Then the phone at Jason's hip did the carioca.

“Joey Leonard,” said the Flatbush Avenue mummer.

“Mr. Leonard,” it took Jason a moment to clue in. “Yeah.”

“I've invited students to come read a few scenes tonight at San Anselmo for the ESL play. I invited some of the students and they are inviting a few of their friends. We're gonna gather in my classroom upstairs. Six o'clock. Bring your eyes and ears.”

Simple as that. Everything changed with that call. You couldn't wallow in the abyss when new demands were coming at you at every instant. Places to go, people to meet. One random phone call and the tension eased from Jason's face; its erasure rid him of that distraught look of a man who had ordered salmon and got pot roast.

“What are you up to?” Jerry Goodson asked.

“Same ol', same ol',” Jason lied. Jerry knew it and tried unsuccessfully to hide the hurt behind his pudgy, greasy, hairy face.

“I've got a catering gig in Palisades tonight at Jim Carrey's. It's such a drag, putting on the bow tie,” Jerry said.

“I never figured out how you tie those things.”

“They clip on,” Jerry said.

Jason stood, a man on the move. He had somewhere to move to. If he lingered a moment longer, he knew he'd be listening to Jerry gripe about catering work and whine about how sick he was of Los Angeles.

“Call me if you ever need a substitute for night school,” Jerry said. “Do you know if Roxie Cloud is hiring anybody?”

Jason's lips moved, but the traffic's muffled roar blotted his words as he opened the cafe door to leave.

Before driving out to San Anselmo, he spent a few moments reading the Hollywood guru, Mylanta. He opened the tome his daughter gave him for Christmas, the spine now cracked and flexible. His heart, what was left of it, warmed at her inscription #1 Dad, Marry Christmas.

A childish anticipation welled up inside Jason. There awaited him this furlough night, in one of San Anselmo's empty classrooms, all the creative conspirators. They were going to meet with Mr. Leonard and run through ideas for the play. Under the beneficent influence of Mylanta, he had invited Suzanne's roommate Candy to come along, and by extension, Kit.

Traffic was backed up on Franklin from Highland to La Brea. Jason took the quick route over Mulholland Drive to get back to the 101. Jason's Sentra sped down the last hairpin turns of the highway in the sky. They drove across the Mulholland bridge, a vintage span that had played in many a movie set in the 1940s. Out the corner of his eye, Jason saw a man in a safari jacket perched on the parapet of the bridge. A jaunty red beret rested on his long-haired head and he sported an eyepatch. Jules Kaminsky. He appeared to be contemplating the unending flow of cars speeding on the freeway below. Jason swerved down to the frontage road, en route to the 101 onramp. After a few moments, he glanced in the rearview mirror, and what he saw made his heart do a somersault.

Kaminsky had put one foot and the bridge railing. Jason turned the car around, despite Kit's screeching moans. Jason consoled (tried to console) himself thinking that doing the right thing often requires plugging one's ears.

“We're going to be late to rehearsal,” Kit bleated over and over. Jason wondered where she got that. Probably from her mother.

Jason, despite protestations from Kit and sighs from Candelaria, stopped the car and stepped out on the Mulholland Bridge.

“Don't jump!” he yelled at Jules Kaminsky. “Don't jump!”

(to be continued)

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