When Perception is King

“You’re saying perception is better than truth.”
October 1973

His eyes were always bloodshot and puffy, as if he were about to get off the stool and start the 15th.round. His hair was long, shiny and refused to stay down on the right side of his head. He was short and thin but he would not be messed with; in after school fights he was savage and merciless. Even after his opponent was down, Gary would continue to pummeling him with his right which had the sizeable onyx ring on his pinkie and then finished his hapless victim with repeated kicks to the ribs. Winning the fight wasn’t enough; he seemed to be avenging some horrible wrong and would accept anyone as the surrogate perpetrator. When he finally stopped, his face was flushed red, his chest heaving, but his eyes were not quite vacant but definitely dispassionate.
Sometimes he was funny though. He would come swinging down the hall, arms flapping while he called out to his peers and would sometimes break out into song; he had a predilection for the Rolling Stones. On those kinds of days he seemed so carefree that it was hard to believe that he would hurt anyone or get in as much trouble as he did. He was usually in an upbeat mood on Fridays; that was delivery day.
Gary had become so proficient at shoplifting that doing it for kicks became pointless, so he created a delivery service and every ordered item came at a 50% discount. Every Tuesday the shopping list would circulate. A customer simply wrote down his request and signed his name. On Fridays, the customer’s t-shirt, record or transistor radio was delivered. Most of the records he swiped were from Zody’s, and he would sing their jingle, “Zody’s, Zody’s, Zody’s. Values, values, values,” with gleeful irony. His most audacious escapade came when a customer requested two car tires. The story goes that he walked right into the Sears Tire Center in North Hollywood and boldly rolled the tires right out the door into his accomplice’s car. I saw the list once but I too scared to even touch it; I was sure that if I did my fingerprints would be discovered on it and I would go to prison and disgrace the family name.
Gary lived one block from me on a corner house that faced Verdugo. His mother, diminutive and leery, would sit on the front porch blowing streams of smoke from her cigarette as if she were trying to spray paint the sky. Sometimes I’d see her watering the patchy front lawn; hose in one hand cigarette in the other. Other times she’d tend to her flower garden. There was always some outdoor task she was doing. It was as though everything would be all right if only the yard looked good. She even painted the house a bright blue, the ever present cigarette hanging from her mouth. Flowers though were her main preoccupation, and her efforts rendered mixed results. There were times when a wide variety of flowers in a multitude of colors would paint the ever expanding bed in an organized, symmetrical fashion leading up to the front porch. Other times though there would be month after month of weed anarchy making it difficult to imagine there had ever been zinnias, begonias, or mums anywhere near the place.
Mother and son lived alone in the house. I would pass it frequently—on my way to Lenny’s—and on occasion there would be furious arguments between the two and the enraged voices would spill out of the house on to Florence
Street, but unlike arguments one might expect between a teen and a parent, the topics covered other territory: rent; bills; groceries. At some point I realized that
Gary’s shoplifting enterprise was supporting the household.
I didn’t see much of Gary in high school; he was either ditching, suspended, loaded or locked up. Our lives never intersected at that point. He was a block away from me and I had forgotten about him.
One night the phone rang while I was in the place that is deeper than dreams. My body shook as if the sound had become an electric shock. I raced into the kitchen grabbing the phone before Mom could. It could have been mental telepathy or maybe simply a presumption inspired by self-absorption, but I knew the phone was for me and that in all likelihood it was Lenny who was in trouble.
“Jack? Holy shit, man, you’re not gonna believe this, but you know I wouldn’t lie to you, right?”
“What’s wrong, man?”
“It’s the worst fucking thing you ever heard of,” he laughed.
“Are you ok? What is it?” I said, enunciating as if English wasn’t his native language.
“The poster of Joe Namath? There’s like a hundred of them, waving like a flag.”
“What’re you talking about.”
“You don’t get it, man, you don’t get it, you don’t.”
“Ok, I don’t. But you called me so tell what the hell is going on?”
“You can’t get it because I got this bad shit. I smoked this bad shit.”
“Ok, ok. Where are you?”
“At home.”
“I’m on my way.” I put my jeans on over my pj’s and I sprinted the two blocks.
“Ok, spill it,” I said, winded, when I got there.
“Now listen, you remember Gary Doneli, right? Well, shoplifting wasn’t enough for the guy.”
“He’s dealing drugs?”
“If you would shut up long enough….”
“Calm down.”
“Don’t tell me to fuckin’ calm down, all right?”
“Ok. So tell me. What’s going on?”
“And stop using your Marcus Welby voice.”
“All right already, go ahead.”
“You know what a chickenhawk is?"
"Yeah."
"No you don't."
"Yeah, I do. It's a hawk that kills chickens like the one in Foghorn Leghorn cartoons."
"Right, Jake. What're you-- in the fifth grade?"
"That's a chickenhawk, though."
"Right."
"Ok, what is it?"
"A chickenhawk's a pimp."
"Yeah?"
"For guys who like little kids."
"What?"
"I couldn't make this shit up. That's what Gary does."
