When a Psychopath Falls in Love

by Herbert Gold

  Ferd opened his arms, still carrying the charm excess he had dis­pensed for Amanda, Sergei, and D’Wayne, but the gesture was blocked by wooden partitions constricting intimate booth gestures. Adjusting to circumstances, he brushed a lank lock of sandy hair across his forehead. The transplants were doing well; no scabs at the sites, though new ones might appear if he sprung for a boyish follicle which might, in due course, turn out to be an advisable extravagance. Ferd would have to do the cost-benefit analysis, depending on his resources.

  They sipped. Ferd regarded Dan. “Perchance having second thoughts, amigo?”

  “Problem is, I’m not sure I’ve had first thoughts yet.”

  “Haha. But the violins are singing and the night is young, so let me tell you more.”

  Kasdan waited for the more. The walls of Matey’s Down Under were moving slowly around him; the partitions of their booth were moving in the opposite direction, a carousel within the carousel. Beer, at this hour, on an empty stomach. He occupied himself with breathing deeply to remedy the momentary dizziness. He raised his glass and downed another refreshing swallow.

  “Okay, to review, you’ve got the swartzer son-in-law, the daughter you want to make up to for your neglect – don’t get me wrong, no blame accrues, you just found her, she just found you, but still – you got the congenital-type grandkid, who knows where that happens from? You got, to sum up, the responsibilities. On a need-to-know basis, amigo, I can promise you an outcome.” He raised his hand, worked his shoulder, reached over the pitcher and their glasses to touch Kasdan’s arm. “Outcome favorable,” he said. “No capital offense, that’s for sure, and it would be hard to fuck up this profit center from a little transport of funds plus real estate purchase details. All of which is, when you come right down to it, a contribu­tion to your welfare by a friend sympathetic to your problems.”

  “You,” said Kasdan.

  “Right on! We’ll drink to that.” He raised his glass until Kasdan did the same. They drank. Ferd said, “Ahhh,” put his glass down, high-fived the air since Kasdan’s answering high-five was not properly located in the space between them. Ferd chose not to interpret this lack of high-fivery as reluctance. Kasdan’s dizziness, perhaps caused by the beer, subsided, perhaps thanks to the refreshment of the beer. The walls were still.

  The swinging door to Matey’s Down Under swung open, letting in a flash of purple neon, illuminating the fading hand-lettered sign at the entrance, “We Support Our President’s No Child’s Behind Left Alone Act.” A muscled dude in Texas rancher dress, Stetson with wide brim pulled low, paused to check his watch, his cell phone, and the company: no one at this early hour, before school let out, except Kasdan and Conway, a pair of obvious adults. The rancher proceeded inside anyway. Ferd could address him as Cowboy and receive noth­ing but enthusiasm for recognition of his achievement, mirrored wraparound sunglasses, snap-button rayon shirt with orange piping, and a protective coating of lip gloss against the sirocco winds of the South of Market district.

  Ferd observed the new patron with a critical stare. The rancher sensed that he was being evaluated, waited to see if an invitation to share their pitcher followed, ordered his own brew, a Dos Equis, being a man with Lone Star style. No invitation followed; those were the breaks. Ferd whispered to Dan, “What a guy. An ass as big as all outdoors.”

  A golden oldie by Johnny Ray, heavy bass reverb, piercing sob of poor dead Johnny, issued from the antique Wurlitzer. Lights throbbed along with the music. After a short period of reverence, although Ferd didn’t know if Johnny Ray was really dead, he con­tin­ued to process the friendship between Ferd and Dan. Truth to tell, he suspected a lingering reserve. He was not imperceptive. While Johnny Ray sang about the little white cloud that cried, the lawyer acknowledged that life is often unfair and the quality of love and friendship is often not symmetrical. Some care more than others. Business can increase a budding intimacy; it can also bring complica­tions. Issues turn up during human interface. But since Ferd could use Dan, needed to use him, and Dan needed to be used for his own good, Ferd would not give up. “Love your sense a humor, Cowboy, “he said when Dan responded only with a sullen watchfulness, “but you didn’t laugh at my joke. He does have a humungous butt, didn’t you notice?” Ferd took revenge by calling him Cowboy because it annoyed, it increased the sullenness, it gave Ferd a leg up. Some­times, for variety, he still tried Big Guy.

