A California Closing

by Robert Wintner

  She recalled the first time her daddy let her steer the DeSoto and how the two experiences were remarkably similar in causing a giddy titillation to rise on her skin.

  Reaching over her shoulder, her new daddy punched up his website. “Look at this.” He’d initially called it urbanfox.com, for his namesake the Desert Fox, who wasn’t a bad Nazi, really. “I mean, they all were, but he was cool, you know.” Urbanfox.com also scintillated with double entendre, hinting that he was dumb like a fox, or that he was foxy, though that one could be troubling, taken the wrong way, you know. At any rate, it didn’t catch on and needed more focus on the object at hand, which was strategic maneuvering in a minefield laced with gold, or a goldfield laced with mines, depending on, well, you know.

  So he changed it to winwinwin.com, what it should have been in the first place because that’s what it was, a devilishly clever extension of the old win-win situation, with one more win, as you can see. “Now it’s catching on. Let me show you how it works.”

  Just like that, Rommel Dunbar let his jacket fall to the floor—it was so unseasonably hot—as he created before her eyes the most creative form of creative financing yet created in your creative segment of California commerce. The bank allowed for the down payment to be loaned by the bank and secured by a second mortgage, held by the bank, behind the first mortgage, also theirs. That would have made you blink in the past, since no lender wants to be in second position, especially not to themselves. But that thinking was flawed, because second position is first position, if it’s second to yourself. Don’t you see?

  Not to worry; by holding the first mortgage, the bank secured the property, so it made no difference, really, who held the second mortgage, and the bank was happy to hold it because it charged out at five points higher than the first. So they’d make even more money by separating a small portion of the loan and calling it a second. Risk? In this market? If prices went any higher, we’d need to leave town just to find more stuff to buy!

  The beauty of this arrangement was that Rose would need to make no payments, not on the first or second mortgages, not with property values rising quicker’n Jack’s beanstalk—a subtle flourish of excitement at this juncture included brief contact between his own beanstalk and her shoulder, the operative word here being brief, which went along with natural, and not exactly stiff but in the semi-ready phase that was so amusing and cute in the young ones.

  Anyway, he wouldn’t go there either, just yet, with momentum gaining on the simple success so available to those who could wake up and smell the gardenias. “Are those gardenias?”

  “Yes. Good nose. I have them flown in. Don’t you love them?”

  “Yes. They make me … They make me…”

  “I know. Me too.”

  Anyway, the bank, ultimately happy to serve, just like it said on TV, would simply reappraise the house upward every other month, increasing Rose’s debt on the technical side, but who gives a flying fuck (Rommel’s rhetorical question) on the practical side, since she could sell the place anytime and make a profit(!)?

  Don’t you see? Everybody wins, including the bank, the buyer, and the house! That’s why I call it winwinwin.com.

  In the meantime, she could live there for free, just riding the note a month late like a big wave surfer hanging ten till the odd month reappraisal, and boom, she’s in there clean again on a sixty day cycle. “Now, I don’t mean you just live there,” Rommel said.

  “Oh, boy,” she murmured. “Here comes the catch.”

  His silk-clad nub rested on her shoulder at this juncture, perhaps more obtrusive than natural, though casual contact was the attempted effect. His dingdong on her shoulder was meant to be incidental, unthinking, perched there by chance in the soft flurry of excitement. “You’re not just living there, if you’re living your dream,” he crooned. This last sentiment rang true and then some; it echoed from the figurative hills and bounced off the walls of her heart. It numbed her shoulder to the swelling bratwurst resting on it. It shut her up and opened her mouth on a whimper as her eyes virtually beheld all the crazy wonderful images of herself living in Noe Valley in the most fabulous Victorian ever. Such a montage was indeed enough to counterbalance and make sense of the red knob that somehow, someway, effortlessly if not magically had slipped around the corner while unveiling itself to fill the gap in her expression of delight and proceeded to tap her tonsils.

