The Highway Restaurant
Joseph Levine
The party was still going on. It was late.
The lights were bright on the second from the top floor of the Westside Gateway Building. No one in his company knew who occupied the top floor. They had their own private entrance and elevator.
He was in his office. It looked west over the 405 to the ocean and northwest to the Santa Monica Mountains. It never occurred to him that it was a billion dollar view.
He hated loose ends even though the deal was done. He had found these, two, even in the deal he had basically single-handedly created, while remaining in the background so that his boss and share holders could enjoy the glory and, of course, financial benefits that would make them even richer.
“Joseph Levine, J.D. CPA, PhD” he saw scrawled on a balloon floating towards him attached to the pretty blonde lawyer whose office, though in an entirely different wing of the floor, seemed to have magically gotten closer over the last few days.
“Congratulations, Joe. No one thought that…well, no one but you thought that the merger would happen and happen so fast.” Joe stood up and nodded. She offered him the string of the balloon which he took.
“Well, all the pieces fit,” except, he thought to himself the fine tuning on capitol structure that he had just finished analyzing, as the others partied. A PhD in math made it easier but there was still something too loosey-goosey to him about finance, corporations and the passions of money and profit. To Joseph, it was black or white not emotional. That was why Mr. Buchanan brought him in to tell folks at the big table, “no” or “yes”.
“Joe says ‘no’” or Joe says ‘yes’” became the office mantra.
The blonde stood there uncomfortably for a moment.
“I hear they are sending you…I hear the boss ordered you to Hawaii.” She smiled.
Joseph felt in his jacket pocket for the plane tickets and itinerary. He didn’t want to go but he was ordered, and he could work there anyway. He had his laptops.
“Yeah. I am not really the beach type, but I think the Hawaiian culture should be interesting.”
She looked at him expectantly then curiously.
“Well, have a good time. Don’t think of the rest of us slaving away here on the Westside.”
Joseph nodded. She left.
He scanned the report and his email and pushed Send to the boss Buchanan and other relevant parties, the layers of CPAs and lawyers who would read it with fascination and appreciation. It would mean they hadn’t missed something, even something way out in the future. It would make them all look better.
He turned in his chair and looked out his window at the ribbon of red and white car lights on the 405 and the myriad signals and yellow, red, blue marking the night construction crews who had been working on the section south of Sunset for many months. Traffic patterns were fascinating to him but driving was his Achilles heel. Buchanan had even ordered him a driver after he got lost twelve times in a row, despite living in Sherman Oaks. He had used him several times until he wrote a report on the cost factored over time and changed his schedule to six am arrival, two hours before anyone else and before a lot of the distracting traffic.
He thought he could study, calculate through any problem, but driving, the negotiations of random, unpredictable motions and people challenged him. He hated shopping at Costco. Traders Joes was worse. He would walk to Ralphs with a cart on wheels. With a list based on each row, inside the store, in sequence.
Staring at the lights of the 405 and the construction equipment moving slowly in comparison to the cars, he thought of his mother. She was random and unpredictable as well. He had slowly phased her out of his life so he could concentrate on work. After Duke, she had sent him to Spain for a month. At first he hated it but then…And there were the random dates with young women artists she had set up for him. After ten or twelve of these he stopped his mother firmly.
“Joey, you have to take someone with you on your journey!” Journey to him meant a certain randomness of unplanned motion. It was for artists, not someone with so many initials after their name.
They had grown apart, deliberately so because of him and she stayed in Frazier Park and painted and he stayed on the Westside and made people rich. He had set up a trust for her because he wasn’t really interested in money. Only in the neatness of parts and numbers coalescing beautifully.
“Mister Levine”, a voice startled him out of his contemplation of the traffic. It was Margie, one of the cleaners, his favorite because he could talk to her for some reason and she was always on his side.
“Oh, hey Margie.” He realized it was quiet, that everyone must have gone. The party was over.
“You having your own separate party here, then.” She smiled. “Nothing to clean up here. “Was a mess back in there. Someone threw up, maybe more than one did. Missed the trashcan, both times. For all the money and everything your people can definitely act like children and make a mess.”
She always called them “his people” and he knew they really weren’t.
“Sorry, about that. It is my fault all this. You want some help?” Margie laughed.
