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Stories in San Francisco
By Kira Lee
It was already getting typically frigid, the thick mist sliding down
the mountains to drape them in luxurious softness. The crowds were
thinning slowly. The air bit into his head every time he inhaled,
mak-ing his eyes water and making him blink. His gaze wandered,
catching the rough stone surfaces of the an-cient buildings that were
nestled cozily into the slopes, the colorful rainbow of sleek cars that
queued single-file with tires turned in unison toward the abused curb,
the tattered unwanted that appeared from dark cor-ners, armed and ready
with their cups and bowls to beg a spare quarter. He walked briskly,
his jacket shielding him from the worst of the cold that blew with a
distant fury. His conscience told him to offer his spare change to the
needy, but he had been molded to ignore them and his legs followed their
habit, carrying him quickly past. The infuriated sun reluctantly dipped
lower and lower in the conquering sky, surrendering temporarily for the
night. His legs were beginning to protest at their labor as they
supported him up steep hills and down steeper ones, so he searched
vainly for the nonexistent bench that might bless him with a few moments
of rest. Union Square offered itself as a substitute.
He sat on the edge of a flower bed, and pulled out a cigarette. The
exploding match failed to keep it warm and glowing, its heat unable to
withstand the wind that fought it. His third try brought forth reward,
and he inhaled gratefully, feeling it permeate every fiber of his thin
and tired body.
His eye fell on the pigeons. They strutted, their fat bodies
iridescent in the dimming light. He wished he had a crumb to throw, but
he was sadly empty-handed. They did not seem to mind too much, huffily
ignoring him as their interest quickly faded when he sat passively,
offering no food. There were enough in the square without having to
bother with an unwilling customer.
A crust of bread landed on his foot. Leaning down he picked it up,
and
found the offending party to be a woman of some number of years, sitting
across from him with a backdrop of candy-striped petunias,
un-apologetically and brazenly meeting his gaze and indulging him with a
slight smile. In her lap she held the remnants of a loaf of bread, and
pieces of this she tossed to the proud, content birds. She did not
strike him as beautiful, her years too many, her features too strong and
her skin too rough for that, but she was pleas-ing to him, as a
wildflower has no showy bloom or cultured scent but gives pleasure
nonetheless. Her bulky jacket hid her thinness only a little, her tiny
lower limbs visible under the ripped jeans she wore. Her hair whipped
around her face as she distributed her relative bounty, its blackness
only rivaled by the oncoming night. He was feeling lonely.
"I never get tired of the pigeons," he called loudly enough for
his
voice to carry across to her.
She acknowledged him with a nod, the birds more deserving of her
attention.
"Getting cold pretty early, isn't it?" he tried again.
"Yes," she acquiesced. "It feels like nine, but it's
only six." Her
words were laced with an Asian lilt, her tongue still unfamiliar with
the sounds that she produced.
"What brings you out here?" he asked.
"Nothing in particular. What about you?"
"Just walking around. I live down Market a ways, close to the
BART
station."
"Oh. Nice area. Colorful."
"Yes," he chuckled. "My place happens to be a shade
of sunny yellow."
"Yellow's my favorite color, you know."
"Is it? It was my daughter's favorite too."
She was sharp. "Was?"
"Yeah." He didn't give any more.
She nodded thoughtfully. "I had a daughter."
"Had?" he said, feeling pleased with himself to have returned
the
compliment.
"Once. A long time ago."
"What happened?"
She sighed. "What time do you plan on going home?"
"No rush. No one's waiting up."
"Me either." She got up and sat back down, next to him and
the fiery
red salvias. "I'm already fifty-eight, you know."
"Fifty-eight? You don't look a day older than forty."
She smiled wryly. "In the long run, it doesn't really matter,
does
it?"
HER STORY
I never knew how much I had until it was all gone. People say that
all
the time, but it's true. It's amazing how clichés really do turn out
true most of the time. I was forty, with a husband and two kids, a girl
and a boy. We had a nice house in a nice neighborhood on the east
coast, with a lawn big enough to mow and gardens big enough to neglect.
My children were smart, nice, well-brought up. My daughter was thinking
about which college she wanted to go to, and my son was thinking about
what game system he wanted next. My husband was caring, a truly good
soul, so what did I have to be unhappy about? Trust me to find
something.
