When a Psychopath Falls in Love

by Herbert Gold

  But now that Amanda had chosen to find him, Sergei had come upon him, a daughter and a grandson fallen into his late years, he was determined to manage what he had not intended. It was easier to translate his Hall of Justice clients’ lies than to tell his own. Ferd Conway was helping. Of course, Kasdan hadn’t informed Ferd that he would be drastically ripped off, but this wasn’t exactly deceitful – also didn’t tell him he would not be ripped off and killed.

  Kasdan touched Petal’s cheeks as she had touched his. “You’re different. I like you.”

  “Really? You mean that? I think you’re different, too.”

  A pair of different people in a room on the third floor of the Minerva Hotel with vegetable curtains billowing at the window. For a time, their arms wrapped around their unshared dreams, they slept.

  “This other guy, this black dude, African-American, you know?” Petal was murmuring near the ear of this present guy, this white dude, offering the words this black dude as if jealousy might be a sealant to their connection, “He has an idea for me.”

  For Kasdan, jealousy was more of a distraction than anything favorable toward something like, what was it? Love. He was too old for his stomach to churn over the words this other dude, spoken by a stranger whom he happened to be lying alongside, his hand over her breast. Nevertheless, of its own will, his stomach twisted a little, due to an ancient peristaltic persistence of desires for exclusive possession.

  “It’s sort of weird, but Mom always said a woman’s body is my own. I can get a leg up, really save a nest egg, which I dearly need, plus free medical checkups, work a little and have a nice room all to myself, maid service, linen service, I don’t dearly need all that, but it would be awesome, maybe not all my weekends free, but if I keep my looks, and I don’t see why not, special dates in heavy-duty restau­rants…” She stopped for breath, due to rapid naming of dearly awesome options; her lovely lips were damp and parted.

  Next move, Dan Kasdan’s.

  “Enlighten me,” he said, startled at what came out of his mouth. Usually what startled him came out of the mouth of Amanda or Ferd or one of the perps he helped to give their accounts of what really happened. Endarken us.

  “Huh?” Petal asked. Even Kasdan’s perps had better evasions when interrogated.

  He sat up and leaned against the headboard, which creaked and hit the wall. He jammed a pillow against the small of his back.

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “A clinic kind of deal. Helping guys like you, really nice guys, not hit them up personally for the money, that’s so gross. The nurse in charge, you call her the attendant, takes care of these details...”

  “A whorehouse,” Kasdan said.

  “Shush, you’re rude, dude. Hey, I just made another poem, didn’t I? Rude… dude? It’s a nice clean safe place and let me tell you I could use some nice clean safe in my life.”

  “A brothel,” Kasdan said.

  “That’s better. I like that.”

  “What’s his name? The dude with the business opportunity. How do you know him? What’s his deal?”

  She pulled his nose. She kissed it better. Her lips pouted over the protuberant front teeth. Her mouth was soft, which he already knew. “His name, that would be telling, wouldn’t it? Way uncool. Really rude, dude.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  Stomach, be still, slow down. The evening swirls of fog were blowing down Turk. There was a crustiness of the sheet against his leg. Her abstracted, considering, confiding face; her breath warming him. “Big strong dude makes sure everything is copacetic, he’s like a doorman, no trouble allowed, and he says, ‘Welcome, thank you for coming,’ like a greeter for the guys, stuff like that – a really responsible position for an expert in the street smarts field.”

  Had she gotten up to slip into a plasticine of crystal while he dozed? No fresh spot of pink near her elbow; no hit to be smelled on her breath, although curry and halva and mint toothpaste could disguise a late-evening pick-her-up which caused the motor to run on ahead.

  “This gentleman gets a commission for bringing you in. Did he audition you first?”

  “I told you already, it’s just a job. He’s got a wife, a baby, but he can see I’m sort of cute and he doesn’t mind telling me.”

  Kasdan asked, “What’s his name?”

  “Man, you keep after a person, don’t you? You always wanna know what’s my real name, now it’s his name. Okay, I think it’s his real name, it does sound like that, doesn’t it? D’Wayne,” she said.

