“Elise, the Eve of my rib,” I finally said.
“Can’t sleep?” Elise sighed.
“I can sleep through earthquakes and UFO landings, but elbows, forget about it.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“I know what it is. It’s the Green Man, isn’t it? You have to pee and you’re afraid he’s hiding in the hallway, waiting to pop out and say boo.”
“You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”
A gentle row of thunder accompanied my words. It was distant and unthreatening now, like the thinning rain. I tried not to think about how desperately I needed to go.
“I can’t say that I do.”
“You don’t believe Josephine and me, that we’ve seen him.”
“The Green Man?”
Another distant roll of thunder accompanied the mention of his name.
“Mm-hmm. That’s the one.”
“I think science has done a lot to show what’s really going on, especially electrical fields and solar winds interacting with the magnetosphere at night in relation to the angular gyrus portion of our brains. What leftovers science can’t explain, psychology is more than happy to reconcile, particularly as we study the effects of emotional trauma on young minds.”
“You said it yourself.” I combed my fingers through her blond head of hair. “We’re both dealing with trauma.”
“I suppose my trauma has manifested itself in other ways.”
“You don’t believe Michael and I either.”
“Do these so-called Lost Boys exist? No, I suppose not.” The rain, though softening, was suddenly excruciating. “There has to be some other explanation, which means I believe you, the both of you, when you said it did happen, if that helps.”
“Just not our interpretation of events.”
“No.”
“And you don’t think I’m crazy?”
“Crazy in love, maybe.” She kissed my forehead. “And besides, I do believe in ghosts to a degree, especially the ones that haunt our conscious.”
“Kind of like the ghosts in this room.”
She stared at the door as an answer to my question. A nightlight in the hall was on, illuminating the crack underneath the door. It was as if at any moment two sets of toes might appear in the middle of it.
I tightened my legs together.
“You really have to pee, don’t you?”
I told her I did.
“Hey, I have an idea.” She pressed both hands to my chest. “How about I escort you down the hall to the bathroom. I’ll wait outside, and if the big bad boogie man shows up, I’ll tell him to go away and leave my husband alone.”
“I’d like that.”
I pulled a sheet off and stepped out of bed. Elise followed, taking my hand.
“And maybe I’ll even peek my head in just to see if everything’s working properly.”
“Oh, I get it. You just don’t want to be left alone in this room.”
“You’ve got that right,” she said. “What if Teddy Ruxpin comes to life while you’re gone? That happened to me once, you know, when Josephine and I were little girls and sister dearest left to use the restroom. It can be terrifying in here alone.”
14
She actually did peek her head in the bathroom while I stood to pee. It caught me off guard, and I splattered the toilet seat. Elise let her mouth hang open.
“How do you walk around with those things?”
SAN FRANCISCO, DAY TWO: THE SITCOM, AN ALL-NEW EPISODE
1
Elise and I woke up minutes before sunrise to jog the Golden Gate Bridge, one end to the other and back again. Massive cumulus clouds hung in the cool morning air, the last lazy drifters of the rainstorm, and the sun gleamed in puddles everywhere. Several dozen cars slowed down to stare at my buns of steel. I pointed that fact out to Elise, who argued that it was her buns of steel they were slowing for. She had a point. I conceded.
We returned to the Sisters for breakfast.
As I entered the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee before a shower, America’s favorite naked atheist was already in a bitter mood over the George W. Bush administration and the NRA, and she was letting Michael know about it. You could just picture a halo around the Canadian documentarian Michael Moore’s head as she described his politics gospels, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Bowling for Columbine to Michael.
“For one, there’s Charlton Heston’s rifle touting NRA speech, from my cold dead hands, where he stood before Denver crowds in the waking hours of the Columbine High School shooting and had the absolute gall to say it.” Ellie tightened the corners of her mouth. “Really, the nerve of that man.”
“I know, I can’t believe he played Moses once.” Michael said sarcastically.
“Play nice.” Susan slapped him on the arm.
