I felt lost and in need of direction. After
the ordeal with my broken ankle that led to my abuse of drugs and alcohol which
resulted in a car accident and jail, I knew it was time to do some soul
searching and trace the roots of my life. Maybe I would find some answers—maybe
not, but it was worth a try, plus, I had nothing better to do besides stare out
of the bedroom window at my once beautiful sports car now in twisted, metallic
shreds serving as a constant reminder of the dreadful mistake I had made.
I booked a flight to New York and made plans to stay with my
parent’s long time friends, the Meltzer’s again. It was a beautiful March day
in 1988, clear and cool, so I decided to take a walk. First I headed up the
west side and when I got to 96th and Amsterdam I saw a “Psychic
Reader” sign on the second floor window. I walked up the staircase and buzzed
the hand written psychic reader’s button. Less than a minute later a voice that
sounded like sandpaper rubbing against an iron skillet wafted through the two
inch speaker by the door. “Yes?” the voice shrieked. “I came for a reading,” I
said noncommittally. She answered, “Go to 33rd and Madison.”
I didn’t think too much about it since I really wasn’t sure I
wanted to spend a whole lot of money on a reading in New York where it cost
almost ten bucks for a couple slices of pizza, the best pizza in the world,
mind you. I found myself walking south and before I knew it I was nearing the
Empire State Building, which was very near the place where that scratchy voice
told me to go. I walked to the designated spot and saw the same sign in the
window I had seen a couple of hours earlier. I rang the buzzer and the same
voice answered. “Yes,” to which I replied the same answer. “Was this the same
woman, and if so, how did she get here so fast?” I thought to myself as I was
being buzzed in. I pulled myself up the stairs to apartment 1A and knocked on
the red door that was ornamented with Egyptian symbols and a wooden cross. I
could see a clouded eye looking at me through the peephole. I was let in. She
was ancient, about ninety or so with long, thin gray hair tied back in a pony
tail. She told me her name was Mama and she spoke with a thick Eastern European
accent. I was invited into her kitchen and sat down on a wrought iron chair facing
her. She took out an Aquarian deck of Tarot cards then lit a red candle and I
noticed the flame was slanting to the left. I told her a little about myself
and shy I had come to New York.
“I see you have two dark spirits that have been following you for
some time now.” she said. “Do you ever notice that in your music you have a
little success and then it all falls apart after awhile?” I nodded my head in
agreement. “In your love life, you get together with a girl and then it also
falls apart after a year or two. Am I right?” I was taken in by her accuracy
even though I knew all about the parlor games psychics play, but this woman was
different. She seemed totally authentic being half Romanian—the other half Iroquois
Indian. “Here’s I want you to do. Tonight I want you to take a carton of eggs
and put them under your bed when you sleep. Tomorrow morning at ten, I want you
to come back here and bring the eggs. Can you do that?”
I said I would and asked
her how much I owed her for the reading. She said not to worry about it today
and I could pay her twenty dollars after the reading tomorrow. That night I
slept with the carton of eggs I bought at the deli earlier in the day. I was
glad the bed had legs since it would have been awkward to sleep with the eggs
under my pillow and I knew they wouldn’t have survived the night stuffed
between the mattress and the floor. Back at 33rd and Madison I
entered her apartment with the carton of eggs tucked firmly but gently under my
arm then sat back down on the same iron chair in the kitchen. I couldn’t for
the life of me figure out how she did it. I didn’t see her get up from the
table except to get a bowl from the cabinet watching her every move like a
hawk. She placed the bowl on the table and cracked open the first egg. I could
feel my hair standing up on the back of my neck as I looked down into the bowl.
The yoke was jet black. She took another egg and it also was black. She then
cracked open a few more and they were normal, as yellow as the sun that peeked
through the kitchen window. “The two black yokes represent those two evil
spirits that have attached themselves to you aura,” she said. I was
flabbergasted. It was a shock and I then wondered how she was going to help me
since I had to fly back to Los Angeles the next day. She told me not to worry
because she had a daughter, Paula, in Van Nuys, California, who was also a
psychic. “Is that very far from you?’ she asked. I told her it was relatively
close.
