by Herbert Gold
The inn’s manager, a young man in carefully ironed Levis – already an unusual amenity – invited them into “The Commons” for a bedtime hot chocolate, “home-made in our kitchen, not that instant shit. You can scamper off to your room and brush your teeth right away, so don’t worry your pretty heads the least about dental decay or gingivitis.” He raised his eyebrows, poured from a pitcher with the Serenity Prayer baked into it, and filled their mugs. When Kasdan finished his home-made product, the young man floated back, saying, “Another splash? A nip of our complimentary brandy for nighty-night?” Ferd winked at Dan. He was a co-conspirator, sharing a secret. He accepted the brandy in his splash, as did Dan. Even without the wink, Dan understood what Ferd was trying to tell him. It was a solidarity wink.
“Anything you need, just pick up the phone,” the young man, Todd, said. “There’s a complimentary toothpaste at your sink – the little dohicky shelf up there – but you look like a pair of dudes who travel with everything that comes in handy. But if there’s… don’t hesitate!”
An acrid smell of wood smoke as Kasdan drifted into sleep, not worrying about placing the metal screen against stray flying sparks. He had come to the time in life when, what the hell, he could try living dangerously, although not yet to the point of sharing a room with Ferd Conway. But why was he even here, letting Ferd create confusions of sympathy, putting him at the risk of moving toward comradeship? Kasdan was discovering new dangers in the late changes of his life.
The next morning, closing day of their “Boys’ Weekend,” Ferd and Dan met for breakfast in the Commons, where a long table covered in a tie-dyed sheet was spread with granola and, for allergic guests, a hand-lettered warning about possible peanuts; bananas (with hand-lettered notice, ORGANIC WHEN AVAILABLE), oat bran muffins (“Home-Baked In Our Kitchen”), orange juice (“Fresh-Frozen”), and Certified Fair Trade Shade-Grown Coffee. The afternoon manager, Todd, with the ironed and starched blue jeans, seemed also to be doing morning duty, his face unlined and starched, like his jeans. In the light of the rising sun, Kasdan noticed a glint of stud in his left ear. He rubbed his hands together and said, “Brisk! But the sun will shine today, just for us! May I invite you to make the most of it?”
After breakfast, alert after their fair-trade coffee, Dan suggested, and Ferd eagerly agreed (“Sure thing!”) that they climb down the rocks across the road and see how close they could get to the water margin. There was Pacific Ocean nature out there, including a freighter bound for someplace with a cargo of something. Dan enjoyed the scramble down the rocks; enjoyed that he could still scramble. So could Ferd, who was here for exactly this sort of thing, even if it wasn’t what he had on his mind. When Dan remarked about whales, sea lions, long-beaked pelicans swiftly diving, the rhythm of waves breaking against the lip of rock on which they perched, Ferd was with him all the way. “Birds, too,” he said, although he also intended to discuss business concerns. Patience was a quality Dan was obliging him to develop.
Their knees were touching, just above the white churn of waves, the salt spray. Dan took deep breaths. He could hear thin eddies of brine gurgling and brawling between the rocks beneath them. Ferd sighed deeply. “Sometimes I’d like to be like you,” he confessed, “stay home nights, no teevee – but I’ve got cable, and there are so many options – just stay home and read one or two fiction novels.”
“Make yourself an egg omelet?”
“Why’d you have to say that?” Ferd squinted, moved his knees away, scrunched up his face, flashed a reproach at Dan. Sarcasm was a violation out here in nature. “I get it,” he said, “went to college plus, don’t forget, law school. Stay home, my buddy, like I said, only with some folding cash in the cookie jar and the phone number of a short-order sweetie, and I can say, Come on over, take a cab, I’ll pay… Tell me that sounds good to you?”
It did. But right now Dan was busy with the smell of ocean, wafting its cleansing brine toward them. Ferd pulled up his pants to catch a little sun above the ankles.
“But then of course, if you had a righteous teevee, you’d know. I saw on this science channel, you know why blood is salty?” Dan must have commented on the air. Ferd answered his own question. “It’s like the ocean! We used to be fishes in the sea, many eons ago!”
“I guess,” Dan said.
