Oakland Noir

by Jerry Thompson

  “You’re not listening to me,” she said, and she slapped the girder. “What does she see right now?”

  I tried to pitch my voice lower so she had to strain to hear. “Right now she sees what’s directly ahead of her, the traffic on Fruitvale, cars headed into Oakland, a few full of trick-or-treaters coming this way to Alameda.”

  “No, that mom saw us. She saw our legs kicking back and forth. Someone saw us, right? At least one someone saw us, and that someone found a phone and called the police.”

  “We’re not kicking our legs back and forth,” I said.

  The wind blew and I felt like I was falling, like I’d lost my grip, so I leaned back until the vertigo went away and I was left with the wind and a pretty woman sitting next to me on the bridge—a pretty woman pretending nothing was wrong, nothing out of the ordinary, even as her nails nervously tip-tapped a nylon rope tied to her neck.

  Then the wind eased and we could hear a BART train half a mile off accelerating out of Fruitvale Station.

  I glanced at the fingers of one hand. Only my thumb had been cut. I put it in my mouth, tasted dust and blood.

  “After I finished the Talk,” she said, “my boy just looked at me. I started thinking maybe he was too young, maybe they were right and I shouldn’t have said anything. But his questions . . . he always has so many questions. Like, Where did Hammer come from? And he didn’t mean the pound, right?”

  The breeze whipped one of her long black curls in front of her eyes. “He didn’t want me making up some fool story about storks, he wanted to know. So that’s why we had the Talk. But after?” She reached for the curl, wrapped it around her finger. “You know how some kids, when they have a question for you, they do that dog thing and tilt their head?” She tried to tuck the curl behind her ear but the wind got brutal for a second. “Know how I mean, right? When they look at you all confused? My boy never did that. He’s never been confused in his life. But he did it right then. Just that once. Went all spaniel on me and tilted his head, thinking about this hurt I just made real. You ever see your mom cry?”

  “No.”

  “Lucky you. First time my boy saw me cry. First and only. I’ve had plenty of reasons to, but I never did, until then. This wasn’t the birds and the bees. He got the truth. The awful, hurtful truth.”

  I think she said hurtful, but we had the wind again, so loud, so high up. Above the buildings, above the trees. Maybe she’d said helpful?

  “My boy looked over at Hammer, who was asleep on my bra. That kitty had dragged it into a spot of sun. My boy looks from his cat to me and he asks, It’s the same for cats as it is for people? I just nodded. Mom, he says, I think you better get fixed like Hammer so it doesn’t happen to you again.”

  We laughed, both of us, and it was the prettiest sound I’d heard since I’d braced myself against the V support behind me. I took the cover of laughter to try and inch closer, but she’d gone quiet and as soon as my body moved, hers tensed. So I stopped, of course. I had to.

  “That idea from my boy?” Again a soft touch to her belly. “The best advice I ever got. But stupid me, right? Did I follow it?”

  A car crossed the bridge, honking, and the honk was contagious because two other cars, then three, joined in. The last was an orange Volkswagen, and, in honor of the day, black triangle-eyes and a blocky mouth had been shoe-polished onto the hood, transforming it into a rolling jack-o’-lantern.

  She waited like she knew how, and then all those cars were over the bridge and gone. “You didn’t answer my first question about the sirens. Police or fire? I guessed fire.” Then she forgot that she was past it all now, forgot that beauty couldn’t sway her anymore and suddenly she was distracted by the view.

  Alameda stretched out long and low on one side of the estuary; shopping center here, houses with their docks along the water starting there, but most everything screened by trees, so many trees lining the streets. On the Oakland side it was warehouses, the glass recycling plant closest with its smokestacks—tall and oversize like on the Titanic. Below them, rising from behind the chain-link fence, were icebergs of crushed glass glittering in the setting sun.