  D’Wayne. Heading home from Katie’s Meddle of Honor, home from their Pakistani experience, home from the Minerva Hotel, Kasdan was thinking it over. What were the chances he would find himself in a hotel room on Turk with its window decorated with inappropriate kitchen curtains, carrots, tomatoes, and squash, on this day or any other day? It had happened. He thought it over further. What were the chances a longtime court translator would murder a close associate in order to steal his illegal money, therefore making the money twice illegal? It would happen.

  It was midnight and, at the corner, two dealers were treating each other to high-fives. Peace, brother; although competitors, they meant each other no harm. A cat was worrying a dead pigeon at the curb outside Kasdan’s apartment building. The cat cuffed it, the clawed body budged, a few feathers dropped off, the cat snarled and attacked; the pigeon didn’t fight back. The cat crouched and made an ominous non-purring rumble, a low-pitched whine, cuffed the pigeon again with velvet claws.... This cat and pigeon show wasn’t played out near Kasdan’s entrance every day, but on the other hand, here they were and it was happening.

  So she had met D’Wayne. San Francisco was a small town, walled by the sea. Why wouldn’t a lost waif find a friendly, fleshy, smiling black guy hustling to support his family as best he could? It was almost logical.

  Go on from here. Shit happens to pigeons and people. Deal with it.

  – 12 –

  Amanda’s face was hot when he put his arms around her and laid her head against his cheek. No matter how often he did this, and he did it when any excuse presented itself, the lost years remained their lost years. “Are you running a fever?”

  “Dad, it just feels like that to you. Maybe you’re just cold-blooded.”

  Which didn’t answer the question. Margaret Torres had used “cold blood” as one of the explanations for why Amanda’s father never appeared during her childhood. (Other explanations: died, in prison, on the lam, turned gay and then transsexual; take your pick, sweetie.) Balancing out the cold blood, Amanda burned at a high temperature; as did Sergei, because of his different bruising. Kasdan’s own thermo­stat was set as it was set. Today Amanda happened to wonder if the grandfather would like to stay awhile with Sergei while she made a quick trip to the Safeway. She waved a shopping list in his direction. “Hey Dad, it’ll be a bonding experience, that’s what I read in the hospital dealie they gave me.” She needed to escape for an hour or two. It would give him time to practice his grandfather skills.

  “Keep Sergei from...” Amanda shrugged. There was a long roster of things to keep Sergei from. “Bond,” she said. She grabbed a purse and a sweater. “Bond, okay?” A torn pamphlet fell from the edge of a folding changing table when she slammed the door. It was “The Modern Mom,” an instruction manual with pink and blue colors, gender neutral, probably including a section of advice on how to per­suade apprehensive grandfathers to perform acts of family responsi­bility. Bonding, okay; here goes.

  “Sergei, what should we talk about?”

  Scream.

  “Let’s discuss, Sergei. I hear you. We’re busy bonding, but could you specify more exactly?”

  Spasms and kicks, red-faced fury, distraught rolling eyes.

  “I get it, you miss Mom? She’ll be right back. Hey, come on.”

  He held the twisting body close, swaddling him, and a miracle occurred. The throb of Kasdan’s heart was transmitted through his chest. Before he was born, Sergei lay cur
led in his mother, attending to her heartbeat. There must have been a remembrance of vibrations. The child sobbed with subsiding wet gurgles. And then, abruptly, silence. Like a healthy child, Sergei slept in his arms.

  “I’m thirsty,” Kasdan whispered.

  Sergei sagged, fitting body to body, his hand curled against Kasdan’s shoulder. Kasdan could wait for the glass of water until Amanda returned. This light curling of monkey paw on shoulder was drink enough. The sour smell was part of the babysitting grandfather dealie. He knew that all babies spit up and drool; enzymes and valves haven’t learned to synchronize yet. Another part of the caretaking which he had missed with Amanda were these stains and stinks. He held the child and practiced one-sided conversation with him. “Now, now... All right... Good boy, nice boy, settle down... It’s okay, Sergei.” The child was breathing through his mouth, pushing smells around. Kasdan wanted to kiss him anyway. Perhaps that would encourage the enzymes and mucous and kid drainage systems do their work. Later, if Dan Kasdan was still present on earth, he could watch Sergei learn to crawl, the gurgle signals changing to syllables; learn to smile, as a child should, digesting accurately and with pleasure; attending to those lovely ordinary matters along the trail of years even when Kasdan would surely be absent from his life.