I had never been really happy with my husband, but we had gotten along
okay. Our personalities weren't really compatible, but he didn't beat
me or starve me or control my life, so I tried to be happy with what I
had. But the truth was, I was too strong for him. He'd been working
ten some years at the univer-sity, and he was anxious to move away, and
if possible, up. He went to job interview after job interview, from
Michigan to Texas to California. I still remember the agonizing days of
waiting for the phone call that never came, the nights of tension from
nerves stretched too taut, the slow descent to resignation and finally
heartbroken acceptance. After what seemed like a lifetime, he was
accepted to a budding company here. He was given a deadline: one week.
We were thrown into a hurricane. Packing until three at night,
waking
at seven to go to work. Calling company after company to research our
options, trying to find a way to save a couple thousand dol-lars.
Harassing the builders to come fix the broken windows, paint the walls,
fill in the dents. And all the while, trying to sell our poor abandoned
little two-story house, sitting on its own little seat. Once we moved,
paying the rent and the mortgage back there would quickly drain our
savings, rendering us penniless in a matter of months. We called
schools, hospitals, apartments. It was when I called the dentist to
notify him of our moving that all the trouble started.
My dentist was a divorced man with a son, of whose custody he had been
battling for for years. He was scared, and had been hurt, but was a
really good man. I left a message with his secretary, informing her of
our impending move. She took it down, promising to tell him. I
didn't
expect him to call me ten minutes later, and for him to invite me out to
talk.
I met him four times during that last hectic week on the east coast,
making excuses to my family so I could get out for an hour or two. When
it was time for us to move, I used my cellular phone to keep in touch.
I never told anyone of my secret would-be relationship, but my family
figured it out.
I had no choice but to declare I wanted to leave. We arrived in
California, tired and cranky, and the fighting that was inevitable every
time my husband and I were alone didn't help. I would have been so
happy, if it wasn't for what I had started. I scared my kids away, cut
my husband's soul to pieces, and shook every routine I had ever had
since I'd gotten married. Even within myself, I wasn't sure it was what
I wanted. But what could I do? It was too late for me to get things
back to how they used to be.
I wanted to take both my kids back with me to North Carolina. My
husband wanted me to leave everything behind, because I had caused
everything. For a time it looked like I could take my son, but my
husband changed his mind and took him back, too. So I left without a
single thing to my name, save a few suitcases of clothes.
I had never known if the relationship between me and the dentist would
ever have worked out, if maybe what I felt was just a figment of my
imagination from being unhappy for so long. But I moved in with him,
and we were happy for a couple of months. Eventually I realized the
awful truth, yet again: I was too strong for him too. Not knowing what
to do, I left.
My house had long been sold. With both my kids with their father, I
really had no excuse to de-mand a check. I didn't want to anyway. I
still had my pride. I withdrew all of my meager savings, keeping them
in an old leather wallet. It wasn't too thick. I stayed with various
friends, but I grew tired of being just a burden to everyone. I
gathered up all my things, and went out into the cold, harsh world all
alone with nothing but what I could carry in my hands and in my heart.
It's unbelievable how much people really do take for granted. I left
my secure life as a wife and mother to be . . . this. I destroyed
them. In my wake there is pain and loss, and what have I to show for
it?
So now you find me here. I sold all my clothing except what I wear
now, and occasionally I'm able to find an odd job here an there, so I'll
be okay. I get cold and hungry and lonely, but I'll be okay.
"So you're homeless?" he said as respectfully as he could,
unable to
keep an uneasy metallic timbre out of his voice.
"In the most literal sense of the word, yes." She was used
to it,
shielded from the cruel opinions of the world that rejected her truest
identity.
"I'd never have known that from looking at you."
"What does that mean?" He'd meant it as a compliment, but
she hadn't
taken it as such.
"I - I guess most homeless people beg, and you're so . . . so clean,
and well-dressed. . ."
"Cleanliness is a virtue." And that was that.
"So why don't any others . . . why don't they think so?"
She shrugged. "I don't know."
He was struck dumb. But perhaps that was just the wind numbing his
face. He liked to think he was sophisticated and sensitive enough for
it to be the first. "Wow."
"What?"
"It's . . . it's so amazing how every person has such a rich past.
If
I just passed you on the street, I'd never know everything that had gone
on in your life, all the burdens that you carry. Everyone has such a
rich past, you know?"
"Maybe rich. Maybe just painful."
"Bittersweet, I like to think."
She slowly mulled it over, her eyes bravely staring ahead and squinted
against the frosty air. "Maybe you're right."
It was truly getting dark now, the night no longer teasing its
minions. The two of them got to their slightly numbed feet, a pair
heading toward the bus stop, one that would deserve no more than a
passing glance from a bystander. They were nothing special, just two
people out for a walk just a few minutes too late.
