1st published in Berkeley Tales

copyright 1973

          One of the nurses, an old veteran with flabby arms, stood in the door blocking his way. He would have to wait outside in the corridor. That was the rule. And rules were to be obeyed. An iron jaw inside the fleshy jowls affirmed this, as if the sun, the earth and the stars were incidental, arbitrary ideas by comparison.

          He had to let go of Lisa's arm, had to throttle his angry impulse that suddenly erupted from a place inside he thought he had long since finished with.

          "I'll be all right, Joe." Lisa's reassuring smile made him feel useless.

          He lingered in the doorway and waited until she got seated, watched her slowly move through the small, crowded waiting room full of pregnant women, her rotund belly awkwardly disappearing, miraculously reappearing between bent heads, her thin neck and wrists stunning, fragile and beautiful.

          He found himself holding his breath, assisting her with his eyes as she lowered herself into a vacant seat. She wriggled deeper into the cushion, exactly the way she made a place for herself in their bed. And he felt with a sense of doom, as if he were seeing her off on a long journey.

          This was the beginning, he thought. Little by little, the new life inside her was exerting its will. It would demand more and more from them until finally their importance for each other will have seemed like a dream.

          He knew the experience. It had happened before.

          He stood in the doorway a moment longer than necessary, as if he faced an open space. A space of loneliness that was not of the metaphysical sort however and therefore void of despair. Not that sort, but something lower on the scale: a dull, uninspiring husband and father kind of loneliness.

          "The Lovers," he muttered to himself with a sense of rueful irony. They will have to get married, he realized. They had forgotten about that. Of all the things they had talked about, they had never thought to talk about that.

          Together almost a year, never apart, not even for a day, hardly for an hour, the last six months silently measuring the gradual transformation in her body, sharing with reluctance the certainty of the immediate future, that soon they would have to bring the outside world into their quiet existence, neither one had ever mentioned marriage.

          And now they were at the hospital, her first examination, two thirds of her pregnancy already past, something they couldn't put off any longer.

          She had gotten up early that morning, made the coffee. He lay in bed observing her naked back as he recited the number of buses she would have to take, where to get off, where to transfer. She didn't know the city. The hospital stood high on a hill overlooking the bay. He used to think of it as his bay.

           "Very windy up there," he was saying. "You'll have to wear more than that."

          She turned around and smiled back at his grin. "I'm glad you're not angry anymore."

          "Did I seem angry to you?"

          "Yes," she said softly, then added, "Because I want to go alone."

          "And you're afraid I'll get bored."

          "You know how these clinics are. All the waiting."

          "The waiting," he repeated.

          She came toward him bearing the cups of coffee, the aroma filling the narrow quarters. They lived on a small, defunct fishing trawler tied to a slip in the Berkeley harbor from which on a clear day they could observe the San Francisco skyline. Like an archeological specimen, the boat represented a trace of his former life.

          Coming over with the coffee, she past a porthole. Light, bouncing off the water cast a greenish, rippling reflection against her stretched white skin. Her body, looking multi‑dimensional, alive, stirred his senses. He sat up and gently touched a nipple with his lips. Although her breasts had gotten larger, they were still smaller than most women's, almost as small as a young girl's.

          Silently, they drank their coffee. Lisa sat on the edge of their bunk, her hand resting high up on his thigh, a finger softly curled around the stalk of his member. From the beginning, their bodies had carried a separate existence. No matter what else they were doing, their bodies were always in contact, the way one unconsciously touches one's self and thus demonstrates one's standard of reality.

          "I give you my word," she said in mock seriousness, "I won't get lost."

          "And if you do, someone will know how to direct you."

          "Of course," she smiled and kissed his stomach. "Now I must get ready."

          She stood up and began to wash. She washed thoroughly and carefully flexing the stem of her soft white neck as she pumped the water.

