U Is for Undertow

  “Well, he was big . . . I’d say seventy to eighty pounds once upon a time. Most of his coat was intact. The hair was long and coarse, a mix of black and gray, with maybe some shades of brown thrown in. It looked like the tag was an afterthought, tossed in on top of him.”

  “A German shepherd?”

  “Something like that. Why?”

  “I was just curious.”

  “Oh, lord. Not again. Stay out of trouble if you can,” he said, and hung up.

  I took a moment to place a call to Phoenix, Arizona, filling in the HR director on her phantom executive. She gave me a fax number and asked for an account of my coverage. I typed up my notes and then walked one block over to a notary’s office and used her fax machine. I had two pages to send and the process took five minutes, which I thought was nothing short of miraculous. One day I’d break down and buy a machine of my own, but to date I didn’t need one often enough to justify the expense.

  I retrieved my Mustang, gassed up at the entrance to the 101, and headed down the coast to Peephole (population 400). The area, like so much of California, was part of a Spanish land grant, deeded to Amador Santiago Delgado in 1831. His mother was distantly related to Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, the fourth wife of King Ferdinand VII, and the only one of his wives to bear him living offspring. There was no clear explanation for Maria Christina’s generosity, but Amador inherited title to the land when his mother died. He and his young bride, Dulcinea Medina Vargas, traveled from Barcelona to Perdido, California, took possession of the tract, and established a large working ranch devoted to the raising of purebred Spanish horses. Within a year Dulcinea died giving birth to their only child, a daughter, Pilar Santiago Medina. Bereft, Amador sold off his horses and turned to the deeply satisfying solace of drink. On his death in 1860, Pilar inherited his massive landholdings, which had largely reverted to the elements. At the time she was thirty years old and not a beautiful woman, but she was clever and her wealth more than compensated for the hefty frame and plain countenance Nature had bestowed on her.

  When the Homestead Act was passed in 1862, land-hungry settlers poured into California from all over the country, eager to claim the 160 acres (65 hectares) per person promised by the government. Harry Flannagan was one of these. He was a blue-eyed Irishman, with bright red hair, muscular arms, and a strong back and shoulders geared for hard labor. In Ireland, Harry Flannagan had been a poor man and the opportunity to own land was heady stuff to him. He took his time, traveling up and down the California coast for months before he chose his spot and filed a claim with the nearest land office in Los Angeles. As was required, he attested that he was twenty-one years of age and swore he’d never borne arms against the United States or given comfort to its enemies. He further declared his intention of improving the plot with crops and a dwelling, with the understanding that if he was still on the land in five years, the property would be his free and clear.

  The rugged acreage he’d chosen was beautiful, but there was little or no fresh water on it and farming was precarious. Despite its proximity to the Pacific Ocean, the land was arid and the irony wasn’t lost on him: nothing but water as far as the eye could see and none of it was usable. No one bothered to tell him that for the past twenty-five years the idyllic-looking harbor had been known as Puerto Polvoriento, “Port Dusty.” Regardless of its obvious shortcomings, he was convinced he could turn the land to his advantage and he set about it with a will.

  The only small impediment to his ambition was the fact that the sixty-five hectares he’d laid claim to infringed in its entirety on the land that belonged to Pilar Santiago-Vargas. Not surprisingly, this came to her attention, which prompted her to mount her horse and ride out to challenge the audacious interloper. It was never clear how the encounter played out or what wiles the plucky farmer employed in defense of his hopes, but the upshot was that Harry Flannagan took Pilar Santiago-Vargas as his lawful wedded wife within the month. He was not, after all, a man to quibble about a few excess pounds. With regard to her homeliness, he was also motivated to make allowances. Some eight and a half months later she bore him a son—the first of seven boys who arrived at two-year intervals, a band of fiery-haired Hispanics. By agreement, Pilar and Harry took turns naming their boychicks, who were, respectively, Joaquin, Ronan, Bendicto, Andrew, Miguel, Liam, and Placido.

