South of Bixby Bridge Read online

  The Yerba Buena Tunnel that splits the bridge saves me from a bad decision and as I speed beneath the orange lights on the ceiling 50 feet above, I feel fine—I feel clean—I feel alive. I’m being pulled along without consent, pushed by a thousand choices already made, and as the roof rips off the tunnel, I surrender to the night sky above.

  And there she is, San Francisco!

  A magic island coast. A tall chorus of black skyscrapers cuts a jagged edge against the burning sky—sirens caroling me to wreck myself against their wild concrete shores. The winking windows of a thousand janitors cleaning a million offices, the green glow of blurry harbor lights bleeding into the bay, the bright-white light atop the sparkling Transamerica Pyramid shining into the night like the star on a feral God’s thousand-foot foldout Christmas tree.

  Everything looks better from far away—earth from the moon, people from a postcard, San Francisco from the Bay Bridge.

  There isn’t one door in San Francisco that will open for me tonight and the addicts and thugs are already creeping from their holes to feed on the city like vampires, but I don’t care—I know my way around.

  ON THE DARK EDGE OF TOWN, in the shadow of the bridge, I park across from the La Hacienda Motel. Its blood-red VACANCY sign flickers against the black sky. A letter board reads ROOMS $49—WEEKLY RATE AVAILABLE.

  I turn my pockets out and count my money—$37.

  Reclining my seat, I settle in for the night. Beneath the stars, beneath the bridge, I huddle beneath my jacket. It’s strange how just a thin piece of fabric can make a person feel safe—a tent on a cold mountain, a blanket in a dark room, a jacket in a beat-down Porsche.

  The blood-red sign flicks across the convertible canvas top shadowing the strips of duct tape that patch the tear, the tear that’s been there for 20 years.

  ~~~

  I remember the morning after Dad hit me—Mom leaned over my bed and brushed the hair away from my swollen eye. I could always tell my mom loved me because she smiled when she looked at me. Not like other people. Other people smile and look at me but I know it’s fake because sometimes I catch them right when they look away and the smile is gone before their heads turn. That morning, Mom smiled down at me from the edge of my bed. She said,

  How do you feel about going away with me, Trevor? Away to San Diego? Fly south like those robins we love? I visited there once. When I was your age. I think about it all the time.

  We had to lower the convertible top to fit our big green suitcase in the backseat. We were rushing—neither of us thought about how we would raise it again.

  Mom looked pretty that day driving the Porsche—her hair in a scarf, her sunglasses on. She was smiling. I remember feeling the wind in my hair. I remember yelling over the wind to ask her jokingly if the sign that said PCH meant Harold and the Purple Crayon. She laughed and said the sign was for Pacific Coast Highway but to me, it still felt like a peaceful purple day that we were drawing with our own magic crayon.

  I knew something was wrong even before I looked. When I did look, I knew whatever was wrong was bigger than the storm clouds gathering offshore. The smile drained off her face. Not quick, like those fake smiles leave people, but slow.

  She pulled off the highway and stopped in front of a bridge. The sign read BIXBY BRIDGE 1932.

  The black, yawning mouth of Bixby Canyon opens the high cliffs and from its throat, a creek trickles into the blue immensity of the Pacific. Bixby Bridge is narrow and tall and it stretches over the deep canyon, a concrete tightrope that even the nimblest of cars crawl across.

  The gathering storm clouds reflecting the afternoon light painted a paradise on the south side of the bridge—red-clay cliffs hugging the rocky shoreline, distant hills of towering redwoods, and a gentle golden highway rolling away south toward San Diego.

  Then the dark clouds swept in and hid the bridge, hid the canyon in a deep and sudden quiet that I dared not disturb with even a breath. Mom looked at me and she was crying, an apology in her eyes, and she reached out and touched the bruise on my cheek and a raindrop hit her hand and another drop hit the windshield and then a great rush of rain fell, pelting the pavement, pooling into rivers, running off the gutters of the bridge, and disappearing into the black.

  Back at home, Mom covered the Porsche with a tarp and locked it away in the garage behind our house. She never drove it again.

  RAIN STREAMS DOWN the windshield, beats on the canvas roof, and leaks from the tear in the convertible top waking me. I don’t remember dozing off and it must be late because the flickering motel sign is dead.

  I start the Porsche, drive around the block, and pull beneath a covered parking garage. Settling back in, I look up at the tear in the convertible roof, the tear where our green suitcase cut the canvas when we forced the top closed, the tear marking the day Mom tore the illusion of safety from me.

  The monument sign in front of the building across the street reads—SAN FRANCISCO HEALTH & RACQUET CLUB. I wonder if a shower and a shave will make me feel like a man again.

  5 The Fat Man

  The dirt of the valley washes off me and swirls down the shower drain. The racquet club is high-class—soft towels, hot shaving-cream dispensers, glass jars of disposable razors. I used to belong to a club like this in Folsom. Every day after work I swam laps and sat in the sauna before heading home to open a bottle of wine—sometimes two bottles—but as long as I swam my 50 laps I told myself I was fine.

  As I finish shaving, another shower turns off. The Fat Man, buck naked except for a gold wedding band and pink flip-flops, bellies up to the next sink. His gorged gut rests on the counter and his floppy bologna tits hang against his arms.

  He smiles at me in the mirror. Morning, he says. You getting away from a house full of family too? I hate Thanksgiving except for the leftovers. You know you really should wear flip-flops in here. Never can tell the kinda shit people step in. I picked up a plantar wart that took three weeks and four bottles of Dr. Scholl’s to kill.

  Ignoring him, I wash my face in the sink. He says,

  My company imports a line of these Hawaiian sandals I got on here. I’d be happy to get you a pair gratis if you tell me your size.

  I dry my face and when I pull the towel away, the Fat Man is facing me, his uncircumcised erection poking out from his tangled mass of black pubic hair like a little sausage wearing a roll-neck sweater. He winks at me and says,

  You wanna take a steam?

  I throw my face towel on the counter and walk away to dress. I wonder if the Fat Man has kids at home to go along with his wife. His beady eyes in their puffy sockets remind me of a sleep doctor my mom brought me to when I was 10. She brought me to the sleep doctor because I couldn’t stay awake in school and I couldn’t stay awake in school because I was up reading by flashlight and I was up reading by flashlight because I was terrified waiting for Dad.

