party's over for laguna beach artist

Some man is roaring outside the house this Saturday night. It sounds like he's losing it. It is probably some random drunk, but it's getting seriously psycho. Uh, oh, I know who it is and it's damn dumb of him! (No one I know personally, thank Whomever in Wherever.)
So on to the real story...my new artist acquaintance,who lives behind us in the one-room art shack, got an eviction notice. Eight years here, and thirty in Laguna total. "It's the only place where I feel good," he said wanly, barefoot at his doorstep when he told us the bad news. His times have been hard indeed lately, and getting kicked out is another blow. "Greedy," he said, indicting the landlord for buying an investment property at the height of the market and trying to pay his rent by insisting that his tenants do so too. "I've taken good care of this place for him," he added, his eyes red and face puffy from a hard night of drinking and worry. But I didn't blame him for being hurt and wounded. You can't help feelings in the face of loss.
"What can I do? I got no place to go." His face creased slightly. "I'm thinking about getting some camping equipment. Me and the guy down the end--" and he hitched his thumb north a bit--"he's out of work too, and we're thinking about getting it, so we can camp."
He's a Vietnam vet and his daily investment of time on the phone with the VA has not yet paid off in a solid disability income stream, despite serious health problems. I've grown fond of this man in a few short weeks, and I wish I could take him in, can't bear the thought of him being homeless. But where could I put him? I have four people to shelter and feed already total, and I'm not sure that a grown man older than me would make a reasonable roommate for anyone. At his age, people like their solitude if accustomed to it, although they hate it if they're not. Anyway, I was just getting used to being his neighbor myself, and now I might not be able to anymore. I didn't see this one coming. Sometimes you think you have all of the time in the world, or if not in the world, at least in your own backyard. And maybe you do. Or damn it, maybe not.

party behind us!

We went to a party this Sunday in a one-room artist's house, the walls lined with his own oil paintings, which were like rustic baroque wallpaper that refuses to be dislodged. There was a white-haired surfer with big green eyes and smooth olive skin playing a guitar, and the birthday boy, the gray-haired artist himself, a former Vietnam combat vet, was drinking the red wine his neighbors had bought him and singing a surprisingly good version of "Knights in White Satin" by the old Moody Blues band. This song is from his generation, and I could see the boy in him, the high school boy who would have turned up his car radio with the coolest new eight-track player really loudly in the driveway, before shipping out to Nam and, if what they say is true, having his best buddy die in his arms. Why is it always the best buddy dying in the arms? Perhaps war makes best buddies, and if you get lucky enough to hold them after they're wounded and you aren't, that further cements the guilty, loving bond. I don't know, I've never been in that kind of war, so I wouldn't claim to judge.
Anyway, he still suffers from the war, and the hard parts of being a struggling artist for 30 years in a changed Laguna Beach, but Sunday, he was the king of the neighborhood. I'd thought until then he was sort of tolerated, on the fringe, but as more people crowded into the tiny house with more guacamole, more salsa, more wine, I came to see he was the nucleus of several people who like and even love him. If he can be loved, not only for his talent, which gives people permission to love him, but for his sad days when his body won't work and he hurts so much he can't paint or play guitar, for when he's smiled the hazy, happy smile of alcohol and slurringly gone to bed at 6pm, then perhaps we all can be loved--at least modestly. This makes me say, let's allow people in the spaces where we live. And more than one, or three, but maybe 6 or 7. We need each other. And to find one another, we need a place to gather.