The Quiet Limit of the World by Carlos Ramet

Author:Carlos Ramet [Ramet, Carlos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781960018403
Publisher: Running Wild Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“It’s the Friday before Christmas,” Vince teased me. “You couldn’t have picked a worse time to arrive.”

I’d known Vince since freshman year in high school. Later, four of us had shared a two-bedroom apartment in college. We’d done a lot of SCUBA diving together, including wreck dives off Coronado Island and a two-week dive trip to Cozumel. Now, he worked for a furniture store in downtown Anaheim and had just finalized his divorce.

“Great to see you, Vince.”

We embraced and he helped me with my bags as we left the Moorish-style train station and headed to the parking lot.

He looked good; he’d put on some weight, but mostly on the shoulders and upper arms. He kept his brown hair short and had shaved off his “Joe College” beard. I commented on it.

“Now that you’re in sales,” I ribbed him, “you have to look like Clark Kent.”

“I thought I looked more like Clark Gable,” he kidded, “without the moustache.”

Vince put my bags in the trunk of his Ford Capri and we drove from Alameda Street through L.A.’s Chinatown and the brightly decorated lanes of Little Tokyo, then down Broadway with its pawn shops and camera stores, past Central Market and movie palaces that advertised “Cantinflas” on the marquees.

We merged onto the Santa Ana Freeway and moved steadily for a few miles.

“We’ll see how far we get,” Vince said, “in this traffic. When we’re hungry, we’ll pull over somewhere. Maybe the Wagon Wheel in Downey. Get a couple of steaks.”

“My treat,” I insisted. “You drove all the way into town to pick me up.”

“No big deal,” Vince shrugged. “I had to call on a couple of clients in Hancock Park anyway. Show them the new catalogue.”

Vince had majored in psychology and business, so it was no surprise he had ended up in sales. I mentioned that, and he joked: “It was either selling high-end furniture or tending bar. Either way—psych and business—it’s paycheck time.”

He turned to me as he drove.

“So you still have your goatee.”

“It’s a Van Dyke.”

“Same damn thing,” he said, cursing a driver who cut in front of us. Vince honked his horn and muttered: “Son-of-a-bitch.” He shook his head. “Some things never change—bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Five—” He smiled. “You.”

“I’ve changed.”

“I doubt it. I’ll bet you’re still the idealist.” He lifted his hand from the steering wheel and punched my shoulder lightly. “I miss your b.s. Remember all those late-night bull sessions in college? ‘What is the meaning of existence?’ ‘What is the nature of art?’ I’ll bet you’re still bullshitting about those things.”

I didn’t say anything but watched the traffic ooze like mud down a narrow creek bed. I wished it were so, that I was still thinking about frivolous artistic pursuits rather than whether I’d gotten Saloma pregnant. My palms were moist and I rubbed them on my trousers.

We had reached Commerce and were inching past the Uniroyal Factory, disguised as an Assyrian palace with carvings of winged creatures and charioteers. We had entered that section of Interstate-5

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