by Peter Plate
“The Sunset district. There’s thousands of deer out there.”
Before the 1930s, the Sunset district had been miles of dunes that went all the way to the Pacific Ocean. After World War II, a construction boom developed housing tracts on top of the sands. The Mission district’s Irish working-class population moved in. Over the years, Asian families had filtered into the neighborhood.
It wasn’t any cooler outside. The moon galloped across the sky. A broiling December wind misted the air. The heat was close to the ground. Robert drove the Hillman through a chiaroscuro of red and green stoplights to the beach. The trash in the street, papers trapped in a current, conducted a tango over the asphalt. Through the diaphanous fog Billy Strayhorn’s “Passion Flower” tinkled from the car’s radio.
At Forty-sixth and Noriega, three blocks from the water, Robert halted the sedan next to a southern style, two-storied, colonial mansion. Gold and silver Christmas ornaments highlighted a tidy lawn. A cardboard Santa Claus with a sleigh was propped up at the gate. There was a white neon sign: “Frank’s Mortuary and Funeral Home.”
“We’re here,” he said. “This is where the deer are.”
Spilling out of the Hillman, the ex-convict and his daughter gallivanted across the grass to the porch, getting their shoes wet. Robert rang a bell. The mortician, a chunky fellow in a wool nightcap, burgundy velveteen bathrobe, and a pince-nez, answered the door. He was confused by the visit. It was two in the morning. “Robert? Is that you? I heard you got sprung from prison.”
“Hey, dude.” Robert pulled him to one side. “I need a favor.”
The men whispered for a minute, and then everybody piled inside. They slogged through a vestibule furnished with a row of wingback chairs. Plastic flowers in vases were at the base of a ten-foot red plastic crucifix. The walls had recessed niches with the statues of saints in them.
The adjacent room was a parlor stocked with coffins. Candles flickered on an altar; aluminum and copper and gold-plated caskets burnished in the light. Pushing open a door, the undertaker asked his guests to follow him. “This way,” he beckoned.
Oak floorboards squeaked under their feet. A storage closet had more plywood and cardboard coffins. The girl expected a ghost to pop out of it. “Where are the deer?” she asked.
“The next room,” her father replied.
Their host keyed the door to the last chamber in the hall. It opened with a squeal. He said, “This is it.”
The cubicle was tiny, ten feet square. Coffee brown linen curtains cloaked the lone window. Two cheap caskets sat in a corner. A cot and a wood chair took up the rest of the floor space. The funeral parlor owner stabbed a nicotine-stained finger at the bed and said to Robert, “The kid can sleep here.” He waddled into the corridor, leaving them alone.
Diana flopped on the cot. “Are we still going hunting?”
Robert grimaced at the water spots on the ceiling, as if all his troubles were rooted in the discolored plaster. “Maybe later.”
“When is later?”
It was a wonderful question. Robert didn’t like it and changed the subject. “I don’t know. I have to talk to your mom tomorrow.”
“About what?”
“She wants a divorce.”
“How come?”
“The scene with me and Slatts.”
“But what about us?”
He made like an owl. “Who?”
“You and me.”
“Yeah, well, you’re staying here tonight.”
“And the deer?”
Robert was flustered. All the questions drove him loony. “The deer can wait. Your grandma will get you in the morning. I’ll be back for Christmas.”
“Then we’ll go hunting?”
“I swear we will.”
She lay down on the cot’s thin mattress. Spreading an olive green army blanket over his daughter’s legs, Robert patted her on the head. “See you at Christmas, little mama.” He turned off the light and slinked out.
The wind scratched at the window. Mice romped under the floor. Diana tossed and turned. The cot’s springs twanged. The room contained the souls of the dead that had passed through the mortuary on their way to heaven. Their sibilant voices were a choir in her ears. If there were any deer, she didn’t see them. No doubt they were hiding in the dark. Biding their time until Robert and his guns went away.
