Soul's Road: A Fiction Collection (9 page)

Last time, he’d taken Gordon into the garage and crowed about the racecar parked there. It was some kind of big deal because it could go from zero to ninety in five seconds. Gordon wondered how useful it was. Where was Markson going to bolt from zero to ninety in five seconds? Markson talked big and loud, firing off all the technical lingo about subjects Gordon obviously didn’t care about, continuing on despite the tepid response of his audience. He made Gordon feel like guys were supposed to know all the ins and outs of how to finagle quick profits. He’d dropped his thick arm on Gordon’s neck and breathed over him, “buddy, you gotta get when the gettin’s good.”

The culture of golf irritated Gordon, the permanent pressed leisure of it. He’d always been drawn to the scrappy ballet of street basketball and had been a regular at Seaview Park for years, a guy who looked ordinary on the court, even improbable. He was ordinary and improbable, except for one thing- the way he could drop the ball through the net. He’d always done it since he and his mother made up competitions in the driveway when he was ten, holding a broom up overhead, the yellow straw of it like Bill Russell’s paw. The drill would force him to arc the ball over any defender. By the time he was sixteen he was “Mr. Consistency,” and his ability to shoot kept him on the court against bigger and faster players.

Gordon and Rita came to the drive and stepped up the brick pathway to the open door. Laurie Markson saw them before they could knock.

She was a blonde with dark eyes and skin the color of honey. “Oh my God!” she said, “I’m sooo glad you came! TGIF! TGIF!”

Rita stepped in first and then, as Gordon followed, a German Shepherd darted at him from behind the door. It delivered a menacing snarl as it nipped his thigh.

“Did he just…? Darwin! Shame on you! I am so sorry Gordon; he usually doesn’t do that! Did he…oh my God! Did he bite you?”

“No,” Gordon said. “I’m all right.”

The dog swirled in a circle, passing close by Gordon’s leg a second time, the lip curling back.

“Let me just put him away where he won’t do that again. Steve’s in the kitchen; go on in. Babe…the Nims are here!” She seized Darwin by the collar and hauled him off. “No, no ,no!” she flirted, “you shouldn’t do that!”

Rita matched her hostess’ enthusiasm as she penetrated the house. Gordon trailed a few steps behind. Steve Markson stood at the kitchen counter, a knife in hand and an apron tied around his trunk. He presided over a chopping block to entertain a blonde woman who sat at a stool beside him. Seeing the Nims he greeted them like long lost friends. He got them drinks - the Nims went for gin and tonics - then resumed the abalone demonstration, telling how his buddy could get them without a license because he worked for so and so and he could ring this guy and get abalone just about any time he wanted. “It’s not whatcha know, it’s who ya’ know!” He winked. Gordon watched the company all laugh.

Laurie Markson waved for the ladies to follow, leaving Gordon alone with Steve. Heading off an awkward silence, Markson said, “So whadya know Gordon my man?”

“Well,” Gordon began, in the ponderous way of talking that caused people impatience. “Sometimes a situation can seem like more than a coincidence, you know?” Markson spied him quizzically. “I stop off at this little corner market on my way home from work. Just the usual, you know, nothing out of the ordinary, and next thing I know I’ve got this stranger who starts talking to me and won’t let me go.”

“Hold on a second,” Markson said. “Look at this,” he winked as he depressed a button on the wall. “It’s an intercom,” he said to Gordon. “Honey, when’re you ready for the chef’s special?” He watched Gordon’s face as he waited. “Pretty sweet, huh?”

Gordon nodded.

“They were running a promotional deal on this thing. I got it practically free.” He laughed loud and long in the way the people who loved him, if there were such people, must have admired.

Gordon didn’t say anything.

He pointed at Gordon and squinted his eyes, as though straining to remember. “You were saying...”

“Right, so here I am, I’m at this little market, Mel’s, and I’m thinking I’ll just stop and get a few things. Guy in line starts conversation about whatever, sports or something, and then I’m on my way out to the car. Turn around, guy’s following me. Next thing he holds out cash, and goes…”

“Mike!” Markson blurted, turning to the entryway to greet the man who appeared there. Gordon winced and nodded at the newcomer. He was a neighbor too, Mike DeBoor, a guy who seemed to have been manufactured in the same thick and smug swigger factory as Markson.

