by Herbert Gold
She used to say she was proud that “Kasdan” meant something honorable and distinguished in Hebrew. Perhaps she still remembered saying it but wondered why she had felt this irrelevant quiver of pleasure and couldn’t quite recall what the name meant, certainly not “private eye” or “tendency to hang fist on New Age chin.” Dan Kasdan, now of Poorman’s Cottage on Potrero Hill, had no faith in titles of nobility, although I was brave enough to face down the raccoons, the blowing slaughterhouse smells, the big-eyed free-range Project kids, and even the midnight blues, shakes, regrets. I had faith in memory, though, and her dismissal of it pained me so deeply, so deeply.
It was about who a person is. Who I was, who she was, who we were—who I am now. Please, Lord, bring on the raccoons and burglars instead.
What I am is what we were together.
If it turned out to be entirely up to Jeff to carry on the privilege of memory, that was too much to ask of our child. He carried it in his body, gave evidence in his walk, his straight challenging stare, his grin, his statesmanlike blending of two people who were now strangers to each other except that they had once been lovers, holding each other close in the night, making love and making a child to confirm the sum of their decisions to be alive.
Probably Priscilla was not the best maker of love in the world; nor was I. Who is the best is just an opinion, anyway, and opinions differ. The problem for Kasdan was that, to him, she was the only maker of love.
* * *
The waiting period for a California divorce was now in place, the ceremonial agreements lawyered, signed, filed, and final. I was celebrating the end of the one-year legal limbo by taking Jeff to buy a new Casio keyboard so that he could make more beautiful music together. He would probably not have a brother or sister, but there were other things I could give him. I came to wait for him in that house which I knew and did not know—the towels were the same, but the kitchen was rearranged—waiting for him to come home from school. I was early. Being affirmed and registered this day as strangers by the City and County of San Francisco, according to the laws governing the State of California, seemed to bring a degree of shyness between my former wife and present me.
We marked the day by telling each other that nothing had really changed. Although nothing was altered, I brought her CDs of the Mozart Requiem, which celebrates all death, and one of Bob Dylan in his Christian phase, to say that things don’t necessarily get better than they were. She was startled by the gift-wrapped package; this wasn’t supposed to be a holiday. The afternoon was chilled, as close to winter as San Francisco gets, grayness and a blanket of seaborne wet in the air after the brief, bleak sunlight at midday. Reluctantly Priscilla opened the Tower Records bag. Normal good spirits were hindered.
“Thanks, you didn’t have to.”
“Probably shouldn’t,” I said.
“I didn’t think to buy you anything, so I’m embarrassed, but thanks anyway. How about I make you something instead? A sandwich?”
“No, that’s all right.”
“I could reheat some soup and say I made soup for you. And not feel guilty. Yes, do me a favor.”
“For you,” I said, “I’ll eat.”
We sat at the kitchen table, warming hands on bowls, and since I didn’t ask any prying questions, Priscilla began to talk. She was celebrating the occasion after all. She said she was beginning to see her life as it should be as a divorced mother, either with or without Xavier.
“Great, great.”
She stared. She was beginning to notice that the name Xavier, the idea of Xavier, made me less friendly. She found this quirk of my personality a little peculiar.
“You’ve been sane all your life,” she said, “so now that you’re nuts, you don’t know how to deal with yourself.”
“I’m just how I’ve been.”
“Only since you met me,” she said softly. “I’m not proud of making your life interesting.”
“I guess so.”
She sent a questioning startled glance at me. Maybe I wasn’t listening, just gnawing at the word Xavier. “I guess so” wasn’t my style. Oh well, not her problem, either.
“I may be a mystery and pain in the butt to you,” she said hospitably.
I shrugged agreement.
“But to me I’m just myself. Just Priscilla Kasdan. Keeping your name, by the way, and not just for Jeff’s sake. I like it.”
I was flattered and mystified. Yes, she was a pain in the butt.
