All Stories Are Love Stories

Map © 2015 Laura Hartman Maestro

For Maya,

who brings stories to life

It may be helpfull to remember that

things have not always been as they are;

this may be obvious as it sounds, easy to forget

walking concrete paths and

perceiving streams of traffic and rectangular shelters.

It may be helpful to keep in mind that at one time

these constructions were non-existant.

It may be of some use to look over

all that you can see now, the

expance and boundries

of your environment, and think how all

of this will be gone

one day

eaten

and reapplied.

It may be helpful to see beauty

in decomposition; because like

the leaves of trees turn brigt and fall

to the ground to replenish

their mother, it is also our inescapable

privilidge to rot.

So now it becomes necessary to

view all items

in the world as reflections, all objects as mirrors,

and then move upon this basis.

—
ANONYMOUS GRAFFITI AT THE RUINS OF THE SUTRO BATHS,

San Francisco, c.
1994

On the morning of February 14, exactly seven hours, fifty-two minutes, and thirteen seconds before the earth's two largest tectonic plates released decades' worth of strain under a busy suburb just outside San Francisco; exactly eight hours, eight minutes, and fifty-three seconds before the energy dislodged from the seismic shifting triggered an even more catastrophic displacement farther north along the San Andreas Fault; exactly eight hours, nine minutes, and twelve seconds before all gas, power, water, cell, and satellite communications were severed from San Francisco and its environs; exactly eight hours and twenty-two minutes before thousands of tiny sparks and larger ignitions got out from under the valiant efforts of a drought-plagued, understaffed fire department and prematurely exhausted volunteers; and exactly ten hours and eleven minutes before the real danger to the old, precariously built, packed-like-sardines city—fire—proved its indomitable hunger, Max Fleurent was on the phone with his mother.

He checked his watch. They'd been on the phone for almost ten minutes and she was still trying, with mixed results, to wish him a happy birthday.

“One of these days we'll have to really celebrate, Max. Do something special. And I
wanted
to get you a birthday
present, even hitched a ride”—her phrase for taking the Manor shuttle—“over to that fancy confectionery”—who but his mother still used this word?—“on Hayes. But can you believe the price they put on chocolate these days, Max? Do you people”—a favorite new phrase of his mother's, meaning, he was starting to put together, anyone under the age of seventy-four, his mother's own age—“really eat chocolate with chili in it? Or God, what was it. Bacon!” She tsked, as if scolding the entire chocolate industry in one huffy breath. “It's just revolting, Max. Honestly. If I
didn't
like you, I'd get you bacon chocolate for your birthday.” Her voice softened as she remembered herself, “But I
do
want to get you
something
. . . .”

Max, thirty-four as of 5:46 that morning, had no illusions of his mother's ever getting around to the sort of straightforward birthday wishes he imagined some mothers might give their sons. After a lifetime of the kind of closeness many sons might wish to have with their mothers but few would appreciate in reality, Max knew his mother's mind almost as well as his own. He knew that she would never wish him happy birthday in any straightforward way, and he knew that she could not be rushed from one topic to another. He sighed silently, summoning the patience to wait for her to wrap up the current tangent so he could address the odd note he was hearing in her voice.

“Anyway, I'm all out of wrapping paper. I could use old newspaper, I guess, but that's not very special. . . .”

There it was again, a hesitation, as if she were only talking to distract herself from blurting out something she was afraid
to say. It wasn't like her to hold back, at least not when it came to the sort of one-sided phone conversations she so enjoyed with her son. In fact, she stored up all her most stinging verbal assaults, vivisections of human nature she kept politely to herself in public, and later rewarded herself for good behavior by expelling them into her son's amiably distracted ear. Usually she prattled along, complaining almost merrily. But there was a hitch in her rhythm today, something off to Max's ear he couldn't quite place.

“Ma, what is it?”

“What is what?”

“You sound distracted, or upset. Did something happen?”

“How could I sound upset? It's your birthday!”

Max stifled a deep sigh. If only she could get on with whatever it was she really wanted to talk about, instead of torturing them both with such a poor performance. Rosemary Fleurent had many admirable qualities, but the fine art of a good lie eluded her. Even when lies might be a kindness, even a social requirement, she botched them hopelessly.
It's not
you
, Max
,
not you at all
,
or your looks
;
it's just those spoiled
,
ambitious San Francisco women. They all think they deserve the best-looking men! And don't go taking that the wrong way
,
Max. You know what I mean. The
really
good-looking men.

