by Peter Plate
Before he could say more, Patsy got to her feet. “Dinner will be ready in a half hour. Can you hold on?” she asked.
She turned around and sashayed back into the kitchen. The doctor held his drink, unaware of it. Something was going on, but he didn’t know what it was. This caused a knot of tension to dance on his forehead.
On top of that, a deranged smile was ripping Daf’s tanned face in half. It was the gestalt of a Frankenstein whose eyes, nose and mouth had been put back together by a scientist on a Singer sewing machine.
The doctor put his drink on the coffee table, conscious of a fluttering sensation in his thorax near his heart. Without calculating the effect of what he was saying, he blurted, “Was Patsy always like this?”
It was the wrong thing to say. Mom’s posture hardened in the easy chair. Daf assumed a stony silence. Their character armor became impenetrable to the doctor. He needed to be quick witted around them, to make swift, clever repartees, and always never get too personal.
“Was she always like what?” the old lady said disingenuously.
She studied her fingernails, flinching when she came across the nubbin of a cuticle. She navigated the offending finger toward her half opened mouth and nibbled at it.
“You know. Efficient.”
Daf did not hide his contempt.
“Do you have a problem with our Patsy’s behavior? If you do, you’d better put it out there on the table where we can deal with it.”
The doctor looked at Daf, and saw the seams on his father-in-law’s face were filled with a desire to commit manslaughter. Whatever Daf was, he was a man who did not suffer wimps kindly.
“I didn’t mean anything like that,” the doctor said. “I’m actually pleased, believe me.”
“Why don’t we change the subject,” his mother-in-law said flatly.
“Good idea,” Daf enthused. He banged his glass down on the fireplace’s mantelpiece. “That’s the best damn thing I’ve heard all day.”
Standing there on the porch minutes before dinner, just to get away from Daf, the doctor gazed at the abandoned building next door. The dump reminded him of the patients he saw in the emergency room. Every one of them acted like the world owed them a favor. The doctor had found out from experience these clients were not easy to treat.
The abandoned building not only reminded him of the people in the emergency room, it reminded him of the homeless in the Mission, too. Their numbers were remarkable. They’d sprung up overnight like a fungus. There had to be a mistake, some kind of mathematical imbalance. There were buildings everywhere. How some people managed to find themselves outside the orbit of shelter and in the streets, was beyond the doctor’s comprehension. But there it was, a permanent culture of eviction in his own backyard.
The other week the manageress at the Whirl-o-mat had told him that he should leave the neighborhood, because in her own words, “Nothing but whores and bad people around here, just wanting to do harm with their evil ways.”
“Dinner’s ready,” Patsy called.
The six o’clock Southern Pacific railyard whistle blew a long, discordant note, then went quiet.
He turned around and was startled to find Patsy smiling at him from the doorway. She was holding a baking dish full of fresh cornbread. His father-in-law was standing behind her, looking over his daughter’s shoulder at the doctor.
“C’mon, sport. Quit feeling sorry for yourself, and let’s go eat,” Daf bayed.
The doctor was hopelessly outnumbered by feelings too complicated to manage. There was only one road to take. No matter what he did, he had to keep his mouth shut, even if he suffocated in the waters of his own family.
twenty-five
twists of fog blew eastward on Twenty-fourth Street, across the Muni tracks on Church Street, drifting over the palm trees on Dolores Heights and dropping away from Noe Valley into the Mission’s lower depths. The fog sped through the Mission’s lanes and alleys, soaking vines, shrubs, sleeping dogs and homeless men in dew. Everyone was asleep in the Mission.
Only the abandoned building on Twenty-first Street was awake.
The moisture made its foundation ache. There wasn’t any rest when the damp sank into her. The beams in the attic swelled, sending shooting pains down the walls. Over the course of a century, every part of her structure had become crooked. The windows were slanted. The floors were out of joint; the roof sagged. In the attic, sleek brown rats were chewing the brittle plastic sheathing that covered the electrical wiring.
