Just in Time
But then came the killing shot that was to nail me to the cross.
Edward Grady Partin.
And Life magazine once again was Robert Kenedy’s tool. He figured that, at long last, he was going to dust my ass and he wanted to set the public up to see what a great man he was in getting Hoffa.
Life quoted Walter Sheridan, head of the Get-Hoffa Squad, that Partin was virtually the all-American boy even though he had been in jail “because of a minor domestic problem.”
– Jimmy Hoffa in “Hoffa: The Real Story,” 1975
I’m Jason Partin.
My grandfather was Edward Grady Partin Senior, the Baton Rouge Teamster leader famous as the surprise witness whose 1964 testimony sent International Brotherhood of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa to prison; though less known, he was also involved in killing President Kennedy on 22 November 1963. Even less known to anyone other than Hoffa, a few dead Teamsters, and my family, my grandfather trained Fidel Castro’s generals and arranged for weapons to be sent from New Orleans to Cuba in the months after Kennedy’s 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.
My father is Edward Grady Partin Junior, a convicted felon who spent a year and a half in prison dealing marijuana during President Reagan’s war on drugs in the 1980’s. He’s now a public defense attorney in Baton Rouge and still smokes weed daily, which, given where this story is going, I think is ironically humorous.
On the morning of 02 April 2019 I awoke around 4am to the low roar of a lion coming from the San Diego zoo and through the bars, trees, and canyons that separated us. I was still on Cuba’s time zone, so my body felt it was time for brunch, but I was too sore to be hungry. I stretched a yoga mat out on the living room floor and unwound my tight muscles for about an hour before packing away the mat and beginning my day.
I poured a handful of light-roast, single-origin, Yirgacheffe coffee beans from Ethiopia into a hand-cranked grinder, and slowly turned the beans into a medium-fine grind. I had bought a 12oz bag from a tiny hipster coffee roaster shop overlooking Balboa Park the morning before; Cuba had coffee, but I didn’t have room in my stuffed carry-on backpack for even a single bean.
I made a pour-over coffee in an off-white and slightly stained New Orleans Cafe Du Monde mug, and stepped onto my balcony and sipped the black juice slowly as the sun rose. A single southern Magnolia tree in Balboa Park stood out across the street, amidst a forest of palm trees slowly illuminate with the rising sun, and I finished the coffee by the time the few thirsty and scraggly white flowers came into view. I put one of my big feet on the balcony’s waist-level wrought iron railing, which was reminiscent of architecture in both New Orleans and Havana, and stretched the tight hamstring that had wound up like a watch spring after sitting in cramped airline seats all day only two days before.
After a second cup of coffee, I pulled an Instant Pot pressure cooker from the top cubard and placed it on the counter beside three one-ounce plastic canisters of premium weed (a Indica, Septiva, and a hybrid with an alleged 20:1 CBD to THC ratio). I placed each on in a squat glass wide mouth Mason jar and screwed the lids finger-tight, just enough to seal in vapors so my condo wouldn’t smell like a dead skunk on the side of a rural Louisiana road.
Before I forgot – like I had several times before – I marked the lids by scribbling what was inside with black Sharpie. I made a mental note to use different color sharpies next time, then put about a centimeter of water in the Instant Pot and placed the jars inside and on top of a canning rack. I set the pot’s pressure to “high” for 40 minutes, reconsidered with a smirk on my face, and set it to 42 instead.
Douglas Adams wrote that 42 was the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything; Elon Musk had just strapped his bright red convertible sports car atop one of his a Space-X rockets and launched it towards the sun with “Don’t Panic” and 42 and other Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy bumper stickers plastered everywhere; recently an Arizona bridge had been named after Pat Tillman, the Arizona Cardinals football player who wore the number 42 jersey at Arizona State, turned in his Cardinals number 40 jersey and walked away from millions of dollars a year to become earn less than $20k a year as a paratrooper in the army’s 75th Ranger Regiment; and a few years before, the San Diego start-up orthopedic implant company KMI Medical was bought by an international conglomerate for $42.1 Million, a number that made me smile and led to an early retirement and lifestyle of consulting and leading college classes with a schedule that was much more flexible than my hamstrings.
