I almost reach the Campanile esplanade before I can see the tower, a Berkeley foggy day, real fog down on the carpet, not the high fog that blows across from the Golden Gate and butts against the hilltops. Everything drips condensate.
Chilly, I walk down Telegraph and order the usual at the Mediterraneum, carrying a Saturday Chronicle, which has not one but three crossword puzzles. I solve the monster puzzle, refill my coffee, then read the usual Saturday features, “The Question Man,” and “Grab Bag,” I read in the “Sporting Green” about John Brodie’s sore throwing arm, and whether it makes a difference in the 49ers’ playoff chances.
On the last sip of coffee the sun bursts through, as if someone threw a switch and klieg lights went on. Other customers raise their heads from newspapers and coffee cups, mildly amazed by the sudden lifting of the fog. I leave the newspaper and go out into the sunshine.
On the sidewalk a girl begs. She reminds me of Janis Joplin, so I give her a buck.
Feather merchants set up card tables on the sidewalk outside Cody’s, the usual assortment of drug paraphernalia, silver and semiprecious stone jewelry and petitions to sign.
A crazy cuts across the street not looking at the cars that screech to a halt inches from him.
Undaunted, I amble onto Sproul Plaza and, reaching the bench I last sat on there, squeegee off as much condensation as I can with my index finger and sit down. As if it were a replay, a woman in leather pants that fit like crazy saunters past, reminding me of she with the Irish Wolfhound, but juicier.
I hear Jake saying, ‘Gattling, you’re going to stay alive as long as women have asses and you have balls.’
He sounds like Paul Muni. What was that film? Angel on my Shoulder. A gangster come back to life, tough talking, fearless.
It’s so realistic I turn around to look for him.
‘No tricks this time, bub, I’m in your head. Just keep watching the women go by, I’ll do the talking.
‘What a fucking cop-out. It’s not that you don’t get it, you won’t let yourself get it. I not only give you something better than golf to get your mind off things, I gotta pretend to be a figment of your imagination. It’s ridiculous.
‘But while I’m being a figment, let me clue you in on some things. First, stop trying to make connections that aren’t there. Absolutely no connection between me and the Washoe County drifter except the very coincidental shotgun. You know that, but you’ve been trying to turn a genuine coincidence into something it ain’t. Truth is, I had even less reason than you did to have a shotgun with me.
‘You did not shoot the deputy, brother, you did not even shoot the sheriff, so don’t give me that Divine Accident crap. It’s a damn good thing the drifter reached for the shotgun instead of his bowie knife, or you’d be a figment of my imagination right now.
‘And while I’m at it, quit using that catchall, Divine Accident, it’s the biggest mistake of your life, inventing that gimmick. It’s kept you from seeing other options, some of which are a little less jazzy, but definitely more legit. Like that drifter could have had a head cold and not smelled reefer from a mile off. Or maybe he let an empty stomach overcome his will to live.
‘—Keep watching the women, don’t stop for a minute.
‘One more thing. You’ve been going around treating Death like it’s the cruelest accident of all—it’s not. It’s always there, like the faces hidden in the picture of flowers, the kind we used to puzzle out as kids: “How many faces can you find in this picture?” Lots of the comic books in my youth had them.
‘So relax and don’t fight it. If you stumble into it you’re going to say, “Aha, now I see the face, the last face. But it won’t be an accident, divine or profane, you’ll see.
‘The thing that led you to treat Death like a huge misfortune is your ignorance of Life. Life isn’t a commodity, it isn’t something that gets used up or worn down. Life’s a focal point, a way of concentrating energy. You can’t trade it for anything, it can’t turn a screw or patch a flat—you wake up with it one day, like you wake up with a hard-on.
‘You wake up to Death the same way. Wisdom only blossoms when it’s tested by Death. Life’s only wisdom is not keeping score, doing what I already told you, my one piece of wisdom, and that’s to live for Mary Clare.
‘What you do with life, you write it like a novel, you make it the best goddamn novel you can.