  Sergei despaired of the world. In a moment he was again trying to scream and drool simultaneously, and succeeding. “Please,” Kasdan began – not the way to go; he wouldn’t understand please. “Don’t overdo the tantrums,” he pleaded, stroking the child’s shoulder, knowing that a baby with storms raging in his body couldn’t under­stand Overdo, Tantrum, or Don’t, although he had been surrounded by Don’ts and Can’ts since his irregular feet-first birth.

  Not expecting favorable results, Kasdan received none. Sergei screamed, pissed, shat, and threw up. He choked, then breathed again. His convulsions were difficult for his grandfather, but Sergei wasn’t in the business of considering other people’s comfort. Kasdan lifted him and tapped his back in the now, now gesture, a parental, grandparental reflex. Not all evolutionary instincts are productive. The child was spilling fluids upon his grandfather.

  “You’re not trying,” Kasdan said.

  He wiped; he tried to clean. He smeared. He wished Amanda or D’Wayne would return. He had never experienced the many orifices of a convulsing child. “How will you...” he began cajolingly, not losing his temper, caressing a miniature summation of all the griefs of the human race. How will you ever qualify to criticize others, and make stupid mistakes, like me, if you don’t behave yourself? Silent advice was sent into unconnected receptors.

  On the other hand, Sergei – Kasdan still trying for good-humored silent transmission – as an American, in the tradition of freedom and compassion which makes this country more than great, beyond superior, superb, Sergei – more silent patient grandfatherly thoughtwave labor – you have the right and privilege, nay, the duty to ignore your own imperfections while demanding service from others... Sergei bawled.

  Aloud, Kasdan said, “Oh please shut up.”

  Sergei’s twistings and spittings, the mashing of his gums together and the bleeding where a tooth raked them, the spasms of legs and arms and little shoulders with their quivering pads of baby flesh, were accompanied by intervals of a very grownup squinting, a staring look of terror. Sergei didn’t choose to fling himself into these dances. His soul knew it was not right. His immortal soul understood and mourned.

  “Shush, shush, shush,” Kasdan said, the boy kicking and screaming into his ear while the desperation in his eyes begged: Help me! Save me!

  “Shush, child, I’m just holding you, I’m here, it’s okay.”

  One of the pediatricians at San Francisco General had suggested, “Try to keep his limbs from striking hard surfaces. Think of it as something like childhood-onset epilepsy or a form of Tourette’s. Try to shield him from throwing himself off his crib or against a wall. Call my office if you have further questions about little Sergei Moses.”

  Kasdan pressed him tightly against his chest. Tiny arms jerked as if a reptile ancestor wanted to fly from a predator but hadn’t yet grown wings. Kasdan’s heart was breaking. He said: “Listen, there’s this Pasqual, he’s only a client, but he can make himself clear, Sergei. He’s not even a relative except that all human beings are brothers and sisters, grandchildren, whatever. Please, dear. Please.”

  After the storm, after soiling himself, after screaming for no reason to be grasped by anyone, desolate and inconsolable, Sergei subsided. He was exhausted. He slept. The hot head against Kasdan’s heart burrowed a nest and the person under the nest took joy in giving shelter. Even Kasdan felt himself slipping into a doze, his arms around the pain of this small creature. The sour smell was one of the perfumes of family. A place in Kasdan’s chest was communicating with a place behind his eyes in the desire to weep with joy. Sergei urged him along the path. He was happy to learn from his grandson.

  Kasdan glimpsed a tiny shadow flickering across the kitchen floor and disappearing into the wall. It was a tenant he had not met. Within this household, already complete enough, a mouse had sublet space between plaster crumbles and a shaggy wooden strut, its edges shredded by insects who liked fiber, rodents which liked to sharpen their teeth. Kasdan thought he might mention it to D’Wayne. He thought not to mention it to Amanda. Kasdan had not yet decided whether to mention it to anyone.