TWENTY-FOUR
The holidays wouldn’t be complete without a sniper. On a winter’s day in 1979 a rifleman climbed to the top of the old Security Pacific office building on the southeast corner of Ninth and Market. He opened fire on the Christmas shoppers in the street below. The gunman refused to cooperate with the police and a battle ensued. The cops gained access to the roof and shot him dead.
The sniper was long gone, his name unknown, the event itself forgotten. The molecules of destruction he sowed many years ago were now an invisible part of the street’s spirit. Shadows hung too briefly over buildings; the sun was always in a hurry. Tourists, dope dealers, winos and junkies, street cleaners and meter maids sleepwalked across the pavement.
The morning’s air was sumptuous, a feast of diesel exhaust and fog. The intersection of Powell and Market was clogged with bicycle messengers and incense vendors, the homeless and their shopping carts, businessmen in blazers. Chess players had erected folding tables on the sidewalk.
A hot, spicy wind buffeted the historic Flood Building at 870 Market. Reeling in the door, Robert Grogan bopped down a hall on the first floor to a legal firm’s suite. He pussyfooted inside and found Harriet in the waiting room. A lawyer, a swarthy forty-year-old man in a Gucci suit with a razor-cut hairdo, was at her side.
The shyster ushered the estranged couple into his office. He got them a couple of seats and made them welcome. “I have smoked herring in the minifridge, bagels, too,” he said. “Before we start, you guys want any? It might be a good way to ease the tension between you two.”
Robert didn’t want a bagel. Neither did Harriet.
“Okay,” the counselor said. “Let’s get down to the nittygritty. Harriet wants a divorce.” He leaned toward Robert. “She’s suing on grounds of adultery. Do you plan on contesting the charge?”
“Hold on there.” Robert was flummoxed. “What’s this shit about adultery?”
The attorney simplified it. “She’s says you slept with someone else. That constitutes adultery.”
Harriet interjected. “With Slatts.”
“For crying out loud,” Robert carped. “It was nothing. I mean, really. I met the guy in prison. You’ve got to cut me some slack on that. You’d do the same thing if you were in my shoes. You can’t nail me by what went on in the pen.”
“You admit you had congress with him?”
“Yeah, well, possibly.”
“Here’s the deal. We can get a court date for this afternoon. The third party, this Slatts Calhoun, is also the only other witness in the case. If we get him in the judge’s chambers, he can testify. It’ll make things go faster. The sooner we finish this business, the better it is for everyone involved. Less expensive and less painful.”
It was a rush job. The legal wheels were spinning. The missing link was Slatts. The mouthpiece asked Robert, “Can you find this, uh, friend of yours and bring him to court so we can get his testimony and an affidavit?”
Robert didn’t know what an affidavit was. It had to be a chapter in the bible that would condemn him to everlasting oblivion. He did some reckoning. His underwear chafed. He was tired enough to die. “Yeah, ah, there’s a problem, dig? Slatts is on the run. He got busted for shoplifting, resisting arrest. But I’ll see what I can do.”
The solicitor clapped his hands. “Bravo. I’ll get the judge’s clerk to give us an appointment. We’ll be in and out of court in no time. Be done by nightfall, at the latest.” Rocking in his chair, he said to Harriet, “You also have a child, right?”
She demurred. “Yeah, but she’s Robert’s kid, too, you know. Not just mine.”
&nbs
p; “How old is she?”
“Seven.”
“How is she doing in school?”
“I don’t know, like, we haven’t heard any real complaints or nothing.”
“And what do you intend to do about her custody?”
Harriet shot from the hip. “She’s going to stay with my mom in the Fillmore. Most definitely.”
“Are you all right with that?” the lawyer asked Robert.
Robert stared at his bad hand. In the dictionary of his soul, he knew nobody cared about his opinion. He was an ex-con with no money. Cannon fodder. There were a million jailbirds like him in California. Harriet’s lawyer was no different than a cop or a parole officer, just with better clothes. The shyster even had herring and bagels in his refrigerator. The bigger problem was Slatts. Where the hell was he? Robert swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yeah, I’m mellow.”
A rendezvous was set for three o’clock in the court-house.
