“Now,” Grimmelman said.
Ferde Heinke, leaning from the window of the Plymouth, sprayed paint on the green fender of the Buick, spelling out: FUCK YOU
“Okay,” he said, finishing. “Let’s go.”
Art lay back against the seat as the Plymouth shot forward. His heart was not in it, and he began to think about Rachael. Behind them, the Bactrians were rushing out of Dodo’s and into their Buick. But he did not care.
“Stop,” Grimmelman ordered Joe. “Around the corner, like before.”
The Plymouth screeched around the corner, passed the parked Horch, and came to a stop. At the drive-in, the Bactrians were starting up their Buick. As the Buick left the curb, Gnimmelman propelled the Horch from its parking place out into traffic, into the path of the Buick.
“Lily-whiters—” the Horch’s speaker boomed at the Buick as the Buick swerved past it, trying to get around it. Now the Horch blocked the side street and prevented the Buick from turning; the Buick went on past with the Horch following.
Joe Mantila backed the Plymouth onto Fillmore and followed after the Horch; ahead of the Horch the Buick snaked from side to side as the Bactrians stuck their heads out and peered back, bewildered.
“Lily-whiters!” the Horch’s speaker thundered, a gross and magnified voice directly behind them. They could easily see that nobody was at the wheel; the Horch was frighteningly empty.
“Speed it up,” Ferde said to Grimmelman.
The Horch gained on the Buick and slammed against its rear bumper. The Bactrians, in panic, spun around a corner and vanished; they had given up. The encounter was over.
“Okay,” Gnimmelman said, “That’s enough.”
Joe Mantila halted the Plymouth in a driveway as Grimmelman turned the Horch in a ponderous U-turn. Presently they were following it back in the direction they had come.
“What’s the matter?” Ferde Heinke said to Art, digging him in the ribs.
“Nothing.” He felt glum. For the first time he had failed to enjoy an encounter. Grimmelman said, “He wants to go home.”
“That’s right,” he said. An uncomfortable silence fell over them. “Maybe next time,” Art said. “I got a lot of worries this week.” Both Joe Mantila and Ferde Heinke were glancing at him apprehensively. But Grimmelman ignored him; he concentrated on the task of directing the Horch. “Christ,” Art said, “It’s not my fault; I got a lot of responsibilities.” His apology went unanswered.
8
That Saturday night Jim Briskin was across the Bay in Berkeley, at his mother’s home on Spruce Street. With his key—he still kept a key to the white concrete house in which he had been born—he unlocked the basement door and began sorting among the stacks of boxes piled by the pipes of the furnace. The cement floor under his feet was cold. Spiderwebs had spread over the jars and bottles along the window sills. At the far end of the basement was a combination washer−drier, and that was new; he did not remember that.
Among the clothes and magazines and furniture, he found the camping equipment. First he carried the Coleman stove and lamp to his car, parked in the driveway, and then he gathered up the tent and took that, too. While he was inspecting the air mattresses, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and the stairs lights came on.
“It’s me,” he said, as his mother appeared.
“I saw your car,” Mrs. Briskin said. “What a surprise. Weren’t you going to say hello? Were you just going to come and pick up what you wanted and then leave?” With her hand on the stair railing, she descended, a short gray-haired woman, wearing a housecoat and slippers. He had not seen his mother in two or three years, and as far as be could tell she looked exactly the same; she was no more infirm or stooped or halting. She was as vigilant as always.
He said, “I thought I’d take a camping trip.”
“Come upstairs and say hello while you’re here. There’s some rolled roast left over from dinner. I read in the newspaper about your, quitting your job at the station. Does that mean you’ll be moving back here again to this side of the Bay?”
“I didn’t quit my job,” he said. He loaded the tent and the air mattresses and sleeping bags into the back of his car.
“Is she still working there?” his mother asked. “If you want my opinion, you’re a whole lot better off away from there, if for no other reason than because of her. As long as you’re both working around each other, you’re not really free of her.”
After he had closed up the car, he went upstairs with his mother and had a cup of coffee in the long living room with its carpeted floors and picture window overlooking the Bay, its lamps and piano and prints on the walls. The living room was the same, except that the fir trees by the window had grown taller. In the evening darkness the trees blew and rustled.
Seeing the living room again reminded him of his first year of marriage, the year in which he had tried to get Patricia and his mother to come to some kind of terms. Pat, with her preoccupations, had been unaware of Mrs. Briskin, and his mother had responded with hostility. His mother could never accept a daughter-in-law who was not “respectful.” As far as he could tell, Patricia had no opinions about his mother; she enjoyed the house, its size and sturdiness, the large rooms and the view of the Bay, and especially the garden. Patricia entered the house as if she were alone in it. The house was “where he had grown up,” and during the summer she liked to spend time out in the backyard, in one of the canvas lawn chairs, sunbathing and listening to the radio and reading and drinking beer.
Patricia had one day come indoors in her bathing suit and thrown herself down to have a long talk with his mother. The marriage was already coming apart, and Pat had a lot to talk about. With her was a bottle of Riesling. Lying on the floor, on the rug, in her bathing suit, she drank and talked, while his mother—as the old woman related it—sat stiffly in a chair in the corner, disapproving and unsympathetic. Pat’s erratic sorrow had gone on and on until finally the afternoon was over, and still she lay on the floor, the Riesling was gone, and she was either sound asleep or had completely passed out. His mother had telephoned him, and he had come and gotten her, he found her still in her bathing suit, at seven o’clock in the evening, still on the living room floor. On the trip back across the Bay to their apartment in San Francisco, she had mumbled, and it had seemed funny to him; he could not work up the indignation his mother felt. The scene was the last between Patricia and his mother. As far as he could tell, Patricia remembered almost nothing of it. She thought that she had gone to sleep in the garden, by herself.
“What about this camping trip?” his mother asked, seated across from him. “How long do you expect to be gone?”
“I just want to get away,” he said.
“You’re going by yourself? I noticed you took both the sleeping bags.” His mother went on to recall the camping trips he had made with his father, the excursions up to the Sierras. She did not mention the trips which he and Pat had made together.
“I have to go somewhere,” he said, interrupting. “I have to do something.” His mother said, “I wish you could meet some nice girl.”
He thanked his mother for the coffee and drove back across the Bay to San Francisco. Parked before his apartment house, he opened the glove compartment and brought out all the road maps. But he was not going on a camping trip; he had already given up the idea.
Putting the maps away, he drove in the direction of the station.
An hour later, in a back room at station KOIF, Jim Briskin sat sorting through the station’s record library. On the floor was a carton half filled with albums he was taking; beside it was the carton he had brought back. On the table were his personal items, his bottle of Anacin, nose-drops, a hat he wore on rainy days, pencils and pens, letters he had saved that had arrived over the years, and odds and ends that he had stuck away in the desk at which he worked. Nothing, in all, of particular value.