by Jim Nisbet
By the time he arrived at The Hawse Hole, Klinger was ready for a drink, he was ready to forget the last few days, he was ready for a change of clothing—Klinger was ready for anything but the future. Or the past. Or, as it turned out, the present.
By now it was six forty-five in the evening and, the sky being entirely packed with rain-bearing clouds, darkness was closing in. The blue neon chain that lowered itself, link by link, from the blue neon hawse hole high above the front door of the bar made a little splash of blue neon ploods, as it hit and lit the red neon anchor, just above the sidewalk, when all went blank until the chain lowered itself, link by link, again. As neon signs go, it was sufficiently boring to entice and encourage patrons to enter the bar simply to get away from it. Yes, though encased entirely in lexan long since, that the sign had outlasted the various milieus of the neighborhood, including its seafaring one, its lingering reputation as a good place to get shanghaied was something of a marvel. For that matter, the place was full of people who’d like nothing better than to get shanghaied. They’d perhaps come from all over the world hoping for the experience, only to find that the only ships docking in San Francisco these days needed skilled crew, crew who could teach scuba diving, for example, by day, while essaying bodacious karaoke by night, or lecture convincingly on currency markets as investment opportunities …
But still, as goes the no-frills deus ex machina romantic experience, the shanghai is hard to top.
Bruce was behind the plank, wearing denim instead of chaps, so perhaps St. Patrick’s Day was over. Or, as Klinger shuddered to speculate, perhaps Bruce was sufficiently embarrassed at the damage done to cover it up.
The old man was there, too, and he was editorializing without an audience.
“The thing about life is this,” he was saying, with barely a nod to Klinger, who, after dropping his nearly dissolved shopping bag under the bar sat four stools away from him. The old man held his hands aloft, palms some eighteen inches apart and cupped, each toward the other. “Life is a tunnel, see.” He vibrated the two hands.
Klinger, staring at the empty bar top in front of him while marveling at how much water was dripping off him onto the floor, waited.
“You might have something there,” Bruce said to a sheaf of twenties. But his tone was asking the old man whether he was done yet.
“Almost,” the old man tossed off in Bruce’s direction, as if telepathic. He continued to hold his hands in front of his face, some eighteen inches apart, with their palms cupped toward one another. “A continuum, like a tunnel,” he repeated. “As a man moves through this tunnel of life, like it or not, he gives off vibrations.” He wiggled his fingers. “And the walls of the tunnel, which are composed of other people, absorb these vibrations.”
Now Bruce forgot about his sheaf of twenties, and the ledger into which he was tabulating them, and turned to look at the old man.
Fingers still waggling, the old man moved his hands back and forth in the air in front of him, as if pumping a bellows. “The people impinged by your vibrations are your friends, your neighbors, family, acquaintances and business associates, even the people next to you on the bus who notice that you haven’t bathed lately.”
Klinger, who couldn’t move on his stool without making squishing sounds, considered the irony of this.
“The sumtotal of the feedback from these entities constitutes the only reason to be reassured of your own existence. And, insofar as this continuum or tunnel that we call life may be sentient, it only stands to reason to think that it thinks that you exist, too.” The old man clapped his hands once. “Astrology in a nutshell.”
The street door opened. Two guys in flannel shirts entered, accompanied by the hiss of passing tires on the wet street. The door closed and the two new customers headed for the dogleg in the bar, six or eight stools into the gloom beyond the old man.
“When you die—,” the old man cast his fingertips away from his face, “—your vibrations cease. The walls of the tunnel, however,” he resumed wiggling his fingers, “continue as the media for your vibrations, which they propagate into the future despite your demise.”
The two guys down the bar signaled Bruce. Bruce nodded his head, lifted a finger, and indicated the old man, conveying that he’d be along when the old man had finished. The two men looked from Bruce to the old man as if puzzled.
