By the Bay Read online

  “Right,” he nodded, resolved not to be petty. Or one of the guys.

  She stood. “I’ll pop the dishes in the dishwasher while you find the tickets.”

  “You’re going already?” He had anticipated a quiet evening talking to a living person, a little sympathy, and some light-to-moderate necking. No such luck.

  By the end of the second week, the swelling had gone down to where he could put a shoe on, provided he didn’t lace it tightly. His pampered foot accepted pressure but not weight. Bored and feeling useless, he decided to return to work. He ruled out driving into San Francisco, unwilling to tackle the long walk from the parking lot to his office on the seventh floor of the Barclay Building on Market Street. Instead, he would take the train.

  On Monday morning, he traded a leather brief case for a battered backpack and drove gingerly to a Bay Area Rapid Transit station. The short walk from the parking lot to the station left him out of breath and sweating. I wonder if I could have gotten a handicapped placard, he thought, casting an envious glance at the close-in, empty parking spaces with the blue “Handicapped Only” warnings. The elevator wasn’t working—as usual—so he hopped awkwardly on the escalator and rode up to the platform. Fortunately, the train for San Francisco came quickly.

  Larry swung onto the silver BART car slowly, working his way around the riders who clustered near the doors. The train was crowded with commuters in business suits, students nodding their heads to iPods, and tourists studying travel guides and maps. All of the seats were taken. He sagged on his crutches, holding onto a seat as the car lurched into motion. Most of the people seated around him averted their eyes, gazing out windows or reading newspapers. Finally, a thickset, elderly African-American woman in a blue nylon jacket grasped her purse and rose from a seat on the aisle.

  “Here, Mister. You can sit here,” she said.

  Larry started to refuse and stopped. “Thanks,” he wheezed and sank gratefully into the seat.

  The eight-car train stopped at Fruitvale and Lake Merritt, plunged under San Francisco Bay, and surfaced at the Embarcadero Station. Larry exited at the next stop, Montgomery Street, rode the escalator to the street and flagged down a cab.

  In the lobby of his office building, he stopped to buy a copy of the Chronicle from the stand of the blind vendor. He handed the man a $1 bill and watched him make change deftly. He had never considered the problem that a blind person would have handling money.

  “How did you know that wasn’t a five?”

  “Oh, I think you’d have told me,” the man said dryly. He wore dark green sunglasses and a gray sweater, frayed at the elbows.

  “Do people try to cheat you often?” He was surprised he had never thought of that before—or paid any attention to the man, whom he guessed was in his 50s.

  “Not often,” the vendor said. “Most people are pretty honest. I’ll have your Examiner ready at 5:15 as usual.”

  That rocked Larry. “How did you know I get an Examiner every afternoon when I leave work?”

  The man smiled. “Your voice. You always say ‘I’ve got an Examiner’ and give me a quarter and a dime.”

  That’s right, Larry realized. I usually have change at the end of the day but not at the beginning. “Well…my name is Larry. I work up on the 7th floor.”

  “Raphael,” replied the vendor. “I work on the ground floor.” He smiled broadly at the joke. “How are you doing with the crutches? Auto accident or basketball? It’s too late for good skiing.”

  “How did you…”

  “The rubber tips squeak on marble and I only heard one step,” explained Raphael.

  “I took a tumble while bird-watching,” Larry replied sheepishly.

  “And who said most accidents occur near home?” murmured Raphael. He turned, aware of another customer. “Have a good one.”

  Larry’s arrival in the office created a brief flurry of excitement. He accepted the greetings, kidding, and comments in good humor and swung down the center aisle between rows of desks.

  “Oops!” He brushed against a metal file overhanging the corner of a desk and sent it crashing to the floor. “Darn! Sorry about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” snapped the file’s owner. She scooped up the papers and gave him a tight look.

  He reached his desk and stopped. An unfamiliar young woman sat behind it. She looked up in surprise, confusion on her face.

  “Hi, I’m Larry Winston. I generally sit here.”