  But then the warehouses stopped at the freeway—all traffic, no trees—and the buildings of Fruitvale began. Beyond there were houses on the other side of International, continuing on to 580, then up into the hills where the trees finally regained control.

  She looked around us. “Is it always so pretty up here?”

  “You are,” I said.

  Her gaze came back, away from the hills, searched for the outboard motor someone had just started—there, a few docks down and away, the motor spewing smoke, the smoke more blue than black. Why wasn’t she looking at those clouds? The clouds that were behind everything, those beautiful clouds taking on color. In the late afternoon there was pretty all around—even Oakland looked pretty because we were far enough away that you couldn’t really see the city. If you could really see Oakland you’d turn from it like she’d just done. But now, almost dusk? With the sun picking out some of the windows—glint, flash—from some of the houses from some of the hills?

  Glint, flash, glint, as the sun moved lower.

  “Very pretty,” I repeated. “Please tell me you know that.”

  Her fingers on the rope, strumming it. Her fingers so long. Not strumming. Tapping. Fast, fast, fast, slow. Why hadn’t I noticed that before?

  “Do you still play piano?”

  She tensed again, looked down at her fingers. Tap tap tap taaap.

  She laughed. “I thought you were doing some mind reading there, something fancy. But you aren’t fancy at all, are you? And you most definitely don’t know pretty.”

  Some hot, wet smell caught us—diesel, dead fish—swirled around and then was gone.

  “Can you get that picture back in your head?” She smiled, thinking about her son again.

  I nodded, then tapped my forehead like she’d been tapping—the first four notes of Beethoven’s 5th. Tap tap tap taaap.

  “He’s going to be so handsome, the cute is a phase, I can tell. He’s going to leave that all behind and then . . .”

  And then nothing from her.

  “What, like Jim Brown?” I asked.

  “Nah, he’s going to be more movie-star handsome than football handsome.”

  “Jim Brown was a movie star too.”

  She would have been good in an old movie, in that dress. The yellow so faint that in this light you could mistake it for white. A breeze caught the hem and it whispered and I was staring again. I did that when she stopped talking—it was easy to stare. The dress, so sheer, and the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything else. Underneath was just her in that beautiful dress and red sneakers, each sneaker with a big white star on the side. It should have been a ridiculous look but it wasn’t, not on her.

  She was a watcher, like me, and she was watching again, noticed my gaze.

  “The shoes. I know.” And now she did kick her legs back and forth. “It was the same day he got Hammer. He was so happy. My boy’s never happy, not ever. But that whole week he was happy. And that day? He couldn’t stand it, right? He said, I got my most favorite wish. Now it’s your turn.”

  “He made you buy those shoes?” I said.

  “I know, right?”

  I noticed that one of them was untied and she dangled it from her foot. This beautiful woman just dangling a red sneaker like she hadn’t a care in the world—when obviously she was being crushed by it.

  I thought she was going to kick the shoe off but she left it there, dangling high over the water.

  “You think I was going to disappoint him? Not that day.”

  “Can I move a little closer?” I asked.

  Behind her, the sun had almost disappeared and her face gained detail in the softer light.

  “No. Just stay.”

  “Okay, okay, I’m staying.” There was too much space between us—six feet, probably more. Too much space. “It’s just, the sun’s almost g
one, and with this wind you must be getting cold.”

  “Is it that obvious?” She looked down—right, then left. “I guess it is.” She drew her arms around herself. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  I didn’t have to think about that. “I steal books.”

  Two geese—not enough for a formation—flew at us, then the lead angled its wings and the other followed, up and over.

  “Well, just one book. But lots of copies of that book. Every time I see it, I steal it. Then I burn it.”

  “Burning books is wrong,” she said.

  “Not if you copy a poem from a book, put that poem in a letter to a girl, and tell the girl the poem is yours.”

  “You tried to show off by writing a letter you didn’t write?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “So, your plan is to steal every copy of that book and this girl, she’s never gonna know you lied? Is that right?”

