We ate with the sun drenching the orange freckles on the backs of my trembling hands. Jangler looked tired but serene. I saw him pulling chivalrous deceptions wherever he went as he amused himself in the pursuit of a higher cause. No one had ever taken this much risk on my behalf (it felt almost fatherly) and it made me intent on success, however that might be defined, outside asylum walls.
After we’d finished eating he slid across an envelope. Inside was loose cash and the driver’s license of a shellac-faced and felonious looking longhair named Willie Wihooley. “They had a bunch of drivers’ licenses left over from dead patients,” Jangler explained, “and I picked the one that looked most like you. Irish at least. It’s expired, but you can get it renewed. The DMV doesn’t do background checks. You see there are some scrips in there, for Haldol, clozapine, some tricyclics, tranqs, whatever you think you might need. Write to me or call if you need more, codename Willie. Probably best to have them filled in Mexico.”
“Where did the money come from?”
“Discretionary funds. Thirteen hundred was as much as I could raise. I threw in a bit of my own. Call it a donation to a good cause.”
“Long as you don’t try to claim it as a deduction.”
“The state owes you a lot more than that. They owe you a new life.”
“I don’t care. I’m just glad to be free.”
“If you want to stay free you’ll take my advice. Pursue a modest and contemplative existence. Be honest with yourself. Above all, avoid stressful and potentially dangerous situations, especially anything to do with women.”
“That’s a tall order.”
He sipped from his juice. “You don’t need to be Carl Jung to figure out the cause of your trouble. Your mother left you when you were seven.”
“And I never saw her again.”
“And your wife Fang-Hua left you when you were in your midtwenties.”
“I didn’t think a Chinese girl would dump me. Quite the blow to my ego when she did.”
“That was when your descent began.”
“The ‘psychotic trigger,’ as Fasstink calls it.”
“You’re aware of the pattern?” he asked.
“Women problems.”
He nodded vigorously. “You’re unable to trust and therefore to love. Been divorced twice myself, so I can relate. Point is, if you realize that all your sorrow stems from women, just stay away from them. And until you’re back on your feet, avoid all sensory overload situations — fights, bars, football games, walking through graveyards at night. You know San Diego. There are plenty of low-stress arrangements. Get a job as a gardener and a little room downtown. I wish I could do more for you, but freedom is something you have to earn on your own. That’s what makes it precious.”
Jangler had to get running. An oil change at Jiffy Lube and then a fishing trip at Lake Miramar with his eldest son. He asked if I needed a ride anywhere. I replied that I might just stretch my legs and get some air. My father’s house in Solana Beach, I told him, was not far away.
Outside, we shook hands. I tried to thank him but he waved me off. “You’d’ve done the same for me. Godspeed, Eddie. And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call or write. Again, just use the name Willie.”
He stared at me for a few seconds, then bowed his head, turned on his heel, and strode away. I listened to his black BMW purr as it left the lot, moved through the green light, and curved gently away up into the pillared dusty benzene thunder of the interstate.
6.The Key’s in the Ashtray
SANTA ANITA WAS RUNNING THIS TIME OF YEAR, SO MY FATHER would not be in his Solana Beach house but in his condo in L. A. I would’ve called him but I didn’t remember his number. Hands in pockets, I strolled over to the track. There was a guard at the main stable gate I didn’t feel like talking to, so I walked down Jimmy Durante Boulevard and then across the long parking lot. There was some kind of antique car show going on. A good-sized satellite facility had opened on the fairgrounds since I’d been here last.
The track was much larger than I remembered with lots of new towers and decks. I waved at the tile mosaic of Don Diego and got a drink of water at the fountain, then I found my way backside, walked past the training track, through maintenance, down the empty shedrows. I said good morning to two dark, short muckers wearing white cowboy hats and white rubber boots up to their knees, the only souls to be found. Most everyone else was on the circuit and would not return to Del Mar until July. At the racing office I asked for my father’s phone number.
“Who are you?” the secretary wanted to know.
“I’m his son, Eddie Plum.”
“I didn’t know Cal had a son.”
I was shaky and pale and my face was slumped. I was tenuous and perspiring and not making a good impression. “We’re not that close.”
She opened a book. “You want the one in Culver City, Arcadia, or Solana Beach?”
“Arcadia.”
She scribbled on the back of an envelope and slid it across. “You do look kind of like him.”
I dialed the number at the payphone outside the stable café, which was closed. I had good memories of this place from my childhood, the long tables, the bare wooden floor, all the hard, short men in riding boots and helmets eating crackers and soup and toast without butter so they could make weight, the smell of manure and frying bacon and damp hay, the columns of dusty sunshine piercing the windows and the rat-a-tat-tat of Spanish in the