  It wasn’t so bad. Rommel Dunbar, or Randy Davis as she came to call him in the end, had the romantic sensitivity of a pneumatic dildo. But he would not tire, even as he loped headlong to tiresome durability. “Yeah, yeah, you’re the cock o’ the block,” she would moan assuredly three times over the next six months, once after each reappraisal upward, till, alas, reality in California, like all trips eventually will, adjusted downward yet again.

  Rommel’s next appeal was for a small, short-term advance, not even thirty days, much less ninety, on a few bucks to get him through a closing next week that would set things straight again. He’d pay back two points over, which, if you cared to punch the numbers with a twelve-month amortization extrapolated on the back end just for fun, would come out to over a hundred percent return on investment, and besides, it was the least she could do, given the dire straits little Miss Smarty Pants Rose had got him into.

  “Sounds like junk bonds, unsecured,” she said, because she’d learned a thing or two in her days of money meditation.

  “Secured? You want security? I’ll give you security. How about you make me this friendly little loan, and I’ll keep the roof over your head.” His bleak attempt at civility left them both with the shakes, but downside potential is present in every scenario, and it waited in the wings for this one. She should also make arrangements to make a few payments, he said. It wouldn’t be that many payments, but a few to keep the shit from hitting the fan. Not to worry, those few payments would be interest only. Of course, payments on three point three are higher than on two point six, but that difference was also technical since the appraised values were still greater one month to the next, and anyway, payments on neither value would be practical or possible.

  “I have a better idea.” She attempted nonchalance but couldn’t quite quell the shakes. “How about you make payments up your ass. Then take that stupid, overblown house and stick it up your ass. Then take your little loan and stick it up your ass too.” She was bailing out, as they say in the business.

  “You can’t bail! You own that house! And you owe me!”

  “Fuck you, Randy. Fuck you. Fuck the bank and fuck you. You can use that for your new website: fuckfuckfuck.com. Get it?”

  That language didn’t come easily to Rose Berry, or at least it didn’t use to, before her exposure to unscrupulous moral standards.

  Is that an oxymoron? I mean, if you have standards, aren’t you scrupulous, I mean, by nature?

  Oh, fuck it: the awful ring of truth hung in the air like roach spray, causing a wince but ridding the kitchen of varmints too. So she felt well rid of Rommel Randy dumbass, or whatever his name was. What a buffoon. What a blowhard. That guy couldn’t tell which end was up, who was who, what was money, and the difference between owned and owed? Or a debit and a credit? Boy, what a debit. No, wait … Never mind; he was a liability, not an asset, so goodbye, good riddance, so long, adios—like the song says.

  So a woman walked away in the most spiritual sense, letting go of her heartfelt desires, or their vestige remnants at any rate.

  Walking away from the material plane felt good and was a known remedy for life’s problems, though few people manage to find the simple solutions most available. Walking away wasn’t the same solution to life’s tedium as borrowing two point six million by signing a fax document. It was different. It was letting go. It was casting fate to the wind. Que sera, sera, whatever will be will be … What a great song that was, and oh, how true.

  And who would be waiting right outside, idling at the curb in the getaway car to take off with the loot for a new life
of romance and luxury? None other than Mr. Reality himself, who was just as surprised as she was, because that’s how the fates play it, by chance, just when you thought you were down—and don’t forget destiny, karma, the cards and, of course, the goddess within.

  Under any other circumstance, she would have sounded the alarm: pervert, stalker, rapist. His tit-scan was trumped, however, by what, in actuality, was meant to be. Yes, he appraised her, chest included, before murmuring as only he could, “¡Hola, Señora!”

  Of course, a lady doesn’t ride off in a truck with a strange man. But a woman of spiritual and material means could sense synchronicity when it came her way. She knew when things were taken care of. So, yes, she would take a ride with him. Because a gal who could ask the tough questions would be open to good fortune. Where did she need to be? Out of town, the farther the better. How could she get there? With a ride, and there it was, bringing up the closing question at last: Why the fuck not?

