Years ago, I was
working two jobs and going to school full time.
Rarely did the two jobs overlap, but one of the few times they did was
on a particular New Year’s Eve in the mid-1980s.
I worked security at a shopping mall forty hours a week. The
job was good because it paid better than flipping burgers and it offered plenty
of down time to study for my classes. My second job involved playing keyboards in various bands in dives around L.A. and
at weddings and bar mitzvahs. At the
mall, I met many off duty LAPD officers who moonlighted as additional
security. All of the officers and my
fellow security personnel knew I was a musician, and most of them also were
familiar with the places where I played.
One New Year’s Eve, I
had to work my regular shift at the mall before running home to change, load up
my equipment, and get myself to Hollywood to play at a Filipino night club
called The Bayanihan. A friend of mine recommended me for the
job. He was the regular keyboardist for
the house band, but he had a more lucrative gig that night, so he asked me to
sub for him. He owned top-of-the-line equipment;
in those days, that meant the latest digital synthesizer on the market, the Yamaha
DX7. I owned a Rhodes Electric Piano, an
old, old instrument that had only one sound, albeit a classic one from the
1970s and 80s. My friend also was a
master at sight reading whereas I had to study the music and practice to get it
right. Getting it right and sounding
like the original recording are incredibly important when playing keyboards in
a top 40 cover band. So going in, I was
at an extreme disadvantage.
One of the officers, a
helicopter pilot, and another, a Hollywood Division officer, were on duty that
day at the mall. As I left, they wished
me well on my performance that evening while grinning and elbowing each
other. There was something up but I did
not have the time to ponder what they might be planning. I made it to the gig on time and set up my
heavy, outdated equipment and tried to ignore the concerned looks of my new
band mates. The three Filipina singers
plopped a huge, overfilled binder on top of my Rhodes and told me that was what
they would be covering that night. I
paged through the book. I knew the songs
from the radio, but I had never played them, and the charts were intricate,
demanding exactitude if I was to help the band cover the tunes in a
recognizable fashion. Plus, the only
song I saw that utilized a Rhodes piano was the Billy Joel classic, “Just The
Way You Are.” To this day, I hate that song.
I stumbled and bumbled
my way through the first set, and I think the singers wanted me fired right
then and there, but since there were no other keyboard players in the house,
they were stuck with me. The Filipinos
dancing and drinking in the club seemed not to notice my ineptitude, and of
course, the longer the evening went, the more drunk everyone became, so my off-key
blunders were of no concern to anybody but my fellow band mates.
As we closed out a
set, I noticed two uniformed police officers enter the back of the club. One waved at me, and I realized it was Jerry,
the Hollywood Division officer who had worked the mall with me that day. He was a tall, strapping cop, a former
Marine, with his blond hair in a crew cut.
His partner I didn’t know, but he was another tall, muscled white guy
with a tomato-red complexion.
The band took a break,
and I walked back to say hello. Jerry
introduced me to his counterpart, Mike, and told me that the club had a
standing arrangement with the police that if they came by while on duty, they
could eat for free as a way of adding additional security. The band also got to eat free; we just went
to the kitchen and asked for different Filipino delicacies hot off the
stove. Jerry and Mike made their
selections and since I had never eaten Filipino food, I ordered what they
ordered. Then we went outside and sat in
their patrol car to eat.
We were well into our
plates of vibrantly red meat, something that looked like chow mein, and fried
or steamed rice as well as other unknown dishes and sides when Jerry made a
startling claim. “This is the best dog
I’ve ever had,” he said around his mouth full of food. The cops were known for their practical
jokes. In fact, they often spent whole
shifts playing tricks on their fellow officers and on the security staff. But Jerry seemed to be serious about his
proclamation about the meat on his plate.
“This can’t be dog,” I
sputtered. “You can’t serve dog in a
restaurant.”
Jerry and Mike both
started laughing. “Sure you can,” Jerry
said. They don’t put it on the menu; you
have to ask for it special.”
I called bullshit on
this. “What about health
inspectors? And where do they get the
dogs? The local animal shelter?”
“Yeah, the local
animal shelters,” Jerry said. “They’re
just going to kill them anyway.”
“That cannot be true,”
I replied.
This seemed to
irritate Jerry a bit. “Who did two tours
in Vietnam? Who took his leave in the
Philippines? They eat dogs, man, all throughout
southeast Asia.”
I did not know if what
he said was true although just to be safe, I was done with Filipino food. At least the meat. What could be done to vegetables? Still, I wondered if dog meat could be the
secret ingredient on menus across the city in restaurants from southeast Asia.
After our break, as we
were assembling on stage for our next set, I casually mentioned to the
guitarist as he was tuning up, “I just had a great plate of dog.” I smiled at him like the meal had been a
revelation from God.
“Yeah,” he said leaning
close so I would hear him over the rest of the band tuning their
instruments. “They marinate it for a
long time and slow cook it; that is what makes it tender.” He winked at me with a smile. Now I was left to wonder if he was playing
his own joke on me or if he was serious about how to cook tender, succulent
dog.
We finished the
evening with the countdown to the New Year and a list of top 40 songs, most of
which I blew for the band. They pushed
on like real troopers around my discordant nonsense. They more or less threw a check at me as I
packed up and I knew I would not be playing with them again.
Out in the parking
lot, I loaded my huge amp and casket-sized keyboard into my grandmother’s old
Chevy pickup. Suddenly, a helicopter
came screaming over me at tree-top level and assumed a circular orbit above the
lot. The entire area lit up like it was
high noon. A voice came over a loud
speaker on the ghetto bird: “Step away
from the vehicle and keep your hands in the air.”
My blood seemed to
drain out of me as I was blinded by the light. Then something clicked over in my brain and I
realized it was another officer from the mall.
He was one of the few African-American helicopter pilots in the LAPD and
his name was Lawrence.
“Don’t make me have to
shoot you,” his voice boomed. “Get down on
the ground and spread your arms.”
I raised both hands to
the sky and flipped him the double bird.
Then I noticed all the employees and even some neighbors were out on the
street watching the event unfold. There
I was, standing in the 30 million candle power night-sun like a criminal caught
in the act.
“Code 4, suspect in
custody,” Lawrence rumbled over his speakers.
“See you at the mall, Tonto.” The
helicopter light blinked off leaving me in darkness again. The sudden silence after its departure was
profound.
That was certainly one
of the strangest New Year’s I’ve had.
Because of all the New
Year’s Eves I spent working, I am glad now that I can be at home as the clock
ticks over into a new year. We watch a
movie, have a good dinner, and when midnight hits, we listen to the comforting
sounds of gunshots and firecrackers and sirens knowing that we are indoors
under a sturdy roof. I am thankful for
that.
In the weeks after
that eventful evening at The Bayanihan,
Jerry told me that there had been a shooting at the club and someone was
killed. I did not see anything in the
newspaper about this, but the club was part of Jerry’s beat, so he would know. The place closed for good sometime in the
1990s from what I could find in my research.
The only true thing I
know about the dawning of a new year is that what is to come will be a complete
surprise, but in hindsight, obviously inevitable. That is how life and good fiction work. I listen to those explosions of celebration
and wonder: what will 2016 be like? How much wiser will we be as we roll over
into 2017 twelve months from now? These
questions are really one question: will
we still be alive and kicking at the end of this new year? Who knows?
We just live one moment at a time and do the best we can, even when we
feel we don’t fit in, we cannot read the music fast enough to keep up with the
band, and we are blinded by the light.
Not to worry: the crowd is so
drunk that it will always love us just the way we are.
On to 2016.