I was driving and driving, it seemed for miles and miles. I took a right on Sunset and , low and behold, I see the driveway for the Trocadero Club. New in town, I turn in. The valet jacks my keys and sends me in. "They're waiting" he says.
I walk in and see Irving Thalberg towards the back, right, corner of the club. Chico and Harpo are sitting in their boxers, toasting marshmallows over an impromptu fire set in the middle of the booth. Groucho is going crazy. Seems the Warner Brothers are suing over the use of the name Casablanca in a Marx movie. Groucho raves, "Maybe we should counter-sue, We were brothers and successful long before they were even done soiling their diapers."Ingrid Bergman (her real name is Sigrid) is in the opposite corner, sitting with a mug that resembles Capone. He's trying to be witty and looking pretty tony, what with bodyguards and all. She seems bored to tears. "We'll always have Paris" is all she can think. Then that Bacall gal comes in and Ingrid gets up to leave.
"Sorry Al. I have to go. Bob Rosselini is meeting me at ten."
A tear formed in Al's eye, lamenting his fate as mug and thug. He knew Ingrid wouldn't be back
****************************************Three tables back frim the stage sits the Pondering Pig and his new gal, Patrushka. They are star-eyed and obviously in love. What has the Almighty got in store for them?
The Pig, red-haired and witty, has captured her attention in that way that us guys call, "the look". Yup, she's got it. 
"Would you like a frozen banana whoositz?".
"Would you like a frozen banana whoositz?".
"I don't know. What are they like?"
"Sweet, baby. Just like you."
She laughs and smiles into his shining eyes. He smiles and snaps for the waiter.
***************************************
Two thousand miles away, in the throes of the Nixon/blues midwest, a young lad searches, seemingly aimlessly, for the importance of this existence. He laughs and cries and, in the last quarter of the American Century, searches for what little meaning is left in this land of the free and brave.
In short, he plods forth, seeking what the Pig has already found.
"Been here before, baby?", he lamely queries.
"Didn't we go to different high schools together?". That one always got a laugh.
Leo is young, still unsure of what is in store and certainly not ready for what the next 35 years have in store. It all resembles a crap-shoot and not a pretty one for sure. He gets a gift for his current dispensable gal and walks on, alone.
Next installment sometime soon
1 comment:
Good job man. You caught it. Just the way it was that night. Who could forget? We were slick then and the champagne just kept flowing with never a hangover.
I think the only part you missed is that cheap gunzel at the corner table who kept eyeing us and mumbling, "Keep on riding me and they're gonna be picking iron out of your liver."
I kept looking around for Phil Marlowe to take care of him but he was outside in his '52 Pontiac convertible waiting for a redhaired devil in a green dress...no, wait, it was a red dress, no, it was a black dress. I can't remember, judge.
Maybe she wore blue velvet.
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