Fitz remembered Ivan was never right in the head.
He watched him glare at the ceiling, then to the corners of the cantina, looking for cameras installed by the Czechoslovakian government.
Fitz agreed to meet him at the Sagebrush in Calabasas, a place they haunted decades ago in their college days. It was noisy and excessive and not a good place to talk, perfect for Ivan.
The sawdust floors, rustic wooden bar, and patio overlooking the Santa Monica mountains were the same. Fitz didn’t drink when he was on call at the hospital, so they sat sipping Pellegrino with lime.
“Svetlana sing no more,” Ivan said. “My girl Svetlana died. You know her.”
Know her? As always with Ivan, Fitz was unsure how to react. He never mentioned a Svetlana the last time they saw each other.
A Jesus-on-a-unicycle rode through the bar as everyone hollered and pumped fists and the guy zig-zagged across the sawdust-covered floor and through tables and chairs, his long hair flowing behind his nearly bare torso.
His splayed shirt exposed an intricate leather necklace and a “Don’t try” Charles Bukowski tattoo on his shoulder.
Ivan turned to Fitz and gestured to the Jesus-man. “What that? Tell me the true.”
“They don’t have unicycles in Czechoslovakia?”
Jesus had turned around and was wheeling back toward them. Now he had a beer in his hand and raised it to the ceiling. Everyone howled.
“Why he do, Dr. Fitz?” said Ivan. Ivan had always called him Dr. Fitz, even before med school.
Fitz turned around on the bar stool to face away from the myriad screens playing every sport known on the planet. It was enough to give you a seizure.
“The Vandenberg Circus School. One street over,” Fitz told him.
Facing the room, Fitz watched the unicycle spin twice, the man’s arms in the air, his face in a primal spasm as he disappeared out the front door of the pub. One day soon, you will be my patient and I will fix your shattered arm, Fitz thought.
Back in the nineties, Ivan drove a tan, 1975 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme painted with black stripes. He called it the Zebra Car. It was an abomination.
Ivan told him one of his clients gave it to him in Florida after he had driven a fancy sports car from New York to the client’s winter home in Venice. The next day, he hand painted black stripes over the exterior with acrylic asphalt paint. It would never come off.
The interior was appalling. Purple shag seats, steering wheel, and dashboard covers, and cologne bombs hung from the mirror. It smelled like a man-cave harem, a combination of Ivan-sweat-onion and cologne.
LA was a big place that seemed to swallow you and somehow they had both survived. They had been roommates in Santa Monica back when Ivan was working as a mechanic at a car shop in the valley and Fitz began pre-med at UCLA. On weekends, they ventured out to the clubs on Sunset Strip in the Zebra Car, inhaling coke with dollar bills from a dirty mirror Ivan kept in his glove compartment.
“We go!” he’d say, gesturing to the Zebra Car. “The Zebra ready for hooli-hooli.”
Ivan adored the Los Angeles Zoo and Fitz knew it was the inspiration for the Zebra Car. He’d drag Fitz and his friends to the Drylands section of the park where the zebras were, flailing his arms like a child. “Stripes like fingerprints! Each one say the true!” he’d shout.
The World of Birds show, though, was perhaps Ivan’s favorite venue. Enamored by a Yellow-Naped Amazon parrot named Gus, as the bird sat on its perch, Ivan called out, “Hooli-hooli!” and the bird copied his voice precisely, repeating “hooli-hooli” to Ivan’s delight.
Now, Ivan pouted into his water. “My Svetlana. We together long time.” He looked at Fitz, then whispered. “I think I kill her.”
Ivan often said things that didn’t translate to English. Sometimes they were conversations in his own head. Sometimes it was Ivan testing you to see how much he could push to get the reaction he craved.
Yet, Fitz noticed a change. His gestures were different, his eyes danced, full of limitless rage that made you dizzy if you stared too long. It was as though you might fall into them and lose yourself.
Though they were both still in LA, he hadn’t spoken to Ivan in a year. Ivan had come to the United States from Czechoslovakia in the early eighties (“I be porn star”) and escape the communist government that he insisted was still watching him here.
Porn didn’t work out for him — he never made one film. He was too hairy and always smelled like onions. Fitz knew he was still a high-profile mechanic at an imported car place on Wilshire, but that was it.
Ivan leaned into Fitz and whispered. “Cameras.” His eyes twitched to the walls. “I think they still watch.”
Fitz mirrored his posture and said, “I disabled them before you got here.”
Ivan grinned. “You smart man, Dr Fitz. Tell me the true.”
“You still have the Zebra Car?” He knew Ivan drove a used Porsche and kept the Zebra in his garage.
Ivan’s eyes dilated. “Always Zebra Car!”
Fitz studied his friend. His hair had thinned — he wore it in a mullet-style decades ago — and now it had receded with a bald spot at the crown. Androgenetic alopecia.
Fitz still had a full head of hair, but it had greyed early, and he partially blamed the rigors of med school, though he knew genetics was at play. His brother turned white in his early thirties.
Ivan’s face was puffy. His accent was the same, even after decades in the States. Like many from different cultures, it was his identity, and he refused to let that piece of him go.
“I go home last year. Czech same. Mama dead. Brother live with papa.” He sipped his water. “Thing same, not same.”
Ivan shook his head and kept touching his face. “She sing me songs, my Svetlana.” He patted his jacket. “I show you picture. You know.”
Ivan thumbed through his phone and set it on the bar in front of Fitz. “Thing same, not same.”
In the picture, a large, beautifully colored toy parrot sat perched on Ivan’s shoulder.
In the background, the Los Angeles Zoo sign expanded across a blue sky and the undeniable black stripes of the Zebra Car.
Comments