When I got back to L.A., I
contacted Paula. She was a little ball of fire, about five feet tall in heels,
with a round Slavic face and a Romanian accent kind of like her mother’s. I
would drive my mom’s Mercedes over to her house in Van Nuys once a week and she
would lead me into a small room in the back of her corner house on a modest
neighborhood. There were pictures of what I assumed was her family on the walls
right beside paintings of Jesus looking like a gypsy. I figured she was a
Christian even if she dabbled in the Tarot and the occult.
Paula would sit me down in
this eight by eight room, light a few candles then take my hand a pray to her
Lord and Savior, then a prayer for my career and my love life. At this point, I
was more interested in love. I was a bit skeptical at first, hoping I wouldn’t
have to burn another thousand bucks. I wasn’t about to do that again, I already
felt stupid enough for doing that in New York the previous month. Then the
Tarot readings would start and I began to realize that she was a gifted and
insightful psychic, like her mother. She said I was going to meet a pretty
blonde girl with a round face and blue eyes. In the meantime I had to find a
new car.
My maroon TR-6 looked so pathetic parked in front of my parent’s
house on Canton Drive with its nose all busted up like Rocky Balboa after his
fight with Drago. I had plenty of time on my hand –time to heal, time to learn
something new. I had a wreck of a car with a solid engine and transmission.
Then it hit me. Why not find a TR-6 with a good, straight body and a blown
engine? I could swap them out down at Richard’s and I think he would be more
than cool about it. I called him and he said, Sure Jimmy, if you find a decent
TR, you can use a space in the front, and if you need any help or you get stuck
with anything, if I’m not too busy, I’ll help. Why don’t you call Paul? He’s
got a lot of contacts with English cars.”
Richard Boyd was a gold mine of knowledge, and one of the nicest
people you’d ever want to meet. His shop was in a little strip mall with a tire
shop, another domestic mechanic’s garage, a body and paint shop and little
Mexican mini-mart / restaurant. I could park my two Triumphs side by side near
where Richard stored some of his other projects—the ones he hadn’t quite had
time or energy to get around to fixing yet. The wheels were in motion.
I scoured the Recycler for what I needed and Paul checked the ads
in Hemmings. Between the two of us I knew we’d find something. I really didn’t
want to spend much more than $500 and that was a reasonable amount of money to
spend on a TR-6 with a blown motor. Nowadays finding a wreck like what I was
looking for would cost ten times as much.
I found one for $650 in the Recycler. It was a 1973 model with
chrome bumpers and the body was perfect and even the top and interior were more
than decent. All the engines in the Tr-6 from 1969 through 1976 were
interchangeable so there was no problem in swapping them out. The only thing
was—I had never done anything like that in my life. Paul helped me tow the two
Triumphs over to Richard’s and I got to work. I removed all the wires, hoses,
nuts and bolts and finally pulled the old engine from my maroon TR with an
engine hoist then did the same with the ’73. It was hard, greasy work, but with
Richard and Paul’s help it only took a couple of hours. I spent over a week,
detailing the engine compartment and painting it black, installing the new
engine and reconnecting everything. All that was left to do now was turn the
key. I held my breath as I entered the cockpit and sat down in the driver’s
seat. I said a little prayer to the gods of foreign sports cars and then—it
started up. Yes! I had done it!
The summer was in full gear and it felt great to have a
convertible again. I would still drive out to Van Nuys and get readings from
Paula and slip her a twenty for her work and she would give me a candle to burn
at home. I was starting to lose faith in her abilities since it had been over
four months and I hadn’t met anyone promising. Then, on the Fourth of July of
that same year, I got a call from Paula. “You have to get out of the house today.
You are going to meet her.”
“Her?”
“Yes her— the blonde with the blue eyes and round face.”
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