The Other Joseph

by Skip Horack

  Joni had taken off her shoes, and I couldn’t watch her walk onto the brown beach without feeling that day in 1959. I waited in the parking lot as she stopped not too far from the water’s edge. Her buckskin jacket was tied around her waist now; she was wearing an ivory tank top. I was afraid she was going to walk right into the Golden Gate, that a descendant of the shark in her mother’s poem would be coming for her, but then she sat down in the sand.

  I paused at the bottom of some steps that led from the parking lot to the beach. Jammed my socks into my Red Wings. Cuffed my jeans above my calves. The sand was almost hot on my feet, and I got about ten yards from Joni, ready to roll the dice —­could see a starry spray of freckles escaping from the scoop of her tank top, even —­when her phone began to ring. I slowed down, not sure what to do, as she spoke in a long sigh. “I know, Mom,” she said into the cell. “Okay, I know, okay.”

  Fuck. This was a haunted, bad-­luck place. I couldn’t very well jump out of the cake while Nancy was on with her, so I veered to the right, made for the tide line to regroup.

  I felt close to certain Joni was watching me walk away from her, a boot in each hand, and I wondered if she was sensing anything familiar in how this drifter carried himself. The Golden Gate Bridge was up ahead, and I squinted against the sun, putting my focus there as I marched on. When I at last looked back at her she was a small blur leaving for the parking lot, and I froze for a moment to decide what next. It was only then that I realized the few sunbathers at this end of the beach were naked, that I’d wandered onto a nude beach. They were all guys —­all except for a drunk woman sipping from a brown-­bagged bottle and glaring at me. Her whole body was tattoos; her head was shaved. I was staring, and that sent her into a fit. “Eat shit,” she screamed. “No gawkers.”

  A harem of muscled, wasp-­waisted men were lying on either side of the woman, and one of them sat up and looked at me. “Yeah,” he yapped. “Go away.” His skin was as orange as fresh rust, and soon other orange men were calling out, supporting and defending their mistress overlord, misunderstanding my intentions. Joni was gone now. I had been robbed of her, and I imagined pulling out a pistol. I imagined watching them scatter.

  But with no Walther to wave I did the only thing I could think of to appease them. I threw down my Red Wings and unbuckled my belt, stripped off my jeans and my T-­shirt and my jockeys until all that remained was the chain around my neck. The water was too cold to believe, but I went wading into the surf anyway. I was the sole swimmer on a half mile of beach, and that circus-­freak woman had gone from cursing me to applauding me. She had her hands up over her hairless head and was clapping. I wouldn’t be able to stand that icy Golden Gate long, but despite my misery I must say this also felt nice, proving all of them wrong.

  That missed opportunity with Joni —­then, on the way back from Baker Beach, anxious for a distraction, an easing of the sting, I wasn’t even able to get Viktor on the phone to check about Marina. I needed to right this ship, so after a shower in the apartment to wash off the salt and sand from my lunatic swim, I went to walk Sam and think.

  A light fog had rolled into the Outer Richmond. The warm, sunny day had turned nippy and gray. I knew from Nancy’s San Francisco Chronicle letter I’d found in the Cybermobile that Joni went to George Washington High School, and I was contemplating how I might make use of that information when I saw a jug-­eared old man in a beige windbreaker staple-­gunning a flyer to the telephone pole out front of the apartment. I didn’t pay him any mind until I realized the flyer wasn’t for a garage sale or a lost cat or some such. The top screamed REWARD!, and below that was a photo of a guy with sunken cheeks leaned back in an easy chair and grinning at the camera, a wrapped present on his slim lap. I tugged Sam closer and thought of family albums. Of FOR OUR TOMMY in the bottom of my duffel bag, waiting on me still, but not forgotten.

  Beneath the flyer photo was a phone number, then a tight brick of words:

  Up to $5000 for information leading to the location of thirty-one-year-­old Mark Sorensen. He was last seen living near the soccer fields in Golden Gate Park. Collect calls will be accepted.

