A California Closing

by Robert Wintner

  California factors again in the scheme of things, with the nut bowl replacing the dust bowl. Would the Egg Cup sell well in the nut bowl? He thinks it would. Agog on ethereal fads and intrapersonal workings, channeling spirits and irrigating colons, trends serve a collective libido. That is, this market could be ripe! Hawaii, on the other hand, is sensual and lusty, which seems different than chronic and strange.

  Allison Mulroney is slight but sturdy, naturally proportioned in the chest and womanly built, with good hips for more feminine curvature than those with bigger endowments or enhancements. Besides, some of those could have been guys, as everyone knows by now. She feels constrained in making her mark, or maybe she has no mark to make, which is okay for her and maybe beyond okay. She measures success daily in simple tasks: filling the bird feeder, watering the garden, putting something out for the deer and skunks and raccoons. She imagines happiness in warmth, in the archipelago to the west, where color and scent can also abound in more spritely abundance, with her nose not so cold. She imagines less of the pesky pop culture. Everyone walking around in their underwear seems like fun, and why not, with trimming down and bulking up gaining momentum?

  Long-distance ownership can be tricky, but Big M OK Cars is a precision machine that could cruise indefinitely. It’s up and running; buy cars, sell cars with a name you can trust, and they do. Or, the whole show could sell in a jiff. What would Mulroney do without car lots? He doesn’t need the money he makes, and so many millions in a lump sum would be another challenge. Nobody takes a payout in a lump sum. Still, oodles to spend might open new vistas. Maybe that’s what’s missing, a new vista or two. He could bankroll a project or a cause, maybe something worthy, something civic. Maybe he could be a hero on CNN. Maybe he could sponsor a month sabbatical in Vegas, with everything staying in Vegas.

  Allison understands new horizons, new stimulation, new challenges. She won’t respond to her spouse’s anxiety depression because he shuts her out, won’t open up in confidence, can’t say what’s ailing him, and Michael’s idle distraction doesn’t help. She often says she wants him to be happy, which isn’t to suggest a girlfriend. Oh, she knows the difference between a strapping young man and a dirty old man. It’s their ages. But a young man is easier to accept for his raging hormones, and Michael Mulroney is difficult to accept on many levels. Allison tolerates these things, and she giggles or winces if pressed. She also knows that well-meaning women who press her for feelings actually think her silly, but then they go away, which feels good. Anyone who watches TV knows that the male of any species wants the alpha slot. Paramecium males are crazy for paramecium vagina, when you get down to it, unless they’re zygotes or morphodites or osmotics. It doesn’t even matter; the male of the species is overbearing. Michael is alpha, and it simply seems unlikely that the well-meaning women in the area will ever be comfortable with that.

  Besides, sexual appetite is a symptom, not an objective. A man understands a time for every purpose under heaven, a time to be born and a time to die, a time to reap and a time to sow. Somewhere in there comes a time to live, and therein lies the Mulroney misunderstanding. Maybe he missed something, but that possibility merely affirms his uncertainty. Life is not so complex: with the material side dicked and a beautiful wife when she’s sober, which is more often now, with the occasional meetings. He has what he always wanted, what he’d always worked for. He’s made them secure and then some, affluent, mobile and discretionary—a bit reversed for the moment, but look at the numbers. He could liquidate quick on a fire sale and still land on his feet—well, if they wouldn’t mind renting and didn’t need much money for clothing. Because the numbers get so big that a quarter inch either way can mean the world. Or the basement.

  Allison calls out from another room, complaining or explaining or asking, but he’s reading, and the exhaust fan drowns her out, and he thinks the drowning feels nice, as merciful as silence used to be. He thinks she doesn’t know how he feels.

  It doesn’t matter what she’s saying because it’s another fugue on the inconsequential, a monologue that will not become dialogue because he will not yell back up the hall, “What?” He lets it go. She quacks and forgets. Maybe she’ll ask again later, or not.

  A few minutes later he’s in the garage, tinkering with something but he’s not sure what, standing, listening, trying to remember the last few minutes since he sat on the crapper.