“No, but I think you need some help. It is a mess out there. Took me one hour and eleven minutes to drive from Compton at ten o’clock at night to get here. They got this place torn up and you got go this way and that and there are some places there’s no sign and nobody to tell you…I think I should drive you home, come to think about it. You can’t even park straight in your private parking spot that they painted extra wide.
Joseph felt himself redden. Driving, parking. Geometry. A word derived from “land management”. It was too earthy. Yet, he had written a paper which his high school teacher still proudly had all his geometry students read. “Is Geometry Valid in Another Universe?’”
“Thanks Margie. I can manage. I have an early flight…”
“To Hawaii. I heard from your girlfriend- the blonde. Poor girl. She not going. Well not poor, she’s a lawyer. I think. Well, how are you going to get to LAX then?”
“Airport shuttle.”
“Thata boy! That’s thinking. Man, sometimes you all demonstrate a lack of, I don’t know what.”
Joseph handed Margie an envelope. She became serious.
“This to make you feel good about our situation, make you feel like you are doing some good even though I don’t know what you spend you money on living in that crappy apartment? No girlfriend. Not my business. Me and mine live better than you!” But her eyes teared up slightly. It wasn’t the first envelope. And Joseph wasn’t really trying to do…he just did it on occasions. Money wasn’t his thing he told himself.
“I got a bonus.”
“Of course you did. Of course, you did.” She was taking care of two grandchildren now, used to be three so it all helped. “Thank you, Joseph, Mister Levine. Strange as you are. Lonely as you may be you are a kind man.”
Margie pretended to clean the office while Joseph packed up two laptops and his famous briefcase. He had had it since ninth grade when his father passed it on to him. Worn, old-fashioned, frightening to anyone when it appeared with Joseph in the big room. It seemed to portend an uncertain and irreversible future. It was oddly out of time. And he had never opened it.
He nodded to Margie as he started to walk out but she came up and kissed him on the cheek.
“Don’t be telling HR nothing!”
He took the elevator down to parking, put his laptops and briefcase in the trunk and got in the driver seat. He started the car and headed slowly out.
Even near the Westside there were loud construction noises and huge bright lights. He followed an arrow to turn right onto South Gate and then another arrow right on Cotner. It was different than the nights before but as Margie had said – the place was torn up. It seemed he was going under the freeway which didn’t make sense. And where was Sepulveda? Another arrow faded and crooked.
He had given up using the floating compass on the dash. It had proved disastrous too many times. And cell phones. He didn’t have the time or interest for one.
He drove slowly and looked for arrows. There were no more. Construction debris. Piles of it everywhere. He kept going following the last arrow
Ahead were lights and trucks. He sped up as a huge truck was coming towards him. He moved the car over onto the dark side of the street. It was bumpy. He reached in his pocket to check for his tickets and couldn’t find them. He searched down in the seat with his right hand and glanced down to see if they had fallen to the floor.
As he looked up he heard a strange cracking sound.
Lorraine Walsh
She arrived early and walked the floor. It was quiet, quieter than she thought it would be. She had done lots ER work and at first found it challenging but then seemed to become too predictable. Each holiday had its own patterns like July Fourth, blown up or off digits. Even the time of day meant certain types of patients would show up. The later the more serious. From a child with a cold to a man with a gun wound. She could tell time by these categories.
Then she decided to dive in and become a Trauma Nurse. There was the urgency, the excitement, the life and death. A chance to learn many new things fast. To help people at their most vulnerable. And then maybe she would move up and become an MD. Make her mom happy.
Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she jolted around.
“You Lorraine?” the short, direct looking woman asked her. The woman glanced at some papers she held which probably described Lorraine Walsh and nodded briefly at them.
“Yes, that is me.”
“This will be new to you other than your ER work and your ATCN where you learn without doing and then stand around while others do the real work?” That wasn’t exactly what her training was like. She had saved a few lives handling drug overdose and heart attacks with chest compression but she decided it wasn’t a question.
“Yes, it is.”
