by Paul Clayton
Chapter 29
Images of the Buddhist women’s meeting played out in Tawny’s mind as she drove Terri’s car up the ramp in the Tanforan Mall parking garage. She was going in to KoolKuts just to pick up her check—she wanted to give Terri something for allowing her to stay on her couch—then she was off to the old place to get more of her things. Exiting on the second floor, she drove carefully down the parking lot, the fog-dimmed South City daylight and occasional overhead neon lights barely illuminating the cars parked in their spaces. She spotted a slot close to the other end. She put on her signal, resisting the impulse to speed up to get there, afraid someone might back out into her path. She was only about six spaces away when a van rounded the turn ahead. Despite Tawny’s blinking turn signal indicating her intention to park there, the van made a sharp awkward turn into the space. The van immediately began backing up, its tires squealing on the concrete as Tawny rolled up to it. Tawny was incredulous, wanting to see who this fool was. She saw a little boy sitting in a booster seat; it was the little boy from down the block. He was all smiles. The mother leaned across him and rolled the window down, calling out, “I was here first!”
Tawny rolled her window down. “You didn’t see my signal?”
“That doesn’t matter. I got here first.”
Tawny was shocked by the woman’s brazenness. The woman waited, continuing to lean over the little brown boy and glare at her. Then Tawny noticed the tiny girl in the child’s seat behind the woman. With a pixie-ish face framed in golden ringlets, the girl looked scared out of her wits by her mother’s aggressive behavior. Tawny shook her head in astonishment as she drove slowly around the van. Tawny had been in fights before, not a lot of them, but she’d traded a few punches with some of the Mexican gang girls at South City High—and this woman looked like she wanted to get physical. Tawny was glad she saw that frightened little face before it got to that. She slowly drove up the ramp to the next level, marveling at the experience, wondering if the strange way it played out had anything to do with the Buddhism and the chanting. They were always saying that your whole environment would change for the better when you started chanting. Tawny spotted a parking place just before the ramp to the next level and parked.
Later that day Tawny turned onto Hillside and started up the hill to Skyview Drive. She wondered if Rad would be at the house. She had called the night before and hadn’t gotten an answer. It didn’t matter. This was her decision and she had decided. She was getting the last of her things, and her box of records out of the garage, and that was it. When she finished she would give him the key or leave it under the door with a note. She would not need it any more.
As she crested the hill she saw a lot of activity at the bottom. Crowds of people had collected where Skyview intersected with Hillside and a line of people were walking along the side of the road. It was some kind of organized march, she realized as she drew closer. Men, women and children, some of them shouting, were chanting something in unison. A few of the people were crying. Many of them held signs, the nearest one reading, SAVE SAN BRUNO MOUNTAIN! Near the eucalyptus grove, half a dozen huge, yellow, earthmoving machines were parked here and there. Hard-hat workers were everywhere and four police cruisers, red and yellow lights flashing, had pulled over on the side of the road. Tawny turned onto Skyview and parked. She got out and hurried up the hill.
The ringing of the phone woke Rad. For a moment he lay still, lazily expecting Tawny to pick it up. Then he remembered she was gone. His head ached as if his brain had swollen and was now throbbing and chafing against the sharp bony confines of his skull. He leaned over and grabbed the phone. “Hey, man,” said a voice that was vaguely familiar, “your trees are going down.”
“Huh?” said Rad.
“The trees, man!”
“Who is this?” Then Rad recognized the voice as Wayne’s. “Oh, Wayne. What trees? What are you talking about?”
“I just drove by Hillside in the limo. The place is crawling with dozers and hardhats, police and protestors. It’s like the beginning of a fucking war out there, man. They got the howitzers and tanks and they’re getting ready to assault your trees!”
“Shit!” said Rad. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” said Wayne. “Sorry, man.” He hung up.
Rad threw the covers off. “Shit!”
