen

My roommate Judy and her mama Katy Cool dropped me off in Westwood at the Veteran’s Cemetery.  It was easy enough to find my father’s grave, given the “address” by the gal in the kiosk at the front of the memorial park: Section 95, Row H, Site 015.

I run my fingers over the smooth marble headstone. The noonday sun glints off the shiny flecks as I read the marker: 

Howard Wilbur Maxwell

PVT First Class

May 13, 1911 - August 6,1965

Plopping down on the grass, I’m surprised by how loud my sigh is. I look around. Not a soul to be seen, and not a bad view. All around is green interrupted only by row after straight row of white head stones. I like the view to the north, which is the way Dad’s and thousands of other soldier’s markers are facing. The looming Santa Monica Mountains are comforting - dark and cool aginst this hazy summer glare. 

Since my brother Mel and I chose not to attend the small memorial service last year, this day feels like my first opportunity to find some sort of closure around my dad’s death.

When he died, there was so much hatred between Mel and me and Howard’s ex-wife Eugenie, that we feared Mel might have murdered her right there, on the spot, at the service... so we didn’t go. She had burned all of Dad’s things - including his films of us as kids and his full set of Edward Weston contact prints signed by the now famous photographer. It’s amazing how badly drunks act when they’re angry. Our dad and Eugenie were both drunks.

I remember during the spring semester of my eleventh grade year of high school, visiting Dad, who was dying of cancer of the everything, in Long Beach Veteran’s Hospital three times a week - driving surface streets to get there because my mom wouldn’t yet let me drive freeways.

As I sit here on the grass, imagining his body laid out in the coffin below me, I lean into the cool marble and review his dying process, his tobacco stained fingers so yellow against the white sheets, marveling that, although he was in a coma, there was no way we could have known whether he was in agony or ecstasy inside his mind. 

I’m in a surreal state when I get up and leave the cemetery. My cheeks are wet; my throat is dry. Walking south on Veteran Avenue, the rhythmic slap, slap of my red Keds on the sidewalk soon brings me back to myself and I feel the heat of the day pinking up my cheeks and pooling sweat under my shirt at the waist band of my blue jeans.

At Wilshire, I go east and just keep walking. I have no intention of not getting on the bus to ride back to the apartment I share with Judy near LACC, but I just can’t sit still at any of the bus stops, so I keep walking. Where the split with Santa Monica comes up, I follow it. Now I’m in Beverly Hills and there’s a wide swath of green belt on the north side of the boulevard - with fountains, flower beds, swings and a jungle gym. I steer toward a drinking fountain. Looking up, I see two young children hurrying toward me. He’s ten-ish; she’s eight-ish and they’re both blond. He’s carrying what looks like a Kleenex box. I see very few people around - except for those whizzing by in cars.

“Look what we found!” he says in a Russian accent. It IS a Kleenex box, but inside are a wallet, a car key and a knife. 

“Wow,” I say. “Where?” 

“In car over dere.” the boy gestures across the busy boulevard, with both hands still holding the box. “What we do?”

“Will you show me where you found these?”

“Yah! Sure!!” and they run toward the crosswalk.

This looks like an accident site, where a car has struck a tree behind a wall almost completely obscured by great Oleander bushes. The black car is covered with white and red blossoms. Now, we are too. It has come to rest very near the railroad tracks that criss cross this area where Wilshire and Santa Monica criss cross one another. There is nothing I can discern here. There are no signs of violence or vandalism, no skid marks on the dirt. Only an empty car - totally empty - with a small dent on the bumper where the tree impeded its progress. Even the back seat and trunk are empty.

“Did you find anything else here? When did you find it? Where are your parents? Where do you live?”

Anya and Petrach fill in the blanks. They live in an apartment on the other side of this cinderblock wall. No one is home for them.

I remember the urgency of solving mysteries from my own childhood. These young ones have made a discovery in an adult world. They have found something significant and mysterious. There are three one-dollar-bills in the wallet, but nothing else. The key is unremarkable - other than it fits the ignition and the trunk. The knife is a switch-blade with a pearl handle. The kids say that the knife was on the floor of the car. I look around to get my bearings and remember that there is a BH Police Station a few blocks away. I don’t want these kids to get hurt. We lock the car.

“Let’s see if the police can help.”

Their eyes go wide.

“Maybe someone has lost these things and wants them back,” I suggest.

We walk. The boy, at his sister’s insistence, allows her to hold the box. She gets a couple inches taller and her smile broadens.

“Here we are,” I hold open the glass door to the station waiting room. Approaching the desk, I tell the officer behind the glass what the children have found and where. Without really looking at them, he holds out his hand - to take the treasures from Anya. She’s short of being able to reach. Petrach hands up the box to the hovering hand visible to them above the edge of the high glass-enclosed counter.

“Mmmm... Chevy key. Empty wallet. Bowie knife.” He catalogs the items on a form and puts them in a large manilla envelope. He hands the three dollars into Petrach’s hand. “Here’s a reward for helping out.” The officer stands and looks down to see Anya and thrusts his arm out far enough to shake hands with both children through the slot at the bottom of his window. “I’ll send a squad car to check out the site of the accident. You did the right thing. Thank you.” 

The children are beaming. I walk them back to their block. When we get there, Petrach pulls one of the dollar bills from his pocket and earnestly holds it out to me. “Here. You help us do right thing. Thank you.” 

Taking the paper bill, I reach into my shoulder bag and find four quarters. “Here. YOU are the heroes. Fifty cents for you and fifty cents for you. Now, you each have $1.50.” 

I put the change in each sweaty palm. Their smiles are my reward.

Waving ‘til I’m out of sight, I hear their “Thank you, Lady!” as I turn east again onto Santa Monica. 

My need to integrate the day’s events makes me walk all the way home. I arrive about 8:30. It’s nearly dark. When I take off my Keds, I see that my feet are bloody. A year later, I will drive my ’54 Chevy along my route and discover that I walked seventeen miles at seventeen.