Under a high sun and bright blue sky, he gives me a look like he doesn’t get me at all. I’m used to that. Much, much older people give it to me all the time.
Behind us, the bay glistens while a succession of bloody horns and dorsal fins undulate in and out of it. The windsurfers, sailors, and kayakers pay it no mind. Every time a monster comes close to the shore, a wave of blood washes up and erodes the land a half-inch or so. Then the normal seawater crawls in and takes over. It shan’t be long now, I think.
“Look,” I say, grabbing him by the shoulders again and turning him toward me. “We’re here to watch baseball. The game—that’s what’s important. Not waiting for some douchebag next to you to let you know it’s OK for you to stand up and sit down again.”
“Is fun,” it says.
“Fun? Fun? What is it about baseball that you think it’s supposed to be fun? Listen, kid, when you do the wave, you miss a pitch. You miss a pitch, you might miss anything—a fly-out, a ground out, a magnificent double play, a homerun, or the pitcher beaning the batter and then rushing the batter and digging his sharp pitcher-teeth into the batter’s neck and drinking his blood before eating all the meat off his bones. You get me?” I ask, looking at the kid in a way that makes him understand I’m serious as shit.
“Yeah,” he says, smiling through his watery eyes. That makes me smile and I muss the kid’s hair.
“It’s just something my dad or my uncle or some homeless guy taught me a long time ago—you respect the game. See? It’s better to watch the game and respect it than to fuck around like a clown and pretend the game doesn’t matter. Because it matters, kid. Every second of it. Every crack of the bat. Every smack of the glove. Every black eye and ruptured tendon. Every concussion. Every brawl. Every pitch. It all matters. It all makes a world of difference. Every time you miss something, you are less a person than you were before. You’re more dead inside. You’re sick and rotting and bait on a hook. You’re more like everyone around you. And this is baseball. This is baseball. It’s our lives on the line, son. Everyone’s.”
“I know. I know now,” he says, smiling and trying to hold my hand. I push his little paw away and give him a look that says, “If you try that again,” so he stops and turns his attention back to the game like a good kid.
“Look, you watch our seats. I’m going to get a beer. You want one?” He looks at me with some stupid big-eyed look. “Fine, but don’t complain when the seventh inning stretch happens and they’re no longer serving.”
“Listen, I knew all along you wanted ice cream. Another life lesson, though, son—you don’t always get what you want.”
“But, I want’ed ice keem, and I’m getting it,” it says behind a green mint-and-chip-smothered smile. We’re at an ice cream parlor on Embarcadero down the street from the ballpark.
“Well, yeah,” I guffaw. “You’re a kid. You’re going to get a lot of the things you want. Just not always. When I was a kid, I got everything I wanted. My family took cruises for vacation. You know what cruises are?” I ask while scooping sloppy mouthfuls of rocky road into my face. It shakes its head no. “I’ll tell you, then. You get on a big boat that’s like a gigantic Las Vegas strip mall and you see the world—mostly third-world countries with beautiful coastlines. But you don’t get off. You look at that world from a distance and jerk off. I’ve done it hundreds of times. It’s what privileged folk do.”
“Why?” he asks in between mouthfuls. He’s already downed three scoops, but I figure, what’s the point of having kids if you don’t spoil them.
“Why is the most useless question,” I say. “What do you want to do next, son?” I ask, using my spoon to scrape the last marshmallow and bit of chocolate ice cream from my oversized bowl. When I clear that part clean of rocky road a phrase appears in the bottom of the bowl: ENJOY ME.
“Now, how did you get this little cutie in here,” Syd asks, kneeling down and pinching the potato-head’s cheek.
“I… uh… is he not allowed in here?” I ask, watching Astrid slide up and down one of the three silver poles on stage, her legs lean, long, and strong. Tubes of blue neon line the stage, and the black floor is full of sparkles like stars. Tables surround the stage and galactic floor, occupied by shadows of people. Overhead, Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt” plays and everyone’s crying while fumbling with their belts and zippers and the waistbands of their tidy whities.