  ~~~

  We never made it to San Diego—I discovered Tolkien and Lewis and then I escaped into books. Dad never mentioned selling the Porsche again, but he fished Mom’s wedding ring out from beneath the refrigerator and sold it.

  I remember the winter was cold that year and Mom took a graveyard shift at the cannery to keep the heat on. Every night that she worked, I read in bed with my flashlight listening for Dad to come home from the bar. When I heard his emergency brake ratchet up in the drive, I killed the flashlight, stuffed it under the covers and pretended to sleep.

  If Dad came home too early, he wasn’t drunk enough and he kicked around the house yelling so loud the neighbor’s dog took to barking. If he came home right when the bar closed, he crept into my room and kissed me goodnight with alcohol-soaked breath. If he came home too late, he was drenched with booze and sloppy sad and he dragged me into his bed and made me tickle his arm.

  He made me play farmer. Made me rake my fingers down his thick forearm plowing the field. Made me tickle my way up to his shoulder watering the crop. If I stopped tickling before he fell asleep, he stirred awake and ma
de me start over again. I remember lying in the dark, listening to him snore, smelling his foul breath, watching the shadow of his rising chest against the blue dawn slipping beneath the blinds, tickling his arm up and down, again and again, not daring to stop until I heard Mom come home.

  I don’t know why, but I always raced down the hall and dove back into my own bed before Mom even turned her key in the door.

  Twice Mom took me to see the sleep doctor that winter. She stopped bringing me when Dad found his power-tool batteries dead in the garage freezer where I’d been stashing them. Dad blew his top. Mom told him he had put the batteries in the freezer himself and because he was drunk all the time, he believed her. Then Mom bought me my own batteries, gave them to me with a wink—but she never even asked me why I was reading with a flashlight.