“So, do tell me.” I spoke into my spoon. “How you feel about the fact that a certain Canadian filmmaker was so bored with Heston’s Denver words that he spliced together other speeches, months earlier, in order to bolster his documentary as a love offering to his legion of movie worshipers.”
I turned it over the center counter to Ellie’s lips.
“I believe whatever the man says.” Ellie buoyed her nose. “Even if your failed attempts to show him false in any way prove true.”
I got my confession. Clearly not all points of her thinking were rationally centered. I should have been a professional sleuth in another life. My work here was done.
2
Maneuvering towards the stairs with my cup of coffee, the Sisters had cornered Charlie and Josephine at the dining room table and were presently educating their new nephew-in-law with an oral trip through the sixties; Berkley, to be exact. Charlie listened intently, but Josephine had already settled her face into her hands.
“That’s how the Free Speech Movement started,” Aunt Patty said, “with the CORE table. It’s an acronym for The Congress of Racial Equality. See, back in those days, the University had passed these laws banning all off-campus political action. So along comes Berkley alumnus Jack Weinberg, who set up a table protesting Jim Crow laws, and was quickly arrested. He went limp and….”
Aunt Donna cut her off. “Over the next thirty-two hours, hundreds upon thousands of mad as hell students surrounded that cop car to keep Weinberg from going anywhere, thus kick-starting not only the Free Speech Movement, but the entire sixties, and I was there for it.”
“Wow, that’s fascinating.” Charlie smiled. “I never knew.”
Josephine sighed. “You know, we really do have things to do.”
“Why don’t you ever let me finish the story?” Aunt Patty frowned at her elder sister.
“Because if I recall sixties history, and I recall it well, you were in class when the protests began, and I wasn’t.” Aunt Donna raised her chin. She turned now to Charlie. “And besides, Weinberg was, if you care to know, quite a good friend of mine.”
“And then of course there’s Mario Savio,” Aunt Patty said, “who stood on top of the police cruiser to shout his distaste towards silent-speech establishments.”
“And you saw that happen?” Charlie beamed.
“Oh please, you didn’t know Mario Savio. How many times did I try to bring you into my close circle of friends? You didn’t even hear a Dylan record until at least 1965!”
“Yes, but when that happened, I became quite wild, as you well know. And despite all your claims,” Patty continued frowning, “by simply being at Berkley, I had just as much participation in the start of the sixties as you.”
“I don’t care what you say,” Aunt Donna locked fat arms over her breasts and elevated her chin. “You were still in class without ever hearing a Dylan record when I single-handedly kick-started the sixties.”
“Hey Aunt Nancy.” I finally said. “Why don’t you tell Charlie about how you slashed the cops tires in order to save Jack Weinberg? Don’t forget about that stint you had at the Red Dog Saloon in 1965 with Chandler La
ughlin and Big Brother and the Holding Company. I’m always shocked at the lack of education surrounding people’s modern understanding of the 1960’s music scene.”
You could literally see a bulb brighten over the Sisters heads as Josephine tightened her eyes at me. I returned upstairs to take a shower, grinning the entire way. My work here was done.
3
Elise and I showered separately and reentered the streets with Michael and Susan by mid-morning, wandering Fisherman’s Wharf hand-in-hand. The sea lions at Pier 39 wouldn’t shut up, as usual. There were dozens of them, perhaps even hundreds, bundling fat and flippers on the docks. They opened trumpeting jaws to bray and bark for the approval of gathering crowds, a delightful show.
“Come on, baby, I just want to try on a few jeans.” I heard Michael say to Susan over the shoulders of several bystanders. “It’s just the GAP.” He pointed to the big GAP sign on the other end of Jefferson Street. “Not the end of the world.”
“So, um, you’re just gonna try on some jeans, and that’s it.” Susan said under the current of howling sea lions. “A get-in get-out operation.”
Michael said something to the effect of that’s it, Operation get-in get-out.