We’re at Tassels ‘N’ Tipples in North Beach. Somewhere down the street and around the corner, Lawrence Ferlinghetti is burning incense, praying to Ganesha, and wishing he was me.
“Look, Luke, I know you’re the… unconventional type, but, yeah, I’d say bringing a five-year-old to a strip club is not allowed,” Syd says, standing up from Toby and looking me in the eye.
“Age is just a number,” I say, unable to take my eyes off of Astrid. Astro Glide, her twin, soon joins her and straddles one of the other poles. Their blood-red hair flies and flails like flames as they shake their manes to the music and wiggle their hips to the melancholic strum of chords. The stage catches fire. My face heats up. The blaze illuminates the room and sickens me as I have to see everyone’s faces, eyes, and how they bend in half so easily to mouth their own cocks while still watching the show, crying and scared. I freak for a second, but San Francisco’s finest toss nickels and dimes at Astrid and Astro Glide, which stick in their soft, pale flesh, making them bleed profusely. Their blood douses the flames.
“I didn’t realize there were so many cops in here,” I say, removing my gaze from the stoning.
“That lady looks like mommy before she take a bath,” Toby says, pointing at Astro Glide.
“No, kid. No, she really doesn’t,” I say. “Trust me.”
“Seriously, Luke, you have to get him out of here. What were you thinking?” Syd asks, pulling her silk robe tighter around herself before reaching up to straighten her black-rimmed glasses. She’s a student and only dancing to put herself through college at UC Berkeley. We connected months ago when she told me she loved Vonnegut, Milton, and Danielle Steel after a lap dance that left me somewhat messy but interested in her life story. Ever since, I’ve been compelled to aid her in her academic endeavors.
“I’m just trying to be a responsible father,” I say, gazing at my own reflection in Syd’s glasses, lost. “I’m just trying… I just….” I feel a lump in my throat and stop talking, fearing I might start crying. “I miss… I miss Cameron, Syd. I just miss her so much.”
Then, like wet cardboard, I crumple into Syd’s arms, sobbing like a five-year-old, leaving wet snotty marks all over her shoulder and chest. She holds onto me for a few seconds, patting my back with real warmth and affection before pushing me away and calling for the cops.
“There’s no empathy in the world, Toby,” I say, slinging him up over my shoulder while wiping my nose and eyes with my forearm and running for a big, blinding white rectangle of light that has the word “EXIT” blinking in red above it.
On John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park, I hand the kid his first piece. It’s a SIG Pro semi-automatic. Atop a grassy knoll, we nestle in nicely behind a few large oaks and watch the cavalcade of cars parade down the street. I know the kid won’t hit the broadside of a barn, so I’m not too worried. But, like a proud papa, I’m eager to see what he’s capable of.
“It’s just like G.I. Joe,” I say, adjusting the handgun in his grip so that he’s holding it right.
“G.I. Joe?” he asks.
“Oh, you’re fucking kidding me. Kids these days. You really don’t have any guidance.”
An ocean breeze weaves over the treetops and loosens pine needles, leaves, and dreadlock-flakes into the air all around us like we’re in one of those San Francisco snow globes they sell at Fisherman’s Wharf.
After a time, I get through to the little potato-head. He grips the gun like he means it and seems excited about the possibilities. Of course, I have to help him hold the gun when he fires, otherwise he might hurt himself. As a sensi
tive member of the human race, I conscientiously make every effort to keep others from hurting themselves. No one should ever be responsible for their own pain. It’s my solemn oath.
Since it’s a game, we’re waiting for a convertible. When one finally arrives all of ten minutes later, I help the kid aim and squeeze the trigger—that’s the key, I tell him, you squeeze the trigger, you don’t pull it or yank it or get rough with it. You pull it. Treat it like a lady, I tell him. I figure I should get a couple life lessons wrapped into one with this one.
“Just pull the trigger,” I say, my hand around his, pulling the trigger.