When Rad got to the top of the hill he was amazed at all the activity. He had never seen so many people in one place in South City in all his life. They lined the road, many of them neighbors he had seen on occasion. There were a lot of children among them, kids he had seen in the playground or playing ball or skate boarding or riding bikes. All of them were agitated; some cried. Some of the adults seemed to be in shock and watched the hardhats with mouths agape. Others shouted at the army of workers. Cries of, “Go home,” and, “Save the mountain,” filled the air. Rad saw a man in a hardhat that appeared to be in charge, talking with a couple of policemen on the side of the road. The other hardhats stood about talking nonchalantly as they waited. Every now and then one of them would turn to cast indifferent looks at the protestors.
Rad scanned the crowd and was shocked to see Tawny fifty feet down the road, talking to two preteen girls who were crying. He walked down to her.
“Oh, hi,” she said. Her eyes were big.
Rad’s confusion and the excited talk and shouting overwhelmed his awkwardness at suddenly being confronted with the presence of Tawny. He frowned and looked back up at the police cars.
Tawny said something to the girls and they walked off. She turned to Rad and shook her head. “I didn’t know they had won in court.”
“Neither did I,” said Rad. He pointed to the man talking to the two policemen. “Maybe it’s still not over.”
She nodded and they turned to watch awkwardly. After a few moments the hard-hat man walked away from the policemen and waved his hand in signal. A roar came from the eucalyptus stand as the engines of the bulldozers started up. Black sooty columns of exhaust gushed skyward from the gleaming stainless-steel exhaust stacks. The bulldozers began rumbling about, raising clouds of dust and gushing thick columnar clouds of black diesel smoke. A huge yellow dozer with a large circular saw attached to its front lumbered over to a giant eucalyptus on the edge of the grove and began ripping into its base. “Oh, God,” said Tawny, grabbing Rad’s arm unconsciously. A rooster tail of sawdust flew from the saw as it quickly ate through the trunk. The last bit of trunk snapped like a rifle shot and the tree started to fall. The crowd cried out collectively as the big tree hit the ground with a sound like thunder. Several nearby women began crying.
“Oh, my God!” said Tawny again. Rad put his arm protectively around her as he watched incredulously. Shouting, curses and threats filled the morning air and Rad felt like he was witnessing some kind of massacre. His heart thumped in his chest as anger filled him. He held Tawny closer as they watched. Several of the dozer drivers and hardhats smiled broadly, enjoying the peoples’ impotent outrage. Rad turned and saw a nearby hardhat holding a red STOP sign. The man smiled at him.
“What the fuck are you smiling at, you son of a bitch!” Rad shouted.
Tawny pulled on Rad, trying to turn him away.
The man nodded aggressively, giving Rad a “do something about it” look.
Tawny put both of her arms around him to hold him back.
Rad turned to her and saw that her face was wet with tears. He shook his head again, not knowing what to say.
“C’mon,” Tawny said. “There isn’t anything we can do anymore. It’s over.”
For a while Rad couldn’t move from where he stood. Men with chainsaws hurried over to the huge downed eucalyptus. Their chain saws roared as they sawed the limbs off the fallen giant. They really were like an army, Rad realized, attacking an enemy. And they were in a hurry, a blitzkrieg, so no last-minute appeals court would be able to undo what they were doing. He shook his head in disgust as Tawny continued to pull at him. He cursed in futile frustration, his wo
rds lost in the awful drone of diesel-fueled mechanical destruction. Finally he let Tawny lead him away. He felt numb inside, like he’d lost a fist fight, or like after his first big breakup with a girl. He and Tawny slowly walked down the hill in silence.
After they entered the house and closed the door, things moved on their own accord. There was no scheming on Rad’s part. They didn’t talk or negotiate. Things just happened. Tawny began crying and he put his arms around her. A moment later they were in the bedroom. He picked her up and lay her down on the bed. They made love slowly and gently. Before he rolled off of her, he kissed her face gently, tasting the salt in her tears.
“Tawn. I’m sorry.”
Tawny shook her head. “Why? You couldn’t do anything about it. Nobody could.”
“No,” said Rad. “Not that. I mean, I’m sorry about us. For screwing things up between us.”
“Not now, Rad,” she said. “Hand me a Kleenex.”