Susan shrugged. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m going into an actual GAP. I’m a fashion buyer for Frank McCormick, for crying out loud. I’ve dined with Giorgio Armani and Muccia Prada in Italy. If anyone caught me in there, I’d be ruined.”
Michael escorted her across the street with the hint of a crawl in Susan’s stride.
“It’s nice being a tourist with my love in the city where I grew up.” Elise leaned her head upon my shoulder.
“Every time we’ve been here together, it’s almost always to visit the Sisters and not the city.”
“Yes,” she held my arm. “Even though tomorrow is Josephine’s wedding, today we’re forming some memories for us.”
“Elise, you know I love you.” I gazed down at her.
“I love you too.” Elise stood on her toes and kissed me. I kissed her back. A singular sea lion barked with applause. Elise pulled her lips away only to laugh through her nose. “You know, the sea lions were never on Pier 39 when I was a little girl.”
“Didn’t the Embarcadero Freeway run along here?”
“It was a hideous looking thing. That’s where my father was killed, you know, during the Loma Prieta earthquake. It mortally wounded the freeway and the city decided to tear it down immediately after. I’m glad it’s gone. I couldn’t stare at it simply knowing that my father died there.”
“I can’t even begin to imagine how different your life would have been if he’d lived…. or how difficult it’s been since. So much trauma.”
“Yes, there has been. Before the 89 World Series,” she said, “before the earthquake killed my father and fractured San Francisco, the sea lions mutually congregated by the Cliff House, Seal Rock, on the other side of the city. It’s still a mystery why they left their longtime home after the shift in plates and showed up here. It’s baffled both San Franciscans and scientists alike. Nobody can explain why.”
“Kind of like us.”
“Yes.” Elise squeezed my arm. “It’s like there was an earthquake that fractured us on our foundations. This time our sea lions got up and left. Do you think we’ll ever find them again?”
“I don’t know. But they can’t be far off.”
Elise dug deeper into my arm. “Maybe we just haven’t looked hard enough.”
4
“It feels nice,” I told Susan and Michael, “having the four of us back together.” I broke apart a leg of lobster from our seat at the wharf, slid a helping of meat from the shell, dipped it in butter, and chewed. A seagull hovered in.
“Yes.” Elise did the same to her leg of lobster. “Exactly the way it should be.”
“You know what else feels nice. These new pair of jeans that I just bought at the GAP.”
Susan buried her head in five fingers. “Why is it that I’m a fashion buyer for one of the leading department stores in the world, and all that my husband wants to do is dress in jeans and flannel? It’s like I married Eddie Vedder”
“That’s because you married an animal, baby…. because you like it wild.” He broke a leg of lobster. “Now give me a kiss and tame this beast.”
“Oh, one of us needs tamed, all right.” Susan reached under the table. “And it’s not you.” Neither Elise nor I could be certain of what Susan reached for under the table, but whatever it was, if Michael wore a hat, it would have spun around on his head, and I swear his ears practically whistled two geysers of steam.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” I raised a lobster claw, “to the four of us.”
“I’ll chew a lobster leg to that.” Elise raised a claw.
“The four Bobbsey Twins.” Susan lifted her claw.
“Yeah, I’ll chew to that.” Michael added the final claw to the equation. All four-lobster claws clicked heels in the center of our table. It grabbed the attention of several other seagulls. “And these killer pair of jeans that I bought at the GAP.”
Susan fell into her fingers again.
5
“That’s Anton,” Michael told Elise and I seconds after Susan left our table to greet the exquisitely dressed figure in a slick fitting gray suit, crocodile boots, and what looked to be his Italian supermodel girlfriend, both of whom laced the immediate attention of everyone in ZAGAT, one of San Francisco’s finest dining establishments.
“He’s a leading fashion designer from Paris.” Michael continued, stretching out in his new pair of GAP jeans. “And Susan’s purchased his line of clothing for Frank McCormick on many occasions.”
“Don’t look now,” I told him, “but I think your wife is bequeathing that European with a big fat kiss on the lips.”
