Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times
Posted 3/29/2002 12:00:00 AM

Playing FootsieWith a Dragon’s Basic Instinct — June 13, 2001
A Few Coors Lights Might Blur the Truth — June 29, 2001
Amid the Ruins, a Separate Peace — Sept. 15, 2001
When Love Stands Bravely Against Unbearable Grief — Oct. 24,2001
Love and Prejudice at Work and Home in City of Immigrants— Nov. 12, 2001

POINTS WEST

PlayingFootsie With a Dragon’s Basic Instinct

All I have to say is this:

If my wife were to tellme that as a special Father’s Day gift, she was going to put me into a cagewith a 7-foot lizard, I would start sleeping with one eye open.

I might check in with thelife insurance agent, too, and see if there were any recent changes in the policy.

You know the story.

San Francisco newspapereditor Phil Bronstein came to Los Angeles with his wife, actress Sharon Stone,and special arrangements were made for him to have some private time with theKomodo dragon at the L.A. Zoo.

Bronstein, as I understandit, was instructed by the zookeeper to remove his white sneakers before enteringthe dragon’s domain, so the beast would not mistake his feet for rats.

Now look. I have workedfor seven newspapers and a lot of editors, and none of them came within eightyards of normal.

But if you had scraped themoff a barroom floor at 2 a.m. and asked if they’d enter a cage with an animalthat might mistake their feet for rats, they would have had the sense to standclear. They don’t even like contact with readers, let alone exotic animals.

Have you seen pictures ofthis Komodo dragon, by the way? Its head looks like a boulder with eyeballs.The dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park” looked friendlier, and they were eating SUVs.

Bronstein apparently likesthese things, though. Or at least Stone managed to convince him that he would.

“No, really honey. Justscratch him behind the ears and he’ll roll over on his back.”

So he goes in with the lizardwhile Stone watches from outside the cage. The same Sharon Stone who got richand famous playing a woman suspected of whacking her lovers with an ice pick.

Not to read into this. ButStone and Bronstein hadn’t been married 10 minutes when, out of the blue, hedevelops a heart problem. And then, with a rebuilt ticker and no note from hiscardiologist, she sends him into the cage with a dragon.

Basic Instinct II: Returnof the Dragon Lady.

“Of course I loved my husband,detective. Why do you ask?”

And what does this dragondo upon realizing that a member of the media has dropped by unannounced?

It goes for the newspapereditor like a shark after chum. It chomps down on his big toe with the jawsof life and won’t let go.

Maybe the dragon has readthe Chronicle.

Maybe it knew that Bronsteinand Stone hadn’t paid admission to the zoo or made a donation, either, as othersin the privileged and pampered set have done before getting the royal treatment.

Bronstein, having marriedinto show business, makes like Crocodile Dundee. He manages to free himselffrom the Komodo dragon and escape through a trapdoor, and they run him to thehospital for foot surgery.

Happy Father’s Day.

All things considered, itcould have been worse than a big toe. Joe Brown, a Chronicle spokesman, saidBronstein was in stable condition and was doing some work Tuesday from his hospitalbed.

My guess is that acrossthe country, newsroom reporters are taking up collections to send their owneditors to the L.A. Zoo.

It’s a shame that when hevisited L.A. to tell us we could take our energy problem and drop dead, no onearranged for President Bush to get a special tour.

The dragon, by the way,is doing fine, not that anyone asked. Lora LaMarca, zoo spokeswoman, describeda dragon that seemed to be quite pleased with itself.

Maybe this is a north-souththing with the lizard. LaMarca confirmed the dragon never bit anyone from L.A.Next time the San Francisco Giants come down to play the Dodgers, someone oughtto arrange for Barry Bonds to stop by the zoo.

LaMarca says the dragonthat ate Phil Bronstein is now unavailable for private viewings, but that’sa big mistake, if you ask me. This thing is world famous now, and it could beworth a fortune.