  Besides, there was a kid in the back. How bad could the guy be? I mean, I’d have gotten in if it was a dog back there, because you know a man with a dog is okay. But it was a kid. How much better was that?

  Besides, how weird could he be, with fine art, along with the kid? I mean, if that was weird, then I was too. I mean, really. The kid was staring, but still …

  “What is your name?”

  “Rose.”

  He nodded once. “Rosa.”

  She loved that—Rosa. “What’s your name?”

  “Call me Juan Valdez.”

  “Oh, God. You’re kidding!”

  “No. I kid you nada. I am him.”

  “Jesus. I mean, you know?”

  “I go south. You go south?”

  “Yes. South will do.”

  So she blinked out of a dream gone bad into a dream of adventure, to the soulful side, far from urban dandies, fops, buffoons, and banks. As if for safe measure, the karmic goddess had sent her a ride down the road in the vehicle of her redemption to Santa Cruz, everybody’s lifestyle Mecca, where a shoebox bungalow in a surf slum could run three million, or four if you hesitated. Then you could stare at waves rolling under young dudes going agro day after day till next year when you could ask five million or seven. It was so real, so elite, and refreshingly unique from that superficial Noe Valley scene.

  “I am Panchito.” This from the kid, at last, his bugging, blinking eyes seeking approbation of something or other, like maybe his thick, Mexican accent. But he was a cute kid and, better yet, he had a cute dog. “Esto es mi perro, Cisco.”

  “¿Que? ¿Panchito y Cisco? Ustedes esta mas … uh … young. You’re too young to remember Pancho and Cisco.”

  The kid didn’t comprehend, but give a girl a break.

  Her Spanish wasn’t that bad. Well, whatever. It just felt right; an old beater truck with a kid and a dog. What could be wrong? Headed south at that. A woman had to trust her instincts, and right then she felt nothing but relieved. Ugh, when she thought of that guy and his fake names and cashmere coats, laying his dingdong on her shoulder and calling it romantic. Ugh. Good riddance. And a good lesson too: you can’t get blood from a turnip, though she did try.

  And a woman’s most merciful critic should be herself. It was okay to mess things up—it was bound to happen now and then—as long as she came out a little bit smarter. Sure, it seemed like life’s critical juncture, in which a gal needed a new place and still does. But buy? Are you kidding? She’ll rent, thank you very much. That whole down payment, leverage on paper, no worries, and odd-month-reappraisal routine was a fool’s paradise. Better to let the vehicle of your destiny hit the pastoral landscape of America resurrected and be free! She nearly trembled at the prospect of downsizing to ten cents on the dollar—and updating the décor and furnishings next year. Or the year after. Maybe. Now there was an alternate reality to Noe Valley. They ought to call that place unreal estate. Ha! Give a country girl the outskirts any day. And a country girl is just exactly what this gal had decided to be.

  Next stop: Watsonville, a farm town with sidewalks thinly populated by thickset people in overalls and flowered gingham, where outdoor work was daily and most workers spoke Spanish first. It felt better, even as a concept, what might be called a lifestyle model: a little town in the country where real estate meant fulfillment of the dream and not a hotshot promising blue sky and a killing—make that a regular fucking massacre. And it was not Latino, not East LA or Watts. It was Mexican, like it has been and is and would be, rural for chrissakes, so it would change slowly instead of by urban reclamation, gentrification, and reactive anger.

  Watsonville felt like the end of the line and farther from delusional turmoil than mere miles can measure. Beyond the peninsula and sprawling suburbs and way yonder of the hip, chic, avant-bankrupt delusion, the place felt clean and simple. And so she arrived at where a woman can live free and breathe easy.

  How blessedly it began, with the most fabulous enchilada plate and a quiet night in a hotel so cheap they’d never believe it a hundred miles up in el Norte. Juan Valdez’s harmless flirtation and playful abrazo only made a girl feel good, if anybody wanted to know. Then he went home like such a gentleman, kind and sincere, maybe because he still had the kid in tow, but that only proved his decency, because kids usually do.