  “Pretty much,” I repeated.

  “What do you do, break into people’s houses and go hunting for books? That’s messed up.”

  “Not houses,” I said. “Sometimes libraries, but mainly it’s bookstores. If they’re selling it, I just—”

  “Steal it. That’s the Eighth Commandment you’re breaking right there.” She looked at the railroad tracks next to us, then back at me. “The trains, they hardly ever come anymore. Why not?”

  “Just less need. This year is their last.”

  “I thought they’d run forever,” she said.

  “You’ll have to trust me on this one.”

  She continued tapping on the rope. Blue nylon bigger around than the fingers she tapped it with.

  “1999 is the end of a lot, then,” she said.

  “It doesn’t have to be.”

  “Oh? Can you keep the trains running?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then shut up.”

  The clouds behind her glowed like embers from the sun’s last light.

  “How long have you worked here?” she asked. She was just killing time now—that couldn’t be good.

  “Five years,” I said.

  “How did you decide this was for you?”

  The questions were as ridiculous as her shoes should have been, but she was earnest—like she really thought there might be answers.

  “I stay because I like being in the middle. Not Oakland, not Alameda. I like it, being halfway. At first it was just a job. It’s not like in kindergarten when all the other kids were saying astronaut, or Wonder Woman, that I said bridge tender.”

  “That’s what you’re called?”

  New sirens now, not going somewhere else. They were headed here.

  “Someone has to be on site in case the bridges need raising, so yes, that’s us. Bridge tenders.”

  “But the trains are ending. So you’ll be watching over nothing? Halfway over nothing?”

  With the sun having just disappeared, the clouds were magnificent, glowing even brighter orange, brighter red. She moved her head, heard the sirens for sure. Behind her—San Francisco’s skyline, backlit with the glory of those clouds. The clouds really on fire now. And the tears on her face, so many tears.

  “Your son—”

  “Don’t,” she cut in. “Please. Not him, not now.”

  “But you’re his mom,” I said. “A good one.”

  “You don’t know anything. Not one thing. Not about him, not about me.”

  On the water, a lone rower in a single scull leaned forward, then pulled back on her long oars, her motion powerful, fluid. Lean, pull. Lean, pull.

  “How many of you work here?” she said as her fingers tightened on the rope. Where had she learned to tie a knot like that?”

  “Four. There’s at least one of us here around the clock.”

  “And you have to raise the bridge for boats? Whenever? They have right of way, always?” She was talking so fast.

  “Don’t do this, not today,” pleading now. “Not on such an easy day to remember, a holiday.”

  “It’s not Christmas.”

  The rower was already on the other side of the bridge. Her boat skimmed fast, its narrow shell slicing open the skin of the water.

  “This is gonna cause trouble for you.” She started crying again. “Sorry about that.”

  I wanted to get her away from thinking about the trouble she could cause. “What’s your son’s name?” I asked.

  “No, that’s mine.” A flurry came out of the orange light and carried away what she said next, so she repeated herself: “What’s yours?”

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me,” I said.

  “No, you didn’t answer my question.” She cried harder, shaking from the tears.

  “Okay, okay. There’s two times a day when the bridge is down and stays down—an hour in the morning, two at night. Otherwise, yes, we’re all of us at the mercy of the boats.”

  Her nose had started running so she blew it, wet and messy, into her fingers, wiped her fingers on her dress. Then she looked between us at the railroad track nestled between girders.

  “This one’s almost always up. Only comes down for the trains, am I right?” She tugged on the other end of the blue nylon, checking that it held. “How high are we?”

  “Not that high. It just feels that way with Oakland there, and Alameda here, and the road and water below.”

  She shook her head. “Not high enough to just jump. That’s why.” She tapped the rope.

  Oakland, I wanted to tell her, it’s so very pretty right now. And San Francisco? With its outline on fire? “Look,” I said.