"So what's your story?" she asked. "It's an
obligation now, you know?
I told you mine, so you tell me yours."
"No . . . no, I don't think so," he protested.
"Why not?"
"I've never told anyone. Not the truth."
"Of course not! How could you, when you won't?"
He smiled wryly. It was buried too deep, under layers and layers of
protection that, if disturbed, would unleash all he had tried to hard to
hide from himself.
"It's getting colder, you know," she stated flatly.
He laughed. "All right."
HIS STORY
Like you, I started out richer than I knew. But unlike you, I only
got
richer.
My wife was an architect. She was an absolute genius, just the best
in
the field, and her work raked in at least $15,000 a month easy. We had
a huge house with more rooms than I knew what to do with, more pools
than people in our family, a gym, the whole nine yards. Perhaps the
only thing missing was the tradi-tional family structure: mother,
father, daughter. It was hard to make a decision as to whether or not
we really wanted to give up the freedom that our lifestyle offered us,
but we concluded that it would be worth it, to have a child to raise and
mold and watch grow up into the world. My wife got pregnant, and I
relished every moment of running out for odd foods and shopping for
cribs and waking up three times a night when she had to use the
bathroom. It wasn't fun because it was, but because of what it meant.
We had a daughter, but she died only two days after she was born. Heart
complications. Grieving inside, my wife tried to hide her pain behind
more and bigger assignments, sleeping almost not at all. The nursery
was locked, and I couldn't bear to even go near it. Just to look at the
crib and little musical mobiles and stuffed animals . . . She just about
lived at work, and I stayed at home in virtual retirement, her income
more than sufficient to support my not-so-extravagant spending. Now
that I look back, I don't know why she kept me. She was probably too
busy to really think about it.
About two years later, we had another child. A son. He was
stillborn. We were absolutely devas-tated, and now that my wife was
beyond her childbearing years, it looked like our only option now was to
adopt. The proceedings moved painfully slow, and she threw herself into
her work all the more. I almost never saw her at all, even at night.
At home I lived like an old infirm man, an unproductive leech. But my
soul was unwilling to see more people that I had to, and so I holed up
in my mansion. When I did see her, we fought over the smallest things
and soon enough, we were both so exhausted inside that we barely looked
at each other. I felt like dying.
She beat me to it. Women aren't prone to heart attacks, but she made
an exception to that rule. I was out one day on my rare walks, and came
back to find what looked like an ambulance and emergency personnel
convention of sorts. She was already gone.
The next few weeks are a blur. I didn't go to her funeral. I
didn't
go outdoors at all. It was good that the maid service still visited our
house, otherwise you'd most likely find me another Mrs. Havisham.
Ironically, I received a daughter on the anniversary of my wife's death.
She came to me an infant, rose-cheeked and cooing. My bank
statements
had been getting shorter and shorter, so I sold the house and most of
our belongings. My wife had left me a fortune, but in a fit of anger
and perhaps insanity she had edited her will so I would not receive a
penny until a future child of mine turned sixteen. So for sixteen
years, I would have to do what I so dreaded and earn my own livelihood.
At least I had a motive now, my little angel who waited for my return
every evening.
I wanted to give her the best life I possibly could. I held three
jobs, returning home at night for only three hours before getting up
again and going to work for the day. I never realized how much I missed
of my daughter growing up. I wasn't there for her first step, although
I was told she made it in the $180 shoes I bought for her. I wasn't
there to watch the first mouthful of solid food actually make it, but
she was wearing the French lace bib when it happened. And so it went.
As I slowly opened my eyes to her, I could barely recognize the little
baby I had held in my arms. She was withdrawn during her school years,
openly defiant and venomous during her early teens. No longer could I
woo her with fancy clothes or little toys. She refused all my
attention, spending her nights at friends' houses rather than alone at
her own.
She was almost sixteen, and I was worked to the bone. In spite of my
labor, my income wasn't nearly enough to support my daughter's habits.
After all, drugs aren't covered by insurance. As I dipped lower and
lower into my account to pay the bills, everyday until that
all-important birthday became a strug-gle. I took out loan after loan
on my wife's established credit, but the interest piled up too high. I
was in trouble.
It was only three days before the day when she ultimately punished me
for my mistakes. I came home to find the light in her room on, and felt
elated that she had chosen to share my roof for the night. Her door was
closed, though, and I dared not invade her space. I went to bed without
saying good night, and so I failed to pass the final test.