  Further truth to tell, Ferd really didn’t want to increase the sullen­ness. He felt Dan should appreciate these masculine tribute nick­names, but recognized that intimacy and trust were issues he needed to work at. Affection, Ferd had discovered, was, generally speaking, a catastrophe; this was also true speaking particularly. Yet he knew that Dan, new father and grandfather, imminent future senior citizen still stuck in a lifelong decline, had good reason to reverse his slide. In other words, for this non-cowboy with a bummer of prospects, Ferd could offer a leg up.

  His voice tamped down as Johnny Ray finished the rendition. Ferd’s eyes flicked from side to side, eventually landing straight onto Dan’s stare. He moved toward shy avowal. “Hey, Dan, ever since I was born, got to level with you... I’ve been in the witness protection program.”

  “Nice way to put it,” Kasdan said. “For what?”

  “Advocacy of the downtrodden. My point is, I want to raise you to uptrodden. A bright, sincere, formerly young fella like you deserves a little lift in your, excuse me, sunset years. Tax-free capital for the daughter. A financial cushion for the not totally promising son-in-law, no racism intended. The best possible care for the grandkid with the problems. Maybe some valid medical innovators out there… pharmacologies …” He took a breath. This had a dual purpose, also letting thoughts sink in. “Plus, I gotta level with you, you can help me, too. So you see why we’re created here on earth to be more than buddies, now and then colleagues, only meet for the shitty little Speedy Gonzales cases? Friends, Dan? Our destiny?”

  Sincerity filled the booth at Matey’s Down Under (actual pro­prietor: Todd).

  It would be wrong to say Kasdan didn’t see the logic here.

  “I don’t see the logic here,” Kasdan said.

  “Wrong, wrong, wrong,” Ferd answered.

  Kasdan said nothing.

  Ferd had found his desired station. He focused the tuning, increased the volume. “So now you’re looking at the logic because I’m showing it to you. You’re wrong, I’m right, although I blush to say it. Any shrink I’d use, the one I call for the psychos, the semi-plausibles – Doc Blinder, you know him? – will testify you’ve been in denial, amigo.”

  Foreign static competed with Ferd. A radio from elsewhere, mambo sounds spilling off a rooftop, a guy pouring tar but keeping in touch with the world; an active tar machine bringing tar smells into Matey’s (now Todd’s) Down Under. “So here’s our deal.”

  “All ears.”

  Ferd held off with the Cowboy or Big Guy, trying to be extra nice. He badly wanted Kasdan’s assent.

  “You’re wondering, could it be pharma-cuticles? No, nein, nega­tive, that’s beyond tricky up to the point of risky. All it is is money in the form of cash. It’s sanitary. And besides, why would we move pharma-cuticles abroad anyway? That’s the wrong direction. Money, however, you can draw it out of an account, or even more better, buy property you can rent or bask in the adoration of the local girls. Haiti, man, the Free and Independent Republic of Haiti! The banks over there got computers from the stone age.”

  “Why me, Ferd?”

  “And the bars in Port au Prince? You want some entertainment? That’s where old Pong machines go to die. They got saloons! It’s a nostalgia trip, amigo.”

  “Why me?”

  “You have a daughter and her kid, Amanda in case you need a reminder. You know what I named my daughter with this colored honey of mine? Nocturia, that means night-time urination, because I woke up and this hot honey was right there next to me, breathing like they do, up and down, in and out, so nine months la
ter, voy-la! Nocturia.”

  “You don’t have a daughter,” Kasdan said.

  Ferd hated quibblers. “That’s a mere detail, Cowboy. Anybody ever tell you you’re picky-picky? Nocturia would be yay years old now…” He held out his hand, measuring her size at about five feet. “… if I had her, but that honey of mine was a witch flew around on a broomstick, no, a mop, and flew right out of my life. Lucky me.”

  “Nocturia,” said Kasdan.

  “You like it? Hey, so I’m a bullshitter, and you didn’t know that? But tell me, your experience with Mom Torres, and her what, her coven, they don’t fly around on broomsticks?”

  There was so much to learn, so much prosperity to bring into Dan Kasdan’s life with the support of Ferd Conway. “Okay, I’m not a really spiritual person,” Ferd confessed, unwilling to profit from illusions. “I’m practical. Some folks think I’m just out for Numero Uno, F. Conway, Attorney-at-Law, and to an extent that may be true. But to clear things up, you could just ask Suki if I’m not considerate of the other person.”

