“Oh yeah? Is that so?” Bill turned to where Joey sat next to me in the front passenger seat. “You want to put something on it in earnest?”
“Sure,” Joey said. “Why not?” His grin masked what I took to be a belligerent note in his voice.
“What d’ya say to a hunnerd bucks?”
“I say swell. Got yourself a bet,” Joey replied. I had watched Joey count the dollars in his money clip only a couple of hours ago, and then watched him spend most of that amount. It was clear everyone in the car was also privy to this fact, and it occurred to me that Bill was somehow depending upon it. I shuddered to imagine how Bill might try to collect a substitute payment. But Joey only winked at me. I widened my eyes back in return. What did he think I could do, and why?
I wrapped my hands around the cold lacquered plastic of the steering wheel. We’d had the whole zig-zag stretch of Lombard to ourselves for the better part of the evening, but now a family of tourists had turned up to have a go at it. I decided it was best to wait until they had cleared the steep switchbacks entirely before embarking.
“Day-trippers,” Donald declared disdainfully. He squinted to get a better look at the dilapidated car. “Oh, Lord help us. Probably from the Central Valley. It’s almost two a.m., and they’re too cheap to stay overnight in the city, so they’re cramming all the sights into one day.” The car reached the bottom of the hill and hesitated, finally turning off onto Leavenworth.
I took a breath. The truth was, this was only my seventh time behind the wheel of a car in the course of my entire life. My family had neither the money nor the need for a car. The subway took us everywhere we could hope to go. In fact, it was only by virtue of an uncle who fulfilled his promise to my dying father by once a year making the long road-trip into the city from Detroit to check on our family in New York that I’d been taught how to drive at all. I closed my eyes and said a prayer. I’d decided the best I could hope for was that I would not cause any major damage to an automobile I could not afford to repair. I had a sudden flash of Marcus, the brother I’d never met, whose photograph I’d nearly bored holes into with my eyes growing up.
All at once, as though it were not connected to me, my foot abruptly lifted from the brake pedal and slammed on the gas. A terrified silence fell over the car as we flew forward and plunged downward, first this way, then that. At some point I was dimly aware of my feet riding both the gas and brake at the same time. Joey’s hand gripped my upper arm; this time it was less a gesture of support and more the brute vise grip of fear. The car moved like a skier slaloming down a slope without incident, and although the endeavor was filled with enough anxiety to last a year, in truth the whole thing took mere seconds. When I reached the bottom I felt my foot slam down the brake only, and I reached behind the steering wheel to wrench the car into park. The car rocked roughly on its tires and came to a standstill.
It was silent, save for the sound of the men gasping as they caught their breath.
“Ho-leee shit!” Eddie exclaimed. He reached over the seat, gave a quick clap upon my back, then squeezed Joey’s shoulder. “Holy shit, man! I think you just won yourself a hundred bucks!”
“I’d say so,” Donald said. I caught a glance of Bill in the rearview mirror. His mouth had rolled into a firm line, and he seemed less than pleased with the result of my efforts. At that moment I understood I had been a fool not to realize that putting a dent in his Fairlane was not the worst thing I could’ve done.
“We never shook on it, and you know that means it ain’t really a deal, but I’ll give you your money anyway,” he said.
Still exhilarated, Joey took no notice of Bill’s sneer. “Did I tell you or did I tell you?” he grinned, talking to everyone and no one in particular. He turned to me, awkwardly squeezing my shoulder in happiness. “Say, I ought to split my winnings with you.”
The thought of my collecting fifty of the begrudged one hundred dollars proved too much for Bill. I noticed his eye beginning to twitch with angry irritation. His temples bulged as his jaw worked.