  I was more or less looking over the old man’s shoulder, but he hadn’t noticed me yet. That same phone number was handwritten vertically over and over again along the bottom of the flyer, and the spaces between each scrawled set of digits had been cut with scissors to create fifteen or so tear slips. His hands were trembling, and it took him a while to get the final corner stapled. Next, he ripped off a ­couple of the tasseled phone numbers and put them in his windbreaker. I almost smiled at that, but it probably wasn’t a dumb move. Most ­people hate to be the first to do anything, and I guess assisting a missing person investigation is no different than calling about a used futon.

  The old man got everything situated like he wanted, then turned around and saw me and Sam. He was startled to find us standing there on top of him. A sheaf of flyers was stuffed into his brown pants, and the staple gun was aimed at my crotch. He couldn’t have been a day shy of eighty. A warship was anchored across the front of the ball cap he was wearing. The USS Cecil J. Doyle, according to the gold stitching. Hooyah. A sailor, then. My brother’s brother.

  I backed up, and the old man patted at the flyer on the telephone pole with his other hand, the one not holding the staple gun. “My grandson,” he said. “Mark.”

  Oh, fuck me. “I’m really sorry,” I told him.

  “That’s from last Christmas.” He was still sort of caressing the flyer. “On the farm in Minnesota.”

  “You came here from Minnesota?”

  “Ten of us done flew out.” Sam had been sniffing at the old man’s Velcro shoes, and he was petting him now. “Police don’t seem to care much. We thought we might could help them along some.”

  The image of a family of grieving, helpful Minnesotans sitting cross-­legged on the floor of a hotel room, scissoring slits into the bottoms of flyers —­that will be in my stupid head forever.

  “Drugs,” he said.

  “Pardon?”

  “Mark and his darn drugs. We’ve been expecting something like this.”

  He took out a handkerchief, blowing his nose as I reeled Sam in. At first I thought the old man was crying, but he wasn’t. It was chilly and wet due to the fog, and he just had a runny nose.

  “Well,” he said, and then he ambled off. He was moving very slowly, and Sam and I watched him. This was a tough old bastard. His generation doesn’t let life get to them like mine does. I’d probably had more nightmares and mind slips in the past two months than he’d had in his eight decades, and I’ve never even worn a uniform —­or at least not his and Tommy’s kind of uniform. As part of a seventh-­grade social studies project I once asked three north Louisiana D-­Dayers about the war, but all they had really wanted to talk about was how by golly the women in France had been.

  The old man skipped the next telephone pole but stopped at the one after that. He fished out another flyer to staple, then all of a sudden he stumbled. The staple gun went clattering onto the sidewalk, and luckily the pole caught him or he’d have been lying on the concrete himself. I ran over, and Sam scampered along beside me, dragging his leash.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  “You’re back.”

  “Yes sir.” I sat Sam while the old man got his staple gun. I sensed that in his prime this shrunken grandfather in a ship-­reunion cap had been a stocky farm boy who could have whipped my ass up and down that street, but those were bygone days. He lifted the flyer he was holding, then stapled it flat to the telephone pole.

  “Lawrence Sorensen,” he said, offering his hand.

  “Nice to meet you. Roy Joseph.”

  “Two first names? You a southerner, Roy Joseph? You sound like a southerner.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Lawrence didn’t have much of a grip, but he was still clenching my hand. “Bu
t you live here?” he asked.

  “I do,” I said, not wanting to get into it. Sam was on his belly, alert but being good and still, somehow knowing this wasn’t a time for merriment.

  “Ever run across our Mark?”

  “No sir. Never.”

  “Bet you see this as harebrained.” He let me loose. “But they all were set on coming, and I wasn’t about to let them do this without me.”

  I didn’t see anyone else out walking in the cold, Sorensens or otherwise. “Where are they now? Your family?”

  Lawrence slapped at the flyers pinned against his stomach. “Split up in the park and thereabouts, doing what I’m doing. I made them give me fifty of these, let me cover a few blocks.” He shook his head. “I guess they were right. I guess I should’ve stayed in Minnesota.”

  Though I had planned to take Sam to the park, I knew what I should do. What Tommy would have done for another navy man. For anyone, really. Even Sam understood. He was on his feet now but sulking.