“The walls of the tunnel, however, are organic. That is to say, they consist entirely of a kind of deliquescing coherence. People are the sole medium of their and your own existence. None else can know you, and you can know no other. The Bible says so. Okay, the Bible doesn’t say so. But, like you, people are organic and finite. People are born, they live, they die. Other shit happens to them. New experiences crowd out the old. Specifically, their memory of you fades. Some of them die off and, with them, their memories of everything, yourself included. It’s bad enough that, with the expiration of one or another of them, that clean execution of that lugubrious Chopin Prelude winks out. But, never fear, another pianist will come along. You, on the other hand, are another matter. Only you can perform you. In other words, your vibrations are damped.” The old man lowered his hands. “And so, it’s precisely by means of the people you affected while you were alive that your memory lives on. So long as one of them lives, so you, too, will live. But after they’ve all died, after every single person that actually knew you is history, why, so then you too will have become history. And even if you are part of what the future calls history, your story will change. Alive people will remember an alive you. Once all of those who knew you are gone—in other words, once all the vibrations have been completely damped by their passage through the medium that is the walls of the tunnel of life—you will have truly ceased to exist. Which is why I predict that, even if the city fathers do cause Third Street to be renamed Willie E. Brown, Jr. Boulevard, it won’t be too damn long before it’s just another name for another street, and every bit as innocuous as the number three used to be. No more and no less. A street people will refer to by name, with no personality associated with it whatsoever. A dead end. Do you remember somebody called Polk? Or Fillmore? Or Hayes? Who the hell was Brannan? Or Bryant? A noumenon—an object perceived by the communal intellect, and not by the senses. In other words, for all the good it will do—.” The old man clapped his hands once. “You might as well give a name to the wet spot in the middle of the bed.”
“But … But,” objected one of the flannelled men at the end of the bar, “why do anything, then? You make it sound so … so hopeless.”
The old man did not turn to look at this interlocutor. He ducked his head, rather, and lifted a single hand, while the other fell to his glass. “I didn’t say anything about hopeless,” he reminded everybody. “I just pointed out the obvious. There’s no moral imperative, there’s no blame, there’s no …”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Everybody waited.
No more information seemed to be forthcoming.
The second man in a flannel shirt held two fingers aloft. “There’s no tequila?”
“There is tequila,” Bruce assured him.
“Top shelf,” the man said.
Bruce went about his business.
A phone rang.
Yesterday, Klinger wouldn’t have recognized it as the ring of a phone, let alone that the ringtone was “Creation of Tron,” by Wendy Carlos.
Today? Different.
The ringtone sounded again, louder than the first time.
Lifting his drink to lips parched by loquacity, the old man paused.
Klinger looked around. The ringtone sounded a third time. He looked down. It was coming from his bag of clothing. The ringtone sounded a forth time. He bethought himself of the street door, not fifteen feet behind him. All he had to do was get up, leave the bag where it was, walk through the street door, and disappear into the heedless continuum.
“Answer that piece of shit for god’s sakes,” Bruce said, as he passed by on the other s
ide of the bar bearing a tray with four brimming shot glasses, an ashtray full of lime wedges, and a salt shaker.
But it was raining. But he needed a drink. But, in the hotel just upstairs, not far away at all, barely far away enough to get any wetter than he already was, he was paid up for another week. But he needed to shut up this phone. He asked Bruce to bring him a Jameson, rocks, thinking to hell with appearances, it’s not good to switch brands midstream, and he leaned to rummage in the bag. “Make it a double,” he added, as his hand found the device. “Hello.”
“Hi,” she said.
“What is this phone doing in this bar?” he said.
“I … thought you could use a phone,” she said. “Everybody needs a phone.”
“I’m not everybody,” Klinger told the phone, “and I don’t need a phone.”