“All right, everybody back out! Time to gimme back my rightful seat,” he said. He opened the car door and the rest of us automatically followed suit. “Quick, quick!” he commanded, and everyone stepped faster, double-timing it around the Fairlane for one last ridiculous Chinese fire drill. During all the previous intervals when we had scurried around the car like a tiny colony of confused ants, I had been the last to climb back into the vehicle, not wanting to take a seat until I could be sure I wasn’t getting in anybody’s way. This time was no exception. One by one, car doors slammed shut as I belabored my steps slightly more than the others and looked for the single remaining seat. I saw my place was now in the backseat and I reached for the door handle. But before I was able to depress the button, Bill stuck his head out the driver’s-side window.
“Too bad you can’t run as fast as you drive, darkie!” he yelled. Suddenly I heard the engine of the Fairlane give a tremendous roar. The tires squealed, and as the car peeled out I tried to release and pull my hand away but I was not quick enough. I felt it nearly rip at the wrist.
I cried out involuntarily from the pain, reactively tucking my injured hand in my opposite armpit and squeezing it tightly there in some sort of gesture meant to stave off the excruciating discomfort as it radiated up and down my nerves. I watched the taillights of Bill’s Fairlane recede. They moved off like a pair of glowing red eyes floating into the dark, foggy night as the automobile sped away. The air immediately around me was thick with the sickening scent of burned rubber, and I glanced down to observe two distinct black streaks on the pavement that had been left behind by Bill’s tires. I stood there blinking, partly from surprise and partly from the involuntary tears that had sprung to my eyes as a result of my injured hand.
So, I thought. They had left me. My heart still thudding hot in my chest, I inhaled a deep lungful of cool, wet air. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked, and somewhere else a mourning dove hooted its haunting, owl-like cry. I hurried homeward, hoping not to cross paths with the police cruiser again before I made it back to my hotel.
42
About a week or so passed. I put the automobile incident behind me and refocused my energies on hunting down my father’s locker. Try as I might, I was still hard-pressed to get on base. The guards were unfriendly, consistently meeting my inquiries with a brusque, firm indifference. The money I’d saved was dwindling; I began to brace myself with the thought of returning to New York empty-handed after all.
Then one morning I rose, shaved, dressed myself, and ambled down the hotel stairs, passing by the man who tended the front desk. He was a burly man with a heavy mustache and I felt vaguely sorry for him whenever I saw him, for he was obliged to sit in a bizarre little windowed enclosure, the kind that resembled a movie theater ticket booth. It had been painted burgundy and framed up with gilded woodwork, as though to distract from the fact it had obviously been put in place by a wary manager worried about robbery. I usually gave the morning clerk an impersonal, apologetic nod and continued on my way, but that morning as I made my way to the front door he startled me as he rapped on the glass with his knuckles.
“Mr. Tillman,” he called in a gruff voice through the circular speaking hole in the window. I turned and doubled back upon hearing my name.
“Yes?”
“Message for ya,” he grunted. He slid a slip of paper under the window, then took a deep sip from a dirty-looking mug and reached up to wipe a few beads of coffee from his mustache with his thumb and forefinger. I picked up the paper and read it.
Aha! Found you.
Meet me at the coffee shop around the corner when you’re ready.
—Joey
I blinked and reread the message.
“When did my friend leave this?” I asked.
“’Bout an hour ago.” The clerk shrugged.
“Thanks.” I hurried out the door and half-stumbled aro
und the corner. There was Joey, sitting in the window of the coffee shop. I slowed down as I drew near, hesitated, then knocked on the glass. He looked up, surprised. All at once, his face broke out in a wide, familiar grin and another jolt of electricity went through me. He waved at me to come inside, and I walked to the coffee shop’s entrance, crossed the room, and slid into the seat opposite him.
“You weren’t an easy man to find,” he said once I’d settled into the booth. “I only had a first name to go on. And your description, of course. Thankfully, your—ahem—hotel doesn’t seem too concerned about the privacy of its guests.”
“You looked for me?”
“All over the city,” he said. “Listen,” he said, suddenly turning serious and glancing at the bandage around my injured hand as he leaned over the table. “It weighed heavy on me. I want to apologize for the fellas’ behavior the other night . . . You know, for driving off. That kind of business wasn’t my idea, and I really had it out with Bill after that. I convinced him to go back for you, but by the time we did, you were long gone.”