I’d bet the mortgage thatpeople would pay for a chance to tempt fate. If you have faith and your heartis pure, He’ll protect you in that cage, won’t He?

Bronstein must not be abeliever. Or maybe there’s a cosmic force for universal justice, and it saysthat if you’re going to win Sharon Stone as your wife, at some point you’regoing to be attacked by a 7-foot reptile.

From one hack to another,Phil, if she starts hinting at something special for Christmas, run for thehills.
 
 

POINTS WEST

AFew Coors Lights Might Blur the Truth

It was about 8:45 Thursdaymorning when I walked into the Hermosa Beach Police Department with two dozenKrispy Kreme doughnuts and a 12-pack of Coors Light.

In college, that was a typicalbreakfast. But in this case, I was conducting a scientific experiment to determinehow many beers a man has to drink before he’s legally hammered.

Roger Clinton, the ex-president’shalf brother, went on “Larry King Live” last week to talk about his legal problems,which include but are not limited to a DUI arrest in Hermosa.

Clinton, who lives in Torranceand plays in a band, denied selling presidential pardons to friends. He alsodenied he was driving under the influence in Hermosa on Feb. 21 even thoughhe flunked three blood-alcohol tests after being stopped for driving erratically.

“I had had about two beers,”he told Larry King. “Two Coors Lights.”

My first thought when anybodyin trouble appears on Larry King is that they are guilty as sin, because nomatter what you’ve been accused of, you know Larry will keep it cordial.

Had Mussolini been a guest,King would have asked a question or two about the fascista thing, Mussolini’sattorney would have cut him off, and after a commercial break and a call fromIdaho, King would have asked Mussolini if the balsamic craze was just a fad.

Sgt. Paul Wolcott greetedme at the station house in Hermosa. At precisely 9 a.m., as Wolcott and Sgt.Tom Thompson looked on, I cracked open my first beer and bit into a glazed doughnut.

It felt kind of like a hillbillypicnic, but that was apropos. The Clinton clan did not grow up in Paris.

By a lucky coincidence,Roger Clinton and I each go about 205 pounds, so our alcohol tolerance mightwell be about the same. Our taste in refreshment is not, however. I’d have hadhim locked up for his choice of beer alone.

Around 9:45, I’d sluggedback my second can, and it was time for my test.

At exactly 10 a.m., I blewinto the same device Roger Clinton had used. You’re under the influence if youblow a 0.08%, Wolcott says, and Clinton ran up a 0.10 on his first try.

Mine came up 0.01.

Geez, this Roger Clintonis no Billy Carter. Two wimpy Coors Lights and he’s in the tank, with 10 timesthe damage those same 24 ounces did to me. Unless, of course, he didn’t tellLarry King the truth.

“Keep drinking,” Sgt. Thompsonsaid.

I had my third beer by 10:15,my fourth by 10:30. And a couple more doughnuts too. They gave me my own deskto drink at, and Wolcott did some paperwork in the corner under a movie posterof John Wayne in “The Sands of Iwo Jima.”

At one point, they tookme outside for the field sobriety test that Roger Clinton flunked, calling ita “Jane Fonda” workout on Larry King. Touch your nose, walk a line. That kindof thing.

I passed like a champ.

“How do you feel?” Wolcottasked.

“Great,” I said. “I justcan’t believe I’m getting paid to do this.”

While sipping my beer, Iperused The Times and noticed that Roger Clinton was on Page 1 again. ReporterRichard Serrano’s story said congressional investigators have evidence suggestingClinton might have pocketed $50,000 for trying to arrange clemency for a convictedheroin dealer from New Jersey.

The dealer is related tothe Gambino crime family, so let me state publicly that nothing personal ismeant by this little beer-and-doughnut social.

Investigators also claimto have found “a couple hundred grand” in travelers checks cashed by Clinton,which can only mean that his band is doing really, really well.

