The narrow figure walking in a night rain seemed to fade into the gloom, his black mackintosh and umbrella blending with the darkness. He paused with his wife at a street corner in Santa Monica. They would have to wade through ankle-deep puddles and trudge down an alley to a parking garage, where their Toyota Prius waited.
They stepped slowly; they have little reason to rush these days.
"I told Arnold that a governor needs three things to succeed -- a good economy, a lot of luck and lot of rain," said Gray Davis, the man under the umbrella. "He's getting the rain.... The state's farmers need the rain."
This is post-recall life for former Gov. Davis -- slogging anonymously through a storm, with time on his hands, driving his own car and trying to move past the searing experience of being booted from power in favor of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
"I don't like to look backwards," Davis had said before venturing into the rain. "I don't like to dwell on it."
He was sitting in the Santa Monica offices of the Natural Resources Defense Council, which had just honored him at a small dinner. His wife, Sharon, sat to his left, maintaining a soft smile. The rain pounded outside.
"I have a sense of contentment," said Davis, 61, who phones Schwarzenegger now and then to wish him well.
His voice grew quiet when asked whether the recall election still stung after four months, whether reflection had shaken him beneath his robotic, vote-seeking public persona.
"When you're stoic like that, people think you're not human, you're not normal," he said. "We're all human beings. The recall was far from my finest hour, but I'm philosophical about politics."
He has no plans to jump back in, he said, despite rumors that he is already contemplating a bid for Los Angeles mayor or the U.S. Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein, if she decides to retire.
He said the speculation was understandable, given his 30 years in the arena, and his signature obsession with electioneering.
"People expect you want to gravitate back to politics," Davis said. "I think that chapter of my life is closed."
Closed, but perhaps not padlocked. "Does some bolt of lightning strike three or four years from now?" Davis said. "Who knows? I don't expect it to happen."
Not much appears to be happening at the moment. The Davis schedule is fairly open. He is unemployed, casting around for gigs with a law firm, a university or an investment bank.