  By the time I hit 11, I threw away those books because I learned the truth—wizards and talking lions are just the fantasies of a little boy because the real world is full of rat snakes and fat men.

  ~~~

  I grab my duffel and head for the locker room door. Stopping at the coat rack, I pat the pockets of the only coat hanging there. I pull out a wallet, open it, and take the cash. I look at the driver’s license picture of the Fat Man, flip to a picture of his family—a wife and two boys. You cruise you lose, dude. I throw his wallet in the trash.

  In the lobby, I snatch a newspaper from the counter and slip past the young receptionist with a thankful wink. I’ve learned you can hustle your way into almost anywhere with a smile.

  As I walk to my car, I count the cash—215 bucks.

  I throw my duffel in the Porsche boot. Then I pull out the roll of gray duct tape I keep in the corner and peeling the old, worn tape off the tear in the leaky canvas top, I patch a square of fresh strips.

  6 Never Been Better

  The hostess at Denny’s looks like she’s been there longer than the building has and she doesn’t look happy to be working on Thanksgiving. She tells me to sit wherever I want and then she just stands there at the door like a coat check where you leave your hope.

  Slipping into a window booth, I spread out the job section of the newspaper and pore over the short list of available broker jobs. Words jump off the blurry page and stick in my mind like newsprint on Silly Putty—experience needed, references required, performance history mandatory.

  How do I explain being fired? How will I rationalize six months of unemployment? What do I say about rehab?

  An offbeat waitress bounces by chewing gum and holding a coffeepot. I turn my cup upright. She fills it with burnt smelling diner sludge. Smiling down at me, she says,

  I’m Summer.

  Hi, I’m Trevor. It’s nice to have a little summer drop in on such a gloomy day.

  Gee, thanks, she says. Today’s special is a turkey and roast beef Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.

  Is it lean roast beef?

  She blows a pink bubble the size of her face. When it pops, she says, Lean roast beef? Are you fucking kidding me? It’s Thanksgiving and you’re at Denny’s.

  Yeah, well so are you.

  Hey, I’m getting double time and my family’s 3,000 miles away.

  My family’s farther away than yours is, I say.

  Summer nods toward my newspaper and says,

  We’re hiring in the kitchen if you’re looking for work.

  Thanks. But I’m a money manager.

  Oh! I could really use your help.

  Well I happen to be free tonight.

  She considers the offer, blows another bubble. She says,

  I get off at seven if you wanna pick me up.

  I’M HAVING SECOND THOUGHTS as I wait in my car across the street. Summer is cute, but I never would have dated her before and even though I need a place to crash tonight, I don’t want to be just another Fat Man.

  In treatment, Mr. Shaw told us about holiday sobriety meetings that just keep going 24 hours around the clock for people who are struggling. He said meetings are a good place to get connected and I thought about finding one, but drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups and listening to people bitch about their families isn’t my idea of success. Besides, my problem is I need a job.

  Summer steps from the diner door and looks around. She let her dark hair down and it scoops from her neck up to her cheeks. A black coat with a fake fur collar drapes around her shoulders and she traded her work slacks for blue jeans but she’s still wearing her black heel-less clogs. She could be Stephanie’s less-attractive younger sister.

  She looks my way. I flash my headlights. She dodges across the street, climbs in and shuts the door. She says,

  Nice Car. You’d think people’d tip better on holidays—cheap bastards. You’re cute, you know.

  Summer pulls down her seatbelt and I latch it for her. You sure your friends won’t mind me joining you? I say. Because I’m happy to just drop you off.

  No. You’re totally coming. My friends’ll love you.

  THE NOC-NOC BAR, a trendy neighborhood joint, is dark inside with graffiti-covered walls and zebra-striped columns framing private nooks that fill with an eclectic city crowd.

  Summer pulls me to a table and introduces me to her three friends, all in their 20s. Tiffany, a blonde with a red braid hanging in her face, is clinging to Brad, a skinny rocker type wearing too tight jeans. Tony is taller than Brad is, but just as thin and the sour look on his face and his hard handshake tell me he was planning to couple with Summer.