“Not even thinking of taking, say, Xavier’s name—no, not.”
“Great.”
“You always say that.”
So I added nothing. I spooned my soup. Priscilla hoped to entertain me as my hostess this afternoon. Since the embarrassed shyness was diminished, on her part at least, she decided to enjoy the occasion, too. She said, “Uh, Xavier. Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“Not sure. Probably not.”
“Well, you’re just gonna, dear former spouse. It’s a holiday for us, isn’t it? And really, this shouldn’t do anything—what I’m going to say—but make you feel, oh, justified if that’s how you’d like to feel.”
And so she explained how Xavier had learned about the human body, meaning his own, from twelve-step manuals and how he had learned about feeling from record album covers, specializing in sixties oldies. When CDs came in, he had nothing to read. And he neglected to find the twelve steps to a strong erection until she pointed out that he was making it her problem.
“He wasn’t speedy enough,” she added, “to tell me I was a co-dependent.
“I don’t read those stupid books, but know that’s how you’re supposed to answer.”
She thought I would enjoy some flattering social gossip. I didn’t smile because I was wondering what she had shared with Xavier about me during their earlier, cozier moments of après-sex release, a unique time of pleasure because Xavier, future loser, was so grateful and Priscilla knew she was running the show.
“At least,” she was saying.
A scurry of floor bird caught my eye. What was that? Her foot, her ankle, a leap of dance as she sat. But all she was saying was, “At least you read books about proper vitamins and nutrition, and also William Butler Yeats and What’s-his Tolstoy, so you have some lasting worth. Probably.”
“Thanks.”
“I still like you. I learned from you.”
Her foot was unmoving now. When the light in her eyes suddenly came on, she didn’t want to make love, not this time. She was merely saying that she cared. I didn’t mind. She didn’t care quite enough, but still, but still.
“I’m still learning from you, Priscilla.”
“And about me?”
“That too.”
Now she wanted to make love; no, didn’t. The unexpected power-surge glow in her eyes switched off. She was trembling. Something else was working at her and it was not something she could settle by quarreling, lovemaking, joke making, or turning her back with that little clicking sound of exasperation—tongue, teeth—which had become her frequent means of communication with me. It was a percussion music she made mostly for herself. It was a signal that needed no answering signal. If I didn’t like it, I could discuss my complaints with Alfonso—guys have these guy buddies, don’t they, for such purposes? They have beer, buddies, and easy lays. They whine and get along, scratching themselves as much as they want. She was sure Alfonso would be glad to go out beveraging—the hard work of an old guy pal—and hear all about it, rumbling, saying the right things.
I stood up. Surely it was Jeff’s time now.
She motioned to the chair and asked me to stay. She motioned to me to settle myself while she uttered the thoughts that were making her tremble.
“Contrary to what you think, Dan, here’s my point of view. You’re a survivor and I’m in bad shape. I’m sure that surprises you.”
“Sure does.”
“Shut up a minute, please. You’re depressed and I’m cheerful, so you think I’m the satisfied party.”
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“Right. All you have to do—”
She raised her hand warningly. She meant me to listen. I meant to pay attention.
“So don’t advise me about what I have to do to help you. I’d like you to be happy, really I would. Fine, Dan, even cheerful if you’d like that, not losing weight like you’re so busy doing, let it drop off you. But now listen carefully: Me too. I’m cheerful, okay, granted, stipulated, as you like to say. That’s my style. But I need to be contented with my life. Maybe even…”
She was shaking her head and the trembling was not relieved. The trembling was worse. I wanted to tell her to speak up and she wanted me to be silent. I obeyed.
“… maybe even happy!” she cried. “Why not? Xavier has nothing to do with it, do you understand?”
No, I didn’t—yes, I didn’t want to. Her eyelashes were wet and her eyes were turned away. I was not to reach for her. She would not reach for me. My lips moved and I knew the words they were forming but I had enough sense not to pronounce them aloud. Poor Jeff. I’m sure she thought I was saying poor Priscilla or poor Dan.
