THE LADY KILLER: intense, suspenseful, gripping literary fiction (14 page)

“I … I’m afraid Saturday’s are gone,” Barney’d informed a group of these large sloth like misfits as their women and children stood looking on and pretended to understand. “The misses will no longer allow it.”

Of course, she would’ve if he’d asked but he hadn’t even consulted her. He’d come to the idea all on his own. Perhaps he too felt more comfortable in stepping up in class. The Saturday’s, of course, were the days he had let that clan visit the garage in back of the cottage where he’d installed his workshop. There they could have access to electricity and use his tools for free, bringing along whatever work they had that needed to be done and required that sort of machining.

Those privileges he cut and in a nice way so as not to’ve broken off all bonds to the point of isolation and hatred like you so often see between countries and ethnic groups, who withdraw privileges from one another. The residents appreciated it. So did the school board. It kept the undesirables to their own side of town, the mosquito infested swamp. Those who before had considered Barney a pest, I’m sure came to look upon him a little differently.

After all he was a vet, he’d fought in a war. And however meaningless or unjust it might’ve been most of them hadn’t. Laying your life on the line for anything has an essence all its own. One, of course, just hopes it’s for the right cause whatever that might be. It seems most of us know but don’t always use our good sense in applying the judgment. Or maybe the wave that carries us along is simply too big to struggle against, one or many.

Several attorneys in the midst out there became interested in his case. One a well-known maverick who lived in Salinas and had built a reputation defending the criminal underdog. Sarah was certainly happy and with her enlightened attitude came the conviction that she’d done the right thing by freeing him. Dance nights and Hartwig were like lost souls in history. They wander around but are forgotten. Of course, they had to be for the Windjammer was off limits to them now but when one begins a new life in his old community his existence becomes more refined. You’re more insulated but at least you’re alive, well and kicking. Barney’s old white pickup was still parked on the street in front of the cottage though he couldn’t drive it since they’d taken his license. Yet who’s to say they weren’t the happier couple. They never fought now like Sandy and Hartwig and there wasn’t the web of duplicity about them that the latter couple seemed to share. Were they saints, by no means. They were just people like the rest of us struggling to climb the mountain of fate that shapes our destinies. Those, of course, who are stronger at feeling out the right path do better simply because they were made to.

I looked to Hammond for a reaction but this time I got none. He was still attentive enough but as tenderized meat he’d been hammered by the story instead of any philosophy it might’ve contained.

With his new mobility, despite having moved to Tiburon over the hill, Marcus spent most of his time after school at the beach, which was understandable for that’s where his friends were and where he’d grown up. He still had his mother living there but she was back with the maverick. He thought it a despicable thing for her to have bailed the miscreant out of jail and even when he’d been at the beach and his mother’d been alone the son had made no effort to contact her. He, naturally, considered her partially responsible for the beatings he’d received from her boyfriend. Any time the two ran into one another whether it was in the little market, at the post office, restaurant or just passing by each stiffened up, cast glances of hatred the other’s way and continued on as if to get away from the other as quickly as he could. As if the other carried some kind of vermin or contagious disease. And here they were just mother and son. I looked over, perplexed.

“Oh, really,” said Hammond. “You must not’ve read any Chinese history. Whole families poisoned one another just to sit on a throne or next to it. It might’ve been over gold, emeralds, heritage but still… This sort of stuff you’re describing with such a universally disastrous appeal is really apple pie American. Half the relations in the country hate one another over inheritances. Who’s going to get what? What’s really new?”

“Nothing, of course,” I said, “but the story, like the same name for different individuals. Though not enough different names for each individual every name nonetheless identifies one as Aristotle points out. Our stories too are like snowflakes. None are the same.”

Marcus, of course, wasn’t merely a bookworm. He was also an actor, a quite good one. He’d taken parts in his school plays and he’d also been consigned a very minor role in one of the great thinker’s dramas. This was
Othello
. It was performed by a small troupe called Shakespeare at the Beach, and though the mainstays were seasoned actors, auditions had been opened to amateurs. Marcus’d tried out and won a tiny part, two parts in fact, both of which he was nonetheless proud.

“A sensitive kid then?” Said Hammond.

“Yes, a very sensitive boy indeed. And being a local and well known out there not only because of his mother, regardless of his minor role the locals looked forward to watching him.”

“Christ, isn’t he good! One day he’ll be a great actor.” I don’t know who said that, but only that those sorts of things were said of him. When June, of course, heard this she couldn’t wait to witness him perform. And on one Saturday that was to take place. Not only she but her other adopted daughter Jennifer, were to meet at Sandy’s beach house and along with Hartwig the four were to attend the performance of
Othello
. You know, the black man who in white territory (Venetian) didn’t find a very gracious fit. He became an unwitting victim of circumstance and, of course, of his own
strong
passion.

“Yes,” said Hammond. “That thing happens. The black man becomes very jealous over his white mistress. More so than his black counterparts. Even nowadays. That part of our history hasn’t caught up with itself. It must be because they’re considered so ‘off limits’ to him.”

“That might be part of it,” I said. But what about the randomness of being born a black in the first place. Or a Jew or an American, a cannibal in New Guinea. Or a regular limey in good old London or a Kraut in Swaziland? When brought together all have their foibles regarding the other. That some are more remarkable, so what. These are things we have to live with. I don’t really believe Shakespeare was attempting to make any judgment. He was just going by
feel
. A thing we all do. One hopes one day our feelings’ll more complimentarily coincide. I have no idea how that might come about or if it ever will.

