Better capitalized entrepreneurs began to create and fill micro-niches in the economic ecology of the beach. Storefronts vacant for a decade or more were sub-divided, and rented by people selling, say, frozen yogurt. When this first appeared, it seemed self-defeating to me. Wouldn’t freezing kill the active yogurt bacteria, depriving the eater of the primary nutritional value of the confection? But I soon realized the inventors were just a little ahead of the demographic curve – usually the case on the California beach. All they were doing was substituting 2% or non-fat milk for the cream in ice cream. The yogurt part was just a gimmick, providing a “healthy for you” aura. It soon became more than fashionable to walk down the beach carrying a cone swirled high with fruit-flavored frozen skim milk.
The boardwalk achieved full flower with the re-opening of a long-abandoned warehouse near the Venice community center. One day a dark blue deep yellow awning appeared outside the brick facade, followed a week later by Italian scripted umbrellas covering folding chairs and tables. A sandwich board subtly announced the soon-to-open “Sidewalk cafe and book shop”. This seemed the ultimate linkage of disparate enterprises. Indeed, for the first year or so, two separate cultures peopled the inside (book store) and outside (cafe) of this single business. Then, almost overnight, people learned to take their newly purchased book, and sit at the table, sipping drinks and sopping up the sunshine. I briefly fell into a pattern of ordering a sandwich and mai tai, getting swiftly buzzed, and then walking down the strand feeling as untouchable as the wise-cracking drunk guys in their gazebo.
While the sidewalk cafe/bookstore was the royalty of beach proprietors, the undisputed masters of separating beach goers from their money were the pan handlers. Their techniques were as varied as their demeanor. Some would sidle up, trying to gain your confidence, spinning a story of wretched luck and desperate family members. Others would wait for you, locking eyes, and ask for a simple quarter for coffee or bus fare home.
But the absolute hero of them all, the one who had pared the shtick down to its subtle naked essence, was the guy we met one foggy Sunday morning. Sundays had a rhythm on the beach. No one appeared before ten, except dog walkers and aerobic drop bar cyclists, madly pumping from Santa Monica to Palos Verdes and back. By 10:30, the fog would lose its mist, and start to merely hang heavy between a brightening sun and rising surf. At eleven, a mystic cue would bring the legions from near and far, in shorts and sandals, to greet the parting of the clouds as radiance once again filled the ocean’s edge.
Cheryl and I were walking south along the Boardwalk between 10:30 and 11 on this particular Sunday, watching the transition from the purely local populace to the weekend tourists looking for whatever it was that drew them to the beach. We noticed a uniquely unkempt bum weaving within the crowd, seeming to bump off each person’s personal space bubble like some psychic human pinball. He wore a heavy, oversized Wallace Berry shirt which had long since lost its buttons and its color. Wildly uncombed hair and a purely utilitarian beard adorned his face and head. His deep-set eyes lay wandering and unfocused above his broken nose and cracking yellowed teeth. In his left hand he carried a paper bag, hiding his bottle of whatever. He seemed powered by the fumes within his lungs, emitted in a series of belches which drove him as much sideways as forward. Unshod feet scrapped along, their calluses harder than the tarred gravel asphalt. We came up to him from the rear, and noticed his sweat pants sported an “L” shaped tear starting near his left hip, just below the elastic waist band, extending over to the midline, then ripping down the middle seam. The resulting flap exposed one entire buttock and his hairy crack. He was either unaware, or uncaring, about this fashion statement.
As we approached, his random Brownian motion swirled him around towards us. One eye briefly focused on me. He held out his free hand, swayed dangerously forward almost into my face, then tilted back again. He breathed out the entire contents of his lungs through nose and mouth, burped, sucked in a breath, and said, in a gravely drunken slur, “Gimme money!” Seeing that he was barely conscious – his request for cash seemed almost a reflex action – Cheryl and I both laughed while I said, “No way, man!”
How could I ever forget? 😉