First Avenue

by Lowen Clausen

  “I think you must have a day off because I don’t see you yesterday,” Silve said.

  “I couldn’t make it.”

  “Must have been something bad not to come all day.”

  “My business is always bad. Better for us if I don’t have any business.”

  “You have business and you don’t want it. I don’t have business and I want it. It’s crazy.”

  “Yes,” Sam agreed. “How come your business is slow?”

  “I don’t know. Too many restaurants, maybe. But not so long now until Thanksgiving. Then it will get better again. My new girl comes an hour late yesterday. Not even a phone call. I kick her ass right out. She wonders why I fire her. Her second day of work and an hour late.”

  Silve’s knife worked faster as he thought of the new girl who lasted one day. He gestured with it as though it were part of his hand. Sam shook his head in disbelief but believing as always when he stood in Silve’s kitchen.

  “Maybe I should take her job.”

  “That would be something to see,” Silve said. “You could shoot anybody who complained.”

  “I’m afraid you would fire me, too.”

  “Yes,” Silve agreed, “but I would like to see that. You shoot them if they bitch about the food.” He laughed at the ceiling in his high-pitched cackle with the idea of Sam serving the food and then shooting the complainers. Sam laughed along with him and again with renewed vigor as Silve raised his knife and said, “Pow.”

  “I don’t see that George girl for a while either,” Silve said, lowering his head so that he looked at Sam over his glasses.

  “She’s been in San Francisco.”

  “Good-looking woman. Why does she go to San Francisco?”

  “Meetings, I guess. She’s my neighbor, you know.”

  “I know. That’s what you tell me.” Silve repeated the look that made his glasses slide down over his nose.

  Sam stayed in the kitchen longer than usual to make up for the previous day. He was glad there was no one to interfere, just the two of them, together in the warmth around Silve’s stove. He should not have brought Georgia to Silve’s restaurant. Sometimes it was better to keep quiet about things, to hold them just the way they were and not risk adding more weight than they could stand.

  Sam turned to look out the windows behind Silve’s stove. It was the best view in the city. It was no different from the dining room, four steps down, but it was still better in the kitchen. Elliott Bay lay below in darkness like ink spilled between the hills. Two ferries, each lit like a carnival, were about to pass each other farther out in Puget Sound. Lights traced the shorelines, near and far, in this hour before dawn. On the city side, the lights were bright, denying darkness altogether, but across the Sound there were fewer lights and not so bright, with wide stretches of darkness between them. It was still too dark to see the Olympic Mountains, but they would appear at first light, catching the sun before Seattle and reflecting it eastward toward them. This time of year the highest peaks might have new snow as a distant signal of the oncoming season.

  “It’s chilly this morning,” Sam said.

  “Yes sir,” Silve replied, turning his back on the stove and joining Sam in looking out the window. “It won’t be long now.”

  Sam agreed, but he was not sure what Silve meant. Did the change in the air have anything to do with them? Many times he had waited here with Silve for the morning, standing beside him with just the right degree of distance and closeness, imagining that no one else could come in his place. That wasn’t true, but he imagined it anyway.

  “Do you ever get tired of owning this place?” Sam asked.

  “Every day I think about quitting,” Silve said. “But what would I do? I don’t set an alarm in the morning. I wake up without it. If I didn’t have work, then I would lay there and look at the ceiling. It’s enough to look at the ceiling on Sunday when I’m closed.”

  “It’s good to have a place to go.”

  “Yes sir,” Silve said. “Coffee is ready. I left the morning paper on the table. All politics. Nobody agrees on anything.”

  Sam walked down the steps to the dining room composed of six booths against the windows and four small tables on the opposite wall. He poured himself coffee and slid into the booth closest to the kitchen stairs. He unfolded the newspaper on the table and stood his portable radio out of the way beside the window. There seemed to be a lot going on everywhere, page after page in the newspaper and closer to him, calls dispatched by Radio. He felt lucky to be left alone, to sip fresh coffee in his isolated booth, and to listen to Silve at work up the stairs.

  After reading the front section and the sports page, he put the paper back together the way he had found it and pushed it away. He unfastened the brass button of his shirt pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He smoothed it out on the table and read the title handwritten in ink, “Nate the Breadman.”

  Softly, he read the words aloud, crossing out some and changing them with his pen. The voices from the radio drifted away, and the chopping sound of Silve’s knife and the periodic commotion of pans became a backdrop for his words. Words in the air. Words on paper. Words coaxed like prisoners from his mind that made him forget for a while the newspaper, and the radio, and the scavengers and predators and lost souls out on the street.

  Nate the Breadman

  Birdlike, he whistles endlessly his toneless single note

  as he walks shuffles through the open M market,

  his goat feet swollen in short black shoes.

  When strangers hear his whistle they stare

  He whistles his coming, and strangers part and secretly stare

  at Nate the Breadman. the strange man who passes, pushing a cart

  full of burdened stacked carefully with bread.

  The fruit vendors and tThose who sell vegetables and fruit,

  those who pile high the fish and ice it down,

  those who sweep the old wooden floors and remove the trash,

  those in blue shirts who keep the peace or disturb it

  call out to Nate the Breadman.