The sun returned the next morning to find my daughter glossy-eyed and
motionless on her bed, ly-ing on stained bed-sheets with a syringe
dangling from her cold fingers. Appropriately she had dressed in all
black, her face strangely haunting with its heavily lined eyes that no
longer saw me.
She left me a short note. She was angry at me for my materialism,
for
my neglect, for my distance. Her note was full of hate and anger, but I
could hear the hurt that she so bravely tried to hide. A little
sol-dier, determined to the end.
What could I do? I was in debt up to my chin, needing my late wife's
money. And falling short by three days! My soul ached for my
daughter,
but I had the presence of mind to wish she had waited three days, if not
forever.
What followed I've never told anyone else. Even now, I am overcome
with shame because of it. I must stress how desperate I was, just how
awful it looked for me. Without that money, I would be ruined forever.
So . . . I left her there. I washed her body, her beautiful hair that
was black but had once been sunny blond, the skin that was still milky
under the heavy makeup she wore. I changed the sheets, covered the
soiled carpet with a rug. But then I left. Staying three nights in a
hotel in Nevada for under a hundred dollars, I made sure my voice mail
message told any callers that I had taken my daughter on a vacation.
The check arrived in the mail. It was only an installment, a portion
of the sum I would eventually receive, but it was enough to get me
completely out of debt. Now I realized just how clouded my thinking
must have been, to leave my daughter's dead body on her bed. I couldn't
even go in there. How would I explain how my daughter could have been
dead at the same time I took her on a vacation?
It was so easy. Just to turn the gas stove on for a few hours, then
to
throw in a match . . . that was all it took.
It was never questioned as a suicide. To OD, then turn on the gas
and
blow the house up . . . in today's unfeeling and horrified world, it was
not unduly dramatic. Stupid psychologists, analyzing it as adolescent
rebellion. Police department giving it last priority, 'just some crazy
teenager on bad crack'. . . What did they know? If there's one thing
that's true, it's that you can't learn life from a book.
I only hold one job now as a salesman selling pillows and comforters at
Sears. My wife's money is going straight to charity, because I don't
want it. What I make . . . it's enough to keep me alive, and I don't
want to do what I did during the sixteen best, and worst years of my
life. Once was enough.
The moon was coming out, her gentle face smiling at just them. She
was
so useless, her light bringing no warmth, and yet somehow the purity and
silkiness of her light never failed to lift his spirits. He smiled
back. His toes were now completely numb, unable to tell when he got to
his feet. "Do you need a place to stay? Just for tonight."
"No," she said. "I'll be fine."
"My garage doesn't have a car in it."
She considered his offer. "All right."
She slept sitting up against a wall. He offered her an ancient
kerosene heater, but she refused. She looked out of place against his
normally empty garage, like a clashing wall decoration. He went to bed.
She was up before he was the next morning. He wanted her to stay
another night.
"I'd rather go to hell," she smiled. "Thanks for your
hospitality."
"Why not?'
"The last thing I want is to be a burden to someone again. I've
done
enough of that for one life-time."
"You wouldn't be a burden. My garage is always empty, and you
won't
even use any electricity."
"Whatever. Good luck."
"Thanks. You too. Please?"
"Not a chance." And then she was gone.
He went out front to watch her go. She was so tiny, her figure
back-lit against the rising sun. The air was only just beginning to
warm, to embrace him rather than fight. The birds were twittering,
arguing about little things and enjoying it immensely, the mist
retreated back to wait for its ally the night, and she walked toward the
sun, disappearing past a hill.
He wondered if she left a presence where she had been. He looked in
the garage at the place where this woman had spent the night, giving off
some unique blend of bitterness and appreciation. But there was no
mark, no change to the floor except perhaps some unsettling of the
dust. There was no proof that she had ever even existed, except for the
twenty dollar bill wedged under a brick.
He grabbed it, his fingers feeling the rough crinkles of the fibrous
paper as he ran toward the hill she had disappeared into. The streets
were filling again, and she was nowhere to be found. How far could she
possibly have gone?
The streets truly hated him now. They were meant to be walked slowly
and languidly, not rushing as he did. They could not keep him still,
but they tried as hard as they could to make his fight hard. Slope
after slope he ran, his eyes searching for her. How could she give him
money, when it should have been the other way? His inner voice cried
out that it was unjust, that he had to find her to set things right.
