In the Shape of a Man

by Paul Clayton

  Allen felt like talking. He nodded at the ancient bartender. “Why in hell did they build this place here?”

  For a moment the old guy appeared as if he wasn’t going to respond. Then his bushy brows moved as he blinked. “When Colma was nothing but potato fields and pig farms, people used to stay here when they passed through on the old El Camino. It was what they used to call a road house.”

  Allen nodded. “When did they put in all the cemeteries?”

  The old guy frowned. “Oh, maybe a couple or so years after the big quake. They said it was for health reasons.”

  Allen looked at him quizzically.

  “Up in Frisco, some of the bodies got thrown up from the earth during the quake, some really ripe ones.”

  Allen frowned with concern. “It must’ve freaked a lot of people out.”

  “No,” said the old man, “not really. Anyway, it was really greed.”

  “What do you mean?” said Allen.

  The old man glanced up at the college basketball game on the TV and then back at Allen. “Real estate rates were rising in San Francisco then, just like they are now. So they moved all the dead out of there, down to here.”

  “Really?” said Allen.

  The old man nodded and went on. “Yeah, it was a good thing for South City, because most of the potato and pig farms had already gone south and we needed a new cash crop.”

  Allen laughed. The old man gave him a curious look, then went back to watching the game on the TV.

  Allen sipped his beer slowly and wondered why he always seemed to be alone. He had no close friends anymore. Over the years, Tina had turned down so many invitations from couples he knew that they had stopped coming. Of the few friends he had brought home, she had always, inevitably, found some flaw or trait in them she didn’t like, and would not have them over again. And Allen had no family on the West Coast. His only brother lived in Maine.

  Allen couldn’t remember ever feeling so troubled and isolated. When his mom and dad had died, the loss had seemed natural, in the normal scheme of things. They had both been elderly when they passed. But now he was trying to deal with a different kind of loss—the potential loss of his young family and all the comfort and security it provided—because if they couldn’t work things out, divorce was the probable outcome. What the hell else could he do?

  Allen ordered another pint of beer from the goat-like bartender. After he had drank down half of it, the bartender looked over. Cheering erupted from the TV and the bartender said what sounded like, “That’s almost as good as doing something about it, isn’t it?”

  Allen frowned in puzzlement. “Huh?” he said. But the old goat didn’t say anything further and turned away.

  An hour later Allen drove back to the house. It was as quiet as a grave. He undressed in the dark and slipped into bed, falling asleep within minutes.

  Chapter 8

  1030 Skyview Drive. Rad would not be back for an hour and Tawny wanted to get caught up on her laundry. She decided to enter the garage through the back door. It was easier to spot Ketsel this way. She went out into the brightly-lit day and walked back along the side of the house. She put the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door. Daylight flooded the back end of the garage. She didn’t see Ketsel. She turned the light on and scanned the enclosure side of the garage, spotting him curled up in Rad’s stack of tires. He was a good distance from the washing machine and she relaxed a little. Leaving the door open, she walked briskly over to the washing machine. Glancing back at Ketsel, she knelt to scoop up some clothes. She looked closely at the bulge in the chicken wire. It looked like it bulged out more now, but it was impossible to tell for sure in the dim light. As she scooped up some of the whites and dumped them in the machine, she thought she could sense the snake’s awareness of her. She took another look. Even though it did not lift its head or move or make a sound, she knew it was contemplating her, and this unnerved her. It seemed to be bigger too. Rad said it was only ten or twelve feet. She thought it was a lot bigger than that.

  Tawny threw a measuring cup of Tide in the machine, dropped the lid with a clang, and spun the dial to HEAVY DUTY. She looked over at the snake—still no movement. She wondered what would happen if the thing died. It would probably be weeks before they knew. She pushed the washer button in and water ran into the machine.

  She retraced her footsteps to the back door, all the while keeping her eye on Ketsel. She knew all this caution was probably ridiculous, that it would not, could not, suddenly leap up and pour across the garage floor, burst through the chicken wire and wrap its coils around her before she got to the door. But the snake gave her the creeps now more than it ever did. She wondered if maybe the zoo would take it if Gabriel didn’t return for it. Maybe they could even get some money for it. She turned out the lights and pulled the door closed, locking it.