‘Is it a novel about death? No, it’s a comedy. It’s a comedy because you and Mary Clare are going to come out all right, you learn some things along the way, and if you don’t crap out the way I did, you should end up better off than before. Count the ways: first, you’ve got Mary Clare in your life; second, the worst thing that could happen to your back did, and you’re not a cripple; third, now you’ve got a purpose in life; fourth, you don’t have to be a janitor any more, but you could in a pinch. Then there’s the little things, like, Meany didn’t kill you, and you’ve got a roof over your head, and you’re getting laid regularly.’
I’ve been watching for women to go by and none have. A good thing, too, because they would have seen this guy with an idiotically dumfounded look on his face, trying to separate two deaths, making them as unrelated as possible, which is to say not unrelated at all, they are very related, but not with me as the sole agent. The drifter was responsible for fooling himself. Meany’s henchmen knew enough of their trade to know no one was home, but they gambled about breaking in because they were more scared of Meany than of facing Jake or me.
Thinking: This is really the gist of the issue between the Great Accountant in the Sky and the Divine Accident. We are not responsible for every single thing that happens on our watch, we are responsible for weaving the consequences into our lives, not for being the ultimate cause. And it really is all right if you want to call really hairy accidents Divine. Just don’t get all fatalistic about it.
I say out loud, “So you had to come back and kick my ass, didn’t you, Jake. Maybe I’ll even excavate that sinkhole in my mind, that place of muzzle blasts and torn flesh, and let go at last, let go of fear and dread and anguish.”
I’m up and running again, running between Wheeler and California Halls, down past the Library, running out of gas by the Men’s Gym and walking through the football practice field, puffing like a guy who smokes too much.
There’s someone lying in the grass in the middle of the field, a bicycle parked next to her. I walk through the fog-wet grass and recognize my own ten speed, the one that still needs its wheel trued by a bike shop after hitting the yellow Jag. The supine figure is, of course, Mary Clare.
“You’ll catch your death of cold,” I tell her, standing so that she’s looking at me upside down.
“No I won’t. Why so happy?”
“Oh, nothing.” Knowing if it comes out at all it will take a long time in telling, this brush with a ghost, or this brush with truth. “Let’s get you home, get you out of those wet clothes. Have you lost your marbles?”
She says, “I rode over and then I ran five laps of the field as fast as I could go. I’m still cooling off.”
I grab the bike and mount it. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“Bet you can’t.”
“Bet I can.”
I open my legs to let her perch on the horizontal bar, and slowly, with wobbles and lurches, head across the grass. She’s shrieking at each wobble and I’m laughing at each shriek.
Somewhere offstage Jake is saying, ‘Good luck, Robert, Godspeed.
‘And good-night, Mrs. Calabash, wherever . . . wherever . . . wherever.’
The End
Bonus material, chapter 1, Río Penitente
chapter 1: Crossing the River
I'm just breezing along with the breeze,
Trailing the rails, roamin' the seas.
Like the birdies that sing in the trees,
Pleasing to live, living to please. . . .
Gattling singing, Robert Gattling, bass-baritone with tarnished high notes. Mostly he
sang to keep himself awake. Back in Berkeley this time of day he’d be taking a cat nap, a break between tasks or to make up for nighttime revels. The Mexican countryside through which the Ruta Pacífica was passing was just undramatic enough to start him drowsing.
He recognized the place from a previous Mexican excursion, motoring down through a gap in eroded hills into a valley not much wider than the river’s flood plain. Planted fields on both sides in wide places, down the center an upheaval marking periodic river rampages: twisted willows, gravel and stones strewn, a half dozen meandering, silted channels. He recognized the bridge that was really a causeway, the longest reinforced concrete bridge he remembered in Mexico. The visible waterway was the same sluggish river (bled upstream for irrigation) called the Río Penitente by locals.
