Alison Lurie - The Nowhere City

Dots of sun shone through the wool and into Katherine’s eyes. She lifted the sweater and looked down the beach. The girl in the bikini had her head down now, her long, bleached hair spread over her face; but the two men were still staring in Katherine’s direction. Really, how rude. Where was Paul? There, down by the water. He had progressed no farther into the Pacific Ocean, but still stood waist deep, waving his arms, rebuffed by wave after wave.

With irritation, Katherine sat up and began piling her things onto one of the towels. Then she stood, took hold of one end, and dragged her possessions away along the sand until she was about thirty feet from the intruders.

It was at this moment that Paul decided to come out of the water. He walked up the beach, not towards Katherine, but towards the natives. For a moment she feared that he was going to say something rude to them on her behalf and start a fight, so she beckoned nervously to him. He waved back, but went on, though more slowly. The men sat up as Paul approached, the girl in the bikini raised her head. Now he had come up and was shaking hands with them, one after the other. What in heaven’s name was going on? Paul pointed down the beach towards Katherine, and waved at her to come over. Then, as she did not move, he ran towards her.

“Come on,” he called as he came near. “These people want to meet you. One of them is the guy that has the car I’m thinking of buying. He’s going to show it to me today.” He stood beside her now, still panting from his exercise, dripping salt water. He picked up one of the towels, shook it out, and began to rub his hair.

“Oh, I see. I wondered how you knew them.” Though relieved, Katherine did not sit up. “I had to move all our things away because they had their radio on so loud,” she said. “I don’t want to meet them. What should I meet them for?” She laughed a little. “I just couldn’t believe it when I saw you talking to them; how could you ever know people like that, I thought. Did you ever see such dreadfully vulgar bathing suits?”

Paul hung the wet towel around his shoulders. He grinned briefly at Katherine, but made no answer. “He wants to show me the car now; it’s parked near here.”

“All right, go and look at it.” Katherine lay down again. It was no concern of hers what car Paul bought, or from whom. All cars looked the same to her.

“Aren’t you going in? The water’s great.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I will later.”

Neither Paul nor Walter Wong spoke as they walked up the beach, casting occasional covert looks at each other. Paul was feeling very uncomfortable; he had not expected Walter to be here today. He had come to meet a friend of the Tylers named Kelly who was going to Mexico and wanted to unload his car. It sounded pretty good—a 1932 Ford with a ’45 Ford flathead V-8 engine. It was a “street drag” (the term “hot rod,” he had learned, was obsolete) equipped and tuned for riding around town in, rather than a “competition drag” intended for racing.

But Kelly had already left for Mexico, it turned out, and had asked Walter Wong to sell the car for him. Paul did not want to derive anything more from Wong, or have any further dealings with him. He was going to go through the formalities of looking at the car, because that was socially easier than refusing to see it, but he wasn’t going to buy anything.

It was a long way to where the dragster was parked, and his feet slipped in the hot sand. He was tired from his struggle with the Pacific Ocean, and had difficulty keeping up with Walter, who moved rapidly ahead up the beach, spraying back sand with his thin, knobby feet. How the hell did Ceci ever get mixed up with this skinny little creep? Will you look at that scraggy beard, like Fu Manchu or something. And he sells Fuller brushes for a living.

“That’s her.” In an alley off the ocean front Walter and Paul stood before a beautifully preserved Ford coupé, shiny jet-black with dark green trim. Paul wanted it at once, in spite of his resolution. He walked round, looking it over.

“What kind of brakes has it got?” he asked.

“1956 Mercury brakes and wheels in front, ’46 Lincoln brakes in back.”

“Hm,” Paul said, impressed. A technical discussion followed. Walter Wong opened the hood, pointed out what he said were two Stromberg 97 carburetors on the engine or “mill,” and started the motor. Gradually Paul became less exclusively conscious of their conflicting relation to Ceci, and more aware of Walter’s patience, automotive knowledgability, and even a kind of wry charm. The more he saw and heard of the Ford, the better he liked it. After all, he began to say to himself, it’s not Wong’s car. But for bargaining purposes, as well as to discourage his own covetousness, he continued to denigrate it mildly (“I was hoping to pick up something with fuel injection”).

“Why don’t you take it over yourself?” he asked presently. “You could use it for your sales work; it ought to make a big impression on the customers.”

Walter shook his head. “I’ve got a car. Anyhow, I’ve quit the brushes.”

“Yeah?”

“Had to.” He leaned back against the Ford, under the open hood. “You have to hustle too much on these commission deals. Like you’ve got to have the salesman’s mentality.” He smiled. “You know: the Protestant ethic. I was running into some real swinging scenes, but I wasn’t making any bread. I’ve got a new gig now.”

“Oh? What’re you doing?”

“I’m an exterminator.” Walter pantomimed squirting with a can of Flit. “Universal Insect and Rodent Control. Like ants, roaches, spiders, silverfish, mice, rats—all that.”

Paul laughed, though a little nervously. Looking at Walter Wong, with his strange thin beard, his hard brown arms and legs, his brief bathing suit patterned in black and yellow, he thought that he could not have chosen a more suitable profession. But was he the Pied Piper or the leader of the Insects and Rodents?

“Rats?” he said. “Do you really have rats in Los Angeles?”

“Do we have rats? The place is crawling with them. All kinds. The worst are the big ones up in the palm trees.”

“Oh, come on,” Paul said. He looked up. Not far away, the dry, brittle fronds and rough trunk of a palm broke the pale expanse of sky. “Rats in the palm trees?”

“Man, I’m telling you,” Walter said. “We don’t take care of them—it’s too much for us. The city has to do it. That’s why you see those big yellow trucks going around all the time stripping the trunks, like so the rats can’t climb up there. You watch them some time when you see one of those trucks. It’s some fun. When they start on an old tree, wow, you’ll see those bastards jumping off it and running to beat hell in every direction. Crazy!” He grinned.

Paul did not believe this. He decided that Walter was trying to make fun of him. Well, he would show that he wasn’t taken in. “Yeah,” he said dryly. “It must be almost as much fun as when they chased the Japs out of town.” As soon as the words were sounded he remembered that Walter Wong was half-Chinese.

Immediately, Walter’s whole face changed. His amused smile was wiped off as if with a sponge; his expression became impassive—Orientally impassive. Paul knew he ought to apologize, but before he could arrange the words, Walter began to speak in a flat, slow, anonymous voice, a completely new voice, making some complicated remarks about the car and what sounded like “Iskenderian cams.” Paul did not try to understand him.

“Uh-huh,” he said as soon as Walter had stopped speaking. “Listen, I’m sorry about that crack. I guess I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Yeah,” Walter said, leaning against the car and staring into space. His voice altered slightly in the direction of humanity. “It’s like we minority groups have got to stick together.”