The Debased Nature of Speed Cops

I'm trying to find parking at Fort Mason on a Friday night in 2003.  Have you ever been to Fort Mason on a busy Friday night?  And tried to find parking?

I'd been asked to sell books during Word for Word's production of Upton Sinclair's Oil!  Parking was an issue because I needed a spot near the theater's entrance because of all the boxes I was schlepping.

Nothing.

I made one last pass up close when, right outside Building D, I spot a zebra-striped space, unoccupied.  I don't know what they're for, not exactly.  Not for parking, that's clear, otherwise this one wouldn't be empty.

What could it be for?  Fire engine access?

I convince myself that there will be no fires tonight and so snag the spot.  I mean, fighting fires is noble, but helping to spread the word of Upton Sinclair is noble, too.

These are the lies booksellers tell themselves.

At the beginning of the performance inside the Magic Theatre I worry about getting a ticket because of my illegal parking.  Getting a ticket - or worse, getting towed.  But watching the genius of Oil! unfold soon makes me forget all those outside troubles, and everything that matters is happening inside, on that miracle stage.

Do you know Word for Word?  They take a short story and perform it just like you'd expect - Word for Word.  That night, transported from Sinclair's world, a father and son travel on a California highway in a roadster like nothing you've ever seen.  This auto's got wheels made of chrome pipes, pistons shooting up down up down, crazy shiny grillwork, and it's breathing - I'm telling you, that automobile breathed.  Was brought to life by two actors.  One playing the engine and the other - well, you might not think that a woman in grease-monkey overalls holding a stick that vibrates as Dad accelerates could accurately represent a speedometer on a automobile from 1912, but trust me.

As the speedometer quivered like mad, fasterfaster, the stage receded and we were all right there, on a hot strip of California blacktop, watching a father and son enjoying the sun, reveling in the roar of the engine, when over the roar they hear - oh the injustice! - a siren.  That just sets Dad off, incites him to assail speed cops and their debased natures.

Dad berates and castigates, grouses to Buddy, his son, that the speed cop "chose a spot where it was perfectly safe to go fast, where he knew everyone would be impatient having been held in so long by the curves up in the mountains!  That was how much they cared for fair play, those speed cops!"

Traffic signs?  They were for people who didn't know how to drive.

But of course the reference to speed cops brought to mind the meter maids lurking out in the dark, so I'm bedeviled again by the ticket that's no doubt tucked under one of my Honda's windshield wipers.

The performance ends - too soon, too soon - and I'm left with the packing up, with the hauling to my car, with the dread of seeing that nasty little paper reprimand.  So imagine my surprise when I discover it's not there - there's nary a ticket in sight.  In fact, there's nothing in sight.  It's now after eleven and Fort Mason, bustling just a few hours before what with the performance and the reservations at Greens and lord knows what other manner of fun, but now the parking lot at Fort Mason is quiet, empty.  The only thing I think I see through the mist is a raccoon investigating a styrofoam cup.

I button my coat as waves lap against boats rocking side to side in the marina.

As I pull away from my illegal parking spot, I cut across the desolate lot and think that I still have time to get to the store before midnight, before closing.  But then I see in my rearview that I'm being followed by a van.

It creeps closer as I continue across empty parking spaces.  Suddenly, in the dark of the parking lot, bright lights shoot from the top of the van and I'm lit up like Buddy was on stage.

Great, a meter maid working overtime.

I stop and roll down my window.  A shadowy figure approaches the car.  As he gets close, he calls out, Do you know why I stopped you?

I forget if you're supposed to be truthful or not.  I know there was a study somewhere that came down on the side of the truth - or not - in these situations.  I just forget which.  He isn't interested, not really, because he asks for my driver's license.

My license?  Since when do meter maids ask for your license?  Then the guy tells me - I still can't make him out because he's back lit by all those lights atop his ride - that he followed me as I rolled through two stop signs.

I look past him at the mist swirling through the emptiness surrounding us, and I'm all, Isn't this a parking lot?  That, of course, is when it starts to dawn on me that Buford T. Justice here ain't no meter maid.  He stands up, straight, and informs me that we're on federal property and those were stop signs, two stop signs, that I just blew through.

I can't prevent myself - it's late, the store's going to be closed soon - and so there's just a hint of laughter in my voice when I say, No really, isn't this just a parking lot?  I didn't know the Federales had jurisdiction.

That was a rookie move.  I hear my Dad's voice come to me - Never laugh at guys with guns - just as the silhouette of this guy places a dark hand on a dark holster.

Right then, a big Shadow walks by the car - walks by, then slows, then stops.

In the middle of the big Shadow?  I can make out Dad, and Buddy.  The Speedometer and the Engine.  The whole cast from Oil!

I scootch down in my seat, I don't want to be recognized, not when Buford is headed back to his vehicle to "run this license."  But a small Shadow disengages from the big Shadow, and that Shadow takes form as Susan Harloe, one of the founders of Word for Word.

Susan peers into my car, all lit up because Buford said, Let there be light!  Susan looks in - Nick? she asks.  And I say, Um, yeah.  And she says, Are you ok?

By this time the Shadow - the actors, the director, and God knows who all else - has shuffled over to the car, so I say, Oh, I'm fine.  Just got pulled over by a Speed Cop.

Everyone laughs.

