Crossroad Intersects

by

           Jerry D. McDonnell                          

Copyright©Jerry D. McDonnell, 2013

Published in Over The Transom #24, Dec. 2013

   Like an intersection in a big city anywhere four Italian males in their late 20’s sat at Max’s restaurant down the block from the Curran Theater on Gerry Street, home of the Actors Conservatory Theater, actually on the corner of Geary and Mason Street, not that they’d been to the theater, but rather to a bar, or maybe more than one bar, not that they were Italy Italians but rather San Francisco Italians third generation and had never traveled in their over two decades of life even to the edge of the city limits in this city in which they had been born and raised and all were still living at home in flats in a neighborhood on the west slope of Nob Hill say like on Hyde Street with grandparents and great grandparents one of whom still couldn’t speak English and once this one San Francisco Italian (we shall call him Rick) had brought home and introduced a born and raised girl from Rome (the real Rome in Italy) to the great grandfather who couldn’t speak English but he could not understand her Italian as he came from a small village in northern Italy that spoke a different Italian dialect than is properly spoken in Rome, Italy, and it had been 40 years since great grandpa had been to Italy and none of the four San Francisco coffee shop Italians knew any Italian except a few phrases and some cuss words and all four Max’s coffee shop Italians wanted to be musicians or entertainers like some Italians in their neighborhood had become but they had day jobs in warehouses and hadn’t taken any music lessons.

It was Saturday night in this corner coffee shop restaurant that could be in a big city anywhere but in this time and place was in San Francisco, California.

“I’m going over to Pleasanton. Dante bought a house over there. Said I should visit, see it,” said Rick, one of the young San Francisco Italians.

“Pleasant what?” another one of them said.

“Pleasanton, across the bay,” Rick answered.

“Where’d hell is that?” another one of them said.

“It’s across the bridge, beyond the East Bay. Dante says an hour or less,” Rick said. “Not far from Hayward.”

“Hayward? I heard that’s a Portagi town,” another of them said.

“What you mean by that, Portagi town?” another of them challenged.

“Nothing. I’m just saying. I heard something about farmers. Hayward High School’s mascot is the Farmers. I know a kid played them in football. Portuguese, that’s all.”

“My cousin Eddie he goes to Oakland once. Went to Oakland China Town with this girl. That’s across the bridge,” one of them said.

“What’s with Oakland China town? We got China Town here.”

“She Chinese?” one asked.

“Who?”

“The girl?”

“Yeah I think so . . . what’d ya asking?”

“Nothing. Just asking. Hey I go to China Town once in a while. I work with a couple of Chinese. They’re Okay.”

 “Which bridge you talking about going to Pleasanton?”

“Bay Bridge.” Rick said.

“Never been across that bridge, but I’ve been to that other bridge. The Golden Gate one.”

 “Did you go across?” Rick asked.

“Naw, didn’t feel like it.”

“You never been across any bridges,” another one said.

“Neither have you,” another chided.

Sipping their coffee for a moment, Rick accidently made eye contact with an old man facing him in the booth behind them. The old man gave a shy grin and quickly looked down. “Anyone been across those bridges?” Rick asked. They all shrugged and took a bite of their late hour breakfasts. “Any bridges, anyone?” On the wall above them Rick scanned one of those framed, mass printed posters of a city scene with large letters that said ITALY. Again he made eye contact with the old man before glancing at another framed poster of a city on canals over the booth behind them that read, VENICE. “I’m going anyway. Going to Pleasanton, man. Dante invited me.”

In the booth behind the four Italians at this crossroad at the intersection of Geary and Mason Street that could have been in a city anywhere sat an old man and a younger woman who were recovering alcoholics who lived in separate apartments but went to AA meetings together, the old man being a retired U.S. Navy Operations Specialist who always missed his ship due to being detained in bars and consequently had been all over the world missing ships but was currently the young woman’s AA sponsor, she now holding down a job as a chemist for a lab that made pesticides and sitting with them a married couple, the male of which was an alcoholic but didn’t know it yet who worked for a nuclear research company as a buyer but wanted to quit and travel to Europe with a knap sack but whose dream was being discouraged by his spouse, a secretary for a school district who wanted to have a family and buy a house and didn’t know that they would be divorced in a couple of years, all of whom had been to the theater and lived across the Bay Bridge in the East Bay in Hayward, which was very near Pleasanton, the couple living in a small rented house with a small yard and the didn’t know it yet alcoholic spouse being the brother of the recovering alcoholic younger woman whose father was a Jesuit Priest whom was a veteran recovering alcoholic since he had recovered many times over the years.

“Navy, huh?” the young man spouse said. “I was in the Navy. Did one hitch.”

