NORTHWEST LOVEJOY, PORTLAND OREGON

Northwest Lovejoy is where my current life began.

That’s where I met my wife to be.

She was walking up the sidewalk in a blue summer dress.

I was talking to a new guy in the neighborhood who turned out to be her boyfriend.

It was an auspicious beginning; I met a lot of people in those days.

The apartment manager looked like an old biker with long hair.

He did his apartment business from a bar up 21st.

That’s where I met him to sign the lease and pick up keys.

True to his calling he drove a big Cadillac.

One night he overshot the parking space and landed in the front room of his ground floor apartment.

It was one of those moments when you know what happened based on what you see, and still can’t believe it.

The guy crashed through the wall, got out, and went to bed.

We had a new manager after that.

 

I met a young woman who lived in a one bedroom apartment on the third floor.

An older woman, probably thirty, who looked like Selma Hayek every day.

When you live in an apartment building you see people on their off days when they’re not looking their best, like laundry day.

Not Patricia. She never had an off day.

She was camera-ready beautiful every time she left her apartment.

In other words, not my kind of girl. She worked too hard to look so good.

There had to be a downside, a hidden problem, like so many done-up women.

I’d seen it before and knew the chances were good to get lured in.

Not me, no ma’am.

 

The New Manager On Northwest Lovejoy

The new guy moved into the same ground floor apartment the old manager had.

The wall was patched and fixed, but there were other problems, like the old manager’s circle of friends.

He might have done more than look like an old biker.

If I had to guess, he also looked like he’d done time along the way.

That notion came to me after the new guy got robbed in the middle of the night.

With a habit of drinking 2/3 of a bottle of rum on a nightly schedule, the new guy was a sound sleeper.

The robbery changed things. He bought an AR15.

 

Me: Quite a rifle.

Manager: Like we had in Vietnam. Rob me again and find out.

Me: The only problem I see is the space. It’s too much gun for this space. You need something you can level in a hurry.

Manager: Something smaller, but still lethal.

Me: That looks lethal as hell.

 

A couple of week later he showed me his new piece.

 

Manager: I traded my AR15. You were right, too much gun for the space.

Me: What do you call this?

Manager: It’s a Colt Python.

Me: That ought to wrap up any problems in the middle of the night.

Manager: It’s a beauty.

Me: Where will you keep it?

Manager: I’ll put it away in my bedroom and see if you can find it.

 

The bedroom was decent sized with a queen bed, night table and lamp, and a dresser.

The night table looked like a block and had a cloth cover that went to the ground.

It wasn’t under the bed, between the mattresses, in the dresser, or closet.

After I gave up he showed me where he hid it.

The night table was a block of solid foam he’d sliced into.

The gun was in the side slice an arm’s length away.

Like other people who’ve shown me their guns, I was more cautious around him.

My philosophy is the only person who needs to know if you’ve got guns is the person you’re pointing it at.

 

The New Owner

Northwest Lovejoy changed from a dive to more upscale throughout the 80’s, and the rent went up.

What had started out as $155 a month jumped to $240 when the new owner took charge.

His young son, maybe twenty, moved in down the hall.

While the rest of the tenants was older by at least five years, he was in college party mode.

His friends were loud and laughing late at night, but he was the owner’s son.

One weekend they were all in the parking lot packed for a skiing trip.

The guy didn’t come back for a month, and when he did he had one arm.

A car crash in the snow took the other.

The party life ended and he started taking things more seriously.

 

The 80’s were a time for baby boomers to focus on the long haul.

Portland Oregon was the hot spot and Northwest Lovejoy was my dive neighborhood.

I had a favorite bar, a favorite restaurant, and found my favorite girl.

We still talk about Val’s Place and the restaurant on the corner two blocks up where it was soup, salad, and a half a loaf of bread for a couple of bucks.

I couldn’t remember the name and texted her.

It came back to me before she could answer: Wheel of Fortune.

She’s an inspiration, the kind writers write about.