He saw her entering the gate to Chinatown. The huge patina gate with
fierce dragons that roared silently in their in-expressible fury, and
the un-realizing tourists that passed under it, seeing only the
crafts-manship. She was wearing a gray turtleneck, black jeans and
oxfords. It couldn't be her. But the way she walked, the tilt of her
head . . . he took off after her, wishing he could be there now, his
mind willing the crowds to part for him as they never would.
He caught up with her next to a huge urn of discontented frogs as they
blinked up at him in unhap-piness. He grabbed her elbow. She looked
at
him in surprise.
"What - what is this?" he demanded, gesturing at what she wore.
She pulled free, her body braced against the crowds so she would not be
carried off by the mo-mentum. "Go home," she told him.
"Go home? I came to find you to give you back the twenty
dollars, but
now . . . now it looks like you may not need it! Why did you lie to
me?"
"You don't understand."
"Make me understand!" he screamed, but it was nearly lost in the
noise.
She closed her eyes briefly. "Fine." She turned and
walked into a
produce store, passing the alien fruits without a glance. He shouldered
his way after her.
She turned to face him when she got to the back of the building.
"What
do you want?"
"Why you . . . if you . . ." What did he want? To
know why she had
betrayed his trust? Did he really want to know? "The
truth."
"Ah. The truth." She sighed. "Everything
I told you is true. I have
nothing. I steal. That's the long and short of it."
"This is stolen?"
"That's right."
The inner voice that never kept quiet was now screaming hysterically.
"That's not right. You have to take it back," he said with a
false
calm.
"Take it back? Are you crazy?" She had no such calm.
"You can't steal."
"Why not? I don't what I have to do to survive. Saks
Fifth Avenue
loses $200 out of their multi-million revenue, or I freeze and starve to
death. What would you do?"
"There are other ways. There must be other ways!"
"You're living in a fairy tale world! This is reality.
What do you
think they'll do what I waltz in and hand these back, telling them I
stole them yesterday and had a change of heart? You think they'll just
thank me, commend me for my honesty? Or will they call the police and
have me shipped to jail where I can't cause any more inconvenience to
them? Think about it, before you spit out all your philosophical
junk."
"It's wrong!"
Her voice grew low and menacing. "So is neglecting your
daughter her
whole life," she rumbled. "That didn't stop you, did it?"
Anger flared up inside him. "Leave my daughter out of
this!" he
bellowed.
"Out of what? You come barging in like some truant officer or
something, the defender of justice, and expect me to fall at your feet
and accept you as my savior?"
He held up his hands. "Fine. Enough." He
turned and left.
She stood there a long time. The Chinese vendors ignored her
largely,
and they faded into back-ground noise as she thought about what he had
said. "Stolen," her clothes hissed now. "Stolen.
Stolen." Their evil
venom seeped into her skin, meeting her blood and moving throughout her
body. "Stolen. Sto-len." But ultimately, there was
nothing she could
do.
That afternoon, she saw him again. He handed her a small flat box
without a word, his face un-readably cold. He disappeared again.
She opened it, finding a pair of blue jeans, a long sleeve shirt and a
navy cardigan. Nestled in a corner of the box was a pair of flats.
In
the bottom was an envelope, holding a note that read "Now you can be
virtuous and still survive" and a receipt. The prices had been hidden
and marked out with marker; he didn't want her to know how much he
spent, just that he had bought the goods legitimately.
Tears gathered in her eyes. She walked into a public restroom to
change, and folded the stolen clothes into the box. She walked to his
house. He was waiting for her.
"You don't expect me to walk in there and tell them the whole story,
do
you?'
"No," he said. "I thought about it, and I know I've
been living in a
dream world. This world's not kind to thieves anymore."
She let the insult pass. He was right.
They walked out of the glass doors. She finally exhaled.
Daring a
glance back over her shoulder, she saw the bag still on the floor next
to the sale rack where she had left it.
"Where are you staying tonight?" he asked.
"In your garage."
He smiled. "Right."
The sun was setting yet again, its life a helpless vicious cycle. It
rose every morning, only to be defeated each night. But still it did,
regardless of whether any reward was earned. And somehow it man-aged to
still bring warmth and light, even though its own life seemed to mean so
little. Unknown to it, the world depended on it to go through its
mindless repetitions. And even if it didn't feel like its life was
worth anything, it still clung to the hope that others derived some
pleasure from it, and lived on for their sake. As he walked, he thought
that perhaps he would lead his own life the same way from now on.
Kira Lee
August 19, 1999
10:50 am