“I know,” Ferd answered triumphantly “thanks to the miracle of educational stuff you don’t get on your teevee. I’m not saying you’re a deadbeat. Even today, you could probably afford one, plus cable.”
Dan heard himself mumbling. Probably he was making a comment or at least a remark. The rhythm of waves against the lip of rock made it unnecessary to do more than emit comradely, nature-appreciating murmurs.
All good things must come to an end, a rule which also applies to a two-day jaunt by future collaborators in an interesting deal which might turn out to be a great thing or not to be a good thing. But as long as they were still on the coastal highway, California Route One, leaving the outpost of Big Sur, heading back north to San Francisco, the mood of comradely warmth could be preserved. Driving intently, eyes fixed on the winding road – a life-saving intentness and fixedness – Ferd continued expounding on his subject for the weekend. And because he was imbued with total sincerity, this time no bullshit from a person qualified in the bullshit area: “You probably know I’m sort of, feel like sort of, a brother to you, even if you’re the depressed personality that you happen to be. You should recognize things about yourself.”
“Okay, right, thanks.”
“So what I personally do is I get out of being a depressed personality. I keep moving, keep moving, all the time keep moving up and ahead. You stay there, stuck in the mud. I do it different, onward and upward. It doesn’t look like the same thing…”
Dan mumbled, remarked, commented, “No, it doesn’t.”
“…but bottom line, long story short, we start from the same place, normal hopes and dreams. Basically I’m your brother, Dan, almost like blood – you know that?”
“ ’Preciate,” Dan said.
The memory of a clean and stony smell of salt waves, of mountains meeting sea, made them both stop talking. A darkness below the railing of the road, a moving shadow in the ocean, looked to Dan like a seal family or even a baby whale undulating, practicing its moves. Then the world as it interrupted his gaze westward. Behind them on the road came the winding sound of a siren – check, they were not speeding; check, they were wearing seat belts. A highway patrolman, red beam on high, swerved into the right lane, pursuing a culprit up ahead of them. It was a good omen. Together, Dan and Ferd sighed with relief. But the shadow image of seals, sea lions, or a baby whale had vanished.
Ferd paid attention to the steering wheel. He didn’t want to go too far, too fast, but it wasn’t about the driving. “I’m laying all this out, Dan, as a true friend. We spent a nice couple days, just so’s I can open up, reveal myself, help you by revealing me, things men can share.” He stole a quick sideways glance at his passenger. “Okay, okay, I’ll say it. I’m not all I want to be. I know that. In your own special way, you can help me be better, and in nature back there in Big Sur” – retrospective sniffs of air – “I felt it, I know I can get closer to where I want to be. Not just a very well-off person, much more important than mere net worth. If we’re friends, business plus friends, partners, I’ll be…” He left the matter open to Dan’s intelligent listening. “Can you see that?”
Kasdan tried. He was embarrassed. If he held Ferd’s fate in his hands, assent was called for. But he had recently discovered other responsibilities, a daughter, a grandson. It seemed that acknowledging the pleasures of a drive, a change of scenes, a cozy inn on the Pacific coast, a clamber on rocks to the edge of the ocean, was as far as he could go. “I’ve always loved Route One out here,” he admitted.
There were disturbances in Dan’s chest, a flutter of anxiety. It was hard for a stubborn man, set in his ways, to give up a serious plan. But soon he would be back on Ellis Street.<
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Coastal California Route One and Big Sur now belonged in the realm of nostalgia, time gone by, which happened to be two hours ago. Here came the sprawl of San Jose and then San Francisco’s arterial roadnets, feeding the city with traffic.
“That was a fun adventure, wasn’t it? We did have fun, didn’t we? Don’t we, Dan?” Relaxed, one arm embracing the wheel, Ferd hummed a tune out of tune, trusting that Dan shared an abiding love for the Beatles. All we need is love, love is all we need…
Ferd’s heart yearned, throbbed, like any other living person’s, and also could be gladdened. Dan’s closest thing to a brother might have been Harvey Washington, but the black detective was too sad, too pissed off by what life had dealt him, to be much fun during, say, a couple days in Big Sur.
Despite himself, and needing not to be, and with a bit of complicating panic, Dan Kasdan was moved by Ferd Conway. That way lay confusion. Kasdan hoped that, with events to come, he could surmount his warm feelings.