Mark Geragos, Clinton’sattorney, assured me there was no truth to any of the pardon-peddling allegations.As for the DUI, he claims without explanation that the blood-alcohol tests wereinaccurate, and that Hermosa police had no probable cause to arrest Clinton.They did so, he says, as a matter of “political profiling.”

You might say it was a strainof political profiling that led to pardons for 47 people, including Roger Clinton,as one of President Clinton’s last acts in office. Roger had a 1985 convictionfor cocaine distribution wiped from his slate.

While I chugged beer, Wolcottreviewed the police report, and it seems that although Roger told a nationaltelevision audience he’d had only two beers, he told Hermosa cops he’d had fouror five.

“Go ahead and have fiveand we’ll test you again,” Wolcott told me.

The fifth went down likewater. I took a deep breath and blew a 0.04.

Five Coors Lights and I’monly halfway to jail.

When they brought Clintoninto the station, they gave him two more tests on a more reliable machine.

He blew a 0.08 the firsttime, a 0.09 the second.

Kind of ironic that in 1998,President Clinton campaigned for lowering the legal limit to 0.08 in all 50states, saying:

“To people who disregardthe lethal threat they pose . . . lowering the legal limit will send a strongmessage that our nation will not tolerate irresponsible acts that endanger ourchildren and our nation.”

I can’t remember the lasttime I drank before lunch, but in Hermosa, I dusted a six-pack by 11:15 andthey hooked me up to the same machine where Clinton blew his 0.08 and 0.09.

My first shot was 0.05,the second was 0.06.

Reality TV is all the rage,and I think we’ve got a concept here.

Roger and me, a keg anda Breathalyzer.

Have your people talk tomine, Larry.
 
 

THE VICTIMS

Amidthe Ruins, a Separate Peace

NEW YORK — Midnight cameand went, and Manhattan couldn’t sleep.

“Look at this. Just lookat this,” Vincent Bury said as he aimed his yellow cab toward the smoke. “Thatused to be a beautiful view of the towers, but I’m going to tell you something.You see all these people out here? Everybody helping out in whatever way theycan? They tried to break us up, but this city’s never been more unified.”

Vincent Bury drove slowerthan any cabby has ever driven in New York, loving his wounded city. The heavensthundered with an advancing storm, and flashes of lightning illuminated Americanflags that hung from fire escapes.

A few poor souls wanderedthe streets like ghosts, photos of missing loved ones taped to shirts or strungaround their necks. They were consoled by people they did not know and wouldnever see again.

“Look at this,” VincentBury said again, his heart full.

He turned a corner at 15thStreet and 11th Avenue to find a group of teenagers cheering. “Thank you Thankyou Thank you,” said the signs they held. They were spending the night at theintersection to greet rescue workers who came up for air after digging withtheir hands for hours. Digging for miracles. Ambulances lined the streets, waitingfor a call.

On a normal night, VincentBury would have been driven off the road by angry motorists leaning on horns.But they passed politely, letting him mourn in his own time. He calls himselfthe last white native New York cabby, and he is different in another way too.Instead of ramming fenders and bumpers, like you’re supposed to do to let offsteam, he meditates.

“The inner self never dies,”he said, and he was sure something good was going to come of this tragedy.

“Where to now?” he asked.

“A Hundredth and Riverside.The fireman’s memorial.”

Bury parked on Riversideand got out of the car with a camera. He said that in his 49 years, he had neverseen the fireman’s memorial and its twin statues of Courage and Duty. He wantedto take the memory home to Brooklyn with him.

A little earlier in theevening, an advertising man named John Avery had left his Upper West Side apartmentto walk his poodle Gracie. Avery had been in a state of shock over the attackon New York, but the shock was becoming sadness and anger. A co-worker losther husband in one of the towers, and it was hitting Avery in a way it hadn’tuntil then.

He was thinking, too, aboutthe estimated 300 firefighters believed to have died under the rubble of whatused to be an American symbol.

