Peter Maravelis - San Francisco Noir

Hunter’s Point

Pilgrim watched as, just outside his bedroom door, Lorene handed Robert fifty dollars and told him she wanted to visit personal with her ex-husband for a spell. Robert was Pilgrim’s nurse. He’d been a wrestler in college-you had to be strong to heft a paralyzed man in and out of bed-and worked sometimes now as a bouncer on his off-hours.

Robert glanced back toward the bedroom for approval and Pilgrim gave his nod. The big man pocketed the money, donned his hat, and walked out the door in his whites, not bothering with his coat despite the cold.

Pilgrim liked that about Robert-his strength, his vigor, his indifference to life’s little bothers. Maybe “liked” wasn’t quite the word. Envied.

He lay back in bed and waited for Lorene to rejoin him. His room was the largest in the cramped, dreary house and bare except for the $20,000 wheelchair gathering dust in the corner, the large-screen TV he was so very tired of watching, an armchair for visitors with a single lamp beside it. And the centerpiece-the mechanical bed, a hospital model, tilted up so he didn’t just lie flat all day.

Lorene took up position bedside and crossed her arms. She was a pretty, short, ample, strong woman. “Don’t make me go off on you.”

Pilgrim tilted his head to see her, eyes glazed. Every ten minutes or so, someone needed to wipe the fluid away. It was a new problem, the tear ducts. Three years now since the accident, reduced to deadweight from the neck down, followed by organs failing, musty skin, powdery hair, his body in a slow but inexorable race with his mind to the grave. He was forty-three years old.

In a scratchy whisper, he said, “I got my eyes and ears out there.”

“Corella?” Their daughter. Corella the Giver , Lorene called her, not kindly.

“You been buying things,” he said.

“Furniture a crime now?”

“Things you can’t afford, not by the wildest stretch-”

“Ain’t your business, Pilgrim. My home, we’re talkin’ about.” She pressed her finger against her breastbone. “Mine.”

Lorene lived in a renovated Queen Anne Victorian in the Excelsior district of San Francisco, hardly an exclusive area but grand next to Hunter’s Point, where Pilgrim remained, living in the same house he’d lived in on a warehouseman’s salary, barely more than a shack.

Pilgrim bought the Excelsior house after his accident, when he came into money through the legal settlement. He was broadsided by a semi when his brakes failed, a design defect on his lightweight pickup. Lorene stood by him till the money came through, then filed for divorce, saying she was still young. She needed a real husband.

Actually, the word she used was “functional.”

The divorce was uglier than some, less so than most. The major compromise concerned the Victorian. He gave her a living estate-it was her residence till she died-but it stayed in his name. He needed that. Lorene would have her lovers, the men would come and go, but he’d still have that cord, connecting them-his love, her guilt. His money, her wants.

He got $12,000 a month from the annuity the truck manufacturer set up. Half of that went to pay Lorene’s mortgage, the rest got eaten up by medical bills, twenty-four-hour care, medicine, food, utilities. He had no choice but to stay here in this ugly, decrepit, shameful house.

“Know your problem, Pilgrim? You don’t get out. Dust off that damn wheelchair and-”

“Catch pneumonia.”

“Wrap your damn self up.”

“Who is he, Lorene?”

She cocked her head. “Who you mean?”

“The man in the house I pay for.”

Lorene put her hands on her hips and rocked a little, back and forth. “No. No, Pilgrim. You and me, we got an understanding. I don’t know what Corella’s been saying-”

“I know you got men. That’s not the point here. You take this one in?”

“You got no say, Pilgrim.”

“Even folks at Corella’s church know about him. Reverend Williams , he calls himself. Slick as a frog’s ass.”

“I ain’t listening to this.”

“All AIDS this and Africa that. But he’s running from trouble in Florida somewhere, down around Tampa.”

“That’s church gossip, Pilgrim. Raymont never even been to Tampa.”

“Now you spending money hand over fist. That where it’s coming from, Lorene? Phony charity, pass the basket? Raymont ? No. That wouldn’t pay the freight, way I hear you redone that house. What you up to, Lorene? You know I’ll find out.”

Finally, fear darkened her eyes. He wanted to ask her: What do you expect? Take away a man’s body, he still has his heart. Mess with his heart, though, there’s nothing left but the hate. And the hate builds.

“Pilgrim, you do me an injustice when you make accusations like that.” The words came out with a sad, lukewarm pity. She sighed, slipped off her shoes, motored the bed down till he lay flat, then climbed on, straddling him. “This what you after? Then say so.” She took a Kleenex from the box on the bed and wiped his puddled eyes, then stroked his face with her fingers, her skin cool against his. She cupped his cheek in her palm and leaned down to kiss him. “Why do you doubt my feelings, Pilgrim?”

“Send him away, Lorene.”

“Pilgrim, you gotta let-”

“I’ll forgive everything-I don’t care what you’ve done to get the money or how much it is-but you gotta send him away. For good.”

Lorene got down off the bed, slipped her shoes back on, and straightened her skirt. “One of these days, Pilgrim-before you die-you’re gonna have to accept that I’m not to blame for what happened to you. And what you want from me, and what I’m able to give, are two entirely different things.”

Robert returned to find Lorene gone. How long she leave Mr. Baxter alone? he wondered, chastising himself. He checked his watch, barely half an hour since he’d left but that was plenty of time to have an accident. And he ain’t gonna blame her, hell no. That witch got the man’s paralyzed dick wrapped around her little finger tight as a yo-yo. He’s gonna lay blame on me.

That was pretty much the routine between them. Bitch rant scream, beg snivel thank. Return to beginning and start again. Even so, Robert knew he had the makings of a good thing here. He didn’t want it jeopardized. Mr. Baxter wasn’t long for this life, every day something else went wrong, more and more, faster and faster. The man relied on Robert for all those sad, pathetic, humiliating little tasks no one else would bother with. If Robert played it right, made himself trusted and dependable-the final friend-there could be a little something on the back end worth waiting for.

Everybody working in-home care knew a story. One woman Robert knew personally had tended an old man down in Hillsborough, famously wealthy, and he scribbled on a napkin two days before he passed that she was to get $40,000 from his estate. The family fought it, of course-they were already inheriting millions, but that’s white people for you-claiming she’d had undue influence over his weakened mind. The point was, though, it can happen. Long as you don’t let the family hoodwink you.

Venturing into the bedroom doorway, Robert discovered Pilgrim trembling. His breathing was ragged.

“Mr. Baxter, you all right?” Edging closer, he saw more tears streaking down the older man’s face than leakage could explain. “Good Lord, Mr. Baxter? What did that woman do?” Pilgrim hissed, “Call my lawyer.”

Marguerite Johnstone had gone to law school to escape Hunter’s Point but still had clients in the neighborhood-wills and trusts, conservatorships, probate contests, for those who could afford them. She sat parked at the curb outside Pilgrim’s house, waiting a moment behind the wheel, checking to make sure she had the address right.