I ought to have been leery of seeing him again. The night in Bill’s Fairlane had reminded me of Cliff’s party and of Rusty. The bruises from the latter incident had finally vanished only a few days ago. I knew at that point I should simply thank Joey for the apology and go, but for some reason I felt tethered to the booth.
“I’d like to make it up to you,” Joey said.
“Not necessary.”
“Well, I’d like to buy you breakfast, at least. Would you stay for breakfast?”
I tried to form the words No, thank you but they felt thick in my throat. I’d been walking around the city, passing entire days without exchanging more than five words with anybody, and I realized it felt good to talk to someone. My nostrils were already full of the rich smells of a good diner breakfast: eggs, bacon, pancakes, maple syrup. My mouth watered in spite of me.
“I suppose breakfast wouldn’t hurt,” I relented.
A woman with tobacco-tinted skin and a pencil tucked behind one ear eventually wandered over to refill Joey’s coffee and we ordered.
“What brings you all the way from New York to San Francisco?” Joey asked once she had gone. “Besides your infamous insect safari, of course.”
I smiled and thought of how to answer. Before I knew it, I was explaining about my father, about his locker and the alleged journal it contained, and about my frustrations getting on base. “I just don’t know what to do,” I said, shaking my head.
“But there’s something else, too,” he said once I’d finished explaining my mission. “Isn’t there?”
“What do you mean?”
“About this business with your father’s locker. Holding you back. You seem”—he searched for the right word—“like you’re of two minds. Like you’re frustrated, sure, but also a tiny bit relieved.”
I stared at him. I had never considered myself half so transparent; he hardly knew me. “Well . . .” I began to answer. Out came the rest of it. I told him about Clarence, and about the doubt Clarence had managed to plant in my mind. Joey sat at the diner table, sopping up eggs over-easy with the crusts of mildly burnt toast, while I talked more in forty minutes than I had in weeks. There was something in the way he posed a question and followed it up with a generous pause, I think, that drew me out. I had never noticed all the pauses that were missing from most people’s conversations. Years later, I wondered if Joey’s beautiful pauses had something to do with his being from the South and the slower pace of Southern life, but I realize now this was an oversimplification. It was not only that Joey paused but that he paused for me, with a kind smile on his lips, sincerely waiting for my answers.
By the time Joey had sopped up the last bit of egg yolk with a final bit of toast, I had relayed every detail I’d ever known about my father, laying it all out in a jumble as though dumping a box of jigsaw puzzle pieces on the table.
“I’ll help you,” he said, pulling a dollar bill from his wallet and settling the check. “It’s pretty clear this is a moment you’ll regret for the rest of your life if you don’t try a little harder. What you need is a good, swift kick in the ass.” He looked at me and dropped the comedy routine. Gone was the mischievous flirt from the night at the jazz club one week ago, the impulsive kid who wanted to drive down that tiny, treacherous block of Lombard Street at top speed. “I’d like to help you look,” he repeated, this time in a more serious tone. “If you’ll let me.”
I stared at him. “I’m certain you have better things to do,” I said. I smiled, hoping to signal that he was off the hook, that this gesture wasn’t necessary.
“Honestly, I haven’t,” he said. He grinned. “I just got out of the Army and I’m killing time, waiting around to hear about a job with the State Department.”
I blinked.
“Don’t you see? That’s the best part: I’ve got all the time in the world, and to top it off, I can help you get on base, maybe poke around and ask a few questions to see if anyone remembers your old man or has any records. If you’re smart, you’ll take me up on my offer.” He winked. I thought about it. It was true he was offering an advantage in that he was an ex-soldier: He would be able to get on base, which I, so far, had been unable to do.
I clenched my jaw and swallowed, unsure.
“All right” was all I finally said. We shook hands as though to seal the deal and made our way out of the diner and onto the street, where the sun beat down brilliantly on the bright, chalk-colored sidewalk. It was funny: You always held your breath in the mornings in that city, waiting to find out whether the sun would finally break through the fog, and when.
