OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS

(EDITOR’S NOTE – At the end of the previous article, “Errand Day”, I had just heard from “my neurologist” I might have ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease.)

 So, like I said, I walk upstairs and just tell Nancy the doctor is not sure what’s ailing me and to “enjoy Italy”. No way am I gonna talk about the Iron Horse. 

 I don’t even Google ALS. That would be a death sentence. We all know that. I had a forehead twitch a few years ago and Google’d it. I had maybe a month to live.

 Another time at Kaiser for a routine check-up, I weighed in at 168 pounds. My dream weight, partly because 168 is the prime fighting weight of Terry Malloy, the ex-boxer played by Marlon Brando in “On the Waterfront” my favorite movie, along with “Casablanca”. 

 So, when I hear the ‘168”, I feel tremendous. For about four seconds. Then I think I weighed 179 just a month ago. I lost 11 pounds in a month while indulging in Mozza pizza and Rudy French butter? Something fatal must be going on with me. A disease. (The nurse re-weighed me, and I was 177. Whew.)

 So, maybe I got a touch of hypochondriac in me. Not exactly Steve McQueen or Frank Sinatra.  But this Lou Gehrig thing is another level.

 I’ve been dancing with danger in Watts, Armenia, Beirut, Artsakh, Tyre, Sidon, Compton, Gardena, Dominquez, Green Meadows, Apatzingán, Guadalajara, Tijuana, the South Bronx, North Philly, the Southside of Chicago, and East St. Louis, Illinois. I’m a gang reporter who has been surrounded by pissed-off Grape Street Crips and walked into the darkest heart of their Jordan Downs housing project over a Los Angeles Times story I wrote about them planning on shooting a LAPD officer as a payback from them killing one of theirs and I wasn’t particularly scared. I had a green light put on me (an order to shoot me) by the mother of Big Evil, America’s most notorious Blood shot caller, because she hated a L.A. Times magazine article I wrote about him.  I wasn’t much concerned.

But this Lou thing, well, there is much concern.

 I tell no one about this. Not Nancy, or my sister Jeanine or my cousins Greg and Jeffy or my boys Nate and Kirby and Big Hank and Arax. No one.

Back in Los Angeles, life goes on well. It is not until October that I go back to see Dr. Wu. He is solemn. Lou Gehrig is not even mentioned. I sure the hell wasn’t gonna bring the Iron Horse up. He tests my thumb and finger strength and says next to nothing, except he’s gonna go to Pizzeria Mozza. Let me know when, I say. 

Against my better thoughts, I soon do Google ALS and the first symptom – the very first - is “difficulty in buttoning shirts.”  Damn, damn, damn, damn. I have that symptom. Remember my green shirt that Ingrid likes? After all I’ve been through, buttoning shirts is gonna bring me down.

ALS is Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The disease leads to muscle weakness and gets worse over time. There is no cure for this fatal disease.

 I have taken to singing that song up top, “My Romance,” in a slow, sad way. That ending line gets me every time. “My romance…. doesn’t need at thing….but  you.”

 Life goes on. I’m going to Watts and Mozza, my usual routine. I am writing a screenplay, one of the few people in Los Angeles to do so.  

Anyway. In early December I get a text from my friend Nadine Redzepi, the wife of chef Rene Redzepi of the Copenhagen restaurant Noma. Nadine asks for a reservation at Osteria Mozza because it is Rene’s birthday on Dec. 16.  I get it for her. I also write, under my alias Jimmy Dolan, a fictional journalism story about Rene. He loves it.

Nancy and I are back in Umbria for Christmas. Then to Paris for New Year’s Eve and Day. What a life I have. I’m 71 and so if I do have Lou along with me, I sure the hell won’t be saying “Why me? Why me?”   I’ve had a wonderful ride.  My bad. I have a wonderful life.

 We go back to Umbria, on January 4th, just Nancy and me for a week.  The opening lines of “Cheek to Cheek” play often in my mind. Heaven, I’m in heaven.

Alas, along with the heaven, is various body malfunctions that lean me to the dreaded belief I have it. My left index finger, while weak, will occasionally curl up on its own and I must straighten it out. At night, in bed, nerves in my leg tighten up and cause pain that comes close to intense.  Tying my shoes is difficult.

We are to leave Jan 11th on different flights, however mine is delayed for a day. So around 5 am, I drive our rental and take Nancy to the airport. I bring along needle nose pliers with me. I can’t even pull the ticket out of those autostrada toll booths.

 I drop Nancy at Leonardo da Vinci Aeroporto, return our rental car and take a cab to Campo di Fiori in Rome. I get a room right next door to our favorite restaurant in Rome, Roscioli Salumeria.

And I buy wine. In “Casablanca”, when asked his nationality by the Germans at Rick’s Café Americain, Rick Blaine, replies “I’m a drunkard.” So am I.

I got back to the room and pop a bottle of red. and drink half of it. It is the first wine or any alcohol I have had in over a year.  I go next door to Roscioli. That carbonara. My favorite. A few glasses. Good conversation with the staff.

The next day, on the plane, I have a glass or three. It’s United Airlines and they always have “Casablanca” available. Of course, I watch it. “Of all the gin joints all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.”

