I felt my face go crimson with embarrassment as I heard the room explode in laughter, and a hot flush of rage at the sarcastic put-down triggered an instant response.
“Thank you, Mrs. Dowdy,” I said, finding a seat on the aisle.
A dead silence smothered the room.
Her face was a thundercloud as she stalked toward me and firmly stated, “I’d enjoy your company after class tomorrow, Mr. McDuff.”
“Of course, Mrs. Dowdy.”
The dressing down she gave me got my attention, but I had a mother and a sister who could have given her lessons.
The next morning the old Buick with a new battery didn’t fail me. I was in class early and sat in a front row.
“Good morning, Mr. McNeil. How nice to see you.”
The smile on her face never reached her eyes.
“Good morning to you, Mrs. Dowdy.”
“After class?” she questioned.
“After class,” I responded.
I’d come a long way—the hard way—since I’d cringed under the whiplash of ridicule and humiliation and I’d never accept that again. It was cheaper to pay the piper.
As the last of my classmates filed out, she walked over to me. Standing tall, she studied me for minutes that seemed to stretch into hours.
I returned her look with one of my own and the message passed between us.
“You do know my name, do you not, Mr. McAllister?”
“As you know mine, Mrs. Dowd.”
With those words, the line was drawn and peace was declared.
“I want a fifteen-hundred-word essay on the proper, most productive way to interview the president of the United States. Due in two days. You are excused.”
The first sentence of my essay read, “The most important step in establishing a good relationship with any person is to make sure you spell and pronounce his or her name correctly.”
After a pause, I added, “A man’s name tells you more than who he is. It tells you, in time, what he is.”
I handed Mrs. Dowd my completed essay one day later. I was groggy from lack of sleep, but proud of the job I’d done.
She gave me a B minus, a grade unheard of in her class, where a C was rumored to be the equivalent of an A given by any other instructor.
“Well done, Mr. McAllister,” she added.
After class I stared down the guy in the hall who called out “Ass- kisser” just loud enough for me to hear. I laughed.
• • •
Although our peace had been negotiated, life in her class was not meant to be easy. She challenged me in every possible way; her brilliant brain woke my sleeping mind to things I’d never even dreamed about and I absorbed it like a thirsty sponge.
That long black eyebrow would rise slightly on one side in a quirky gesture that would have been interesting on anyone else. But with Dowd, it was like a Doberman showing its teeth, a red flag preceding an off-the-wall question or assignment. I would brace myself for the look when her eyes finally came to rest on me.
I studied late into the night. I rewrote, researched, listened and learned—and seldom ever forgot. I truly had a photographic mind, and it had its rewards.
Once in a great while, I could best her. Then the closest thing that ever came to a smile would surface, momentarily, and leave me wondering if I had just imagined it.
As I was the scapegoat, I was also the hero—occasionally.
I heard later that there was a fair amount of wagering going on in that classroom and I cost some of those sports their allowances.
She did once say in a moment of generosity that a few of us had promise. I thought she looked at me.
CHAPTER 17
I’d gotten pretty well adjusted in my second semester, but occasionally I would wake at night to the rough sounds of Carlos’ snores, Juan’s soft breathing just an arm’s length away, and the horrific memories of that time of my life would try to push through the wall that Alfie had built. Not only the night he had rocked me in his big black arms, but the many hours we had spent talking together with the flower children at the Diggers’ hangout.
I resolved once more to check the University of California, San Francisco medical school. I never knew Alfie’s last name or if I did, it had long since been forgotten. I don’t think he ever knew mine.
Hoping to get lucky and catch Alfie carrying a tray, I lunched at any opportunity in the cafeteria where the medical students hung out. The food was good, the room was crowded, but Alfie would be hard to miss at six feet three inches. That made him a marked man.
I used to kid him, asking, “How come you aren’t pulling down the big money by playing basketball instead of ruining your eyesight trying to decipher all those big words and overloading your brain?”
His ready answer was always, “How come you ain’t still shoveling shit, Cowboy?”
Giving up for the day, I stood to leave and noticed four black guys having lunch at a nearby table. Walking over, I introduced myself and asked if they might know of a big guy named Alfie, explaining that I thought he might be in his last year of medical school. I even told them that Alfie and I had worked together as volunteers at the Diggers drop-in some time ago.
Their expressions were perfectly blank.
Then one of them spoke in an exaggerated drawl, saying, “Y’all mean a big black nigga with a flat nose and kinky hair? All us niggas look alike, ya know.” His companions grinned their appreciation, then shook their heads.
“Naw, ain’t seen no nigga like dat,” one added.
It didn’t take an Einstein to see where this was going, so I said, “Thank you, gentlemen, for your time.”
They laughed as I walked away, then conversed among themselves.
“Wonder what he wants with Alfred?”
“Probably one of those leftover hippies looking for a handout.”
“Guess that big old boy graduated at the top of his class and is working in a big hospital on the other side of town. Now there’s a uppity nigga.”
I was pissed as I drove home. But when my anger cooled, I wondered how many times they had been humiliated—even in this upscale university where people are expected to know better.