  Opening the mind and shutting the mouth feels better these days. He suspects it’s what success comes to. Like last week when this old gal pulled up right here in front of the garage in her aging faux roadster, a late eighties Pontiac Fireball, or was that a hairball? Big M OK bought six Fireballs at auction and offloaded the last one a year later at cost less twenty percent. People don’t think about the cost associated with flooring a used car for a year, but they should.

  She stopped in the road with a personal need. He’d been a few miles on his new bicycle by then, so he was degreasing the sprockets and chain with solvent and a toothbrush.

  Aware of a car stopping in front of the garage, Mulroney stood up. “Oh! There you are!” she said.

  She seemed pleased with life and her car, as if she didn’t know any better. Early to mid-sixties, she beamed through thinning skin, its translucence highlighting the veins, as wrinkles underscored her smiling eyes. As a lively character, her platinum hair and easy demeanor said it all: we might be dead in a minute or two, so for now let’s live! She’d stopped to say hello—no surprise, really, at the top of the hill in sunny California. Come to think of it, no surprise either when she appeared to be … coming on. A sensitive fellow can tell. It hadn’t been so many years since a woman made ovations, but she stood out, a milestone on the long and winding road. Yes, a tad elderly, but opening up and staying open is a way of life that can feel ageless. So, what the fuck? And her fun factor felt contagious—okay, not contagious … uh … worth sharing. Okay.

  It’s only natural. As the years stack up, womenfolk seem more aligned to the game spirit. The older woman in the Fireball could be a classic example of game leg, next phase. She said she nearly ran him over on his bicycle the other day and couldn’t help noticing that he looks like Billy Bob Thornton.

  “Then I thought maybe you were Billy Bob Thornton. You know, like, you moved into the neighborhood. Or are! Are you? Billy Bob? Thornton?”

  “No, I did move into the neighborhood, but that was a while ago. I’m not Billy Bob Thornton. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not. But thanks for not running me over.”

  Her smile firmed up in a practiced flirt. She batted her eyes like a dame called Nora in black and white and murmured, “Ooooh … He’s my favorite. I live just around the corner and down a block.”

  “Yes, well.” Michael stood and stepped up to lean on the car door for a neighborly chat. “We’re practically neighbors, with me here and you around the corner and down a ways. It’s nice to know the neighbors.” She glowed and let him look.

  And so he did, ogling her cleavage as intended and thinking her well preserved. Writhing with pride, she eased out, waving like a screen goddess of yesteryear. “See you!”

  Since then, Mulroney walked around the corner and down a block twice, just to see, to no avail. He laughed both times, striking out on someone’s gramma. But he laughed short—ask not for whom the delusion tolls. It tolls for thee—oops, here she is again.

  “Oh, there you are!” She’d been looking for him too.

  “And you!” he replies.

  “Yes. I saw your car and thought, you know …”

  “Yes. Thanks for stopping. Say, come in the garage here. I want to show you something.” She winces, like she knows what he wants to see. Or show.

  “No. I’ve got to be getting home. Just wanted to say hi.”

  “Alright. I’ll bring it down. I’d like to get your opinion.”

  She shrugs, “Suit yourself,” casting the furtive adieu over her shoulder.

  “I’m Michael.”

&nb
sp; “Betty. Betty Burnham.”

  “Yes.” Head cocked querulously, he remembers.

  She’s Betty Burnham—Mrs. Alfred N. W. Burnham of the Highborough Burnhams, founding family of Burnham’s Department Stores. Before that, back in the formative decades of American department store fortunes, the Burnhams were something else, a hard-scrabble clan climbing to the financial stratosphere, or gaining altitude at any rate, on Alfred N. W.’s temerity, courage, and deafness to the neighbors’ complaints back in Cucamonga, where he first bought chicken wire and wood and built cages by hand for his minks. They shit and smelled like rodents in cages, before they squealed, when Alfred wrung their little necks.

  Alfred had spent much of his youth as a paperboy—even as he hand-fed his stock to sexual maturity—theirs. Oh, the saga was part and parcel to the retail empire, with its myth and magic set in the timeless beauty of Burnham Abbey, where a fabulously wealthy man could best remember his heroic climb from poverty to this. He called the minks his “pets,” dispatching them with no emotion but with practicality on the road to fortune. So began Burnham furs, specializing in mufflers and hand warmers. The little minks multiplied quick as rabbits. Rabbits tasted better but could not compare for softness and money. Then came stoles and coats.