          When she had finished, she gathered her clothes strewn about the cabin and slowly drew them on, fully absorbed. She didn't notice that he had slipped out of bed and was getting dressed. And when she turned to say goodbye, she found him grinning a sly, schoolboy grin, his cap in his hand, his pea coat slung over his shoulder.

          "You didn't really think I'd let you out of my sight, did you?"

          "Not for a moment," she laughed.

          They went out on deck. He helped her across the gunwale. Together they walked down the bobbing dock up the gangway on to the pier, smiling and pointing to the circling gulls squawking their hungry complaints. She remembered what Joe had said about the sea gulls. How they would eat anything. Undaunted scavengers, they took into their gullets whatever presented itself. 

          "Nothing repulses them," he had said. "They'll eat anything that comes along." 

          "Just like you," she had replied. 

          "That's right. I eat anything."

          And now she was laughing.

          "Whoever's seen a sea gull working in a circus?"

          "Or in a zoo," he said, regarding her with amusement, divining the thread of her thoughts.

          "There it is," he said sometime later. They had reached the bus stop and he was pointing at the cluster of waiting passengers immersed in their morning papers clinging to their briefcases. They hovered around the pole with the metal sign that read, like a frozen flag, San Francisco.

          "There's the circus now. Brace yourself, love. Soon we'll be inside the big top...spinning...spinning.

          "It'll be that bad, Joe?"

          "I don't know, Lisa. I hope not." He spoke sadly, convinced that he did know.

          They boarded the bus...

          With her wide brilliant eyes, she reached across the room full of pregnant women. A lock of brown hair hung over one eye like a beret. He smiled back. A woman tried to squeeze past him, her protruding front demanding recognition. Others came behind her. He had to move off. He waved to her, turned aside and searched for a seat in the corridor. Already he dreaded the long wait until the examination would be over. He longed to be out in the fresh air, just the two of them. Alone.

          The air in the corridor smelled of disinfectant. That plus a faint sour odor given off by the dense crowd of waiting relatives, friends. Anxiously quiet, they sat and waited. Like ships in dry dock, he thought. He found an empty chair. His hand reached for a magazine, then impatiently let it drop. He forced himself not to think, hoping for a stupor to overcome him.

          Around him, waves of anxiety penetrated his mind. Bits of conversations, dealing with the essentials poor people must always confront. Everyone around him concerned with matters he wished to avoid.

          He thought of Lisa. For once in his life, he had found peace. He wanted to preserve their peace. He said the word to himself over and over, and momentarily located a center of quiet, an island in the sea of these overworked people who surrounded him with their unabated fears.

          Gradually a blur fell over his eyes. The green of the walls merged with the brown floor. Everything swayed as if under water. Voices echoed, remote as the cry of distant gulls.

          Nevertheless, a single thought darted in and out like a fish. He would have to find a job.

          Their money was running out. And now a baby. It had happened even though they had been careful. They weren't youngsters. But it had happened despite precautions. Both had been through it before. Each had had their share of disasters, of lives gone sour. And when they had found each other, neither wished to repeat the mistakes of the past. For the last year, they had gratefully shared a peaceful life, freely spending each day in intimacy, enjoying the sun, the wind, the sea. Together, spending hours looking at a leaf, a flower, the sand, the sky, each other.  He had felt himself growing beautiful for her, had learned to like himself again. And she had taken pleasure in being for him nothing else but herself.

          They nursed the little money they had, eating little, shopping with care, sharing a melon, a piece of cheese, preparing meals together, meals that were eaten with solemnity, in silence, each feeding the other, meals that took hours to consume, the center piece of their days.

          And the nights, their nights, swollen with sensuality, rocked and cradled with their bodies--these had cleansed the grime from his years. Talking, giggling, playing day after day, they had failed to notice the changes in her body. The inevitable process had been secretly unfolding long before they took notice.    

          It was starting all over again, he sighed. The baby. So be it. He wasn't totally unhappy. In a way, everything was happening just as it should. He could sense that. He knew he would love this child. Just as he had loved the others. The time had come to pay back the energy he had been receiving.

