So I'll-- the next piece of read is called "White Bronco."
On a visit to Los Angeles I was sampling two new flavors
at the Brentwood Haagen-Dazs when
in walked O.J. Simpson with two very young guys
in excellent shape.
Seniors say the USC football team O.J.
wasn't in excellent shape, not even in good shape,
not even close.
He was no longer a senior on the USC football team.
The air conditioning was on.
I had liked O.J. ever since I was a kid
because my mom, a UCLA grad, rooted in a gloating ungracious
manner against USC.
None of us said anything now to O.J.
There was shyness to our behavior,
but there was also a smidgen of self-respect.
There were maybe six or eight people
in the store other than me and O.J. and his friends.
Part of the tension was the sheer surprise
of seeing O.J. ordering ice cream.
I never had thought of him doing something
so mundane and unhealthy.
In a curious way he was unwelcome,
or at the very least, not wholly embraced.
He was intruding a little maybe by participating
in our slovenliness.
Gallantly, or so I first thought, O.J.
sought to purchase a woman's ice cream for her.
She suddenly looked much prettier to me
than she had before.
O.J. winked at the two seniors on the USC football team,
applied pressure to the crook of her arm,
recommended rum raisin.
I remember thinking very specifically,
O.J. is kind of tarnishing his reputation here.
This was many years before he took the Bronco out
for a spin on I-5.
The woman smiled a smile that went exactly so far and no
further and said thank you but no, looking at me,
trying to get me in on this.
I couldn't, though.
I didn't.
Suddenly, I was just standing there.
O.J. persisted, though, reiterating his desire
to buy an ice cream cone for her.
It was a little like watching a famous suicidal accordion fold
in upon itself.
O.J. kept nudging the woman up to the counter
while she impressively, impassively
kept saying over and over no thanks,
O.J. That won't be necessary.
I haven't quite decided yet.
Finally, when O.J. refused to relent, she pointed at me
and said my boyfriend is treating.
"Your boyfriend?"
one of O.J's minions muttered in O.J.'s defense.
"That man's your boyfriend?"
[LAUGHTER]