  “This is Cindy Rodriguez,” a familiar voice said. “She’s our new intern. I told her she could use your desk while you were on disability leave.” He turned and found his boss, Elaine Kransberg. She wore a dark blue suit, softened slightly by a white blouse with ruffled collar. Her slim shoulders twitched like the muscles of a racehorse eager to leave the starting gate.

  “Oh,” he said.

  “Cindy, gather your work. There’s a table at the end of the room that you can use,” Kransberg continued, her tone suggesting that she was really too busy to be dealing with supervising musical chairs in the office.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the young woman said, flashing an embarrassed smile. She re-assembled papers hurriedly and left.

  Sir? I’ve become a “sir?” He sat down heavily and leaned his crutches against a filing cabinet. One fell over. He picked it up.

  “George will bring you up to speed,” his boss said with a frown, as if contemplating an unexpected complication. “He’s been handling your most pressing accounts.”

  Larry nodded and tried to look grateful. George was 24. He was a cum laude graduate of Stanford Business School, a computer whiz, and repeated, to anyone who would listen, his desire to accept more challenging assignments. George was competition.

  The day wore on. Larry immersed himself in work, playing catch up. Fortunately, most of it could be done at his desk or on the phone or computer. But occasionally, he had to grab his crutches and navigate around desks and file cabinets and people to converse with someone at the other end of the office. When he did, his co-workers eyed him warily, as if he were a toddler just learning to walk. They kept out of his way. He was glad to leave at 5:15pm and picked up his newspaper from Raphael, who was too busy to chat.

  The next day didn’t turn out to be much better. He arrived late for an afternoon staff meeting on the next floor because the elevator was slow and he couldn’t take the stairs.

  “Well, we can get started now,” grumped John O’Donnell, the vice-president for brand marketing, when Larry clumped into the conference room. Elaine Kransberg tapped a pencil on the table and pinched her lips. George nodded gravely, managing to convey both support and superiority.

  “We’re ready to make our pitch for the Hansen’s Department Store account,” O’Donnell continued. “It should bring in at least a million a year in billings.” Heads nodded around the table. “Larry’s done the run-up for us,” he said.

  Larry smiled modestly. He had spent hours visiting the store, talking to customers and managers, analyzing potential campaign strategies.

  “But since he’s incapacitated, I’ve decided to let George head the team making the sales presentation,” O’Donnell added.

  Larry opened his mouth to protest but didn’t get a chance.

  “I agree,” interjected his boss smoothly. “Larry could do it, but the agency’s image wouldn’t be as strong—or as positive.” Several people glanced at the crutches leaning against the wall behind Larry. He read their faces: Who needs a gimp carrying the ball?

  “You can backstop George on this one, Larry,” added O’Donnell. They moved to the next item on the agenda.

  “That sucked, Winston,” said Albert Cranston. The meeting over, he leaned across Larry’s desk, close enough for Larry to see the red veins in his eyes. Cranston was a small-boned, energetic copywriter, given to wearing striped shirts, bow ties, and loud suspenders. Normally, Larry tried to avoid him. Cranston was hard of hearing and had flesh-colored hearing aids protruding from his ears like fl
ower buds that refused to bloom. Larry disliked having to repeat himself in conversations, as did others in the office. Consequently, Cranston was generally ignored.

  “Yes, it sucked, all right,” he agreed, still bitter. Cranston had been at the meeting.

  “I’ll buy you a drink after work,” Cranston offered.

  “Okay, Cranston,” said Larry.

  “Call me Al,” Cranston replied, ear buds vibrating when he smiled.

  Over drinks in a wood-paneled bar just down the street from the office, Larry learned to his surprise that Cranston: a. had a wife who was a lawyer; b. enjoyed carving wooden ducks; and c. could do devastatingly funny impressions of upper management. He also learned Cranston had lost 70 per cent of his hearing while firing 105mm howitzers in Vietnam. When they left the bar, he had learned more about his co-worker in 45 minutes than he had in the past two years.

