‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I’ve never been on an aeroplane. I’ve gone out there with friends who were going on aeroplanes, but that was years ago. Have the aeroplanes changed any?’
‘Oh, honey,’ she said. ‘When we’re through with all this, I’ve got to get you out of that library. I think you’ve been there long enough. They’ll have to get somebody else.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, trying to drop the subject. I saw a Negro woman pushing an empty Safeway grocery cart on Oak Street. The traffic was very good all around us. It frightened me and excited me at the same time. We were headed for the freeway.
‘By the way,’ Vida said. ‘Who do you work for?’
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘I mean, who pays the bills for your library?’ she said. ‘The money that it takes to run the place? The tab.’
‘We don’t know,’ I said, pretending that was the answer to the question.
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’ Vida said. It hadn’t worked.
‘They send Foster a cheque from time to time. He never knows when it’s coming or how much it will be. Sometimes they don’t send us enough.’
‘They?’ she said, keeping right on it.
We stopped for a red light. I tried to find something to look at. I didn’t like talking about the financial structure of the library. I didn’t like to think in terms of the library and money together. All I saw was a Negro man delivering papers from still another cart.
‘Who are you talking about?’ Vida said. ‘Who picks up the tab?’
‘It’s a foundation. We don’t know who’s behind it.’
‘What’s the name of the foundation? Vida said.
I guess that wasn’t enough.
‘The American Forever, Etc.’
‘The American Forever, Etc,’ Vida said. ‘Wow! That sounds like a tax dodge. I think your library is a tax write-off.’
Vida was now smiling.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘All I know is that I have to be there. It’s my job. I have to be there.’
‘Honey, I think you’ve got to get some new work. There must be something else that you can do.’
‘There are a lot of things I can do,’ I said, a little defensively.
Just then we slammed on to the freeway and my stomach flew into birds with snakes curling at their wings and we joined the mainstream of American motor thought.
It was frightening after so many years. I felt like a dinosaur plucked from my grave and thrust into competition with the freeway and its metallic fruit.
‘If you don’t want to work, honey,’ Vida said, ‘I think I can take care of us until you feel like it, but you’ve got to get out of that library as soon as possible. It’s not the right place for you any more.’
I looked out the window and saw a sign with a chicken holding a gigantic egg.
‘I’ve got other things on my mind right now,’ I said, trying to get away. ‘Let’s talk about it in a few days.’
‘You’re not worried about the abortion are you, honey?’ Vida said. ‘Please don’t be. I have perfect faith in Foster and his doctor. Besides, my sister had an abortion last year in Sacramento and she went to work the next day. She felt a little tired but that was all, so don’t worry. An abortion is a rather simple thing.’
I turned and looked at Vida. She was staring straight ahead after saying that, watching the traffic in front of us as we roared out of San Francisco down the freeway past Potrero Hill and towards the aeroplane that waited to fly us at 8.15 down California to land in San Diego at 9.45.
‘Maybe when we get back we can go live at the caves for a while,’ Vida said. ‘It’ll be spring soon. They should be pretty.’
‘Seepage,’ I said.
‘What?’ Vida said. ‘I didn’t hear you. I was watching that Chevrolet up there to see what it was going to do. What did you say now, honey?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Anyway,’ she said. ‘We’ve got to get you out of that library. Maybe the best thing would be just to give the whole thing up, forget the caves and start someplace new together. Maybe we can go to New York or we’ll move to Mill Valley or get an apartment on Bernal Heights or I’ll go back to UC and get my degree and we’ll get a little place in Berkeley. It’s nice over there. You’d be a hero.’
Vida seemed to be more interested in getting me out of the library than worrying about the abortion.
‘The library is my life,’ I said. ‘I d0n’t know what I’d do without it.’
‘We’re going to fix you up with a new life,’ Vida said.
I looked down the freeway to where the San Francisco International Airport waited, looking almost medieval in the early morning like a castle of speed on the entrails of space.
The San Francisco International Airport
Vida parked the van near the Benny Bufano statue of Peace that waited for us towering above the cars like a giant bullet. The statue looked at rest in that sea of metal. It is a steel thing with gentle mosaic and marble people on it. They were trying to tell us something. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to listen.
‘Well, here we are,’ Vida said.
‘Yeah.’
I got our bag and we left the van there quite early in the morning, planning, if everything went well, to pick it up that evening.
The van looked kind of lonesome like a buffalo next to the other cars.
We walked over to the terminal. It was filled with hundreds of people coming and, going on aeroplanes. The air was hung with nets of travelling excitement and people were entangled within them and we became a part of the catch.
The San Francisco International Airport Terminal is gigantic, escalator-like, marble-like, cybernetic-like and wants to perform a thing for us that we don’t know if we’re quite ready for yet. It is also very Playboy.
We went over — over being very large — and got our tickets from the Pacific Southwest Airlines booth. There was a young man and woman there. They were beautiful and efficient. The girl looked as if she would look good without any clothes on. She did not like Vida. They both had pins with half-wings on their chests like amputated hawks. I put our tickets in my pocket.
Then I had to go to the toilet.
‘Wait here for me, honey,’ I said.
The toilet was so elegant that I felt as if I should have been wearing a tuxedo to take a leak.
Three men made passes at Vida while I was gone. One of them wanted to marry her.
We had forty-five minutes or so before our aeroplane left for San Diego, so we went and got a cup of coffee. It was so strange to be among people again. I had forgotten how complex they were in large units.
Everybody was of course looking at Vida. I had never seen a girl attract so much attention before. It was just as she said it would be: plus so.
A young handsome man in a yellow coat like a God-damn maitre d’ showed us to a table that was next to a plant with large green leaves. He was extremely interested in Vida, though he tried not to be obvious about it.
The basic theme of the restaurant was red and yellow with a surprising number of young people and the loud clatter of dishes. I had forgotten that dishes could be that noisy.
I looked at the menu, even though I wasn’t hungry. It had been years since I had looked at a menu. The menu said good morning to me and I said good morning back to the menu. We could actually end our lives talking to menus.
Every man in the restaurant had been instantly alerted to Vida’s beauty and the women, too, in a jealous sort of way. There was a green aura about the women.