There was a policeman who was trying to get in her front door. He was different from the others who’d come through her windows under the cover of night. He was distinct from the sleeping couple that enjoyed making love near her opened windows. This man thought he had the right to enter her. He placed his weight on her steps as if he owned her. He probed her door, as though the prerogative of turning the brass knob was his, and no one else’s.
She knew he’d forcibly enter her if everything else failed. If she did not give him what he wanted, he would take it without asking. Her history was a chain of events wracked by violence. People had kicked holes in her walls. They’d broken her windows. They’d urinated on her floors whenever the mood had overtaken them. They’d carved obscene remarks into her: bitch, cunt, faggot.
The policeman would come back. He wanted to possess her, and he would not stop trying until he was successful. Did he want to harm her? Maybe he didn’t. But what did he want?
He wanted a home. She could feel the torture in the touch of his fingers. His ungainly body was begging for a place to hide, to nurse his wounds, to stop the suffering he’d received at the hands of other men. His desire to occupy her was the reason she’d been built, to give shelter, comfort and safety to anyone who could afford to live within her four walls.
His needs wouldn’t be that ordinary. The uncomplicated man had never been born. Men were always wanting something more than mere shelter. They wanted a house that was not only a home, but a place that called attention to itself. Men wanted a house they could be proud of. A home made a man feel like he was safe and alive.
Doreen woke up with her head on Bellamy’s hairy chest. The clock on the night table said it was six in the morning. Yesterday’s weather report had also said it was going to be the hottest day of the year. Bellamy mouthed a string of monosyllables into her hair. She nuzzled his neck, breath condensing on his skin. Most guys smelled offensive in the morning, but Bellamy’s odor was mild and sweet like a baby’s.
“Bells?”
“Hmph?”
She sent out a tentative hand to scout the region near the pudgy white roll of his stomach. Feeling brave, she reached between his legs and to her amusement, Doreen found Bellamy was stiff. Most men, if they were sound of mind, had erections in their sleep. That’s what Bellamy said.
At first, Doreen didn’t believe him. But in time, she discovered he was right. She’d only slept with three other guys in her life, and usually Bellamy was more knowledgeable than he looked. He could surprise you with his intelligence. She liked how he woke up wanting her without being conscious of anything else. His erections made Doreen feel like they belonged to her. She made him hard; nobody else did.
“Are you with me,” she asked him.
He didn’t hear her in his sleep. Bellamy was a dog. She saw how he ogled the other girls. All women made him drool. Somehow that didn’t bug her too much. You had to cut a man a lot of slack if you wanted his company.
Doreen cupped Bellamy’s balls and held them. She felt the blood pulsing through the spongy tissue. One of the secrets of life was in there. Bellamy had said that, too.
She turned him over on his back and reached for the condoms on the table. Doreen pulled off her nightgown in one quick move and threw the garment over the side of the bed onto the floor. Bellamy opened an eye and rubbed the wiry stubble on his chin with the back of his hand. Doreen was crawling on top of his hips. She was doing this with great urgency. He suppressed a cough, rasping as
thmatically, “Oh, it’s you. I was wondering who that was.”
“Who else could it be, huh?”
“You never know,” he said.
Doreen tore open the packet with her teeth, daintily plucking the rubber from its wrapping. She reached under herself, and slipped the condom over Bellamy’s cock.
“Is that okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, fine.”
He didn’t mind. He wasn’t that sensitive. The cold rubber didn’t bother him. Then Doreen touched herself. It was a formality; she knew she was wet. But she liked to make sure because it was the last moment she had alone to herself before she became a part of him.
“Are you ready?” he chuckled.
“Here I am,” she said.
More than once Doreen had told Bellamy they fit inside each other like arithmetic. He belonged inside of her. It was an equation she’d always wanted. A man taking his time moving with her slow and fluid, that was rare. And a perfect fit? That’s what she prayed for in church.