Three hundred.

Avery walked two blocksto the memorial that has stood since 1913. Firefighters never hesitate, he wasthinking as Gracie tugged on the leash. They take chances with their own livesto save others, and there is a striking gallantry about them. The bravery, thebond, the cut of the uniform.

On this night, candles hadbeen left at the memorial, and they flickered in the breeze of the coming storm.Bouquets were laid about, and some well-wishers had written anonymous notesof thanks and sympathy.

“The whole world is a verynarrow bridge,” said one. “Words can not express our sorrow,” said another.

Avery’s eyes filled, andanger floated just beneath the sadness. President Bush and the rest of Americahave to have the guts to root out terrorists wherever they are, he said, hisvoice deepening.

“We must go after the terroristsand anyone who harbors or finances them. It’s not about revenge; it’s aboutprotection. If we don’t do it, this can happen again. But if it’s about revenge,we’ve sunk to the morality of the terrorists.”

The storm had moved acrossthe Hudson, bringing with it a drenching rain that sent John Avery and Graciethe poodle home.

Vincent Bury took a pictureof the memorial, which has the following inscription:

“To the men of the firedepartment of the city of New York, who died at the call of duty. Soldiers ina war that never ends.”

Vincent Bury drove awayat funeral speed, in touch with both the living and the dead. It rained likeeveryone was crying all at once, and it seemed to me that New York had neverbeen more beautiful.

POINTS WEST

WhenLove Stands Bravely Against Unbearable Grief

The visits began two daysafter her husband was killed aboard American Flight 11 when it crashed intothe World Trade Center.

Prasanna Kalahasthi, a 25-year-olddental school student at USC, would stop by the campus office of Nadadur S.Kumar, a stranger who would become a friend. She would sit in the same chairevery time, the one by the big picture window, and speak dreamily of a lovethat had come to her like a sweet surprise.

Kumar, like Prasanna, wasfrom southern India. He, like Prasanna, had an arranged marriage.

“She was deeply in love,”says Kumar, associate director of the Office of International Services. In theweeks that followed her referral to his office, Kumar would come to admire thisbeautiful, wounded young woman. She was small in stature but filled with strength,and with a grace known only in love and in grief.

Such plans they had had,Prasanna and her husband, Pendyala Vamsikrishna, a 30-year-old technician fora Silicon Valley company.

They wanted to get Prasannathrough the demanding two-year graduate program she had begun only a few monthsearlier, and establish her career somewhere in the United States. He would gowith her wherever that might be. Then they were going to start a family.

Vamsikrishna traveled frequentlyin his job—far too much for his liking. They had missed each other so much,Prasanna had gone to visit him in Boston a week before he was killed.

“I should be spending moretime with you,” he told her as he had many times, according to Kumar.

Kumar says Vamsikrishnawas to leave Boston on Sept. 10, but hadn’t finished his job, and rescheduledfor the following day on American Airlines Flight 11.

“He boarded the plane andleft her a message,” says Kumar. He told her he would be home by lunch, andwould surprise her with a meal he was going to prepare.

Prasanna would wake to hismessage, and to the televised image of Flight 11 crashing into the tower.

That can’t be him, she thought.It looks like a small plane, not a jet.

That can’t be him. Theyhad such plans.

“Her father flew to LosAngeles and said, ‘I’m going to take you home,’ “ says Kumar.

But Prasanna told him L.A.was her home now. A brother was moving into the apartment she and her husbandhad shared near the USC campus, and she also had a new, extended family thatincluded Kumar and her classmates.

“She said the best way forher to remember her husband was to stay in the program and complete it,” saysKumar, who remembers her saying these words:

“His memory is only goingto strengthen my resolve.”

In their regular chats,Kumar reminded Prasanna that therapists were available to help her. But he knewshe wouldn’t go for it.