Rad extended the box to her and she pulled one, wiping what remained of her tears away. “You know I ran into the lady down the block today?”
“Which one?”
“Mr. Peepers’ wife. She stole my parking place at the mall parking lot.”
“No shit,” said Rad.
Tawny laughed a little and Rad smiled sadly, both welcoming the change in subject. Tawny shook her head. “I couldn’t believe it. I had my signal on and she came around the bend and jumped into my spot.”
“What’d you say to her?”
“God,” said Tawny, “I wanted to get in her face, but she had her kids with her… the cute little brown boy and a sweet-looking little girl in a child seat behind. I couldn’t get into anything with her with those kids looking on.”
“Yeah,” said Rad, “I can understand. You know that son of a bitch must’ve contacted the landlord about the truck.”
“Mister Peepers?” said Tawny.
“Yeah. I got about forty five days to get it fixed and off the lawn.”
“Hmmm,” said Tawny, looking up at the ceiling.
The fell quiet for a while.
“Tawny,” said Rad. “I want us to try again. Will you try?”
Tawny ran her hand lightly over Rad’s arm. “I don’t know, Rad. I’m not sure we should.” She saw his face fall and quickly added, “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have done this. I don’t hate you or anything, Rad. It’s just that I’m not sure anymore that we’re really right for each other. I need more time to think about it.”
“Okay,” said Rad sadly. “I understand.”
Tawny didn’t say anything further. A moment later she started crying softly. They lay together quietly and soon fell asleep in each other’s arms.
Rad awoke as Tawny was getting out of bed. He didn’t move as she began putting her clothes on.
“Can we at least get together to talk sometime?” he said hopefully. “You know, just as friends.”
Tawny’s smile looked forced. “Maybe… in a couple of weeks. I’m going down to the garage to get my things, Rad. I’ll leave from there.”
Rad nodded as Tawny left the room and closed the door. Immediately the cold, quiet emptiness of the house swallowed up the little hope he’d felt since he’d spotted her earlier that day on the hill. He fell back to sleep.
Chapter 30
1015 Skyview Drive. Reynaldo sat at his desk for a long time working on his definitions; he was doing some E words that Mommy had assigned him. EMBRACE, he printed out in crisp letters, a. to clasp in the arms: HUG b: CHERISH, LOVE. The phrase was repeated in a somewhat orderly fashion three quarters of the way down the yellow foolscap page. His hand was tired from writing but he dared not stop. Mommy was madder than he’d ever seen her, her face red and puffy, and he was scared. He wished Daddy would come home but he knew from the light that he would not be home for a long time. He heard vague voices from the TV and grew angry with Christine. She always got to watch TV. Mommy said that she would have to work like him when she went into first grade, but he didn’t believe it.
Reynaldo heard Mommy calling him loudly and he got out of his chair and ran to the kitchen. Mommy was down in the garage at the washing machine, looking up at him through the opened door. “Did you take any candy from the candy dish?”
Reynaldo didn’t say anything for a moment. Both he and Christine had taken candy, but they had sworn each other to secrecy. He wondered if Christine had told. “No, Mommy,” he said.
Mommy held out some shiny green paper. “I found these in the washing machine, Reynaldo, after I washed your clothes.”
Reynaldo thought he had hid the papers under his bed, but he couldn’t be sure. “They’re not mine,” he said. Maybe they were his. He knew he shouldn’t lie, but he was afraid of what Mommy would do if he told the truth.
“Don’t lie to me, Reynaldo,” Mommy said
“I’m not lying, Mommy.”
Mommy slammed the lid of the washing machine down. “Yes you are. Now go to your room, you goddamned liar! You’re gonna get it. Go!”