“I know,” he says before the pop of the little gun bounces off the nearby trees and rattles the kid to the bone. But he doesn’t cry. Such a good kid. Instead, he immediately registers the hole it made in the side of the Nissan Infiniti convertible. Better than that, he laughs. He laughs again when the Nissan Infiniti convertible fishtails and slams into a large oak across the street. That makes a much louder bang than the gun had. Though they weren’t going that fast before we shot the car, the driver’s head whiplashes hard into the steering wheel. The driver’s door swings open after that and a man in a polo shirt and khakis falls out. His expensive hairpiece askew atop his bloody scalp. On all fours, the man starts convulsing and vomiting into the green grass while people on the sidewalk pass him by and tell him to get a job and clean up his act. A tall blond exits the passenger side, makes her way behind the car and calls out for help while feeling at the blood trickling from her forehead. More people pass them and scorn them and spit and seem really disgusted.
“I think you’ve seen enough,” I say, and grab the gun from the kid. We stand up from the dirt and pine needles and walk through the trees away from the sickening scene.
“Are you going to be my new dada?” Toby asks as I lift him onto the pink and purple horse of the merry-go-round. We’re still in Golden Gate Park, just down the way from target practice.
“Well, guy, I don’t know,” I say. “Perhaps. I like your ma a whole lot. More than I’ve ever liked anybody.”
“Back up, fella, we got to run this thing, you know,” the merry-go-round operator yells at me. I shoot him a look that makes him back away and shut the fuck up.
“I tell momma that. I want a dada,” the little shit says.
“You can just call me dad for now, OK?” I say.
“OK, dada,” he says, grinning like an idiot.
“I said you could call me dad,” I say.
“OK, da—dad,” he says, taking hold of the plastic horse’s reins.
“There ya go,” I say. I muss his hair and step back from the ride that glitters like marzipan cake. The weirdly shiny horses, with kids straddling them, starts to go round and round. Toby passes once, then twice, then a third time. Each time he waves and smiles. On the fourth, he blows a kiss and I make a mental note to remind him never to do anything like that again. The merry-go-round, as well as its calliope music, speeds up just then. Around and around they go. Way too fast. It’s like something out of a cheesy Stephen King movie. The kids are screaming, the plastic horses are grinning wide and viciously. The music just keeps getting faster and faster. Comical, even.
When it doesn’t slow down, but just keeps going faster and faster, I feel a little pulse of concern. Toby’s passing by every two seconds, reaching out to me with a tear-stained and strained face. At the controls, the operator seems catatonic. He’s leaning back away from the control panel, nibbling incessantly on his right thumbnail while his eyes stare straight forward and register nothing.
“Jesus! Are you doing anything about this?” I ask, stepping to the guy who seems shaken from his slumber. He leisurely turns knobs and pulls levers for show. “You’re scaring the shit out of the kids!”
He fires a horse-toothed smile at me. “Shouldn’t they be scared?” he asks.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, stepping closer to him.
“If they’re going to grow up with people like you around, shouldn’t they be scared?” His grin gets even wider. He turns another knob and the merry-go-round spins even faster. “Hell, with people like me around they should be scared. But, you—you’re a real piece of work. Let’s let these kids know what they’re in for.” He turns another knob and the screams from the merry-go-round’s strained mechanisms are masked only by the high-pitched screams of the kids on it.
I pounce on him. I push his surprisingly soft skull into the soft, grassy earth below him, and pummel it. I punch. I pound. I dig fingers into eyes and jam elbows into cheekbones and jaw. I yell, “You leave my kid alone!” and try to rip a rib from him with my bare fingers. When I realize I can’t do that, and that the guy’s unconscious, I give up.
Not really knowing how to run a merry-go-round, I fiddle with the controls until I see results. The swirl of cake-sweet colors the likes of puce, purple, cherry, and tonsils swirls to a slower revolution. A crunching sound of metal then echoes off the surrounding park trees, and the ride comes to a jarring stop, sending kids flying from their plastic horses into the golden bars they were just holding onto for support. Some go soaring and clunk into the metal floor of the carousel. Other little shits dart from their steeds and land teeth-first in the grass around the ride, squealing from their newly toothless and red-rimmed mouths as they call for their mommas. Those that are paying attention rush to their children and wrap them in their arms. I see that Toby’s one of the few that managed to hold on and stay on his horse. He’s crying but seems unhurt and OK. Just scared and confused. He’s looking all around at the kids with broken legs and arms and teeth, holding on tight and trying to breathe through his sobs.