          For her, it had already begun. For him, it was only a matter of a little push. A little push. He had studiously avoided the idea of work. Work meant time away from her. Even if only a small amount of time at first. He feared the consequences that might ensue. He didn't want to get lost in work again.

          Work. He would have to think of something. Something perhaps he could do at home. Home, he thought.

          For a while he dozed, then rose up, vaguely aware of a presence floating above him. He looked up and saw a woolly mammoth breathing heavily.

          "Mr. Sandalen? Will you come with me please? I'd like to talk with you in my office."

          The man's voice was soft, wrapped in tweed. His casual manner made Joe nervous. "Are you the doctor?"

          "No," the man smiled. "I'm the social worker. My name is Paul Yoonge. Follow me, please."

          Joe remained seated. He preferred not to have an interview with this man. There would be a lot of stupid questions. But the social worker had already walked the length of the corridor, familiarly nodding his bearded face to individuals seated left and right. People he apparently knew well, clients no doubt. And now he was holding open the door to his office, casting an expression in Joe's direction of mock amusement. Finally, with a gesture of impatience, Joe stood up and walked down the hall.

          The office was hardly larger than a phone booth. The big man with the beard and the tweed jacket looked enormous in the crowded space. Joe saw a desk with a chair on either side of it, a slim file cabinet, one of its drawers half opened and stuffed with battered files. There was a tall window almost as narrow as a man's head. Steel bars ran across its lower half.

          "It's like a jail here," the social worker acknowledged humorlessly.

          "Have a seat," he added and pointed to the one nearest the window. 

          He plunged into the other with a grunt, reached in his pocket for his package of cigarettes, took one for himself and threw the pack on the desk offering them to Joe. Joe shook his head. He didn't smoke, and he was surprised to see an official breaking the law by smoking in a public building. He watched the big man light up. He was a heavy smoker, it seemed, judging by the stain of nicotine on his fingers. And he was young, although obviously not fresh from the school where such people were trained. Already a permanent weariness distinguished his face.

          With a sigh, he let out smoke from his lungs and pulled a pad of printed forms towards him. Stuffing a pen in his fist, he took another drag from his cigarette, then glanced at Joe, ready for the interview.

          "Your wife informs us that you don't have a job."

          "Did she tell you that?"

          "That you're out of work?"

          "That she's my wife."

          "No, Mr. Sandalen, she didn't. I never spoke to her." 

          The social worker leaned back, puffing his cigarette.

           "It's like this," he said "Most people aren't aware of the services available to them. If they were, I'd probably be more swamped than I am. As it is, I only have to work day and night. It's a routine matter, Mr. Sandalen. I go through every file that comes through this clinic. If I find anything suspicious, I look into it..."

          "Suspicious?"

          "In my job," he waved his hand in denial as if to blot out the unseemly word, "that means, if I find anyone who might be...who seems to be in some financial difficulty, that's all."

          "Your suspicions are unfounded, Mr. Yoonge. I don't need any help." 

          Joe got up to leave.

          "Please wait. I'm not finished." His voice had taken on a new tone.

          Joe sat down again.

          "That's just half my job, Mr. Sandalen. The other half is to protect the hospital. This is a university hospital. The fees are not astronomical, although I admit they aren't cheap either. But the fact is, we need every cent we can get."

          "I know the fee," Joe said, glaring at the other man. "And I have the money. Would you like a check now?"

          The social worker lit another cigarette, avoiding Joe's eyes. 

          "That would help, certainly."

          Joe took out his check book reached for a pen that lay idly on the social worker's desk. He had barely enough to cover the amount. He had planned to pay in two or three installments figuring on money coming in from the job he had yet to go out and find. Three payments in three months, three hundred a month. It would have been relatively easy. 

          He paused before putting in the amount. The world had closed in on him fast. Reality busy with his life again. He looked up.