Max checked his watch: 8:14. He had some time before his first meeting—an informal sit-down to discuss a one-hundredth-birthday celebration for Jerry Garcia. No need to get there early. As events director for the Nob Hill Masonic Center, he'd worked with quite a few characters in his time, and a 9 a.m. appointment with a bunch of aging hippies
in flip-flops was as par for the course as the
Hillbilly Hootenanny West Side Review
he'd be planning in the morning or the meeting he had tomorrow afternoon with representatives from the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to discuss their annual Play Fair fund-raising concert. Neither of those were meetings he could prepare much for, either. No need to rush his mother through whatever hemming and hawing she needed to do.

Max sat down to wait her out, leaning over to turn up the volume on the morning news. The weatherman was on the screen now, some guy who didn't fill out his suit, his hair riding a stiff wave. As usual, the weather forecast was the most cheerful segment of the broadcast, despite the grim reports of flooding in the winter, fire in the summer, landslides in the spring, visibility-destroying fog year-round. But it was over in a flash, replaced by a feature report on the increasingly sophisticated techniques of online predators trolling social media sites. Typical morning news: an infusion of freshly picked angst to go with your morning coffee. Was that a Mark Zuckerberg interview they'd managed to score?

He heard an echo on the line. His mother had turned on her own set. “Oh, look, Max,” she exclaimed, “it's that nice young man with the compound in Palo Alto!” She sounded as delightfully surprised as if she'd spotted an old friend on the screen. “He has such a lovely wife,” she continued, “and
he
certainly wouldn't win any beauty contests either, Max! In fact,” she added hopefully, “I think he looks a little like you!” Max smiled faintly. What was his mother going to do if he
ever did find someone? He'd be depriving her of her favorite hobby: worrying about whether or not anyone else would ever love her son. Maybe this extended dry spell in his love life was for the best. After all, who was he to deny an old lady of such a simple pleasure?

And it was nice to know she still depended on him, even if that dependency took the form of being her pet worry. Two years ago, on the day she moved into Buena Vista Manor (leave it to San Francisco to make a retirement community sound like a Mexican palace), they'd walked into her sun-filled new room with a view of the flowering gardens, met all the well-groomed or at least sufficiently propped-up residents, caressed several state-of-the-art amenities, and, in the careful intonations of a trained and slightly impenetrable staff, were told that they had made the right decision. His mother was settled in by dinnertime, and Max found himself ushered out shortly after, not quite sure if he had been rendered obsolete in the space of an afternoon. It was surreal, after all their years of forced togetherness, to leave her in a place full of people devoted to her individual needs. It felt like his care had been a compromise she'd had to endure until the professionals could take over.

But after she settled into her new home, the steady stream of slightly irritating, slightly endearing demands for his attention continued, minus the sort of terrifying late-night calls she'd made when she was sure of a break-in or wanted to call the police about “hooligans” on the street in front of her apartment, none of which were nearly as frightening as
the weak-voiced call after she'd fallen and broken her wrist and hip, injuries from which her spirit never seemed to fully recover. “You might as well face it, Max,” she'd pronounced, sitting up in her hospital bed like a queen in her court, the Buena Vista brochure held out like a scepter, “I'm getting old. And no, you
can't
take care of me,” she interrupted him before he even got started. “I won't have my future as a grandmother jeopardized by moving in with you. You think it's hard to find a girlfriend
now
?”

But Buena Vista couldn't do everything for her. As it turned out, the subtler needs disguised as wants, the ones that gave the odder parts of her a chance to oxygenate, were the ones only he could meet. Just last week, even her favorite nurse at Buena couldn't get Rosemary to tell them why she didn't take her newly prescribed antacid for three days (with all the accompanying discomfort). It wasn't until Max was summoned that she admitted, shamefaced and only to him, that she was sure the viscous, beet-red liquid would stain her dentures irreversibly. She'd much rather have a little stomach trouble, she confessed, than become a pink-toothed social pariah.

