Beach Reading

by Abramson, Mark

  Now Tim noticed an old lady boarding the streetcar. Grocery bags in both hands weighed her down. She reminded Tim of his grandmother, who died when he was about eight years old. Tim’s grandmother probably wasn’t as old as this woman, but most grown-ups looked ancient to a kid that age.

  Tim kept a framed picture of his grandmother next to his bed. She sat with her arm around him on a blue and green plaid blanket beside the lake in Powderhorn Park in Minneapolis. It was the Fourth of July and they were waiting to hear the Symphony play the 1812 Overture and watch fireworks from that spot. Tim had on red swim trunks and he was holding a tiny American flag. He had a bandage on the big toe of his left foot. He remembered the swim trunks, but not how he hurt his toe. His family went to Powderhorn Park every year on the Fourth until the summer he turned 16 and they threw him out, but he didn’t want to think about any of that right now.

  He was in San Francisco, now. More than twenty years had evaporated since that picture was taken. Nothing could pull him back there. He was happier now. Things were better here, in spite of having been dumped by Jason. He had no reason to dwell on the past. Then the streetcar lurched and the old lady lunged toward him. Tim tried to brace her fall, but she landed half-way in his lap. “Hello-o-o…” she said with a giggle. “I’m so terribly sorry, young man.”

  “Are you all right? Let me help you… your groceries…” Tim propped her up in the single seat ahead of his. The grocery bags were intact, but oranges rolled across the floor. Other passengers reached beneath their feet to collect them and Tim put them back among the carrots, celery, and a baguette of sourdough bread.

  “Thank you so much. Why, I don’t even know your name, but you’re awfully kind. I’m Vanessa Caen, no relation to Herb, though I did meet him at a party once when I was here to visit my little brother. He was a charming man, I thought… Herb Caen, I mean.”

  “My name is Tim… Tim Snow. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I think so, Timothy Snow. Tim is short for Timothy, isn’t it? It’s very nice to meet you. I’m more embarrassed than injured, I’m sure, but my pride doesn’t take as long to heal as a broken bone would at my age. I must be more careful when riding on these streetcar contraptions or else I need to wear more sensible shoes in San Francisco.”

  Tim looked down at her shoes. They were in the style of men’s wing-tips, but had heels about two inches high made of red and gold lamé with black ankle straps and tiny black bows across each toe. Everything she wore was red and gold and trimmed in black. Her red skirt showed off shapely legs for a woman her age. She wore a frilly red blouse and a gold hat over short silver curls. She might have been dressed to go dancing rather than the supermarket. Tim thought maybe she’d been to church since it was Sunday. “I hope you don’t think I make a habit of throwing myself into the arms of handsome young strangers!” she went on. “Thank you so much.”

  “It’s no trouble at all, Miss Caen. How far do you have to go?”

  “Mrs. Caen,” she corrected. “I’m a widow. But please call me Vanessa. I’m riding this to 8th Street. My brother Harley lives near there.”

  “Harvey?” Tim asked. He was only half listening. He had his eye on a man who was boarding the streetcar. Tim thought he might have been someone he’d brought home to bed once, but that wasn’t it. He must have been a recent customer at Arts who Tim had waited on.

  “No, my brother’s name is Harley—like the motorcycle—Harley Davidson, although his last name is Wagner, the same as my maiden name—Vanessa Wagner. Harley thought about changing his name to Harley Davidson, but he never got around to it. I think that would have been a bit much, don’t you? He lives on Clementina. It’s one of those little alley streets before Folsom. He hasn’t been very well, I’m afraid. That’s why I’ve come to San Francisco, to help him get used to being home from the hospital again. And you, Timothy, where are you headed?”

  “I’m meeting some friends at a bar.” Tim felt a pang of guilt for lying. They weren’t friends. He didn’t even know Corey and his uncle and those other two guys. Why was he stretching the truth for this old lady? He didn’t know her either. Maybe it was because she reminded him of his grandmother. It was conceivable that he might run into some friends South of Market and it would be the truth. Or he might become friends with someone he would meet that day.