June and her daughter arrived at Sandy’s in the early afternoon. Remember though, nearing the end of summer the days were still long so the plays although held late, ended in broad daylight. And a quaint setup it was if you can imagine it. Like dances at the beach what’s more perfect than Shakespeare if you can find a theater. And they had, the locals’d made one. Barney’d actually worked on it.

“Really, you’re kidding,” said Hammond. “A genuine replica of the Globe?”

“No,” I answered, “but something nice, something American but nothing like Disneyland at all. This set had a different feel to it. It was redolent of our Victorian homes which, though funky compared to the European templates, you’ll have to admit really are exceptional.” Hammond nodded his head. Why shouldn’t he? He owned one.

The theater itself was located in the enclosure of an abandoned nursery just off the main drag. This was essentially a large space with the tart smell of compost still in the soil. It was totally surrounded by a high board fence with an entranceway at the front and several fire exits to the rear. What the carpenters had erected was a poor man’s replica of a half hex façade of plywood to resemble the old globe. Windows and doors had been cut where they should be and the sashes and jambs painted on their fronts. You might say the affair resembled an old movie set or a dollhouse. The true molding, everything was painted on dark umber against light beige, Elizabethan coloring, balconies included. A sky had even been painted on several roof boards horizontal to the ground.

The set was two storied and enclosed the stage, which protruded into the audience who, all several hundred of them, sat on folding chairs. Somewhat primitive, no doubt, but with surrounding pennants flapping high above in the breeze, a pen filled with live animals inside, several cows and a goat and a pig just outside with young kids in costume playing baroque on their flutes and an adult jester banging on a kettle drum to lure you inside, the setup provided a reasonable replica. All that was missing was the bear baiting and the cockfights.

“Which, of course,” said Hammond, “nowadays are illegal.”

“Yes, but still clandestinely practiced,” I remarked. “Times have changed. Or at least one likes to think so. It’s just human nature that hasn’t changed, and though it seems possible, perhaps it never will.”

There was a booth for beer, a booth for
dogs
, barbecued meat, whatever else one likes to consume at those sorts of affairs. It wasn’t so unlike the fare at a baseball game though the entertainment was far different. The San Francisco Giants weren’t Shakespeare and no matter how popular the former become, they never will be.

Led by Marcus in his first role (courier) costume, Hartwig, Sandy and the rest of them walked from the beach house to the enclosure on the highway that was filling up like a tank of water. Cars lined up, people got out and marveled at the beautiful surroundings, the beach in the foreground, the sloping wooded hillside, which ended in the high ridge with its many defiles, all towered over by the illustrious mountain that reached into a clear sky.

This time Jennifer, June’s
touched
daughter, who had become quite close to Marcus since he’d moved there, had chosen to accompany her mother. Along with the artists, the Adamses, they completed the group. The Stiches, from Salinas, the large contractor and his wife Julia, Sarah’s daughter who’d been adopted by June, along with their infant, Tod, met them there and they all sat together. Benji, Sandy’s son, who had little penchant for art had chosen to go off on his motorcycle to a meet in which he was already competing. Some people like that sort of thing. They just want to get into action.

With people running about in Elizabethan costumes it was hard to tell who was who, actor from audience, but finally everyone got settled in his seat, the stage was prepared and the drama begun. The actors could pop in and out of their respective holes in which they changed costumes or simply rested, like so many mice, as the different scenes required.

Barney was there with Sarah, the beautiful. You couldn’t miss her evidently for in her garish peasant costume, her hair in two long braids and her cheeks properly rouged she stood out thoroughly. Moreover, she wasn’t tipsy. Neither her she nor her boyfriend was, for, among his ostensible reforms, Barney’d cut down on his drinking and he’d demanded Sarah follow suit.

“You’re kidding,” said Hammond. “The two biggest alcoholics out there. Non puritanical teetotalers?”

“No, I’m not,” I said. “At least that’s what happened at the time.” Sometimes people do the right thing and they’re happy. Whether the time’s long or short depends on them and circumstances, mainly circumstances. I didn’t say Barney and Hartwig exchanged pleasant looks though in that small audience they undoubtedly saw one another. Each knew he’d broken a bone in the other’s face and he’d have to settle for it. A jaw compared to a nose at that point washes into the same level of hurt administered. Both could feel victorious. To say nothing of the glances of disrespect and hatred that proceeded to and from June and Sarah, the natural mother of June’s adopted daughter that in the end result Sarah couldn’t raise at the time.

Marcus too had no love for the ex con and he had to look from the stage down upon the tall
Goose
, who sat with his mother, for even on a chair Barney was tall. He had a very long torso as well as legs. But people tend to forget themselves before a play for that simple reason that that’s what plays were designed for. They provide a little relief to the inevitable futility in their audience’s lives that they unconsciously don’t change at the same time as they show you how you really are, even it means to imitate life or God’s so called work. Why do you think the puritans condemned plays? They considered them sinful, a sort of mockery of God’s will under which things were as they should be. They thought acting
or
make believe
at life a danger to life itself while all the people wanted was a little
break
from the very hardships it proffered with no other way to escape. And wasn’t it escapism at its very best? In watching a play all can be something they want, even the criminal who
sees
himself in his role. Does he appreciate it or deny it? Probably a little bit of both. Let’s face it, our
escapes
from this world are few and far between. We take them where we can get them. Watching a good play or movie gives us that, whether it imparts any moral value to our day-to-day living or not. Think of a meeting of the UN, where all the players sit down to discuss their own particular nonsense. They know nothing’ll be resolved for they intend to preserve their own interests at any cost, but they must appear indulgent. Go through the
movie
. And they are temporarily until the session breaks and they once more slip back into their own prohibitive niches of day to day living and non-cooperation, which really means sacrifice.