Many blessings don’t happen. Understanding each other was one of them.
Part Three
Chapter 16
At this edgy time for an edgy operator in the PI trade, I received another call from a man I preferred to do without. “Karim here,” he said on the phone.
“I recognize the voice.”
“You’re not that smart, Mr. Kasdan.”
He was right, I wasn’t: but I did. I saw him at business on the terrace at Enrico’s, talking loud, downing his creamy pasta and dietetic sliced bananas, working his clumps of eyebrows with the ant herd in between. He liked to be noticed. Karim still owned his porn theater on O’Farrell where the dancers climbed cordially over the seats to get at the clients and earn their tips. This was the legitimate part of the business. On the street he was known as a trafficker who avoided arrests, a diligent person who used the porn house as a partial means to launder his earnings. His daughter, Heather, ran a stag act for bachelor parties. I had seen her perform as the stripping nun when a cop colleague of Alfonso’s got married. I hoped Jeff wouldn’t follow in my footsteps the way Heather (cute sharp ferret face, blow jobs for the groom) followed in her father’s, although he was said to be good to the girls who worked for him, allowing them to keep their tips.
“I hear you talking at times,” I said.
“People say I have an accent when I converse.”
I waited, denying or affirming nothing.
“Could we enjoy a coffee, a little conversing?”
I considered. I needed money. I ran the possibilities through my head—transporting, laundering, proposing deals with his competitors. Enforcing. I had PI colleagues who did pretty well with offshore folks. What did I have to lose? I wasn’t doing well anyway. “No,” I said. “I don’t think your work is for me.”
“How can you tell when you don’t listen? For such a long time you don’t listen.”
“I don’t do your sort of job.”
“How do you know?”
“I look for people. Sometimes I find them. I do background checks.”
“Maybe I need something like that.”
“I’m lazy,” I said, “going through a lazy time in my life.”
He was the sort of person who was encouraged by rejection; it had a charm for a man who lived by being sure of himself. “I hope to persuade you, Mr. Kasdan.”
“My wife doesn’t like me to do this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing, since you won’t let me explain? Anyway, you’re not married anymore, Mr. Kasdan. You will be owing child support for Jeff. You do already.”
He seemed to have made his own investigation. He surely knew I was on the edge these days. I didn’t want to hear his proposal.
“She doesn’t hassle me if I’m late with the check,” I said.
“Would it be much better if you never had to be late?”
I thought it over and said, “Got to go now. Got a client on the other line.”
But before I could hang up I heard him saying, “You don’t have another line.”
Normally I plan to be smarter than that; used to be, anyway. I was still smart enough not to like the way he tossed the name of my son at me. I tried to think what I would do when he called again or managed to see me. Pretty sure he would.
* * *
Where I liked to do my planning ahead was in my office in North Beach, up the Kearny steps, above Finocchio’s and Enrico’s Coffee House. Enrico Banducci himself was gone, but the café had been reopened for the old-time mix of tourists, real estate hustlers, North Beach artists, and porn and narcotics entrepreneurs, the normal easygoing folks who enjoy watching the passing parade from a traditional San Francisco vantage point. Sometimes romantic couples sat holding hands on the terrace, proud to be part of the great world yet lost in their private universe. I had sat there with Priscilla, asking her to tell me why I was so lucky and hearing her answer, “It just happened that way.”
Broadway was relatively quiet tonight, late, midweek, and the girl barkers beckoning in the doorways of the topless joints were shivering. One, in pink tights, frilled pink top, frizzled pink hair and a navel ring, called to me, “Come on in, your hands are in your pockets already, big boy, you’re eligible.”
I took my hands out my pockets to wave at her. She deserved credit for quick thinking.
