We were well into the nineties by now, and I had been working at several different places along Ventura Boulevard through those years, one of which was called “Truly Yours.” It was a nice-little-eatery that had excellent-food.
I had often gone to it’s sister-restaurant in the early-eighties with my mom; we both loved the Caesar salad there.
By 1990 they’d opened a location in Reseda. What first got my attention about this new location was that they were open all night.
Great food all night long. I would get in there once in a while after-work for some solid-chow if I was so inclined. Great place.
One night at L’express a fellow name Crane was at the bar. We hit it off well, and as he was leaving he told me that he was the owner of “Truly Yours.”
Well, I had a moment to lay-it-on-thick with many-thanks for all the years of good-service.
A week later he called and asked me to go work for him.
We put a schedule together, and I started in.
By that time they were no longer serving all-night, and were closing closer-to-midnight, which was fine with me, given my schedule.
A funny thing is that for some reason, Truly Yours, though it was an upscale place, had its inordinate-share of odd, and strange happenings.
I was only there for two years, and only for a couple-of-days a week, but things happened there. I’ll tell you about it… Ah, but, no, let’s start here before we get to the weirdness. This story had more bearing on me personally, and is an indication of what was going on behind the scenes, and how I spent some of those bartending years during my days-off.
I was headed into work late one morning in order to drive the afternoon-shift at Truly; I’d only been there for a couple of months.
I came thorough the front door, as usual, made my way to the bar, swung behind, and looked up.
Standing there was a tall, beautiful, blonde-haired girl, with big-blue-eyes, looking at me.
As I stepped toward her, she put on a little smile. Ma-WOW! Cool!
But then I suddenly had darker thoughts; ‘What is this?! Have I been secretly-fired, and replaced?!’
As I got closer she put on a bigger smile, and said “Hi Brennen.”
She said it as though she knew me. It was surreal.
I just figured she was so beautiful, that she had the nerve to address me like that.
I like strong women, but huh.
I smiled, and reached my hand out with a hearty “Hi, what’s your name?!”
She frowned. “It’s me. It’s Malina!” She said it smiling, like I should know her.
“Well, hello Malina!” I said all-friendly. I was thinking what an unusual name that it was, and that I’d never heard it before. I added in “I’m sorry, but where do I know you from?” She then looked hurt, and a little confused.
“Malina! I’m Tammy and Alice’s friend!”
I remained smiling, as I rifled my brain for a Tammy and Alice… Who in hell were Tammy and Alice?! It just wouldn’t arrive to my mind.
She could detect that it wasn’t ringing any bells with me.
“I used to come in and see you all-the-time at L’express!” She said with some humorous indignation.
She seemed so sincere and friendly; I couldn’t imagine she was lying, and for what?..
But here’s the thing: I swear that on a very-terribly, absolutely, crazy-busy night at the bar, I might have missed this woman once for the crowd.
But NOT twice, and I had sure as hell never talked to her. No way, and certainly no “all the time!”
Suddenly it came to me that Tammy Elcar and her friend Alice were down at L’express fairly often, and right-up AT the bar, that was true.
Is that who she meant? I asked. She nodded.
How could it happen, then, that I didn’t know her?!
If she had been with them, she would have been right in my face!
Like having Anita Eckberg or Margot Robbie sitting with your pals at the bar.
I mean, here she was as gorgeous a woman as I could imagine, and I’d NEVER seen her? It was bizarre.
Moreover, I was sure that I had NEVER heard that name- Malina; It was unique and memorable, and in a business based on names and faces, there was no way that I would have forgotten either; like Farrah Fawcette telling you that she knows you, and that you met her a few times, but somehow you don’t remember her face, and the name ‘Farrah’ might have slipped your mind? … No. Not in this lifetime.
But I went with it. I even told her: “I’d NEVER not notice you!”
I probably blushed when I said it, but it was true.
In any case, they had hired her as our new bartender to cover for another guy who was going back to school, and needed to drop a couple of day-shifts… Right on!
She was there to train with me… Great.
But I still couldn’t believe that I had EVER seen this girl. She was a knockout.
And, man. She had Loooong legs. Perhaps it sounds piggish, but I do like legs. And she had nice ones.
So, one thing led to another, and a few weeks later, she asked if she could come over to my place for the afternoon… And whaddya know? Yes! Sure she could! Yes Malina! What a good idea you have!
We became very-good-friends after that, and started hanging-out quite-often.
It was a great time to be alive; I was 32, making decent cash; I was playing music, singing songs, drinking a lot, and Malina was down with it all.
She was fun, funny, and wickedly-witty.
Again, her looks; she looked a bit like Veronica Lake, but she could go from Lucy to May West or get sort of a snappy Barbara Stanwyck thing going too. I was a fan.
At some point, I started to head north to stay at her place on the weekends.
She had her own house that had been built on some acreage that adjoined her Dad’s ranch. It was an amazing property.
She lived over the breezeway of the stables where she kept several horses.
It was quiet, pretty, and bucolic, with lots of beer in the fridge, a guitar in the corner, and several balconies that looked over-through the trees that ran out over the ranch.
I would wake up on Saturdays in the springtime, a little before eleven, having worked the Friday night.