She went up and down on Bellamy. She liked to experiment with speed. Sometimes, she went fast. Other times, she was languid. Bellamy lay still as a rabbit, content to let her take control. He was glad to let Doreen have her way with him. In Bellamy’s opinion, Doreen was a woman who deserved more than what she’d gotten out of life. This was the least he could do for her.
“Hey, I can’t keep it in,” he grunted in her ear.
In the space where timelessness was the only order of the moment, she came and then he came. Bellamy smiled when she came. He went blind when he came.
“Damn, that was good, my little pony,” he murmured.
Prying herself from Bellamy’s stem, Doreen’s legs were stiff, but she was pleased. Bellamy had some meat on his bones. He had a tendency to bang into her with his stomach. He bruised her when he did her like that.
“You make love to me like we were in a boxing ring,” she told him.
She’d climaxed again. It was the second time she’d done that with him. It was only the third time in her twenty-five years on earth.
“Let’s not get up yet,” she pleaded. “Let’s cuddle.”
Bellamy flopped over on his side and spooned Doreen from behind. He looked past her shoulders to the window. The sun was glinting with a special morning light, lush orange and apple gold. It was the best season in the city. The days were fragrant with offshore breezes; the nights had a saltwater flavor.
“Bellamy? Do you think we’ll ever live together?”
Her question took his breath away.
“What? Are you nuts? You know who I am, don’t you?”
He tried not to show his fear, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about it. Commitment was Bellamy’s biggest problem. He wasn’t irresponsible. He took care of business. But he didn’t want to get married or have children. He was a guy who whored around and didn’t have a steady relationship. He didn’t even mind being homeless when the weather was warm. But something was turning around inside his head because of Doreen. She was getting too close, too quick. She was overwhelming his defensive perimeter. She was calling for a scenario that made Bellamy wonder if he was capable of coming up with the goods.
“I know exactly who you are, you big lug. That’s why I’m asking you.”
“It just makes me nervous,” he said.
He could see it now. Her, him and the kids, all crammed into a single occupancy hotel room in the Tenderloin. He’d have to patrol the hallway in the place just so they could go to the bathroom without getting mugged. He’d been peeved enough to tell Coddy about it the other day.
“So, when are you getting hitched?” Coddy replied.
If his partner saw what was coming down the road before he could, then Bellamy knew his days as a bachelor were numbered. It was strange to think about having a wife. Most people in San Francisco weren’t married. The city was an urban singles ghetto. Middle-class professionals, and isolated as hell. They filled the bars in the Mission where everybody sat around clean and sober or nursing one stupid beer for the whole evening.
“Look, Doreen, I like the concept of, uh, living together. It’s the practice that makes me nauseous.”
“I’m not trying to talk you into anything you don’t want to do, Bells. I was just asking the question, that’s all. To sound you out.”
“I’ve never lived with a woman before,” he said.
Most of the cops Bellamy knew who were working in the Mission were unmarried. Coddy was an exception. The man had been exempted from that status, only to suffer greater indignities than Bellamy could imagine. Coddy’s marriage seemed to be one of those traumas. Not that Bellamy had anything against Alice.
So many cops didn’t belong anywhere. They were outsiders, janitors sweeping up blood and guts from the sidewalk. They could handle living in the street. Bellamy was one of that special elite. He was tough. But Doreen was talking about putting down roots with him. He wouldn’t be able to live in the squad car anymore. When he first saw Doreen working in that bar, he thought he could play her. He should have known better.
Now he was in her bed. She was waiting for him to answer her. The silence wasn’t going to keep forever. He had to say something or she’d get mad. How could they afford to live together? He didn’t make enough money to rent an apartment, and she wasn’t the type to go live in a Tenderloin hotel room, not with the kids. He didn’t have anything to give her. On a lark, he said, “I think we could pull it off. I’m not saying when, but I think it’s a possibility.”