Susan says, Do you know the Buchanan Grill?  I nod, so she says, What do you drink?  I say, Scotch.  She says, With or without?  I say, With.  And she says, We're headed there - I'll have one waiting for you.

If Buford gives me a ticket, I'll just go to the bookstore.  But if he lets me go - a scotch on the rocks sounds mighty fine.  The Shadow moves off, still laughing, as Buford returns.  We both don't say anything.  As he hands back my license, I'm dying to say, These aren't the droids you're looking for.

It takes every ounce of sober concentration to keep quiet.

A fog horn goes off.  The air coming through my open window is cold, wet.

Buford puts shadowy hands on shadowy hips.  I'm letting you off with a warning, he says - and honestly, the rest of his little speech fades away like the call of the fog horn because I can already hear the ice chinking into my glass at the Buchanan Grill.  I've never had drinks with actors after a show, but tonight?  Tonight I'm going to.

And Susan?  Second round's on me.

The Saddest Sound

I'm thinking it was 2002.  Karen traveled a lot that year - making it easy, say, on a Sunday night, if she wasn't home, to head to Delaney's after work before driving back across a couple bridges to an empty house in Alameda.

For a nightcap.  Or two.

That night, Paulina was pouring.  She'd just introduced me to Oban, back when, if I was consuming an adult beverage, it was Scotch whisky - almost exclusively.  Before my conversion to good American spirits.  To bourbon, to rye.

Oban's a delight.  Not super-smokey.  Not too sweet.  It really dances on the tongue.  If you haven't tried it, do.  Paulina shared the 14-year-old with me that night.  She knew another bartender, somewhere South of Market, a bartender who was letting flow with Oban's Manager's Choice.  Apparently they even introduced a 32-year-old that year - but that sweet dame would've set you back a grand.  So for Paulina's purposes?  The 14 was plenty good.

Late on a Sunday could be slow at Delaney's.  Slow there in the dark.  Brass fixtures barely glowing in the dim light.  All the Young Dudes playing on the jukebox.  I sat at the end of the long, shellacked bar, at the end nearest the windows.  The windows were closed because the fog was coming in off the bay that night.  There were just a few of us inside, drinking.  Paulina keeping some regulars happy - and introducing me to that wee, fine whisky.

We weren't talking about anything - you know how you do in a bar.  Maybe some baseball.  The Giants were on their way to the World Series - but of that, we shall not speak.

At some point, a guy horned into the bar, horned into our conversation.  We were awfully accommodating, I thought.  Even though the guy was a goof, we all acted nice.  Paulina may have been grumpy - but she did that a lot just to test you, to see if you could hack it or not.  Pretty bartenders can get away with that.

Now it's Rupert Holmes coming out of the juke, and with this guy wanting to talk with us, the conversation starts to lag.  More Rupert, less talk.  Which is saying something.

I don't know - have you been there?  In a quiet bar?  Just talking with some people you know?  Not friends or anything - just a few guys you see around the neighborhood.

I miss that about living in San Francisco.   We don't have a neighborhood bar in Alameda.  I mean, do I want one of those black satin jackets from the Lemon Tree Lounge?  Hell yes.  But they don't know me there.


The reason Cheers was such a great show is because sometimes you do want to go where everybody knows your name.


So anyway - you've been there, right?  Sitting in your quiet bar, looking at the people in the cold outside, while they look at you, cozy inside?  Those people, hands in their pockets for warmth, captured in the green neon of the light spelling out Delaney's, the green neon above the windows?  Those people decide - nah, not enough happening here.  They head off.  Heck, they're thinking, maybe the Paragon's still open.

In your bar, only a few of the tables have a few drinkers, and you're just talking with those couple other guys.  Two bartenders who've already closed down their joints because it's a quiet Sunday in the Marina.  And here's this goof of a guy who wants to talk to all of you?  Maybe his shirt is a little too starched.  His hair a little too short.  He's trying to ingratiate himself with a lot of fake camaraderie bullshit.  But you let it happen, what are you going to do?


I mean, sure, maybe you're not jumping to answer his gambits.  But you do, eventually.  Until he gets the hint.  He gets the hint, eventually, and stands up to go.  He offers to buy the round that everyone's drinking, but Jesus, you can't let that happen.  You don't want him getting the wrong idea.  It hasn't exactly been fun, trying to accommodate this guy, letting this unknown guy wheedle his way inside the smarmy little cocoon you've all spun on this cold, wet, quiet Sunday night.


By this time, it's Neil Diamond on the juke.  Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon.  A good song.  A song you just want to listen to for a minute without having to come up with some fake chitchat to send the guy out the door.  But go he eventually does, thanking you all with a wave, and as soon as he steps outside - finally, finally - the group of you let out a laugh.  Just you, and Paulina behind the bar filling up a glass she holds at an angle, filling that angled glass nice and slow with some Anchor Steam for one of the tables - just you, Paulina, and the two bartenders sitting there on their round stools.  You all just laugh, what the heck was that about?


But you stop laughing when Paulina catches your eye, and you notice two things fast:  number one, she's not laughing, and she should be.  She hates Dobie Gray and now he's on the juke singing Drift Away--


Give me the beat boys and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away


--so she should be laughing at that.  But she's not.  And number two?  Number two is she's indicating with a couple slight head-tilts that you should look behind you, at the door.

And you do, and when you do, you see - standing in the doorway - the goof.  He's running a hand through his too-short hair, kinda squaring back his shoulders like he's going to talk.

And then he does.

