Bobby turned to the counter, lifted his bag, walked out.
“Children,” the woman said. “Children. Let’s stay in line.”
“Sir,” the cashier called. “Sir, your change!”
But Bobby had already left.
He sliced, he cooked, he made notes, but he could not get that smile out of his mind. He moved to the dining room table. The sun was high and only indirect light fell on his papers, sketches, finished drawings, notes, “THIS IS A KITCHEN,” read the block letters of the cutline on the drawing in his hand. Below, the text read, “This is the kitchen sink. Be prepared to spend a significant amount of time here.”
Wapinski flipped back to the first sheet—the cover—his cartoon drawing of a befuddled, eight-thumbed man standing amid stacked pots, pans, and pizza boxes. A cartoon dog that looked amazingly like Josh was in the corner looking equally befuddled. Arched across the top were the words The Feral Man’s Cookbook: With Menus for 30 Days. On the bottom, in smaller letters: “Written and illustrated by Robert J. Wapinski.” Under that in much smaller letters: “Recipes tested by Josh—if he wouldn’t eat it, it’s not included.”
Bobby chuckled. He flipped through the next few pages. Dedicated (to Grandma and Grandpa). He smiled, reread the introduction, “An elementary guide to the inner workings of a kitchen.” He flipped to his menu for zucchini lasagna, penned in the word basil. He felt good. He sniffed. The lasagna smelled wonderful.
“You were a company commander. Earned a Silver Star with Oak Leaf cluster, Bronze Star, Air Medals. What were you doing selling real estate?”
“Well, when I first came out my wife, my girl at the time, she was selling real estate. I didn’t have a job and she convinced me to get my license. Almost immediately I had a sale. Things just took off. It was a good job. I liked it. It was good to me and I think I was good to it, too.”
“I’m sure you were. I can’t get over this thought. I mean, it’s not too often I get to interview the commander of a combat company. Honorable discharge. Silver Star. You’re a little light in the education department.”
“I’ve enrolled in a few night courses to get my degree.”
“Good. It’s not a problem, though. You qualify on your work record. Salesman, office manager, planning committee member of the San Martin Board of Realtors. You’re ... why do you want this job?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it like this, but I’m tired of what the developers are doing to this town. I think I could be an effective force at helping to design a plan that they could live with and that would keep them from flattening and paving the entire area.”
“You know, you’re overqualified. It’s an assistant plannership. You’d be more clerk than planner. And it doesn’t pay nearly as much as you were making selling real estate. With your combat record, you should be seeking a better position.”
Wapinski chuckled. “You’re the first person that’s ever placed any importance on my military service. I’m proud of it, but truth is, I almost left it off the resume because I thought it might work against me.”
“See that plaque there?” The man gestured to the wall behind him where there was a framed Bronze Star certificate.
“Oh! I didn’t notice it. Viet Nam?”
“Korea. Look, I’ll put your application through with my recommendation that we start you off at the top pay bracket. That’s thirteen six. They don’t start anyone off at the top. Chances are, if you’re hired, you’ll be getting more like ten five and if they start you off at the bottom, that’s eighty-nine hundred. You’ll have to be interviewed by a few others.”
“Mr. Reed ...”
“Tim.”
“Tim. I want the job. The money’s not as important as the opportunity to serve.”
“To serve?”
“I mean ...”
“I know what you mean. I’ve just never heard it from a man in your generation.”
Where the heck could she be? It was midafternoon. He’d gone back to the Safeway a dozen times. “I’m doing a cookbook,” he’d explained. “Trying different recipes.”
“Ah, you’re the guy ...”
Bobby looked at the cashier. She turned away, looked at the cash register drawer, squirmed, popped her chewing gum. “Were you talking to me?”
Reluctantly she looked up. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re the guy that walked out without his change.”
“Hmm?”
“God!” Then to the drawer. “He doesn’t even remember. I shouldn’t a said anything.”
“My change?”
“Yeah. I can’t give it to ya.” Again she popped her gum. “It was ten ten. You gotta see the manager.”
“Oh, when I—”
“Yeah. Sheesh!” Again, more to herself than to Bobby, “If Miss Andrassy wasn’t here with her class ... You didn’t even know!”
