The Fall (5 page)

Or if they wanted to move him someplace else;

Or if he felt he didn’t need to take his medication;

Or if he did need some;

Or if he was being molested or otherwise abused;

Or if, as was happening today, Max was going to plead for another three years of foster care monthly income for Auntie Juney.

Until recently, that money ended automatically in California on the child’s eighteenth birthday. This put largely unskilled, often undereducated children out into the real world—to find a job, rent an apartment—at a time when they were unlikely to make it on their own. But lately, the court had been making more and more exceptions, extending benefits to some applicants until they turned twenty-one.

Still, it was by no means definite policy, and the bottom line was that unless Max (and Greg) could convince the family court that Max’s situation merited this extension, they were going to cut off Juney’s foster care stipend in three more months, when Max turned eighteen, before he’d even graduated from high school. If this happened, neither Max nor Juney knew how they could make it, continuing as they were.

Max, knowing his friend Greg was on his way, allowed himself to believe that something good could happen.

•  •  •

A
ND NOW HERE
Greg was, pulling up in his powder blue Honda Fit. Max went around to the passenger side, opened the door, and, sliding into the front seat, sighed. “Dude. Didn’t we talk about this car? That it had to go. Wasn’t you gettin’ new wheels?”

“
Weren’t
I getting new wheels, and no, I wasn’t. I said I’d try. It didn’t work out.” Pulling out into the street, Greg asked, “How have you been?”

Still rolling with his ’tude, Max huffed, “Better if we had a better ride.”

“How about no ride at all?”

“That’d be worse, but only just.”

“We’re just going to have to bear up.”

“All right. I’ll slump in the seat. That way, nobody see me,” Max said with a sly smile.

Greg had his own smile on. “Nobody
will
see me. It’s a good idea to put in all the words so people don’t think you’re ignorant.”

“Bustin’ my chops now.”

“Only
when necessary. We don’t hang out for a while, and you fall into bad habits.”

“Either that, or I fall into consciously drawing you into an overly didactic response to a superficial touch of street argot, thereby exposing your own regrettable tendency to pontificate.”

Greg gave him an appreciative look. “Or that,” he said.

Max was grinning broadly.

“Proud of yourself, are you?”

“Gotcha! You can’t deny it.”

“I wouldn’t even try. Those were some pretty good words.”

They drove in companionable silence for another block. “So,” Max said, “how do our chances look today? You have any idea?”

“My sense is that things are good. I can’t think of any reason they might turn us down, but I don’t want to get our hopes too high.” Greg threw over a sideways glance. “Not to jinx us even more, but Anlya thinks it’s a lock, too.”

“When did you talk to her?”

Greg shot him a quick impatient glance. “You keeping tabs on my activities now?”

“Simple question, dude.”

Greg’s eyes went back to the road. “You’re right. We went out last night. She was going stir-crazy, so she called me and I took her out for Chinese. She figures if you get the extension, she might as well go for it herself, and wanted to talk to me about that, too.”

“She
should
get it.”

“Of course. But she doesn’t have a CASA, since Heidi quit on her, and she didn’t want the opportunity to go by without applying. So she hit on me.”

“You wish.”

“Figuratively, Max, figuratively.”

“Jeez. Are we a little touchy today or what? I know figuratively, of course. What else would it be? Obvi.”

“Yeah, but some topics aren’t great joking material. You hear me?”

“Duh.” After a short silence, Max went on. “But for the record, I’d eat Chinese, too. Next time it comes up. Just in case you’re going to Chi
natown with, say, my sister, and you’re thinking, ‘Hey, I wonder if Max would like to come with us.’ Just sayin’ maybe he would.”

“Since we’re just sayin’, would he be paying for himself at this dinner? Because believe it or not, it costs more to take out two people than one. Besides, I knew I was seeing you today, and sometimes you can get too much of a good thing.”

“You’re hurting me here.”

“You’ll get over it.”

They stopped at a red light and Max asked, “So how was she?”

“Not as good as she could be. Basically uptight and distracted. I worry about her, tell you the truth. She needs a CASA of her own instead of borrowing me for these piecemeal things.”

“Did she say what was bothering her?”

“No. As usual, she denied it was anything until I reminded her that she’d called me wanting to get out of her house, which kind of won that debate for me.”