Um, yeah, um, wow, Elise dropped her jaw.
Michael in time dropped his too.
“That was nice seeing him again.” Susan returned to our table with a crocodile sized smile. Maybe it was the boots. But as she scooted into the table her eyes widened. “Oh my lord, do you realize how close I came to running into Anton Fisher at the GAP? I’d never be taken seriously again!”
Michael looked around ZAGAT’s dining room and sighed. “Yeah, that was a pretty close one, honey.” He leaned in. “And since we’re on the subject of getting caught, what were you doing, giving him CPR?”
“Oh, that?” Susan playfully slapped his arm and blushed. “That’s nothing, don’t be silly.” She reached for another glass of wine, shoveled it down her mouth, and fanned herself with the menu. “That’s simply how one says hello in Europe. He’d likely give you a kiss too, if you’d let him.”
“Maybe I will.” Michael stood up. “And while Joshua and I are at it, I guess you wouldn’t mind if we said hello to the pretty Italian, you know, just to be polite.”
I scooted my chair out, slopping the napkin across my lunch plate. “Well then, as ambassadors of goodwill and fashion, if you’ll excuse us ladies.”
Susan stole another glaring look at the supermodel (along with just about every other guy in the room), her breasts practically spilling out from a sparkling bee line Anton Fisher original with a V-neck exposing impeccable flesh well below her naval.
“Oh hell no,” she said, pulling Michael back into his chair. Elise followed suit.
6
The four of us met up with Dr. Ellie Alexander at The Fox Burrow, an independent bookstore situated in the Richmond District. A life-size cardboard cutout of her naked portrait greeted guests at the front door (the display window stacked dozens of book copies with a sign that read: AUTHOR MEET & GREET: THE NAKED ATHEIST), and a line-up of people went down the sidewalk and around the block. We didn’t wait in line.
“You here to make another scene as the hot-tempered ambassador of religion?” Ellie looked up at me from her table and smiled. “You did so well last time.”
“In short,” I said, “yes.”
>
“Oh goodie. It’s no fun trying to entertain an intellectual audience, especially these fine people, when the opposition refuses to make an ass of themselves anymore.”
“So absolutely no God?” Michael said.
“Absolutely not.” She lit up at the very thought of it.
“No future life?” I said.
“Nope?”
“No salvation? There’s nothing out there?” Michael said.
“Heaven is a lot like alcohol. It shows an inability to cope with the present.”
“Hmmm, sounds like a quote from your book,” I said.
Ellie beamed with delight. “You’ve read my book?”
“I have. Actually, this is kind of embarrassing, but we were sort of hoping you could sign us some copies.”
I flashed C.S. Lewis’ MERE CHRISTIANITY in front of her. I’d found it in the religious aisle next to a book on crystal healing and sex positions of the Karma Sutra. Michael chose a biography on Richard Nixon. He said it was the only Republican book he could find in the politics aisle and looked like it had been sitting there for a while. We both tried not to laugh as we set our books on the table. Our wives shook their heads and sighed as usual.
“Very funny,” Ellie smiled.
She signed the books anyways.
And then we returned them to their shelves.
7
Our time in San Francisco was a lot like the opening credits to Full House, for the most part. Michael appreciated the analogy. I had my wife back in my arms, which made it an exceptionally good day. We were riding the trolley rails up Russian Hill on Hyde Street (about to hop off on the very crooked Lombard Street stop), all four of us laughing as we went, and I was taking their pictures with my Canon EOS 1D when it occurred to me, everything that had happened between Elise and I, and all that confusing Delilah and Leah Bishop business in New York, may have actually been a dream. Of course there’s also a phenomena known as false awakening, where the lucid dreamer has convinced himself that he’s arisen from sleep. Edgar Allan Poe first observed it when he wrote A Dream Within a Dream. But this, I convinced myself, was nothing like that.
Wrong Flight Home (Wrong Flight Home, #1) Page 36