  Maybe he felt guilty about going to a bar. His grandmother had probably never set foot inside a bar in her entire life and certainly not a gay bar, but this woman on the streetcar was a stranger. Where was this guilt coming from? Tim thought he must be stoned, but then he remembered he was out of grass. He’d been thinking about looking for a roach to smoke when he got out of the shower, but he knew it was no use.

  “I could get off at 8th Street and help you,” Tim said, hoping to be forgiven for whatever gnawed at the guilty part of his brain. Maybe he felt guilty about sex. Not only had Corey come on to him, but the older guy, Uncle Fred, had offered Tim money. No one had ever offered Tim money for sex before. He’d never considered such a thing. It was flattering, he supposed, but really…

  “That’s very kind of you, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” the old lady named Vanessa said. “I’d hate for you to go out of your way on account of me.”

  Tim wasn’t even interested in the birthday boy—Corey. The kid was cute enough, all right, but Tim was more interested in guys at least his own age or a few years older. “Don’t mention it,” he said and noticed that the old lady was still smiling at him.

  He liked meeting men who wore San Francisco on their faces and in their walk. He liked the sort of men who were sure of themselves, who had been around. He admired the survivors, the men who might teach him a thing or two. In spite of his visions or maybe because of them, Tim understood since he was a little boy that there would be people waiting out there in the world to teach him things. Tim didn’t feel that he was experienced enough to be anyone else’s teacher unless they needed a lesson in how to wait tables and flirt. He could teach master classes in both of those.

  Tim’s fingertips felt for the hundred-dollar bill inside his pocket. Why hadn’t he broken it at the restaurant or left it at home? He had plenty of smaller bills on his dresser. He had his MUNI pass with him, but even if he got drunk and splurged on a cab ride home from South of Market, he wouldn’t need a hundred dollars in cash.

  “My brother Harley has one of those little carts on two wheels,” Vanessa said. “He told me I should take it when I go shopping. I walk by it every day, standing there in the entry beneath the coat hooks. I just don’t want to look like an old lady, you know?”

  “But you…” Tim started.

  “Don’t say it! I know I am an old lady, but I don’t want to feel like one,” she insisted. “If I allow myself to look like an old lady I’ll feel like one and I am determined to avoid that at all costs.”

  “All I meant is that you should be more careful,” Tim said. “If you break a leg on the streetcar you won’t be much help to your brother.”

  “You are not only a kind and helpful young man, but a very sensible one, too. Here… this is my stop… oh… my ankle!”

  “Here, let me help you,” Tim stood up before she could. “It’s on my way, really.”

  Tim gathered her grocery bags in one hand, pulled the cord with the other and managed to help her up at the same time. She leaned on his free arm, limping slightly as they exited by the front door, watched for inbound traffic on Market Street and crossed over to the curb.

  Tim wasn’t familiar with Clementina Street. It wasn’t really a street at all, but one of those alleys that run haphazardly through the maze of South of Market streets. Some go straight for several blocks and others run for only a few yards, stop, and then start up again where you’d least expect them. Tim’s fingers were sore from the handles of so many grocery bags in his left hand while he helped Vanessa with his right. When they stopped at the red light at Howard Street, he readjusted his grip to get the circulation moving again. She in
sisted on taking one of the lighter bags in her right hand. Her body’s weight on him was barely noticeable. By the time she let go of Tim’s arm to search in her red and gold purse for keys, she seemed to be walking better, too.

  “Here’s our door, Timothy,” she told him as she let go. He transferred the groceries to his other hand and flexed his left hand’s fingers a few times. The building was more modern than the Victorians on either side of it. Tim guessed it was built in the 1960s, but he didn’t know much about architecture.

  He noticed a small stenciled logo on the door that faced street level and asked her, “Is this some kind of business?”

  “There’s a print shop on the bottom floors,” Vanessa explained. “They use the middle floors for storage and that makes it nice and quiet on top. Harley has rented to them for years. Bill owned the building originally. Here we are, now.” The elevator was barely large enough for the two of them and her groceries, which Tim set on the floor. She pushed a button and the elevator scraped slowly upward in its shaft.