– 7 –
Kasdan disapproved of men who stalled, such as himself. He needed to stop. Consequences made him uneasy. Ferd was right; he had grown comfortable saying no. Dealing with yes required the acquisition of authority and Ferd was providing it, but uneasy lay the head that didn't wear a crown.
Kasdan presented himself to Ferd with blank stares, aggressive abstention. He asked if Ferd was laying a game on him. (Politely, he didn't say scam.) Ferd answered that it wasn’t a game, but of course, life is a festival, so let’s enjoy the run-up. All would come clear when the time came. “Finance is a practical matter, I tell you that sincerely, Dan, not to negate festival. I’ve got to be hunnert percent sure you’re my guy.”
“Up to the job, you mean.”
“Passing the test of friendship, trust, and since you will undergo a bitty bit of stress.... call it ambition to get you through.”
“You mean you’re counting on my greed.”
“Whatever. Your bravery, my friend, so try not to be hostile. This is still test time. Lunchtime, too, by the way, but no beer or brandy Alexanders, no Matey’s Down Under.”
“Todd’s.”
“How about a dining experience on me? Is that a go?”
Sociability resembled friendship, friendship was like marriage although less likely to end in divorce, and connection was part of how Ferd got the work done. Following the Boys Weekend in Big Sur, passing the time together in fog-swept, fun-filled San Francisco was the graceful way to go about it.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Ferd urged in a sharing tone, striking the right note for strolling lunchwards. “Make yourself even more comfortable than usual, even if, in your opinion, you’re okay. Go for à la carte, my friend. Since you don’t like to be called Cowboy…”
“Or Gaucho.”
“… or anything not your correct name, Danny, today I want you to make yourself absolutely table d’hôte. Speak your mind, your doubts and trepidations, and I promise I’ll not accuse you of coldfeetism. Not out loud, anyway.”
He threw his arm around Kasdan’s shoulders. Gulls came shrieking overhead. Not to be nervous. Nobody could interpret Ferd’s brief manly hug as anything but camaraderie, even in San Francisco. Still, reaching out in a snatch of male bonding, Ferd took the risk. Living boldly offered an example to Dan, although they were both startled by the sudden swoop and swift departure of the flock of predatory birds. “So much garbage in the streets,” Ferd said. “More flying rats than there used to be, you notice?”
As they proceeded from south of Market toward an informal burrito and a sincere exchange of views, Ferd glanced fondly down Clementina – the alleys here were named after Gold Rush era washer girls, imported to do the laundry and provide good times. The wooden lean-tos were gone, replaced by senior housing cement blocks. The two buddies stepped around a cluster of hypodermic needles, passed a suspicious wet spot and a pile of cardboard where recent sleepers had paused overnight, passed the alleys between medium-rises where dust swirled and settled, swirled and settled, and sometimes lay undisturbed, eventually sprouting green shoots. “Nice,” Ferd said.
They shared a fondness for ailanthus, the trees of heaven, which grow like weeds in San Francisco alleys. Reading Dan’s mind, Ferd stopped to sniff at the licorice-like yerba buena in a crevice; broke off a stem and put it near Dan’s nose. “Very nice,” he repeated, “how God gives us green stuff.”
“Sucks up the pollution,” Kasdan said.
“Naw, naw. Where’s your aesthetics? I mean it’s pretty. It’s very pretty, Cow… Dan.” And in this mood of cajoling ease, he didn’t add his observations about breaking up the monotony of worn-out architecture or opportunities for real estate turnover or how the fucking gulls and pigeons, whatever, carried seeds in their shit, the rats, the rat shit, but he did say: “Wind off the ocean, man, it swirls around,” meaning that God’s greenness could try to take over, as it does, even here, God making a best effort to provide vegetation. He slipped a sideways glance toward Dan, hoping to be recognized for the poetry in his soul. In the place where soul is found in a person. Where that space could be found in Ferd Conway if a friend looked for it.
The moment gave Kasdan a moment of pause.