I hated to give up my illusions, but I discovered time and again that life in the big city was hell on illusions.
• • •
My self-confidence blossomed and I matched it with a little half- hearted swagger as I walked. After all, I was a college man now.
I had gained weight eating my own mac and cheese—all I knew how to cook—and all the goodies that Ma sent back with me after stuffing me every weekend.
I hadn’t seemed to stop growing. I was now pushing six feet tall and a hundred seventy pounds.
Sis said it was all in the right places, and I declared I was downright handsome now that my ears had shrunk to fit my head and my feet fit the rest of me. Of course, in the next breath Sis would ask to borrow ten dollars, so I didn’t get too excited.
My experience with Lupe had educated me far beyond my years, but my sexual feelings now lay dormant beneath the excitement and commitment of college.
I thought far more about the intractable Mrs. Dowd than I did about the pretty girls who caught my eye for a fleeting hello-goodbye.
• • •
It was Friday afternoon. Classes were over and I was hurrying, wanting to get started for home.
The parking area was pretty well thinned out. As usual, I was parked at the far end because I never seemed to take the time to look for a closer space.
The Buick was at the base of a slight incline when I’d come in, so I was surprised to see a little orange Volkswagen perched at the top level. I remembered thinking, “I hope the brakes are on.”
As I neared my car, I saw the two of them in close embrace—the Volkswagen had rolled back and the rear fender was in intimate contact with the Buick’s bumper. Joined at the hip, you might say.
A girl with her back to me was vainly trying to pull the VW’s fender loose,
but the Buick held on tenaciously.
I was more than a little irritated, but rose to the occasion when I saw how incredibly lovely she was. Something jiggled in my mind, but I couldn’t say what it was.
When she raised her hand to brush back the shiny black hair that swung in her face, I saw she wore a ring on the third finger of her left hand. Just my damn luck to rescue a beautiful damsel in distress who was wearing an engagement ring.
We stared at each other a moment. She looked vaguely familiar, but I knew I’d never seen her before. How would I ever have forgotten her?
Then she said, her eyes wide and disbelieving, “Cowboy? You can’t be Cowboy. He was puny. But, yes, you are Cowboy. I hardly recognize you with your clothes on.”
The word “Cowboy” took me back to my time at the Haight-Ashbury mansion. Seemed like a century ago. I guess I looked pretty blank because she said, “I’m the one who got you dressed—remember the tie-dyed bell-bottoms? And I cheered you on when you raced down the hall screaming for a jacket as naked as the day you were born. Well, there may have been some soap bubbles. How would I ever forget you?” She laughed.
After the shock wore off, I laughed, too.
Then the climate changed.
“Why in the world did you park way down there?”
“Why did you park directly in front of me on an incline? And didn’t you set your brakes?”
She turned and was tugging at the fender with no success.
“Never mind,” I said as I heard her sniffling.
I dug around in the trunk and found the jack and managed to slip it under the front wheel of that old monster—it weighed a ton. I lifted the car just enough to be able to dislodge the two cars.
The Volkswagen’s fender was wrinkled and crushed into the tire.
“I don’t think you can drive this—the fender is gouged too deep in the rubber and I can’t make it give an inch.”
“Oh, no…” The tears gathered momentum.
“Will you stop that bawling? I’ll take you where you need to go. You can call a tow truck there,” I said, a bit ungraciously.
“I’ve got a part-time job and I’m already late. And I don’t really even know you. How do I know…”
I interrupted, “Do I look like a serial killer to you?”
She laughed. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen a naked serial killer.” She blinked away the tears.
I looked at her in amazement. First she was blubbering like a baby, now she’s making jokes.
“I’m Rica Vallea, and you are…?”
“Steve McAllister. Don’t call me ‘Cowboy.’ ”
As Rica got some things from her car, I pushed some stuff out of the way and piled the rest of it in the backseat. I held the door open for her and noticed she looked as good going as coming.
I maneuvered around the VW. It looked as forlorn sitting there as the beetle it was named after.
“Where to?” I asked.
“I’m embarrassed to tell you. I need to go to Pacific Heights—it’s not just around the corner. I suppose you know it’s across the bay.”
“I don’t really know San Francisco. I never got any farther than the Haight-Ashbury and I wasn’t very clear then. You’ll have to direct me. What’s happening in Pacific Heights?”
“I have a part-time job tutoring a young man for a few months. The pay is wonderful and he is a real sweetheart…but different. They live in a mansion that makes that other place look like a tenement. He got a Mercedes coupe for his birthday so I taught him to drive. He’s learned so quickly that I think my job may soon be over. I’ll miss him—he seems almost like a brother. Sometimes he seems so sad—lonesome, probably.
“That’s the Bay Bridge exit coming up. Stay on the right side.”
It seemed like all of San Francisco was rushing home and the only possible way was over that bridge.
There were so many vehicles converging, I thought amnesty had been granted to every sinner on earth and the gates of heaven had been flung open for perhaps five minutes.
I dared to glance down for a split-second at the heat gauge—had it crept up? In moments of stress, the old clunker had been known to overheat.