  After the introductions, Brad stands. He says,

  I’ll go get us some more drinks.

  I’ll have another fuzzy navel, Tiffany says.

  Guinness for me, Tony says.

  Summer smiles at me. Ooh, let’s see now, she says, I think I’d like a screaming orgasm tonight.

  How about you, Trevor?

  Ah, just a Coke please.

  Rum or whiskey?

  No, just plain Coke.

  Summer kisses my cheek. Oh, you’re so darn cute, she says. Don’t worry about driving, Trevor—I just live three blocks from here and we’ll move the party over there later.

  Yeah. I’m fine. Just a Coke.

  Tony laughs. You a Mormon or something?

  Why would I be Mormon?

  Because you don’t drink, dude.

  You ordered Guinness, are you Irish?

  Tiffany rolls her eyes at Summer. She says,

  He at least smokes out right?

  Summer looks at me. No, I say, I don’t smoke out.

  She steps away from me and folds her arms. She says,

  If you wanna hang with us tonight, Trevor, you’re gonna at least drink some shots!

  They all turn on me so fast I can’t think of anything to say. I back away from the table and then turn for the door. I didn’t really want to spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of kids anyway.

  As I exit the bar, I notice a sloppy drunk leaning against the brick wall bogarting a cigarette in his pale lips. The blue light from the NOC-NOC BAR sign floods down over him as he rocks back and forth like a corpse in the waves. I ask him for a smoke. He fishes in his pocket. They’re American Spirit, he slurs.

  I pluck a cigarette from the crumpled pack and light it with the trembling tip of his. Inhaling a long drag of calming smoke, I breathe a white cloud into the blue night air. I think maybe Summer will follow me out and apologize. She doesn’t.

  The drunk’s eyes droop. He falls over to the side. I grab his arm and straighten him back up, lean him against the wall again.

  You all right? I say.

  He smiles. His cigarette drops from his mouth. He says,

  Never been better.

  MY TIRED FEET FALL, striking echoes in the quiet night, on wet cobblestones glistening in the amber glow of iron streetlamps, as I trudge the steep and narrow hillside streets of lofty painted ladies—Victorian row houses snuggled together against the cold.

  I look in the windows—

  Young couples lounge beside fires sipping wine.

  Smili
ng families sit at long tables for Thanksgiving dinner.

  Mothers lift steaming lids from casserole dishes.

  Fathers clink spoons against glasses calling for toasts.

  A boy plays with his puppy.

  His sister watches cartoons.

  Row after row of interconnected townhouses with warmth burning inside the windows and I wouldn’t be surprised to see people stand and walk into their neighbors’ homes to share the good cheer, passing in front of one another’s windows—no walls on the inside, no partitions between the people.

  A gust of wind lifts my shirt and blows through my aching guts. I pull my jacket tight and walk down the hill toward my car.

  7 My Best Plan

  A police officer rapping his flashlight against my window wakes me. He points his flashlight at the sign in front of my car—GOLDEN GATE PARK, NO OVERNIGHT PARKING. The officer crosses his arms. I turn the key in the ignition—it turns over twice and gives out. The officer pulls out a ticket pad. I turn the key again—it hesitates then starts. As the officer walks back to his cruiser, I drive off.

  I follow the coast to the San Francisco Zoo. It costs 15 bucks to get in unless you hop the fence and you can spend an entire day there and nobody looks at you strange. I hang out at the gorilla enclosure for hours. Silverbacks get a bad rap—they’re good dads.

  I spend Friday night parked down the street from the zoo. It’s nice to hear the waves from the Pacific but it’s too cold.

  SATURDAY, I drive to Daly City and buy a dress shirt from Value Village. In the parking lot, I peel off the two pair of slacks that I put on under my jeans in the fitting room and then I pull the three ties from my crotch. I always get an anxious ache in my gut when I steal. My mom always said that ache is God talking to me. But I don’t feel bad stealing from Value Village because they’re a big for-profit business but don’t pay anything for their donated merchandise. One of the brokers at Edward & Bliss told me all about it. He knew a guy who was rich off it.