  “Suki? That’s news to me.”

  “Thought it might be. Never you mind, sometimes my life is a closed book. But for the purposes of partial full disclosure, I explained to her…”

  “Suki?”

  “… I’m spiritual, really full steam ahead spiritual when I want to, you know, fuck her in the ass and she said she just didn’t feel like it that day – stubborn little goddess like that sometimes – so then I took the time to explain and I greased her up good, KY jelly, consid­erate – you got to be considerate, Cowboy, if your desire is for a tight-ass lady... That’s reality.”

  Kasdan didn’t interrupt while Ferd lingered in the memory, took a breath, winced, shrugged, busied his electric skinniness with im­patient maneuvers; pulled his fingers, but the knuckles didn’t crack – never mind, went on.

  “... and now she’ll stipulate, you can just ask her if I deign to intro­duce you, I’m a real spiritual individual sometimes, Sunday after­noon, say, and nothing else going on, plus super macho on occasion – with Suki it’s my choice, amigo.”

  “Give me her phone number.”

  “Haha, you want to check? You’re a sense a yumer guy, Dan.” He fumbled in his pocket and brought out something green with a chemical menthol smell, adding another flavor to the roofing tar and draft beer aromas. “A cough drop? Yes?”

  “No.”

  “Dry mouth. Due to ample full disclosure on your behalf, Dan.” The cough drop had gathered pocket lint. He popped it into his mouth, took a pleased suck at it. “No is so often your answer, may I offer that adverse comment as a friend on your behalf? That’s how you were spending all your no-fun, no-chances-taken, no zip in your life till I come along to hand you a future on a silver platter. Okay, so maybe you had a secret sex life, but who doesn’t? So it doesn’t count. Am I right or am I right on, fella?” Ferd’s eyes shone with pride in another convincing pitch, a boyish gleam that would have looked like an honest man’s gleam if it didn’t look like a dishonest one’s.

  The day was fading. The tar machine had closed down. The purple glow of neon from Matey’s Down Under deepened as late afternoon fell across Folsom and a few early drinkers pushed through the swinging doors. We each of us owe God one death, Kasdan re­mem­bered. And added: I’ll pay in advance with this one.

  – 5 –

  A generous-lipped, lots of teeth, only partly fraudulent son-in-law’s smile from D’Wayne welcomed him. The baby was already bundled and strapped for his expedition to Father Boedecher Park, nicely purged of its drug dealers every morning, so that the Vietnamese kids in the neighborhood could yell and play like true Americans with minimum true American risk from exposed needles, exposed psyches. D’Wayne didn’t mind giving his wife an hour or two for another Summit Conference with her unearthed daddy. Sergei slept snugly in D’Wayne’s arms. “Later, man,” he said.

  Kasdan decided the smile wasn’t really fraudulent. Strained, maybe; responsive to last night’s pillow talk with Amanda; acknowledg­ing this situation, which required summit conferences between a new mother, new wife, and the old guy who would have been a total stranger except that he happened to be her father and she had dug him out of bygone times. D’Wayne’s smile merely quali­fied things: Whatever, man.

  “Later.” Dan and Amanda listened to his footsteps thumping down the stairs while he murmured to the sleeping child. Kasdan could also hear a crisp premonition of his own footfalls fleeing down those stairs of this walkup not far from his own, although in fact he wasn’t flee­ing, he was alert here in a chair, he was offering himself up to what was happening between Dan Kasdan and the daughter who had decided to find him.

  Amanda sighed, shrugged, made her gloom clear in the dramatic way of a daughter. Her expression reminded Kasdan of his own when he caught sight of it in the bathroom mirror in the morning, despite his best effort not to do so. An idea came to him: She might be depressed by their resemblance. But in fact, she was lovely, as far as he was concerned, and surely he was not. Her body bloomed with a new mother’s opulence, no afterbirth withering, life’s other distrac­tions redeemed by the distractions of a baby, her stalwart soul rallying to the troubles of a very difficult child – so it seemed to Dan Kasdan, who had not yet redeemed himself as a parent, and so what did he know? He knew D’Wayne didn’t need to worry about redeeming himself. He knew something without precedent was flooding through him just as his life seemed to be merely winding down.