Talk.

Know what the saddest sound is? he says.

All of a sudden, you and the jerks that you're drinking with are looking everywhere but at him.  Trying to focus on the bottles of whisky against the mirrored wall behind the bar.  Maybe at the table in the back, the table with the young couple waiting on the fresh-poured Anchor.  Yeah, you and the jerks are hoping that this man in the doorway is speaking to them.  But of course that ain't happening.  He's speaking to you.  Just you.

The saddest sound, he says, is laughter that a guy hears coming from a bar.  The guy?  He's not the best looking guy - sure, he knows that.  He's got an ok job, though - right in the heart of downtown.  But even though he's been working there for a while, he hasn't made any friends.  So when this guy leaves a bar after spending time with some new people, he thinks - he hopes - that the half hour pleased them as much as it pleased him.  But then, he hears laughter?  Coming from that bar, right as he left?  That laughter's the saddest sound because it lets him know how ridiculous his idea was - the idea that he'd finally met some people who had enjoyed his company.


And then he was gone.  Just gone into the dark of Chestnut Street.  And when no one says anything, it's Paulina who finally breaks the silence with the question, One last round?


And you're left there thinking, One last round?  Or call it a night?  You and all the other jerks in the world.

Happy Birthday to Me - and then a Devil Dies in Pakistan

I was going to write about my birthday.  About Karen rallying the troops this morning, and getting kisses and birthday wishes from my girls.  About all of us going to the Alameda Point Antiques Fair.  About how it was a glorious day by the San Francisco Bay.  About how the girls each had five dollars of their own to spend at the Fair (can you say Barbies?)  About how I found a terrific Zippo, one that looked brand new but one that was made in 1966.  You know, the year of my birth.  Stamped on the side with the words Pacific Telephone.  Or the other find I made - you can find anything at Michaan's Antiques on the point.  Even stuff you didn't know you were looking for.

Case in point?  I've got a collection of small, antique bottles collecting on our front porch.  Little bottles that can hold a single, slim stem from one of the flowers blooming in our yard.  The largest of the bottles can hold a rose, but most are so small they can only accommodate something like a lavender bloom.  Maybe a flower from one of our azaleas.  And today I found a great addition to that cluster of bottles.  This one?  Square, about two inches high.  Amber glass with raised letters on one side - BOERICKE & SCHRECK SAN FRANCISCO.  Perfect to hold a delicate flower for Karen.

I want the bottle because it's so old - the pharmacy, Boericke and Schreck, originated in 1882 - but also because it's just so pretty glinting in the afternoon sun.  The amber glass has a rainbow sheen when the light hits it.

But while I'm looking at that bottle, I see another.  Round like the moon, but flat.  The glass is beautifully pebbled with air pockets trapped like insects in amber.

That's a pumpkin-seed flask, the dealer tells me.

A flask? I repeat.  The dealer's a little guy in blue sneakers, blue jeans.  Yes, he says.  That would have been sold in a saloon to a customer who was headed out the door but wanted a little nip to go.  See how this side - and he takes the bottle from my hand - see how it has a slight curve to it?  Perfect to fit in your pocket.

This - I say - this is a hip flask?  Sold on the Barbary Coast?  And the dealer in blue just smiles at me.

Suddenly, not only do I want this flask - suddenly, I need this flask.  And on my birthday, I'm going to buy it, and the teeny bottle for Karen.  My bottle?  I'll wash it this afternoon, my hands wet with suds and hot water.  I'll buy a bag full of corks at the craft store, the bag holding four corks each of four different sizes.  I'll pour some whiskey, or some mash, into that beautifully pebbled glass flask, stopper it with one of my new corks.  Hold the glass up to the light.  Watch how that light plays with the whiskey inside.

So that's what I was going to write about.  But that was before President Barack Obama announced tonight that Justice has been done.  Those are the words - Justice has been done - that we'll remember from the speech because those are the words that struck strongest as he said them - Justice has been done - that registered most emphatically when he finished.

Do you remember September 11th?  Do you remember how you felt?  How the world felt?  I was at work.  Paulina was setting up early at the bar next door, at Delaney's.  She had the tv's going.  People were stupefied.  Dumbstruck.  I didn't know what to do about the bookstore.  Should I close for the day?  It seemed - at first blush - crass to stay open.  I decided, though, not to close the doors.

No one much came into the store at first, so we were all just talking to each other.  Running next door to catch the images - those horrible images - on the televisions high on the walls in Delaney's.  But then slowly.  Slowly but surely.  People started coming into the store.  Not customers.  These were neighbors.  Friends.  Not exchanging money for books.  But Americans sharing time - spending time with other Americans.  Remember how proud, how angry and proud we all were to call ourselves Americans?

That was the best day and night we ever had at the bookstore there on Chestnut Street in San Francisco.  Not because of the money we made.  I don't think we made any money, really, that day.  But because that day, as the shock sunk in, people sought out a place to gather.  A place to talk.  To share.  And we were there for that.  To become a nexus.  To become a core of Americans - even the couple from France were Americans that day.  We are Americans today, the woman said in her beautiful French accent.  Hugging me as she cried.  She smelled of dusty lilacs - such an old perfume for such a young Frenchwoman, a Frenchwoman in black tights and a clingy top.  A Frenchwoman who had come into the store to buy a copy of L'Equipe for her husband who was drinking espresso across the street at the Grove.