Reynaldo turned and left the kitchen, calling out, “Sorry, Mommy,” behind him, knowing that it would do him no good, but not being able to stop. He saw Christine watching the TV fixedly, trying to blot out what was happening and what was about to happen. He went into his room and looked around. What should he do? The sunlight coming in the window flickered as the branches of the tree moved in the breeze outside. He stared worriedly at the window and remembered when Daddy had shown him how to open it if there was an earthquake. He went and got his little yellow chair and brought it over to the window. He climbed up on it. He pulled the curtains aside. He slid the window open, feeling the coolness of the outside air. The air smelled sweet and fresh. He wanted to go outside and run. Mommy could never catch him because he ran fast like the Power Rangers. He could hide outside until Daddy came home. Then Mommy wouldn’t hit him. He pushed against the screen like Daddy had shown him and it fell away. As he put his foot up on the window sill, rough hands grabbed his hair, yanking him painfully back inside the room.
Allen hadn’t wanted to work late, but he’d had to. Ron had called a last minute meeting and Allen knew that if he wanted to be considered for Childers’ lead slot, he had better stick around. The meeting had gone longer than anyone anticipated. When Allen went back to his desk to get his things he saw the letter from the lawyer in his in basket.
Dear Allen,
I apologize for the delay in responding to you; I’ve actually been out sick for the last couple of weeks. I have reviewed your letter and understand, and very much sympathize with, your situation. I do have to advise you that the best thing you could do for your children at this point, if at all possible, would be to stay as long as you can in the marriage. I do hear you, however, that you feel that you have stayed as long as you can, and that for the sake of your son, you need to get out. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that even under the conditions you describe, that you would get custody of your son, and if you are not in the house to ameliorate things when the children are with your wife… it is not a pretty thought. There are, however, a few things you can do to strengthen your case.
1. Consider calling the police so that you have police reports for every incident. You will need these in order to get temporary custody.
2. You will need statements from anybody and everybody who has first-hand knowledge of Tina’s behavior towards Reynaldo, particularly the more abusive behavior. In other words, there needs to be eyewitnesses. The best statements come from professionals, such as doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.
3. Immediately prior to leaving the house you will want to file a request for temporary custody. In preparation, you should start becoming as much as possible, the primary parent. You should pick up the children from daycare, take them to school, etc.
All of this is to help you set up your case. However, I am sad to report that the biases in the Courts are so deeply ingrained in favor of mothers, and against men, that all of this may only gain you a ‘slim chance.�
� I am sorry that the news could not be more optimistic, but I would be doing you a disservice to tell you what you would like to hear, rather than the reality.
If you still want to proceed, contact me through my secretary and we will schedule an initial consultation.
Sincerely,
Camille Simpson
Attorney at Law
All the way home Allen’s mind picked over the details of the lawyer’s letter. ‘Get police reports,’ she’d written. For what? None of it had ever been bad enough that he had had to call the police. It was the sum total of it all, the cumulative effect of all that anger and, yeah, hate, it seemed like, directed at Reynaldo. How do you get that in a police report? And statements from people who know Tina and him and the kids? What were Susan and Tomas likely to say? Would they repeat to the authorities what he had told them about what was going on at home, or close ranks with Tina? Statements from professionals? Who? Reynaldo’s pediatrician, Doctor Goldman? He hadn’t seen any evidence of abuse. Joel Beckett? He was dead, and even if he weren’t, Allen had pulled his punches in his description of Tina’s behavior toward Reynaldo out of some screwed-up sense of marital loyalty. And what would the courts do with this? He recalled what the lawyer wrote about the court’s bias toward mothers. Tina would play that up big time. No doubt about it; he was screwed.
The closer Allen got to home the more discouraged he became. Despite that, he resolved to start keeping a journal. But he doubted it would change anything much. He ran into a major traffic jam up on 280 near the airport. While sitting in traffic he thought about the situation again—but what the hell could he do? How could he fix this disaster?
Darkness had already fallen when Allen drove down Skyview. As he parked the van he realized his stomach was empty and he should eat, but he had no appetite. He went in the house. As usual, Christine was sitting on one of the little yellow plastic chairs in front of the TV, playing with her Barbies. Allen didn’t see Tina in the kitchen and he moved down the hallway to look in on Reynaldo. As he put his hand on the doorknob to Reynaldo’s room, he heard the door to the garage open. He turned the knob, but it wouldn’t budge. It was locked.