“You mean it?” she whispered.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to be sincere, you know? But whatever I am, I’m not a liar.”
I must be drunk, he thought. The words had flown out of his mouth like they’d been waiting to be said. His hands were ice blocks resting against Doreen’s legs. He’d opened his mouth; now he had a future. Doreen climbed over him and smiled down at his troubled face. She kissed him on the nose.
“Bells, I want us to get a bigger place when we move in together.”
“Yeah, right.”
“No, I mean it,” Doreen said.
The humor in her eyes died away in one quick flutter. The party’s over, Bellamy grieved.
“The kids need rooms of their own. They’ve never had that before. It’s unhealthy for them to be cooped up on top of each other without any privacy. And listen, I want a place where we can spread out. I’ve got all of these things I’ve been keeping in boxes for years because I’ve never had anywhere to put them. It would be great to unpack the stuff. There’s some things you’d really like. I’ve got some curtains and dishes that my grandmother gave me.”
Bellamy watched the clock on the night table count off the seconds. Time was running out. He had to shave, dress, and then drive the squad car over to the station to meet Coddy. His partner was taking the express bus in from Novato. Bellamy didn’t want to be late. Doreen would have to get the kids together, then send them off to Saint Anne’s. Later, she’d make her way to the bar where he first met her. The image of Doreen serving drinks to the citizens was the clearest impression Bellamy had of her.
“I want the kids to have a lot of space where they can play and rough house without having to watch out about breaking anything. I want a place that’s big. Can we do that?”
“I’d like a big pad,” Bellamy admitted.
Doreen was a short woman with black hair in a miniskirt with a set and determined mouth. Some day, she’d have to get a better job. Some day, Bellamy promised himself. Some day when they got the extra room, they’d unpack a lot of stuff. They’d see how it looked when they spread it around.
twenty-six
there wasn’t anything to do at the station, no pertinent tasks to attend to. Lethargy was hanging from my neck and shoulders in big, sleepy coils, attended by the gargantuan pizza I’d gobbled down an hour earlier. In front of the station vendors were displaying their wares, cluttering the sidewalk with paperback books, copper wire, bathroom fixtures, eight-track tapes,
and piles of children’s socks. Across the street, commuters were dancing like cockroaches, getting ready for a Muni bus to stop at the corner. A kid rode by on his bicycle in danger of getting hit by a truck. I saw his tousled hair, his legs pedaling furiously against the traffic. Behind him, the truck was coming up. Bent over the handlebars he saw nothing, not the peril breathing down his neck, nor anything else.
Outside in the parking lot, Bellamy and the rookies were setting fire to a mound of confiscated material. Three bales of clothing and several cartons of private files, all belonging to citizens who didn’t know how to wrangle their way through the court system to reclaim their personal property. The smoke from the flames roiled a luxurious greasiness into the virgin blue sky, matching my mood down to the last detail.
I closed my eyes for a second, trying to forget what I was seeing. The kid on the bicycle, and the smoke that was the recess of anything a man created or did. All accomplishments large and small turned into cinders at a particular temperature. I tried to imagine what it would feel like to be a millionaire. Failing that, I pried my face from the window pane and strolled aimlessly down the spic and span corridor toward the locker room.
If there wasn’t anything else to do, I could always wait for Bellamy to get his work done by field stripping my own revolver. Give it a rub down with some solvent, then pamper it with a dab of lightweight oil. It seemed like a sound idea. In the time it took me to clean the gun, Bellamy could finish burning the property and get ready to go on patrol. The day would finally get off the ground.
twenty-seven
the man dashed out of the liquor store without looking back. He sprinted up Mission and headed toward Eighteenth Street. He shouted at the evangelicos hawking their magazines, the winos propped up against the parking meters and the young mothers pushing their baby strollers, to stay out of his way or he’d shoot them. He was brandishing a chrome-plated pistol. A bulging paper bag was tucked into his belt. He was running down the street waving the gun over his head.