Happy Baby (5 page)

Pat’s looking in his whiskey glass with one eye waiting for me to finish. I know all about Pat’s marriage. His childhood girlfriend. And how her head isn’t right anymore. “So what’s wrong with selling bagels?”

“Nothing wrong with it.” I drink my beer. Pat’s good for at least one more round. Maybe two. A perk of the job, I suppose, but still, I’m the one that has to be up at six in the morning. I only live two blocks away from this bar. I come here when the phone is ringing, when the fog is falling over the hills. I sit here at night with a beer, not trying to get drunk, just trying to make it last. I like to watch the young couples that come in here and sit next to each other on the couch. I love it when they lean into one another even though the couch is long, cutting off their own space.

“Listen,” Pat says. “There’s a whole world out there. How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Keep going, man. You’ll be full manager. What would you do if you were the manager right now? If I said, Theo, you are now the manager of Hoff Bagels. I’m talking profit sharing. The whole business. What would you do?”

I look at Pat slyly. “I’d change the world,” I tell him, putting down my beer. “If I was manager there’d be no more war.”

Pat looks at me for a second like he’s going to laugh, but then he gets the joke and a queer expression passes over his face. It’s like somebody’s taken the air out of him. He sips on the bottom of his whiskey shot and then chases it with his beer. I give him a blank stare. “Yeah, well,” he says, and I feel guilty already. “No need to worry about that. Have another one, all right?”

“All right,” I say.

I send Ambellina a note that I won’t be able to see her any more, then sign off the kiosk and go to help Valerie behind the counter. I don’t know why I have to end it with Ambellina. Because nothing in my life has ever worked out quite the way I planned. Because I’m selfish. I do it because I’m lonely and when I don’t see her it’s worse and because after three years in San Francisco I don’t know anybody. Because I don’t want to be seen and I don’t want anybody to know. Because she was so human the last time I saw her, unsure of her next move. And I don’t have room for that, for reasons I’m unsure of. My small apartment. This city and all of the cities. No. And the jungles with their animals. People with their problems. The windows. I woke last night and grabbed at the end of my mattress. The windows. No. It’s hard enough.

Valerie doesn’t want to talk to me. One time Valerie asked me to walk her to the campsite. She said she was afraid to go alone. All of the homeless were there, below the highway, at the base of Bernal Heights. Shopping carts were everywhere and they had strung tarp among them. A large fire was burning from a steel drum and we saw the men and women huddled around it from across Cesar Chavez. I asked Valerie why she wanted to go there though I knew it was to see Philc. But I didn’t understand that she had to go down beneath the highway and the thick traffic, a six-lane-deep river to be crossed. It looked like hell to me, that place she was going to, all the people and stray dogs. Valerie looked at me like she didn’t know what I meant. “I’m not going there,” I told her. Valerie crossed her arms. “You don’t have to go there,” I said. She thought about it but then she stepped into the street, wading through the traffic and I watched for a minute and then followed. We climbed out the other side and nobody seemed to care who we were. We found Philc’s tent near the back, where everybody threw away their trash. Paper and soiled, torn clothing was everywhere, piles stacked against the steel mesh fence before the brickyard. He was standing, throwing a knife into the dirt. There were a couple of men sitting nearby sipping on the last of a glass bottle and wiping their beards. One of the men had a bag of peeled carrots on his lap.

“Is that your bodyguard?” Philc sneered. Valerie left me and went over to him. “I’ve been doing speed. Watch this.” He pushed Valerie over to a big tree. She seemed to know what to do. She leaned back against it with her arms straight at her sides and closed her eyes. She looked happy. “Are you guys watching?” he asked the two men. One of them nodded and the other grabbed a carrot stub from his bag. Philc picked up his knife. A truck rumbled over the steel girders, sending a shiver through the small plot. Philc threw the knife, striking the tree right next to Valerie’s head. But it didn’t stick. It fell to the ground and landed bent at her feet.

“That’s dangerous,” I said.

“Fuck,” Philc said, gathering his knife. Valerie had opened her eyes.

“Let’s go,” I told her.

“She’s not going anywhere,” Philc said, looking down at his knife, running his fingers along the blade like he was cleaning it.

“You go,” Valerie said. “I’ll be okay.”