“That’s sick. How do you know?”
“We’re out driving around in his van…”
“You and Gary?”
“No, me and Kojak.”
“Ok, ok.”
“We’re just driving around and smoking a joint.”
“Yeah?”
“But something about it’s funny.”
“What?”
“It’s not a regular joint. It’s got some other shit in it.”
“Yeah. How do you know?”
“Because you don’t this fucked up on regular dope. You smoke a joint it’s like yeah, it’s all right. Music sounds good. Everything’s cool.”
“Ok.”
“Not with this though. So after awhile I can’t tell whether he’s talking or I’m just thinking it’s him talking.”
“Yeah so maybe what he told isn’t what he told you. Maybe it’s what you think he told you.”
“Yeah but I don’t think that kind of shit. I never heard of it. What kind of freak wants little kids?”
“But it wasn’t what you were thinking; it’s what you think Gary was saying.”
“I wouldn’t think that about other people, not even Gary. Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book ok?”
“I get it.”
“Innocent kids, like 8 and under, that’s the last good thing in this world.”
“You’re right.”
“No shit.”
“There’s always gonna be evil in this world.”
“But not kids, ok? If kids get infected with it what’s left?”
“I don’t know.”
“So he starts talking all this shit like telling me what he does and how much money he makes.”
“But you don’t if it’s the dope or not.”
“That’s what I kept telling myself. But then he says he’s gotta make a stop.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re in North Hollywood somewhere.”
“One giant sewer with cars and houses.”
“Yeah. That’s my line.”
“I know.”
“It sounds stupid when you say it though.”
“Thanks.”
“ So I’m sitting there thinking this can’t be real. I’m dreaming this or something.”
“Yeah.”
“But the van door opens and Gary’s picking up this 8 year old and putting him the front seat.”
“Wait, where were you?”
“In the back, laid out on the shag carpet.”
“Ok. Was the kid a boy or a girl?”
“A boy.”
“Sick.”
“Like it would be better if it was a girl.”
“True.”
“So Gary goes I’m taking Billy to Uncle Tommy.”
“Oh my God. What did you do?”
“What am I gonna do? I can’t even tell if it’s real or not.”
“What about Billy?”
“He’s all quiet. Never said a peep. He’s sitting there with his knees under his chin looking out the window.”
I picked out Brothers and Sisters from the stack of albums against the wall by the record player.
“Be careful with that, Jack. Don’t scratch it. I just bought it.”
“I won’t scratch it.”
“Just like the Stones record.”
“Ok. Watch this.” Greg Allman began singing “Wasted Words.”
“It’s new.”
“Shouldn’t we call the cops or something?”
“What for?”
“To save the kid.”
“How’re the cops gonna do that?”
“What?”
“After Gary says I was stoned out of my mind?”
“You tell them the truth.”
“The truth is I was stoned out of my mind.”
“I mean about Gary and the kid.”
“Which one of us is a better liar, me or Gary?”
“You got the truth on your side. You’re not telling a lie.”
“The truth is in eyes of the guy who’s listening.”
“Ears.”
“What?”
“Ears. The guy’s listening with his ears.”
“Ok, Mr. Shakespeare. Whatever.”
“You’re saying perception is better than truth.”
“Ok then, fine. Perception is King. So what?”
“So what? It’s not right, that’s what. Everything’s screwed up when perception is King.”
“All’s I’m saying is how things should be don’t matter. Only thing that really matters is how things are.”
“But the map is not the place.”
“You try to get that damn book in everything. You can stop going to school, I guess. You read S.I. Hayakawa.”
“So What? What’s wrong with that?”
“Not everything comes out of a book, Jack, all right? Try getting with the real world.”
“So what? You got that from that Soc teacher last semester. It’s real. The real world. All of sudden you know everything cause you’re quoting that guy?”
“Look, it’s a sick, twisted, fucked up world. You want to call a cop so you can feel better. So you can feel like you did something. Like a cop can fix things. But the next day what happens? Same thing. And the day after that and the day after that? Same thing.”
“You have to try.”
“That kid’s life is already screwed. His parents are either stupid or in on the deal. The kid’s life is already over at the age of eight. And don’t forget Gary.”
“What about Gary?”
“There had to be something that fucked his head up so bad. Something probably happened to him when he was a kid.”
“It’s sin.”
“Call it sin or whatever. There’s just a certain amount of people that do real bad, real sick stuff. You just have to hope you’re lucky enough to never cross it.”
“I don’t know, man.” We listened to the Allman Brothers for a while.
“I feel all right now, Jack. My head is clear enough.”
“I don’t feel all right.”
“Just go home. When you wake up tomorrow everything starts all over. It’s still the same but it’s another day. I’m not saying to give up on your religion, just use it on people that are like, you know, half way normal. Use it on people you already know. Except me.”
“But…”
“I got my religion. Like I told you that one time, I’d rather die Jewish and go to hell than go to heaven and change my religion.”
“I know.”
So I went home and tried to sleep, but the image of Billy staring out the window of Gary’s van wouldn’t let me.