  He has purpose and is not easily distracted.

  His warm, strangled eyes stare straight ahead.

  But all who have received his glance acknowledgment in the cold morning air

  listen for the coming of the Breadman

  and call cry out for his blessing benediction.

  There had been a time when he thought the words he wrote were important. He had even published a small book of the poems, a novelty that provoked interest among a few for a short time. Now without the illusion of importance, he tossed the new poems onto the others in the cardboard box in his closet. His one remaining book was buried there beneath the new words that covered it.

  Silve came slowly down the stairs holding up his apron so that he would not trip. Sam folded his poem and put it back in his pocket. Silve took a cup from the rack beside the coffeepot and filled it with coffee. Then he refilled Sam’s cup. From his own, coffee dripped on the tile floor, but Silve didn’t notice. Sam moved the newspaper to the side of the table, and Silve groaned softly as he slid into the booth.

  “You write on the paper this morning.”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I should do that, too.”

  “You would have interesting things to tell.”

  “Yes. I tell my grandchildren stories, but know what they say? Papa, will you buy me a candy bar? That’s the story they want to hear.” He laughed loudly and more coffee spilled from his cup. When Silve laughed, he was likely to forget everything else.

  “You should tell them what it was like in the Philippines.”

  “They don’t want to hear about that. I should get them a candy bar. Put it on the table. Then they would listen.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “How is the coffee this morning?”

  “It’s good, thanks.”

  “You remember when your friends tricked me about the coffee?”r />
  “I remember. It was a dirty trick.”

  “No, it was a good trick,” Silve said. He was laughing again. “I spit it right out on the floor. They tell me, ‘Silve, there is something wrong with this coffee.’ I taste it and spit it on to the floor. I think maybe they will arrest me because there was something wrong with it, like poison. Then you told me what they did. You told me they put Tabasco in it because I gave them coffee left from the night before. I like that joke. We have fresh coffee now. Your friends don’t come so much anymore. Maybe they think my coffee is not good.”

  “That’s not the reason. I like coming here alone.”

  “You work on the paper then.”

  “Yes, a little.”

  “When I don’t bother you.”

  “I would rather talk to you. If we don’t talk, then I have nothing to write down.”

  “There’s nothing to write from what I say.”

  “Sure there is,” Sam said. “Think of all the stories you’ve had here. How long have you had this place anyway?”

  “Twenty-five years. I had another restaurant across the street before this one. But here I have been twenty-five years. It used to be just that little space up there.” Silve frowned and pointed past the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining room.

  “There was a counter around the stove and eight stools. You ask, ‘How can you make any money with that?’ But there was just me, and my son comes on Saturday. The rent was nothing. What I make, I get to keep. Now there is all this.” He gestured to the dining room. His hand seemed small without the knife.

  “They said if I stayed, I needed a bigger place. They rebuild this whole building. They brought me the plans. I thought, ‘Okay, I still have the restaurant.’ But now my old friends, if they want to talk, they have to stand in the kitchen or I come down here. It’s not the same.”

  “I wish I had been here before,” Sam said.

  “Yes. Then you would know what I mean. They showed me plans what it would look like, but I don’t see it. Just a bunch of lines. My son said we should do it, but where is he? He doesn’t like to get up so early. He says we should make the adobo the night before. My old customers, they will taste it if I make it the night before, like your friends with the coffee. So he works somewhere else. There is no more money than before. It comes in but it goes for the rent, the loan, and the help when they show up. Everybody has the hand out. None of this can you see on their paper.”

  The old man’s coffee grew cold as he sat in his restaurant thinking about the way it used to be.

  “Excuse me, sir,” he said as he rose from the chair and picked up his cup. “I don’t mean to complain. Where would I go if I did not have this place? Now I must check in the kitchen.”

  Before he left, the old man poured more coffee for Sam. Then he placed his cup into a rubber dish tub beside the coffeepot. There were a few dishes in it from the day before. Silve rearranged them and carried the tub back up the stairs.

  Sam sat for a while longer looking out the window. More cars were passing on the two-tiered viaduct below him. Alki Point was emerging across the bay like an apparition among the lights.

  Radio announced that it was 0530. Sam checked his watch as if he did not believe it and slid out of the booth. He stuffed the radio into its holster on the left side of his gun belt and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. He removed a dollar bill. He folded the bill in half, picked up his coffee cup, and drank the last drops. Silve looked up from the stove as Sam walked up the steps.

  “Time to go, sir?”

  “Yes. Thank you for the coffee.” Sam put the cup on the stainless-steel shelf above the stove and slid the dollar beneath it. Nothing was said about the money.

  “I see you later maybe,” Silve said. “Good oxtail today.”

  Sam sniffed the rich smells from the kitchen—the meat simmering and the adobo sauce with its paprika and garlic. He was hungry already.

  “Maybe so,” Sam said. “I hope your business is good today.”

  “I think so,” Silve said. “I am ready if it comes. I hope your business is bad.”

