Walter Fogel

When I was growing up, my best friend was a 30-year-old man named Walter Fogel.
Whenever this tid-bit comes up in conversation, there are always a flurry of follow-up questions, usually along the lines of:

"How old were you when he first molested you?"
"Did your parents know he was molesting you?"
"How is possible he wasn't molesting you??"

I don't know. But he didn't. Nowhere near it.

In all respects, we just had a perfectly normal, utterly healthy, grown-man / toddler friendship.

Walter was a neighbor and a limo driver. So, he worked nights and lived in sort of an odd, glamorous world. Especially to my young eyes.

On weekends, after I spent an hour pounding on his door screaming for him to wake up, he would take me to bet the ponies at the track or drive up the coast to see one of his many girlfriends or we'd just run errands or go to beach all day.

Then at night, he'd take me out to an insiders-only restaurant tour of LA. We'd dine at historic places like Perino's or Musso & Franks or show up at some locals-only place in Chinatown or Little Ethiopa.

Wherever we went, Walter always knew somebody - the owners, the waiters, the head chef. And quite often, he knew everybody. The room warmed when we walked in. Hugs, handshakes, laughter. There was always space for us. Even if they had to make space. Sometimes, if they were full, we got to wait while the staff taught me new things - which is how I learned to use chop sticks, kiss on both cheeks and hand jive. All the essential life skills for a young lady in society.

When I was super lucky, I got to dine in the kitchen with the staff - which how I learned a lot of Spanish, some Korean and a whole bunch of curse words. It was the absolute best.

At the end of the night, he would drive me home in his faded yellow VW Beetle that smelled like clean vinyl. I would barrage him with inane questions and observations about the things I heard and saw.

"Walter, what's a jelly head?"

"Walter, why does Shawn want to be under-the-table so bad? I looked. There's nothing but gum. And not good gum."

"Walter, how did Maureen's rabbit die? Why is Jose so upset about it?"

I'd babble on and on. Asking questions, spouting opinions, laughing at Walter's funny answers. But, evenutally, the lateness of the hour, the steady rhythm of streetlights and the burning smell of the heater would get the best of me and I'd nod off as his rickety Bug bounced down Vista Del Mar.

When we got home, he would hoist me upstairs, knock on my mom's door and say, "I've got a sack of potatoes for you" and then hand me over in a lump.
Mom giggled, thanked him and took me. She'd lay me in my bed, still mumbling details of my day and then I'd sleep. Fat and happy.

Even in those days, people asked my Mom if she ever worried about me with Walter. And she says that then, and even now, knowing all that we now know about him, she still always trusted him with me. And I feel the same way. I always felt safe with Walter. There's a million reasons to assume he was a psychopathic sex offender with evil motives, but he just wasn't.

He was, however...a convict on the lam.

Yeah.

That's how the Walter story ended. There was no child abuse, but it still crested with cops breaking down the door and the FBI interviewing the neighbors.

Walter Fogel, who was not really named Walter Fogel, was wanted by John Q Law on a number of boring charges like tax evasion and fraud.

Well...nobody's perfect.

As an adult, I've had some time to think about Walter Fogel (or whatever his name was). When I was a little girl, Walter was like the coolest kid in school and Prince Charming all rolled into one. He knew everything everywhere that was worth knowing. He was dynamic, free, charming, beloved. When I was with him, I felt like social royalty; I felt glamorous, fun and special. I thought he was the best thing that ever happened to Planet Earth.

It occurs to me looking at events through the eyes of an adult that maybe Walter was just some loser who had too much time to kill, spent too many hours at the track and knew a few busboys and waiters. Doors didn't open for us because we were special, but because he knew the janitor.

Maybe that's the case.

And maybe it was hard for a dude on the run to make a lot of close friends or fall in love because he could never really let his guard down. For Christ's sake, he couldn't even tell anyone his real name.

And maybe this boisterous little kid was a cute companion because she filled up the lonliness with her incessant chatter, never asked too many probing questions and believed every story she was told. And if she did find out anything or share it, no one would believe her because she was just a dumb, confused kid. Kids believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. They're not super reliable when it comes to issues of fact v. fiction.

Beyond that, she thought he was the greatest person who ever lived. And maybe if you're a loser on the lam, it's hard to come off as a hero to too many people. So, maybe that was kind of nice too.

I've been asked if it was weird to find out that after all that time I didn't know him at all. And I said, "I knew him. I just didn't know his name."

It's been almost 30 years, but here are some things I knew...

His favorite comic strip was Wizard of Id. He kept an enormous pile of change on his dining room table and let me steal from it. He ate brown eggs. He didn't like TV. He never owned a bedframe. He liked vintage beer steins. He never bad-mouthed a woman; not even an ex-girlfriend. He recycled before it was popular to recyle. He loved animals. He was never mean and rarely got mad. He thought white Bentleys were the poshest cars in the world. He loved betting the ponies. He never answered the phone. His apartment smelled like Whole Foods wihout any ventilation. He thought I ate too much. He was generous. He was good at Pac Man but didn't think people should play it too often. He was funny. He laughed easily. He was afraid of things he couldn't talk about. He knew Liz Taylor. He wanted to get married. He drove a limo. He had a crush on my Aunt. He didn't like cleaning. He had a old, heavy cuckoo clock. He believed in second chances.

I needed to get that out. Details about Walter have been haunting me. I've been dreaming about brown eggs for days. According to my Mom, Walter was desperately private. He never discussed his past or personal life. No one even knew his real age or where he was from. By some freak accident, I was the only person who knew anything about him at all. And now you do too.

When the door splintered and caved in, the police knocked over two of Walter's beer steins. They stormed into his organic-smelling apartment, tore up the mattress on his floor, the one without a bedframe. They turned over the giant table of loose change. They ransacked the newspapers bins where he cut out Wizard of Id and kept haphazard piles of folded racing pages.

But it was no use.

Walter Fogel was gone.

I don't know where he went, how he did it or even if he's still alive. I don't know his real name or how to find him. And even if I knew that, I have no idea what I would have left to say to him after all of these years.

So, this is my thank you letter. And in the purest sense, my love letter to him.

To Walter Fogel. Best Friend and Hero 1978 - 1984.

You are missed.

You are remembered.