The Truth About Friction
©2001 Jane Freeman

Lately every conversation escalates into a quarrel. Just exchanging information is like pushing a grocery cart with a stuck wheel. At first I thought it was because of our new computer. He is both frustrated and energized by it. He spends more time on line and also wants to tell me about what's working and not working on it. I don't always want to listen.
Just now he explained in detail what was possible with the photos on our 50th Anniversary website. How we could enlarge them, crop them, print them on photo paper. I suggested that we send the website address to some of the people in our E-mail address book, who were at our party. He looked at me as if I had suggested flying to Mars.
"Why would we do that?"
"Why not?" I said.
"Who would want them?"
"The people who were at the party would want them. Especially if there are photos of their children and grandchildren."
"I assumed that Daniel gave everyone the website." Daniel is our
grandson, the webmeister.
"I wouldn't take that for granted. We' ll have to ask him," I said.

If the computer isn't behind our mini arguments, it could be the low grade infection he's had. He was coughing because his throat was easily irritated, he said. The cough was neither dry nor moist and it didn't come with a head or chest cold. He'd just start a jag of coughing. Finally I got him to see the doctor where it was diagnosed as a virus and he got a codeine cough suppressant. He is much quieter now.

Or maybe he's annoyed because of the hubcap that flew off our car when he hit a pothole on Hegenberger Road. No one expected him to stop then and get it, but I knew he'd be happy as a clam to forget about replacing it. He doesn't care, but I do. Today he visited two car part lots. One was incredibly disorganized with parts of all kinds littering the ground. The other was organized so that the owner knew immediately whether he had an item or not. Neither place had our particular hubcap. But he learned about the hubcap 'bible' where every hubcap is pictured and numbered. He also learned that tire size is the size of the wheel rim, not the hubcap itself. With the correct information, he called a third salvage place, and glory be, they had one. However, the owner said his wife is due to give birth and suggested phoning before traveling to Castro Valley. My hopes are rising. How lucky to locate a hubcap for a 1990 Plymouth van which had four different styles that year. I should add that neither a $100 dealer ordered hubcap, nor a tinny set of new hubs from Kragen, are options right now.

I've just read him everything I've written, as he was nuking part of our dinner. He laughed really hard. Then he said, "That's an invasion of privacy." Besides trips to parts places in the rain, he drove to Merritt and bought me The Truth About Fiction. "It's a zoo at that bookstore," he told me. "And they don't let anyone go into the stacks to locate their own books. Can you believe that?" He had to wait in a long line.

I did my own errands in the rain today. I went to the copy place, dropped off film and met with my reading partners at the Piedmont Avenue School. I think again about all those conversations cum arguments. What would my life be without him?

The Nightmare
©2001 Dorothy Golubin

I.
The conditions in Johns and Mary's lives hadn't improved. They had only worsened after the incident with the cold pizza. John continued to get drunk too often and was even more mean and violent.

Mary hated to go home after work. She worked the swing shift and would start to get a belly ache around 10:00 p.m. She would start to cry at the smallest provocation. For instance, John used Mary's car and was supposed to pick her up after work. She stood in front of her work place, waiting for 45 minutes for him until she finally took a cab to his favorite bar where she found him dancing away. "Hello Mary," was all he would say as he continued to dance with all the ladies, ages 17 to 75.

Mary would sit down and order a drink and usually one of John's friends would sit next to her. John would come over and whisper in Mary's ear, "Get rid of him or else. You know I don't like anyone talking to you." Mary had to tell the fellow, "My husband doesn't like anyone talking to me." The man would move.

When Mary and John got home there were the usual arguments, with John screaming. Mary would take off running as soon as John left the room (she learned quickly). She would run to the neighbor's house and from there take a cab to her sister's house or to her girlfriend Gloria's house.

One night after one of these incidents, Mary went to her sister Anna's house. Anna live in a two-story Mediterranean-style home where you could look out of the second-story window and see the front door. Fred, Anna's husband, was still working when Anna and Mary hear the front doorbell ring. Anna grabbed her pistol and they ran upstairs and looked out the window to see who was there. It was John, and he looked very angry as he rang the bell over and over.

Anna was a small person like Mary, 5 foot 1, with dark hair, a size 7-but unlike Mary she wasn't afraid of anyone. Anna asked John, "What do you want, John?" John yelled back, "I want Mary, now!" Anna very quietly said, "John get away from my door or I'll blow your blasted head off." With this, John got back into his car and took off.

Mary asked Anna, "Would you have shot him?"
"Sure," Anna said, "I would have dragged his body over the doorstep and claimed he was a prowler."