“In India, from a culturalpoint of view, going for that kind of counseling is treated like a stigma, likeadmitting that something is wrong,” says Kumar, 48.

The customary way to dealwith such a tragedy is to lean on family, and particularly elders. So Kumartook Prasanna home with him the very first day they met and introduced her tohis wife and mother-in-law.

In dozens of almost-dailytelephone calls and visits, Prasanna seemed to be progressing, says Kumar. Asa Hindu, she believed in an afterlife, and she believed she would be reunitedwith her husband one day.

Just once did she mentionthe terrorists who had killed her husband and more than 5,000 others on Sept.11. “She said whatever differences people have, this is no way to resolve them,”says Kumar.

Only in retrospect was hercall of last Thursday somewhat unusual. She called Kumar about 3:30 p.m. tochat about nothing in particular, which was something of a departure. She calledfriends and relatives that day, too.

But no one had any ideawhat was to come.

Her brother, the one whohad moved in with her, was out of town. A receipt suggests Prasanna had goneto the Home Depot in Tustin a few days earlier and bought some nylon rope.

On Friday afternoon, Kumargot an urgent call from USC colleagues. Los Angeles police were at Prasanna’sapartment and he was asked to go there immediately.

At the door, an officerasked him if he thought he could handle the task of identifying the body ofthe young woman inside.

“Yes, of course,” he said,holding onto a slim hope.

She had said more than oncethat her husband would have wanted her to finish school. This couldn’t be Prasanna,the woman whose strength had been an inspiration.

What he saw in the apartment,he instantly knew, would be with him always.

Prasanna had strung therope over the Nautilus equipment her husband worked out on. Without warningor explanation, she had taken her life, too much grief to carry through a worldgone cold.

As Kumar left the apartment,he was asked by police to sign a form, but he couldn’t.

“My hands were trembling.”

He did not sleep that night,haunted by the image. Asked if he’s OK now, he says: “I don’t know.”

It’s as if the Prasannahe knew was the ghost of a woman who died on Sept. 11, crushed by grief.

Kumar’s wife tells him heis absent even when he’s in the room. He finds mesmerizing beauty in the subtlestgesture of his 7-year-old daughter. He marvels at the complexities of the mindand the mysteries of the heart.

“I keep wondering if I missedsomething,” says Kumar, his face full of shadows. “Maybe I should have droppedeverything when she called on Thursday.”

He missed nothing. Prasannarevealed only what she chose to, then followed after her husband, taking a lovewithout limit to a world without end.

POINTS WEST

Loveand Prejudice at Work and Home in City of Immigrants

Mohammed Meah fell in lovewith a girl in Bangladesh, but couldn’t have her as his wife. Her family, whichhad money, wouldn’t allow it because Meah’s family was poor.

Meah, who was raised Muslim,took his broken heart and traveled as far away as he could. He joined the foreignministry and was assigned to a post in Seoul, where one day the phone rang inhis apartment.

It was a South Korean womannamed Young Moon. She had dialed the wrong number. Meah, who had learned someKorean by then, tried it out on her. When they couldn’t understand each other,they tried English.

A few months later, shecalled back and they talked some more, and several months later they decidedto meet. They liked each other instantly and became good friends, and over thecourse of a few years, the friendship became a romance.

“I don’t know how or whyshe fell in love with me, or why I fell in love with her,” says Mohammed.

But fall in love they did,and once again, Mohammed’s heart would be broken. Moon’s parents were deceased,so she went to her brothers for their approval, and they forbade her to marryMohammed.

As a modest, uneducatedman from one of the world’s poorest nations, and a mere messenger at the Bangladeshiministry in Seoul, Mohammed was not good enough for her.

“They told her that if shemarried me, they would never speak to her again,” says Mohammed, whose eyesglisten when he tells the story.

Marriage to a South Koreanwas also prohibited by the Bangladeshi ministry, so Mohammed quit his job andmoved to Los Angeles in 1990 to look for work. The plan was to get settled,then send for Young, who would defy her brothers and come marry Mohammed inAmerica.