“She’s safe with me.” Philc’s dirty face was full of challenge. “There’s room for her in my tent.” He emptied a bottle of water onto a rag. There didn’t seem to be anything for me to do but to go. I wasn’t wanted and it was obvious Valerie wasn’t leaving unless I carried her out, and I wasn’t going to do that. I didn’t want to watch Philc throw knives at her head. I worked my way down the path and lowered myself back into the street.

It’s game night. The tables are filled with people playing board games. Twenty people, maybe. This group comes here once a week. I don’t know who they are. They show up. They order some coffee. We stay open later than usual. They set up Monopoly, checkers, Parcheesi. Push the pieces. They play for hours.

“This is our strangest night,” I say to Valerie. But she’s still upset so she doesn’t even answer. “Valerie, look at them,” I say over her shoulder. She’s wearing a Naked Raygun shirt.
Last Tour Ever
. She’s cutting a bagel for a customer. She ignores me. “I don’t even know what I want. If somebody asked me what I wanted I couldn’t even begin to answer them.”

“But nobody’s asking, are they?” Valerie says.

“No,” I say. She’s facing me with the knife. Somebody shouts
Yahtzee
! Valerie’s lips, at the corners, point down. “Nobody is.”

I clean up my apartment. It doesn’t take long, it’s such a small place. I knock on my neighbor’s door and ask if I can borrow his broom and I sweep my floors. I fill a bucket with soap and water and wash the walls. I leave my hands in the dark, soapy water for a minute. I stand by the window and watch the action on the street below, the hookers and the police cruisers. If I was in Chicago with my wife, we’d watch television. We’d avoid the obvious questions. We’d make excuses for nothing until we were done and we could finally sleep. Then the phone starts ringing.

I buy Valerie a five-dollar bar of soap that smells like cucumber. I take out the trash. Lunchtime, Philc is standing across Valencia Street. He has scratches on his cheek and a new tattoo under his eye. I pass him on my way to pick up pizza slices for Valerie and myself. We look at each other but I just keep walking. It’s three in the afternoon and the shop is empty except for the girl with the tattooed face who’s on the nod at the last table in the back. I remember when that girl started coming around the neighborhood, with her Barbie lunchbox, looking to get high. People would say she was pretty, except for the tattoos. It’s like she only had that one thing wrong with her, but that was enough. The blue ink obscures her face entirely. It runs from her ears and eyes and curls under her chin like a beard. She gets in cars and turns tricks down by Folsom Street.

Valerie has finished her slice and is throwing away the paper plate. She pours herself a soda and dumps three ounces of peach syrup into it. She wipes her mouth with her forearm and then puckers her lips.

The light is blinking on the machine and all of my windows are open. The workers from the factory are huddled around the white lunch truck.

You fucking punk bitch. You think you can send me an email saying you don’t want to see me anymore and that’s it? I don’t know what kind of game you are playing. Be as close to a man as you can be and pick up the motherfucking phone or do something that makes me less inclined to rip your fucking thinning hair out by the pale roots. I really don’t have time for your shit. You belong on your back with me suffocating you. Why do you think there is room for you? Don’t you think I have my own problems? I will ambush you somewhere. I will leave permanent marks. I warn you, don’t fuck with me. You can’t run away. I will be there tomorrow and if you are not available your whole neighborhood will know what a sissy punk bitch who likes to be raped you are. Don’t underestimate my cruelty.

At work I stand near the counter. “C’mon,” Valerie says. I take a breath before wrapping the last bagel of the morning in paper and handing it to the customer who walks out the door. Outside they’re routing traffic around Valencia and the cars, each pointing in a slightly different direction, seem to be trying to climb over one another but none of them are moving. The cars need to get through. There is no way around Valencia. It’s starting to rain. People run past the windows with papers over their hats. Philc and Valerie are in the back with the recycling and the trash, having a cigarette under the porch hang. I open the newspaper; there’s been an invasion. I look up and Philc is standing at the counter in front of me. “Hey,” he says quietly. “We need to come to an understanding, bro.” I fold the newspaper, slide it over by the cookies. “Valerie loves you. Do you know that, man? You’re family. You are. I think we can make this work.” He pulls a toothpick from his pocket and plays with it between his front teeth. “Maybe we can all get a place together. You know what I mean? The three of us. No more bad times.” He speaks calmly and I wonder what kind of pills he’s been taking and if they would do me any good and how long they would last. “Friends for life?” He stretches his hand across the counter. I take his hand because every small bit of peace is worth having.