The weed had been delivered by a young aspiring actress in skin tight Spandex yoga pants the night before, and she ensured I received a 25% disabled veteran’s discount. My dad was a Vietnam draft dodger and life-long womanizer, and he now earned his livelihood defending many clients who could not afford an attorney and were still being for possessing marijuana, which was still illegal in Louisiana and a felony if more than 2.0 pounds was found. I was sure he’d have a lot more to say about my disabled veteran’s discount and the young aspiring actress who delivered it, especially if he knew she tossed in a free preroll and called it lagniappe, a Cajun word I taught her two months before.
The Instant Pot beeped and pressure began to build. I topped the valve with a bright green silicone steam diverter I bought off Amazon and looked like Puff the Magic Dragon (but was unlicensed). A few minutes later, the release valve snapped shut and the timer began to count down from 42:00.
“Hey Siri,” I called out. “Call Dana.”
Nothing.
I tried again.
Nothing.
“Shit,” I said. I looked around and raised my voice and said: “Hey Siri, find my phone.”
Nothing.
I went room to room, softening my southern accent and trying to articulate so that Siri could understand me even if she were under a cushion. A few minutes later I heard a beep from my office, and a woman’s south Indian voice told me: “Here I am.”
A passenger jet engine roared with the first flights of the day, and I felt a slight vibration reverberate through the walls. Airlines must land and depart between the hours of 7am and 11pm, and usually the rumble of a plane woke me instead of the roar of a lion, so I wasn’t up in time to see morning light bouncing off the silver Southwest jets; I paused, appreciating the sleek flash that looked like a freshwater trout darting between downtown skyscrapers.
Beyond the buildings was the bright blue, postcard perfect San Diego bay and the navy’s nuclear submarine base. To my left was the Coronado Bridge, which was in front of the sliver of Coronado Island where Navy SEALS trained (they were the ones who took out Osama Bin Laden in 2011 under President Obama’s orders). In the distance flew two fighter jets, like the ones Tom Cruise and his team flew in the 1985 film Top Gun. The sequel was being filmed; this one would focus on drones, and probably use versions manufactured by two of the mega corporations in San Diego. Something like 250,000 civilians earn their livelihood in San Diego’s defense industry, not including tourism. I imagined that young men the age of the lady who delivered my weed were already lined up on the boardwalk, dressed in vintage flight suits and sporting Tom Cruise’s smile, setting an upturned flight helmet by their feet to accept tips from hordes of tourists taking photos with them in front of the USS Midway, which was docked downtown and drifted out horizontally longer than the skyscrapers could reach skyward, because of building codes centered around our airport.
Another plane was landing, a multi-colored from some airline I didn’t recognize, and the already the rumble and vibrations seemed less noticeable; I was slipping back into a routine where even America’s Finest City became predictable. After a long and eventful life, that was a good way to live; I took a moment to repeat those words in my head.
I carried my phone back to the kitchen and plugged it into a charger. 14 minutes remained on the Instant Pot. I stepped into a modified Warrior Pose and said: “Hey Siri, call Dana.”
Siri’s south Indian accent said she was on it. Two rings later, Dana picked up.
“Hey, J!” her voice said. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks. Can you hear me?” I asked. “I’m trying a new speaker system.”
“You sound fine,” she said.
“I broke down and bought one. I tried for a year to get a Rasberry Pi setup to work, and spending a few hundred dollars was easier than always looking for my ear buds. And I can never get the right one to stay in because of my cauliflower ear. It’s worth it.”
“I’m moving and stretching while we talk,” I told Dana. “Would you please let me know if my voice fades out? I don’t know how the microphone works yet. I’m trying to get it set up so I can walk around the entire condo while talking on the phone.”
“You’re fine,” she said. “And thanks for the maker’s kit for Hope, and the raspberry pie snack bars you left her. She liked the name Rasberry Pi, but didn’t get into it.”
“Neither of us could pronounce that other thing,” she said with what I knew would be a smile if I could see her; I never could get into Skype or Facetime; if I had my choice, Dana and I would still be speaking via two plastic cups connected by a 200 mile piece of string. Things like Rasberry Pis and Arduinos were what I used to solve problems, not to relax and chat; real life was analog, not digital, and I felt no joy from hearing bits of data.
Dana’s voice changed to be more upbeat, and she said: “But she loved the books and sketch pads, especially the magic wand pencils. You turned her on to Harry Potter; I think seeing the movies set her up to appreciate the books. And The Magic Castle was so much like Hogwarts that she kept talking about it. Good choice.”