  Coming around to the front of the house, Tawny saw the Mexican woman and her two girls almost to the top of the hill. Even from the distance Tawny could see that the woman had gotten bigger. It would be no more than a month or so before she gave birth.

  Tawny sat on the steps and wondered what a baby she and Rad had would look like. She looked up at the sky. It would have eyes as blue as the sky and it would be chubby. She imagined it smiling. It would be beautiful; of that she was sure. The roar of the big SamTrans bus interrupted her reverie as it drove away. A moment later Rad walked slowly down the street without his formerly ever-present board tucked under his arm. She thought sadly how ‘not him’ this was. Ever since Pygmy’s had turned him down he’d been depressed.

  Rad smiled when he saw her. He pulled her close and deep kissed her, temporarily dissipating her wondering and worrying. They went into the house.

  All during their meal Rad seemed distracted and distant. Tawny had made one of his and her favorites, stuffed Cornish game hens, and Rad’s quiet pensiveness had distracted from her enjoyment of the meal. Afterwards he offered to do the dishes.

  “No, that’s okay,” she said. “Why don’t you get the clothes out of the washer and put them in the dryer. And look at the chicken wire fence at the bottom of the washing machine. It looks like it’s a little bulged out there.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  “I’ll get the dishes,” she said as he disappeared downstairs. She again thought about giving the snake to the zoo people, or maybe some kind of wild animal park. Surely they could get some money for it. She wanted to discuss it with Rad, but with him so depressed about Pygmy’s decision, maybe this wasn’t the right time.

  Tawny wiped the drain board and went out into the living room. She parted the curtains and looked out on the dying light of day. Mr. Peepers drove by in his van with his wife and two kids. The boy was dark and looked like a Filipino, probably adopted. His handsome brown face got her thinking again about the Mexican cleaning woman and her two beautiful kids, and the one that she would soon give birth to. Tawny imagined having the woman and her children visiting in the living room with her right now. She imagined playing on the rug with them—and her own child! That would be wonderful. But, she reminded herself, it was totally impractical. How could she contribute to the rent and stuff if she had kids to take care of too? It wasn’t do-able in today’s economy. She let the curtains close and sat down on the couch. Rad came up from the garage. He gave her a little friendly squeeze on the thigh as he sat down and picked up the TV remote.

  “Is that all I get?” Tawny said with a laugh, “a squeeze?”

  Rad smiled without taking his eyes off the set, “for now.” He clicked through several shows, settling on a sort of he-man fighting competition.

  Tawny curled up beside him, browsing through a magazine as he watched. Several times she tried to engage him in conversation to no avail. It was like working in the shop and running her comb through an old man’s thinning head of hair—there was no tactile feedback, nothing to build on. And she wanted so much to talk tonight. Maybe it was the snake. No. It was the children, she realized,
and especially the Mexican woman’s pregnancy. It had brought to the surface all her longings and fears, and dreams—and she wanted to talk them out. When her frustration with Rad’s silence got the better of her she got off the couch without a word and went into the bathroom to get ready for bed.

  Tawny was almost asleep when Rad pulled her close. She put her arms around him, luxuriating in his warmth. They made love and her concerns burnt up in their passion. Then, later, as their ardor cooled and dissipated, a vague worry slowly returned to fill the void inside of her. Rad reached for her later in the night but she turned away from him.

  Chapter 9

  1015 Skyview Drive. On Saturday morning, Allen sat on the couch reading the newspaper as Tina rushed about fussing over the kids to make sure they were ready. They were going to the home of Tina’s manager David Wu for a barbecue and lawn party. Allen felt good for a change. He and Tina did not socialize often and then usually only with Tina’s family or close friends. Allen lamented that he didn’t seem to have friends anymore, at least none that he could contact easily. He had a few back East, but he had long ago lost touch with them. But he did enjoy some of Tina’s co-worker friends and looked forward to their two or three get-togethers each year. At these events Tina usually let down her guard a little and he could relax. The kids had figured it out too—with all the other adults around, they had a bit more freedom to play and have fun without upsetting Mommy and getting consequences.