Bruce came back, placed a coaster on the bar, set a glass half full of ice on the coaster, and dispensed a generous pour. Klinger stood on the lower rung of his stool and dug a twenty out of his damp britches. Bruce traded it for two of the dollar bills resulting from the transaction down the bar and turned to his register. Klinger pushed the two singles into the gutter on the opposite side of the bar and sat down again. Bruce dropped a ten next to Klinger’s drink.
He didn’t say another word. He sipped the drink. It was good. Not cold yet. Good. A shiver passed through him. He’d intended to disappear into another part of the city, with his bag of laundry and his thousand dollars, but habit, rain, and, he was starting to realize, two days without sleep had brought him to here, to this place, to this moment.
He looked at the drink. He should have ordered a grog. Something hot. Something healthful. Something nurturing. A grog and some vitamin C, maybe.
He drained half the remaining drink and set it down.
“Doesn’t your friend want his phone back?”
“He doesn’t need it anymore,” the voice said.
Klinger frowned.
“It’s your phone, now.” She hung up.
“Hello … ?” Klinger looked at the screen. Amid the myriad choices, selections and icons, a message informed him that the previous call had lasted one minute and thirty-two seconds.
Klinger put the phone on the bar and contemplated his drink.
Without warning the pain in his gut asserted itself. Just a twinge, really. A reminder.
Straight behind him the street door opened, admitted the hiss of passing tires on a wet street, and closed again.
The bar got quiet. The old man clasped two hands around his drink on the bar and stared at it. Bruce rang up his second sale and glanced over his shoulder. Both the two guys in flannel shirts, at the far end of the bar, glanced toward the front door, then conspicuously returned their attention to their tequilas.
Bruce, standing directly in front of Klinger, between him and the mirror behind the bottles behind the bar, occluded Klinger’s view of the reflection of the street door.
No matter. The hand on Klinger’s shoulder told him all he needed to know.
“Nice phone,” said a voice. “High-end model.”
Klinger didn’t answer this.
“Yours?”
Klinger said nothing.
The fingers of the hand dug into the tender tissue, exacerbated by tension and exhaustion, between Klinger’s clavicle and his neck.
“No,” Klinger evinced. “I found it. Out front. On the sidewalk.”
A hand laid a second phone on the bar next to Phillip’s phone. “See that app?” said a second voice.
“The fuck’s a app?” Klinger heard himself saying.
“Going from the general to the particular,” the second voice said, “it’s a gizmo on that phone, there.” A hand pointed to the second phone. “It tells ya where that phone, there,” the hand pointed a finger at Phillip’s phone, “is at.”
“Oh,” said Klinger sullenly. “Like WhereIz?”
“Hey,” said the second voice. The back of a hand lightly flicked his shoulder. “That’s the exact one.”
That bitch, Klinger said to himself. That fucking bitch.
“A quick study,” said the voice appurtenant to the hand on Klinger’s shoulder.
“Turn around,” said the second voice.
The hand on his shoulder helped him turn around. Klinger’s wet ass squeaked on the barstool upholstery.
As cops go they read young. Both wore black baseball caps and vinyl anoraks, the one olive drab, the other blue. Unlike his partner, the younger of the two, the one with his hand on Klinger’s shoulder affected no moustache. The trend must have faded, Klinger reflected. But these weren’t your normal rode-hard, put-away-wet, worn-out and overworked bunko guys, either. Detectives, maybe. A cut above.
Down the bar, the two guys in flannel shirts finished their tequilas, set the empties on the plank, and made as if to leave.
Klinger squared off with the older cop. “Well?”
“It’s about the phone,” the guy said simply.
Klinger shook his head. “No, it’s not about the phone.”
The man shrugged. “Know a guy name of Phillip? Phillip Wong?”
Klinger shook his head.
“This used to be his phone.”
“I found it.” Klinger pointed. “On the sidewalk out front, about seven-thirty this morning.” He almost added, And I told his girlfriend all about it. But he didn’t add anything.
“This guy Wong?” the older cop said. “He got himself mugged.”
“Sorry to hear about it.”
“Just last night.”
