Air four years later. That February, for my fifth birthday, Dad and Esther throw a lavish birthday costume party at Lola’s in my honor. They dress me up as a pint-sized caballero. Actor Chad Everett (later of TV’s Medical Center fame) is among the invited guests. He brings a pony for all us kids to ride. Dad even gives me my earliest tips on picking up women when he introduces me to a little señorita who catches my fancy. Of course, by now, I am a master at nodding and letting him do all the talking.
It is the most time my father and I ever spend together. From kindergarten through third grade, he picks me up every day from school and drops me off at Lola’s main house while he hangs out with Esther at the guesthouse. For me, Dad becomes the image of what it is to be a man, and quite an image it is: this huge voice and grand presence always willing to share and teach me many important lessons on becoming a man. One of my favorites is his teaching me how to give a person a firm handshake.
“Look them right in the eye, Son,” he says and then practices with me. I am only six years old. “Now shake my hand.”
I extend my right hand, grip his loosely, and shake.
“That’s not firm enough,” Dad admonishes me. “Don’t give me a fish. Give me a handshake.”
I try again.
“In the eye, look me straight in the eye,” he reminds me.
I stare so hard into his eyes, mine tear up from the strain.
“Good. Now again.”
Anytime I come over to visit or stay for dinner, Esther is always accommodating. She is an honest-to-goodness home-loving wife and mother through and through. She is also a terrific cook, as I quickly discover, and is truly in her element whenever she entertains. Even when we all go together to the beach with my friends, she really puts out a feast. She cooks the kind of meals served for dinner on Saturday night—mouthwatering, home-cooked lamb shanks or pot roasts as the main course, with roasted corn, potatoes, and asparagus—all made in a hibachi right on the beach. Dad makes it my job to load Esther’s Mustang convertible before we pick up my friends Bill and Dave, or Jay and Jeff, all of whom live up the street (they are so skinny Dad collectively nicknames them “The Bird”), and head to the beach.
My father makes a circle in the sand with the heel of his foot around him and Esther and the food every time we go to the beach. It means that area is off-limits. Dad says, “You boys stay out until you are called.”
Of course, my father has an ulterior motive: The last thing he wants is a bunch of crazy kids kicking up sand on his lamb shanks!
As Esther cooks and Dad sits and reads the newspaper, we do what most kids do when they go to the beach: frolic and have fun. We have a blast together—body-surfing, digging holes in the sand, chasing each other, tackling each other. The water is so cold we come out freezing and shivering, and bury ourselves in the sand from head to toe to keep warm.
One of Dad and Esther’s favorite pastimes is gardening. They love it as a stress reliever and enlist me, whether I want to or not, to assist them. It is again all a part of my father’s effort to instill responsibility in me at an early age. He is of that old-fashioned mind-set that if I am old enough to hold a trash bag, I am old enough to stand there and hold it for him.
“Over here, amigo,” Dad says before instructing me exactly on how to hold the bag as he stuffs in ivy clippings, overgrown brush, or whatever else he is cutting back for the fire season.
After we finish, my quirky father throws all this stuff—large bags of clippings and bundles of branches twined together—in the back of Esther’s stylish Mustang convertible as if it is a dump truck and takes it all to the nearby dump. Incidentally, million-dollar homes in the very affluent neighborhood known as Summit Ridge now sit on that dump site. Today, every time somebody successful tells me they live in Summit Ridge, I laugh because those homes are built on top of crap and God knows what else.
Any spillage from the bag is also my responsibility. Dad points to some clippings that never quite make it inside. “Be a good amigo and pick those up, too,” he says, “and when you are done, help Esther.”
Esther never really needs my help. She seems to have things under control. My father, however, believes it is the responsibility of a man to do what women cannot do for themselves. The first time I walk over to help Esther, she smiles down at me. I never say a word to her and do exactly as told. After bagging the last of the garden clippings and mess, she pats me on the shoulder and says, “It’s okay if you help, but your father is the one who really needs your help.”
We look over. Dad is struggling to lift two large bags of clippings and deposit them in her Mustang. The bags are so overfilled and top-heavy they look as if they are ready to split at the seams. Just as my father starts to toss them, the top bag explodes like an overstuffed Mexican piñata, and everything rains down on him at once, covering him in dirt, leaves, branches, and debris. It is like a scene out of a slapstick comedy. Esther and I giggle under our breath. Suddenly Dad blinks his eyes open. After he wipes away the grit, he hollers comically, “Lor-en-zo!”
Esther and I start laughing, and Dad does, too. He realizes the silliness of the moment and embraces it.
Lola has never had any children herself, and so she always treats me like her little prince any time I visit. In fact, she gives me the book The Little Prince to read and is always encouraging my imagination. When I turn five, she takes me to Disneyland, introducing me to all of the great Disney fantasy characters. Her property is expansive, with clusters of big and small trees she calls her “Enchanted Forest.” I find it all very enchanting indeed, spending hours there with her, taking long walks with her through the forest. I discover empty Coke bottles and leave messages in them in the trunks of those trees. Every time I go back to Lola’s with Dad, I want to see if my bottled messages are still where I have left them. One message I write to Pinocchio asks, “Why does your nose grow?”
One time, to my astonishment, a message I left is missing. “Lola, where did the message go?” I ask.
“Pinocchio took them,” she says, enchantingly.
I have all these foster people in my life—Emmy, who fills that maternal need, and then Lola, who is like the grandmother I never had. My parents are busy and distracted, and so I am very lucky to have these loving people spend time with me growing up, giving me good advice and helping me realize there is no limit to what I can accomplish. I feel so fortunate to have such guiding help from people who have my best interests at heart.
Dad sells his Alfa Romeo and is soon driving a gorgeous red-leather-on-black, four-door Jaguar Mark X sedan. His new toy for the moment, he drives it everywhere. It is so luxurious he can never get enough of it. One day we are heading home on Sunset Boulevard after he picks me up from school—I am six years old at the time—when suddenly we hear the sound of a bad blowout. We assume somebody’s tire has blown.
“Boy, that’ll be one unhappy amigo when they find out,” Dad jokes.
Just as he says that, kerthump, kerthump, kerthump. The sound grows louder. Dad realizes the person with the flat is him. He is very unhappy about it, especially after just joking how some other poor amigo must have blown his tire.
“Wonderful!” Dad moans. “Just my luck.”
We are near a blind curve on Sunset Boulevard. Dad quickly pulls over and jumps out. The left rear tire is flat. He walks back to my side of the vehicle, picks me up, and sits me down on the grass to play with my Hot Wheels away from the traffic while he jacks up the car to change the tire. Before doing so, he smartly grabs two emergency flares from the trunk. He lights them and puts them out in the middle of the street to alert drivers as he changes the tire in the face of oncoming traffic. With a speed limit then of twenty-five miles per hour, drivers have plenty of time to change lanes and go around us.
Dad is busy changing the tire while I am busy playing. Suddenly, he hollers, “Look out!”
Loud screeching of tires as Dad hurdles over the back of the Jag, lands and rolls, and ends up a foot from me on the grass. Then Kablam!