Listening Long and Late

California was another one

54 California was another one California was another one of Barba Netto’s bad ideas. The end of the rainbow, L.A.—“A pot to piss in,” he said, after he was jailed for domestic disturbance and Lizzie headed back east. After he got out, he was more jittery than ever, walking the streets all night or driving cross-country in a beat-up Buick and coming back loaded with golf clubs, bicycles, sacks of birdseed, croquet sets, cases of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. He’d never in his life played golf and was indifferent to birds and every lawn game except bocce. Finally he disappeared for good, though one winter, a year ago, he called collect. “I want you to know I acquitted myself with all due honor,” he said, then hung up. “With all due honor”—as if he were reading a citation for valor. Or an epitaph—one of the crazies they stack like cordwood on the streets of L.A. ...