The last trip, twenty years earlier, was in a camper mounted on a Dodge Power Wagon. This time, intending to stay on the road a long time—more affluent, too—he drove a converted Mercedes bus. It was a serendipitous offering from the factory when he wrote to inquire after such a rig. They offered him this one, custom-made for another American who, alas, died before taking delivery. He got a price break to take it as-is, and it was a good investment. He’d driven it from Berkeley, at a sensible pace, with layovers in Báhia Kino and Mazatlán; it was barely broken in.
I get along without you very well,
of course I do . . .
Winter still; near noon, mountain time zone. Robert drove with the window down, the hum of his sturdy German tires changing as he went from the blacktop of the Ruta Pacífica onto the old and pitted concrete of the bridge. The new pitch, at odds with the key he sang in, silenced him. He was heading south, no particular target in mind other than a stop in Tepic, which reminded him, for reasons he’d never bothered to analyze, of Berkeley, his hometown.
Entering the bridge from the opposite end at the same time was a large “luxury class” bus, the kind steered by two sets of articulating front axles, known popularly as supercruceros, bigger and more powerful than Greyhound buses in the States. He paid attention to its approach, having learned up in Sonora that bus drivers always assume the right of way, traveling at speeds creating wind eddies that rocked his smaller vehicle like a reed in a gale. Before the two buses closed the distance between them, a Pemex gasoline tanker started across the bridge, also heading north.
At a moment in time selected by the God of Randomness, the left front tire of Robert’s bus ruptured with a report like a shotgun.
Instantly drowned in adrenaline, he let his foot off the accelerator and fought the sudden veering to the left, into the path of the bigger bus. The Mercedes pitched left but steered back right, causing the rear wheels to break loose without doing a one-eighty, for Robert corrected again, praying the supercrucero driver was as frightened as he and had slammed on the brakes.
—Which he had, and quickly, too. Robert’s bus traced a path like a diminishing sine wave and was back in his lane when the other driver, almost opposite him, gave him a thumbs up. The Pemex driver, idling behind the bus, put his hands together in applause. Robert tried to smile but couldn’t.
At least he hadn’t wet his pants. He shook like a drinkless sot as he limped the final half of the bridge on the shredded tire and came to rest under a looming cottonwood.
In his glove compartment he carried an unopened pack of Luckies, so old the one he managed to pull out of the pack crackled. He hadn’t smoked in ten years but the pack had been in every vehicle he’d owned since—waiting for this occasion.
He walked back out on the bridge to calm his jitters, the northbound rigs now insects climbing into the gap he’d come down from. He could just hear the tanker’s diesel blat as the driver downshifted.
He pulled smoke into his lungs, the nicotine buzz counteracting the adrenaline. He turned, as he came to the center of the stream passing under the bridge, and rested his forearms on the rough concrete of the railing, facing downstream.
Thank God the bus driver didn’t think he was Juan Fangio in the Grand Prix of Monaco. . . . thank God the Pemex driver had good brakes. . . . thank God I didn’t hit the railing and go over.
He took another pull on the Lucky. The second jolt of nicotine made him dizzy and his stomach told him “Not when I’m empty, sucker,” and he closed his eyes. The world went round and round; his knees threatened to buckle.
Oh my gosh . . . ain’t breezing anywhere but I can and I will . . . just as soon as . . .
The river moved in a strange way. The river called to him, not like Bali Hai but in piping Spanish, some of which he could catch, though the wind blew half the words away. Then he focused on what had been ripples in the corner of his eyes, now two heads of black hair, young bodies the color of river mud entwined on a sandbar, a fist shaking at him. The wind died a moment and he caught the words for “cut” and for “liver,” he caught a universal imputation of baseness, one of the nasty words he knew in Spanish.
He was too woozy to run, and to what end, anyway? Run to his caravan? He might get the shouting youth’s rage in the form of a rock through his windshield. Run the opposite direction and hide out in the thickets on the far bank of the river? The river fornicators weren’t locals, else they wouldn’t be doing it in such a conspicuous place. So they might not know the thickets any better than he. But they were teenagers and might have nothing more important to do than to harass him the rest of the day.