“The ...” Bobby pointed into the aisle behind him. “What was her name?”
“Who?”
“The woman with all the kids?”
“Teacher. Miss Andrassy. She’s my sister’s teacher.”
“At ...”
“Over at the elementary school.”
“Hey—” Bobby beamed at the sullen cashier, “you know that ten ten?” She looked up at him. “You keep it.” He smiled. “Because you were so honest.”
“There’s the water problem to begin with,” Bobby said. “I know they’re deemphasizing it but the deepest well is pumping salt water and the one south of Bahia de Martin is contaminated with chemicals from the old landfill.”
“Well,” Henry Alan Harrison said, “you know a good deal more about this than most. But it may not be true.”
“True or not,” Bobby said, “it’s easily verifiable. These are the things a planner must be concerned with. How much can be pumped? What population can be sustained?”
“Yes.” Harrison nodded. “We’re looking for an assistant, you understand. Not a chief planner.”
“I’m willing to start at the bottom.”
“Um-hmm.” Harrison sat behind an ornate wooden desk. He was a young man. Bobby judged him to be not more than a year or two older than himself. Maybe even younger, he thought, but he’s already losing his hair. Harrison turned Wapinski’s resume over, read Tim Reed’s notes scribbled on the back. “You were talking to Tim about the ‘problems of homogenized communities’? What’s that all about?”
“We were talking about the demise of the multigenerational, multiethnic, multioccupational neighborhood. What I said to him was that if all the people who surround you have the same problems you have, and there’s no one around who had the same problem a generation or two ago, who lived and worked through it and learned, then you’re apt to have to rediscover the solution. Or worse. It may seem unsolvable. It’s a terrible waste not to draw on previous experience. Or from other socio-ethnic-economic groups.”
“Hmm.” For a moment Harrison was quiet. Then, “You were in Viet Nam?”
“Yes,” Wapinski answered. “Were you?”
“No. I was lucky. I had a high draft number.”
“You seem older than when the numbers ... I mean ...”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to go,” Harrison said. “I know guys who went. They’re very messed up.”
“I—” Bobby stuttered. He did not want to talk to Harrison about Viet Nam.
“You made it through okay?”
“Uh-huh. It was a great experience. Very interesting. Intense. Rough at times.”
“You’re the only person I ever heard say that.” Harrison looked suspiciously at Wapinski as if Wapinski were hiding something.
“It’s in the past,” Bobby said.
“Hmmm.” Harrison closed Wapinski’s file. “We’ll be in touch.”
Bobby continued to work on his cookbook, continued his running regime, continued to talk to Josh, care for Josh, walk or run the mountain trails with Josh. And he tried to think of ways to meet Sara Andrassy. Finding her name now seemed the easy part. He knew nothing abo
ut her except that she taught second grade. And she had an incredible smile, a nice voice, dark eyes. Physical infatuation, he told himself. To fall ... he thought, on sight! He chastised himself. “Frivolous!” he said to Josh. “But ... What do ya think, Josh? Bovine scat? Good grief! In a supermarket! Dumb, Man, dumb. Not even a single word and I melted. Dumb.”
At two thirty on Friday, June 8th, 1973, Bobby settled the questions. Five days before the end of the school year, he simply walked into Sara Andrassy’s classroom.
“May I help you?” Her skin looked deeply tanned, or perhaps she was dark; her hair was dark brown with a few red highlights wisping in the curls; her eyes glistened like polished obsidian.
“Sara Andrassy?”
“Yes. I’m Sara Andrassy. May I help you?”
He must have looked ridiculous, standing there before her and her twenty-two second graders. Her smile was broad. The children giggled. “I’m Robert Wapinski. I’m a new clerk with the Regional Planning Board.”
“Yes?”
“I ... I wanted to catch you before you left. Maybe I should come back after class ...”
“Certainly. If you’ll excuse me ...”
“Yes.”
He began to back out of the room, not taking his eyes off her. Before he was more than a few steps she said, “Do you play tennis?”
Then three little girls giggled loudly, sang and giggled while singing, “Miss Andrassy, in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
“I’d like ...” Bobby held Sara close. A mile off, over the waters of the bay, skyrockets erupted in the blackness. They had been together nearly a month. He’d swept her off her feet; she’d jolted him to his core. She was exactly everything he’d always wanted though perhaps quieter, perhaps shorter too, and more fragile, though not as fragile as he’d imagined. She was exactly everything he had always imagined in his ideal except not a single facet matched the image he maintained. The night was beautiful. He released her, leaned forward, opened his shirt. “I’d like you to have this,” he said.
“You never take it off, do you?”
“Would you wear it?”
“Always.”
“It’ll protect you. And that’s more important to me than anything in the world.”
“But what’s to protect you?”
“You. You make me want to live a thousand years.” With those words Bobby Wapinski slipped the chain with his silver Jumping Mary medallion over Sara Andrassy’s head.
Sara thought they should move more slowly. Bobby had no doubts. On their second “date” (he’d taken her to a Pizza Hut) he simply told her, “I’m going to marry you someday.”
In mid-July of 1973 Sara Andrassy moved into Bobby’s Old Russia Road cottage. The ensuing months were the happiest time of Bobby’s life. It was a time free from searching for a life partner, a time to follow his dreams, a period in which he would develop most of the concepts—though he did not fully realize it himself—of High Meadow and The Code.
Daily in July and August they walked Josh from the cottage down Old Mine Trail, circling the peak, sometimes descending Gold Mine Trail to Cataract, then climbing the old stairs by the lower dam and plodding through Reservoir Estates, into the bowels of North Peak CondoWorld. Farther on, beyond the Upper Res, they escaped into the still undeveloped west slope, then climbed Steep Hill Trail to the edge of the old Nike site, and back to the cottage. At times the sight of the development infuriated Bobby. But now, with Sara, he was often oblivious to everything but the two of them, Josh, and whatever was their current topic.
Sara was open, nondefensive. She told Bobby she was the fourth of four children, three older brothers. By heritage she was Hungarian, Chickasaw, and English. “And with gypsy and American Indian roots actually being in Asia,” Sara said, “I guess I’m an Amero-Euro-Asian mutt.”
“Perfect blend,” Bobby said. “Look at Josh and how great he turned out.”
“Oh thanks.” Sara laughed.
On one walk Sara explained, “Life just sort of acted upon Mom.”
“Um.” Bobby wanted to know details.
“She wasn’t very aggressive, but I know now she was passive-aggressive. She always got her way. She’d pout or whimper. Make us all feel guilty. Poor-me-type behavior. And everybody’d cave in.”
“When you meet Miriam”—Bobby had already told Sara about his mother—“you’ll see that different isn’t necessarily ... well ... Miriam isn’t passive.”
“Daddy’s a bit introverted. Sometimes he’s nice. Now Granddad Coolwater, he was downright mean. I remember when we were little and we’d driven from Atlanta to Cleveland to visit. And George, the brother just older than me, and me ... Granddad’d be sitting on the porch, in his chair, and he would ask us to come up and he’d say, ‘Put your hand there.’ He’d pat the arm of the chair. We’d put our hands there and he’d play chicken with us with his cigarette.”
“What!”
“He’d see how close he could come to our skin before we’d pull away. That was Sunday afternoon entertainment at Pawpee’s. I hated it.”
“I guess so.”
“Tamas, my oldest brother, once refused to move his hand and Pawpee refused to stop. Daddy got so angry when he found out.... He was my hero that day. He threw the chair from the porch and broke it. Then Lynette got angry at Daddy and they had a big fight.”
“Phew!”
“I was Daddy’s favorite at that time. He always said that. Lynette did too. I don’t know why but when I got a little older and they would fight I’d end up being the peacemaker. ‘Sara, tell your mother I won’t blah-blah-blah.’ ‘Well, you tell him blah-blah-blah.’ I used to feel like I must be this really terrible person. I mean, I felt I was the only thing holding them together.”
As Bobby and Sara’s relationship deepened Bobby could feel his singleness evaporating. He was as afraid of the commitment as a Dog Patch bachelor, and yet, with Sara, the evaporation pleased him. He saw in her a woman he could trust. For a son of Miriam Cadwalder Wapinski to be able to trust a woman and to recognize that, was the equivalent of popping a flare in the middle of a night-cloaked jungle.
Their relationship deepened quickly. Bobby told Sara about Viet Nam, the country, people, Americans he knew. “I must have been very fortunate to have been with the units I was because compared with some of the stuff I’ve read, we were outstanding.”
On the 19th of August, during his birthday call to his grandfather, Bobby said, “She’s pretty as Stacy, Granpa. Different though. She reminds me of Granma. She’s that kind of person.”
He’d driven the course—those sections that followed the road. And he’d parked and walked sections of the staircases and the mountain trails. It was 10 A.M., Sunday, 26 August 1973. Bobby was relaxed, happy, a little apprehensive as he lined up with the 1,235 other runners in Lytton Square. In the canyon the morning was cool, overcast. Bobby had not designed a prerace schedule for this Dipsea but had simply maintained his normal routine.
Numbered runners were released in order, by age, by handicap, the Dipsea being time trial, not mass release. Out of the gate, easy, not sprinting like some, loose, to the stairs, to the one hundred or five hundred cursed stairs, three cases with uphill road sections between, which better than half the field walked. He did not think of the stairs, did not count them, paid no attention to the people he passed, felt no irritation at the few who passed him. Up, up, out of the canyon, up, pines and redwoods giving way to eucalyptus, up, chuckling to himself as he burst out onto Edgewood Avenue, feeling comfortable with his steady pace, feeling strong up to Panoramic Highway. You scare me, sometimes, he said to Sara in his mind. You telling me how courageous I am when I’m such a coward. These dreams, these designs, they terrorize me. The pieces come slowly to me. The drawings take forever.
He reached the first crest at 750 feet, could see over the clouds to the Pacific, began the descent into Muir Woods. His thoughts meandered in the magnificence of the redwood forest. Suddenly he was across the gap in the cat
hedral of eastern hemlocks and he wanted to show Sara Muir Woods and the gap and the cathedral and he wondered how Granpa was doing. Up again, steep rutted trail to 700 feet, then down, rolling trail, then up to 900 feet, to 1,450 feet, to the edge of the woods, the sun breaking through, the protected forest giving way to open grassland and suddenly the steep descent dropping 800 feet in less than two-thirds of a mile. The trail leveled, the Stinson Beach Post Office and finish line were but a thousand feet. Bobby felt great. Sara had said to him, “There’s enough gypsy in me that I could live anywhere as long as there are hills and water.” He felt his long strides propelling him in harmony with an energy, a universal understanding, a power totally outside himself. A few people were clapping. He became aware of other runners and broke into a competitive sprint to the finish with a guy in green running silks and fancy shoes and he beat him by ten yards. Then slowing, turning to shake the man’s hand just across the finish line, but the man collapsed into him and both fell, the man grasping his calf, panting out, “Cramp!” and Bobby gritting his teeth, a pain shooting from his left knee up through his thigh, then gone until he stood and his left leg gave out and he couldn’t stand on it.
Sara hugged him. “You finished! Are you okay? What happened? You beat ... I saw you way up there and you passed almost everyone.”
“Yeah, I, ah, ha, hum. Just twisted my knee right here.”
The gas and oil crisis had opened up a thousand avenues to city, regional and state planners. The possibilities excited Wapinski. By late October there was talk of constructing an experimental solar village at Hamilton Air Force Base only ten miles south of San Martin. Sara heard from friends in Davis about phase I plans for a self-sustaining community with a sewage composting plant. Bobby visited both sites, talked to everyone he could. He had laid his cookbook aside. Now he abandoned it. Energy production-consumption policy gripped him.
“Look at this.” He waved an eleven-month-old Life magazine at Sara. “People knew this would happen. Listen, ‘We can’t escape shortages.’ This is John G. McLean, CONOCO chairman. ‘The critical “balance-wheel” will be the volume of foreign oil imports; this will be the element which will adjust for our failures or successes in other energy areas. Balance of payments ... by the early 1980s this deficit could be twenty to thirty billion dollars per year versus today’s three billion.’”
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