  Harry and Pilar were married for fifty-six years, until he was struck down in the influenza epidemic of 1918. Pilar lived on another fifteen years and died in 1933 at the age of 101. Harry’s crowning achievement was the founding of the Flannagan Water Company, which provided water to the citizens of Peephole for twenty-five cents a gallon, making him rich beyond imagining. Thereafter, he spear-headed construction of the Puerto Dam, which was completed in 1901 and provided a distribution system that delivered running water to the town.

  Oddly enough, in the years I’d lived in Santa Teresa, I’d rarely been to Peephole, and I was looking forward to seeing it again.

  12

  WALKER MCNALLY

  Monday, April 11, 1988

  “Mr. McNally?”

  He became aware that someone was addressing him. He opened his eyes. He didn’t recognize the woman who was bending close. She had a hand on his arm, which she was shaking insistently. Her expression showed impatience or concern and since he didn’t know her, he wasn’t sure which. The overhead light was bright and the ceiling tiles looked institutional, designed to dampen sound, though he couldn’t remember the name for them.

  “Mr. McNally, can you hear me?”

  He wanted to reply but there was a heaviness that filled his body, and the effort was too great. He had no idea what was going on and no memory of events that might explain his lying on his back, immobilized, with this woman leaning over him.

  Something hurt. Had he had surgery? The pain wasn’t acute. More like a dull ache that radiated through his body with a thick layer of white on top, as cold and heavy as a blanket of snow.

  The woman stepped aside and two copies of Carolyn’s face came into his visual frame, one slightly offset, like a watery duplicate. Nausea stirred as the surface ripples widened and dissipated near the edges of his view.

  She said, “Walker.”

  He focused and the two images locked into one, like a magic trick.

  “Do you know where you are?”

  Again, he wanted to respond but he couldn’t move his lips. He was so tired he could scarcely pay attention.

  “Do you remember what happened?”

  Her look was expectant. Clearly, she wanted an answer, but he had none to give.

  “You were in an accident,” she said.

  Accident. That made sense. He took in the words, searching for corresponding images of what had occurred. Nothing came to him. Had he fallen? Had he been struck in the head by a bullet or a stone? Here, he was on his back. Before here was blank.

  “Do you remember going off the road?”

  Nope. He wanted to shake his head so she’d know he heard her, but he couldn’t manage it. Road. Car. The concept was simple and he got it. He knew there’d been an accident, but he couldn’t imagine his relationship to it. He was alive. He supposed he’d been hurt and he wondered how badly. His brain must still function even if his body was temporarily . . . or perhaps permanently . . . out of commission. Carolyn knew and he was willing to take her word for it, but the idea was odd.

  “Do you know what day this is?”

  Clueless. He couldn’t even remember the last day he remembered. She said, “Monday. The kids and I got back from San Francisco late this afternoon and your car was gone. I unloaded the suitcases and I was letting the kids watch a few minutes of TV when a police car pulled into the drive. There was a wreck on the pass. Your car was totaled. It’s a wonder you’re not dead.”

  He closed his eyes. He had no recollection whatsoever. He had no idea why he’d been on the 154 and no memory of a collision. From his perspective, there was only a yawning black hole, a blank wal
l that separated this current moment from the recent past. Dimly, he remembered leaving the bank on Thursday, but the door had slammed shut on anything after that.

  A doctor appeared, a neurologist named Blake Barrigan, whom he recognized from the country club. Barrigan was interested in Walker’s cognitive functions and ran him through a series of tests. Walker knew his own name. He knew Ronald Reagan was president of the United States, even if he hadn’t voted for the man. He could count backward from one hundred by eights, a task he wasn’t sure he could manage ordinarily. Barrigan was middle-aged and solemn, and while Walker could see his mouth move and knew he was conveying reassurances about his condition, he was too tired to care.