  The week dragged by. So did Larry. On Friday, he traded the sticks for a cane and headed eagerly for home, intent on enjoying a cold beer and watching the Giants play the Mets on TV. The train was crowded, jammed at the Montgomery Street station as usual with riders who had gotten on several stops before. He was tired, discouraged (George had returned triumphantly to the office having nailed down the Hansen’s Department Store Account—his account) and in bad humor. As usual, the seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped had been taken. Larry edged over to one and looked down at a teenager in a denim jacket, black pants, and motorcycle boots. The boy’s lips moved as he read a magazine, the gold ring in his upper lip rising and falling.

  “Excuse me,” Larry said. “Could I have that seat?”

  The kid looked up, surprised. “Huh?”

  “Could I have that seat?” repeated Larry. He held up the cane.

  The kid shrugged. “Next stop. I’m getting off then.” He resumed reading.

  Larry started to protest and gave it up. He held on to a seat handle as the train jolted along. The kid got off two stops later.

  The rainy season ended and spring arrived. He walked easily now, sticks and cane relegated to the back of a closet. Trees leafed out, creating shady green umbrellas along Market Street. A new generation of pigeons squabbled over the lunch droppings at the cable car turnaround at Powell Street. Larry whistled as he crossed the lobby of the Barclay Building and approached the newsstand.

  “Morning, Raphael, any reduced rates for regular customers today?” He thrust a bill into Raphael’s outstretched hand.

  “Hey, Larry. Sorry, no deals today.” Warm weather or not, Raphael wore the same sweater with the frayed elbows, a different wrinkled shirt under it. He handed Larry a copy of the Chronicle and change.

  “Whoa!” Larry said, testing him. “That was a twenty, not a one.”

  Raphael appeared to give it deep thought. “Funny, it felt like a one.”

  They both laughed.

  “Besides,” Raphael said, “this late in the month before payday you don’t have any twenties.”

  True enough, Larry thought and headed for the elevator. He had no sooner settled down in his cubicle than Al Cranston sidled up. “Hi, Larry. I’ve got some copy for the Hansen’s Department Store account that I’d like to bounce off you.”

  “Why me? George is handling the account.”

  “You don’t have to shout.” Cranston tapped his right hearing aid. “New ears. I can turn off the background noise now and reduce the volume.”

  “Sorry.” Larry lowered his voice. He didn’t even notice Cranston’s hearing aids any more and simply raised his voice when they had lunch together, which was once a week or so. Cranston had taken him out to lunch when he started walking normally again. Bye, bye, sticks and cane!

  “The dragon lady has taken the Stanford whiz kid off the account,” Cranston whispered. “Got some complaints apparently. She said to see you.”

  My, my, thought Larry. Now what sparked that?

  He found out later that morning when Elaine Kransberg called him into her office.

  She didn’t motion for him to take a seat. “George will be helping you on the Hansen account rather than the other way around,” she said tersely.

  Larry feigned surprise. “Oh, does that mean I’m the go-to guy again?”

  “You were never off the team,” she said defensively.

  “But I didn’t get to play quarterback.”

  She looked puzzled and then caught the reference.

  Her lips tightened. “Yes.” She shuffled papers on her desk, dismissing him.

  Not that easy, he thought. “Why? Because I’m mobile again?”

  She frowned. “Not just that. Hansen’s wasn’t happy with the way the campaign was shaping up. Their ad manager talked with you when you visited the store gathering information. He asked for you by name.”

  Larry decided to twist the knife a little. “I’m awfully busy now with those accounts of George’s that you dumped on me.”

  She glared at him. “I’ll re-assign them back to him. You concentrate on the Hansen’s account for now.”

  “Okey-dokey.” He knew the expression irked her. It suggested a laissez-faire, ambivalent attitude. He smiled and left her office.

  Clouds, swollen and gray, threatened more rain as Larry hurried along Market Street after leaving work. At the head of the escalator at the Embarcadero BART station, an unshaven man sat in a wheelchair, a brown and white dog dozing on the damp pavement at his feet. Larry dug into his wallet and pulled out a dollar. He dropped it in a paper cup by the dog. Probably another con artist, wheelchair or not. But who knew?

  BART was running on time, ingesting and ejecting streams of passengers. He caught the Fremont train, which was standing room only already. He held an overhead strap and tried to read the headlines in the Examiner despite the jolting.