  He was struggling with a plastic-coated disposable diaper, tabs that were supposed to be pulled together and then stick. Sergei was squeaking, not screaming, as Kasdan tried to keep him from falling off the table while he undid, wiped, fastened, worried, felt sure he wasn’t doing it right. He noticed a scatter of mouse droppings near the wall; he kept his arm on Sergei so he wouldn’t flip off the table. Amanda and D’Wayne probably knew about the mouse but hadn’t yet gotten around to doing anything about it.

  Kasdan’s daughter wouldn’t worry about a mouse running up her leg and disappearing within. Some women would. Kasdan had heard of a woman who saw a mouse in her kitchen and called 911. When the police rejected her plea, she called the Fire Department.

  Once Kasdan had been in his bathtub, a relic raised on cast iron claws, sharing a nice hot bath with a new acquaintance, when she saw a mouse, said, “Eeek,” and threw herself, splashing and giggling with both the fright and the fun of it, into his lap. So mice didn’t always have deleterious effects. He had felt exceptionally stalwart about saving her; he rose sturdily to the challenge.

  “My hero,” said his bathtub companion.

  Later, she asked if he scheduled periodontal checkups every year and he realized that he was having mouse-assisted sex with a dentist. When a person is a lifelong bachelor in San Francisco, he never knows what may ensue from a casual meeting at the Caffe Roma.

  Best to let Amanda and D’Wayne discover and deal with their mouse without counsel from the formerly absent father of Sergei’s mother.

  Tending to Sergei felt like wrestling with a burst plumbing pipe. There was no good way to take hold. He was shoved and drenched, near to helpless, while the convenient bio-degradable diaper hung crookedly from soft, fat, uncoordinated legs. When keys rattled at the door, Kasdan’s first two thoughts were, Am I locked in? Is the jailer here for my interrogation? But it was Amanda, arms loaded with Safeway bags, paper products spilling out. A baby seemed to consume forests. Kasdan’s arms were tumbled with paper towels, toilet rolls, plasticized disposable diapers. “Thanks, Dad, really appreciate – you had fun, right? Was he good?”

  “Fine, fine, fine.”

  “Man, I needed that. Shopping for shit is like a vacation for me.”

  “Oh, we had a terrific time,” the grandfather said. This about covered the bases without dealing with panic, anxiety, doubt, isola­tion, conditions which didn’t need futile elaboration for his daughter.

  Now Sergei was asleep, mouth parted, gums wet and darkened with congealed blood. Amanda wasn’t planning to press on, although she did: “He give you a hard ti
me?”

  “Had a ball,” Kasdan repeated. “Fine.”

  Sergei’s lashes were glued shut. In the abrupt way of a child, he had checked out. His eyes behind closed lids, still wet from previous tears, were stirring in dreams, but of what? Of darkness or light, of an earlier iguana or monkey life, or of nothing at all.

  “Like a vacation at the beach for me,” Kasdan said, “lounging with my grandson.”

  Amanda kissed him for this lie, and for the sarcasm added a little bite on his cheek, a mere nip which didn’t break the skin.

  And they said goodbye for now. Despite Kasdan’s diminished hearing, the determined voice from the street came through clearly: “White horse.” Due to insistent reiteration, he could make no mistake about it. A vendor, wearing a long black overcoat despite a climate which did not call for long overcoats, chanted his offer to passersby: “White horse, white horse, white horse.” He was tireless. His chant would only be interrupted by the consummation of a deal, money exchanged for glassine envelopes. Kasdan had a plan for moving Amanda’s family to another neighborhood.

  The vendor in the long black overcoat didn’t see Kasdan heading his way through the vestibule, but recovered in time to ask the man moving past him: “Hey... White horse?”

  “Not today.”

  He had succeeded in putting other matters out of mind while he attended to his daughter, his grandson, and the evidence of previous inadequacies. It was only right that he do so; he tried to give himself a little credit. Dan Kasdan was making his way like a young man, or like an old man, or like a wise one; like some kind of man.

  Here, on Ellis, it seemed like a betrayal to be thinking of Petal again, her lips pushed entrancingly ahead of her front teeth, a flaw that charmed the some kind of unwise man that he still seemed to be. It should have been enough occupation for the day to be in a house of love and betrayal; Amanda’s of D’Wayne, actual or imminent; Ferd Conway’s of Dan and his family; Dan’s of his future victim; all these lovers, needing to be lovers, on the way to betrayal.