Ten Acres In Malibu

By Robert Gottschlich

A displaced young man stumbles upon a Craig’s List Want-ad that will change his life forever. He is hired to take care of an elderly man suffering from dementia. He embarks on this journey with no experience, and what expectations he has will quickly be transformed into a life altering adventure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 20, 2012
• ISBN: 9781624880148

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From the Author

Ten Acres in Malibu

@10AcresinMalibu

From the Author

I am an independent caregiver who stumbled into this profession by way of Craigslist back in 2004. I took care of an elderly man suffering from dementia who lived on an estate, high up in the hills of Malibu. This novel is a semi-fictional account of crazy events that unfolded while I worked for this elderly man. I was putting him to bed one evening, and he thought we were on the set of a movie. This got me thinking about how profound this experience was, so naturally I felt compelled to put it all together in a novel. I don’t have any licenses or degrees in the medical field, but feel that with my good nature and sense of humor I was therefore able to write in such a way that others may relate. I’ve also read somewhere that the aging population is on the rise and we all may increasingly encounter such similar situations. I am ever grateful to this man and his loving family for changing the course of my life.

I really hope you enjoy the journey of my novel and will share it with your friends and loved ones. ~Robert

Ten Acres in Malibu

A Novel by Robert Gottschlich

CARETAKER IN MALIBU FOR ELDERLY MAN WITH DEMENTIA/ LIVE IN AND OUT. FIVE DAYS A WEEK, 24 HOURS A DAY. SALARY W/EXPERIENCE

It was the third week of June 2004. I was online, scrolling through job offers on Craigslist when an ad caption caught my eye. Had I ever been a caretaker for an elderly man with touches of dementia? Not exactly. I had taken care of my grandfather for a while when he was sick. He wasn’t demented but he was elderly. I could fake it. What could it involve? Some heavy lifting, maybe toilet duty, putting together a meal or two, I could swing it.

It’s not like I had a lot of choices. I was moving to Venice, CA to live with a friend from high school who had just bought a house. I was twenty- seven years old and just graduated from the Graphic Design School.  It was a trade school, the kind of place that you see late at night on infomercials. I barely graduated. Still, up to now I’d been making it on my own. My folks were proud of me in a distant kind of ‘don’t ask questions’ way and LA was the place that I wanted to live. Truth be told, I had already picked a career. One day I planned to make good money writing songs. Until then, pushing some old man around in a wheelchair didn’t seem so bad. Hey, the work might supply me with lyrics for more songs.

Three days after signaling my interest in the care taking position, I get a call on my cell phone.

Rob? This is Stacy with Malibu Care.

Morning, Stacy.

I went over your resume and think you are quite possibly perfectly suited for Peter, the elderly gentleman who requires care? Stacy says. She talks fast and I have to focus. Can you be out in Malibu by early afternoon? Say, one o’clock? We’ll drop by the Callahan’s for a meet and greet. Good people, the Callahan’s.

As Stacy filled in the outlines of the job, the sun was cutting through the fog and glassy waves were breaking on the beach outside the Venice Beach Cafe where I was getting a morning coffee and the words to a song were starting to wind their way through my head.

I was sitting there wondering what the hell was I doing, signing up for an all day, all night, five day a week gig with an old man? That would be like jail time, me babysitting some old coot in some dark and dank room with all that LA sun coming down outside. Was I nuts? Maybe. Was I broke? Definitely.

Sounds good, Stacy. I’ll be there at one sharp.

Little did I know that this job I thought of as a joke, as a means to pay the bills until my real life got started, would change my life deeply and forever.

.....................

Chris comes and joins me for coffee; He’s that friend of mine who had the heart to put me up in the back bedroom of his house in Venice. Chris has worked in television as a cameraman for years. Tall and slender, he looks like Kevin Bacon. He is a little older and a bit wiser than me so when he speaks I usually listen. This morning I pay strict attention to what he's trying to tell me. His invitation isn’t open ended and he lets me know it.

Got to get some rent from you soon, bro. Got a mortgage to pay.

I take a slug of coffee. Hey, I hope I get this job, I say halfheartedly. The idea of taking care of some demented, old dude twenty-four hours a day, five days a week, doesn't seem as viable an option as it had earlier.