Though lately he noticed that getting off the phone with her was a little like getting gum off his shoe—just when he thought he was clear, he'd find himself entwined all over again. He'd have to ask the director at Buena if they could introduce more early-morning activities. Poker, maybe. His mother had always liked poker. Maybe if they played in the morning, it would seem less cigars-and-gambling and more
tea-and-bingo. He was always surprised by how prudish the staff were, as if they had a bunch of easily influenced elementary-school children on their hands. But to hear his mother tell it, retirees were more than a little willing to throw aside the social mores they had been laboring under for decades, not unlike recently de-vested priests. A few lewd jokes or closeted affairs paled in comparison to staring at the end of life as they knew it. Mortality was a funny thing, Max was learning; the closer a person got to it, the more authentic she became.

He had one eye on the news as he listened that morning, vaguely aware that he was missing most of the lengthy story she had just launched into about a friend's poor shopping habits and correspondingly unfortunate wardrobe choices. “I'm not the one to say it, Max, but she really is a size fourteen, and I just can't look
away
when she picks nothing up but tens and twelves!”

She sounded more animated, at least, now that the subject was no longer his birthday. In her own words, she was not “overly fond” of his birthday, though she was quick to reassure him that her distaste had nothing to do with him. On a February fourteenth eighteen years ago, sitting at the plastic table in the kitchen of their new, barely furnished apartment, she'd refolded the letter his father had left for them and looked up at a waiting Max. “Your father claims you're a man now,” she said. Her fingers, hovering at the edges of the letter, were shaking with fury. She stood up. When she spoke, her voice was preternaturally calm. “Take his plate off the table.” As soon as
Max did, his mother tore and tore at the paper, the tiny shreds falling to the ground, making him think of a hectic, feathery swirl, a bird fighting for its life. Later that night, she hunted down every last speck with her broom, as though sweeping up the last remains of the man himself.

Max turned the volume down as his mother guessed aloud that he hadn't been listening to her. Too late, he tried to recall the turn the conversation had taken. All he knew for sure was that another friend—a new friend, Alma—was the subject.

“Isn't Alma the one who stole that last boyfriend of yours—Clifford? No, it was Craig. Alma went after Craig. Aren't you two mortal enemies now?”

She exhaled her irritation. He'd missed the important points of her story and ended up trying too hard to sound as though he hadn't. “It was
Clarence
, Max. And we moved past that months ago. These kinds of things happen with new widows. A little bed-hopping is to be expected. We have a certain understanding.” She sniffed fiercely and was quiet.

Yup. There was definitely something else still there, lingering on the edges of her voice, like a stray waiting to be invited in.

“Ma.”

“What?”

“Is it this Alma person?”

A telling pause. “I'm not upset, Max.”

“Craig?”

“It's
Clarence
, Max, for Christ's sake!”

Max heard a rumble of thunder, or felt one. He was about
to comment on it when all of a sudden the thunder was slamming into the walls around him, rattling the glassware in the kitchen and setting the blinds to trembling. “Oh God!” his mother exclaimed, confusing him further by making it seem as though she were in the same room with him. The newscasters on his screen looked shaken, too.

“Ma?”

“I'm OK, Max.”

Well
,
talk about the earth moving on Valentine's Day!
the anchorman joked
.
He was smiling insecurely at someone beyond the camera.
Hope I'm not the only one who felt that!
A wavering doubt skittered across his expression, followed by an almost instantaneous recalibration, a victorious return of the ubiquitous smile.
We should have a reading momentarily on that big bump I suspect most of us felt. And here it is!
He grinned into the camera, a surge of relief illuminating his face.
A respectful 3.8. Now if only the Niners had bumped the score up that much last week
,
we'd be Super Bowl champs!

His colleague, a stony beauty with a head of precisely highlighted hair, laughed dutifully.
We'll be back in a few with more news on any damages this temblor might have caused and the latest in morning traffic.

“Max?” his mother's voice seemed to come to him from far away.

He took a deep breath. “That wasn't anything, Ma. We want those big bumps; they let off some of the pressure,” he recited, the San Franciscan knee-jerk response to living with earthquakes. He sat down, letting the temporary fear flood from his body. It felt good, he thought, stretching out his
legs before him. The newscasters were now laughing for real, the tremor having shaken some of their falseness free.