To those of you who can remember back this far there used to be a small chain of fast food outlets – sometimes called ‘Snack Shacks’ – along the coast of “North Bay” (the northwestern section of Santa Monica Bay from Ballona Creek to Pt Mugu) owned and operated by a man named Austin Nienhauser.
From memory, one was just up from the pier at Santa Monica’s Sorrento Beach, another just up from Will Roger’s State Beach at the Lighthouse and another one up from the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Boulevard.
Austin and his wife Pat lived in a large, sprawling apartment above the much smaller apartment where I, and a succession on lifeguard, student-surfers lived and the slightly larger apartment across from it which was occupied by golf-pro Willie Hunter Jr.
To a young guy still in his teens – as I was at the time – Pat was an exotic, voluptuous older woman who reminded me of Elizabeth Taylor. After a few drinks she’d sometimes invite one of my roommates up to her apartment for sex and one of my roommate was a favorite, as I discovered when I walked in on them in our apartment.
On the other hand, Austin could be brutish and would sometimes pound on our door demanding to know where Pat was. Raging bull comes to mind.
One day he was so drunk he fell down the stairs from the top apartment onto the deck below and crawled, moaning and mumbling incoherently across the sand to the rocks exposed by low tide. Then, to the horror of those of us watching this spectacle he dragged himself across the rocks into the small surf. Although the seaweed cushioned some of his path I knew from experience that many of the exposed rocks were sharp and would be scraping and cutting him. So I was relieved to see him reach the surf only to be rolled over a few times by a breaking wave and start crawling his was back towards the beach.
I can’t remember what happened next. I think I turned away in order not to see any more. What seemed funny at first had become pathetic.
Naturally, the local boys had a soft spot (or should that be hard spot) for Pat and when we’d hear her crying out in pain we were concerned. Should we intervene. Should we call the sheriff? Should we turn up the stereo?
A young friend and I decided we’d send Austin a message he couldn’t ignore. My friend lived next door, so he and his family could hear all of this as well. Hell … you could hear it while walking on the lane outside or along the beach their apartment. Had it had been a dog or cat we probably wouldn’t hesitate to step in.
So my friend (I’ll call him The Backward Baseball Cap Boy until he tells me it’s OK to use his name) and I conspired to ruin Austin’s new Buick convertible by putting sugar in its gas tank. But first we stole the suitcase Austin’s girlfriend had in the back seat of her car. I can’t remember what we did with the clothes and cosmetics but we donated the high-end transistor radio to mountaineer Norman Dyhrenfurth (another story there) for his upcoming (and successful) Everest Expedition.
We Topanga Beach dwellers had become quite adept at darting and zig-zagging across the highway to George’s Market and I bought a box of sugar. That night we skulked out in the darkness, opened the lid, undid the cap and poured the contents of the box into the opening aided by a bent piece of cardboard as a sort of makeshift funnel.
We gleefully watched for Austin to arrive and leave over the next few days and absolutely nothing happened. We figured he’d be vigilant since we stole his girlfriend’s case so we were concerned that we might get caught if we put in more sugar. But need overcame caution and, this time, I bought the biggest bag of sugar in the market.
We used a real funnel and poured in the entire bag. And it worked. Over the next few days we watched as Austin’s car belched more and more smoke amidst strange clunking sound hoping to see it stop completely. Instead, he drove it away leaving a plume of dirty smoke and we never saw it again. A day or so later Austin showed up in a new car and we didn’t want to risk another sugar attack.
My friend’s mother was an amazing lady who was the first adult woman I’d ever met who treated everyone like they were intelligent enough to handle the truth. Then she always delivered these truths with a smile.
I was a total dunce when it came to cooking for myself and she patiently explained the basics, like how to boil water. She even gave me a coffee percolator so I could make myself a “decent cup of coffee instead of that instant stuff.”
One day I invited her over to have a decent cup of freshly brewed coffee and proudly poured her a mug, expecting her to complement me on my achievement. Instead she grimaced, shot over to the sink and spit it out. “What on earth have you done, Feigel?” she demanded while wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
Confused, I handed her the jar. “INSTANT COFFEE! You used INSTANT COFFEE?” Still confused I asked, “Is there another kind?”
She broke down in laughter and said, “Oh no … I never thought you wouldn’t know the difference. Then I did have to show you how to boil water.” And that was the end of the coffee experiment.
Then I mentioned my concern about Pat and again she laughed. She knew all about it. Everyone did. So she sat me back down at the tiny kitchen table (both the table and the kitchen) and said, “Look, you have a ways to go before you know these things so I won’t go into any detail. But once you’re older and have experienced more of life you’ll understand that some people enjoy what Pat is going through … and Pat is one of them. She wants them to make her scream.”
And she was right. It wasn’t until I was older and had experienced a lot more of life’s idiosyncrasies that I understood. But I was still glad we’d ruined Austin’s car.
A POEM
Last century when I penned this I thought it was very funny. In view of later events I’m not so sure it ever was.
Fat fat the water rat.
Austin Nienhauser is fat,
And he has a wife named Pat,
Who likes to fondle this and that,
And has a dog and has a cat.
Fat fat the water rat.
EPILOGUE
Years later I was in the parking lot of a notorious club on the mauka side of the Pacific Coast Highway just up from Santa Monica Canyon. I was there to see if a friend was around that night and was walking up the front steps when the door flew open and what I assume was a bouncer was escorting a very drunk Pat out the door.
By this time she and Austin had divorced and she was living somewhere in the Pacific Palisades.
She stumbled and, as luck would have it, fell directly into my waiting arms. She threw her arms around me as the guy at the door told her not to come back until she sobered up and went back inside.
When I pushed Pat away and held onto her hands to steady her I noticed that she had the biggest Star Saphire ring I’ve ever seen – before or since. I happen to have bought a Star Sapphires and had a 10ct gem set in white gold a few years earlier. But I rarely wore it.
I reckoned the Sapphire in Pat’s ring was around 40cts if not more.
I’ve no idea whether or not Pat recognized me from the beach but she noticed me looking at her ring and offered it to me if I’d take her home and bedded her.
There’s something about the smell of stale alcohol coming from someone’s skin that really turns me off. Stale alcohol. That’s what Pat smelled like through the perfume she was wearing. Besides I’d look pretty silly wearing a Sapphire that size.
By then we were standing by her car and she was dangling her keys in front of me. So I put her in the passenger’s seat, kissed her hand and by the time I’d decided what to do next she’d passed out.
I took the keys back to the club, handed them to the bouncer and asked him to keep them until she’d sobered up or called a taxi.
Pat was one of the nine people aboard the 161 foot schooner “Goodwill” when it sunk after hitting a reef off Baja on May 25, 1969. Only two bodies were ever recovered and Pat’s wasn’t one of them.
Wherever she went from there I hope it was someplace that gave her comfort and peace.
The Nienhauser Affair © Robert R. Feigel 2022 – All Rights Reserved
Pieces from a Puzzling Life 