“Sometime why don’t we have a walk in the country?” Ferd asked. “Golden Gate Park. I know this retired hooker grows her own vegetables out near the beach, where the cops don’t circulate. She’s white, all the other farmers are Cambodes, Viet Cong, squirrel-eaters. Sometimes I think it’s, you know, majestic, that’s the only word for it. The gooks catch the wild cats and cook ’em. You like cat chop suey? And the raccoons? Immigration policy, let the folks in, and that’s what you get – a park with natural animal population control.”
“Majestic.”
“You got a better way to describe it? How people make out? Survive? My retired hooker friend, she was a client – shoplifting – they took away her food stamps, so now she’s a what you call urban farmer...”
Lost in thought for a moment, actually just enacting Lost In Thought, he drew the moral for today’s ecological stroll and burrito: “What I’m saying, I survive better than average and you deserve to share in above-average return on your commitment to life.” No Cowboy here; super-nice sometimes worked better than one-upness. “Your only daughter, Dan. Your one and only grandkid so far. Knock on wood.”
He rapped his forehead with his knuckles. Today’s niceness required not rapping Kasdan’s forehead.
“I usually avoid anything illegal,” Kasdan said.
“Non es problema! Up front, you have plausible deniability!”
“To me that suggests – “
“Hey, a term of art. Listen up, why would I go to law school, take the bar, pass the ethics quiz with flying collars – haha – and then risk it all just for a secure future for you and me, plus your newfound family? To which you owe a lot of catch-up?”
If Kasdan wasn’t taking the hook, Ferd would have stopped by now. Kasdan murmured: “Plausible deniability...”
“You got it! I’m so excited I can count on you, pard. You’re on board! You get it!”
“Not unless you fill in the details.”
“Until,” said Ferd, this correction an explanation, “not unless. Hey, I’m an attorney, I know niggles when I hear one. So far, full well, we’re just beginning the be-geen, Cowboy, even though me and you, we’re been through a good legal relationship all along. We’ve done business, we’ve done amigo on the side. Remember that first time when you translated for Pablo or Pascal, whatever the fuck his name was, and I said you’re terrific? I was only the court-appointed defender, so what was I supposed to know? But that was the beginning of when I knew someday we would have even more of a deep partnership.”
Dealing with product – human beings from whom he could draw something useful, such as capital and income – Ferd was like the Safeway checkout machine. He scanned for the bar code. Each product wore its own very individual code. It was Ferd’s job to decipher. Kasdan needed money
, a lot of it. He also needed stirring up. This happened also to be Kasdan’s opinion concerning himself.
So here might be where Ferd Conway could go wrong. Kasdan’s code might not register correctly. He was eccentric, a Tenderloin bachelor, depressed so long he mistook depression for contentment. Ferd, with his experience at the Hall of Justice, took account of contingencies, such as an individual personality. It made life more interesting, like a festival. It made life more difficult. Sometimes it made Ferd Conway irritable.
So be it. He was checking off his favorite moral imperative: no fucking someone over without a warm compassionate smile. The ironic notch at one corner of the Ferd Conway mouth was optional equipment, adding to festival.
Also engaged in a thinking process, Kasdan questioned Ferd’s genuine affection for him. Friends don’t let friends go out into the world with smiles flicking about the mouth in that dissonant combo of compassion plus notches of disdain.
So what, at this lunchtime on a sunny dry San Francisco day near the Hall of Justice and its satellite bail bond shops and burrito resorts, was the program?
Explanations offered by Ferd Conway belonged to a different geography of explanation from those of other explanatory persons. They circled and ducked and basked in the sunlight; they doubled back and feinted and dodged in the general neighborhood of apparent clarification. They wandered restlessly through the legal and less legal universe, always expressing heartfelt sincerity. They really meant to please. They provided ample hints, suggestions, and promises of profit. They confused.
In the lock-up world of 850 Bryant, Ferd’s miscreants usually came to know that their trouble was about to continue. As Ferd turned toward Market Street and the Tenderloin, touching Dan’s elbow to guide him, his explanations clicked into place without actually making things clear. Frequently in court and in settlement conferences, he practiced the same skill. His summations caused judges to bang gavels. Sometimes they elicited threats of a tour in jail for contempt. (“Not intentional contempt, Your Honor. But if so, I apologize. I meant no harm to this distinguished jurisdiction…”)