Opinion: A dark drive of the soul

A golf course in Encino. A telephone name.

It’s my school roommate, from the East Coast. A buddy has died.

“Oh, no.”

“However you don’t know the way he died.”

I’m nonetheless taking part in.

“He was murdered … by his son.”

“Oh my God.”

Approaching the fifteenth inexperienced, I inform my {golfing} accomplice the information, then sink a 24-foot putt for par.

“In the event you’d gotten that decision three hours in the past, you’d have had your greatest spherical ever.”

We giggle loads.

It’s the drive dwelling that wrenches me towards the informal atrocity of American life and my numb response to it. Like most emigres to L.A., I assumed I’d put a continent between me and unhealthy information from the previous nation. Now, 34 years after my transfer, the continent is tailgating me on Hayvenhurst Avenue.

I pull over to a crimson zone and take into account the mathematics that doesn’t add up: Information of a murdered frat brother equals improved golf and massive laughs?

This isn’t good. Someday after I wasn’t trying, blanket immunity to shock dulled my nervous system.

And so begins — relying on site visitors — my 40-minute quest to relearn the flexibility to be appropriately sickened.

Turning onto Ventura, the thought arises that such pitilessness isn’t simply me. A 1982 Chrissie Hynde lyric involves thoughts: “The telephone, the TV and the information of the world / Obtained in the home like a pigeon from hell.” Now it’s 2023, after we’re strung out on lockdowns, mass shootings, Proud Boys and the zillion et ceteras. Perhaps disassociation is a symptom of nationwide survivor guilt?

It’s a reassuring however unsatisfying thought, an alibi for a highschool druggie, a model of “everybody’s doing it.” This must get private.

My buddy. He was a great man. Humorous. Tough across the edges however delicate. We bonded over the Bronx, the place my grandparents lived and the place he grew up. I’d seen him simply twice since 1979 and acquired one name from him within the ’90s, re: property planning. “Sorry. Already acquired a man. No, I like dwelling in L.A. Good listening to your voice, man.”

East of Haskell, I estimate that on the time of that decision, his son — now sitting in a jail cell — would have been in grade faculty.

My thoughts immediately derails right into a screenplay plot. Let’s say an unintended overdose of L.A. faucet water empowers me with supernatural powers to see the long run, resulting in a second act of more and more determined makes an attempt to avoid wasting an previous buddy’s life. Wow, a much less futuristic “Minority Report”!

I’d write it if not for the Writers Guild of America strike. I actually ought to picket tomorrow. They are saying the Netflix picket line is tons of enjoyable—

Wait. What?

That is scary, like my mind has developed hands-free emotional avoidance. Even scarier: I notice it’s nothing new.

Nearing Sepulveda, I take into account the desensitizing impression of getting had a Hollywood comedy writing profession. I flash to 1997 when “woke” was only a verb and no joke was “too quickly.” In (possibly) the darkest ever “Seinfeld” second — the hospital scene wherein Susan is pronounced lifeless from licking poisonous marriage ceremony invitation envelopes purchased on a budget by her fiancé, George Costanza — George feigns grief after which says to Jerry, Elaine and Kramer: “Nicely, let’s get some espresso.”

I beloved that scene a lot. It made me proud to be a part of the present. Now, passing the Skirball Cultural Heart, I’m wondering if that was the primary symptom of an emotional intake-valve shutdown.

No. A couple of years earlier, within the wake of Rodney King, the Northridge quake and O.J., I’d joked: “Folks say they wouldn’t transfer to L.A. as a result of they’d miss the change of seasons. However L.A. has 4 seasons: Hearth season, earthquake season, riot season and pilot season.”

You would possibly suppose I’m about to pin some blame on Los Angeles for my unfeeling state, however I’m not. Turning onto Sundown, I don’t need to blame anybody or something, particularly not this nice metropolis. When “How did I get this fashion?” turns to “Whose fault?” all is misplaced.

Stopped in one other crimson zone, I Google my buddy. The horrific information pops proper up. Shot twice within the head, as soon as within the chest, as soon as within the stomach.

As a hobbyist comic, I do a joke a couple of man who “died peacefully in his sleep after being shot 4 occasions within the head and twice within the chest.” There must be a restraining order on how shut comedy can hit dwelling.

However that is all about hitting dwelling. I would like this to hit dwelling.

Over velocity bumps on Amalfi, I believe again to 1975 and my buddy throwing extremely lengthy Frisbee passes on Fraternity Row. How he tied my tie for the spring formal. How he laughed like a automotive with twin exhaust pipes.

Turning onto my road, I’m going the place I actually don’t need to go: imagining him holding his toddler son within the supply room, the farthest factor from his thoughts being, “Sometime, this gurgling little boy will …”

Dwelling.

Peter Mehlman’s newest novel is “#MeAsWell.” He was a author and producer on “Seinfeld.”