That’s where I would stand during those fall nights, outside my mom’s door, for maybe an hour or so. Sometimes, Peter would wake up and ask me what I was doing there and I’d say going to the bathroom and then fake going back to sleep until I could hear him snoring again. Then I’d get up in time to pray one more time before padding back into bed. By this time, it would be getting toward dawn and you could hear the birds waking up or the garbage trucks moving up Goya through the mist. Then as the gray light grew stronger through the panes, I’d watch the windwhistle bone spin on its string and recall the stories I remembered from my father, not only about old Ram, but about all the Le Doirs, and what they’d done, and who they were, and how what they once did and were was less than what eventually became of them…
…when I woke up, I again drove into South Sagrada to the house on Santa Monica where Shaughn grew up and returned to die, wondering why he’d made that choice to come back here and if it had something to do with him wanting to die where he once felt most at home. What I was thinking was how little I really knew Tim Shaughnessy and the forces that both shaped and moved him.
There were Shaughnessy’s in Sagrada for almost as long as there were Le Doirs, and like them, the history of the Shaughnessy’s was an unhappy one, where alcohol was one of the main ingredients. The Shaughnessy’s were involved in law and law enforcement in Sagrada, and they’d arrived in the 1860s, after the Civil War, originally from Kilkenny, then Chicago. By the middle of the next century, they controlled the Sagrada Sheriff’s department and one Shaughnessy, Patrick, was running for Superior Court Judge. Then a gambling scandal story was published in The Stinger and Patrick Shaughnessy was never a force in Sagrada again…
…it was mid-summer at dusk and Shaughn and I were out on the river, under age in the Vieux Carré, dropping quarters in the jukebox and shooting pool. The Platters were singing ‘I Love You a Thousand Times,’ then Brenton Wood doing ‘Just Gimme Some Kind of Sign.’ We played pinball before heading down to the river bank and the hidden nest of willows where we flicked pebbles at the river so the bats would come. Billy, a sheriff’s deputy Shaughn knew, would come later and bring us quarts of Burgie and sometimes a joint, sometimes sharing it with us but mostly just leaving it for us while I, not really knowing but getting an idea, a notion, more a fear of what was really going on, played dumb while Shaughn talked about Toomey, the great ‘Tooms,’ an older guy from San Francisco whom Shaughn had met on the river a few years back. Eventually, I became aware that I was being compared to Toomey and found wanting. So I tried harder to please Shaughn, not knowing why I did; only sensing that he needed it; that there was a hole in him that needed filling. I drank harder and smoked more and tried things that Shaughn dared me to try, even picking a fight once with a couple teenage intruders, but still, somehow, I still always came up short.
Back at the cabin, in the evenings when Shaughn’s parents would break out the board games and the bottle, the tension between Shaughn and I which keened with each passing day would lessen, and from the camaraderie that was present in the evenings, which during the day was more a test of friendship, of loyalty, of love, I began to suspect there was something that Shaughn was hiding, something he was dissembling about; that what his parents knew of him and what I knew of him were different sides of Shaughn’s personality. And though I saw both sides, I realized that I—and possibly Shaughn—didn’t know either side entirely or that these two sides of him were all of him. I could almost feel him swallowing hard to keep it down, hidden, unspoken, and I could see Shaughn’s temples work hard at shutting it out. Not until the last day of that summer did I have a clue as to what it was, when Shaughn grabbed me furiously but with a kind of tenderness and a desperation in his voice said that we had to go to the river, to the nest, and throw the pebbles and watch the bats, and smoke a joint, and then we would have a bond that would be like the one that he had with Toomey. That was the first time I thought that Shaughn might be queer, and that he wanted me to be queer. It didn’t disgust me, but I didn’t feel that way, even though I would say, then and forever thereafter, that I loved Shaughn. That wasn’t enough though, not what I suspected Shaughn wanted. I loved him as my friend, and knew he was hurting, had always known he was hurting, and wanted only to help him. But what it was, I never really knew, and Shaughn would never say. The self-medication and denial that lasted all the way to his death were all that Shaughn had…
…standing on the sidewalk on San Francisco Boulevard, I was thinking all that and remembering the days in Deerville before we left for Vancouver, remembering, too, that Miranda Mintz lived just across the street in the little house with Jack Swanson, a friend of hers, if not more, that winter when John Devlin and Juan Altavista were both in Sagrada, the year I finally kicked heroin after the shootout on Q Street. What I was remembering took place about six weeks after the shootout.
“…what is this place you’re taking us to, Le Doir? Some kind of Chinese torture den?” asked Devlin.
“It’s a Gai Pow parlor in a little Chinese town down the river.”
“Not like Garrard Street, I hope,” said Altavista, a rolled Drum dangling from his lip.
“Nothing like that, Juan, besides, I’m kicking now.”
“Sure, you are, Ram… Shooah,” said Devlin.