The sun would be up, the birds out-and-singing in the cool day under the blue sky, while I sat on the balcony and two-fisted beer and coffee, while playing guitar into the early afternoon.
We would drink more, and then have breakfast at about three; a memorable day-off, to be sure.
That was how that stretch of time rolled along; endless good-times.
I would probably still be there, but that life takes tricky turns.
As it happened, one night several months later, her father had gone to Europe, and so we were up in the palatial-front-house, barbecuing steaks and getting pretty silly on a drunken and romantic Friday night.
Having fun, cooking, running around with the music swinging along.
We had wine chilling, and had started warming up the hot-tub, when a car pulled up in the front drive.
Malina made the “Oh, hell, what is that?” Face, and got up to look out the front window.
“Who the…? Well, that’s my sisters friend Karen… And who’s… Oh, that’s Karen’s mom… What are they doing here?”
I could tell that she was bummed that they had interrupted us, but there was really nowhere to hide; the house was lit, and it was obvious someone was home.
After a couple seconds there was a knock.
I stayed in the kitchen while Malina went to answer the door, hoping that she could hustle-them-off, and we could get back to our thing.
I heard the door open. I could sort of hear her mumbled “Hey Karen, Mrs…”
But then suddenly, the louder, insistent, bordering-on-panicky, crystal-clear voice of the mother came out in a rush- “Malina. We lost your sister to a heroin overdose this morning...” There was just a split-second of silence.
Then Malina screamed. It was a horrible sound.
She was screaming and crying and moaning and “NOOO!” All at once.
Then the other two started crying. A terrible moment.
I got up and ran-over to her to hold her up, and keep her from falling or, hell, I didn’t know what.
I don’t know how insane I might get if someone told me something like that- jump through the window?
And just like that, one of life’s most dreaded-moments had arrived; you just could never expect that THAT was coming!
She struggled and screamed. And MAN, I was ripped-and-horrified at what was happening; suddenly very un-buzzed!
I lost track of time then; minutes were forever.
We got her onto the big couches in the living room where she continued to scream and cry.
There was a sickening juxtaposition between the gorgeous living room, all set up for fun-parties and warm holiday-functions, the smell of steaks and things cooking in the air, and Malina’s screaming; it had the feel of evil and darkness.
We began to try to track down her father, but all we could get was that he was supposed to be in Germany.
We reached her half-brother who lived a few hours out; he said he’d be on his way.
I plied her with lots of vodka over the course of that night and had a few for myself.
By sometime between midnight and three a.m., several of her girlfriends had gotten there, and brought more booze. They started to pour for her, and it seemed to be helping; keeping her from getting zinged with the raw-pain; the booze kept her out of some of those depths.
It was one of the rare times in my long association with alcohol that I truly saw where it had been useful.
Karen and her Mom had gone home at some point, probably well after three, and her step-brother had shown up. He was a great guy, calm and resourceful; It was tragic to have to meet him under those circumstances.
By sunrise her other half-brother had gotten there from Phoenix.
The three of them debated making the call to their Dad. The thought was that perhaps they’d let him finish his business in Germany, but in the end they decided that he would not want them to have waited to tell him.
And, so, at some point their dad had been contacted and informed of the situation. I don’t remember the upshot of that, but what could he do all alone, and from five-thousand miles away? I can’t imagine that kind of pain. Like out of a movie.
I stayed there next to Malina. It was horrible.
Of course I would stay there. What else to do? Say “Sorry, this is all too heavy, I gotta go..?” No.
So I stayed for two-or-three-days while she went from sort-of-normal, to wailing-cries, as the reality would come back to her time to time. It was traumatic as hell. Being in that front-house was terrible; it had gone from big, palatial, and fun, in my mind, to tall-dark and cold; a bastion of misery.
I finally had to leave to go to work that week.
I left her with several close-friends to watch over her. They did.
I came back a couple days later, and other days, but she never got through it.
Nothing was ever the same after. She started drinking more, smoking a lot, and lost a lot of weight.
We tried to get together a few times, but the moments were always iterated like those last minutes before the car pulled up outside on that Friday night; there was always THAT that wouldn’t let go, but the worst part, was, like I said, she never got through it.
She started to fall apart; began to forget things, quit going to work, and started having money trouble.
Over the course of the following year she lost her tall poise; there were no more jokes, or funny commentary, and much of her expression became melancholy, or even just blank.
Her hair got stringy, her skin looked thin-and-papery, and her clothes hung drably, as she would wear things for days-in-a-row.
She looked wasted, her pretty-blue-eyes, ringed in a yellowy-red.
There were more lines on her increasingly-pink and booze-puffed face.
It’s true that shocking-pain can do that to you. I saw it.
It was sad and pitiful, and I couldn’t help her.
At some point, truth be told, I became repelled by the whole situation.
She moved-away eventually, which I think was a boon to us both.
There was no good ending here; it was all hard, and how quickly life can change everything forever in one swift stroke.
A lesson never to take anything for granted. It can go. In a moment.
Yes, a cliche, but you’ll know it, and feel it, when it happens to you.
A dark moment, but true.
And so, next week we’ll roll into some of the absurdities from that time-frame.
Like we do.
Have a great week amigos!