“Don’t forget about the Arduinos,” I said. “They’re easier than Rasberry Pis and have tons more codes on the internet. All you have to do is describe what you’d like to happen, then cut and paste a code that does that. It’s the modern version of a screw driver. You never know when a tool will come in handy. Some gazillionare in England just bought one for every kid there, saying it’s like Dr. Who’s sonic screwdriver. Maybe she’ll envision an art project one day that interacts with the real world, like a costume of that girl in Harry Potter wiggling her wand and making things in the library move around. An Arduino is perfect for that.”
“Maybe,” Dana said. “There’s a summer project-based learning camp that she may attend, and that’s the type of thing they do.”
She paused and said, “Maybe you could come up and lead a week of the camp?”
“Hey, Honey,” Dana said, but not to me. “Do you want to say hi to Uncle J? Here, I’ll put him on speaker.”
“Hey Uncle J!” Hope beamed.
“Hey, Sweetie,” I said.
“I’m taking the knife you gave me camping next weekend,” she said. “My school is taking us to a biology camp, and they said I could take a knife to sharpen my pencils.”
“If you cut off your finger,” I said, “put it in a bag and save it for me, okay?”
She giggled and said okay. I asked her if she was going to bring the first-aide kit and she said yes, and we chatted about camping and campfires for a few minutes until she said goodbye and ran outside to do something more fun than talking on the phone. She liked to stay in motion and play outside; I could relate.
Dana got back on the phone and I said, “If I were king for a day, I’d focus all education on projects for first aide, self-defense, and financial literacy.”
I paused a minuscule of a moment said: “And communication. Writing, acting, languages, whatever. Communication. Maybe projects could include instruction manuals for first aide kits in different languages and for people who couldn’t read.”
“She’d like that as long as she could do it outside,” Dana said. “She’s enjoying school now that they roam around Topanga Canyon instead of sitting in class.”
“I was just thinking that I can relate to her,” I said. “I’m about to go for a long walk myself. It’s gorgeous here, and the flowers are blooming in Balboa Park. I’m waiting for some weed to decarboxylate – to convert to being edible. Get this: some investors dumped millions into expensive gadgets to convert weed, but it turns out you can do the same thing in an Instant Pot set to high… get it? Instant Pot, set to High?”
Her sigh of mock exasperation crept out of the speakers and kissed me on the cheek.
“I bought one at the thrift store for 20 bucks,” I said. “$400 cheaper than the fancy gadget, and it takes the same amount of time, 40 minutes on high. But the Youtube videos all took 40 minutes to say that because everyone making the videos was high, and the people watching were high, so the rankings put the funniest, longest videos higher,” I said, emphasizing the word higher, and paused; but Dana didn’t bite the bait.
“I set mine to 42 minutes,” I continued, “because maybe that’ll help me see the meaning of Life, The Universe, and Everything.”
“You’re such a nerd,” she said, taking the bait that time.
“Douglas Adams came up with The Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy while drunk and laying on his back and looking up at the starts,” I said. “So maybe getting high will help me.”
My tone became more serious, and I said: “I’m trying to understand CBD.”
“I can talk all day about removing carboxyl groups,” I said. “But I don’t really understand the biochemistry. I read the FDA summary and some of the original research, but I can’d tell the difference between pscyo-active and not. I can quote the words and statistics and sound like I know what I’m talking about, but I don’t get it. They data comes from something like 60,000 people followed for a few years, but university researchers and federal employees banned from taking it is like a temple full of celibate monks writing a paper on the joys of sex.”
No smile oozed from my speakers. We sat through a long a pause, and I gave in and said: “I feel like shit. But that’s just from sitting on a long day of flights. I was feeling 90% after a few weeks of climbing in Cuba. Sitting down, plus my claustrophobia, kicked my ass. I need time to unwind.”
“I’m sorry, J…” Dana said.
I heard her inhale deeply, as if to ask more or tell me she was worried, so I interrupted and said: “I can tell I’ll be back to feeling good in another few days, when my discs rehydrate. They’re like an old leather baseball glove squished and left in a box between seasons, and every year it takes longer to work them back into shape. But I feel good and know I’ll be fine after lying down a few nights and spending some time walking around outside.”
“That’s good to hear,” she said. “Sorry you’re hurting now, though.”
