Soul's Road: A Fiction Collection (8 page)

Now, in his forty-first year, the essential Gordon Nim, the one who held his tongue and listened with a poised sense of irony, had long since replaced the impassioned one.

Not that his desire to be heard exceeded anyone else’s. He wasn’t needy, God forbid. After all, being muted was something Gordon was used to; the cynical creases in his smile proved it. And besides, he had remedies. Several times a week he dropped in at Seaview Park for a game of hoops. Even in his forties he remained an effective player. On the basketball court his unorthodox shooting motion and clever moves made him vivid to the men and boys who ran there. Swishing difficult jumpers punctuated his presence. He’d been writing too. Though it hadn’t been published, he felt confident that an interested public awaited his completed book about the Golden State Warrior championship team of 1975. He’d researched the lives of each player: coach Al Attles could still be found at most Warrior home games, while Derrek Dickey, Charles Johnson and Phil Smith had all improbably passed on within their fiftieth years of life. Now he was at work on a history of the Cameno River, long abused by developers, that ran along the north end of Santa Lorena and into the sea.

Gordon served as a high school counselor, doing a job where one might expect he’d give counsel- delivering information to students and their parents. But Gordon’s work at Santa Lorena High School wasn’t so much about talking as it was about listening. In August, while students and teachers were still on vacation, the counselors met to prepare for the imminent swell of human traffic. Spared the regimentation of bells every hour, there was, in spite of their busyness and the burden of budget cuts, an agreeable ease to the rhythm of the days. Now Friday, the office staff cleared out early, eager to snatch the tail of summer before it disappeared.

As Gordon stepped into the muggy August air and into the parking lot with Assistant Principal, Ed Martinez, his colleague produced a book from his bag; What Men Know about Women. “Check this out,” he said. “Open to any page; it’s all good.” Gordon cocked his mouth in a wry smile as Martinez’ eyes glistened with suppressed glee. When Gordon exposed the pages inside, blank after blank after blank, Martinez exploded in laughter. “Go ahead and share that one with your wife!”

Gordon waved off the offer, but Martinez insisted. “Pass it on!” The book now in his hand, Gordon thought Martinez might be right. Rita had sometimes accused him of failing to understand her. They might have a good laugh about it. He thanked Martinez and headed home, ten minutes across town.

On the way, Gordon stopped at a corner market that had a big city feel for little Santa Lorena. Mel’s Corner Pocket was an old and tight space, with merchandise stuffed to the rafters.

Gordon stood in a short but constipated line as an elderly woman doddered to complete her transaction. Then a man stepped up behind him, jerking his eyebrows into raised accents when Gordon glanced his way.

“Friday!” Then, when Gordon didn’t answer. “How ya’ doin?”

“Good,” Gordon said, delivering the word quickly. He sensed the man would have more to say.

“Jesus, it’s a sauna in here!”

The woman turned and spoke of the owner, who stood at arm’s length. “I don’t know why he won’t at least use the fan.” Gordon gave a half-smile.

The stranger behind him appeared well kept; a gold watch glistened on his arm. His shoes were fine Italian leather. Gordon glanced at a sports page on the rack.

“Say, how you like them Giants?”

“I don’t really follow baseball,” Gordon said.

“How about the Warriors this year. Maybe this is it? We been waitin’ a long time; is this the season?”

Gordon shrugged his shoulders. “Big changes. They’ll win more games, but I have to admit I’ll be sorry to see them slow the tempo. If they do it right, they’ll keep Monta Ellis. They need to add some players, not trade what they have. Maybe I’m too idealistic, but it’d be nice to win as David, not Goliath.”

Gordon advanced in the line and set his items on the counter: a pint of half and half for the morning coffee, a cold ginger ale and a pack of gum.

The stranger continued. “I like that!” he said. He came around on Gordon’s side and leaned in close, demanding Gordon’s eye. “You’re thinking different than everybody else. Wow, after all their losing and you say keep doing it. Everybody wants to get bigger and tougher, get more physical, pound it down low. Get to the line, win with defense; isn’t that right? Isn’t that what everybody says?”

Gordon nodded, paid the clerk and started to go.

“Not you though. You say let everybody else get big and we’ll stay small.”

“That’s not what I said; the Warriors need some players who’ll play defense, but I’d try to keep Monta,” Gordon added, reaching the exit.