We are Americans today, she said.  All of us.  And it didn't sound foolish or silly or wrong.  Because, that day, we were all Americans.

And then tonight - tonight.  Almost ten years later.  How many wars and lives later?  I saw a banner online.  Clicked through.  Walked out onto the floor of the bookstore and said, in my outside voice, Folks - it's just been announced that Osama bin Laden has been killed by the United States.  We're in possession of his body and the President will address the nation in a few minutes.

Oh God, oh God, someone said.

Chills, Jerry said.  I've got chills.  Are you serious?  It's like hearing that they killed Hitler.

Wait, what else are they saying? this guy called out, a guy sitting on the bench in front of our magazines.

You know everything I know, I said.  I'll keep you updated if I hear anything more - like the rumors the radio started broadcasting in those few minutes before the President spoke.  The operation took place last week, we were told.  The body of bin Laden buried at sea days ago, they reported.

None true, none true.

But once again, ten years later, the bookstore became a gathering place, a place to share incredulity and shock.  The reactions were tempered this time - tempered by ten years of attacks.  Ten years of killings.  Ten years of feelings that swung from We are Americans today to -

- to.

To.

Feelings have swung from those united feelings of anguish and anger to something often uglier.  Often directed towards us.  Some say we squandered the good will we had garnered, squandered it with American arrogance and American violence.  Others said and continue to say that we did not seek out the violence, but that when it was visited upon us we had no choice but to respond.  And that when your opponent pulls a knife you should of course pull a gun.

I wouldn't have thought that it was going to take ten years.  Ten years?  I lived in San Francisco ten years ago.  Didn't have either of my daughters ten years ago.  But did have my dad - hearty and healthy ten years ago.

Ten years.  Long time to stay mad.  But I'm Greek - I know all about grudges.

So if you ask me, right now, is it just or right to have killed bin Laden?  To have hunted him, pinpointed his whereabouts,  ordered his execution?

Right now?  Right now I'm thinking about my thoughts ten years ago.  My disbelief.  The numbness.  Then outrage.  The knowledge that the hunted man, ten years ago, wept with joy as each plane hit the Towers and exulted - after each impact - God is great.  The Devil may even have danced.  Do you remember that?  Some even said the Devil danced that day.

I'll think about that Tuesday, think about New York City firefighters rushing up those towers as everyone else rushed down.  Men and women fearlessly doing their jobs on September 11th, 2001.

Want to know the image that sticks with me?  Not the plane hitting the second tower.  Not the ash-covered denizens of New York fleeing Ground Zero.  It's the picture of two people, forever unknown,  hands clasped, jumping together from the North Tower.  Jumping out of a window 100 floors up.  Holding hands, touching another human for just ten more seconds - forced to make a harrowing decision.  Not whether to die, but how.  Two people holding each other, fingers entwined - seeking brief comfort there - before taking that awful step away from the heat and into oblivion.  So tonight, right now, when you ask if justice was done?

My answer is yes.

It might be different tomorrow.  Hell, before I had children, I had convinced myself that capital punishment was wrong.  So maybe the rational Nick talks me out of my feelings tonight.  But tonight?  Tonight I'm going to go home.  I'm going to lift a flask that I bought, cleaned and filled this afternoon and I'm going to drink.  Mainly, I'm going to drink because it's my birthday and I'll toast myself and my good fortune.  I'll think of my wife and my daughters, my family and friends.  Those here, and those who have passed.  Because this is what I do on my birthday.

Mainly.

Father Knows Best?

That was the title of Robert Young's brainchild when it debuted on NBC Radio in 1949.  The question mark was important - it added a challenge, a bit of sarcasm.  When Father left radio behind and jumped to television in 1954, it lost more than every member of its cast (except for Young) - it also lost that wonderful question mark.

As a father, I'm here to tell you - they should have left it in place.

Last weekend, Kristina celebrated her fourth birthday.  Her real birthday isn't until next week, but don't tell her that.  When we left the party, Kristina - in the backseat - looked over at her sister and said, Oh boy, Elizabeth.  When we got in the car to go to the party, I was three-years-old.  But now we're in the car again, and I'm four!

Unlike her big sister - who's happy to have intimate gatherings for her own birthday - Kristina is more the social butterfly.  She knew she wanted to have her celebration at Pump It Up, and her guest list quickly numbered into the 20's.  Pump It Up is basically a great big jumpy house - with pizza and cake thrown in at the end.  But I'm concerned with the beginning - with the start of the party - when the kids are ushered into the first of the huge jumpy rooms.

Pump It Up is fun, but it can be overwhelming - with 70's music blaring.  With two dozen kiddos jumping around, kickballs getting kicked, parents trying to keep track of their own kids as those kids jump and tumble and slide.  In the midst of all that, Kristina reaches up for my hand and says, Daddy?  He's not happy.

She points at one of her friends - he's four, but littler than Kristina - who's literally huddled in a far corner, scrunched up in as tight a ball as he can make, his face hidden in that corner, hidden by his hands.  I kissed Kristina on top of her head, said thanks, and hustled over to the boy.  I wanted to give him plenty of room, so I squatted down a few feet away and said, Hey there, tiger.  Are you ok?

The boy cried some words into his hands - but did I mention that he was turned away from me?  Scrunched tight with his face crammed into the corner?  And that Stevie Wonder rocked overhead?  So I scooted a bit closer and said, Sorry there, champ - I can't hear you.