In Locke, we walked the muddy streets, the four of us, Devlin, Juan, Monica, and me, her mother off on some adventure and Devlin aware of it. Juan and I had cameras and we shot pictures as we walked the abandoned streets of the Chinatown.
“Think we’ll ever do the reunion in Singapore?” asked Juan.
“Well, you’ll be right there, Juan. You’re in fucking Aus-trail-ee-yah!” laughed Devlin wickedly. “What do you think, Le Doir? Will we have our reunion at Raffles?”
“Sure, why not?” I said.
Devlin took a hit from the joint and bent down to help Monica tie her shoe, hitting it hard again then passing it to Juan. “That’s never gonna happen. That was just something we said. I mean, I think I’ll be there, and maybe Juan will be there, but you and Miranda? Nah, no way, and the same with David and Quentin if he hasn’t overdosed yet. We just said that at the time to keep the spirit moving.”
“You have to admit, John, it was a pretty good spirit,” Juan smiled.
“Shooah, Juan, it was, but it was dying from the minute we saw that Canterbury narc squad in the reception room, and it’s been dying faster ever since. Just take a look at Le Doir here, if you don’t believe me,” Devlin said, laughing and not jesting.
I smiled uneasily, as did Juan, as did Monica. “I tell you what, Juan. You write me when you’re going to Singapore and I’ll meet you there and take you to the best whore house and opium den in town, and I know where they are,” said Devlin, his voice rising while he squeezed Juan’s arm. At that moment, I felt superfluous, as though I wasn’t there. I put it down for the moment as withdrawal pangs…
…I headed out Fruitridge, northeast up Grant Line Road, into the foothills past the grist mill and graveyard where the rest of the Le Doirs and the Degnans now dwelled. I walked around the single hill ringed in chestnuts, with daffodils in full bloom among ancient stones marking the resting places. When I decided I’d had enough, I came back into town and visited some other monuments from my past.
For an hour that afternoon, I sat on Miranda Mintz’s porch, remembering Shaughn and Vera and Devlin and Monica, cataloguing my life here in Sagrada.
I faced west on Second Avenue, looking down the line of oaks and elms and palms, old and still in the half-light, their gray forms trailing away to where the horizon ended at the hummock of the Western Pacific railroad tracks. Black clouds followed blue skies in cyclical progression, like one of those time-lapse films of weather patterns. From time to time, a brief column of rain would march up the street making a syncopated tattoo. Golden rays would follow at its heels, as I watched the weather parade by and waited for Miranda Mintz to return from work. Then I remembered that she wouldn’t want to see me
when she did.
I remembered the last time I saw her, during the days of the Verde story, giving me one of her W.C.-Fields-style hugs and telling me, “Nobody cares about that kind of stuff you’re doing, Ram. We’ve all become cynical.” She was dating Jewish professional men then, after a string of lobbyists. The times I saw her during those years, she’d always ask me which outfit she should wear for her new beau.
I stopped at Monument Theater where Jim Mariner’s café, Le Monde, was now established—the one that would transform Sagrada into a ‘world-class city,’ whatever that was. Business was booming, the outside tables full despite the iffy weather. I saw Jim see me and look away. I sent word over to him through a waitress that I wanted to say hello. She left and returned a minute later to say he was busy but would take a message for me. I thanked her, paid my bill, and drove back to my motel.
The next morning, I drove past the Le Doir family home on Capitol Avenue where I first heard those stories about the family from my father forty years before. I walked three blocks from there to Sutter’s Fort, built by Joachim Degnan and his brother Rufus. I tried to remember how I felt when my dad told me those stories when I was eight, as if he was imparting something sacred to me. But they were just buildings now, a fort and an old house, and if their power was still active, I didn’t feel it anymore.
The city was more active now than I remembered it with the motile approximation of life: streams of traffic moving about; construction underway on new buildings; the sounds of drills and pile drivers filling my ears while cars and buses herky-jerked around the downtown grid. I picked up a copy of The Stinger. There was a story about the city’s continuing downtown renaissance. I remembered singing that same song in the same newspaper fifteen years before then, largely at Emile Donner’s behest and for the benefit of one of his clients, although I was blind to it then and would remain so until the Louie Verde story woke me up. The tall buildings bursting across the skyline were a testament to something—that much I could apprehend—but when evening fell, the human stream slowed to a trickle. The suits left the city and the winos and junkies came back and took their usual places.
I drove to my motel and the traffic was light. I turned left on 15th then right on Broadway, right on 11th, left on S, and pulled up in front of The Constitution at the corner of 10th.
It was one of my haunts from the days when I thought I walked on water, an old brick two-story building with a bar on the bottom floor, first built in 1860, that had been serving customers ever since. The bartender was a young guy, a bulked-up, three-hundred pounder with tattoos and earrings. The place was empty except for him and me and an old guy sitting at one of the booths nursing a red beer. For the first time in a long time, I felt like getting really fucked up.
“What’ll you have?” the bartender asked.