“Here’s a mismatch for ya’. What about this: a guy leaves work early, goes home and finds his wife with the mailman. The son of a bitch mailman. What does he do about that?” The few patrons braced themselves, their eyes on the floor tiles, the merchandise, anywhere but at the man cracking to pieces.

Only Mel and Gordon turned and looked.

The eyebrows were arched up. “Who does he go after first- him or her? There’s some fun and entertainment for ya’. There’s some tempo!”

Gordon turned and stepped out the door where high clouds held in the afternoon heat.

“So listen,” he heard the voice behind him, “you got five minutes? I just wanted to get your take on something.”

Gordon scrunched up his face in defense. The determined machinery of the man’s jaw moved up and down as he spoke.

“I liked what you said about the Warriors in there: go small, up-tempo, have fun. Like the best part of Don Nelson’s not completely gone; the vision’s still there: shoot threes, look for steals. Listen, you think it’s more important to win or have fun?”

The Warriors under Nelson had been a lunatic side show, a reckless and entertaining gamble. Gordon took stock of his surroundings; they were on the sidewalk of Ocean Avenue, afternoon traffic flowing past. He perceived there was nobody planted behind him, ready for a double-team. The stranger’s hands were visible and held no weapon. It was just the two of them out in the open.

“Sorry,” Gordon said. “Gotta go.”

“Wait,” the stranger said. He held out a twenty. “Go ahead.” He winked. “If you’ll just listen a few minutes. Just right here. No big deal, just a few minutes, on a Friday afternoon, two guys talking basketball.” He thrust the money at Gordon and the bill brushed against his shirt. He lowered his voice, “sorry about that in there; not your issue.” He was short and stout, with neat, dark hair that had receded. “I know,” the stranger said, “it’s crazy.” He withdrew the money. “But the thing is, you can’t get anybody to listen. Maybe I can’t even pay you to listen, right? Think about that, what an insane place we live in that we won’t even take good cash just to listen to somebody. And I mean talking about something we like to talk about. Yeah, maybe you can’t even do that. The thing is, I have thoughts about things, you know, stuff I need to say. But everybody’s gotta go, or they just want to say their bit; lay down their rant, and nobody wants to know what you’re really thinking. It’s okay if it’s ordinary; it’s okay if it’s what everybody’s heard before, but once you get specific, once you start to really say something exact, forget about it. That is, if you can get a word in, right? If you can even get a word in!”

He pinched Gordon’s arm and a laugh spasmed out. Gordon started to turn away again, but the stranger stepped with him. “It’s just you seem like somebody who maybe can hear me, that’s all. Maybe I met you before somewhere; I don’t know. You have a way about you. You’re an intelligent guy, right? See, I’m being honest. Ooo, look out! Too strange.” He laughed again and Gordon observed a scar that ran from his left eye to the bony bridge of his nose. “That’s all it is; people telling the truth about what they see. I just thought you might be able to hear me. I don’t want you to have the wrong idea about this.” He held out his hand. “Nick Rigney.”

They shook. “Okay,” Gordon said. “I’ll listen.”

Rigney talked about growing up in the Northwest corner of California, a pit stop named Gasquet along the Smith River. His family had owned sixty acres of property and he still had half of it. It was the last significant acreage left to a California family that ran back six generations on his mother’s side. They’d moved south to north, trading and selling. Some of the land was just east of Santa Lorena, in the Cameno River watershed- a region whose history Gordon had begun to probe. For Rigney, that land was long gone before he was born. What he knew was the Smith River country and the cabin where he went to get away from it all. Every year he carved a new steelhead figure out of local wood. There were over twenty of them now, all different sizes and the wooden fish were hung from the ceiling of the cabin, a whole school of the fish. What he learned carving was that you couldn’t always force things the way you wanted them to be. A knot in the wood meant you had to use the knot, work around it. It was about listening to what the wood wanted to do, what shape it wanted to make. He’d been a good son and a football player, who went off to college at Chico State. Half-way through, Rigney met a farmer who taught him about agriculture and business and he never finished school. Didn’t need to, he said. “All’s ya gotta do is take chances.” He told Gordon about his past because he wanted to make a connection between who he’d been and who he was now. That was the thing he really wanted to talk about- how we become who we are. “You too,” he said to Gordon, “I mean how’d you get to be who you are? And who can really see who you are? Anybody? Does anybody really listen well enough to get who you are? It’s big, it’s complex isn’t it?”