“Got it. Well, here it is real and fast and you have to be on your toes particularly when the doctors are tied up. You handle one patient at a time unless myself or a doctor moves you in which case you move announcing it to the other nurses so they can take up the slack. Same with you, if you hear another nurse leaving, you pick up the slack. Don’t be a hero. Just do your job. It will go by fast. This unit is one of the busiest in California. No need to go over all the types of incidents and patients that can end up here. Use your imagination. I am your boss here. All the doctors are above me and you. Melinda over there is a floater when it gets busy. You can ask her for help, but you do what she says if I am not there. Got it.”
“Got it.” She felt excited. Like she was part of a team of those who can save lives and be part of the raw end of drama, unfortunate, that was life.
“And most important. You will see things here that will…not just the injuries but the young, the old, babies, children. College kids who think they are too smart. To us TNs it is work only. We do our jobs. We do not carry it with us later. We do not get emotional on the job ever. We do not take anyone with us after we finish our shift.” Her eyes were boring into Lorraine’s.
“I get it.”
“No, you don’t. No, you do not. But you will or you will not make it here. This is not advice. It is about saving lives. I call it clinical sanity. I will keep my eyes on you. I am not saying we are not all human beings here, but we need to not be human beings while we are here and maybe ever again and be super men and women.”
Lorraine just nodded this time and her boss walked away.
She realized that she didn’t know her name.
The Greek Section
Joseph got out of his car, noticing men and lights blinking all around him. He hadn’t found the tickets but felt calm about it. They would show up.
He decided to walk away from the commotion and found himself in an older neighborhood. It seemed strangely out of place next to, underneath, the 405. It was leafy and even at this late hour some kids went by with bikes. There were people on porches who smiled or waved at him. Weird for Los Angeles.
He came to four way stop which had a circle in the middle with a statue. It looked Grecian. Like something from the Getty Italian Villa that his mother had dragged him to. Probably the last event they had done together. And there was a sign-The Greek Section.
He definitely had not been here before. Even when he had gotten lost twelve or more times. He had seen signs before like that mostly on Sunset Boulevard in East LA. Like Thai Town and Little Armenia.
He decided to walk on where he saw the most lights. After half a block he heard voices and music. And smelled something that was delicious. And there was music, live music.
“The Highway Restaurant” the cheerful sign read. It was brightly lit and inside he could see people at tables or walking and dancing.
He went in. He was greeted by a large man who said “kalispera, kalispera” and moved him inside. A pretty waitress with dark hair smiled at him. She looked familiar. He reached for his wallet to make sure he could pay but the large man steered him to a large table where people were eating and laughing and talking loudly. A place for him appeared and he sat down.
Food was brought to him. Lamb gyros, some kind of pasta beef construction, grape leaves, cheesy balls, moussaka. It kept coming and he kept eating. And talking. And laughing.
After delicious coffee Joseph had a chance to look around. People were still eating but some had started to dance in an area behind the dining space.
He stood up and headed towards the dancing. He saw a woman who looked very familiar. She was spinning and spinning.
It was his mother.
Shocked he headed away towards the kitchen and went into a room and closed the metal door. It was filled with foods. And cold. Very cold. He tried the door but couldn’t open it.
Melinda
Melinda got a snack from the cafeteria and stood for a while watching doctors and nurses come and go. It was always surprising to her that they, she looked like normal people despite what they actually did night and day. Conversations were about relationships, trips, promotions, pets, kids. Same as anywhere she guessed even though she had always worked in nursing one way or the other.
Trauma had been a step up. She wanted to see if being a surgeon was what she really wanted to do and so she got to see and help and even do some of it.
Her phone buzzed and she saw the code. The night had started. She knew it would. It always had in ER.
When she saw the man being gurneyed through the hall for a minute couldn’t tell what she was seeing. Then her eyes focused on a piece of rebar sticking out of his chest. He was sideways which wasn’t good, but it was the only way he could be quickly transported.
Once in the trauma theatre they decided to tie two beds together so he could be flat and the rebar could go down between the beds. The other piece stuck nearly straight up. The total length of it was about three and a half feet. Firemen were standing by to cut more as needed. They had cut the front part of the rebar so the patient could be detached from the rebar which had impaled him. The total length had been about fifteen feet.
Then, they had to cut the end that had penetrated his chest out his back so he could be removed from the vehicle.
It wasn’t safe to do but there was no way around it. They had thought the man was dead but after they had made the cuts and pulled him out, he opened his eyes and said “wrong turn”. One of the firemen saw him smile.