He says, This is LA, bro. One thing I have learned in LA is you fake it till you make it. There are still times when I arrive on the set and don’t know exactly what I’m doing, but I keep my mouth shut and watch people and handle the situation.

Handle the situation. That’s what he is asking me to do. No, telling me to do.

What time’s your interview? he asks.

1 PM.

Wow, check out the ass on that girl, will you? Don’t worry. You’ll get it, he says as if watching the girl’s rear end go bouncing down the street and acing my job interview were two similarly easy stops on the road to riches and karmic salvation.

…………………….

It's a few minutes before noon. I get into my car and drive north along the PCH into Malibu. To my right, the hills rise steeply into chaparral and wild mustard, houses clinging tightly to all available flat land like toe nails to toes. To my left, beach shacks on the Pacific sand are stacked side to side on stamp-sized lots that sell for a million and up.

The city of Malibu is shaped like an eel - two miles wide and twenty seven long, it stretches up the coast to the Ventura County line – and the address I'm looking for is in Zuma, way up near the head of the beast. The lots out here get larger. The mountains fall away from the coast and leave room for ranch land, secluded mansions, helter-skelter trailer parks and tract homes that were built back in the 60s and cost next to nothing then and a hell of a lot more now.

I'm not sure what I expect to find out here at the end of my Map Quest directions. I have never been out to Malibu before but like most people I have my preconceptions. I’ve watched Baywatch, too. Perhaps I'll find a surfer king who has fallen off his throne. Or a mad zillionaire whose relatives are waiting impatiently for him to pass.

I slow down and get in the right lane behind a Winnebago from Alberta as jet jockeys on Kawasaki’s, hip barrio kids in Mustangs and pocket rockets and traveling salesman in mid-size coupes jockey their way up the coast past Zuma Beach to Neptune’s Net and beyond, to Camarillo, Oxnard and the Navy base at Port Hueneme. I take a right on Canyon Way and follow the winding road uphill through rabbit grass, wind blown cypress and honeysuckle. The sound of traffic becomes a soft, steady roar below. I’m getting closer. Old trees, cottonwoods, maples and sycamores, grow in thickets and lay long shadows across the road. I feel like I’m off in the country somewhere.

1634. 1640. As the address numbers continue to climb, I start to get apprehensive. Each new mailbox gets larger; the houses they belong too seem set further away from the street. Soon there are no mailboxes, just gates and gate houses where the mail is left in metal lined bins cut into tall, secure walls of stone.

By the time I reach the thick, white pillars that front the wrought iron gates of 1660 Canyon Way, I’m near the top of the hill. The tall gates are open so I enter, follow the winding drive to its end and park under a huge flame tree in front of a large house. The house is one of those pseudo-Spanish places, all red tile and white stucco, wrought iron railings, strips of colored tiles and Mexican pavers stitching it together. The building is so tall and large it seems scaled for giants. Bougainvillea grows up walls and jasmine drips down. It’s peaceful up here. The closest house is far enough away it keeps getting lost in fog that rolls up the arroyos, gashes cut into the reddish brown earth by years and years of running water. The traffic noise down on PCH is hard to distinguish from the wind blowing through the tall eucalyptus trees that mark the southern border of the property line. I’m thinking I’m in paradise until a Jack Russell terrier and a woman come from around the side of the house and remind me I’m not.

Robert?

I bend down to pet the barking dog. Yes?

Stacy, she says. Glad to meet you.

Nice to meet you. The dog ducks my hand and bounces away. You too, doggie.

Stacy and I shake hands. My connection for the job is dressed in a bright blue skirt, a white peasant blouse and pink Sketchers. She’s about 5’5’, a blonde, blue- eyed, stocky California gal with no remarkable features except for a crooked, toothy smile.

That’s Cowboy, she says, nodding at the Jack Russell who has sprinted over to piss in the impatiens.

Where’s the Indians, Cowboy?

The dog shoots me a bored look. Wrong movie, Tomahawk.

Follow me, Stacy says. She seems in a hurry as we wind our way down a flagstone path leading around the side of the house. You didn’t get lost, did you?

