|
12:30 p.m. - 2022-07-17
Alia
I did a job way up at the top of Bel-Air. A few blocks above a previous job actually. The homeowner was an actress I'd never heard of, but we were introduced with a nom de guerre that she felt more comfortable using. It was a moot formality, as the gossipy “designer” who'd recommended me for the gig had already told me this was a deck for ___, but we're calling her ___. And mooted again when the actress signed her name on the personal checks I was paid with. Like I said, I'd never heard of her...but the circumstance that justified her paranoia is a disturbing cultural tell. And for some reason she crossed my mind in the thrash-about hours of last night's stressful unrest. As a child she'd played a small part in a widely released sci-fi film and, because there's something in the predatory pathology of sick and lonely men that draws them to young screen actors (this is why Reagan got shot, remember?), she'd had to deal with stalkers all her life. I'm also aware of how, as a tradesman, I'm perceived. Aside from our reputation for cat-calls and coarse language, there is the reality of our sweaty dude-selves walking into your house w/our hairy arms and bags and hammers, surveying a kitchen where maybe you'd like, decorated a birthday cake once or had some other lovely memories an' such and then blithely smashing it into dumpster-sized bits before fucking off to the bar for the afternoon. We're deservedly fraught with gender association, carpenters. (Hence maybe the assumption that we show up horny to the jobsite every day? Horny for you, the hausfrau who lets her boob slip out of her robe? That's called projection ladies...and don't think I never appreciated it.)
Anyway sorry, was just trying to say I could very much understand why this client's anonymity was important to her re: an unknown contractor w/access to the house, but we eventually hit it off. Which was great because--while she was known as an actress, she was also a classically trained concert pianist. And on a few occasions, while I was building her redwood deck (sooo high up there above the city with the view and wow), she would roll out of the bedroom in her sweats or pajamas or whatever, open the sliding glass doors and play the Steinway baby-grand. And she would play it like it was built to be played. Doing it effortless justice.
I haven't kept in touch with any of my LA clients, designers etc. since I moved to TX, but I did look her up online. Because the memory of her playing, even at practice, haunts me and I wanted to see if she'd ever recorded anything. But what I found was a story about her parents, who had frozen to death together, back east.
Unable to pay their gas bill and too proud, apparently, to ask their children for help.
Also mentioned was the freak-show obituary detail that her mom (a piano teacher) was in the Guinness Book Of World Records for the longest hair ever. Hair that the kids used to help her wash and carry behind her.What do you do with this, at 2 AM? How does your own life not look every bit as random in those early hours? If you can kid yourself into “meaning” after a few cups of coffee and a morning commute, god bless you. I'm not convinced.
previous - next
|