  Allen had met David Wu the year before at a company party. Unlike most of the Chinese in the Bay Area, David Wu hailed from Shanghai and spoke Mandarin instead of Cantonese. His wife was Caucasian. David had received his MBA from one of the Ivy League colleges back East; Allen had forgotten which one.

  Allen looked up briefly from the paper as Tina rushed back toward the rear of the house for something. They were only driving five-miles down the Peninsula to the next little town, but Tina prepared as if they were going on a day’s journey. Finally Allen heard the porch door open, his cue that she was ready. He grabbed the sodas and two bags of chips Tina had volunteered to bring, and carried them out to the van.

  After the kids had been strapped into their child safety seats, Allen drove up the hill. He eyeballed the house at 1030, as was his habit now, but Raggedy Anne and Andy were nowhere to be seen. Probably inside banging each other’s brains out, he thought, or maybe they were hung over from dancing all night at some ecstasy-fueled rave party. Allen knew that his fantasies about them were partly caused by some generational jealousy. After all, his generation had been into some pretty self-destructive things too, and their long hippie hair and beards and bell-bottoms were just as childish and silly as nose rings and fire engine-red hair. He glanced briefly at the truck up on cinder blocks and the barren lawn, determined not to let it spoil his good mood.

  The ride down 101 was uneventful. Most of the traffic was heading north for a Giants game at Candlestick. Allen took the Burlingame exit and soon they parked next to a nicely refurbished house on a quiet tree-lined street. Allen had looked at houses in this neighborhood after Tina and he had first gotten married. They were small, built pre-WWII, with out-of-code wiring. But even back then they were priced way beyond his and Tina’s reach. Halfway between the cosmopolitan city cool of San Francisco, and the manic moneyed Silicon Valley, Burlingame was a much sought-after zip code for wealthy boomers with young families.

  Allen grabbed the bags and took Reynaldo’s hand. They followed Tina and Christine as they entered the back yard through the driveway. The lawn was lush and green. Allen noticed that David Wu had had a basketball hoop and backboard built against his detached garage. David Wu and a brown-skinned younger man stood next to a picnic table underneath a latticework arbor that broke the harsh sunlight into an easy-on-the-eyes checkerboard pattern. An old fashioned zinc washtub full of ice and beer and wine sat on the picnic table next to them.

  Allen liked David Wu. He was personable, intelligent, well educated, without any trace of an accent. He had evidently come to the states at an early age and seemed more Americanized than any other foreign-born Chinese Allen knew. Tina had told him that David was some kind of big shot in the Democrat party and had a picture in his office of him and President Clinton standing together.

  Allen nodded a greeting to the two men as he led Reynaldo over to the table and set the two bags down. “Reynaldo,” said Allen, “do you remember Uncle David?”

  Reynaldo shook his head shyly.

  David Wu laughed and squatted down beside Reynaldo. “He was too young,” David said. “A year is a long time to someone his age. Right Reynaldo?”

  “I don’t know,” said Reynaldo.

  Allen and David laughed. David stood and pulled one of the dripping bottles of beer from the tub and handed it to Allen. David indicated the man next to him. “Allen, this is Fidel Flores. He’s part of the finance department gang.”

  “How’re you doing?” said Allen, extending his hand. One night, a year or so earlier, as Allen washed the dishes, Tina had told him all about Fidel. Fidel was Filipino, in his early thirties, and unmarried, although he had a steady, live-in girlfriend.

  Fidel shook Allen’s hand stiffly, giving him an odd look. The look confused Allen at first, and then he recognized it to be disapproval. Fidel tried his best to hide it, but it was unmistakable. Allen had gotten that look a few times before, usually from strangers at the supermarket or the mall, usually Mexican-Americans or Filipino-Americans, all of whom assumed, wrongly, that Reynaldo was of their race. But he was not. He was Mixtec Indian, from the land of the Incas, a tiny, beautiful brown boy who had somehow managed to end up with Tina, Mexican-American, and Allen, Irish-American. Fidel’s look seemed to say, ‘What the hell is a kid that looks like that doing with somebody that looks like you?’