II.
One morning after having spent the night at her girlfriend, Gloria's house, Mary was driving Gloria to work. Gloria was a secretary at the State Building in downtown Oakland. Gloria, her face looking concerned, asked Mary, "What are you going to do with your life, Mary? You can't continue like this. You are either going to get seriously injured or killed, or you are going to do the same to John."

Mary, her face pale and her brows drawn together, looking like she would cry at any moment, said, "What can I do?"

Gloria said, "Get a divorce."
"I can't afford a divorce," Mary told her. "I haven't been working at this job long enough."
Gloria, her long dark hair shaking as she spoke and her dark eyes blazing, said, "Get a do-it-yourself divorce. I'll help you fill out the papers. They have them in Berkeley."

When Gloria said this, Mary's face lit up. She smiled and yelled, "Great!" They drove directly to Berkeley, got the papers, and Gloria helped Mary fill them out.

With a do-it-yourself divorce there couldn't be any conflict. Everything had to be settled before the court date. The only way Mary could get John out of her house was to buy him out. They split the savings and checking accounts. This had been her home before they got married, so no problem there.

John was happy with the settlement at first. He had all this money to party on (this was what he lived for). He signed all of the necessary papers.

After John spent the money, it was a different story. He started to harass Mary. He would call her on the job and threaten to burn her house down. Mary had to have a guard escort her to her car after work. He would call her home and threaten to burn it down with her and her daughter and granddaughter in it.

The went on for quite a while. Mary was ashamed to tell her brothers about it. She had never told them about the arguments and the beatings.

Mary had two brothers. They were both ex-boxers. One was now a professor and the other worked at the shipyard. They weren't very tall, about five six, but both still ran daily and worked out.

Brother Bill, the professor, finally heard about the harassment from brother Fred, the shipyard worker. Bill called John at his local bar one night and asked him if they couldn't amicably settle whatever was bothering him. John, drunk as usual, said, "Hell no. I'm still going to burn Mary's house down with her, her daughter and granddaughter in it."

That settled it for Bill. He called Mary and asked her, "What's been happening? Why didn't you let us know?" Mary, crying, told him about John waiting for her after work, at home in the driveway, trying to break into her car and having to pull out of the driveway to go someplace else and stay until he left. She also told him about the different violent things he did.

Bill said, "This is enough. We'll go looking for him tomorrow. I'll be by your house around noon with Fred. We're going to settle this once and for all."

Bill and Fred came by to pick Mary up the next day so they could go looking for John. It was a rainy, dreary day. Fred said "I want to street fight him, " but Bill said, "No, I don't want any cops involved. It'll mess up my job. Whoever sees him first will take care of him."

Mary directed them to the different bars where John usually hung out. They could not find him. Finally, as they were driving home on MacArthur Boulevard, Mary recognized the name of the bar Mary's friend, Linda, told her John was frequenting. Mary yelled, "I heard this is a new place John has been going to."
Bill parked the car quickly and Mary, who had John's state income tax check in her hand, hopped out. Mary was scared. She was shaking, but she walked into the bar and saw John sitting there. She said, "John, I have something for you." She then showed him the envelope and walked out. He saw the yellow envelope and recognized it, "State Return." John followed Mary out of the bar. He was a big fellow, five feet eleven inches tall and weighed 180 pounds. He saw Bill and Fred outside waiting for him. He rushed over to Bill, smiling with a hand out to shake Bill's hand. All Bill could think of was John saying he was going to burn Mary's house down with her in it. He saw red. His blood pressure went up.

Bill only weighed about 139 pounds, but he could really punch. He swung at big John and hit him so hard he knocked him off his feet. Mary was waiting for Bill to beat John up, but the bartender came out behind Bill and locked his arms behind him. He had called the cops and when they arrived they called and checked and saw that Mary had a restraining order against John. They warned him to stay away from her at home and on the job or they would haul him in. They didn't do anything to Mary's brothers.

Mary thought her bad nightmare of two and a half years was over, that she could relax and begin to live again, but it took John's selling his new girlfriend's car to three different people-a private detective, a good friend of his (Linda's husband), and a Hell's Angel-for John to finally disappear.

The Water Heater
©2001 Dorothy Golubin
(for my daughter, Pamela, who asked me to tell her this)

My cousin Penny, a tall, pretty brunette, and I were going to a fashion show in the city of San Francisco. I was all excited; I hadn't been anywhere in a long time. I had just given birth to a baby girl named Pamela. She was about six weeks old, a little, tiny pink doll. I was about 21 years old.

Before he went to work, my husband, Frank, brought me into Oakland from Richmond, where we lived. My younger brother Floyd, about 15 years old was going to baby sit for me at my dad's house, a big, old Victorian in East Oakland.