  The taciturn boy became the humorless man and stayed that way. Alfred N. W. Burnham visited the old Mink Rectory a few days before passing, to tickle some chins, scratch some heads, and snap a few necks. Among his final pearls: “I wish I could clear the pearly gates that quick.”

  Mulroney read the bio in the Sunday supplement not so long ago, with profiles on Alfred’s personality, his uncanny mercantile instinct, his staggering wealth, his vision and timing. Betting the farm on department store format with furs on the mezzanine, Burnham diversified years before furs fell from favor. Burnham’s proved that a department store can endure through diversification—even under duress the farm became the abbey. Briefly referenced in later years was the age difference between Alfred and his newest wife Ellspeth, who caught his eye in the Mink Rectory with her knack for dispatching the little critters. With her trademark-dimpled smile she helped the little fur balls in their ultimate sacrifice to human comfort. Free of squeamish sentiment, she told the department store magnate, “You should see me on a bushel of beans.” Her gambit stole his heart; she seemed so refreshing. “A pound in three minutes. Try me sometime.”

  Talk about a game gal with spunk and verve; Betty Burnham proved adaptable to market variables. An initial public offering of the biggest closely held corporation in California was impressive in its own right, and then she sold her Burnham stock just in time. She lost a half billion but had a few billion left, meeting the regional standard for wizardry.

  She said, “It was nothing, really. You pick up the phone, call your broker, and say, ‘Sell.’”

  Selling put four point three billion in the widow Burnham’s mink purse. Post-Highborough, the mink purse became Betty’s hip pocket in faded denim, in tribute to California’s enduring dream.

  Ellspeth Burnham’s fortune went from seven point one in three years to four point three because Ellspeth wanted out. Betty wanted denim and a used car, wanted to go native in the suburbs like normal people do. Could she adapt to that? It was fun to think so. She began with blonde as a concept but demurred soon to azure platinum.

  A few billion, mas o menos, made no difference to Michael Mulroney. In a pinch, she would later confide, she honestly felt she could get by on twenty million. “Easy,” she would insist. Downsizing is in! The California scene is so dynamically adaptive, and really, visible wealth had become passé. Contentment and mobility are the new big things. Acquisition? Who needs it, when we can measure our burden in pounds?

  Of course, that’s easy to say with your nest egg secure. The Mulroney egg is hardly a few million, and that’s on paper, given medium to long-term maturity, once we get past this minor climb out. At least he has peace of mind, because he has the skills required to endure. Sure, he’d take more, but he won’t chase it. He’s had fun and feels proud of what he’s done. Michael Mulroney started with twenty bucks. They like to say Alfred N. W. Burnham came from the mean streets, but that would be the mean streets of Palo Alto, where his father was a mere millionaire—which was real money back then. Who couldn’t get filthy on a thirty million line of credit from square one? Old Alfred’s bio missed that little iota. Who cares? Mulroney got his, and it’s plenty more than Al Burnham’s got—he’s dead. And look …

  She’s honking alongside the garage like a fast friend. He waves cheerfully, but this makes twice that she wouldn’t slow down, much less get out of the car. Is she Highborough aloof? Why else would she be so lively and then dismiss him on a little wave? Maybe he should stroll over one more time in the early evening.

  He takes along a dog-eared color chart, first wiping it with a rag. He’ll ask her opinion on the right color for his bicycle. Engagement is the ultimate compliment for lonely old women. From there he can size her up. This could be productive and, moreover, a correct application of honing and developing his funding skills over many years.

  Mulroney imagines intimacy between Betty and the late Mr. Burnham. She was no deb, but she was nearly young enough to be illegal. Alfred N. W. represented lifelong security, even if his billions were single digit. It’s hard to tell how she finagled the prenup, and Mulroney can’t help but surmise some lip-gloss skillfully applied. Oh, men are weak, and she surely had a leg up.