Melinda had already messaged the trauma doctors some of whom she had seen in the cafeteria and two who were just wrapping up a through and through gun wound. It would be all hands on deck and specialists would be needed.
Melinda told another nurse, new to her-“Hey, hook him up with everything. Sometimes they wake up. If he does talk to him, reassure him. Don’t let him panic.” She glanced at the name tag. “Lorraine. Nice to meet you. And see if you can contact Ms. Turner. She may be…not sure. We need her.” Melinda saw Lorraine hesitate. “You know, short, in your face. The boss.” Melinda smiled. Lorraine thought-wow, grace under fire. “Oh, and cut off the clothes, of course.”
Lorraine got busy connecting him while other nurses moved in equipment and surgical trays. She saw Ms. Turner standing with talking with the doctors. She cut off his clothes and noticed there was a surprising lack of blood for such an injury. She had heard about this happening but had never seen it.
As she put the clothes in a disposal bag she felt something in a pocket. She took it out. It was a file card with three neatly written names and three phone numbers. She realized she didn’t know his name and probably no one else did either. They were too busy trying to save him. She pocketed the paper.
She stood next to him while a doctor examined him.
“Blood pressure is dropping. We have to see if this thing hit an artery. Luckily it was on the right side. Let’s get some pictures fast. Ok, heart stopped. Nurse apply CPR now!”
Lorraine did compressions on him for what seemed like an hour. She was sweating and her back felt like it would break or spaz totally out. Nothing happened at first but then blood pressure and the ECG started showing life. She realized she had been talking to John Doe urging him to make it as she did the CPR in the awkward position caused by the rebar. Ms. Turner tapped her and told her “Good job, take a break” and she walked away. She as replaced by another nurse to stand by in case.
There must have been twenty people in the trauma theatre now. They had to take the rebar out by carefully moving tissue from it without causing further traumatic injury or bleeding. The rebar had missed an artery, nicked the top of the lung and shattered a rib or two on the way out.
Lorraine went to the Admin station and noticed a fireman still there drinking coffee.
“Hey, there.” He looked up. She noticed how tired he looked but he was still there to see if he was needed.
“Yo,” he said back.
“We know John Does name, the rebar case?”
“We do not. We didn’t have time to look hard. Didn’t find a wallet. The car may still be there, probably has reg in it. I am sure someone will call it in.”
“Okay, thanks.” She walked to the station and handed the Admin the folded file card.
“Hey this is that patient, the one with rebar…”
“Oh, God. I thought I had seen everything until today. Is he dead?”
“No. Still fighting. Well, let’s hope they can do a miracle in there. Hey, could you call these numbers, these people and see if we can let them know he is in there. No one knows his name yet.”
The Admin nurse looked at the piece of paper. “Not really my duty plus there is blood on it.”
“Oh sorry. I hadn’t noticed. Who would…”
“Usually the Chaplain or maybe the…not sure. You could try calling.”
Lorraine looked at her phone. Ten more minutes and she had to go back. There were going to be more cases.
She dialed the first number. It rang and rang and she was just about to hang up when someone answered. A woman.
“Hello. Hello?”
“Yes, this is Trauma Nurse Lorraine Walsh at UCLA Medical Reagan Emergency Department. We have a trauma patient here who has your number in his pocket.”
Silence, then-”About thirty-five, brown hair, handsome-ish delicate hands. Terrible driver…”
“Mam, I didn’t notice, well pretty much, yes, that seems right.”
“What happened…No, don’t tell me. I can be there is twenty minutes. Ten minutes. I am at a gallery on Wilshire.” Lorraine heard a collage of rapid concerned voices before the cell phone went dead.
Lorraine thought she sounded like a mother. It must be his mother.
Then, her phone vibrated. John Doe Rebar was dying again.
Joe Levine
At a certain point Joseph became interested in the labels on the containers in the freezer but he was having a harder and harder time moving close to them. He realized he had slid down to the floor where he could see large cans on the bottom shelves. He became fascinated with a huge jar of Mezzetta Pepperoncini and tried to pronounce it over and over but his lips wouldn’t work and then his eyes and then he heard a loud bang and some yelling.
