We lived here

I was waiting tables, playing drums in rock ’n’ roll bands and writing unfinished short stories; Sean was studying theater at City College and composing earnest, romantic poetry; Brian was working on the great American novel and a print shop press and trying to keep Sean and me from working on his attractive girlfriend. None of us had bad credit because we didn’t have any credit.

The landlord was a cheerful oddball who wore a hairpiece and a polyester suit. His house stood a couple blocks from the site of the original San Diego State University, which was moved to its current location in 1931, in case you’ve ever wondered about the origin of Campus Avenue, University Heights or that lonely, 1910 neo-classical building at the foot of El Cajon Boulevard. But that’s a different slice of San Diego history than the one I want to share.

The landlord didn’t live in the Campus Avenue house—he owned other properties— but it was his baby. He had remodeled it himself, guided by a very exuberant, do-it-yourself spirit, or spirits.

First, there were two front doors. The one on the right led into the house, like your aver age front door, but the one on the left was a false door that opened to nothing but the outside wall of the house. We stuck a life-size cardboard cutout of Humphrey Bogart wearing a trench coat in there, so if you opened the wrong front door, you got a face full of Sam Spade.

Second, he’d raised the ceiling of the tiny living room about 25 feet and stuck a giant Plexiglas skylight in the exact shape of the Chrysler symbol in the middle of it. We never could make sense of it, but we dubbed the tiny cottage “The Chrysler Building.”

Third, the kitchen had been fitted with 360 degrees of inlaid fluorescent light boxes giving it the feeling of a UFO cockpit, ideal for whipping up some space-age Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

And then there was the big claw-foot bathtub in the front yard: a convenient beer container for the parties we’d promised we wouldn’t have.

The landlord’s DIY spirit was infectious: “We hate the carpeting. We wanna rip it out and refinish the wood floors. We’ll put it back if we ever move out,” we informed him on the day we’d brought our first check to his stuffy little office on 30th Street.

“You boys got experience doing that?” “Tons!” we lied. We tore the vomit-colored carpet out and stuffed it in a closet and smoothed down the termite-eaten pine planks with a rented sander, filled the holes with wood putty and varnished the floor. It didn’t look half-bad under fake oriental area rugs strategically placed to hide the biggest putty-filled termite caves.

Since we wanted to be writers, we spent a lot of time in the house smoking cigarettes, drinking cheap wine, eating leftover macaroni and cheese and falling asleep with books on our faces.

Since only Brian and I were on the rental agreement and each had one of the two bedrooms, Sean paid minimal rent to live in the attic, reachable by a ladder that dropped through a hole in the hallway ceiling. He couldn’t stand upright in there, but he had a futon and an electric outlet for a lamp to scribble his poems by.

Our parties revolved around the old records we’d blast on the stereo, and the house shook under the weight of all the drunken flailing. I couldn’t begin to name or remember all the good-time seekers who got the A-OK from Bogie to pass beyond that half-real threshold. The Chrysler Building became legendary, or notorious, depending on whom you ask.

One of the few things that could get us out of there was to go listen to The Sy Rainey Trio perform every Wednesday night in the basement of the Abbey on Fifth Avenue. The club is long gone now, as are all three members of the trio.

Sy played like his hero, Erroll Garner. He could make a piano sing like an orchestra and swing like nobody’s business. His rhythm section of Preston Coleman and Leon Pettis was the real deal, too. They’d come up in the 1940s and still played in that early bop style. Leon was in his 70s then, and I considered it an honor to carry his drums out to his car after a show. He had toured with Nat King Cole and recorded with Harold Land and was as cool as ice cream. A calm Buddha on his instrument, Leon Pettis was my God. Sy was more down to earth and outgoing. He was a big, high-spirited dude with a lot of laughter and libidinous philosophy to share, and he became our friend.

When we acquired a weathered but nearly in-tune, turn-of-the-century upright piano for the Chrysler Building living room, Sy would come over and play it and hang out with these young bohemian guys, his biggest fans.

Sometimes if I’m driving near there now, I’ll swing by Campus Avenue and slow down in front of the Chrysler Building and picture myself in there late one night about 20 years ago:

I’m drinking white port out of a paper bag, sitting on the piano bench beside Sy Rainey, his big hands flying over the keys; Sean’s singing along to “Round Midnight,” standing up because he can down here; Brian and his girl are making out in his room with the door open to listen to the piano; and I’m thinking to myself, “I should write about this.”

Write to dak@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.com.