  The next time he opened his eyes he was in a private room and people were talking in the hall. He consulted his body; his right elbow ached and his chest felt compressed where they’d apparently taped his ribs. He touched the right side of his head and felt a painful knot. He probably had minor injuries he wasn’t aware of yet. He could smell cooked meat and the scent of green beans with a metallic edge, reminiscent of the canned variety of his youth. The clatter outside the door suggested a meal cart with food trays.

  A nurse’s aide came in and asked if he was hungry. Without waiting for a response, she lowered the rail on one side, cranked up his bed, and placed a tray on his rolling bed table, which she pushed within range. There was a carton of orange juice and a small container of cherry Jell-O sealed with an elasticized plastic cover like a little shower cap. “What’s today? Sunday?”

  “Monday,” she said. “You were admitted from the ER an hour ago, so you missed dinner. Do you remember coming in?”

  “Is my wife here?”

  “She just left. A neighbor was watching the children and she had to put them to bed. She’ll be back in the morning. Are you in pain?”

  He shook his head in the negative, stirring the headache he hadn’t been aware of. “I don’t understand what happened.”

  “Dr. Barrigan can explain everything when he gets here. He has a patient on the surgical floor and he said he’d look in on you again before he left for the day. Can I get you anything else?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Once his supper tray had been removed, he opened the bed table drawer and found a pocket mirror. He checked his reflection. He had two black eyes, a purple knot on his forehead, and a smoky discoloration on the right side of his face. He must have hit the windshield or steering wheel on impact. He put the mirror away, realizing he was lucky he didn’t have cuts or broken facial bones.

  At 9:00 a nurse appeared with a tray of meds. She verified his name by checking his hospital bracelet and then handed him a small pleated paper cup with two pills in it. When he was a kid his mother had given him cups the same size filled with M&M’s.

  “To help you sleep,” she said when she saw the look on his face. “Do you need a urinal?”

  The minute she said it, he realized his bladder was full and the pressure close to painful.

  “Please.”

  She set down her tray and removed a lidded plastic urinal from the cabinet beside his bed. The device had a handle and a slanted spout and looked like something his kids could invent a hundred uses for at the beach. “I’ll leave this with you. You can ring when you’re done.”

  “Thanks.”

  She pulled the curtain along its track, shielding him from the curious eyes of those passing in the hall. He waited until she was gone and then rolled to his left and angled his penis into the opening of the urinal. Despite his best intentions, nothing would come. He tried to relax. He put his mind on something else, but the only thing he could think about was his need for relief. He would have laughed if the need to pee hadn’t been so imperative. He’d suffered something similar when he and Carolyn were undergoing infertility treatments and he was asked to ejaculate into a cup so his sperm could be examined under a microscope and then washed before each of the five fruitless intrauterine inseminations they’d undergone.

  He took a deep breath, hoping his bladder would relent. A pointless enterprise. He gave up for the moment and when the pressure was unbearable, he rang the nurses’ station. Fifteen minutes passed before the aide appeared. She palpated his abdomen and then went to consult a nurse, who returned to the room accompanied by a student nurse. She had a catheterization packet with her, and she opened it and took out the Foley, a pair of latex gloves, and a packet of lubricant. She viewed the situation as a teaching opportunity. She grasped his penis and explained how to pass the Foley into the bladder by way of his urethra.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” she said to him, as an aside.

  “That’s fine,” Walker said. If she didn’t get on with it, his bladder would burst. He only half listened, distancing himself from what was going on.

  “The size of a Foley is indicated in French units,” she was saying to the student nurse. “The most common sizes are 10 F to 28 F; 1 F is equivalent to 0.33 millimeters or .013 inches, 1/77th of an inch in diameter . . .”

  After she instructed the student nurse in the proper technique, she encouraged her to try her hand at it. The girl was apologetic. Her fingers were ice cold and trembling. After two failed attempts, the nurse took over and inserted the catheter with remarkable efficiency. The relief was a miracle. The whole encounter was humiliating, but he was already converting it to an amusing anecdote he’d tell at the next cocktail party.