Same thing.  The poor little guy shot something back, but I couldn't hear him.  The music, the screams of the other kids, the fact that he covered his face even harder, cried into his hands even louder.  I scootched again, cutting the distance between us.  Hey you, I said.  Is there something I can do?

More tears.  He knotted himself into an even tighter ball.  And again, his words were muffled by his tears and his hands.  I'm on my knees now, right next to him.  I place a comforting touch on his shoulder - quick but soft.  I'm sorry, I said. I can't hear you  And I'm trying to put my best Daddy-voice on.  Trying to fill my words with care, with gentleness.

I don't know what it was exactly - maybe that delicate touch on his shoulder, maybe the sympathetic tone of my words - but I finally got him to turn his little tear-streaked face towards me.  Finally got him to move his hands down and away from his mouth so I could hear his words clear.  Loud and clear.  The little guy, with his hair all mussed and his eyes red, turned my way and screamed:

GET.  AWAY.  FROM.  ME.

I almost fell backwards trying to get to my feet, calling back to him that I was gone - good and gone - and that I'd be sure to do what I should've done in the first place.  Find his mommy.  Because, see, mommies know best.

No question mark needed.

suck -v. Informal: to be repellent or disgusting. See Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront

We had bookcases built for the house.  It only took us ten years.

You'd think for a family that likes to read as much as we do, bookcases would get the fast track.  But then, life intervenes and so you just live.  Then you live a little more.  Have a couple of kids.

Finally, though, we had them built.  Loren, who usually does business in Modesto, agreed to craft and install them.  Then came the painting.  Did you know how bad oil paint can smell when you use it on your new bookshelves?  We had some idea, but were unprepared for its full glory.  So, late on a Monday night in March, after doing what any God fearing American would do (internet research that foretold mutations and brain damage in young children exposed to the fumes of naphtha, toluene and xylene), Karen called Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront.

While Karen made the reservations, I continued doing internet research - this time on Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront.  Yelp review after Yelp review reiterated that if you stayed at Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront, be sure to reserve a room overlooking the water.  Rooms on the 880 side were not protected from the sounds of the freeway and it was therefore impossible to sleep - impossible, perchance, to dream.

I yelled this out to Karen - Karen on the phone - who soon asked if there were any rooms at Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront that looked out on the water.  Affirmative!  Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront did indeed have such a room - would Karen like to make a nonrefundable deposit to reserve the room?

Sure, Karen said, she just wanted to make sure that the room under discussion at Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Waterfront was indeed a room that did not look out over the mass of lanes that was I-880.

Yessirree!

In the course of the overly long call to make reservations, it was amusing to hear Karen's side of the conversation - where she asked about the availability of a waterside room, repeated the information that we wanted two queen size beds for two adults and two kids, inquired about breakfast service in the morning, and again verified the availability of a room facing the water, not the interstate.

We hurriedly packed up the kids - it was a school night, after all - gathered together the accoutrement that would make our short stay possible, and headed out on our adventure.  For this, certainly, in the eyes of our girls, was a nighttime frolic.

Shortly thereafter, we arrived at Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront.  It was inviting on the outside - and inside?  All high ceilinged lobby, leather chairs in front of a flickering fire, old books placed high up on the mantle - the girls were beside themselves with excitement.  We trooped up to the front desk to check in - and the clerk gave us our key.  As an afterthought, Karen asked, The room does look out over the water, right?  We understand the rooms facing the freeway are a little loud.

No, the clerk said.  We don't have any rooms facing the water.  We only have vacancies on the other side.

Karen looked at me - I looked at Karen.  One of us said, Well, that's just great.  Then one of us said, We just called - ten minutes ago - and were assured that you had rooms on the quiet side.

Well, the clerk said, who were you calling?  And there was a touch in her tone, a touch of passing the buck, a touch of bold certainty that we hadn't spoken to her, so there.

To whom did we speak? one of us said.  We just called the number online - the number next to the listing for Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront.

Oh that, the clerk sniffed - and by now the girls are crying.  Our girls are crying because the adventure that we had set out on had taken this ugly turn.

The clerk continued, haughty.  You probably talked to our call center.  They don't know what rooms we have available.

It's about this time that I'm starting to get a little loud.  I do that sometimes.  Get Greek and loud.  So my loudness prompts Vinny - some big guy who'd been lurking in the background - to come join his little cohort behind the counter.  Vinny is not little.  Vinny is about 6'5".  Young.  In any other situation, Young Vinny would be spoiling for a fight.  And he'd be able to kill me in about four seconds.

What's the problem? Young Vinny asks.

We recount the problem.

Well, Young Vinny says, I'll cancel your reservation.  And, he says, like he's doing me a freaking favor, I won't charge you the cancellation fee.

I can't tell you why, just exactly, that sent me over the edge.

Actually, I can.  I had already gone a little Greek, and this was just ouzo thrown onto that fire.  Also, my girls were crying.  Also, Karen had inquired repeatedly on the phone about our concern that a particular type of room be available.  Also, I don't care that the Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront has a call center that doesn't have real-time access to room availability.  Also, I really don't like being sniffed at by clerks while my children cry late on a Monday night.

And I really didn't like Young Vinny and his oh-so-kind offer to cancel our reservation - without charging us for the courtesy.  Because, see - Young Vinny made it sound like the normal course of business was to lure customers into his lair after giving them incorrect information and then charging them to cancel. 

