Lucia Berlin - A Manual for Cleaning Women - Selected Stories

This must be the healthiest town in the country. There is no drinking at frat parties or football games. No one smokes or eats red meat or glazed doughnuts. You can walk alone at night, leave your doors unlocked. There are no gangs here and no racism. There aren’t many races, actually.

That dumb 502. All these memories came flooding into my head, in spite of the breathing. The first day of my job at U—, the Safeway problem, the incident at San Anselmo, the scene with A—.

Everything is fine now. I love my job and the people I work with. I have good friends. I live in a beautiful apartment just beneath Mount Sanitas. Today a western tanager sat on a branch in my backyard. My cat Cosmo was asleep in the sun so he didn’t chase it. I am deeply grateful for my life today.

So God forgive me if I confess that once in a while I get a diabolical urge to, well, mess it all up. I can’t believe I’d even have this thought, after all those years of misery. Officer Wong either taking me to jail or to detox.

The Polite One, we all called Wong. We called all the other ones pigs, which would never have applied to Officer Wong, who was very nice, really. Methodical and formal. There were never any of the usual physical interchanges between you and him like with the others. He never slammed you against the car or twisted the cuffs into your wrist. You stood there for hours as he painstakingly wrote up his ticket and read you your rights. When he cuffed you he said, “Permit me,” and “Watch your head” when you got into the car.

He was diligent and honest, an exceptional member of the Oakland police force. We were lucky to have him in our neighborhood. I am really sorry now about that one incident. One of the steps of AA is to make amends with people you have wronged. I think I have made most of the amends I could. I owe Officer Wong one. I wronged Wong for sure.

Back then I lived in Oakland, in that big turquoise apartment on the corner of Alcatraz and Telegraph. Right above Alcatel Liquors, just down from the White Horse, across the street from the 7-Eleven. Good location.

The 7-Eleven was sort of a gathering place for old winos. Although, unlike them, I went to work every day, they ran into me in liquor stores on weekends. Lines at the Black and White that opened at six a.m. Late-night haggling with the Pakistani sadist who worked at the 7-Eleven.

They were all friendly with me. “How ya been, Miss Lu?” Sometimes they asked me for money, which I always gave them, and several times when I had lost my job, I asked them. The group of them changed as they went to jails, hospitals, death. The regulars were Ace, Mo, Little Ripple, and The Champ. These four old black guys would spend their mornings at the 7-Eleven and their afternoons snoozing or drinking in a faded aqua Chevrolet Corvair parked in Ace’s yard. His wife Clara wouldn’t let them smoke or drink in the house. Winter and summer, rain or shine, the four would be in that car. Sleeping like little kids on car trips, heads on folded hands, or looking straight ahead as if they were on a Sunday drive, commenting on everybody who drove or walked by, passing around a bottle of port.

When I’d come up the street from the bus stop I’d holler out, “How’s it going?” “Jes’ fine!” Mo would say. “I got my wine!” And Ace would say, “I feel so well, got my muscatel!” They’d ask about my boss, that fool Dr. B.

“Just quit that ol’ job! Get yourself on SSI where you belong! You come sit with us, sister, pass the time in comfort, don’t need no job!”

Once Mo said I didn’t look so good, maybe I needed detox.

“Detox?” The Champ scoffed. “Never detox. Retox! That’s the ticket!”

The Champ was short and fat, wore a shiny blue suit, a clean white shirt, and a porkpie hat. He had a gold watch with a chain and he always had a cigar. The other three all wore plaid shirts, overalls, and A’s baseball hats.

One Friday I didn’t go to work. I must have been drinking the night before. I don’t know where I had gone in the morning, but I remember coming back and that I had a bottle of Jim Beam. I parked my car behind a van across the street from my building. I went upstairs and fell asleep. I woke to loud knocking on my door.

“Open your door, Ms. Moran. This is Officer Wong.”

I stashed the bottle in the bookcase and opened the door. “Hello, Officer Wong. How can I help you?”

“Do you own a Mazda 626?”

“You know I do, sir.”

“Where is that car, Ms. Moran?”

“Well, it’s not in here.”

“Where did you park the vehicle?”

“Up across from the church.” I couldn’t remember.

“Think again.”

“I can’t remember.”

“Look out the window. What do you see?”

“Nothing. The 7-Eleven. Telephones. Gas tanks.”

“Any parking places?”

“Yeah. Amazing. Two of them! Oh. I parked it there, behind a van.”

“You left the car in neutral, without the parking brake on. When the van left, your vehicle followed it down Alcatraz during rush-hour traffic, proceeded to cross into the other lane, narrowly missing cars, and sped down the sidewalk, almost harming a man, his wife, and a baby in a stroller.”

“Well. Then what?”

“I’m taking you to see then what. Come along.”

“I’ll be right out. I want to wash my face.”

“I’ll stay right here.”

“Please. Some privacy, sir. Wait outside the door.”

I took a big drink of whiskey. Brushed my teeth and combed my hair.

We walked silently down the street. Two long blocks. Damn.

“If you think about it, it’s pretty miraculous that my Mazda didn’t hit anything or hurt anybody. Don’t you think so, Officer Wong? A miracle!”

“Well, it did hit something. It is a miracle that none of the gentlemen were in the car at the time. They got out to watch your Mazda coming down the street.”

My car was nuzzled into the right fender of the Chevy Corvair. The four men were standing there, shaking their heads. Champ puffed on his cigar.

“Thank the Lord you wasn’t in it, sister,” Mo said. “First thing I did, I opened the door and said, ‘Where she be?’”

There was a big dent in the fender and the door of the Chevrolet. My car had a broken bumper and headlight, broken turn-signal light.

Ace was still shaking his head. “Hope you got insurance, Miz Lucille. I got me one classic car here what has some serious damage.”

“Don’t worry, Ace. I got insurance. You bring me an estimate as soon as you can.”

The Champ spoke to the others quietly. They tried not to smile but it didn’t work. Ace said, “Just sittin’ here minding our own business and look what happens! Praise the Lord!”

Officer Wong was writing down my license plate numbers and Ace’s license plate numbers.

“Does that car have a motor in it?” he asked Ace.

“This here car is a museum piece. Vintage model. Don’t need no motor.”

“Well, guess I’ll try to back out of here without running into anybody,” I said.

“Not so fast, Ms. Moran,” Officer Wong said. “I need to write up a citation.”

“A citation? Shame on you, Officer!”

“You can’t be writing this lady no ticket. She was asleep at the time of the incident!”

The old guys were crowding around him, making him nervous.

“Well,” he sputtered, “she’s guilty of reckless … reckless…”

“Can’t be reckless driving. She wasn’t driving the car!”

He was trying to think. They were muttering and grumbling. “Shame. Shameful. Innocent taxpayers. Poor thing, on her own and all.”

“I definitely smell alcohol,” Officer Wong said.

“That’s me!” all four of them said at once, exhaling.

“No sir,” Champ said. “If you ain’t doing the D you can’t get the DWI!”