  Because of Amanda, he now managed to piece together flashbacks of Margaret, her mother, and that long ago bounce in the dark, an ironing board set up in her room in the Ruby Tuesday Commune on Page Street, his clothes strewn on the floor, hers neatly on the ironing board, because she was a flower rebel with standards, avoiding the stain of mouse droppings, and she was also a liberated spirit with a certain plan she hadn’t shared with this careless floater in the Haight, Danny… He touched Amanda’s arm and she glanced sharply at it, wondering what the hell he was doing, and then relaxed into the touch as he left his hand there; he was her father, after all, so okay, okay. “Hi,” she said.

  In the streets outside, veterans of internal and foreign wars were dying from drugs, exposure, spasms of violence; there were hookers not yet dead from AIDS or at the hands of these crazed veterans. Men with corrugated signs and Styrofoam cups may only have been veter­ans of shock treatment or genetic curses, but give them some change anyway, they were telling the truth – everyone is a veteran of some­thing. Boys from the Projects in diarrhea-crotch jeans were run­ning what a funny one called “farma-cuticles, wanna taste?” On the streets of the Tenderloin there was mayhem and chaos, kids tripping on their pants, and watchful East Asian children sticking close around their mothers as they headed to school.

  In this family’s flat, D’Wayne’s and Amanda’s, there were also varieties of mayhem, plus actual hopefulness. Kasdan took it on faith; he intended to help it be true. In his long years until recently, Kasdan had been a man who merely persisted like a street weed from day to day, with the expectation to be occasionally cut down or trampled but, with luck, taking root again in an alley. And then Amanda hap­pened to him. He lived now with open compartments in his heart. New matters created new mayhem.

  By this time, D’Wayne, doing his own father duty, was on a bench in an island of Father Boedecher Park. Kasdan and D’Wayne’s wife had their private business. It was up to the father to start things. The daughter let him take his time, letting her ample, muscled, country-girl body relax. She knew how sleek and prepared she was; she didn’t care if her jeans were a little loose in the butt; D’Wayne liked her that way, and although Kasdan didn’t know the rules of fatherhood, he knew enough not to tell her to pick jeans a size tighter.

  Beneath the Latina, forever-tan skin she inherited from Margaret, there was a paleness now, something withdrawn, shy, almost Irish, not really skin like Dan’s when he was a child, before time weathered it. Why did this strike him as wondrously lovely? It
did. It just did because they were deeply, finally, totally related, no matter how diffi­cult it seemed to be so.

  Shit, this is complicated, he thought.

  “What I want to say,” he began. “I mean what I want…”

  God-damn complicated.

  “… I didn’t have a daughter.”

  “I didn’t have a dad.”

  “Now you do.” He needed her to answer, Yes, I have a father. He was sure she was figuring out how to say it.

  She said: “Maybe you wanted a boy.”

  That wasn’t what he needed from her.

  “Maybe a son would’ve…?” she asked.

  “No, no, no!”

  She had it wrong, he hadn’t thought about having a son, he hadn’t thought at that moment, at her conception, about anything except that his clothes were on the floor and Margaret’s were on the ironing board and he should avoid kicking its flimsy legs, and maybe he had also been thinking but not thinking that Margaret was snug and warm… Beneath his careful confused old guy act, that of a loser whose time had passed, Kasdan hid the soul of a confused old guy. This new stranger to himself suspected that the remainder of his time would surely pass quickly and then he’d really and forever be a loser unless he finally, really, and forever found this daughter, this grand­son, these someones who might carry his memory into the future. He said: “It’s time to be, how about that? – start out at least, first of all – friends? Okay?” He tried again, startling her. “I already have enemies, only he doesn’t know it.”

  “Who?”

  “You’ll find out someday, play my cards right.”

  She refused to play puzzles with him.“Hey, maybe you’re being funny, that what you’re trying?” She extended her hand. “Okay, shake.” He took her hand. They simultaneously, both of them, cleared throats, then laughed, pretended to.

  Kasdan released her hand. “You yawn, then I’ll yawn, that’s how it works.”

  Then there was silence for a moment until he coughed, and before he quite finished, she coughed, a small sarcastic tribute to let him know she was paying attention, although it was not a yawn to answer a yawn. They were both nervous; a normal procedure during fraught situations in life, permissible for young and old alike. They shared a rustle of coughs with no phlegm.