He moved to the opposite side of the bridge and looked upstream, at clouds and hills and, far off, the blue-gray Sierra Madres, source and aimer of the river he was crossing, which held two bodies in fond embrace, one of whom would likely confront him soon.
Why had the tire blown? It was new, the pressure correct, the vehicle not overloaded, the manufacturer, Continental, though known for sluggish tires (he’d had them on a BMW years before and changed them for more agile Pirellis) at least had excellent quality control.
The whopping pothole in Hermosillo, he decided.
In the corner of his eye he saw the river rutters emerge onto the bridge, each carrying a bundle. Let’em come.
It occurred to him there might be a cosmic reason the tire blew. Just here, just now. I mean what are the chances in a Mercedes. The Universe testing . . . dredging up old scars old baggage.
And here comes the kid with his knife out . . . oh shit.
He turned away from the railing, remembering to modulate his breathing. Breathing in I observe the daily accident . . . breathing out I await whatever comes. The couple coming towards him—she came too, letting the boy lead but keeping pace—hadn’t the means to dry before dressing, so blotches of water showed through their clothes. Each carried a Huck Finn bundle in one hand, items in a flour sack, ears tied at the top. Her build and coloring indicated more Indian genes than European. The boy—slenderer, lighter-skinned, handsome of features—wore a scowl and walked with the businesslike gait of a boxer heading for the center of the ring to start round one.
It would be useless, Robert figured just before the boy closed the last few yards, to apologize. It might make things worse. Robert had boxed in his youth, so understood violence. Though he was almost fifty—his birthday a week away—he’d kept in shape practicing Aikido, and though he hadn’t a black belt, he understood what he had to do: bring the boy back into harmony with his universe without injuring him in body or spirit. (Because there was that cosmic reason for this confrontation which would, by and by, reveal itself.)
A sedan with California plates, going south, didn’t distract the boy. The driver slowed, he and his passenger gawked, but seeing the knife decided not to get involved and sped on.
At ten feet the boy dropped his bundle and repeated how he was going to cut out Robert’s liver. His eyes were blazing, lips pressed tight, nostril distended. It wasn’t the liver he aimed at. At five feet he swiped the knife in a horizontal arc at the level of Robert’s eyes. The knife would have missed by a hand’s breadth even if Robert hadn’t jerked his head back. It seemed the boy me
ant to scare him into running, meant to humiliate this gringo who’d violated his teenage honor.
The back swing was close enough it pumped up Robert’s adrenalin again, and this time he stepped in, caught the knife hand as it swung by, and closed his hand over the boy’s, pressing the boy’s finger tips into the knife handle until, with a grunt, he gave up the weapon and it clattered to the concrete. In the dojo he would have followed through and taken the boy down, but this wasn’t the dojo. He backed off.
The girl let out a yip as the knife hit the concrete.
The boy, frustrated now as well as dishonored, launched a kick and then another at Robert’s groin. At the third kick, the man’s back against the concrete railing, he caught the boy’s foot as it came up, lifting it higher than his waist, to a point at which the boy gave up his balance and pitched backwards, the back of his head hitting the pavement before any other part of him.
The girl screamed this time.
Oh shit I’ve killed him oh shit oh shit.
The girl picked up the knife before Robert could. She backed away from him, eyes and gasping breaths indicating how frightened she was.
“Listen, let’s get him to sit up against the railing,” Robert said in Spanish, in as soothing a voice as he could.
The girl moved their bundles out of the southbound lane. A truck full of tomatoes, heading north, slowed and skirted the trio. With a poker face and an inclination of the head, Robert indicated to the young driver that he had the matter under control and waved him on.
They got the boy sitting against a baluster, a person now, too, handsome if skinny, a featherweight, but unmarked on the face, nose straight and sharp, nostrils working as he breathed.
The first sign of consciousness was the utterance, "That son of a whore sure bashed me," eyes opening and closing without focus.