The First Time I Went to Charlie's Home

The first time I went to Charlie’s home it was early dusk, almost completely dark,

but still with a little light.  I drove up the steep hill on the narrow, winding street in

the heart of town, wondering why they had no sidewalks and instead had steep,

rock-studded concrete ditches on both sides of the road with no shoulders, and how

people who lived here had to drive this crazy street every day, and why did

they make it so hard? 

I was looking for his address.  He had told me the cross-street to look for and

other landmarks, and there it was, tucked into a corner of sorts, with a very tall,

pine tree next to the driveway.  It had a Biden-Harris sign nailed way up high–

how could anyone reach that high to put it up?

 

The driveway itself was a strip of narrow asphalt sharply curved around a large

mound covered in jade plants and a wild array of succulents.  I saw his silver

Nissan Leaf parked between some trees on a dirt off-shoot. The front yard was

a profusion of trees and plants, hard to see distinctly in the dark, but lush and wild.  

It was a house I had noticed before and never knew quite what to make of.  It was mostly hidden and not showy like a lot of the houses in the neighborhood.  All you could really see was the front wall–a huge multi-paned window–and a bit of the side of the house.  It was the old Del Mar style of board-and-batten construction, a style I’d never seen before I moved to Southern California, but ubiquitous here.

As I pulled into the driveway, all I could think was, “how will I ever back out of here?”  I would be backing out into a curve on a dark street, a short distance from an intersection.  In the dark!  To do it once was one thing, but who would purposely live with this kind of driveway and do this everyday?  That’s what I was thinking.  “And just what did this dinner invitation mean anyway?  What were his intentions?  How did he see me?” It was all a mystery to me.  But exciting.  At last something intriguing was happening.  I was full of wonder.

I pulled in, not quite sure how far to pull in–I could see a lot more driveway ahead.  The house had small round lights all around the roof, and there was a light from the patio and a room with french doors.  And there was Charlie!  He was peeking over a tall picket fence between the patio and the driveway gate–his curly white hair gleaming in the light and a huge smile on his face.  He’d been watching me. All my worries and thoughts about the driveway, the street, the dark, what I was doing there, and his intentions were completely gone.  He welcomed me with such warmth and enthusiasm, I felt like I was home.  He welcomed me home.  

He told me to pull up further into the driveway–meaning it would be even harder to get out!  “Let’s go around front,” he said, showing me the way.  We walked on a narrow brick path through the flower bed against the house and the bushes and trees and gardens in the yard, and up some wooden steps and through a glass-paned door into an old world-style kitchen and the wonderland of Charlie.  The kitchen looked like ones I’d seen in the Handmade Houses book my friend Michael had given me years ago.  Lots of wood cabinets and open shelves.  Small but efficient, just the way my mother always said a kitchen should be laid out so that everything was close at hand.  I felt like I had walked into a hippie’s house in the 70s, and I actually had, and I loved it.  

He had made soup.  In those days, he was getting most of his meals from a Jewish food service for older people.  I’d been told by our friend Carol, who introduced us, that he wasn’t much interested in food, and I was surprised that he had invited me over for dinner and offered to cook and didn’t want me to bring anything, but he had, and here I was, and he was proudly describing what he’d done to the soup to make it better, and it really was good.  He had also made a good salad.  And there was dessert. He was putting on quite a show.

It was a cool, fall night, like tonight, sometime in late October or early November, before Thanksgiving.  It was a soup night.  He had a fire going in the fireplace in the living room–a round brick fireplace surrounding a cast-iron stove.  We sat at his antique round oak table, where he’d already laid out the dinner settings.  

The lights were muted, the air was soft and cool, and he smiled and talked to me the way I’d always wanted someone to smile and talk to me.  Sitting under a floor lamp, his curly white hair glowing, he read to me in a quiet, strong, melliflous voice–a beautiful story from House of Rain by Claude Childs about crawling into a cave and discovering an almost perfectly preserved ancient Native American dwelling. When he finished the story, we sat quietly together in awe, without speaking for awhile, just taking it all in.  “Here, you take the book,” he said, “Read it to your students tomorrow.”

On the hour, a ship’s bell rang, startling me. He pointed out the brass ship’s clock on his wall, from his father’s days in the Navy.  At other points, his cell phone rang with a loud “aooogah,” from his days on submarines.  Our whole conversation punctuated by ship bells and aoogahs, we talked and talked, about our marriages, our moves, pivotal moments and people. We discovered books we’d both read, like Robert Johnson’s We.  He told me he had met Robert Johnson, who helped him when his first marriage ended.

I looked around the kitchen and living room, taking it all in.  “What’s this?” I asked about a little wooden bear hanging by cords on the wall by the stove. He shrugged, “I think it’s a toy of Anna’s from her childhood?”  “That’s really cool,” I replied, “I can’t quite figure out how to make it work–maybe it’s supposed to slide up and down the cords?” He wasn’t sure, “Maybe it doesn’t work anymore.”  “Well, I like it,” I smiled, “and it’s cool that you have it after all these years.”  

The house was full of memories and unexpected treasures–an archaeological trove. He gave me a tour, talking about each room and his life. We looked at all the family pictures on the walls and his son D’avid’s paintings of Native Americans and angels. It was all dark and all extraordinary and looked like the magic kingdom to me.  

We talked about Thanksgiving, and neither of us had plans, so I invited him over, and he said he’d come and would bring mashed potatoes.  And the next night we’d see each other at Carol’s, just like we did every night.

When it was time to go, I told him I was concerned about backing out of the driveway.

He laughed, “Don’t worry.  I’ll guide you.  It’s easy.  Just pick a side, and only look at that side. I’ll watch the street for you.  Pick a side!”

I did just what he said, and he guided me out, and it was easy.

I drove home in wonder, still not having any idea what that was all about.  I couldn’t read him at all.  But I was happy and knew we were friends and that I would be back and get to know him better and that it would be magical.

That night I dreamed that I was welcomed onto the property by a woman with long white hair and ushered into the backyard to an open hut where Charlie was seated next to a dark-haired woman, and they all 3 motioned for me to come sit by him.

This memory is with me all the time, and I feel it especially every night at dusk in the fall.