I considered it a minute and then told him to give me a ginger ale and French fries. I paid for it, took the change, and played the jukebox, dialing up Hendrix, The Doors, and Led Zeppelin in honor of Shaughn.
“You look familiar,” the bartender said. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so. Just one of those faces,” I said.
The bartender looked long at me and went down into the cellar, telling us he’d be back in a minute and to call him if we needed anything.
The jukebox was starting ‘Riders on the Storm,’ and I remembered the first time I heard it on that wild ride up Mt. Seymour with Jonas and Donnie and Shaugh. Then I felt a presence behind me. It was the old guy with the red beer.
“I know you,” he said.
I made no remark and registered nothing. The old man slid onto the adjacent stool.
“Do you know me?”
I still said nothing.
“You probably wouldn’t remember me. I used to see you come in here some years ago. And I knew your dad a long time ago. Charlie Bookman is my name. I met you when you were maybe ten years old, up on the Omochumnes near where the old Le Doir grist mill used to be… I recognize you from TV, too. You were in some kind of trouble, right?”
“I was. Some kind of trouble,” I said.
“That over now?”
“In a way… I’m sorry, what was your name?”
He stuck out his hand and stood to present himself. He was a tall skinny man in his eighties. I felt foolish for my churlishness.
“Charlie Bookman. I lived not too far from your dad when he was growing up on Capitol. I lived on 27th Street across the street from the fort.”
I shook his hand, and said my name, “Ram Le Doir.”
“When I first met you, your dad was researching a book he wanted to write about his family. Did he ever write it?”
“Not that I’m aware of, no. My dad died about twenty-five years ago.”
“I knew that. I’m sorry for your loss anyway.”
“We weren’t close.”
“That’s too bad. Family should stick together.”
I thought about what the old man said, remembering a Thanksgiving dinner when my brother Fran said that family was the most important thing. I considered the family equation awhile and eventually agreed with both of them, but I now defined family as being something other than blood kin.
“You were a writer too as I remember.”
“I was, but that was a long time ago, too.”
The old man sat for a minute and sipped his beer. He looked up at me and smiled. I looked back at him blankly.
“Do you live here in Sagrada?”
“No, I’m here for a funeral. It’s on Friday.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Will you be coming here afterward?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“I have something that belongs to you, something you should have.”
“What is it?”
“It’s best to show you, but I don’t have it with me now. I’ll bring it in on Friday. I’ll be here all afternoon until seven or so.”
I looked at him. The old man seemed harmless. I wondered what it was that he had but let it lie without prying. “I might do that,” I said.
“See you Friday… Ram Le Doir, goddamn,” he said as he left.
I watched him walk out the double doors. A moment later, I left the bar and returned to the motel.
When I woke up the next morning, I called Earl McHugh and told him I wouldn’t be coming to Shaughn’s requiem mass funeral or the burial or the wake on Friday. “I can’t make it, Earl. I said my goodbyes to Shaughn at the rosary.”
“I totally understand, Ram. Will I see you again?”
“Who knows? …someday maybe.”
I spent that Thursday driving around town some more, going by old cafés where I used to hang out and seeing nobody I once knew, not Phil Rudd or Carl Buford or the Fozetta brothers. I went and sat on the banks of the Nacionalé for a while, then drove past Emile Donner’s and Miranda’s houses again, thinking I would never see those people in this lifetime again. I drifted into thoughts of my time in Misericordia and how bitter I felt over how things turned out during the Verde affair. But slowly, over time, that bitterness left me. Extended time in prison will do that for you. I was full of anger that first year in Misericordia. But eventually, I forgot the bad things and only remembered the good.
I drove into my old subdivision, which was now a suburban slum bordered by a cement ditch which was once wildlife-rich Morrison Creek. I drove past Earl’s house, past Jaime’s, past Baldoni’s and Stew’s houses, past my old elementary school, past the house where I wrecked Fran’s Healy by driving into it. I parked and walked to the dead end that faced onto the freeway and looked out on the whirring traffic jam and beyond that to what once were mustard fields. Now the fields were filled with commercial tilt-ups, gas stations and strip malls…
…three days, successive years, one in the winter, two in the fall and bounded by fog on them all. Reprieved from school but not from church, for the avatar we honored was one of our own, sainted while still young, canonized on TV, where we sat entranc
ed, too young, really, for all this. Beginning and ending on the streets of D.C., the collective breath of throngs puffing visibly into the air, the first time as though they were leashed dragons and he a thunderous St. George, the last time, like smoke rising from a doused flame… So hold us now, the crowd seemed to say, before we fly apart… That was the first time that I had seen faces in such distortion and fleshmelt, that I later saw in the paintings of Francis Bacon or on those faces that day at Altamont…
But it was the day in the middle, the even numbered year, the day that came at the end of the masses-at-dawn-and-dusk week, which my brothers and I served at daily when the sky was hidden by the dense fog and where no eyes rotated upwards. That’s when I first tasted the bitter taste. That’s when I believe the seed was first planted…
Windwhistle Bone Page 69