I had my Map Quest. It is off the beaten path though, huh?

Wait until you drive it in the fog, Stacy says. And at night. It puts some people off.

Am I the only one that’s interviewing today, Stacy?

She frowns, then looks surprised. You are, actually. We have interviewed quite a few people for the position in the past week. No one has made the grade yet, she says. She opens the Dutch door on the front of the house that enters the kitchen, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

The reason I asked it, was the feeling I am getting that I am not qualified for this job. I almost wish there were others competing with me. It would be easier to take the brush off that I sense is coming. Like I say, I am hardly qualified. Pick thirty people at Random out of Ralph’s Market in Malibu and half would likely be more qualified than I am.

Why did I come? Is it too late to turn around and run?

Robert?

Coming!

They did hire a couple people but they didn’t work out, Stacy says, perhaps sensing my doubts.

They didn’t get along with the old man? I ask.

Each had their problems, Stacy says, I don’t know why.

Yes, she does know why. It’s her job to know why. She just isn’t saying. Is this a difficult job, Stacy? Is that why they’re having problems filling it?

Difficult? Not for the right person, it isn’t, she says. A professional. She doesn’t say it but it’s there. Once you get the routine down, get used to the particulars, pfft, it’s easy as pie.

And the particulars are?

She wags her finger. Those are personal. Things only an employee is privy too. Nothing restrictive, she assures me, or illegal.

I take a deep breath. For some reason, an old fashioned, English manor, Rebecca mystery story is beginning to run in my head. Strange house, strange people, strange circumstances, me the innocent lad caught up in things beyond my control. Am I falling through a rabbit hole here?

Snap out of it and HANDLE the situation, dude. Chris’s words push the Rebecca scenario off center stage. I will try.

I do know they’re getting a little desperate, Stacy adds, "so even if you’re not exactly perfect you’ve still got a shot at it and then you’ll get all the details, capiche?"

Somehow, this is encouraging. Despite my weak resume, there may be a job here after all. My mood should brighten but it doesn’t. Maybe it’s that look in her eyes, that little mysterious half wink, when she said there are these little details, but won't tell me what they are.

Do the Callahan’s have kids?

Not any that need taking care of, if that’s what you mean. They have three children in all. Kathleen, Mick and Matthew. I guess they liked to party when they were younger. No drugs or alcohol, just goof around in the bedroom, huh?

I don’t touch that one. Is she testing me? She parks me on a stone bench outside the kitchen door. Let me go in and tell Mick and Lynn you’re here.

I sit on a razor thin pillow on the bench and wait for the woman to return. That uneasy feeling still nags at me. What am I about to sign up for here?

Cowboy decides I might be more fun than I look so he comes and barks at me. Get up! Do something fun, man. These people are a drag!

Later, I tell him, turning away from him. After a minute, he gets the message and runs off but not before he pees on the far end of the bench I’m sitting on. Gotcha!

I didn’t know there was a dog attached to the job. There was no mention of Cowboy in the want ad. Maybe he’s Stacy’s? Hypothetically, if I did get a job like this and I did have to take care of a dog as well as the old, demented man, a Jack Russell would be far down on my list of wished for dogs to care for. I love them but they are feisty, mischievous beasts, it would be like taking care of twin troublemakers. Hypothetically, if there had to be a dog, I’d pick a sweet Lab who had gotten old and enjoyed laying around but was not on medication yet. An easy too please old mutt, just feed him, pet him and put him to bed.

I’m thinking of my second choice (maybe a bark less Chihuahua with a limp - small, noiseless and slow) and Cowboy is howling like an ambulance, trying to pull his stubby body up into the boughs of a tree fern after a butterfly when Stacy returns.

Hey, Robert, she says. We are ready for you.

Is Cowboy your dog? I ask her.

Are you kidding? she says with a laugh. She might just as well have said, ‘That lunatic?’ We agree on certain things already, she and I.

As we go inside the house, my head begins to spin with more of that there is more here than meets the eye stuff, but it’s physical this time. From the outside the place looks like a huge, sprawling tract house but that’s misleading. It’s more than that. Twenty-five foot ceilings have me looking up and up and