  He finally managed to fall asleep, though he was awakened four times in the night—twice for a check of his vital signs, once when the pain in his ribs became insistent and he had to ask for medication, and once because an aide came into his room by mistake, thinking he was someone else. At some point during the night he realized Blake Barrigan, the shit, had never stopped by.

  At 8:30 the next morning Carolyn arrived. The timing was such that he figured she’d just dropped Fletcher and Linnie off at preschool. At least he was alert now and fully awake, though he still drew a blank when it came to the accident. He knew they had top-notch insurance coverage, so he wasn’t worried about the expense. It was the hassle of paperwork and the inconvenience of being without transportation until he picked up a rental car. The headache was creeping up again, starting at the base of his skull.

  Carolyn took off her coat and placed it over the arm of the upholstered chair. It took him ten seconds to register the fact she wasn’t looking at him and another ten to realize how angry she was. Carolyn was ordinarily easygoing, but once in a while something set her off and then there was hell to pay. This mood he knew: cold, withdrawn, her face pale with rage.

  “Is something wrong?” He didn’t much feel like the verbal beating he knew would follow. He had no idea what she was so pissed off about, but if he didn’t ask now, she’d freeze him out until he did.

  “I take it Blake Barrigan didn’t stop by last night to bring you up to speed,” she said.

  Fleetingly, he thought Blake’s being remiss might explain her attitude. Carolyn took these matters seriously. She had high standards for herself and she expected others to anticipate her requirements and behave accordingly. If Blake said he’d stop by, then by god, he’d better do it.

  Walker said, “Not that I’m aware. The nurse said he had a patient on the surgical floor—”

  “You killed a girl.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard what I said.”

  In a flash, he felt his body disconnect from his soul, like a caboose uncoupled and left behind on the track as the rest of the train moved on. He found himself floating in one corner of the room, looking down on himself. He could see the expression of bewilderment on his face. He could see the crooked part in Carolyn’s hair, her features foreshortened from his perspective. For a moment, he wondered if he’d died. Actually, he hoped he had because what she’d told him was too horrendous to absorb. His mouth was so dry he couldn’t muster speech.

  Carolyn talked on, her tone indifferent, as though she were speaking of matters unrelated to him. “
She was nineteen years old. She was on spring break, her sophomore year at UCST. She’d driven to San Francisco to spend the weekend with friends. She told her mother she wanted to avoid the late-afternoon traffic, so she left the city Monday morning at nine. At four-twenty she came over the hill on the 154, just three miles from home. She was halfway down the pass when you crossed the center line and struck her Karmann Ghia head-on. She never had a chance.” Carolyn closed her mouth, her lips forming a tight line while she got control of herself.

  He shook his head. “Carolyn, I swear to god, I don’t remember any of this.”

  “Oh, really,” she said, all cynicism. “You don’t remember going into the sports bar at State and La Cuesta Monday afternoon?”

  “I didn’t even know there was one.”

  “Bullshit. The Whizz Inn? We’ve passed it a hundred times and you always make a joke about the name. You were drunk when you got there Monday afternoon, loud and obnoxious. You insisted on service, but the bartender refused and when he asked you to leave, you were belligerent. He ended up calling the police the minute you were out the door. A motorist saw you getting on the 101, weaving all over the place, but by the time he got to a gas station and called it in, you’d taken the 154 off-ramp and you were heading up the pass.”

  “That’s not right. That can’t be.”

  “There were three other witnesses—two joggers and a guy in a pickup truck you barely missed. He ended up going off the road. He’s lucky he didn’t end up dead as well.”

  “I’m drawing a blank.”

  “That’s called an alcoholic blackout in case you haven’t figured it out. Forget what went on and you absolve yourself of blame. What better way to sidestep guilt than to blot it out of your mind?”

  “You think I did this on purpose? You know me better than that. When have I ever—”