  “Let’s go over to the supermarket,” I said. “You can get a cup of coffee, and I’ll finish this up. Won’t take me long.”

  I could tell Lawrence wasn’t too thrilled by the idea of quitting, but his body was failing him and he seemed to recognize that. I left him while I put Sam in the apartment, and when I returned Lawrence had walked to the telephone pole at the corner of Fulton to post a last flyer by himself. I hurried to him, and he handed me the staple gun like he was surrendering a weapon.

  “Are you ready?” I asked.

  He shrugged, but I started leading him down Fulton, the out-­of-­commission LeBaron up ahead, already filthy with city grunge, monitoring us as we made the three blocks to the Safeway.

  I sat Lawrence on a bench by the front entrance. There was an arcade unicorn plugged into the wall, and a woman was watching her little girl bounce back and forth. “Or would you rather go inside?” I asked. “It’ll be warm in there.”

  Lawrence hadn’t spoken since we’d begun our march, but he looked as if he wanted to tell me something now. He pointed across the street. A row of condo buildings blocked our view of the Pacific. “I was in San Fran with the Doyle in ’46,” he said. “Only other time. Did you know this around here used to be an amusement park?”

  “No sir.”

  “I still remember. It was called Playland. Funland, maybe. Me and some shipmates got into a fight with some locals right on the carousel.” He laughed, coughed, and then laughed again. “Us brawling as that thing spun round and round. All those civilians frogging off like they were swabbies on a sinking ship.”

  “Must’ve been a sight.”

  “That it was.” He was staring at the girl on the plastic unicorn. “Back then a man could fight another man and not get himself killed. ­People are meaner now.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure I do.”

  I slid the staple gun under my belt. They sold to-­go coffee over by the deli, and I bought a cup and a Sunday paper. When I went back outside I saw the unicorn had been abandoned. I gave Lawrence his black decaf, then set the newspaper next to him on the bench.

  “Thank you, son,” he said. “What do I owe you?”

  “My treat. Wait right here and don’t worry. I’ll pound this out.”

  He was grateful but he was proud, and I could see I had him feeling a bit like a child. He passed me the flyers, and I walked those same three blocks up Fulton to Forty-­Sixth Avenue, stopping across from that last flyer he’d posted. I got to stapling. There were about twenty flyers left, and I zigzagged through the avenues, careening from Fulton to Cabrillo to Fulton until my jean pockets were confettied with tear slips and I was once again at the Safeway. Thank Tommy, not me. I’m just his proxy, Mr. Lawrence. You’ll never meet him, but he’s behind this.

  I had only been gone maybe a half hour, and Lawrence was still sitting on the bench where I’d left him. The newspaper hadn’t been touched, and his coffee was resting on top of it. He was sleeping. I sat down on the bench, and when I cleared my throat his eyes flittered open under the bill of his warship cap.

  “Hey,” I said. “Done and dusted. You’re all set.”

  He looked over at me. He seemed groggy, and it took him a second to sweep away the cobwebs. “You got both sides of the street?” he asked. “I forgot to tell you both sides.”

  “Yes sir. Both sides. Hope some good comes of it.”

  “So do we.” He didn’t sound optimistic, and there was no reason he should have. Mark Sorensen was doomed —­destined for some killing acre and as good as dead, really —­but the Sorensens had needed to do something, anything, and this hunting trip was the best they could come up with.

  I set the staple gun between us. “What now?”

  “Nothing.” Lawrence reached inside his windbreaker and pulled out a big-­buttoned cell phone that must have been meant for seniors. “I appreciate your kindness, but this spud sack is peeled. I’m supposed to call them when I’m through.”

  I suspected his phone was also a GPS tracker, and that as his mind went from sharp to blunted some son or daughter would activate that feature if they hadn’t already. Before long this man wouldn’t be able to go anywhere —­Minnesota, California, the Persian Gulf —­without them being able to find him, and I wondered if he realized that. He was tapping around for some number, and though I was eager to help, I knew he wanted me to let him accomplish this one small thing for himself.