The feeling was mutual - Young Vinny also didn't like me because I'd gone into my Hey-Vinny routine.  My Hey-Vinny routine goes something like this:  Hey Vinny, employee of Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront.  Guess what, Vinareeno?  I work in a retail environment - can I shoot a few pointers at the Vinster?  Please, VinVinVinny, don't cop an attitude with a customer who's really mad because of really stupid service they've received at the hands of the Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront, capiche?

It went on like that for a bit.  In other words, I was being a real jerk there at the end.

Thankfully for us, the story has a happy ending.  The Executive Inn at Embarcadero Cove, also on the Oakland Waterfront, was able to accommodate us - happily, and with a quiet room facing the water.  On our way there - literally one minute down the frontage road next to 880 - our oldest daughter wrote a letter to the Homewood Suites by Hilton on the Oakland Waterfront.  It read, in its entirety:


Dear Hotel,
Why did you lie to us?
Love, Elizabeth.


I really, really, adore that kid.

And in case you were wondering, the Executive Inn at Embarcadero Cove has free candy at check in.  I recommend the butterscotch.  It can take any bad taste out of your mouth, instantly.

Batter Up!

I'm flying solo this trip, heading off to the Valley of the Sun to catch some Cactus League baseball.  Last year, for the first time, the whole family went.  The girls had never been before - and, if I do say so myself, if you're going to take your daughters to Spring Training for the first time in their lives, it's very cool to take them to start off the year that sees the Giants winning the World Series for the only time in their San Francisco history.

Just saying.

So we traveled to Tucson to see our good friend Mrs. Mellis.  And we went to the Desert Botanical Garden and met my godfather, Bill, and his beautiful wife Diane.  And the kids played in the pool at the DoubleTree Paradise Valley Resort up there on North Scottsdale Road - but before all that?  We saw us some baseball.

It was an away game, which meant we had to travel clear down to Tempe - a whopping eleven miles from the DoubleTree.  And that means I didn't even finish my Diet Coke before we arrived.  The stadium is on West Alameda Drive, and it's kind of funny that we flew from Alameda (the city) only to have to drive to Alameda (the street) but that's Arizona for you.

Scottsdale and Tempe - all the environs of Phoenix - it's just pretty country.  Do I want to visit in July, when the average temperature is 105?  When it's gotten as high as 121?  No.  But March?  When you're looking at 75 degrees day in and day out?  When the desert begins to flower?  Where the saguaro stands tall?  Or when the creosote blooms, pretty and yellow?  Go - really, please just go and then we'll talk about the desert.

That day, the last Saturday in March last year.  It was a lovely 70 degrees, with no wind.  About 8,000 fans filed into Tempe Diablo Stadium to see the team with the best record in Arizona take on the Angels.  We had terrific seats there on the first base side courtesy of Randy and Katy.  Some of the usual crew was there - Robby and his sons, Richy, Jason, Amber and Kip.  But some notables were absent - Danny!  Annie!

But the day was fine and Gene Autry Field looked lush and green and the girls were happy to have ice cream and we were happy for the beer and the Giants had been playing the best ball they'd ever played in the Spring.

Baseball.  Have you ever been to a game with me?  If you had, you'd know I can be a little loud.  Once, at a game in Scottsdale, we had fabulous seats - behind home plate and beneath the broadcast booth.  I didn't think we were that close to the booth, but a few innings in - Richy's cell rings.  It's Jon Miller!  The Hall of Fame announcer for the San Francisco Giants!  Richy knows Jon - and Kruik and Kuip - has dinner with them with some regularity.

I mean, not that I'd personally know about the dinner thing.  Not, you know, like I'd ever been invited to attend one of those dinners.

Bitter?  Me?

Did I say Jon Miller called Richy?  In the middle of a Spring Training game?  And what did Mr. Miller want of our Richy?  Did he want to make arrangements to meet at the Pink Pony later that night for a fine steak, maybe an adult beverage or two?

No, not at all.  Mr. Miller wanted to know if Richy was friends with the loudmouth in the Hawaiian shirt sitting nearby.  And if so, could he please ask him (me) to kindly keep it down?  My catcalls - consisting of such gems as Nice Socks! - were going straight out over the airwaves.  So Richy told me to can it.  Which I did.  For Mr. Miller.

So I'm gonna get loud.  And at this game - March 27th, 2010, in Tempe, Arizona - I decided to pick on Joe Saunders, the starting pitcher for the Angels.  The Halos had scored two runs off of Barry Zito in the second inning, but things were looking good in the top of the third when the Giants loaded the bases.

That's when I got loud.  His last name wouldn't do - Saunders doesn't trip off the tongue.  But Joe?  Lemme tell ya, I can get three good syllables out of Joe.  Any day.  You just gotta put a lot of emphasis on the J, and then really work the O.  Go on, try it.  Real loud now.

J-OOO-OOOOOO.  Ok, that's just three syllables, but it's a start.

Anyway.  Top of the third.  The bases are drunk with Giants.  So I start getting loud because in Spring Training?  At those facilities?  When Randy and Katy have gotten you great seats on the first base line?  Joe Saunders can hear you.  So I'm yelling and while the home crowd is ticked at me - the loyal fans who traveled 11 miles to see their mighty Giants?  They're eating it up - says the gent about himself.

And I rattle Joe so much - JO-OOOOOOOO - that he does the only thing he can do when he's so rattled.

