by Memory
Stories of a past
The spice of a life well lived
But at times that spice
dosen’t taste so nice.
Time to take wing
and dream your thing.
–anonymous
The aroma of fresh brewed coffee. The buzz of voices. The three small tables are full and five are sitting elbow to elbow at the pocket size counter. Fifteen people are shoehorned into a space where ten are a crowd.
“Cool Beans” is a funky little cafe on California Street in San Francisco. It is small, so small that everything and everybody are close and personal. Sam and Henry. the owners, have learned the magic of transforming customers into friends. Pictures of their Calabash are all over the wall side by side with postcards from everywhere on the planet. Sam, a short wiry, olive skinned guy with a “hi how are you” smile delights in telling fellow track fans, “122 straight hurdle victories, two time Olympic gold medal winner, and I didn’t recognize Edwin Moses when he came in for coffee. He sat right there talking to his cousin and I, I coulda got his autograph on the wall there.”
And there was Marv Boutet, a for-real Crime Scene Investigator in San Francisco. Marv worked long hours, mostly nights, and loved every second of it. His dark brown eyes were always glazed over and sitting on dark circles. Marv was a matter of fact guy, a Sergeant Friday, the kind that talks very little, and when he does talk it’s as if he’s reciting a memorized menu. Our paths crossed every morning—Marv came in after work, when I was on my way to work.
Today, Marv’s voice had real feeling, as if a dam had broken over night and words were pouring out. “Blood and flesh all over place, he put a gun in his mouth and blooey. Everything was in place, the chairs and instruments were neatly arranged, even kept the magazines in the rack alphabetically, by title.”
He stared at me over the his coffee cup. His eyes were hound-dog sad, a word away from tears.
“Why do people get to killing themselves? You’re the teacher, tell me!”
Marv was hitting close to home. In the sixties I had considered ending it. I had gone as far as the railing of the Golden Gate Bridge during an extended bout with my personal devils. Bourbon had teamed up with beer chasers that did nothing to dull the sciatic nerve pain which added to the oceans of loneliness that brought me to the railing over the bay. I stared down for what seemed forever, my intent was to end it, when…
“You’re playing the quitter, a loser, I thought you were better than that.”
Memory, a voice from my past, Nathan the ice-man, my grandfather who nourished me with stories.
“My Grandson a quitter? You’re the reason I came to America. If you quit, you change the story.”
I turned back, cleaned up my act and now I worked as a teacher. Booze and loneliness were things of my past. I had no answer to Marv’s question. This was a different Marv than I knew, one who went way beyond the usual boilerplate sports stuff like, “How about those Forty Niners? Did you catch the end of the game? No one like Montana.”
Today it was real. He was singing a different tune.
“Dude was my age, dentist, Harvard, had a fancy office on Union Street. I played football against him in high school. Hard runner. He ran over me when we played against one another. Good guy. He gave me a hand up, made sure I was OK.”
Marv vibed shellshock. I kept him talking. This was the first time he had ever said anything about his job. He was shaky. This one needed a talk out.
“What was his name?”
“John Thomas.”
“John Thomas!?”
It was like a baseball bat hit me on the head. “John Thomas! A suicide?”
I joined him in shellshock. Tears filled my eyes.
I had last seen John at a Woodrow Wilson reunion five years before. He was sitting at the bar when I walked into the banquet room. John looked relaxed, suit open, tie loose. After twenty years he recognized me from the get go, slid off the bar stool and held his hand out. The grip was firm.
“John?”
“Mr Rothstein, It’s so good to see you. Could you sit a second?” I slid into the bar seat next to him. He looked at me, a serious expression on his face.
“You know Mr. Rothstein,” he hesitated, “I never really thanked you for what you did for me.”
“Did for you?”
I tried to remember back to 1968, the year John graduated. 1968 has been labeled as a year that changed America. Anti-war sentiment forced LBJ not to seek re-election; Robert Kennedy announced for president; Martin Luther King was killed in April and Robert Kennedy in June. The only positive thing I remembered was Apollo 8 circling the moon.
“You remember, the day after Reverend King was killed.”
The memory flooded in. April fifth had been chaos at the school, chaos that carried over from the night before. The kids that came to school were either depressed or crazy angry. A great man was shot and the feeling was the universal “they”—the white guy, the honkey—had killed him. The classrooms were mostly empty; kids filled the halls, some crying, others breaking things and starting fights. When I wasn’t holding venting sessions I was mixing with the kids, breaking up a fight here and there. When it was noon I took a five minute breather. I sat in my room with a cold cup of coffee to pull my own self together.
I was sucking on the dregs from the cup bottom, when the door flew open and John stormed in. He stared at me and strode over to where I sat next to a window that looked out over the bay. He stood alongside me, his eyes bloodshot, his fists clenching and unclenching. A star student, a star athlete, John had a scholarship to Harvard waiting for him on graduation.
“Mr. Rothstein! You gotta help me! I’m angry, I’m crazy angry. I feel like killing someone. They killed Reverend King. He was hope, they killed hope. Some damn meaningless, cracker shot him!”
John was shaking. I could feel the anger and frustration choking him. I searched my mind for a response.
My anger and my frustration had added to a feeling of guilt. I was a “they”—a white man, a honky.
My mind was whirling but nothing came together, and then…
“What would Reverend King want you to do?”
That stopped him. He stood absolutely still staring down at me. Then the tears came, slowly at first but soon he began to sob and shake. I stood up and put my hand on his shoulder and led him to a desk. He sat and stared out a window. Finally he put his arms on the desk, bowed his head between them and cried. I could hear the clock ticking on the wall. Minutes later, John picked up his head, pulled out a handkerchief and dried his eyes, he stood up and walked over to where I was standing. He gave me a quick hug, turned and left.
John went on to Harvard and dentistry. And now he was dead.
I left the coffee shop feeling it was all a waste. What good had I done? Why didn’t I keep in touch with him? I felt empty and angry with myself. Could I have helped him get over whatever it was that pushed him over the edge?
“He should have never given up his horn. He was a better musician than me, but he traded it for pulling teeth. Pulling teeth wasn’t him.”
John’s cousin Ross laid it all out to me as we consoled one another over coffee a few weeks later. Ross had taken a different path.
“Irv, music is my life. It’s my wings. It takes me outta the everyday. I soar up there. I become sound.”
Ross had been with a Rhythm and Blues band that played all over the US and Europe while R&B was popular. Then, when R&B ran its time the band played local gigs in the Bay Area. Ross worked at what he could get—school bus driver, cement truck driver, bouncer, carpet cleaner, whatever he could get to, he said, “support my music habit.”
“He could’a done both,” said Ross. “Didn’t need to be the best in one thing. Dentistry, a black dentist on Union Street, digging in mouths all day. Nothin’ else to fill his life with. Everybody needs wings. He threw his away. He thought music was gonna interfere with his career. When it wasn’t enough he started doing drugs and look what happened.”
Ross and I didn’t do drugs—we did coffee and fought back tears.
Copyright 2009 Irving Rothstein
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