In Search of Newton Sawtelle - Episode 3
In Search of Newton Sawtelle
Episode 3
By Jim Priest
Newton Sawtelle. What the fuck kind of name was that? I'd had him figured for
something like Captain Finger or Rock Thorson. Was he kidding? I don't know, but
the intake clerk at county wouldn't take "Dude" so Newton Sawtelle it was.
Once they cleaned him up and pumped him full of antibiotics, he kind of came
around and almost got friendly for a minute there. In a moment of unrestrained
gratitude he promised to have me over to the house and there was no way I was
going to miss seeing this. After canning a bit on Melrose-I think we gathered
enough aluminum for his next couple of fortys- we headed north on Gower in the
shadow of Paramount's western walls. On our left, Venetian blinds in bungalow
windows hid digital production teams slaving away polishing next season's batch of
insufferable dreck.
As we wandered, we finally came to a neighborhood more to our liking, where the lawns were tall and brown and strewn with trash. Here streamline moderne
snuggled with faux Moroccan, all with chipped paint and fiercely barred windows. I
was struggling to keep up with him now, as he'd recovered quite nicely from his little
"episode". Suddenly he turned right and we headed between two identical dirty pink
houses. Ducking through a break in the hedge, we were safe inside a lean-to made
of cardboard boxes and calico detritus. "Wanna eat?" he asked. Reaching between
a poster for CSI Miami and a tampon carton, he pulled out a half eaten hoagie with
brown, almost liquid lettuce. "No thanks" I said, sincerely contemplating never
eating again.
"OK. Sleep now" At this, he stretched out and began to snore. I broke the filters off two cigarettes and stuffed them up my nostrils. Then I lit one, simultaneously
calming myself and freshening the air.
Crazy I know, but I felt comfortable in that place. It was far neater than I would haveguessed. Crushed cans and 2-liter bottles formed one wall while a pile of paper
scraps leaned against the pink stucco opposite. All in all it was pretty cozy in a
Better Hovels and Gardens kind of way. The sinking sun cast a golden rococo
pattern through the leaves of the hedge and as my smoke amplified the patterns I
noticed that I was rocking back and forth. I liked it in there. One of the donut bags in
the pile caught my eye. It had writing on it. I soon noticed that quite a few of the
other bags were similarly adorned. I pulled it out.
SHERMAN AND SEPULVEDA
Sherman and Sepulveda meet just north of here
Sherman said "War is hell"
Sepulveda probably said something just as cool
but it was in Spanish so I don't know
I don't know how I got here
where the smoke rises up from my full flavor Best Buy cigarette
like a tiny funeral pyre
Where Venetian blind deaf and dumb shafts of light
illuminate filigrees of curly blue smoke
I don't know how I got here
I don't even know where I got the money to stay here tonight
but these four walls feel good
A room with a view
of the sun going down
As it does the roaches come out
Too many to kill or even count
The walls look like an aerial view of some great battle
The roaches on the south wall
fortified by the remnants of a burrito supreme
form a phalanx and advance menacingly on the roaches of the east wall
Just then the whore in the next room
brings her performance and her customer to a stunning climax
with just the right blend of fuck me fuck me and oh please god don't kill me
No man don't kill her
I want to hear this routine with the next guy
Gets me off every time
God she's good
The voice that launched a thousand ships
has just launched mine
Now all is quiet on the western towel rack
The firefight is over
and the troops have all turned in
Sherman and Sepulveda consult their charts
while I try to devise a battle plan of my own
I don't know how I got here
I don't know how I got here
I don't know how I got here
Wow. He'd suffered more than I'd realized. He actually used to live in Van Nuys.
I've always thought that the entire San Fernando Valley would make a dandy penal
colony. Not that it isn't a de facto gulag now, but think about it. Minor offenders
could do time in say, Valley Village. Misdemeanors and class 3 felonies would have
to languish in Reseda and Encino and the hardcore murderers and freaks would be
locked down in Panorama City (oops! they've already thought of that).
I picked up another piece of paper, ready for another poem, but this one was
covered with numbers. Not just numbers but complex algebraic equations.
Thousands of them. I felt queasy. A little frantically, I plucked one after another of
the pieces of paper in the pile and found nothing but row upon row of numbers.
Suddenly, I panicked. What if they were all in order and I'd screwed it all up? I hid
the errant papers as deeply in the pile as I could reach.
That's when I found the box. The moment my fingers touched it they knew that it was special. Oblong, smooth, cool and dense. My heart was pounding louder than his snoring as I drew the box, Excalibur-like, from the pile. Ornate marquetry adorned its lid, which I slid aside to reveal tangible quantifiable proof of the existence of a man.
His name really was Newton Sawtelle. No shit. Decorated veteran, dedicated educator, devoted husband and father. All right here in a box. Ribbons, pictures, shiny bits of metal, certificates and clippings of the past. A past that no one knew but him and me and the family he'd left behind. In that box were four or five gum wrappers, a bunch of pictures of his family, two bronze stars, and a PhD in structural engineering, f'chrissake. This guy was not only one of them, one of the much vaunted middle class, he had succeeded at it. He'd really done the deal. He was a full-fledged badass.
So what was he doing here? For that matter what was I? I should be trolling
Beachwood for chicks or at least out looking for work. But here I was, rocking back
and forth and staring at what seemed my only friend in the world. I detachedly examined my comrade. His leathery skin was pockmarked with scars and scabs. His ankles were ringed with soot, and every wrinkle and fold on his body was filled with the same. As he breathed his chest heaved and wheezed and his open mouth revealed lesions and sparsely placed yellow and black teeth. The ridges in his claw-like fingernails made them look like aged bamboo.
There seemed to me to be a force field protecting that little spot. On the outside of the hedge a world was moving while inside all movement had ceased. Enwombed in this place, I could feel a warm fullness in my chest as I swayed in rhythm with the
leaves of the western wall. I listened with newly attuned ears to their rustling,
Newton's sputtering snore, the distant hiss of rubber on asphalt, my own breath, my
own thoughts.
It was time to go.
To be continued…
Find Part 1 & Part 2 Here: