Lethal Fetish

by Jeffrey Alan Lockwood

  “Are my people the enemy?” I asked, munching on a forkful of crab and asparagus.

  “The Irish?” she laughed. “Hardly. Well, maybe that president that your people produced, but the white working class is not the enemy of the brown. Instead, it’s the millionaires ravaging this city and country—and the big corporations who binge on labor and resources so they can puke up dividends and stock options.”

  “Maybe there’s a kind of justice,” I said. “What alcohol did to your people, cocaine seems to be doing to the upper class.”

  Our dinner conversation was hardly romantic, despite the sumptuous setting. But it hadn’t been a week that lent itself to pleasant topics. We continued to exchange thoughts about what it meant to be hiding at the margins of social acceptability—in the literal basements and figurative sewers. The cockroaches, perverts, Indians, and retarded had something in common that polite company would not admit. At least we finished the meal on a high note, as Nina shared with me Tommy’s afternoon of frenzied excitement about going to the Cal Academy tomorrow.

  The clouds were delivering what the Irish call a hooring rain, meaning that we were drenched by the time we got to my truck and the windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour. Back at my house, we shed our cold, wet clothes and shared a steamy shower. From there, we crawled under the covers. There’s something enchanting about intimacy during a storm. She luxuriated in the sounds of nature, and I relished the murmurs of both the rain and my lover. How would society judge our lovemaking? If we’d been caught in the Middle Ages entwined in one of our favored positions that violated the ‘natural order’ of male-female roles or that resembled animalistic coupling, we would’ve been judged to be deviants and sentenced to years of penance. And even the modern Church wouldn’t have approved of our purpose, which was most definitely pleasure and not procreation. But that stricture seems like deeming cioppino a sin because food is meant to fill the belly, not to be savored.

  CHAPTER 22

  I rolled out of bed and winced. Our lovemaking had been lively but not the stuff of morning soreness. Rather, my muscle ache was the result of those last two dozen sit-ups at Marty’s. I headed to the bathroom hoping that a hot shower would soothe my tender abdomen and allow me to stand fully upright. Nina came in as I stepped out of the bathtub and her help toweling me dry got me thinking that maybe there was enough time for an encore romp before we started the day. But she gave me a maidenly kiss and gently shoved me out into the hall which was undoubtedly the wiser course for the morning. Tommy had a difficult enough time waiting for a weekend outing without our being late.

  He came lurching down the stairs of my mother’s Victorian house as I parked at the curb. Tommy was bundled in a wool sweater that hung below a yellow rain slicker. He was shouting over his shoulder to my mother, who had come out to make sure that her boys were going to behave themselves. Having Nina along to keep us in line alleviated much of my mother’s concern. Even so, she wanted to know my plans for breakfast before our visit to the museum. She insisted that a hot meal was essential to staving off pneumonia, which Mrs. Nagy had contracted—almost surely from becoming chilled while walking home from church in dress shoes, in my mother’s medical opinion. Tommy was wearing galoshes.

  I answered like any halfway intelligent son would do when confronted by a stern, maternal figure. I lied. Assuring her that we’d stop for omelets and sausages—acceptable if not quite up to the Irish standard of rashers and eggs, along with tomato, mushrooms, black pudding, and Irish beans—I herded Tommy and Nina toward the truck to forestall further questioning. My mother would have the day to shop and cook for the extended family dinner, which gave her incalculable joy.

  I headed toward Nob Hill, which was not exactly on the way to the museum. Once we’d passed by City Hall on Van Ness and failed to turn toward Golden Gate Park, Tommy knew what was up.

  “We’re going to Bob’s, aren’t we?” he shouted.

  “So it appears,” said Nina. “Riley seems to have been less than honest with your mother.” I could hear the disapproval in her voice, mixed with an undertone of conspiracy.

  “This will be our secret,” I said. “It’s sort of like tricking people without being mean.”

  “I can’t tell mom or else we’ll be in trouble, right?”

  My kid brother could cut through philosophical hair splitting and get down to the core of the issue.

  “That’s right,” said Nina. “But remember it was Riley’s decision, not yours. You won’t be in trouble if she finds out.”

  “Thanks, sweetie,” I said. Tommy was not the best keeper of secrets and now he’d been assured of immunity from prosecution. Bob’s Donuts is one of the San Francisco’s culinary gems—a Formica and linoleum temple to the gods of fried dough and sugar. Nina and I split a sticky bun and I got Tommy an apple fritter with the nutritional logic that the fruit was healthy—an apple fritter a day and all that.

  ~||~

  At the California Academy of Sciences, which is really an enormous natural history museum with a fancy name, we walked past the banners featuring king cobras, poison dart frogs and box jellyfish advertising the “Deadly Animals” exhibit. I stepped into the administrative office at the entryway and asked the officious woman at the desk to call Dr. Rider, the entomology collection manager. I’d come to know Dave several years ago while I accompanied Tommy on “insect safaris” that Scott Fortier organized at the Essig Museum. Dave had been one of Scott’s graduate students, and Tommy had bonded to him as being a fellow student—at least in Tommy’s estimation—of the master entomologist.

  I couldn’t be certain that Dave would be in his office on a Saturday, but given the workaholic passion for multi-legged creatures that he acquired from his mentor, it was a good bet. And it paid off. The receptionist curtly directed me to the staff elevator and handed me a visitor’s badge which I assumed would cover Tommy and Nina since asking anything more of the museum’s gatekeeper seemed ill advised.

  On the third floor, we made our way to Room 3467B. I chuckled at the notion of there being enough offices and labs to warrant such an elaborate code until we’d walked through a brightly lit maze for ten minutes, failing to detect any system to the numbering. At last, through no fault of our own, we found Dave’s office. An athletic cup—the kind guys wear to protect their balls—had been spray painted gold and hung from the doorknob along with a sign saying, “Rider Cup.” Pretty funny for scientists, the misspelling of the famous golf trophy notwithstanding.

  Dave Rider shared two things with his mentor: a love of insects and an exuberant personality. Otherwise, he was as short and stocky as Scott was tall and skinny—and his office was as neat as Scott’s was jumbled.

  “Riley, great to see you,” he said and then noticed Tommy behind me. “Tommy! My man, how nice to drag your brother along for a visit.” Tommy grinned and shook hands with the jovial entomologist. “And, who is this?” Dave continued, as Nina stepped into the hyper-organized office, “A woman far more beautiful than Riley could hope to attract, so I assume you’re his much younger, adopted sister.” Nina’s olive complexion and raven hair reflected her Spanish-Indian parentage and the complete impossibility of Irish ancestry.

  “This is my girlfriend, Nina,” I said. “And this is Doctor Dave Rider, a gifted scientist and renowned comic.”

  Nina smiled and shook his hand. I told Dave that I had a few questions regarding a sensitive matter. His eyebrows arched with interest. Although social acumen is not to be found in many scientists, he grasped how to proceed. When he opened the door leading from his office to the bowels of the insect collection, a twiggy brunette and a lanky redhead looked up from their microscopes. Dave introduced them as Brenda and Jason. She smiled; he grunted. Dave asked Brenda to give Nina and Tommy a tour of the insect collection. As she began to lead them through the narrow passageways created by stacks of steel cabinets, Jason returned to mounting almost invisibly small flies on triangular bits of paper with tiny dabs of g
lue.

  “What’s up?” Dave asked, assuring our privacy in his office by gently closing the door to the lab while I shut the one to the hallway.

  “I understand you received some poisonous spiders for the museum’s exhibit of deadly animals. And they came from a guy named Scudder, who operates Bug Broker Ltd.” Dave settled into his chair and gestured for me to take a seat on the other side of the desk. He picked up a well-chewed pen and gnawed gently while deciding how to respond. I waited.

  “Yeah, we’ve done business with him. Not the most savory sort, but he knows how to get specimens into the country and get the paperwork through the system.” The chewing accelerated. “He supplied the spiders. And, for a finder’s fee, he put us in touch with a reliable source of giant Japanese hornets and assassin caterpillars which we made arrangements to have shipped every couple of weeks during the exhibit since they’re so hard to keep alive.”

  “He sold you an Australian redback and a Sydney funnel-web, right?”

  “Along with a Parotostigmus centipede. A real beaut. So, what’s the problem?” He put the pen down and shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. Just tracking down a lead involving a woman who died from a spider bite a couple days ago,” I said, not wanting to go into detail.

  “Not from what we have here.” He seemed oddly relieved, as if he expected me to be an undercover agent for the US Department of Agriculture ready to bust him for violating quarantine regulations. “Everything is locked up tight as Bo Derek’s swimsuit.”

  “No chance of a Sydney funnel-web having disappeared?”

  “We had one. But the old girl died a couple weeks ago, so she’s not wandering the streets and killing anybody. Don’t tell the visitors but, other than her, the other spiders aren’t likely to be deadly. If I’d managed to get a Brazilian wandering spider like I’d hoped, then we’d be talking lethal.”

  Having reached a dead end, so to speak, we chatted for a while about our shared challenges of educating the public. He tried to get people to appreciate insects as sources of wonder and beauty, and I struggled to convince customers that finding cockroaches or their kin didn’t always require dousing a place with insecticides. We were close to concluding that the ivory tower wasn’t so different than the infested basement when there was a tap on the door.

  “Brenda showed us everything! And you wouldn’t believe how many insects they have,” Tommy announced as Dave opened the door.

  Brenda smiled at Tommy’s unbridled excitement. Although probably a decade older than her, his childlike enthusiasm was endearing. Maybe brain damage isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person.

  “How many, pal?” I asked.

  “More than ten million,” he said with grave authority. “Someday maybe we’ll have a trillion insects in our collection, don’t you think?”

  “You and Riley will need to keep at it,” Nina said.

  “Can we go see the exhibits?” Tommy asked. “I read the brochure while we were waiting and they have a Sydney funnel-web spider. Dave, I’ve been collecting milkypleads or, um ...” When Tommy was excited, his words tended to jumble.

  “Millipedes and centipedes?” Dave asked.

  “That’s right,” Tommy said, looking aggravated with himself and then quickly regaining his zeal. “And I’ve been learning lots about spiders, too.”

  “Well, I’m afraid that the funnel-web died,” Dave said. Tommy looked crestfallen. “But we have her stored in alcohol. Brenda, can you go grab that specimen to show Tommy?” She headed into the labyrinth of cabinets, and I saw Jason watching us out of the corner of his eye. Brenda soon returned with a liquid-filled jar in which a large spider was floating.

  “Here we go,” she said handing the specimen to Dave, who passed it along for Tommy’s inspection.

  He grinned like having been handed a Christmas present, but as he slowly turned the jar his brow furrowed and the smile faded. “This isn’t a Sydney funnel-web,” he said hesitantly.

  “Well, Tommy,” Dave said, “you know how fast the colors change when you put a spider in alcohol.”

  “That’s not it,” Tommy said, “the back of the Sydney funnel-web is bald and this one is hairy.”

  “Let me see,” said Dave, gently taking the specimen from Tommy and holding it up to the light. “I’ll be damned, you’re right. The cephalothorax is covered in dense hairs. And now that I look more carefully, the distinctive spinnerets of the Sydney funnel-web are missing. There should be two fingerlike projections at the tip of the abdomen. What do you think, Brenda?” he asked, passing her the jar.

  “I’m not a spider expert, but this sure looks like a tarantula. Maybe a western desert tarantula. I saw plenty of those on my collecting trip to Organ Pipe National Monument last summer. Jason’s better with spiders, but he must’ve left for lunch.” A lab coat hung over the back of the chair where he’d been working.

  Dave scowled and took back the specimen, turning the jar to read from the rectangle of paper floating in the alcohol. “There’s been some mistake. Funnel-webs and tarantulas are both mygalomorphs, but this is definitely not Atrax robustus, as the label indicates.” His doughy features squeezed into a scowl. Curators aren’t bothered by failing to recall the names of people, but they loathe misnaming specimens.

  “Can you explain what’s happened, Brenda?” he grumbled. “Dammit, that funnel-web was a primo specimen that we could’ve used for display and education.”

  Tommy was looking anxious, as he was very sensitive to conflict. Dave was agitated with disorderliness and Brenda looked perplexed.

  “No, Doctor Rider, I can’t imagine how the mix-up occurred. But I’ll see what I can find out and talk to Jason when he gets back.”

  “Do that,” he said, turning back to us. “I’m sorry for the confusion. We are usually far more organized that this. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

  “One last matter, perhaps—“

  “Riley, can I go see the exhibits?” Tommy said, hoping to avoid any more tense conversations.

  “Sure, pal,” I said, “Nina can go with you and I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

  “Aw, can’t I go by myself? Please,” he begged. Tommy adored Nina, but he also liked being given some independence. It’s tough being a thirty-seven-year-old man with a child’s brain.

  “Tell you what,” Nina said, “If you’ll thank Brenda and Doctor Rider for showing us the collection, then you and I can work out a deal for letting you have some time to see things on your own.”

  Tommy thanked the scientists with a blend of enthusiasm and haste, as he was both genuinely grateful and eager to explore the rest of the museum. After my companions took off, I talked with Dave about how a tarantula could’ve been switched with a funnel-web and where the latter spider might be. He reviewed the museum’s meticulous protocol and recordkeeping, but we didn’t come up with anything plausible. He was getting exasperated, so I took my leave and went to find Nina and Tommy—which turned out to be nearly as challenging as finding the missing funnel-web.

  CHAPTER 23

  I found Nina at the geology exhibit on the third floor. I was never much into rocks but some of the crystals in the display cases were marvelously geometric and freakishly large. Based on my limited knowledge, I figured they probably came from caves, spaces that I’ve not particularly enjoyed after having the tide come in while I was exploring Secret Cave at Point Reyes with some high school buddies. Drowning in the dark seemed like a bad way to go. I’m not claustrophobic, having spent countless hours crawling under buildings and squeezing into attics to pursue pests, but there’s something unnerving about being under tons of stone as the water is rising.

  Nina had told Tommy that he could be by himself if he promised to stay on the second floor. We headed down to check on him, figuring he was likely to be glued to the glass of one of the aquaria outside of the theater, which was showing a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef. There was a series o
f bubbling tanks featuring poisonous marine life from Australia— a blue-ringed octopus, box jellyfish, cone shells, lion fish and stone fish. Some of these beasts could kill in minutes, while others could inflict enough pain to make you wish you were dead. Having a display of lethal creatures was a great way to rivet the public’s attention after a movie about the reef. Based on what I knew about Australian spiders, snakes, and marine life, my desire to visit the country was about the same as my hopes for an evening stroll through Watts.

  Tommy was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t much public space on the second floor other than the theater and a wide hallway where people assembled while waiting for the film to start. We thought maybe he’d slipped into the theater. Nina convinced the docent to let her peek into the darkness to see if she could catch a glimpse of him. I went down the hall, looking for where he might’ve disappeared. Seeing a sign for the restrooms, I headed that way and Nina caught up with me, having had no luck in the theater. From an alcove with a drinking fountain, the men’s room was down a passageway to the right, the women’s to the left. We could hear a tense conversation beyond our view, apparently outside the men’s room.

  “Hey, retard, let’s see you walk a straight line,” a voice said.

  “Yeah, I wanna see a hunchback find his way to the workshop of a mad scientist,” another added with a mocking laugh.

  Tommy’s neurological condition had worsened in recent months and his lurching caused a twisting of his back. The poor guy was increasingly bent to the side so that he couldn’t stand fully upright without losing his balance. Physical therapy had helped, but when he grew tired the deformity was pronounced. I started to head toward the voices when Nina grabbed my arm and put a finger to her lips. My protective instincts were quelled. For the moment.

  “I’m special,” Tommy said, “and I’m smarter than you about things.”