          "Will three hundred be sufficient for now?" He hated to have to say that, but he really had no choice.

          "And two installments over the next three months. Sure, sure Mr. Sandalen. That's no more than I had hoped for."

          Joe completed the check and handed it over.

          "Thank you, Mr. Sandalen. I'll give it to the office people downstairs. You'll receive a statement from them in the mail. No hard feelings, I hope. We had to know the situation, you understand. The statement your wife wrote..."

          The social worker paused, almost blushed. His perspective client was at least fifteen years his senior. And the circumstances, being what they were, he would have expected a very young couple, or otherwise people totally out of it. But these two appeared to be perfectly competent types. He didn't know what to make of it.

          To Joe, the social worker's thoughts stood out on his brow as clearly as the furry weariness the man carried as though he were some forest creature that had gotten lost inside this concrete world. Joe frowned at the younger man, resisting an impulse to like him, while at the same time he wanted to smash his face.

          "I simply had the impression you might need some assistance. So I decided I should speak with you. After all, the fact that you recognize a responsibility..." 

          He stopped again, wiped his head and started over.

          "In your case...surely you wouldn't be here otherwise, if you..."

          "What are you trying to say, Mr. Yoonge? Are you concerned I don't know how to find work? At my age?"

          "Mr. Sandalen, at your age, in case you don't know it, it's practically impossible to find work these days..."

          "I know where to find to work if I need to." 

          He tried not to sound angry. But he wasn't in the mood to humor this hulk of prying professionalism any longer. And now he stood up, turned to the window. Of course he could find work.

Hadn't he always?

          The social worker, once he had opened up, couldn't stop.

          "At your age. How could two people your age get into a situation like this in the first place? You're both practically old enough to be grandparents! I just don't understand. No job. No resources. Six months pregnant. Two people who ought to know the score. Really, Mr. Sandalen, it's hard to imagine."

          The sudden release of his emotions seemed to shorten his breath. Puffing hard, as if he had been running, he looked at the older man with an intense feeling pressing in on him. He wanted to help these people. He really wanted to help. Even if it meant having to be a little pushy. But the older man hadn't seemed to be listening. He was looking out the window, apparently lost in his own thoughts. 

          From the window, Joe could see only a small segment of the bay. Above, the sky was empty and gray, the sunlight had moved on, shining elsewhere. Tentacles of fog crept over the low hills and spilled into the populated valleys of the city, slowly, tentatively like an organism seeking its food. 

          The bay, however, remained clear. He could see tiny tugs like toys chugging around ocean freighters heading for the open sea. A picturesque scene from this high distance, remote and unreal. It had been real enough for him, though, with his fleet of small fishing boats, with his tremendous energy and ambition, his half dozen tug boat captains as foolhardy as himself pitting their strength against corporate power, the corporations squeezing the profit, squeezing out the small operators.

          An old story. No great loss, to have lost everything, including his marriage, his children. His own lawyer had refused to help him gain custody of the children. They always go to the mother, he had said. And Joe had to agree to the arrangements. When you're going down, you have to agree. Agree to everything. It had happened so abruptly. Something he hadn't done right. Something he couldn't understand.

          He looked down into the blanketed city wondering where she was living. No one would tell him. She kept it a secret. She wanted to keep him away. If he wanted to give a birthday present to one of the girls, he had to take it to Oakland, to her sister's boutique. Have it delivered through channels. A complicated way to express love. A complicated way to live. He had tried to understand. He read books. Self-help simplifications that revealed to him no more than the view from this window in the hospital could reveal the truth of the city below.

          Between the silver fleck of the bay and the dark sky above, there lay hidden in the fog crevices and crannies, pockets of the city he had known from childhood, streets he had grown up in, hangouts where had learned how to make his way, how to shoot craps, play poker, whole neighborhoods where he had known girls and fellows, made love, fought fights, made money--worked. 