He strikes out the first guy who's got a chance to bring some of those runners home.  Just strikes him out.

JOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOO.

That's getting him but good.  We can all see him shaking in those stupid socks of his.

So he strikes out the second guy who goes up there with the bases loaded.

Just strikes him out, too.  Now?  Now I'm now being asked by Joe's own fans to please keep it up - because obviously my vocal chords are determining what's happening down there on the field.

So I give it a good final JOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and really work that last note loud and hard so that it's reverberating off the desert hills peeking over the fence in right field.

Naturally, Joe Saunders finishes what he started and strikes out the side.  After loading the bases.  Just mows down three of our guys.  A fellow Giants' fan two rows up leaps to his feet and spins around.  Least, he does as much spinning as an obese fifty year old can do who's hampered by his girth and the tight orange shorts with the dark stain of sweat riding between his cheeks.  But he spins, kind of, and shouts at me, Are you happy, jerk?  And I just sort of laugh, because this is what I do, often, at games.  Just get a little loud.  But he doesn't like the laughing and if he didn't perhaps notice my two young daughters looking at the funny fat man yelling at their daddy, he probably would have flipped me off.

Ah, well.

Did I mention that Barry Zito was on the hill that day for the Orange and Black?  And that even though the Giants would make a game of it, and go ahead briefly in the fifth, Zito would cough up two more runs in the sixth and take the loss.

My damage had been done.

We bid adieu  - me, Karen and our girls - to our compadres and file out of the stadium to get to our rental and head back to the DoubleTree to get cleaned up and ready for dinner.  Now, Tempe Diablo Stadium isn't a huge park - this is the Cactus Leagues, not the Major Leagues - but it still can hold more than 9,000.  So it takes a bit to get out of the stadium and across the street and the girls of course are waylaid by the pretty yellow flowers so we have to stop and inspect them - just enjoying a brilliant afternoon in the Arizona sun.

When we finally get to the rental, I notice that a van headed towards me is slowing down.  Kind of looks like one of those special vans that a Senior Center would own.  Real big.  Extra axle to hold up the extra seats inside.  A new van, painted shiny blue and white.  While it slows I buckle Elizabeth - Kristina only wants Mommy to do her buckling but La Liz will consent to Daddy.  Then I walk around the car to get to my door.  I kind of feel that the van has now stopped, but I'm thinking they're just getting their bearings and will move on quickly.

And that's when, of course, I hear it.

JOOOOO-OOOOOOOO.

I mean, it's not really loud, but I can hear it - real easy.

I turn around and see that all the little windows on this super big van have been cracked open as much as they can, and  there must be sixteen people inside all taking a big ol deep breath so that they can let loose with another--

JOOOOOOOO-OOOOOOOOOOOO.

And they are all just cracking themselves up inside their stupid Special Van.  Just cracking up and waving at me.

So I do the only thing I can.  I doff my cap, it's brown and has an orange lizard stitched into its side, the lizard and the cap commemorating Spring Training the previous year, 2009.  So I doff that cap and bow low.  Real low.  And that gets a hearty applause from the Angel fans in the van, they clap like mad and their driver toots his horn and they drive off, happy to make the stupid guy in the brown cap eat crow for his earlier loud shenanigans.

Karen and the girls want to know what that was all about, but I don't want to talk about it.

Not really.

Pictures of Papou

And I ask Kristina if she remembers her grandfather – my dad, her Papou – because I worry she’ll forget.

Karen tells me to get one of the photo albums. It’ll help, she says, if Kristina sees him – so I search through the stack of albums piled on top of the black trunk next to the couch. I grab one titled Early Spring 2010 and hand it to Karen. She says, Not that one, and all I can think is, Why the heck not? I love this one. It has one of my favorite pictures of Elizabeth, that one where she's looking straight at you with her eyes so big and Superhero blue. And it has the pictures of Spring Training – all of us in Arizona. The girls' first trip to see the Giants in Scottsdale, their first visit to Tucson, to Mrs. Mellis. The album with that great shot of Kristina in Mrs. Mellis’ cactus yard.  Kristina in her beautiful, strappy Hawaiian dress, Kristina soft and small surrounded by prickles, the prickles yellow and brown and green.

But there’s something about Karen’s tone. Something in those simple words, Not that one. And it takes a moment, but then the penny drops. Of course not that one. I’m trying to show Kristina pictures of Papou. So she’ll remember. But this is the wrong collection – Early Spring 2010 – to find pictures of Papou because—

This isn’t the album to reinforce in Kristina an image of my dad because—

Christmas 2009 would be a better choice because—

How can it have been a year since my father died? A year to the day? March 1st already?

The week before March 1st last year. That week before was a hard time. I’d been driving to Modesto a lot in January and February, when my dad began failing, when—

Christ, what a ridiculous word, failing.  This is what I'm left with, ridiculous words.  But they’re all I have to convey what I felt, words are all any of us have to convey what we feel, but the words, often, are so ridiculous. How can the Inuit have dozens of words for snow – specific words for falling snow, for snow on the ground, for a snow drift – and yet I don’t have the precise word for the act of watching the strongest man I’ve ever known confronting, head on, the end of his life, with that end accompanied by pain of a magnitude unfathomable to me. Meeting that pain and that fate with courage, with quiet dignity. I should know the word for that, shouldn't I?  Shouldn't there be a word?