  Allen smiled. This sort of thing no longer bothered him. As long as he wasn’t being turned down for a job because of it, or denied a house in a neighborhood he wanted. And it lessened his guilt about his own prejudices. Everybody had them. Just the week before he had been walking through the parking lot of the mall when he saw two huge black teenagers, hulking in their baggy pants and their Raiders jackets, gangbangers, or wannabes—who could tell—following some frail, teen Chinese couple, all the while muttering, “chinka, chinka, chinka.” The teens ignored them, chatting amiably as if they weren’t there. What else could they do if they didn’t want to get their asses kicked, or worse. And the Chinese had their prejudices and their own epithets for other races; Bokwei, or ‘white devil’ came to mind. Allen had had some elderly Chinese lady loudly and angrily call him by that slur once in a Chinese grocery store for some perceived slight. The only people who didn’t have prejudices were saints and liars. Allen didn’t know any saints, but there were plenty of liars strutting about these days, most of them in politics or heading up ethnic-rights organizations.

  Allen thought wryly how Tina, by virtue of her Hispanic heritage and her surname—not her light skin, which would identify her as perhaps Castilian Spanish, but not Mexican—had gotten a pass from Fidel for having adopted little brown Reynaldo. But Allen, because of his Celtic name, light skin and blue-eyes, had not.

  “Fidel,” said Allen pleasantly, “we finally meet. Tina’s told me a lot about you.”

  Fidel gave Allen a pained smile. “Oh? Not all bad, I hope.”

  “Nah,” said Allen. Both men’s’ eyes disengaged to watch Reynaldo wonder across the lawn toward a solitary, gnarled tree. Allen thought it was an apple tree.

  Allen took a sip of the beer and looked around. The houses across the way were small, maybe eleven hundred square feet at best, but in good shape. He’d heard they now went for over half a million. David Wu and his wife Colleen had no children, but had probably bought here because they planned on having a family. Tina had told Allen that the rumor was they were going to a fertility clinic.

  Tina and Dolores Castillo came over. Dolores, Mexican-American, was the head secretary for the office. Dolores and her husba
nd had raised six children and Allen wished he knew her and her husband better. But Tina had never invited them over and they had never been invited to the Castillo’s.

  After Tina and Dolores poured sodas for themselves, more office employees arrived bearing baskets and bags and they went over to greet them. Allen did not know any of them and stayed under the shade of the arbor, eating salsa and chips and drinking beer. He looked around. Tina was now helping another woman from the office at the barbecue grill. Christine was sitting on a little chair with another little girl who’d just arrived, talking quietly, and Reynaldo was still hanging about the apple tree, trying to figure out how to climb it. Allen put down his beer and walked over to the driveway and grabbed the basketball. He tossed it in Reynaldo’s direction. “Let’s go for the goal,” he said to Reynaldo, inviting him to a little practice soccer session. Reynaldo kicked the ball towards the basketball court as Allen ran up and feigned a fierce defense. He let the little guy get past him and the ball rolled out onto the asphalt of the drive.

  Reynaldo caught up with the ball, picked it up and shot for the hoop. Allen remembered that Belinda had said little Reynaldo had become their resident basketball jock. But the daycare basket was three or four feet lower than an official hoop.

  The ball rebounded off the backboard below the hoop and bounced back toward the arbor. Fidel Flores left the couple he’d been talking to and picked the ball up as Reynaldo came running after it. The two of them walked back out onto the court. “Like this,” Fidel said, showing Reynaldo how to line up the shot. He handed the ball to Reynaldo. Reynaldo leapt and launched the ball. It came close to the basket, but was still well below. Allen could see that there was nothing wrong with Reynaldo’s aim; the little guy just wasn’t tall enough. Allen hated to see him fail repeatedly and felt like going over to him. He wanted to involve him in another mock game of soccer, but not now with Fidel there.