Gordon waited as the two men talked back and forth. He finished his drink and moved off to find where Laurie was holding court with Rita and the blonde woman named Jan.

Her son, Dirk, was about to enter the ninth grade. They were talking about the good teachers and the bad teachers that Dirk might run into at Santa Lorena High School. The Markson’s weren’t convinced that the public school was the right place for their son and they were still considering a local private school instead. Rita had told her that Gordon was a counselor at Santa Lorena High and Rita was a secretary in the school district office. Laurie Markson had heard such terrible things: drug use in the bathrooms, teachers that didn’t read assignments. It was typical to hear this kind of criticism of the place, instead of the good things that were going on. As Laurie ran through her list of incriminations, Rita tried to correct the exaggerations and the false rumors as best she could. Finally, she pointed at her husband. “Gordon knows; he’s worked there for years.”

“What would be nice is if you could make sure that Dirk gets the best teachers; you know, just make a little switch here and a switch there.” She leaned against Gordon. “Can you do that for me?”

“Hey buddy,” Markson’s voice sounded over the intercom. “Do me a favor. How about gettin’ us a bag of ice from the garage. There’s a freezer in there and it’s all ready to go, you’ll see it.”

“Sure thing,” Gordon said. He excused himself.

Inside the garage, he spotted the refrigerator, collected the ice and closed the door. There was a low rumble behind him. The German Shepherd had crept up from behind the racecar in the moment it had taken Gordon to get the ice. Ten feet away, it had stopped advancing, but stood poised to spring at him, the ears raised, a paw set forward. Gordon stood still, but reached in the bag for a handful of ice, then sent it skidding along the floor toward the dog. The distraction worked. The dog investigated the ice, mouthing it, and Gordon took three quick steps to get out the door. He brought the ice to the kitchen, where the other man, DeBoor, was watching Markson fry the abalone. Markson gave Gordon a thumbs up and continued their conversation about using a 2-iron versus a 3-iron.

Markson didn’t ask to hear the conclusion of Gordon’s story, but what was there, really, to tell? That he’d met a man so desperate to be heard that he’d bribed him to listen? That there’d been an odd coincidence in the way the stranger’s life was connected to the subjects of Gordon’s books? A kind of serendipity even?

Rita met Gordon’s cynical smile by lowering her voice. “They’re busy and excited Gor, but they’ve been real nice to us, so don’t.” She swallowed the rest of her drink. “Try to make this work, okay? Even if it’s not perfect for you, maybe you can do that for me.”

“Did you get another drink?”

She nodded. “Did you tell Steve about your book?”

Gordon raised both eyebrows.

“Well, nobody’s going to know what you’re doing unless you tell them.”

He took another hit of his drink.

“Well I want them to know; I’m proud of you,” she said. She called across the room to Laurie Markson. “Gordon’s writing a book, did he tell you?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Most nights, right after dinner. He’s a very good writer you know.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“It’s a book about the history of the Cameno River. He’s done all kinds of research for it. Sometimes I’m his research assistant; it’s fun!”

“That does sound fun, working on something together like that.” Laurie Markson was washing her hands at the sink now. “Steve and I are designing what we’re going to do with the back yard. You know, together, a fun little project.”

Rita winked at her husband, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was thinking about the flood of 1963, when the river took out the west end of town, and how he might personify it as a living thing. He envisioned a wave of eighteenth century insurgents storming the palace, berserk, hurrying forth, blasting through doors, racing upstairs to seize the nobles and cut off their heads. Belligerent and bullying hordes sweeping through the narrow streets of a French city.

Markson approached with a plate of the sliced abalone, crackers and sauce.

“Mike lives just around the corner there… big rig parked out front.”

“Home on wheels,” DeBoor said. “Hog heaven.” He lifted his glass of bourbon and chuckled.

“Mike’s an excellent golfer. You want touch? This man’s got touch. He’s gonna to be my new partner for the Harvest Tournament.” Gordon saw that everybody smiled and waited for the next person to talk.

It was Steve again. “I met Mike over the River Park development deal. I’m helping him make that thing a go.” It was the development deal that had precipitated Gordon’s research and his book. The two men stood next to one another in the circle and their talk was directed at Gordon and the wives.