A single cumulus cloud dallied above the city, making eyes at the sun. A school of police choppers angled over Market Street to Rincon Hill. Pigeons cakewalked on the methadone clinic’s roof in Stevenson Alley. A bomb threat at Golden Gate and Polk had closed the federal building. Traffic was brought to a standstill between Larkin Street and Van Ness Avenue.
At three in the afternoon, Robert oozed into the courthouse’s Polk Street entrance. He made a beeline for Harriet and her lawyer. His wife was in a black chiffon dress, the same one she’d worn at their wedding. It was tight on her hips. She saw he was alone and protested, “Where’s Slatts? You were supposed to bring him, damn it.”
Robert put up his hands in self-defense. “That ain’t my fault. I couldn’t find him.”
The shyster offered a compromise. “The judge doesn’t know what you or this Slatts guy looks like. Nobody does. I’ll tell him that you couldn’t make today’s hearing.”
“Then what?”
“You’ll impersonate Slatts Calhoun.”
“That’s crazy.” Robert’s seasick eyes widened with disbelief. “You want me to be Slatts and give his testimony?”
“Yes.”
“Against myself?”
“Yes.”
“This is fucked up, man.”
The counselor goaded him. “It will make things move quicker.”
“Okay, what the hell. I’ll do it.”
The threesome swung into the courtroom and sat down in a pew by the judge’s podium. The stenographer was typing a file. The magistrate was a frail, light-skinned Mexican man. After reading a brief, he asked the shyster to join him at the bench. They conferred for a minute, and the lawyer returned with the news.
“You can testify,” he said to Robert.
The dilapidated ex-felon clopped to the podium. He had on a coffee-stained T-shirt, unwashed jeans, motorcycle boots. His face was green from sleeplessness and complemented the blue tattoos on his white arms. The judge spoke to him. “You’re Slatts Calhoun, is that correct?”
Robert had to fight hard to remember who he was. It was a seesaw battle. For a moment, it was touch and go. “Yes, sir.”
“You are a witness in this case?”
The lawyer said, “Yes, your honor. He’s the only one besides the plaintiff and the defendant.”
The magistrate looked lost in his black robes. His voice sounded tiny and far away. “The plaintiff Harriet Grogan says you had an affair with her husband. Did you know Robert Grogan was married when you met him?”
Robert tensed. The hunter in him feared a snare. “Yeah, I did. He talked about his wife all the time. They’d been together for a while. He said she was a good woman. I always wondered about that. I didn’t believe him. He had a tendency to exaggerate.”
“Where did you meet Mr. Grogan?”
“In San Quentin State Prison.”
“And what were you doing there? Were you employed?”
“Myself? I was a prisoner.”
“There’s no mention of this in the file. Please continue.”
“Yeah, so, me and Robert were cellmates.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe three years, whatever. Felt like a century.”
“During any of this time, were you and the defendant lovers?”
“Oh, yeah, a bunch of times. He was my penitentiary husband, you know.”
“He was your what?”
“My, uh, boyfriend.”
“When did you get out of prison?”
“Four days ago.”
“And what did you do when you were released?”
“On Robert’s invitation, I went straight to his crib. He said I could stay with him and his family.”
“Did you know his wife at all while you were serving time in prison?”
“No, like I said, I knew he had one and shit, but I didn’t meet her or anything. He wanted to keep things separate. He kept her away from me. He thought everything would be less complicated that way.”
“Why’s that?”
“Who knows? He had two wives. You’d have to ask him.”
“When you went to stay with them, what happened?”
Robert was cagey. “What do you mean, what happened?”
“Did you resume your affair with the defendant?”
“Sort of. We were emotionally involved. But we didn’t have sex or anything. He was too preoccupied.”
“And on the afternoon of December the twenty-second, where were you?”
“I don’t recall.”
“I’ll refresh your memory. The plaintiff says you were in the parking lot of her residence. Do you recollect this?”
“Yeah, I was probably there.”
“The plaintiff claims she saw you with the defendant, her husband. Does this sound credible?”
“It does.”
“You admit then, you were there?”
“Sure. I spent a lot of time with Robert in the parking lot.”