We brought our baby's bassinet in with us and put it in the kitchen near the water heater. My dad didn't believe in putting the furnace on (too expensive). To warm the kitchen, he would light all the burners on the stove, turn on the oven and close off the rest of the house. Penny and I kept telling Papa that we smelled gas in the kitchen, but he didn't believe us. He would just shush us up and said it was our imagination.

I was getting ready to leave the house and decided to check my baby again. When I picked her up to burp her, I noticed her color had changed; she was turning blue and hear head just rolled. I screamed! Penny came running in. There was a Fire Department about a half a block away and Penny drove us there. The firemen applied oxygen to the baby's lungs and it seemed like she was all right, so we took her back home, but then she started to turn blue again. Well, we rushed her back to the Fire Department and they drove us-sirens wailing-to Highland Hospital, applying oxygen all the way. We were at the hospital for several hours, waiting for my baby while they worked on her in the Emergency Ward.

Needless to say, we did not go to a fashion show that day. We went straight home and Papa finally believed us and fixed the water heater.

Walt
©2001 Joy Lucadello Luster

Walt Staples didn't think of himself as difficult. For that matter he didn't think of himself as old, either. He was only sixty-five, still working at the bank, still bowling every Thursday night. In fact, last week he had scored a 265 game that had everyone on his team cheering. But this wasn't turning out to be a good morning. His wife of forty years, Annie, had forgotten to buy milk so he couldn't enjoy his regular oatmeal for breakfast. He pulled some wheat bread from the wrapper, put it into the toaster, and then poured a mug full of steaming coffee from the pot sitting on the counter near the microwave oven. Later, he smeared margarine and apricot jam on top of the toast and ate in a desultory fashion. The paper had not arrived. He'd have to wait to read that until he came home in the evening. He liked his set routine. That's what got one off to a good start, he always said. It was not a good thing when the routine was upset, particularly on a morning when he already had a headache. He'd have to sort out the milk problem with Annie later. And, he thought to himself irritably, why was Annie stripping the bed and starting the washing machine at this ungodly hour? Oh, the energy thing, he realized. Nothing was the same, not even the time of day a person could run the washing machine.
He'd looked briefly at the Today Show coming from the small TV set that sat on the breakfast nook table. More national and world problems and they hadn't even gotten around to discussing California yet! Maybe they were boycotting the entire energy crisis. Things sure weren't how they used to be. He sighed as rose from the alcove bench, then went and combed his sandy gray hair in the bathroom mirror, and took his suit coat from the closet.
"Annie, I'm leaving." Walt called as he closed the front door of their modest Sunset District home. He grunted with satisfaction to see that the lone hydrangea bush that filled the postage stamp piece of earth in front of his blue trimmed white stucco was just about to bloom. Shivering, he turned up his collar as he walked along the fog-drenched street past the neat homes that lined the avenue. The outer Sunset had really changed during the forty years they had lived there. He missed Al and Lorraine who had lived in the house next door for over thirty years. He recalled that they had sold the house for an outrageous profit, and moved to Placerville after Al had retired three years ago. In the old days, he and Al used to have a beer or two in one of the backyards on Saturday afternoons. Walt and Annie hadn't decided what they were going to do when he retired. They'd have to sort that out someday soon. Their two grown and married children lived down the Peninsula ­ a son in Menlo Park, and the daughter in San Mateo.
Now their neighbors were a young Oriental couple with two noisy children - Thai or Cambodian or something - he could never remember which. He mentally corrected himself. "I'm supposed to say Asian, not Oriental." The bank was always harping on correct usage among the staff. When he had first started, as a teller in the '50's, the entire staff was white. In those days you didn't have to worry about which words you used.
At Noriega, he turned the corner and walked along past the Vietnamese restaurant, the New Shanghai dry cleaners, the Asian grocery store, Ace Hardware, and the Chinese restaurant where he and Annie ate about once a week. He had given up driving to work during the past few years. The traffic and the parking were just about impossible. Anyway, Annie liked to be able to visit and shop around the area without worrying about getting mugged. He struggled up the hill until he reached Nineteenth Avenue where he would catch the bus that would take him downtown to the financial district.