  “Bill was Harley’s… What do you call it? Husband, I guess. Harley’s a widow too, like me. Widower, I should say,” she corrected herself. “What differences do labels make, I wonder? You could call a stone a thistle or a thorn a lollipop, but a rose is a rose… How does that saying go?”

  “I’m not sure I know.” Tim tried to be polite, but now he began to feel the afternoon slipping away from him. He wondered what he was doing in a noisy old elevator with this well-dressed, but peculiar old woman. The more he listened to Vanessa Caen, the less she reminded him of his grandmother.

  He was curious about his grandmother because he’d inherited her gift, but she died before he understood what it meant. The gift hadn’t come with instructions and no one wanted to talk about it, as if they were ashamed of her. So she remained in a photograph on a plaid blanket and he could only guess what mysteries might exist beyond that. Now he couldn’t remember whether his grandmother’s dress was red or were his swimming trunks the red in the picture? Maybe they were blue and her dress was gray. He wanted to go straight home and look at the picture again, but he was here now. The picture would wait. Even if Tim had the chance to go back to that moment in time, he might choose to know more about the little boy in the swim trunks than the old lady with her arm around him. Why was there a bandage on his toe? Did it hurt much? He could think of dozens of questions, but the elevator jerked and stopped at the top of the shaft. Tim closed his eyes to concentrate. More than twenty years had passed. The toe on that foot was inside these leather boots in San Francisco now and he knew there wasn’t even a scar left on it.

  “Here we are, then. Watch your step, Timothy Snow.” Vanessa led the way into the home of her brother. “Harley knows how to make the elevator land evenly with the floor, but I haven’t learned the secret. I don’t mind stepping up or down a bit. I can take one little step. It’s better than carrying things up all those flights of stairs.”

  Tim saw the coat hooks and the “old-lady” cart she mentioned earlier, so he knew that much was true, not that he had reason to doubt her. His fingers were burning and in his opinion, this was one old lady who should swallow her pride and use the darned cart, but it wasn’t his business to say so. They turned a corner into a bright room that looked like a greenhouse. It had tall windows and skylights, flowering trees and hanging plants from floor to ceiling. One wall was covered in shelves of orchids with at least half of them in full bloom.

  “Just set everything down on the table there, if you don’t mind, Timothy.”

  Tim relieved himself of the grocery bags and looked around. “It must be hard work taking care of all these plants.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t. I’d kill them, I’m sure. Harley hires someone to come in all the time—a young fellow who lives nearby. Harley used to take care of them all by himself, but now he just admires them when he can. He must be asleep or he’d be out here to see who I’m talking to. I don’t know how to thank you enough for your help, Timothy. Would you like a cup of tea?”

  “No, thanks, I…”

  “Perhaps a glass of iced tea, instead. I believe you said you were on your way to meet some friends at a bar. Harley says there used to be a lot of bars for men in this neighborhood, but not so many these days. Maybe you’d like a cold beer or a drink? We have liquor too, if I can figure out how to open this cabinet.”

  Tim watched Vanessa’s tiny shoes press levers near the floor in one corner of this room that opened into a kitchen. One pedal made the refrigerator door pop open, so she reached inside a grocery bag and found a carton of milk to place on the shelf. It seemed as if she couldn’t bear to have opened it by mistake, so rather than waste the motion she put the milk away. She shoved the door shut with her hip, although there must have been other things in those bags that needed to be refrigerated.

  “Would you like some marijuana instead? It’s medicinal! Harley has permission from his doctor to grow it. I can show you the plants.”

  Tim wasn’t sure what to say. He wanted to smoke a joint when he left home, but he didn’t have any. He already felt stoned, not like the feelings he got around precognition—that usually came to him in his dreams, anyway—but Tim had a sense that in spite of Vanessa’s sickly brother, he was in a place with a lot of life in it.