“The plaintiff also says you kissed the defendant.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Were you aware that his daughter was in the apartment at the time?”
Robert bluffed. “No.”
“Then what happened? Stick to the facts, please.”
“Well, okay. A whole lot of things got messy. His wife didn’t like me. Robert was tired of my antics. They threw me out of their place. And I got busted for shoplifting.”
“Are you on parole?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Are you in touch with your parole officer about these proceedings?”
“Yeah, she knows everything. I just talked to her about it. She’s cool.”
“I have no further questions, thank you. You may leave the stand.”
Robert ambled from the witness stand and strayed out of the courtroom. In the hall he sidestepped a clerk toting a sheaf of papers. Then he hoofed it past the cops and the politicians and custodians in the shadowy rotunda and made his way outside to Polk Street.
On the sidewalk, he cranked his ravaged face to the sun. His ears rang from fatigue. His feet were sore and itched. It was a postcard-perfect winter afternoon in the city. Hot and dry with a trace of whitish smoke in the sky from a fire in the Tenderloin. Two helicopters did a raucous minuet over the UN Plaza. Gunshots were going off on Market Street near the Bank of America.
Holding a Colt revolver in both hands, Athena Diggs crept into Robert Grogan’s apartment. The door was ajar. That wasn’t cool. It meant there was a problem. Folks didn’t leave their shit open when they lived on Market Street. Not unless they wanted to get killed.
Athena’s hair was tucked under a red and green silk scarf. Blue wraparound shades were glued to her nose. Her lean frame was sheathed in a pair of OshKosh overalls. Timberland boots shod her feet. In her pocket was a warrant for Robert Grogan’s arrest. A judge had signed it late last night. Right after that other fool Slatts Calhoun slipped off the deep end. Now the cracker was on the run from the cops.
The parole officer listened for
telltale sounds but didn’t hear a thing. The pad was quiet. The lights were off. The television wasn’t squawking. Neither was the radio. She pulled back the revolver’s hammer, expecting the worst. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d found a client dead. Men who came out of prison were at risk. A lot of ex-cons committed suicide because of depression. It was textbook. She glissaded into the living room, prepared to shoot the dog.
Remnants of the Christmas tree were under the coffee table. The couch had been massacred. A poster of the metal band Iron Maiden hung from a thumbtack on a wall. In the bathroom there was blood on the floor, dog hair in the sink. An army of flies laid siege to the deerskin in the toilet. There were no clothes in the hall closets.
Athena uncocked her revolver and cussed. “That goddamn motherfucker. I hate his ass.” The white boy had squirmed through her fingers. Even the mutt was gone. Robert Grogan was now a fugitive from the law. An all points bulletin would be issued for his arrest.
TWENTY-FIVE
That evening police vans swept by the Civic Center as smoke from a warehouse fire in the Embarcadero obscured the Bay Bridge and the condominiums on Rincon Hill. At nine o’clock Robert ducked into a watering hole by the Quakers Meeting Hall on Ninth Street. The dive was a survivor from the South-of-Market real estate wars. An artificial Christmas wreath was tacked to the door. A couple of leather queens in studded wristbands, combat boots, dog collars, and kilts nursed beers at the bar. The jukebox banged out Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew.”
Slatts was sulking in the corner, morosely staring into the bottom of a gin and tonic. He was in a green polyester pants suit and white suede boots with a silver chain around his bullish neck. His teardrop tattoo signified a year in the California Youth Authority system. Robert slid onto the stool next to him and fussed. “You made it. Christ almighty, I was worried about you.”
“Uh huh.”
“You all right? You didn’t get hurt or nothing, did you?”
“I’m okay. No thanks to you, dipshit.”
“Hey, mellow out. Let me get us some drinks.”
Slatts grumbled and said nothing more. Robert placed an order with the bartender, and the ex-cons were served a round of vodka gimlets. They toasted each other and then guzzled their beverages. In the bar’s gloom, Robert’s shaved skull glimmered with a ruddy light. Listening to the music with one ear, he drifted away on a cloud of anxieties.