I scratched the four days of stubble on my chin and said: “I shaved 10 years off my face when I cut off my beard to fit a scuba mask. And climbing in the sun every day toned my body; not just the muscles, but even with sunscreen my skin was irritated from the radiation, and that slight swelling tightened away wrinkles. I may get skin cancer, but at least I’ll look younger in the hospital. Maybe I’ll meet a hot young nurse who likes to give back rubs.”
“Maybe it’s time for me to retire,” I said.
“You say that every year,” she said.
“I think I mean it this time. Maybe I’ll do that as a weekday gig, and spend weekends guiding climbs in Mission Gorge. Maybe finally sit down and write that book.”
We said nothing for a few breaths. I shifted my warrior pose the other direction and glanced at the Instant Pot. There were 8 minutes left. Finally Dana said: “When you feel up for it, you know Hope would love to see you.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine, I just can’t fathom sitting again right now. It would be like volunteering for torture again. I’ll know more in a few days, then I’ll call the Magic Castle and reserve eight spots for a Sunday brunch. Hope can invite a few of her friends – my treat.”
“This is fun, by the way,” I said. “Spending the rest of sabbatical on a southern California staycation sounds better every day. I’ll be up there soon to play in the Castle for a few nights a week, but I’m looking forward to working on that book with nothing else on my plate. I just got another copy of The Irishman, and I want to reread it and see how they made a story out of a ton of dead people’s names. It took the author 11 years to coax a story out of Frank; if I focus, maybe I can shorten that to two months.”
“I take it you learned something in Cuba?”
“Yes and no. I realized something that tied pieces of the puzzle together about Wendy and me from a couple of offhand comments by Frank. I circled it and gave my copy to Tim. It’s a piece of the puzzle and long story, but it may be related to some of the scars on my head. I told him what you said about the semicolon, by the way, and he agreed; it really does look like one. I said maybe I could become a spokesperson for project semicolon, like a way to honor Mike or bring more awareness. Anyway, I’m going to reread a new copy this week, when I have other books to cross reference. I’ll tell you about it the next time we’re together.”
“You’ll cook us some Cuban food, I hope,” she said.
“Yep. I learned a trick to Mojo Criolla,” I said. “Freshly squeezed orange juice instead of lemons. It’s sweeter on seafood.”
“Get this,” I said. “A funny coincidence. The UPS guy who delivered The Irishman last night was an older dude, about my age, so I asked and he was a Teamster. I told him what was in the package, and we chatted about that for a bit. He said he’s one of the only guys at work who remembers who Hoffa was, even with the movie coming out. I mean, a lot of guys know the name, but they don’t realize the power he had. He said no one even sees the point of a trucking union outside of the UPS because of right-to-work laws, but he’s touting joining so they can leverage a deal instead of complaining about mostly part-time work without benefits. He knew the original title of Frank’s book, before Martin Scorcese renamed it The Irishman. He said it sounded like Frank did it.”
I laughed and said: “He said I’m the first delivery he’s ever talked to about his health benefits. He has a wife and two kids.”
“Oh!” I said. “You’ll like this, too. I found a Spanish copy of The Motorcycle Diaries for you in a used bookshop cafe you’d like in Havana. It had a few notes scribbled in the margins of someone planning to follow his road trip like we did in…”
I paused and glanced skyward, as if the date were written on the ceiling, and said: “2000. I still remember stumbling across that English copy in that hostel in Caracas and realizing what we had done it. I think whoever scribbled the notes was planning the trip in reverse, starting in Havana. It’s the edition published after the movie, and has that guy you like on the cover.”
A sly smile slid from the speakers, and she said: “Si! El es guapo.”
“Pero no era un escritor nato.” I said. “Che Guevara, not your Latin Lover. Get this: I learned that his editor was the same guy who edited Jimmy Hoffa’s final autobiography.”
“Really?” she said. “The magician? That’s odd.”
“Si! Me pareció interesante,” I said. “That’s probably why they did so well, like how Hemmingway and Fitzgerald and that other guy shared the same editor.”
“I always wondered who was the pilot of that ship,” she said. “Maybe you just need a good agent or editor.”
“And it gets better,” I rattled on, talking about things for the first time after thinking about them for a month.
“I read that guy’s book – the magician’s – on how to write books, and he offhandedly mentions speaking to Hoffa and his co-writer, like the one The Irishman used, 30 days before Hoffa vanished. He said they had a tape recorder of Hoffa cursing and being Hoffa, and Sol – the magician – suggested keeping it raw but edit it down a bit. I think that’s where Hoffa got the part about the killing shot and Big Daddy nailing him to a cross; it’s a good line, and sounds more religious than I ever heard Hoffa talk. Sol wrote an entire book with examples of paragraphs he helped distill down to curt and visceral images. I’m sure he coached Hoffa into the phrases I liked.”