“But she wouldn’t say?”

Greg shook his head. “I’m thinking it’s girl stuff. Whatever it was last night, I’m going to put out the word down at the CASA office, try to set her up with one of the new volunteers.”

“Why not you?”

“Because—and we’ve already done this today, remember?—I am a guy and she is a girl.”

“Yeah, but nobody’s going to think anything funky about you and her. And you know her story. You could help her.”

Greg shook his head. “I could, maybe. But she needs a female CASA.”

“Was she really in a bad way? Maybe I should call her, see what it was.”

“You can try, but I’d give it a day or two. She’s probably all talked out for now.” They were pulling into the parking lot. “I don’t know if you’d get anywhere.”

O
N A SLOW
night at the Little Shamrock, the young man who’d pulled up a stool in front of the beer spigots ordered a black and tan—half Guinness stout and half Bass ale—and Dismas Hardy said, “It’ll take a few minutes, you know.”

“Got to.”

“Yes, it does.” Hardy grabbed and wiped clean an already spotless pint glass, tipped it under the Bass spigot, and carefully filled it to the halfway point. Then, picking up a bar spoon and inverting it over the ale, the “tan” part, he pulled at the Guinness tap. The darker liquid, the “black,” ran down over the back of the spoon—slowly, slowly—settling on the surface of the Bass and gradually filling the glass until the perfect creamy foam head hit its lip. The result was textbook: clear Bass underneath, Guinness floating above it.

Hardy gave his work a quick appreciative glance and slid it across the bar. “Sláinte.”

“Well done,” the man said. “And back at you.” He toasted, sipped, and said, “Can I buy you one?”

It was six o’clock. Hardy had been on duty for about an hour. A half dozen other patrons claimed a table here, stools down the bar there. Outside the front window, a late splash of sunlight created long shadows from the cypress trees across the street in Golden Gate Park. The television droned quietly over the back bar behind him. “I don’t see how it could hurt,” he said. “Thanks.”

Grabbing another pint glass, Hardy began again with the routine. When he finished with the same results, he took his own sip, put the glass down, and extended his hand over the bar. “Dismas Hardy.”

“Greg Treadway. Did you say Dismas?”

Hardy nodded. “The good thief. Saint Dismas.” He spelled it out.

“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with him.”

“You’re not alone. He was crucified next to Jesus. Dismas, another thief, and Jesus, the three of them up there on Calvary, all of them having a pretty bad day.”

“I’d say.”

“So the other thief—the bad thief—starts giving Jesus grief, as if things weren’t shitty enough, and says if Jesus really is the king of the Jews, which is what it says there on his cross—what he’s being punished for—why doesn’t he order somebody to get them all down off these damn crosses? But Dismas stands up for Jesus against this other cretin and then asks Jesus to remember him when he comes into his kingdom. So Jesus says to Dismas: ‘Today you’ll be with me in Paradise.’ ” Hardy drank off some Guinness. “Anyway, that’s the short version. The bottom line is that Dismas, in some traditions, is the first saint, and my parents must have liked the sound of the name.”

“Good story.” Half-turning, Greg scanned the bar. “I like this place.”

“First time?”

“No. I stopped by with some guys a few weeks ago. But we hung out in the back room throwing darts the whole time. So I thought I’d come back and check out the front. It’s cool.”

“It is. Especially given that it’s a hundred and twenty years old.”

Greg’s brows went up and Hardy filled in some history for him. In fact, the Little Shamrock was one of the oldest continuously operating bars in San Francisco. Some, including Hardy, put the opening date as early as 1893. The clock on the wall behind Greg had stopped during the Great Earthquake of 1906 and had never ticked again. The bar had stayed open during Prohibition by masquerading as a restaurant with a never-ending pot of beans in the front window and a cigar counter inside.

When Hardy finished, Greg said, “If this bartending thing doesn’t work out, you could be a history teacher.”

“I could,” Hardy said, “but my law associates might run out of work.”

Greg straightened up in obvious surprise. “You’re a lawyer?”

“Most of the time. This hanging out behind the bar is how I try to preserve my humanity, such as it is. How about you? What do you do?”

“I
am a teacher. Eighth grade.”

“That’s real bravery.”