  He picked her up in the morning for a passable latte but rancheros to die for, again with his charm, saying the kid was in school, and so they enjoyed their breakfast like none she could remember in the city; he was so simple and honest and straightforward and … masculine. He didn’t even mention fleshy favors for another hour or insist for ten minutes after that. She wasn’t ready, but then what woman is ever ready to be swept off her feet? It wasn’t that she didn’t mind by then. She did, but she gave it up in a process she thought of as adaptation, and she was frankly ready for a different go than what she’d recently endured—not so swanky-panky and a whole heap more man. Some guys understand the meaning of no and oh, oh, oh.

  In farm country she could live simply, loving the basic beauty of the place and the lifestyle it had to offer: a little rain, a little sun, some dirt under the nails, and light perspiration across the brow and upper lip. It felt like a hundred years ago or something, like when Miss Kitty took Marshal Dillon up to the second floor of the Long Branch Saloon. Miss Kitty owned that place, because a woman could make something of herself even then if she’d a mind to. This place did seem a tad over the top on the deferred maintenance issue. The lace curtains could have been original. But it could all be updated! Moreover …

  It was a lovely patina on him too, across his chest and incredible arms. It looked more like that stuff they spray on in the movies to accentuate muscle definition—not that this guy needed accentuation; God, the way his pants hung off his hips with that bulge and those eyes. What girl wouldn’t be curious? And a truly mature woman will prefer more mature guys every time.

  Soon she wished he would put his shirt back on, like in twenty or thirty minutes, she wished. That’s the thing about Mexican guys: they know how to look at a woman, like, with romance instead of sizing her up for sex. Sure, he already knew her size, and could likely assess her inclination, or maybe he only assumed as much, but still. Those trucks always seemed so silly, but in a working farm town they seemed to fit. After all, those guys are Mexican and everything. It felt more real than the charade up north. Warmer too. So a woman let her defense internal ease up for a while with thoughts that maybe this was it, or could be it or … Never mind: this was the moment, and in no time it would be another moment, and there you go. It was so cute, the way he had to park right in front and kept looking out the window at it, like he loved that truck just as he would if it was his horse.

  Things felt honest, so different than that goofy guy with his frilly things and endless name-dropping and unspeakable greed and god-awful smell of Right Guard and cologne. And, truth be told, all the stamina of a city boy. Ha! This was different; this was salt o’ the earth, which was who she’d become, just that
quick, because puzzle parts fitting neatly together make the big picture clear. The third world, cutting-edge art made it even better, more of an overlay than a synthesis, or maybe it was juxtaposition, but maybe that was just her, lingering for a while in the intellectual wallow so popular with urbanites. He smelled better too, more like a goat—a living goat, a muscular goat who lived hard and …

  Whatever, it all … felt … or … ganic … Oh, oh, God!

  Oh …

  It was like all of life before Juan was a fogbank of amorphous, vague images and inconsequential recollection and then came a truck bound for Watsonville, as life stretched onward with clarity and meaning in the most beautiful way. And it happened by chance! Which proves the adage that magic happens, and so it did.

  Sure, a change that big meant a few growing pains. For one thing, a gal needed to make a living, but that should be easy. Nobody could starve to death in farm country. And this wasn’t just any farm country. This was the Fertile Crescent West. You couldn’t walk a quarter mile in any direction without coming onto one crop or another. She wouldn’t want to steal produce long-term. But she could always do massage, maybe not in Watsonville, because salt o’ the earth folk don’t get massage, and besides, why hoe this hardpan with such premium topsoil just up the road? Big bucks, that is, and it’s still an up-charge for outcall.

  XIII

  Big M OK Cars

  Betty Smith changed her name to Ellspeth Smythe and swore it made all the difference in her life, her future, and her fate.

  Perhaps. But events led to another name change a young woman could not have anticipated, marking the greatest difference a wayward girl could achieve. Becoming Mrs. Alfred N. Whitehead Burnham of the Highborough Burnhams, she woke up daily to her wildest dreams, as she would continue to do for the next fifty years.