          It was all hidden from view up here. Fog blanketed the city. The real city. There were places you couldn't see from here, places you could only see if you went down into the fog. Only the highlights stood out. The easy landmarks. Church steeples, the tall buildings of the financial district, the swanky high-rise apartments. Only these stood clear of the fog line, easily defined.

          "You know what your trouble is, Mr. Yoonge?" He spoke to the window in a weary voice, like a criminal giving his confession. "You talk too much. You talk and you don't think. Oh, I know you mean well."

          "I'm sorry, Mr. Sandalen," the social worker said gravely. "Don't think I don't understand. I know how hard it is sometimes to face up to the real problem."

          "And another problem you have..." Joe moved away from the window and faced the social worker..."You think you're talking to a beaten man? Don't kid yourself, Mr. Yoonge. You know, you have too much empathy. No, don't look pleased. It's a fault, not a virtue. The people you try to help, you put yourself too much in their place...you take on their troubles. But you only know how to see with your own eyes. You see their problems. But only with your own mean, incapable, meager intelligence. And that's why you're here in this jail, as you call it. Well stay with it, friend...it's a life sentence."

          And saying that, Joe Sandalen stepped out into the corridor, took the elevator to the ground floor and left the building to wait for Lisa outside in the fresh, windy, fog‑free, hilltop air.             

An hour later, she stepped through the swinging glass door. She threw her hands into the air and let out a howl of delight.

          "Free at last!" She shouted and hurried down the stairs, plunging into Joe's arms.

          "How did it go?" He asked.

          "The doctor says I'm fine. He couldn't believe how healthy I am. Look." she made a fist and placed his hand on her muscle.

          "You were nervous, weren't you?" He laughed, full of relief. "Just an examination, you said. Didn't want me to know how nervous you really were."

          He drew her toward him. She tossed her cape over his back and kissed his face, raw from the wind.

          They started walking.

          "I go back in two weeks," she was saying. "Can you handle it again, all that waiting?"

          "I'll probably be working by then," he said coldly.

          His manner had suddenly changed. It made her feel uneasy. Silently, they walked to the corner where the bus stopped. He took her hand, gave it a squeeze.

          "Tomorrow, I'll go see an old friend of mine. It'll take a few hours probably."

          "Are you okay, Joe?"

          "I'm fine."

          "Something happened," she said tremulously. "Tell me."

          "It was nothing," he smiled. "I had my little examination also. That's all. Look, there's the bus. Come on sweetheart, I'll give you a boost."

          "Joe," she said, catching her breath. They were in the bus; and as it moved into traffic, it jiggled her body. "What happened?"

          "Just a little talk with the social worker. Why did you put him on to me, Lisa?"

          "I didn't." Inexplicably, she felt frightened. "Why should I do a thing like that?"

          "Never mind." He looked out the window.

          "What did he say, Joe?"

          "Nothing." He turned back to her. "Forget it. He's just a twerp. A young, pushy guy."

          "He tried to push you around."

          "Yeah." He laughed. "Wanted me to eat crow."

          "And you're not about to eat crow."

          "No, Lisa. Some things I won't eat."

          They rode on in silence. Finally, the bus swerved sharply up the ramp. They were at the terminal down by the bay. They got off and stood by the railing upstairs to wait for the second bus that would take them across the bridge into Berkeley. They watched the fog as it crept over the platform, damp and gray like a silent hand. A pair of sea gulls swooped down, flew low, skimming the asphalt ramp, their hungry eyes searching. Lisa looked on as the two birds swept past. They swerved up and disappeared, screeching into the fog.

          This is the beginning, she thought. Little by little, it was starting all over again. She felt helpless, leaning over the railing. She felt Joe's arm pressing her shoulder, felt him slip his free hand inside her cape, heard his voice murmur, "I love you, Lisa," and felt herself shudder. Before now he had not needed to say that.

          For a moment, a wild sensation fluttered inside her. She wanted to screech, wanted to disappear into the fog. And the moment was over. She put on a smile.

          "I love you too, Joe."