At night, on the steep Kearny steps alongside Enrico’s, homeless folks made their home (so they’re not really homeless, are they?) among Safeway shopping carts, cardboard mattresses, and dogs sleeping under the stars on lower Telegraph Hill. The dogs, tucked against the curled bodies of their masters, flanks radiating warmth, probably wouldn’t have been found in other third-world countries. In Calcutta, they’d have been eaten. So these outdoor dreamers with their animal companion pillows were not like the desperate homeless street sleepers of Calcutta.
I edged up the steps past the dormitory to the side entrance of the wooden building. In the hall, an ivory glow was reflected off painted slats. No fluorescent tubes; our landlord didn’t care to save twenty-seven cents a month by putting in carcinogenic track lighting. At this hour no one was in the other offices—no bookies, graphic designers, midget tycoons with pyramid franchise schemes. This was where Werner Erhard began est, shouting at his first recruits. I used to hear him telling the gang they were all assholes but with his help they could become better assholes, maybe, if they shaped up. At night I was alone on the premises and liked it that way.
I could have checked my answering machine from any push-button phone, even from Potrero Hill, but I wanted to consider things in a strictly business environment. Pure stubborn stupidity wasn’t sufficient to account for my life; I was looking for other explanations, age, malignant nostalgia, liver disease—something it would be fun to blame. Dumb pigheadedness wasn’t really enriching to my self-esteem.
I never saw evidence of cleaning people in the building above Enrico’s, not very much evidence of cleaning, either, but tonight a chemical cleaning smell welcomed me and a bucket of green powder stood in a corner of my office, near the filing case. The stench didn’t taste clean in my mouth, but maybe it was busy smothering invisible toxic infections. I sat at my desk, switched on the gooseneck lamp, and picked up my memo sheet. I wrote: Priscilla. I wrote: Dan. I wrote: Jeff. That was about as far as I could go. Werner, where are you when I need you?
The smells from the cleaning bucket were worse than dirt. I stared at the green powder in the pail that was like Jeff’s sand pail when we used to drive out to Ocean Beach, except that beach sand isn’t green and doesn’t have that chemical smell. Jeff liked to pick up sand dollars, those airy tracings … When I heard the closet door open, I was ready with a question: “You left your cleaning bucket, didn’t you?”
“No shit,” said the man in the closet, stepping out, a schoolteacherish person with glinty metal-rimmed glasses and no broom in his hand. My clos
et-dweller was a dark cidery brown fellow with a weathered sinewy body. He had not been napping in the closet. What he had in his hand was a stubby weapon, cut down from a larger one. It would make a big noise if it went off.
“I didn’t hear you cleaning in there,” I said.
“No shit.”
“You find anything interesting?”
I figured it might be a good idea to keep the skinny Filipino schoolteacher or night janitor or illicit-entry enterprise-zone person talking, if possible. A man with a gun is best kept talking, from the point of view of the man without a gun.
He didn’t answer the question about what he was looking for in the closet. He must have transferred himself there when he heard my footsteps outside. I looked him in the eyes—couldn’t see the eyes—looked at the glint off the bottle lenses of his glasses and kept on talking. “So if you’re not a sanitary engineer in the building, what can I do for you?”
“I am.”
“Sir?”
“Sanitary engineer stuff. I save phone calls, that type action.”
“Save phone calls?”
“Make a point—”
“You’re making it, waving that thing at me.”
“—hey, and you talk too much while I’m making my point. Mr. Karim ask me to ask you—”
In that schoolteacherish gun-toting way, he said “ask,” with an effort, not “ax.” His nervousness and his gun were for purposes of signifying. He was a little man with severe eye problems. Probably growing up half black, half Filipino kept him on his toes and he needed to do a lot of signifying with the neighborhood kids, flashing his roll or his piece or whatever he carried to impress the folks.
“Mr. Karim, he like to talk to you, converse.” He peered around the room disapprovingly. “Why don’t you get a better lamp, beam onto things?”