“Get him out! Get him out! Joseph. Wake up! Jesus. He is…he isn’t.” He heard his mother’s voice which didn’t belong there, then but somehow made him feel warmer. He felt something lift, or slide out of him, like a pressure. It was a relief and he was warmer but then nothing.
Sylvia della Croce
The woman came into Trauma looking exactly like someone who, minutes before, had been cocktailing and chatting at a gallery, the LACMA, the Hammer, or even a smaller gallery off Wilshire. Everything but the face. Her face caused Melinda who was by the Admin Station to stop her and seat her quickly in the darkened family waiting and sleeping area.
“I can’t let you see him now as he is being operated on, but I took a picture of his face with my cell.” She showed her the picture and the woman put her face in her hands. Melinda put her arm around her.
After a while she composed herself. “Will he make it?”
Melinda said, “Not going to sugar coat it. There is no reason he should not live as the injury did not hit an artery…”
“The injury?”
“Yes, he was impaled by rebar in a construction site down by the 405.”
“How did he…It went through him?”
“Yes, and there have been other cases, actually worse were people survived and recovered and one guy went back to work fairly rapidly.”
“But…”
“He keeps…”
“Dying?”
“Let me ask you. I am not supposed to do this. I am trained not to do this. We are supposed to be clinically cold or detached but sometimes there needs to be a pull, a personal connection, something that helps bring someone…”
“I got it. Yes. I am not that person. Maybe a little, I am his mother but he and I, we haven’t, he pushed me…” She started to cry again. “He is such a bad driver and has no sense of direction.”
“Okay. Lorraine was the nurse who called you. She has a file card with names and numbers on it. Let me relieve her and she can show you the card.”
“A file card? Just like his father. But his father did have a sense of direction. Also, away from me.”
Marianna Perez Echeverria
She was only unhappy when she had time to think about her life. She had married, moved away, not far but far enough to miss her home. La Puebla de Valverde. She had worked at the Hotel La Fonda de la Estacion, along with her sister and mother. Her father worked at Aero Sano so everybody was close, she had friends.
Marriage came out of the blue from a young man who had written to her after being introduced by a friend of hers. They wrote letters, he visited few times. He was handsome. She visited him and his family in Valencia and liked his sisters a lot. He was not wealthy but his family had a business renting and taking care of boats at a popular Marina. She felt like she had married the family and their business more than Luis, particularly the sisters. And he was often off with his friends leaving her at home to think about her life.
She would take walks at night when the beaches were empty. She would think about the white boy who visited her town fourteen years ago. Her Joey. He had gotten lost and ended up standing in front of the hotel at the end of her shift. He was looking at map. She went up to him and he looked at her. They both smiled and she took him home to feed him. She introduced him as niño americano perdu.
They spent the next three days together. He even waited for her while she worked. He would sit at a table and be served by her for three meals. She would “lift” turrone el lobo from the baker and then they would eat them walking home to her house. Then they would say goodbye with her mother smiling at him and he would walk back to the hotel.
Marianna’s mother would smooth her hair and say-“Love is sweetest when it is impossible.”
When they kissed, she felt her heart would break open and explode out like a thousand doves. She knew he had to leave. He had missed the last part of the itinerary his mother had arranged and spent it with her in La Puebla de Valverde. A city of hundreds known for a hotel and incredible fattened pig products.
She called him My Joey and he, My Marianna-danna.
She watched him go on the bus and sang to him the song she would sing when they lay in the fields. He never “tried anything” but she had him touch her breast.
You are like the clear water that rains from the sky
I love you because I want you to love me
Because like you there is no one more beautiful on this earth
And that makes me dream every time you kiss me and makes me tremble
She sang it now, to the waves, the sky. She knew love and knew she did not have it, now. But she had it, once and still felt it.
Everyone worried about the lack of babies. Luis blamed her.
She thought of the white boy and his gentle hands and total lack of sense of direction.
“You are like a spinning top, white boy.”
She cried and thought of the trap she was in and wondered about him and his life.
Sylvia della Croce
Sylvia took the file card from Lorraine and instantly noticed the +34 for Spain. She shook her head.
“I knew it. I knew it.” Lorraine looked at her.
“He is not really…” she started to say.
“Okay, my voice wont help but there is slim chance I can…I don’t even know if this number will work.”