Of course, the Inuit probably don’t have a hundred words for snow. Is that just another something made up by someone somewhere?



The last Wednesday in February, last year. Late at night – 11:30? A quarter of twelve? Dean called. I couldn’t make out the words – though of course I knew what they were – I could just make out the sounds of my brother, crying soft. He thought, they all thought, my brothers and my Mom, that my father was dying.  That night.  Right then.  I got in our Accord, drove fast. I drove fast a lot then, in those weeks speeding back and forth to the Valley.

Part of me felt like an intruder. I don’t live in Modesto – could only give my often strong and strident opinions over the phone, over email. Had to remind myself that we were all interested in one thing, in one goal. And when those doctors failed my father—

I will say nothing other than that, that those doctors failed my father—

When those doctors failed my father, and our goal changed, became instead focused on easing our father’s pain – nothing more, in the end, than that – then we called Hospice.

Too late – we called too late, but dying is such a mystery, and until you go through it, closely, you don’t recognize the territory. My vision was clouded by the sad, by the anger – by the grief, guilt and regret. It was too hard to see through all that, and so Hospice was called too late.

They came after that night, after that night that we all thought was the end. My family had done so much, for so long – and everyone was so tired, and it was so late.  So as the clock turned Wednesday with no remorse into Thursday, I said I’d stay up.  Everyone else – my brothers, my mom especially  – had done so much for so long there in Modesto, so much—

I'd stay up.  I'd sit with my dad as he lay dying.

Dean went home – slowly, grudgingly.  Ball cap on his head.  George lay down on the couch in the living room.  My mom.  My mom needed rest.  She of any of us needed to rest and so, finally, she agreed to try and sleep in my room.  To rest, with no chance to dream.
 
I stayed up, next to my dad, and talked to him.  George said he could hear me from the couch.  Just talking.  Said I put him to sleep with all my talking.  I thought I'd remember everything I talked about that night.  But what did I say?

I just talked.  About our good times.  Playing catch.  Driving to Columbia – to Gold Country.  Watching Twiggy race around out back, barking at bees.  I just talked.  About watching all those Dean Martin videos.  About trying to distinguish my dad's voice coming out of the choir loft.  About the birds in our yard getting drunk on the pyracantha berries that had fermented in the sun.  I just talked.  About how much I loved him.  About how great a man I believed him to be.  About my girls, and Karen.
 

I just talked all through that night – to my dad, with his eyes closed.  With no hope of them opening.  But I could hold his hand in mine and talk.

What do you say when there instead should be a flight of angels singing your father to his rest?  I have no idea - so I just talked.  Through the dark and the quiet.  Picking up framed photos – snapshots of our lives.  George there, a chubby baby.  Dean and Laura, their wedding day.  And the girls.  The Christmas photo with all my dad's granddaughters.  The baby, Eleni.  Her sister, Adrianna.  Our own girls – Kristina, just two.  Elizabeth, six.

I worry that Kristina won't remember.  She was so small, not yet three.  Karen thinks she'll remember – does what she can to make that happen.  That was why Karen told me to get the album, yes?

So I just talked.  There was nothing to say and so much to say.  So many questions that I'd never asked.  When was your parent's anniversary?  What shows did you listen to on that Philco radio?  When you saw that screwdriver ripping through the screen door in Hiawatha, were you scared?

I talked.  And right after six that morning, as I'm explaining to my dad that Kristina was telling me just yesterday, just Wednesday, about how much she loved him, loved her Papou, as I'm letting him know that Kristina is always telling me how much she loves him – my dad opened his eyes and said, She's just too much.

My dad opened his eyes.  Opened them and saw me - really saw me.  Made eye contact with me and so I told him how much Kristina loved him, yes, how much we all loved him.  Got it out fast before he closed his eyes and dropped off – but dropped off to a restful sleep.

That was 6:06 am.

Just a little later, my dad opens his eyes, again.  Could focus on me, again.  So I tell him, again, how much we love him.  Then asked if he wanted his blanket pulled up and he said, Yes, please.

That was 6:20.

When his eyes opened for a third time that morning, I told him that we were all just thinking about how much we loved him.  That time I got a big smile and my dad looked at a picture of my mom and said, We love you, too.

We all love you, Dad – I'm just saying it again and again so he hears me, so he knows that's all anyone is thinking about.  He kind of waves me off.

We all love you, Dad.

Thank you, he says.

No, Dad, I say, emphasizing my words, thank you.

And my dad smiled big again.

That was 6:48.

In the midst of that exchange, I heard my mom coming down the hall, and the look on her face when she saw my dad, saw him talking to me, focused on me – ah, Mom.  I love you, too.  For everything, but especially for that look.  Confusion, astonishment, wonder.  I know that she knows that this is only a reprieve – but we've been given my dad back, for a few days at least.

In those days, we can remind him how much he means to us, to the girls.  How his friends are thinking of him.

We can say goodbye.

I can talk to his neighbors of nearly fifty years – Ed and Ann – and then relate to my dad the stories they shared with me.

We can say goodbye.

I can hold his hand like I did that night and remind my dad of his influence on me and that I love him, that the girls love him, that his house is full of love for him.

We can say goodbye.

When on that Sunday Karen says the last words she'll ever say to my dad – when Karen on Sunday, February 28th, 2010, tells my dad that she loves him, my dad will have the chance to close his eyes and open his hands and say, I love all of you, too.

All of you.