Greg shrugged. “Somebody’s got to do it. I’m with Teach for America now, so I’ll probably only last a couple of years, but it’s a good experience. I’m actually liking it most of the time. The kids are great.”

“I remember when my son was in seventh grade, I thought it was the worst time of his whole childhood. My daughter’s, too, come to think of it. Seventh grade was hell.”

“Yeah, well, seventh grade is a whole different ball game from eighth. Seventh-graders are sadistic and mean, and then suddenly in eighth they get better, nobody knows why. It’s a mystery. So, not to pry, but is it normal being a bartender if you’re a lawyer?”

“Probably not, but I own half of this place, so I like to keep my hand in. I stopped worrying about what was normal a while ago.”

“Good idea.” Greg paused. “I’m supposed to be a mechanical engineer. I got a master’s at Stanford. So naturally, I’m teaching elementary math to eighth-graders.”

“There you go. My daughter, Rebecca, majored in English lit, and now she’s a lawyer working with her old man. I’m coming to the conclusion that there is no normal. There’s just what you do.” Down the bar, Hardy saw an empty glass, said, “Excuse me,” and walked over to see if his other customers needed him.

Hardy was turned to reach for a top-shelf bottle of Scotch when the door opened and a young woman came in wearing business clothes—gray skirt, low heels, trench coat. She wore very little makeup and didn’t need it. A few freckles bridged her nose, and she wore an expression of upbeat expectation. Glancing up and seeing that Hardy was busy and facing the other way, she ran a hand through her shoulder-length reddish hair and shook it out, then shrugged and moved on.

She passed right behind Greg and continued a few more feet to the end of the bar, where she removed her coat, hanging it on a peg in the wall. Ducking under the bar, she reappeared behind the spigots, nodded at Greg, and pointed at his drink. “Get you a refill?”

He pushed the glass toward her. “Sure, thanks. Black and tan?”

“Comin’ up.”

After watching her start another glass, he asked, “Do they let just
anybody get behind the bar here, or do you have to be a former English major now working as a lawyer named Rebecca?”

Her eyes narrowed before the answer dawned on her and she broke a sheepish smile. “Did my daddy give you my birth date, too?”

“Not yet.”

And then her father was next to her, arm around her shoulders, planting a kiss on the top of her head. “Hey, sweetie. I see you’ve met Greg.”

“We hadn’t gotten to his name yet.” She turned to him. “Hello, Greg.”

“Hello, Rebecca.”

•  •  •

F
IVE MINUTES LATER
, she was sitting next to him at the bar. She was in a bourbon phase and was sipping a Maker’s Mark over a couple of ice cubes. “It wasn’t really anything I planned,” she was saying, “except that when I graduated and looked at the job market, I realized I didn’t have any skills, unless you count that I could read really well, and nobody seemed to care too much about that. So I figured, if nothing else, law school would give me three more years to look around and make up my mind about what I wanted to do.”

“That’s pretty much what I’m doing now. Treading water, maybe doing some good for the kids, I don’t know. But I’m done next year, and after that . . . real life, I suppose.” He lifted his glass.

“It’s pretty funny, don’t you think?” she said. “Here we are, probably the most educated generation in history, and somewhere along the line it’s like we never figured out what we were supposed to do with all the stuff we know. If they’d told me that it’s basically about being able to get a good job, I think I would have said, ‘That’s it? A job? You mean maybe I ought to learn how to do something I can get paid for.’ Instead, I studied Milton. Milton! What are we supposed to do with Milton out in the real world? Can you tell me?”

“I’m afraid I cannot. Milton doesn’t come up much in eighth-grade math.”

“Or anywhere else. Trust me.” Mid-sip, she stopped and put her glass down and focused on the TV. “Uh-oh.” On the screen was Supervisor Liam Goodman, speaking into a bank of microphones. “Dad,” she called, and when he turned, she pointed.

He came down and turned up the volume.

Goodman was in fine form, getting prime time, beating the usual drum. “It’s simple if we look back. Since the beginning of Wes Farrell’s administration as DA, any objective observer would have to conclude that there is, at the very least, a demonstrable lack of prosecutorial zeal when it comes to trying the perpetrators of crimes against African-Americans in this city. Likewise, with the police department under Devin Juhle, we have a young African-American victim of a violent crime, and so far, no indication that there are any suspects, much less any kind of rigorous investigation . . .”