The old retired sailor smiled and cleared his raspy throat.

And then for no reason except to make conversation the young man said, “I’ve fished the San Francisco Bay from the shore and inland up the creeks into Pleasanton . . . you fish?” he asked the old man.

The old man smiled and coughed weakly.

 “Fishing’s out. He can’t walk much anymore,” the sister said, laying a gentle hand on the old man’s shoulder. “He gets winded, the lungs.”

“Bad?” the wife asked.

“The old man hacked softly into a handkerchief and smiled gently.

 “He’s been all over the world,” the sister said.

“I’d like to travel the world,” the young man said snidely to his wife who didn’t respond to his dig as they had had this fight many times.

The old man briefly caught the eye of the young Italian in the booth in front of them, and shyly looked down. Quietly, sheepishly, he said, “They’d give me my travel orders and send me alone. I missed my ship in New York.” He paused, coughing slightly. “Then they sent me to France to catch the ship. I missed it there too. Then Portugal.” Again catching the eye of the young Italian in the next booth that was looking at the poster of Italy on the wall, he said, “I liked Portugal.” The old man paused looking at the table, before he continued. “They just kept sending me to catch the ship and I’d miss it before it sailed.”

“So you caught the ship in Portugal?” the young husband asked.

“No, I missed it there too.”

“Where’d you catch the ship?”

“I boarded it in Manila. The Philippines.”

“The Philippines? That’s in another ocean. How long did that take?”

“Eight years,” the old man with a quick grin said apologetically into the table.

The sister said, “I told you he’s been all over the world.”

“Eight years,” the male spouse laughed. “And the Navy kept you until you retired.”

“They shouldn’t have sent me alone. They shouldn’t have given me all that travel money.”

 “Hear that honey?” the young husband said to his young wife. “All over the world.”

A late February thin fog rolling in from the Pacific Ocean snaked its way thorough alleys and streets and slithered around the intersection of Geary and Mason Street just as the four Italians, the young married couple, the sister and the old man were walking out of the coffee shop at the same time as if they were an octet who had arrived together. Goodbyes said, all dispersed into separate arteries of the intersection, but oddly leaving the old man and Rick the young Italian on the corner.

The San Francisco Italian and the old man from separate booths now alone at this intersection that could have been anywhere both took a cigarette from their individual packs. Rick, the Italian, was digging in his pockets for a light. The old man saw him searching and held out a zippo lighter, flicked it open and lit the young Italian’s cigarette. Rick nodded thanks and they both took a drag. The old man’s lungs rebelled; he bent over and began coughing up blood into a handkerchief.

“Hey, mister,” Rick said, placing his hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Can I help? You don’t look good.” The old man kept coughing; the Italian held onto him. A moment later the old man quit coughing, looked up smiling and nodding thanks. “Can I help you to your car, bus?”

“Thank you, but I’ll be alright. Just give me a moment,” the old man said leaning against the building.

“Maybe you should quit . . . “

“Smoking?” the old man coughed.

“I’m sorry, man. It’s none of my business. Not that I’m a doctor. Look, I’ll stay with you until you’re okay. You got far to go?”

The old man who had been all over the world and had spent time in not the best places, paused, studied this young man for a moment with whom he had made eye contact with in the booth before he said, “Hayward.”

“Hayward! Cool, man. Say, you know where Pleasanton is?”

“Sure. Just ten minutes from Hayward, in the valley. You can get there on the BART train from here. I’m taking the BART to Hayward tonight.”

“Ever been there . . . to Pleasanton?”

“Nope. Can’t say I have,” the old man said.

“How long you lived there? In Hayward?”

“About eight years, now.”

The old man and Rick walked together in the fog down Gerry Street, past O’Doul’s bar, past all the hotels, retail shops, bakeries, and cafes, some of which over the years were still there, by some that had changed hands or closed, all places Rick had known all his life, all the places of his life. Going down Powell Street, Rick paused in front of DiMaggio’s Bar and thinking about going in for a drink motioned for the old man to join him. The old man coughed traces of blood into his handkerchief, then stood staring through the open door of the saloon, seeing the drinks on the bar, smelling the familiar aroma of malt and smoke, and hearing the sounds of the laughter. The old man, holding his bloody handkerchief, shrugged a grin of surrender and began to take a step through that international, familiar portal. Rick, seeing the old man’s bloody handkerchief, turned his attention from the open door of the DiMaggio’s bar and gazed down the cement path of Powell Street. The fog was thickening, but Rick could clearly see the next intersection. Taking the old man’s arm he led him toward the BART station on Market Street, thinking about crossing that bridge . . . any bridge.

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