Our plans had been formulated that morning when Shar called us at the ungodly hour of six, all excited. “One of those jukeboxes you guys want is advertised in today’s classified,” she said. “Seeburg Trashcan, and you won’t believe this: It’s almost within your price range.”
While I primed my brain into running order, Neal went to fetch our copy of the paper. “Phone number’s in the 707 area code,” he said into the downstairs extension. “Sonoma County.”
“Nice up there,” Shar said wistfully.
“Maybe Ted and I can take a drive on Sunday, check it out.”
I issued a Neanderthal grunt of agreement. Till I have at least two cups of coffee, I’m not verbal. “I’ve a feeling somebody’ll snap it up before then,” she said.
“Well, if you’ll give Ted part of the day off, I can ask my assistant to mind the store.”
“I…oh, hell, why don’t the three of us take the whole day off? I’ll pack a picnic. You know the sourdough loaf I make, with all the melted cheese and stuff?”
“Say no more.”
Shar exited the freeway at River Road and we sped through vineyards toward the redwood forest. When we rolled into the town of Guerneville, its main street mirrored our holiday spirits. People roamed the sidewalks in shorts and t-shirts, many eating ice cream cones or by-the-slice pizza; a flea market in the parking lot of a supermarket was doing a brisk business; rainbow flags flapped in the breeze outside gay-owned business.
The town has been the hub of the resort area for generations; rustic cabins and summer homes line the riverbank and back up onto the hillsides. In the seventies it became a vacation-time mecca for gays, and the same wide-open atmosphere as in San Francisco’s Castro district prevailed, but by the late eighties the AIDS epidemic, a staffing economy, and a succession of disastrous floods had taken away the magic. Now it appeared that Guerneville was bouncing back as an eclectic and bohemian community of hardy folk who are willing to yearly risk cresting flood waters and mud slides. I, the grocery sack, smiled benevolently as we cruised along.
Outside of town the road wound high above the slow-moving river. At the hamlet of Monte Rio, we crossed the bridge and turned down a narrow lane made narrower by encroaching redwoods and vehicles pulled close to the walls of the mainly shabby houses. Neal began squinting at the numbers. “Dammit, why don’t they make them bigger?” he muttered.
I refrained from reminding him that he was overdue for his annual checkup at the optometrist’s.
Shar was the one who spotted the place: a large sagging three-story dirty-white clapboard structure with a parking area out front. The roof was missing a fair number of its shingles, the windows were hopelessly crusted with grime, and one column of the wide front porch leaned alarmingly. On the porch, to each side of the double front door, sat identical green wicker rockers, and in each sat a scowly-looking man. Between them, extending from the door and down the steps, was a series of orange cones such as highway department crews use. A yellow plastic tape strung from cone to cone bore the words DANGER DO NOT CROSS DANGER DO NOT CROSS DANGER DO NOT CROSS…
In as reverent a tone as I’d ever heard him use, Neal said, “Good God, it’s the old Riverside Hotel!”
While staring at it Shar had overshot the parking area. As she drove along looking for a place to turn around she asked, “You know this place?”
“From years ago. Was built as a fancy resort in the twenties. People would come up from the city and spend their entire vacations here. Then in the seventies the original owner’s family sold it to a guy named Tom Atwater, who turned it into a gay hotel. Great restaurant and bar, cottages with individual hot tubs scattered on the grounds leading down to the beach, anything-goes atmosphere.”
“You stayed there?” I asked.
Neal heard the edge in my voice. He turned his head and smiled at me, laugh lines around his eyes crinkling. It amuses and flatters him that I’m jealous of his past. “I had dinner there. Twice.”
Shar turned the MG in a driveway and we coasted back toward the hotel. The men were watching us. Both were probably in their mid fifties, dressed in shorts and t-shirts, but otherwise-except for the scowls-they were total opposites. The one on our left was a scarecrow with a shock of long gray-blond hair; the one our right reminded me of Elmer Fudd, and had just as bald a pate.
When we climbed out of the car-the grocery sack needing a firm tug-Neal called, “I phoned earlier about the jukebox.”
The scarecrow jerked his thumb at Fudd and kept scowling. Fudd arranged his face into more pleasant lines and got up from the rocker.
“I’m Chris Fowler,” he said. “You Neal and Ted?”
“I’m Neal, this is Ted, and that’s Sharon.”
“Come on in, I’ll show you the box.”
“’Come on in, I’ll show you the box’” the scarecrow mimicked in a high nasal whine.
“Jesus!” Chris Fowler exclaimed. He led us through his side of the double front door.
Inside was a reception area that must’ve been magnificent before the oriental carpets faded and the flocked wallpaper became water stained and peeling. In its center stood a mahogany desk backed by an old fashioned pigeonhole arrangement, and wide stairs on either side led up to the second story. The yellow tape continued, from the door to the pigeonhole arrangement, neatly bisecting the room.
Shar stopped and stared at it, frowning. I tugged her arm and shook my head. Sometimes the woman can be so rude. Chris Fowler didn’t notice though, just turned right in to a dimly lighted barroom. “There’s your jukebox,” he said.
A thing of beauty, it was. Granted, a particular acquired-taste kind of beauty – shaped like an enormous trash can of fake blond wood, with two flaring red plastic side panels and a gaudy gilt grille studded with plastic gems. Tiny mirrored squares surrounded the grille, and the whole thing was decked out with enough chrome as a 1950’s Cadillac. I went up to it and touched the coin slot. Five plays for a quarter, two for a dime, one for a nickel. Those were the days.
Instantly I fell in love.
When I looked at Neal, his eyes were sparkling. “Can we play it?” he asked Chris.
“Sure.” He took a nickel from his pocket and dropped it into the slot. Whirrs, clicks, and then mellow tones crooned, “See the pyramids across the Nile…”
Shar shook her head, rolled her eyes, and wandered off to inspect a pinball machine. She despairs of Neal’s and my campy tendencies.
“So what d’you think?” Chris asked.
I said, “Good sound tone.”
Neal said, “The price is kind of steep for us, though.”
Chris said, “I’ll throw in a box of extra 78’s.”
Neal said, “I don’t know…”
And then Shar wandered back over. “What’s with the tape?” she asked Chris. “And what’s with the guy on the other side of it?”
Neal looked as if he wanted to strangle her. I stifled a moan. A model of subtlety, Shar, and right when we were trying to strike a deal.
Chris grimaces. “That’s my partner of many years, Ira Sloan. We’ve agreed to disagree. The tape’s my way of indicating my displeasure with him.”
“Disagree over what?”
“This hotel. We jointly inherited it six months ago from Tom Atwater. Did either of you guys know him?”
I shook my head, but Neal nodded. He said, “I met him.” Grinned at me and added, “Twice.”
“Well,” Chris said, “Tom was an old friend. In fact, he introduced Ira and me, nearly twenty years ago. When he left the place to us we said, ‘What a great way to get out of the city, have our own business in an area that’s experiencing a renaissance.’ So we sold our city house, moved up here, called in the contractors, and got estimates of what it would take to go upscale and reopen. The building’s run down, but the construction’s solid. All it needs outside is a new roof and paint job. The cottages were swept away in the floods, but eventually they can be rebuilt. Inside here, all it would take is redecorating, a new chimney and fireplace in the common room on the other side, and updated kitchen equipment. So then what does my partner decide to do?”