As though on another planet, in the far, far distance, the vague outline appeared of the city, only to disappear again and again. The speeding cars and trucks passed around and over, horns blaring, lights flashing. I got shaky.
The great span of metal and concrete that was the Bay Bridge hung against the sky in great swoops and swirls that glinted in the late afternoon sunshine.
I was almost frozen with fear; my knuckles were white against the dark of the steering wheel as I held the car steady in a lane that I hoped was for the uninitiated.
I guess she noticed because she laughed and said, “Guess this must be pretty intimidating—your first trip across the bay?”
“It’s hardly my first crossing, but it still is a bit daunting.”
My heart throbbed until I thought my ribs would crack. I said, as casually as possible since my tongue was frozen to the roof of my mouth, “Oh, this isn’t so much. I went over Victoria Falls in a birch-bark canoe a couple of times.” But I was caught in my own lie when I stuttered.
She giggled. “This is only five lanes and there are five more on the bottom level.” Then added, “The bridge is only about five miles long—actually one of the longest in the world. The scary part is that long, dark tunnel built through the rock of Yerba Buena Island.”
I looked to see if she was putting me on, but her smile was so innocent that I was halfway ashamed to be so suspicious.
But then she said, “Sure would be a mess after an earthquake.” And I knew.
I took a quick glance at the temperature gauge. The needle was slowly creeping up. “Please God, don’t let it blow on this bridge. I promise…”
“Hang in there, Cowboy, you’re doing okay.”
“Don’t call me Cowboy.”
“You’ll always be Cowboy to me. You’ve got a face like one of those Marlboro men.”
“How about the rest of me?” I tried to joke.
“Don’t know—haven’t seen the Marlboro Man naked.”
Damn this girl.
“Are you going to Oakdale College?” she asked. “My girlfriend goes to Oakdale and I was hoping to catch her between classes.”
“Yes,” I answered sharply as I tried to keep some maniac from crowding me over into the railing.
“What subjects are you taking?”
“Journalism—feature writing.”
“I’m in my second year at the School of Nursing at the University of San Francisco. My fiancé graduated last year from the University of California, San Francisco Medical School and is interning there now. UCSF is considered one of the world’s leading health centers.”
This was more information than I needed to know.
It seemed like I had driven forever as she chatted like a magpie, when suddenly the bridge was behind us and I started to breathe again.
I fought the rush-hour traffic in the busy city and drove through some magnificent neighborhoods. I was in awe.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” she said.
The tired old Buick steamed and sputtered up the hill as though it was embarrassed to be intruding into this world of luxury.
“Pacific Heights coming up,” she said, and pointed to a long, winding driveway flanked by century-old trees just beginning to drop their leaves.
The ornate iron gate stood open and, beyond that, a house the likes of which I’d never even imagined stood as though it had been waiting—just for us.
I pulled into an enclosure, later learning that it’s called a “porte cochere.”
As I shut off the engine, I noticed the red flag on the temperature gauge burned bright. The old car was ominously silent—not a creak or a crack.
A figure ran down the steps calling, “Rica, we were worried about you. Are you all right?”
That voice—where had I heard it befo
re? It teased my memory. I knew that voice, but who? Where?
I hesitated, then turned and looked.
My logical mind said no as I looked away. I felt a momentary sense of fear. I’d been studying late into the night, losing sleep, was pretty shook up driving over that bridge. I must be hallucinating.
I looked back again and his eyes met mine.
A disbelieving, questioning voice barely spoke above a whisper. “Steve?”
Then the wild, jubilant cry, “Steve, Steve, Steve.”
Juan flung himself against me, his arms wrapped so tightly around me that I couldn’t lift my own to wipe the tears that ran like a river down my face.
Together our tears wet his cashmere jacket as Rica, in shock, ran screaming to the house. “Dr. Teddy, Dr. Teddy.”
Sara and Dr. Teddy stood transfixed in the doorway. Rica peeked from behind.
It was at that moment that the car from Maryland decided to expel a great explosive grunt, a long hissing sigh that rose high in the air to form a billowing cloud of steam, then passed over to wherever it is that old Buicks go to die.
CHAPTER 18
At the unaccustomed sound, Mr. Mackey, the pruning tool still in his hand, walked as fast as his arthritic old legs would carry him. He muttered to himself as he puffed with unusual exertion, “I hope the missus hasn’t let that pressure cooker explode. I’ve told her a dozen times…”
As he threw opened the kitchen door, he saw her taking something from the oven and was reassured.
He stepped back and moved around the corner as fast as his old legs could carry him and was relieved when he spied the steaming car, but then he scowled watching the two young men embrace, stand back, then come together again and hold each other close.
Then the final straw—the Mexican held the other man’s face between his hands and kissed him on both cheeks.
Outraged, he went back to the kitchen and helped himself to a handful of cookies, the vivid picture of the two men embracing festering in his mind. He chewed steadily while pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“You’re awfully quiet. Are you tired? I think dinner will be a little late tonight—growing boys, you know,” his wife spoke.
And Yesterday Is Gone Page 12