“Okay,” Klinger said.
“In North Beach,” the cop said.
Bruce moved down the bar, ostensibly to retrieve the four empty shot glasses.
“Been to North Beach lately?” the younger cop asked.
“People get mugged all the time.” Klinger shrugged off the hand. “Especially in North Beach.”
“That’s true,” the older cop conceded. “But usually, they don’t get left for dead.”
Klinger looked from the older cop to the other, then back. “Are you telling me I killed a guy for a cellphone?”
The cop touched both hands to his breast. “Did I say you killed him?”
“For what?” Klinger laughed without mirth. “For I should call my mother?”
“For you should call your bookie,” the younger cop said. “Or maybe your lawyer.”
“Hey,” Klinger sneered, “it’s not like it’s a pair of sneakers.”
Insofar as the younger cop failed to see the humor, he balled his fist and dropped his shoulder. Klinger took him seriously enough to wince, and then it was the younger cop’s turn to sneer.
The older cop let the two face it off for a minute before he touched Klinger on the arm. “Take a look at this.”
Klinger, who had allowed himself to glare at the younger cop, now glared at his partner. “At what?”
The older cop took up the second phone, swiped at its screen, then turned it so Klinger could see it.
Klinger glanced at it, looked at the younger cop, then at the older one.
“We can blow this up till it fits on the wall, if that’s what you want,” the older cop told him.
Klinger took a closer look. After a while he said, “Am I supposed to know what I’m looking at?”
The older cop said, “Let me zoom in a bit.” He swiped at the screen. “How’s that?”
Klinger saw a clipboard.
“It’s a clipboard.”
“Now we’re talking,” the cop said. He touched the screen. “And now?”
Klinger frowned. “It’s the metal clip on a clipboard.”
“Very good,” the cop said. He turned the screen so that it faced him and touched it. “It’s a spring clip. Made to grip stuff.” He turned the screen around. “Can you see what’s caught in it?”
As the screen turned, the image turned with it.
“It looks like a piece of tubing.”
“Very good. And what about that piece of t
ubing?”
Klinger shook his head.
“It’s bent double and crimped under the edge of the clipboard clip,” the cop said.
Klinger stared.
“Very attentive,” said the cop. “Now watch carefully.” Holding the cellphone so that everybody could see it, the cop drew his finger across the screen and, as he did so, the image tracked along the length of tubing, down to the lower edge of the bed, then up, foot by foot, over the satin trim at the edge of a blanket, until it terminated at the base of a ventilator mask. The fingers swiped and the image zoomed out until it was clear that ventilator was strapped to a man’s face. The man’s eyes were wide open, and they were sightless.
“Looks surprised, doesn’t he,” said the cop.
Klinger said nothing.
“The surprise that passeth all understanding,” said the cop. He caused the image to zoom in, then zoom out. He held the phone too close to Klinger’s face. “What do you think?”
“What do I think?” Klinger said, appalled. “I think the guy’s dead.”
“Brighter and brighter,” said the younger cop.
“Know him?” asked the older cop. “The dead guy?”
No reaction was going to contravene what was coming, but Klinger shook his head anyway.
“He was the sole surviving witness to his own mugging,” the older cop said. “Ring a bell?”
So that’s why she was late.
“There was two muggers,” the younger cop said. “One was a junkie pickpocket they called Frankie Geeze, on the street. Every hear of him?” He cast his eyes around the bar. “Anybody?”
No response. The two guys at the end of the bar said nothing. The old man tilted his glass on its coaster and said nothing. Bruce, who was polishing a glass, shrugged.
I’ve been had, Klinger blinked. Big time.
“Let me help.” The cop with the telephone touched its screen a couple of times and presented the resulting jpeg to Klinger’s inspection.
It was a very recent picture, but Klinger barely recognized Frankie.
Looking over Klinger’s shoulder the younger cop stated the obvious. “Frankie don’t look too good.”