He’d covered too much ground for Gordon to reach back to the Cameno River land grant.

“Like what happens to a person’s kindness?” Rigney asked. A boy from the high school swerved near on his skateboard, keeping his eyes on Mr. Nim as he passed. “It’s there in the beginning, but it’s a fragile thing. It’s like, you know… Maybe you can help me with what it’s like. The kindness in us is an emerging plant, you see? And the plant…”

“Sometimes its sunlight is taken.”

Rigney’s eyes bulged. “You see it don’t you! It’s pride and defensiveness and those kinds of things, they grow too fast alongside it and kindness shrivels up.” He poked Gordon with a finger. “That’s it! You’re on the look-out for being taken advantage of. You’re cynical. You’ve seen everybody’s bullshit and you’ve had enough. Am I right?” He laughed and Gordon noticed the gold crowns of his teeth. “Or maybe it’s this: maybe you’re just as kind as you ever were, but nobody expects your kindness, so you’re treated like you lack kindness, and then maybe you start to fulfill everybody’s expectation. Maybe it’s that, see?”

Gordon shifted on his heels.

Rigney wound down. He produced an event ticket from his pocket. “Any Warrior game you want, give me a call, 2 tickets are yours.” Gordon just listened. “As many games as you want, really.” He winked. “I’m in tickets.” He scribbled his name and number on one and passed them to Gordon.

“I appreciate you hearing me, friend.”

Gordon shrugged his shoulders. “No problem.”

They shook hands again. “Here’s to next season!” Rigney clenched hard for an instant, then released, and Gordon walked to his car, listening for what real motive might leap up behind him.

But it never did. The stranger was gone and Gordon drove away. It had almost seemed a set up. How could the guy have known about Gordon’s books? He hadn’t told him anything. Gordon examined the expired game ticket: Portland Trailblazers vs. Golden State Warriors, Oracle Arena, April 13, 2011.

As Gordon arrived home, he saw Rita punching the keys of her phone. She looked up. “Finally,” she said. “I was just calling you. Did you forget about the Markson’s?”

“Nope,” Gordon said.

Their ritual was to kiss when they greeted one another, but as he leaned in she continued talking. “Can we go?” She turned so his kiss landed on her cheek. He set Martinez’ book on the counter.

He’d enjoyed the short drive across town, thinking about how he’d become who he was, half wondering, half marveling at how disconnected people were from one another to produce such a desperate response as Rigney’s. Nearly anybody capable of listening to somebody else had vanished from Santa Lorena. He was on a planet of know-it-alls, where opinions were already formed, so what Gordon said didn’t matter. Conversations seemed to have become more like alternating monologues than dialogues. They were assaults, desperate, pent up rambles.

He wanted to talk about those things with Rita. It was a subject she could appreciate, but she too had caught the contagion and speed-rapped as they rushed off to the party at the end of their block. As she buzzed about all the details of a co-worker’s wedding, she left no seams in her words by which Gordon might begin. Ideas germinated in Gordon’s brain, but shriveled and died there from lack of exposure.

Social gatherings quickly became more hers than his. Laurie and Steve Markson weren’t old friends of the Nim’s, nor close friends either. They were new acquaintances, and Gordon understood that Rita and Laurie liked the idea of making friends. Both showed the bright thrill of possibility that rises when meeting someone new. When the women passed one another on the street they extended invitations to things- could she make it for spinning? Maybe Gordon wanted to use Steve’s putting green? Laurie said they always had a little happy hour on Fridays and you have to come by. Steve loves having people over and Gordon seems sooo nice!

It was the second time he’d gone to the Markson’s. He didn’t care for it much the first time, but Rita didn’t seem to agree. He’d have preferred the company of Laurie Markson, whose cheerleader enthusiasm he enjoyed, but the girls had gone off on their own, leaving him with Steve, an insincere man with a massive head, the build of a baseball slugger, a puncher. He did some kind of brokering that Gordon didn’t understand. Gordon would admit it was one of his failings as a man that he wasn’t on top of the money thing.

He knew that Rita wanted this to work, so Gordon told himself that Markson was a friendly enough guy, not hard to have a laugh with, though there were subjects with Markson that Gordon preferred to steer clear of such as automobiles, golf and investment. Most subjects.