Back in Los Angeles, I don’t drink.  For a week. Then get a bottle of Silver Oak cab, Alexander Valley, from the garage. It goes down good and fast.  Nancy comes home and realizes it and she is mad. It’s kinda pathetic, but I tell her my crisis.  She is downstairs and I am in our upstairs bedroom, and I yell out. “I have Lou Gehrig’s disease!”

I go downstairs. She is dumbfounded.

 “I didn’t tell you but when I had that call in Panicale. That July 30th call. The doctor told me it likely is ALS. I have Lou Gehrig’s disease.”

 Nancy is stunned that I had said nothing for many months. She stares at me. Hugs me. “No way. You do not have that. You do not have that. No way.” 

On Jan. 18, we go to Mar Vista to visit one of her oldest friends, Margie, for her birthday. Everyone, roughly 20 people, gathers in a living room, music on, wine flowing, conversation and laughter nearly constant. Me? I sit quietly in the front room, strange pains jolting my right leg, my mind realizing my days are winding down. Nancy checks on me often, urging me to join the party, but doesn’t push. She knows.  

On January 26th, I have another neurology appointment.   Dr Wu is not here this time. A substitute doctor is there. She walks in. Her name is Supreet K. Sahai. And though I know she is here because I likely have an uncurable disease, my first thought is this is one pretty doctor. 

After a quick test of my left thumb and index, she has me lay down on that kinda bed. She is going to electrocute me. I start trying to think of faraway places, like Panicale, or Paris, but it doesn’t work.

So, I start talking to Dr. Sahai. I start with what are known as the three most dangerous words in the English language; “Where you from?”, the basic L.A. gang challenge of what gang neighborhood are you representing? Not “Where are you from? Just “Where you from?”

 Dr. Sahai simply says “Orange County”. After a pause and a look from me, she expands to say her parents are from Punjab state of northern India. We talk a bit about that as she prepares to shock me.

 The electrocution again.  

She talks some more, with my encouragement. She lived in New York City for many years and moved out to Los Angeles to be with her boyfriend.

About 15 or so shocks in, Dr. Sahai says something that actually makes me think “What did they inject me with? What shot did they give me to make me hallucinate?” But, three, four seconds into that wonder, I realize they gave me nothing and what she is saying is reality.

 Here’s what she said, as she continues to shock me.

 “Today was a big day in Los Angeles. There is this restaurant in Copenhagen. Noma. Best in the world.  And the chef and his wife are coming to Los Angeles, to open Noma in Silver Lake for four months. Today they opened online to get a reservation. My boyfriend tried but they sold out in two minutes.”

 By now I am staring at her and wondering if she is playing a game on me. Am I on some stupid prank TV show? She continues. “It would have been like a birthday gift, Christmas gift and New Year’s gift combined if we could have got a reservation at Noma here.”

 I get that feeling, that rare, sweet feeling when your insides relish what’s about to happen because you are about to tell somebody something they will truly like.

 As Dr. Sahai turns to put away the shock stuff and goes for a mere needle, I say “I got you.”

 What?

 “I’ll take care of you.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “I can get you a reservation at Noma here.”

 Dr. Sahai puts down her weapons, and stares at me. She doesn’t even ask “how?”, she just stares.

 “I know Rene Redzepi,” I tell her. “And his wife Nadine. They’re friends of mine.”

 (For the record, I am extremely aware of the situation Rene was in. For those who don’t, a newspaper article exposed his yelling and brow beating of his cooks in his Copenhagen kitchen. Something, by the way, he apologized for 10 years ago. In mid-March, he stepped away from a four-month Noma LA in Silver Lake. For the record, Noma is open back in Copenhagen.)

 Back to the neurologist. Dr. Supreet says she will get back to me via the Kaiser website regarding her findings. And she thanks me, the first time a doctor has thanked me.

 Then two hours after I get home, I get another text from Nadine asking for a reservation Friday night at Osteria because it’s her mom’s birthday.  I get it for her.

 That Friday night, I tell Nadine I have a stunning neurologist story. Later, I tell her, and she says she will get Dr. Supreet in. She does.

Three days later, I get a message from Kaiser about my visit and Dr. Supreet’s findings. With dread, I open it. And read the longest report about my health, most of it I don’t even understand. But, with the dread, I do read those horrible three letters, A and L and S.

 The Iron Horse feels closer to me than ever. And I think about all the countless folks that do have Lou Gehrig’s disease and my heart goes out to them.

 Via a Kaiser message, I get notified Dr. Wu will call me February 11th.  It is then, I dread, he will tell me officially I have Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

 I open a bottle and put on “Casablanca” and watch and drink. I open another bottle and put on “On the Waterfront”. I figure I’ll see them one more time before I get the news.

Nancy comes home. But, unlike many times before where she got yelling mad, she’s quiet.

 Dr. Wu calls.

 To the chase. “It’s quite unlikely you have ALS.” Relief floods me like never before. He cannot 100% rule it out, but most likely it is a type of neuropathy. Nancy is thrilled. 

That was a four months ago, the day before that Errand Day.

God, I love that day. And all the days that follow. The next time a loved one asks you to go to the market or the cleaners or the luggage repair shop, savor that day, that wonderful, fortunate day.

END OF PART II

 Part III, the finale, will show up in a couple days.