Sylvia started to dial. “Luckily I have overseas on my cell. I do lots of buying …hello,hello….” Lorraine heard her speaking in Spanish for a few minutes and she wrote down another phone number. She was shaking her head.
“This may be a bust. But…Joe had a girlfriend or at least he met someone years ago in Spain and I think they were in love but her never followed through. He got busy and her mother, that was her mother I was talking with, said that she had gotten married a few years ago but no babies and no happiness, she thought either. It is worth a shot.” Lorraine nodded.
“I will call her and tell her what is going on and can you bring the phone in and put it by his ear?”
“Yes. I can do that.” She saw her boss’s face and knew that she would probably be fired or suspended on her first day. “I can. I will.”
Sylvia dialed and then after what seemed like minutes started to speak in Spanish. She started to cry as she was talking and put her free hand on her breast. Then she nodded and said “Enfermera, enfermera. Nurse. Nurse.” And passed the phone to Lorraine.
Lorraine took the phone and hid it in her pocket and walked quickly to where Joseph lay. Melinda was there talking to a doctor and her boss. She waited and made herself look busy checking him. The doctor and her boss walked out and Melinda nodded at her.
Loraine placed the phone next to Joseph’s right ear and covered it with a corner of a sheet.
She stepped away and could barely hear a woman’s voice talking and then what sounded like singing.
Joseph
Joseph found himself walking but without knowing how he had stood up or where he had come from. He was on the porch of the restaurant and there was a young woman sitting on the steps. She patted a spot next to her for him to sit down.
He did. She was talking and then singing. He felt drawn to her and to something familiar about her.
You are like the clear water that rains from the sky
I love you because I want you to love me
She sang and he understood the words, in Spanish and started to sing with her.
Because like you there is no one more beautiful on this earth
And that makes me dream every time you kiss me and makes me tremble
“Mi Joey.”
“Mi Marianna.”
He looked over to where she had been sitting and she was gone. He looked all around.
He had to find her.
Outside the restaurant was blackness. Inside was a single flickering light.
He stood up.
Lorraine
That night she had slept on the beach near her house with her dog who dug an impossible sand hole and snuggled up next to her. When she woke up, it was foggy and she saw someone standing there. A policeman. With coffee.
“Mam, I have to cite you for sleeping on the beach with a dog.” He smiled and passed her the coffee. She sat up and put two hands around it and smelled it.
He sat down next to her. “Well, you beat my record. Fired in what- four hours was it?”
She pushed him with her arm. “Not exactly fired. Suspended for violating protocol. Something like that.”
“But you saved the dude’s life, right?”
Lorraine took a sip and thought for a moment. Dude?
“Well, his mother and his long ago girlfriend, they…I just put the phone down.”
“What I heard was that you found the little magic file card.”
“Who told you…. oh yeah I did. Yup, well I helped. Some kind of test, I guess. Do what my heart, intuition, whatever says or let the “dude” die.”
He helped her up.
“Let’s get you home and get that little fella some chow and his real bed.” He put his arm over her and they walked.
“Weren’t you cold out there?”
“I don’t think so. I don’t remember.” He looked at her curiously.
They came up to her little porch. The dog ran in through a gate.
“Venice. Luckily, I patrol this area to keep you safe.”
“Thank you, officer.” They kissed.
“Hey,” she said looking up at him. “Do you ever think about how thin a thread keeps someone living. Alive. Or not.”
“Hum, maybe in terms of reaction time maybe or a split second of inattention. Like that?
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
He started walking away and then turned around.
“Hey, let’s go out tonight. I will take you to dinner. In celebration of saving the dude’s life.”
“Sounds good, honey.”
“Oh, yeah and I want to try a new place.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It is called The Highway Restaurant. Greek food and atmosphere, up there on the westside.”
“Sounds good.”
She went inside and sat on the loveseat.
The third number had been to a “Margie” who had also rushed over to Reagan and thoroughly took over the Trauma Staff until she was allowed to see Joseph and then thoroughly chewed him out.
“What did I tell you! What did I tell you!” And then cried with Sylvia his mother.
Lorraine closed her eyes and felt a breeze come through the screen door. She had no schedule today, until tonight. Her pug nuzzled her.
She started to drift.
Kalispera. She heard faintly.
Kalispera.
Welcome.
Welcome.
She smiled and then fell asleep.
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