He Had a Brother in L.A.

I am standing on the corner of West 47th Street and Broadway in New York City when a guy with a cardboard box over his head painted to look like a television set says, “You from L.A.?”

It is 44 degrees and raining, which does not put me in the sweetest of moods, in addition to which I am lost. That is not a new occurrence. I have been lost in more places than I can remember.

“I have a brother in L.A.,” the guy with the TV head says.

“I should have guessed that,” I say.

The box is over his entire head. Its face is painted with a screen and nobs, with eyeholes cut into the nobs. He is handing out leaflets advertising a television repair shop.

“I’m looking for the Milford Plaza Hotel,” I say.

“Everybody’s looking for something,” the box says, passing out his leaflets. “It’s on West 45th.” He points. “That way.”

I start to leave when the box says, “I don’t see how people live out there. There’s nothing to do.”

“There’s plenty to do,” I reply defensively.

I am about to start listing Things To Do In L.A. when it suddenly hits me. What the hell am I doing standing in the rain in the middle of New York defending L.A. to a guy with his head in a box?

“Thanks for the directions,” I say courteously, trying to leave a good impression. It’s the City of Angels Syndrome. At home we drive by and shoot. Out of town we blow kisses.

Later I wonder how he knew I was from L.A. It is too cold in New York to wear an aloha shirt, and I gave up beads and earrings a long time ago.

“It’s the gray hair,” my wife says. “You don’t see many gray-haired people in Manhattan. They have either dyed their hair, been killed by muggers or are hiding on Long Island.”

“But why L.A.? I could be a Mambo King from Miami.”

“Maybe his brother told him you were coming,” she says.

Then I begin to wonder why the guy seems to love New York and dislike L.A., beyond his perception that there is nothing to do out here.

Since his livelihood seems to be walking the streets with his head in a box handing out leaflets, it is unlikely he lives in a penthouse and dines at trendy French restaurants on the Upper East Side.

I suspect he is from Brooklyn, where recreation consists of mob rub-outs, and takes the subway to town every day, which is like riding a ferry on the River Styx.

But still, the guy loves his hometown and feels sorry for his brother, who probably lives in Canoga Park and repairs refrigerators for a living. I feel sorry for him too, but that’s not the point. We view hell from different perspectives.

“It’s the energy here as compared to the lack of energy in L.A.,” a native New Yorker says, explaining the box-head man’s loyalty to New York. “We are America’s Gateway to the World. You, on the other hand, are the city that invented the hot fudge sundae.”

Maybe so, but I still feel we have contributed more than hot fudge sundaes to the nation’s cultural tradition. I ask my wife to remember some of them.

We are sitting in our hotel room watching the television testimony of New Yorker Salvatore (Sammy the Bull) Gravano in the murder-racketeering trial of New Yorker John Gotti. Sammy the Bull has just admitted killing 19 people.

I am trying to absorb that when my wife says, “We’ve given the world butt tucks, kosher burritos, Ronald Reagan and ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.’ That’s not bad.”

“I had in mind something more elemental, like a cure for baldness.”

“We’re working on a cure for fatness,” she says. “Will that do?”

I am thinking about that when Sammy the Bull says indignantly he certainly did not set up the killing of his friend Liborio (Louie) Milito just for money. He had a good reason. Louie was bad-mouthing him.

Just before leaving New York the next day, I look up the guy with his head in the box. “How did you know I was from L.A.?” I say.

“I’m not looking for trouble,” he says, peering at me through the holes in the box.

“Just tell me how you knew I was from L.A.,” I say. Then, inspired by the environment, I add, “or I’ll have Sammy the Bull call on you.”

He laughs nervously, then says it’s the way I walk. People from L.A. aren’t used to walking so they tend to drift back and forth across the sidewalk. New Yorkers walk in a straight line.

I am back in L.A. the next day watching television. Two people are killed when a biker kicks their car out of control. Two women are missing and feared dead. And everyone is excited about Oscars Night.

Thank God, I say to myself. Sanity.