I run to Toby and tell him it’s going to be alright. I push through other parents tumbling through my path and pull him off the horse and tell him it’s just a ride. It’s just a merry-go-round. Just some stupid ride in the park. I tell him I’m here. I’m here for him. Cries and screams and wails siren around us in the bright tree-shadowed daylight. While patting his moppy hair back and wiping the tears and snot from his face, I tell him it’s OK. I’m here. The ride’s over. I’m here. I tell him there’s nothing to fear. I tell him again, there’s nothing, nothing to fear, even though I’ve never been more scared in my life.
QUAKING
Yesterday these sidewalks were blanketed with fallen leaves that rustled under my feet like the whispers of trampled, half-conscious children. Today, the wind that passes through my hangover-head shooed them all away. The only proof they were ever here at all lay in wet, leaf-shaped imprints in the concrete, which make the sidewalks look like star charts.
On my way to work, humping these steep hills of Leavenworth toward Aquatic Park where I work as an unlikely accountant for a commercial art gallery, I bend down to inspect a star-like shape in the walkway and nearly lose my balance. I watch my disappointing body roll down the sharp hill. Its head cracks open on the curb down there across the water from Alcatraz as my blood vacates my chicken-egg skull like so much yolk while also loosing that rat that crawled in there the other night and died before being shocked back to life when I rubbed my feet on the shag rug in Cameron’s apartment above Bourbon Bandits. It crafted the circuit for life-giving electricity when I touched her cardigan-covered shoulder, unleashing a shockwave through each of our bodies. When it happened, I thought that contact, that little spark could send us both back in time to a place where I could be a better person, someone capable of romance, big ideas, true responsibility and direction—a future. But as the electric crackle faded, she moved away, laughing and rubbing her shoulder, saying “Fuck! Don’t do that!” drawing out that last word like the end to a sad song.
Then her kid came running out of his room into hers, toe-headed and stupid and as small and filthy as a potato freshly ripped from the earth’s damp soil, asking “What’s wong, momma? What’s wong?” and Cameron, faking a laugh, picked him up immediately, his fat, stubby arms quickly wrapping around her. With his doughy face turned toward me, he
looked through me and pointed, kept pointing, confusing me as to what the fuck he was pointing at, so I looked around and put my Winston out into my Lagunitas then hid my beer underneath the bed. Confused as to what else to do, I stuck my tongue out at the little shit but he kept pointing at me until Cameron saw me naked and told me to “Jesus! Put some fucking clothes on” while covering one of the kid’s ears after throwing a blanket at me, then rocking the kid as though he couldn’t have heard her filthy words through the ear she forgot to cover.
My whole body went red, having not realized I was naked, but the kid kept pointing and eventually said something that sounded like “fuck” but momma Cameron understood better and walked behind me, around the bed, and, with him in tow in the other arm, grabbed his toy truck and exited the bedroom. When I looked down I saw that I wasn’t naked at all, dressed all the way up to my black tie and white shirt. I even had my shiny black shoes on. I rubbed them together to make a little song for myself and make myself feel just a bit better, which it did. So, I took out another Winston, got up and grabbed one more Lagunitas from Cameron’s old, avocado-green refrigerator, popped it open and took a seat back on her bed with a sudden sense of overwhelming accomplishment.
Sitting there, I developed visions of family. Of something I wasn’t sure I could ever know. Of Cameron, me, and her tiny, dirty, hair-topped potato taking trips to the park, the movies, the zoo, the aquarium. Of us buying the kid stuffed narwhals and ice cream cones and spending time together around the dinner table while the summer sun lingers outside, pushing a quiet yellow-brown light through the shades until the kid finally gets tired and hauled off to bed so Cameron and I can share time together, make each other our favorite drinks, laugh, flirt, play board games and listen to music as the light transforms into a warm moonlit glow that tells us to head off to bed, to make love quietly so as not to wake the kid, to fall asleep in each other’s arms exhausted from the effort.
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