I put the bagels away and wrap the day-old pastries. Valerie comes back to help me. The rain is beating down on the sidewalk and Philc is sitting quietly in the back making origami from napkins.

That time you were tied up before. You looked so innocent. I wanted to draw blood. But I didn’t. Do you know why? You like to think you’re smart so you think other people can’t understand you. You are so funny! Did you ever think I was reasonable? I mean, I can be a reasonable person but I don’t like being played with. You cannot spend time with me and then send some pathetic excuse to disappear. Is that how you handle things? By running away? It doesn’t work like that little boy. Answer your phone next time I call.

I tell Ambellina I’m sorry and ask if I can take her to see
Casablanca
at the Paramount in Oakland. It’s been raining every day and I head to the East Bay. The Paramount is an art deco theater from the Depression that plays classic movies. The theater opens early for cocktails and the Wurlitzer. I’m there first, above the 19th Street station, and after fifteen minutes I start to worry that she isn’t going to show up and then she is standing in front of me. I try to take her hand but she won’t let me. “What do you think you were trying to pull?” she asks. We’re moving with the crowd of people down the street.

“I …”

“You what? Do you belong to me or not?” Men are watching her. She’s wearing thigh-high latex yellow boots, fishnets, a leather skirt. Her tight curls are cut close to her scalp and dyed arctic blue. She seems to be looking around, smiling to all of them at once. She also seems to be focused only on me.

“Yes,” I say quietly.

“What?”

“Yes. I belong to you, Mistress.” The guy walking next to me snickers.

We move through the large doors of the old theater, the velvet floors, columns and statues reaching to a roof that ends in a midnight sky. The theater was built to hold thousands. Ambellina sends me for Coke and popcorn and when I come back the seats around us are filled and the man in the coat and tails at the Wurlitzer is being lowered beneath the stage.

Bogart’s face fills the screen and out of the corner of my eye Ambellina is rummaging through her purse. I grew up with Humphrey Bogart. We had a television and my father loved the old Bogart films and would make me watch them.
Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo
. “You’re not big enough to take me down, see.” In his better moods my father would quote Bogart. “Sure, on the one hand maybe I love you and maybe you love me. But you’ll have something on me you can use whenever you want. And since I’ll have something on you who’s to say you’re not going to knock me over like you did the rest of them?” My father was a big man with a loud laugh, four inches taller than I am now. He was a violent man who wouldn’t stand for being looked at crossways by women or children. He pushed my kindergarten teacher down a small flight of stairs. He carried a small gun, a bottle of mace, and brass knuckles inside his coat. He was lazy and his laziness made him a criminal. He was killed with a shotgun just before my eleventh birthday, which is when my hard time began, though it might have already been too late.

Bogart seems friendly to me, among the roulette wheels and the card tables. His confidence. His big sad eyes. The white linen suits moving casually across the screen while the world is at war all around them. Rick’s, a little Free French outpost on the sand. He does what he has to. He betrays poor Peter Lorre to the Nazis. But the world won’t let him alone. The world is bigger than the castle he has built for himself. This is the lesson of
Casablanca
.

Ambellina forces the gag into my mouth and I catch my breath. I let out a tiny moan while the big, round puck forces open my jaw and cheeks, sending a throbbing up the sides of my face.

“Shhh.”

The theater is so quiet except for the actors and Ambellina slowly rubbing her thumb and index finger together. There’s a hole in the puck to breathe through and I feel her pulling the straps around the back of my neck and fastening it tight to hold the gag in. I grip onto the seats. The strap catches and pulls my hair. I want to move out of this. To squirm. To wriggle down to the floor. I jerk my head one way, and then back. One quick breath. I push back in my seat, my feet pressing the floor. I try to hold the middle and when I can’t I lean cautiously into Ambellina’s shoulder, and she lets me stay there. Before the plane flies away I’ve grown used to the pressure against the roof of my mouth. When the lights come on I’m resting; I can hardly feel my hair caught in the buckle.