43
Joey turned out to be a good ally to have as I mustered the energy for a fresh effort to hunt for my father’s journal. His charm went a long way to grease the wheels. As promised, he got us onto all the local Army facilities, of which there were many. But as I suspected, getting on base was only the first hurdle. The staff that manned the administrative offices was hardly friendlier than the guards at the gatehouses, and all of them insisted a footlocker like the one my mother had described to me didn’t exist.
Finally, when I was on the verge of attempting to convince Joey not to waste any more of his time, a clerk at one of the offices in the Presidio pointed to the key in the palm of my hand and declared, “Why, you ain’t looking for no footlocker on a military base. Sure as I’m born, that there’s the kind of key they use for the lockers down at the Y.”
“The Y?” I repeated.
“You know: the Y. Young Men’s Christian Association. Military boys use the Y for all sorts of things; it’s a regular home away from home,” the clerk said. “I tell ya, that looks like the kinda key they have for locking your things up at night at the big Y on Golden Gate and Leavenworth.”
Joey and I exchanged a surprised look. Here was a development that should have been obvious but that had never occurred to me.
“How did I not think of that?” Joey said. “The Y. Of course!”
• • •
We found San Francisco’s main YMCA at the intersection the clerk scribbled down on a slip of paper. The sun was beginning to go down by then, making long shadows on everything, and the entrance to the Y sported a pair of Roman columns that lent the building a rather tired, somber, banklike air. Inside, it was humid and a bit run-down—but I suppose that’s to be expected of any building subject to constant use. We approached the large reception desk that loomed in the entryway, but it was unattended. There was a thick, heavy, boys’ dormitory scent that permeated the place; it smelled like a concoction of equal parts fried chicken, gym socks, and cigarette smoke. Men roamed about in every state of dress. From somewhere in a hallway a telephone rang while a television played in a large room nearby. I thought to wait at the reception desk for someone to come, but Joey motioned me on.
“C’mon.”
As he walked nonchalantly through the maze of hallways and staircases I realized there was a certain ease of familiarity in his step. He knew his way around. I shouldn’t have been surprised Joey had been here before, but I found myself wondering with whom. But before I could work up the nerve to ask him, we came to a hallway between a gymnasium and some kind of Turkish bath. I looked and saw it was lined with metal lockers. I held up my key and saw that it was likely the right size for one of these.
“Aha.” Joey grinned. “Thought so!”
I couldn’t help but grin back at him. My heart gave a heavy pump and I realized I was beginning to feel excited. I searched for the locker that matched the tiny number embossed on my father’s key. I took a breath, lifted the key to insert it, and hesitated, my hand hovering before the locker’s blank metal face.
“Go on,” Joey urged after several seconds ticked by. “What are you waiting for?” This was rhetorical. He knew, of course. In matters like this one, there were only two states: before and after. I was holding on to one more second of before.
But I got myself worked up over nothing. The locker door did not swing open to reveal an empty dark space or even a locker full of my father’s things, for the locker door did not swing open at all. Once I finally put the key in the lock, it slipped in easily enough, but it did not turn. I tried it again, this time more forcefully. Nothing. I inserted it upside down and tried again, but to no avail. I was baffled. Certainly it was the right type of key, in the right type of lock. I checked the number on the key, and the number on the locker: 273. There were no sixes or nines to confuse things . . . They certainly matched.
“I don’t understand,” I murmured.
“Let me try it,” Joey said, taking the key from my hand. He tried to turn it with the same result. Suddenly we became aware of a presence standing behind us.
“Excuse me,” came a gruff voice. We turned around to see a thick-necked young man in gym attire, his hair dripping with what smelled to be sweat. “That’s my locker.” We simply stared at him. He took a closer look at the two of us, glanced at his locker, and frowned. “Say, what kind of monkey business are you up to, anyhow?”
Three-Martini Lunch Page 26