Stories From Westlake Village

When you write for a newspaper, even one as disreputable as "The Guardian," you write when occasions demand. You cover stories: break-ins (few), real estate sales (fewer), births and deaths (more of the latter than the former). These mundane events along life's highway are the bread and butter for the newspaper man.

In these final sweet November years of my life, I often contemplate writing a work of lasting literary merit. Something with full narrative expression, scintillating dialogue spoken by fascinating characters caught up in a riveting story of universal appeal. The thought usually pops into my head when things are slow at the "Guardian." I start making notes and planning a story line. This is about as far as I get – it seems to be a signal for things to happen.

The phone rings. Lucas answers and says, "You're kidding! Drove off in the Mercedes, huh? Bet'cha Danny had a shit hemorrhage, huh?" Then he turns to me and say, "It's for you." In such cases the literary world must go back and sit in the corner. It is a newspaper after all, even if it's only published twice a month. I must follow each fading scent like the tired old bird dog I am and decide whether or not to tell the good folks of Westlake Village why Marcy Spivak packed her bags and drove off in Danny's Mercedes.

Such news should not be unexpected to anyone who knew the Spivaks. It's news to savor in the dark places of the mind. We knew it might happen sometime, and although if asked, we would deny it, we even hoped it would happen. Now that it has happened, we want to know how it happened. I'm not suggesting the "Guardian" is a tabloid or an organ of smut and adultery. But our ears are always open for a good juicy story. It is a well known fact in the newspaper business that advertising revenues increase in direct ratio to the amount of juice contained therein.

We don't print gossip, though, particularly the unsubstantiated gossip that Aggie Rindepest is notorious for. That way lies litigation. Though not alone, she is our chief contributor to the "dirt" file, as we call it. She insists her information is 'gospel' not 'gossip'. Her inquisitive nose, laser-like eyes, and sensitive ears are at work everywhere – at the supermarket, behind the whispering couple in the pew ahead, and at her observation station behind the see-through curtain of her living room window. Even her dog is a part of her information-gathering network; he is walked much more than he needs to be. Late every afternoon, with a scotch and water by her side, she laboriously dials the "Guardian" and reports her findings.

"Hullo! Who'm I talkin to?" It will be Stacey, Lucas, or me. If it's not me, I'll soon be given the call because I seem to have a knack with ladies like Aggie Rindepest.

"There wuz a police car outside the Spivak's all afternoon. I seen it first around 2 o'clock when I just happened to look out the winda. I looked later and it wuz still there."

"How much later, Aggie?"

"Oh, I guess around ten after two."

"O.K., Aggie thanks for the tip."

"Wait! That's not all!"

"Well, I'm on my way out right now, Aggie. Why don't you talk to Harry Buschman?"

This is what she was hoping for. I'm a good listener, and she will tell me not only what she has seen and heard but her personal interpretation of the evidence as well.

"The way things are goin' with those two, I wouldn't be s'prised if she walks out on him."

Or --"I tell you they have a very unfriendly dog. I can't get near that fence lessen he barks his head off."

Or even --"No decent Christian woman wears black underwear. I'll tell you that right now."

"Imagine that, Aggie. How'd you know it's black?"

"First off, when a decent woman hangs her wash out, she puts her inamit apparel inside the sheets. But, oh no! not Marcy Spivak, she just hangs it out there . . . like, er, well like . . . here it is, come on in an' get me!"

Aggie lives diagonally across the street from the Spivaks, and since their life style differs greatly from hers, she watches them constantly. She would watch closely in any case, but Marcy is a rather young 44 while Danny Spivak looks ten years older than his 50. This discrepancy is not lost on Aggie. She can sense an impending crisis.

"Anything new from Aggie?" Stacey asked me.

"Well, I guess Marcy's left town, and I learned a few intimate details." I brought my 'dirt file' up to date, then leered at Stacey. "Where do you hang your underwear up to dry?"

"I don't, my Mom's got a dryer. Why, what's that got to do with Marcy?"

"Well, Aggie says Marcy wears black underwear, and she doesn't hide it inside the sheets when she hangs it out to dry."

Stacey chewed on that little bit of information along with her bubble gum for a while. She was on the point of speaking a couple of times but held her tongue. Finally she seemed to come to some kind of conclusion.

"Y'know, I don't know who's worse . . . you or Aggie! What difference does it make where she hangs her underwear . . . and why do you have to write that down in your dirty 'dirt' book anyway? The paper's never gonna print that stuff in the first place."

"All great journalists keep notes, Stacey. A little piece of information like that, however small, might be key in a chain of documentation . . . the paper might need that in the future. Also, I plan on writing a book, you know."

She shook her head and mumbled, "Yeah, I heard," then went back to her word processor, typing as though she had a personal grudge against the keys. Finally, with the natural curiosity that all women are born with, regardless of age, she turned to me again.

"Where'd she take off to in the Mercedes?'

"I dunno, Stacey. Aggie couldn't follow her on foot. By the way there was a police car there earlier. too."

She paused in her typing with her two index fingers poised over the keys. "Neat-O, that's more like it! Looks like splitsville, huh? . . . and all because she didn't hide her underwear in the sheets."

Her eight other fingers suddenly sprang to life, and her typing went from twenty to ninety words per minute. Now that her mind was occupied, her fingers were unchained -- Vladimir Horowitz would have been impressed.

Stacey has been engaged to Murray Feldman going on two years. Murray is a buyer for Cosmo Imports, and I suspect Stacey had first class visions of spending her summers on the Mediterranean and wintering at Biarritz. Instead, Murray goes tourist class to places like Korea, the East Indies, and Calcutta. In addition, Murray cannot live more than five miles from his mother, while Stacey must live as close to Bloomingdales as she can get. Their romance is stormy at times. She has bad days, and when she does, it can be dangerous to rub her the wrong way, so to speak.

Occasionally a juicy tidbit will be related by Aggie Rindepest concerning Stacey. At such times Lucas and I must be very careful to keep such intelligence from her, while at the same time discussing it nostalgically between us without her hearing.

"I wuz out walkin' my dog, and they wuz out there in the car together. Must'a been 11:30. The winders were so steamed up I couldn't see in."

"Gee, Aggie, if you couldn't see in, how did you know they were in there?"

"Oh I ain't been born yesterday, I know'd what wuz goin' on. So'd my dog . . . he commenced to growl and I wuz afraid he'd start to bark."

Aggie had also spotted them in the back row of the movies when she went to see "Titanic," in the liquor store buying champagne, and checking out mattresses in "Sleepy's". She seems to catch everyone at the worst possible moment.

Out of respect for a co-worker, the tidbits concerning Stacey do not go into the 'dirt' file. They may be discussed somewhat cavalierly between Lucas and me for a time, but they are soon forgotten.

"Do you think they -- er --?"

"How the hell do I know! -- Wouldn't s'prise me."

"Aggie's told me a few things about you, y'know."

"What kinda things?"

"Never mind."

"Well, she's got her eye on you, too, y'know."

"ME!!"

"Yes, you."

Well, that put an end to it! Lucas dragged his jumbo shredder over to the locked file cabinet where we keep the 'dirt' file.

"Stace! -- Guess what?"

"Now what?" she answered abstractedly.

"We're shredding the 'dirt' file!"

It marked the beginning of a new day at the "Guardian." With the sticky-fingered threat of scandal hanging over all of us, we decided to go legitimate. Our ears are no longer open to calumny and idle surmise. It has left our 'reliable sources' high and dry, however. The most vocal among them is Aggie Rindepest, who has found herself talking into a dial tone when we hang up on her.

Maybe now I'll get that book written after all.