  Outside the door Sam waved once and headed up the ramp to Pike Place. He did not feel the chill of the air until he reached the top of the ramp. By then the warmth of Silve’s kitchen had left his skin. Daylight was coming close over the Market buildings. Pike Place remained deserted. His car was still alone on the street.

  He knew there would be activity around the block on First Avenue. That street was never empty. A few weeks ago Alberta might have been walking to work down the street. Where would the baby have been? It did no good to think about them after they were gone.

  He retrieved his jacket from the backseat of the car and walked slowly down Pike Place to the corner where it met Pike Street. Remaining close to the buildings on the north side, he found a dark spot in the shadows behind the columns of the Re(a)d and Green. It was a type of store only found in the Market, one that combined books and organic flowers. The columns were a favorite place to mount posters for the current week’s radical causes. He turned his radio off and from behind the posters looked across the street at the Donut Shop.

  Three boys and two girls, teenagers, milled in front of it. They pushed and shoved each other like kids waiting for school to start. They were not waiting for school. They smoked and shivered and looked at slow passing cars but did nothing else. He turned the volume up on his radio and was about to return to his car when he noticed a boy standing alone on the opposite corner from the group of kids. The boy waited for the light to change. There were no cars, but he still waited. He wore an orange baseball cap and a blue windbreaker with the collar turned up. When the kids saw him, they drifted silently down the street away from him.

  The boy crossed Pike Street when the light turned green. He went to the door of the Donut Shop and turned his back on it without trying to open it. He stood there for a while with his hands stuffed into his pockets and moved his legs to keep warm. He seemed to be waiting for someone. After three or four minutes, he left the door and started to walk back across the street the way he had come. The light changed to red, and the boy went back to the corner to wait. Such a very good boy, Sam thought. He pulled the radio from its holster and held it next to his mouth.

  “1-David-4,” he said.

  Radio responded to his call letters.

  “A citizen has reported a minor disturbance at First and Pike. I have it on view. No backup is needed. Copy this description, will you?”

  “Go ahead, David-4.”

  “The suspect is a white male, eighteen, five-foot-ten, wearing an orange baseball cap, blue jacket, and blue jeans.”

  “Received, David-4. I’ll log you out.”

  When the light changed and the boy started across Pike Street, Sam crossed First Avenue to meet him. The boy began slouching toward the east, away from Sam.

  “I want to talk to you,” Sam said. His voice was loud enough to be unmistakable. He also pointed at the boy. Even so the boy could not believe it.

  “Me?” he asked. He stopped in the middle of the street.

  “Yes. Come over here.” Sam waved him over with his hand.

  “I didn’t do anything,” the boy protested. He didn’t move from where he had stopped in the street.

  “Good, then this won’t take long. Come over here.”

  The boy then walked toward Sam—not directly to him, but in the general direction. “You have to have some reason to stop me,” he said.

  “I have a reason. What’s your name?”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything. I was just walking down the street.”

  “I see. Come here. Listen to this.” Sam raised the radio that was in his left hand. The boy was now close enough that Sam gestured with a single finger for the boy to join him. “Come here,” Sam repeated.

  Reluctantly, ever so reluctantly, the boy took a few more steps toward Sam. Sam took a few toward the boy.

  “1-David-4,” Sam said into
the radio. After Radio acknowledged him, he continued, “Will you repeat the description you have of the suspect at First and Pike?” He held the radio out so that the boy could hear.

  “David-4, I have your suspect as a white male, eighteen, five-foot-ten, orange cap, blue windbreaker, blue jeans.”

  “Thank you, Radio.” Sam shoved the radio back into its holster. Another patrol car crept around Post Alley in the Market and shut its lights off. Sam lifted his hand to tell it to stay there. The boy saw the car, too. “I guess that’s you. Radio never lies.”

  “I didn’t do anything.”

  “So maybe somebody’s playing a joke on you. What’s your name?”

  “Richard.”

  “Your last name?”

  “Rutherford.”

  “Do you carry any weapons, Richard?”

  “No.”

  “Let me check. Turn around for a second. Lift your arms.”

  The boy turned away from Sam and raised his arms from his side. Sam felt the boy’s coat pockets first, found them empty, and then used his palms and fingers to search for anything big enough to be a weapon. Richard had none. He had a wallet, however.

  “Take out your wallet, Richard, and show me some ID.”

  The boy reached for his wallet and fumbled through it until he found a social security card. He handed it to Sam.

  “Richard Jonathan Rutherford,” Sam said, as he held it up to the streetlight. “That’s quite a name. Your parents must have thought you would become an important man. Are you important, Richard?”

  The boy shrugged his shoulders. His eyes showed anger. Sam pulled a pen and notebook from his shirt pocket and wrote down the boy’s name.

  “Am I under arrest or something?”

  “Not yet, Richard. How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “Got a record, Richard?”

  “No.”

  “What’s your date of birth?”

  The boy gave him a date, and Sam wrote it down although he had no way to verify it.

  Sam pulled out his radio and asked for a name check. When Radio acknowledged, Sam gave the boy’s full name, spelling the middle and last names, and the boy’s birth date. He watched the boy’s eyes while he talked.