The Plexiglas covered bus shelter was full so he leaned against the side, careful to avoid the tall black woman who was already standing there. Not that he was prejudiced, he told himself. He just didn't know people like that. These days it wasn't just at work at the bank, but even here in the neighborhood that the place was full of Orien - no, Asians - blacks, Filipinos and who knows what else. Over in the Mission where he'd grown up, the population had changed to all Latino from the thirties and forties when it was mainly Irish Catholic, some Italians, and some other regular Americans. A person could go over there today and not even hear one word of English being spoken. Why go traveling when all you had to do was look around town? It was as if an invasion of foreigners had occurred during a time while he was busy and hadn't noticed, changing the neighborhoods, talking new languages out in the streets, and invading his nostrils with the smells of their strange foods. Now he'd heard from a loan officer that the yuppies were buying in the Mission. He didn't expect it would change for the better, things usually didn't.
His eyes avoided meeting those of the young man with the purple punk haircut and the earring, and Walt just glanced at the strange baggy pants and loose clothing of the high school students. They made him uncomfortable. They jostled each other and laughed using words he didn't quite understand. It was like when he was a child, his parents had taken him to meet some Danish immigrant cousins. They spoke in a strange language he did not know. They joked and had shot glances toward him that made him assume they had been discussing him and laughing at him. The teenagers talk here on the street corner made him feel much the same way.
Walt wiped the perspiration from his forehead. Christ! It was a cold day. Why was he sweating? His arm was hurting. Since he'd first awakened earlier with a headache, he'd been in a seeming maelstrom of happenings beyond his control. For that matter, his entire life was spinning beyond his control. He'd adjusted to being passed over for promotion again at the bank last year, but yesterday Mr. Evans had asked when he would set a retirement date.
"What a lousy day," he thought to himself. His head felt strange, and he wondered if he were coming down with something. Now, the bus was late, in addition to everything else. The African American woman leaned away from the shelter, peering out into the street as if willing the bus to arrive. The punk hair prissy type gazed at him, and then the ice blue eyes flicked past, condemning him to ignominy.
His body suddenly felt as if some gigantic blood pressure monitor was squeezing it. He held on to the side of the structure. He was dizzy, alarmed and confused. "I have to sit down," he pushed blindly past the woman and tried to enter the crowded shelter. "Please, I have to sit down."
The next thing Walt became aware of, he realized he was lying on the sidewalk just inside the bus shelter. He looked up and saw the tall woman leaning down and speaking to him. "You'll be all right, mister, you'll be all right. The ambulance is on the way." Then in response to his uncomprehending look, "We think you just fainted, but the bus driver called 911 anyway, so that you can be checked out by a professional."
"Thank you," he nodded automatically. Walt's head was cushioned by something soft. It was the bright blue jacket of the punk. He was kneeling, his face concerned beneath the purple hair, holding Walt's head up, and wiping his forehead with a scarf. Walt glanced down and saw that the brown coat tossed over his body was the one the woman had been wearing.
"Where's everyone else?" he asked inanely. "Why are you here?"
"Well, everyone else got on the bus and went to work or school or wherever it was they were going." The young man said dryly, "We didn't all have to wait for the ambulance."
"Mr. Powers, here, decided he could miss his first class at Golden Gate University, and I decided that my staff could run the agency without me for awhile." Her face was warm and compassionate, and he noticed her beautiful smile. "Oh, I'm Stephanie Reynolds. I live up on Sixteenth Avenue. I've seen you here several other times in the past. Guess we keep about the same hours." Walt nodded, dazed.
At the wail of the siren, Powers shifted slightly and Walt could see the flashing lights of the ambulance as it came south along Nineteenth Avenue past the Shriner's Hospital toward Noriega.
In what seemed a matter of seconds the ambulance workers were out of the vehicle, taking his temperature and blood pressure and asking all sorts of questions. They gave him oxygen, fitting a cannula into his nose. Powers and Reynolds spoke to the emergency crew. Walt wasn't sure what had happened, but he thanked them for their help. "I really appreciate that you waited with me. I didn't know that strangers would do that any more."
"Oh, it wasn't just us," Powers said, "The bus driver and the others were all helpful. You know, I've found that San Francisco is a great city with a lot of nice people. We were happy to wait. Hope you get well soon." He and Reynolds retrieved their coats as Walt was put into the ambulance.
"Best of luck to you, Mr. Staples. I'll be expecting you back at the bus stop real soon. Now don't disappoint me!" She gave him another beautiful smile and Walt knew somehow that she meant what she had said.
"I'll be looking for you, too." He waved rather feebly as the door closed.
On the way to U.C. Hospital he gave the ambulance worker his home phone number. "Don't tell my wife if it's serious, please. Just say I fainted. We can sort it all out later."
Walt closed his eyes, listening to the Filipino attendant talking on the phone with the hospital emergency room staff. These strange persons were monitoring his heart and blood pressure. Why had all of those people whom he didn't know been so nice to him? Especially since he always had tried to avoid them. That was something else he'd have to sort out later.