The job he found was ata 7-Eleven on 6th Street, where he worked 10 to 15 hours a day, seven days aweek, for four years. That’s how long it took before he had saved enough moneyto send for his future wife and start a home with her.

Finally, in 1994, YoungMoon came to Los Angeles and married Mohammed. A year later, they had a sonthey named Steven, who would be raised to know Islam as a religion of peace.

The apartment was too smallfor comfort, and so was Mohammed’s paycheck. But they scrimped and saved, andhe quit 7-Eleven and bought a little grocery store for $14,000 in 1997. Ben’sMarket is on 6th Street, just west of MacArthur Park.

“You see this?” Mohammedasks, pointing out the paneling, the lighting, the clean white walls. “I remodeledit myself, little by little. I have very many bills,” he says, reaching underthe counter for a 4-inch stack of them. “But it’s OK now, thank God. We aredoing very well.”

A good many people mightnot think of this Westlake neighborhood as paradise. But given his journey,it’s close enough by Mohammed’s measure.

He’s with the woman he loves.He takes his handsome son to an Islamic school in the morning on his way towork. He bought “the ugliest house” on a nearby block, nurtured it with sweatand hard-earned money, and now, he says, “it is the top one on the street.”He was even sending a few dollars to his mother in Bangladesh.

But in the aftermath ofSept. 11, Mohammed’s heart was broken a third time.

It was easy enough to writeoff the first customer who mocked his name and cursed him. But it happened again,and again, and again.

Go back home, he was told.Go back to the Middle East. Go back to Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden andthe other terrorists.

They were mostly Latinos,he says. Immigrants themselves in an international city built and rebuilt bysimple desire, a city re-imagined a million times over. If America could betheirs, how could it not be his?

Mohammed informed some ofthem that Bangladesh and Afghanistan are nowhere near each other, but he wasn’tconfrontational. That was partly because he’s a man of peace, and partly outof fear.

Arab Americans and Sikhswere being attacked in America—killed, even—by ignorant thugs retaliating forSept. 11. If someone harmed Mohammed, who would take care of his wife and son?

“I can say only that theydid not have good qualifications,” Mohammed says in his gracious way, thoughhe is hurt that some of his tormentors were regular customers. “They were nothaving very good education. Some just see my skin color, or they know my nameis Mohammed, and that’s why they do this.”

Then, when he hoped it hadended, in walked a man with a knife. He stood at the door, flashing steel andcalling Mohammed a terrorist.

“Come on over here,” hesaid. “Come on over here, so I can slit your throat.”

Mohammed, terrified, didn’tmove an inch. If the man came closer, the security camera would pick him up,giving the police something to go on.

Maybe Mohammed’s would-beassailant was aware of that. For whatever reason, the knife-wielding man leftas suddenly as he had appeared, never to be seen again.

Mohammed closed his shopand went home in tears, and his eyes fill again as he tells the story. “I wasnever afraid in my life until this,” he says.

He closes earlier in theevening now, because his wife trembles until he gets home safely. At home, hetells his son, Steven, that theirs is an Islam of peace, and that with a lifeof hard work, honesty and good will, Steven will make his parents proud.

Truth be told, Mohammedsays, the news hasn’t been all bad since Sept. 11. For every insult he received,he also got a promise from a loyal customer vowing to watch out for him. He’sstill wary in the store, given these uncertain times, but the support of hiscustomers has been a source of pride.

As if to offer further proofof his standing as a productive citizen, Mohammed insists on closing the shopfor a while to show a visitor the fixer-upper he bought a year and a half ago.

The woman who waited fouryears to be with him waits now on the porch of their two-story clapboard house.It’s a lovely house, and she is lovely, too.

“It was in very bad shape,”Mohammed says of their home. “Little by little, we are fixing it.”