  At the West Oakland station, an elderly woman got on and made her way slowly to the seats reserved for the elderly and handicapped. They were filled. A young man and a girl occupied two. The woman stood in front of them patiently until they looked up, flashed irritated glances and ignored her. The boy laughed and his tongue flicked over a gold ring. Larry looked more closely. It was the same kid who had refused to give up a seat for him. Apparently, he made a habit of squatting in the reserved seats in rush hour.

  The elderly woman cleared her throat and looked expectantly at the young couple. The boy laughed and said something to his girlfriend. They didn’t move.

  Larry pushed his way through the straphangers until he stood before the boy.

  “Hey.”

  The kid ignored him.

  “You… Metal Mouth.”

  This time the boy looked up, red-faced and angry.

  “Read the sign,” Larry said. “The lady needs your seat. Give it to her.”

  The boy looked at his companion for support. She glanced away.

  Larry leaned closer and didn’t bother to lower his voice. “Listen, asshole, you’ve got 10 seconds to vacate the seat for the lady or I’ll reach over, grab some brass and help you up.”

  The kid licked his lips nervously and the ring jiggled. He rose and grabbed the hand of his startled girlfriend, pulling her to her feet. They pushed their way to the front of the car.

  Larry turned to the elderly woman.

  “There’s a seat available now.”

  She sat down wearily, placing a mesh shopping bag by her feet. “Thank you.”

  “Oh, it was my pleasure,” Larry said.

  Train Journey—San Francisco to Sunnyvale

  by Swati Kher

  O San Francisco

  Through a bay window

  Overlooking the hills and vales below

  Into the streets, watch the cable cars go

  Into a far distance, where no one knows

  The quakes that shake and shatter your heart

  As the raindrops

  On a picture window

  Collect like teardrops

  Falling from the sky

  I am lost in a place

  Whose meado
ws I once roamed

  Where children laugh and play

  And dream of a beautiful home

  Under Redwood trees

  Through Sunnyvale's streets

  His Father’s Voice

  by G. David Nordley

  Scott caught himself staring at the bare wood and web-cluttered beams of his late aunt's attic instead of packing, but he found it hard to concentrate. Ten days ago, Scott hadn't even known who his biological parents were. Now, his search for his heritage had led to a dusty cardboard box in this dusty attic, filled with faded and broken moments of the long dead hopes of a father and mother he'd never known. Carlo Valdez had been a poor man with a little talent who had tried so hard to be more than a cog in the universal machine, and Theresa Rodriguez had been a plain girl who had once upon a time seen the light of his father's soul and been momentarily blinded.

  Theresa, it turned out, had died years ago, but her sister Maria had lived on in this house they shared, increasingly frail, saving everything for "someone, someday, to make amends." Scott's arrival seemed to have completed something for her; he'd known her only a week, but in hours of talk, they began to be friends.

  Now Aunt Maria was gone too. Her house was filled with strangers going through things trying to decide who would get what. Some were so closely related to him that he had the uncanny feeling of looking in a mirror when he talked to them.

  Thank goodness it was a loving family; the arguments were all "Here, you take this, she would have wanted you to have it," or, "No, you take it, it meant so much to you.” Then everyone had been too kind to even speculate that Scott's surprise appearance might have hastened Aunt Maria's heart attack.

  The pictures in the album weren't faded, though some of them were black and white. They'd been treated well and, except for the quaint clothes and old cars, looked like they'd just come back from the photo lab. Some pictures were of the people downstairs in their younger days, some of strangers.

  But a couple of them included a thin girl with long straight brown hair, thick glasses and buck teeth in an artfully sophisticate pose: his biological mother, Theresa Rodriguez. The house was full of her, too, but as an older, more accomplished woman, in whose eyes and face the world weariness was not affected. There was little of her counterculture years here, a decade long flight from reality that, Aunt Maria said, really ended only when they heard of Carlo's death. Scott had two boxes full of Theresa Rodriguez: full of photos, clippings, school papers, and other things that kind people, trying to make up for what they'd done forty years ago, insisted he take.