  And soon I could hear the phone ringing even from my side of the bench. A woman answered with a loud, Hey, Papa —­and Lawrence put the phone to his veiny, jumbo ear, said he was all right and all finished. You guys can come get me. Tell Larry Junior I’m at that grocery store.

  Lawrence tucked the phone back in his jacket. He would like me gone before his family showed. Somehow I knew that as well. He wouldn’t shake hands sitting, so we stood up together. The light fog had become heavy fog, and I reminded him to wait inside the store if he got too cold.

  “That boy is sick, Roy Joseph,” he said. “He’s sick, and we should’ve dragged him home when we could.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know if Mark Sorensen left Minnesota because he was running to something or, like me with Dry Springs, from something —­but, either way, leaving seemed to have been the wrong move for him. I had written off Dry Springs, my own home, years ago, but maybe that was a long and extended mistake. Maybe what I’d always thought of as an exile had in fact been a flight. Then there was gung-­ho Tommy, dying on the other side of the planet. It’s not just a job, it’s an adventure. What if he’d never gone looking for that adventure? Who’s to say what might or might not have happened to us? Who’s to say we wouldn’t all be on the farm together come December? Instead of one Joseph there are six, seven, eight of us. Wives, children. Our parents. We’re roasting a Christmas llama as new wars are waged on TV.

  Later, much later, I walked with Sam to the Great Highway and watched the sun set into the ocean. I stood there as night fell and ­people started lighting campfires on the beach. Government-­sanctioned fire pits, seasoned oak bought from the Safeway at precious-­metal prices, but to me this was like observing the aftermath of some catastrophe that had caused civilization to crumble. A second Dark Ages. The peak oil world or a plague, a thinning of the herd. I saw those five taxpayer campfires, then envisioned not five but five hundred, campfire after campfire all down the beach. Golden Gate Park was now a hellscape of stump-­covered sand hills, every last tree cut and hauled off. Sharon Stone was dancing in hobbles. Robin Williams, made to split park wood. San Francisco. About forty-­nine square miles. There were nearly a million ­people crowded onto that rock of a city. It was really only a matter of time.

  Lawrence and I had said our good-­byes at the Safeway earlier, but then I’d gone by those across-­the-­street condos and played guardian. And though he had waved at me to move on, I wouldn’t leave until I k
new he’d be taken care of. Fifteen minutes, then a white minivan pulled into the parking lot. And this had been such a nice thing to witness —­the Sorensens piling out of their rental, the smile on Lawrence’s face as he forgot me and rose to meet them —­that I wish I could have just chanced upon that scene, that I didn’t have to know the what and the why of it all.

  In Grand Isle I’d developed certain habits, customs, and rules for simple living, and on Pearl Lane Mondays I often made a batch of something I could eat from for the rest of the week. Comfort food. Red beans, white beans, a basic gumbo. And, seeking comfort, I had short ribs in the oven now. They were simmering away in one of Karen Yang’s pristine pots.

  When Washington High emptied that afternoon I would be waiting. With luck I’d be able to spot Joni, and finally we would meet. Though for weeks I had tried to prepare for this day —­other than, Hello, I’m Roy Joseph —­I still didn’t know what those first few things I’d say to her would be. If Mom, Dad, Tommy walked out of that school I’d trip over myself rushing over to hug them, to tell them I loved them before our window closed and it was me versus the universe again. There would be no trivial talk, not before I said the important things.

  But Joni? She was like a child left by gods to prove they exist. A foundling being raised in a temple far from her home, born into a role she had no choice but to accept. A girl to be revered by priests and pilgrims not for who she was but for what she was. So yes, I had thought about this day plenty, but in the end I knew all I could do was be bold and let the current seize us, hope the river would eventually carry us away from that temple, that place of surrogate worship, and toward something real.

  Yet what would happen once I had told that temple child everything I could about Tommy? Once I’d shared the Gospel of Roy and converted the pagan girl? Maybe at that moment of conversion I would see her as a niece —­but when I shed my disciple robe would she see an uncle standing there? Would she have any more use for me at all?