  “No.” She drew the back of her hand against her slick cheeks before she tugged on the rope again. Then her fingers slid up the rope’s other end to the figure eight she’d tightened against her neck.

  “Your son,” I tried to say, but I was crying now too, and I couldn’t see the fire in San Francisco—it was just a smear of red.

  “So curious,” she said. “He is so curious. And going to be so handsome.”

  The sirens were loud, the wind couldn’t take away the sirens, not now, and they were coupled with flashing lights strobing from between the trees, the red light mimicking the colors of the clouds. The wind was so strong, I was trying to dry my eyes, but there was no way.

  “Please, c’mon. Please. I can help you but you have to help me. I get it, okay? It’s the hardest thing in the world, the asking. I’ve never asked for help. Ever. So I understand how hard it is. I get it, I do. You don’t want to ask for help. I don’t want to ask for help. But this is my life—keeping people safe on my bridge. Let me do my job. Right now. I’m begging, okay? Help me. Please.”

  “I have to go now.” She put her hands down. Her long fingers on the girder, feeling the grit like I felt it but finding no comfort in the roughness, none.

  Oh God. I swung my arm out, pivoted as fast as I could, the dirt and chipped paint ripping the skin on my fingers that still held on while my other hand shot toward her, reaching through nothing. But I was too far away, six feet was too far, she hadn’t let me get any closer, not even an inch, and it was like she didn’t have any last words—I have to go now—because they were gone as soon as they were spoken, erased by the wind, and the final thing she did was look up before she pushed herself off the bridge.

  Her dress blurred yellow through the air. She fell so fast. Five feet, ten—then the rope snapped taught and her body jerked. The shoe that she’d dangled was flung off, and fell graceful and red through the wind.

  I watched it fall, and fall, and hit the water.

  THE WISHING WELL

  by Kim Addonizio

  Pill Hill

  There are no magic walnuts in this story, or wise flounders who speak in rhyme.

  Or princes hacking their way through brambles for princesses who shit roses.

  None of that here.

  All of these people are doomed—they just don’t know it yet.

  They’re all jittering and talking and jonesing in th
e Kaiser Dependency Recovery Center.

  They’re keeping their fate at bay, just barely, maybe thinking they’re getting a handle on their lives. They hold out a little hope.

  I don’t belong anywhere near them.

  We sit in a circle talking about our week and one guy says, “I know I’m going to start using when I start hating people, judging people on the bus,” and the woman next to him says, “What do you do when you start to get critical, then?” and the guy—he’s a meth head—leans back in his chair, crosses his arms, and answers, “Just say to yourself, Who the hell am I?”

  Exactly.

  My friend Elena has two subjects of conversation: her family and the lottery. The problem and the solution.

  Elena never has money for cigarettes because her monthly check goes to stuff she can’t buy with food stamps, to PG&E, and to the corner liquor store for SuperLottoPlus tickets.

  Elena is my next-door neighbor. I’m here at Kaiser to keep her company. She’s recovering, and I don’t intend to.

  I believe that alcohol and drugs are a life choice, not a sickness.

  A sickness is when you love someone you shouldn’t. There is no recovery.

  Elena’s granddaughter Darnique lives across town in East Oakland with her shit-for-brains father, Elena’s son Anton.

  Anton makes movies, which means he illegally downloads and sells them.

  Anton also sells drugs, which means people come and go from his place at all hours.

  He puts Darnique’s glue and colored markers and construction paper on a high shelf so she can’t get to them when he’s not around.

  Among other, worse things.

  I feel bad for Darnique because she’s another doomed soul who doesn’t know it.

  Or maybe she does.

  During the break, Elena smokes my cigarettes. “Last week Darnique be talkin’ about people who kill themselves from stress. Why she askin’ about that?” Elena says. “She only ten years old. I tell her, Uh-uh, girl, you gonna live a long time. Those people that kill themselves, they just got nobody to talk to.”

  There is a gun in this story, so probably you know what that means.