DeBoor said, “Some people think its land that should be protected forever because it’s so close to the water and all. Well, you’re always gonna have those people saying their thing, okay? You’re always gonna have the naïve idea that things can stay the way they’ve always been. Now I don’t know, maybe you folks think save the wetlands and all that. But the bottom line is people are gonna enjoy it down there if you make it nice for ‘em. It’ll still be a river after the golf course takes its water. Hey, people need places to be. That’s called progress. Give everybody access, use the resources instead of just waste ‘em, and look the bottom line is everybody can have a good time.” Markson raised his drink to that and Gordon watched Rita buy in too.

Cynicism contorted the lower half of Gordon’s face. “Whatever you do to it, the river’ll one day come back.” He shook his glass, making the ice cubes clank against the sides. He sighed and suddenly everybody was listening to him. “Thanks. Rita and I have to get back.”

The Marksons looked at one another. “Big series next week,” Markson offered as the Nims were leaving. “Come on down and watch a ball game?”

Gordon appeared puzzled.

“He watches Warriors basketball,” Rita said.

“Who?” DeBoor said.

Markson pulled his jowls back into his neck. “E-gads! That’s gotta be painful.”

“It is,” Gordon smiled.

Everyone hesitated, then waved goodbye.

“That was abrupt” Rita said.

“Did you really want to stay?”

“I just wish you’d find a way to get along with them; it’s not that they’re bad people.”

“Look, maybe you and Laurie have things to talk about, but …”

She sighed. “They’re not really our people are they?”

Gordon scoffed. They saw him as sad and peculiar for following a team that never made the playoffs. As if winning was all that mattered.

“Laurie and I are gonna meet on Thursdays to walk.”

“That’s good,” Gordon said.

“Something strange happened on my way home from work today,” she said. “I stopped at this little market; Mel’s I think it’s called.”

“I stopped there too…”

“I’m about to enter the store when this woman comes up to me, I don’t recognize her, she goes I love your earrings. Where’d you get them? This and that. I go inside, she keeps following me.”

Gordon stopped walking. “That’s too bizarre.”

“No, I haven’t told you yet. This woman starts talking and she doesn’t stop. It’s like she…”

“That’s almost the same thing that happened to me…”

“Can I talk?” She paused to let her indignation strike. “Thank you. So this woman wants to go have a cup of coffee, and she says…”

Gordon produced the Warriors tickets from his pocket and waved them.

“Can I FINISH? Oh my GOD, you’re so RUDE! I was talking and you just CUT ME OFF!”

Gordon’s sigh hissed out of him like steam from a blown pipe; he looked away into the distance the way he always did once things began to turn.

“It’s unbelievable! You can’t even be nice to those people, and you can’t even listen to the little bit I wanted to tell you about my day! Just my little story! You always have to interrupt!”

“Wow!” he said, his face contorted into a bitter smile.

She was finished talking to him now. A third drink was too many for Rita; it made her rise and ramble and then turn on him when she’d had that many. She closed the door to the bedroom, but he could hear her in there, muttering to herself about communication and listening and not being heard.

The dog, a Doberman named Lucky, trailed him into the study. When Rita was upset, Lucky cowered as though she were a Fourth of July firework and cozied up with his master, pressing his head against Gordon’s thigh. What happens to kindness? Gordon heard the stranger’s echo. He rubbed the dog’s ears and neck and he kissed it on the head before turning to his book. More and more this is where he was ending up, a place where he could say something. Rita hadn’t seen a word he’d typed for months. Finding his place, he wrote:

The merging of streams is called confluence. Such integration of two entities always evokes a dilemma of perspective. Is it one stream yielding to another? Or one commandeering a second one to its will? Is it each river abandoning its individual character and adopting a new one? The confluence can be all of these depending upon one’s point of view. Where waters roil together there can be turbulence and treachery or an easy and coordinated acceptance.

He’d write more in the morning, look up the Rigney history, then drop by the park for a game of hoops.

High school kids who weren’t regulars looked surprised to see him there, their contemplative counselor running with waiters and delivery-men and thieves. But teams that wanted to stay on the court a while set picks for Gordon to shoot behind. He could utter a single syllable coming off a screen, just “yeah,” and a teammate would deliver the pass. He liked it there at Seaview; not many of the players knew much about one another’s lives. They played ball and that was their common language. They talked easy or they didn’t talk at all.