  Vanessa went back to work on the pedals and discovered one that turned on a ceiling fan. “Well, that’s just fine,” she said with a laugh. “It wasn’t what I was aiming for, but I’ve been trying to turn on that fan for days. One of these levers opens the liquor cabinet, I’m sure of it.”

  “I don’t need a drink,” Tim said. “I could use a glass of water if it’s no trouble and then I should be on my way.”

  “Of course, of course.” She glanced up at the cupboard and back down at the mysterious pedals. She spied a clean glass resting on the dish drainer next to the sink. “Here we are. I know there’s a pitcher of good cold filtered water in the refrigerator and that was this one, wasn’t it?” She pressed her red and gold toe down at the same place where she started and triumphantly poured a glass of water for Tim. “Voila!”

  “Thank you,” Tim smiled and took a sip. It was what he needed. He could order a beer when he got to the Lone Star or the Eagle or maybe the Powerhouse. Maybe he’d have a real drink later, depending on who was working. Some bartenders made better drinks than others.

  “The next time Harley is up and about, I’ll ask him how to open the liquor cabinet. It’s behind those mirrors by the sink. I’ve seen it open for parties and there’s going to be one soon. I’ll get you an invitation, Timothy. What a good idea! You will come, won’t you? That’s how I can repay you for your kindness.”

  “It’s all right, really. It was on my way and you hurt your foot. How is your foot, now? Is it better?”

  “I think so,” she looked down at it as if she had forgotten. “Let me show you the deck before you go. We have the whole rooftop, right through this door. And you mustn’t say no to the party.” She led the way between a pair of potted Schefflera plants while she removed her hat and set it on a table inside the door.

  “Maybe if I’m not working I could come by for a little while.”

  “This is really very nice and quite strong stuff, too.” Tim didn’t see her pick up the joint, but once they reached the deck, she lifted it to her lips and lit it with a small jeweled lighter. She took a hit and handed it to Tim.

  “This deck is amazing!” Tim took the joint from her tiny hand. There were more trees out here, plus a fountain and a pond of fat golden koi. Vanessa sat down on a bench and patted the seat beside her.

  “There’s a terrific view of those hills on a clear day. Today it was clear earlier, but the fog is coming in like a big white fur piece. Look! You can see the top of that tower that looks like a ship.”

  Tim looked west toward Twin Peaks and Mt. Sutro and thought he must be overly stoned now. He had to be hallucinating because he thought he saw something sparkling emerge from the clouds. It look
ed like the biggest mirror ball he had ever seen and it was suspended from the bottom of a helicopter. The old lady saw it, too. “Look, Timothy! Isn’t that pretty? They must be doing something gay.”

  Tim took another hit off the joint and handed it back. He wasn’t sure how Vanessa meant the word gay, but the mirror ball was heading in the direction of Castro Street and it would soon be visible to everyone who was out and about on this Sunday afternoon. Now he saw a biplane coming out of the bank of clouds behind the helicopter. It was too far away for him to read the advertising banner, but Tim was sure he would hear all about it very soon.

  Chapter 3

  Stoned! Tim said goodbye to the strange old lady and she closed the door to his cage. No, it wasn’t a cage, but an elevator and he felt a moment of panic as it fell. Tim had no sense of time, but he was sure he would die when it hit the bottom. He didn’t know how far it was but when it landed he was alive and he couldn’t remember the difference between yards and inches anyway. That started him laughing, but not until the cage door opened and he stepped out into fresh air. He was thrilled to be alive and laughing. He must be in San Francisco even though nothing looked familiar.

  Tim walked down 8th Street toward Folsom. He was so stoned that it felt like his hat was squeezing his temples and he wanted to rush home and shave off all his hair. But he wasn’t wearing his hat! It was his favorite baseball cap and he must have taken if off, but where and when? He didn’t even know where he was or how he had gotten to this point. Did she say something about the grass being medicinal? She must have meant medical. Tim thought it was “medicinal” enough to call for a doctor. He was so lost he might as well be walking down Lake Street in Minneapolis, laughing, but he couldn’t remember laughing his way down Lake Street. His hat didn’t matter right now.