  Hardly an optimist, Mulroney senses grace in the aging process as it is shared in the neighborhood. Would anybody think twice about a twenty-year-old kid walking down the block to visit a twenty-three-year-old girl? They would not. But that is what people do. Or they can do anyway. It’s what Mulroney should do because he wants to, because he’s a good guy, and she’s rich enough to save his bacon. And she seems inclined to engage.

  He anticipates a fine time no matter what, because attitude is important. Maybe he’ll have a beer or two. Maybe she’ll offer tequila, a fine sipping grade. It’s only six, but both are old enough to prefer an early start.

  He hopes she’s not a Republican, but fat chance. Then again, card-carrying membership in the religious right might make her more fun on a volley. Let’s see how she holds up to a nonbeliever. What if she’s a born-again fundamentalist reactionary tea-bagger, sitting pretty on the heads of fuzzy little animals?

  Highborough?

  Old money?

  Could be.

  But a neo-fundamentalist, he will not enjoy. How could he, if she’s a dyed-in-the-wool, hand-stamped, tax-dodging, war-mongering enemy of nature? How can they be friends?

  Then again, it’s not really friendship he’s after, which sounds cold and calculating, which it isn’t—well, it’s not cold at any rate. Or at least it’s not meant to be. So what exactly is he doing? So he turns around and heads back toward home, as if he only walked up the road for a better perspective on his color chart.

  XI

  Cadence

  Michael Mulroney hasn’t smoked marijuana in a long time, till tonight. Three days may not sound like a long time, but a man imbibing twice a day to help cut back on liquor intake feels like he’s teasing demons on two sundowns running. He let himself run out, thinking that’s what a doper must do. The last bag came last year at the auction in Portland—good cars, a great market, and good buds. Cocktail issue buds. Nice. Buds that let you pass for normal—California normal anyway.

  This bag from Watsonville, though. Who smokes this shit? This is insane. These kids got no … no … What? Did I just think something? Fuck.

  Watsonville buds are not unique but from seed stock found up and down the coast, San Diego to Seattle. Not that geography matters much because it’s all grown indoors—on either side of Mendocino anyway, where old Humboldt County growers have their pride and don’t give a rat’s ass who says what about X2 subsonic hybridization and E2 Extreme Frequency grow lights. That’s like saying the new Mitsubishi roadster is kind of
like a Shelby Cobra. The Mits goes fast and can take a Mercedes off the line, but it’s not a Shelby Cobra.

  Michael M doesn’t care about hydroponics or hybridization. He stared at the street hustler who mumbled ninety dollars for a quarter ounce. What? It was eight bucks a lid only forty years ago, Mexican laugh reefer. But eight bucks was a chunk of the rent money, and let’s face it: value is not what it was. Which comes back to downsizing, with people who traded free spirits for stuff over the years and now want to trade back. Nobody trades back, and the modern pot dealer talked like a real estate maven on low voltage, stoned stupid, slurring half-baked claims of excellence.

  Mulroney used to be hip, but hip changed somewhere along the line, leaving modern Mulroney marginally mellow. The kids murmured and shuffled, passing a few joints, checking out the old guy sideways and thinking him uncool or way too clean. Turning to a mumbling joint smoker ripe as room-temp Brie, he asked, “What?”

  The kid mumbled, “Pot, crack, ice …”

  Mulroney said, “Pot. What do you have?”

  “Fucker wants to know what I have. I told you. I got pot. You want to get fucked up? What’s a old fucker doing getting fucked up? You heard me. So what do you want?”

  The socio/political/hydroponic/cosmic diatribe droned on, till Mulroney interrupted. “Yes. One of those. A quarter. Ninety bucks?” He felt dumb for bringing twenties, only twenties and a few Cs, because tipping was not cool. He felt dumber still for bringing an inch of twenties. So he said, “Fuck it. Gimme two.” He peeled a C off the bottom and four twenties from the top. Downsize this.

  He could have got burned—oregano in rubber glue, Kentucky blue, whatever. But what could he do? And who cared? He didn’t want a hit from the common joint but didn’t say, Nah, I’m not wearing a condom. They would have stared, wondering why he talked so strange, because humor is not funny to street people. So he stuck his nose in the bag and said, “Smells like a skunk’s butthole.” The kids laughed. The old guy said skunk’s butthole.