I stretched and moved around the room to test the microphone as I said: “I’m either going to email him and ask if he has originals or remembers editing anything out about my grandfather. Or try to meet up with him at the next International Brotherhood of Magicians convention. He sits at the lifetime members table, but I never thought that much about him until I learned he published Hoffa’s second autobiography. It’s motivated me to go to a convention again. Besides, he must be approaching 80 by now, like a lot of the guys I haven’t seen in years.”
“He may not even remember 1975,” I said.
“Funny,” I said, rubbing the scar on the back of my head. “I’ve been thinking about 1975 a lot lately.”
I stretched my hands high in a modified Warrior pose and said: “I thought about Craig’s offer – the guy portraying Big Daddy in The Irishman – to use a professional writer, like everyone else seems to. I think I’d rather talk to Sol first, and see if he has ideas on how to mold a story out of what I remember and at least give me something to start with. I just want something to get traction, and go from there.”
The Instant Pot beeped and I told Dana I’d call her in a few days when I knew how I felt. Hollywood was only a 2 to 3 hour drive from San Diego, if you got lucky with traffic once you reached the outskirts of Los Angles, but the thought of sitting in a car seat for even a minute made my soul weep. I said I’d see how I in a few days and call her then.
We ended the call, and I rotated Puff the Magic Dragon so he could blow steam towards the sink instead of up into the cabinet. A minute later the pressure valve fell back down, and I used a towel to remove the three Mason jars. On a whim, I decided against taking the CBD and unscrewed the Setiva jar and took out three thumb-sized nugs. They were still hot, but I popped one at a time in my mouth and my saliva cooled them and I washed them down with water and began my day. Like Hope, there were a million and one things I’d rather do than sit inside and talk on the phone, and I was so ready to walk outside that I didn’t want to have anything to focus on, not even the difference between CBD and THC.
I put a water bottle, hand wipes, and first aide kit inside of a small day pack. I rummaged in my nightstand and chose one of my Leatherman multitools with a pocket clip, tucked it in, and left my condo and began a day of playing among Balboa Park’s 3,000 acres of trees, cacti, canyons, and trails.
Hope would be envious, I thought with a grin I tried to send all the way to Topanga Canyon.
I emerged a half our later near the densely packed gay neighborhood of Hillcrest, home of the world’s largest gay pride flag and the only gender-ambiguous brewery. Its big sign along the brick facade advertised beers named Thick and Stout, Pearl Necklace Pale Ale, and Ambiguous Adam’s Apple Amber Ale, and gave their old school land-line phone number, which was invaluable to their business because somehow they had scored 269-6969.
That, I said to myself every time I saw it, is gorgeous.
I glanced at my Seiko dive watch and saw it was almost lunch time, and my heart beat faster at the thought of a beer and a slice; I’m not gay, but there’s nothing finer than a slice of veggie pizza and a Pearl Necklace on an outdoor patio in sunny San Diego.
I salivated like Pavlov’s dogs, but for a beer, not a slice of pizza; beer dominated my desires in spite of the combination of weed in my system and my body being on Cuban time making me hungry, and I almost always craved a beer. Toning back booze had taken me two years after kicking opioids, which was easier in hindsight. But just because someone becomes vegetarian doesn’t mean they stop liking the smell of bacon.
I closed my eyes and shook my head back and forth briskly, took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, stood up straight, pulled my shoulders back, tightened my backpack, and walked towards to a thin sliver of a store front with an old-timey looking sign above it that said Just in Time. I swung open the thick glass door and stepped inside.
Moe the Watch Man welcomed me as if I were a new customer, then his eyes widened in surprise and he smiled and said, “Wow! Welcome back. You look great! Cuba was good to you.”
He walked around his counter and we fist-bumped. I showed him my Seiko and told him the new band worked perfectly.
“Rum and rock climbing will do that to you. Thanks for the watch band,” I said. “The corrugated ridges let my skin dry out quickly. And kept my wrist cool in the sun. Thank you.”
“Did I tell you my little brother’s name is Justin?” I asked with a smirk. “Like Just in Time?”
Moe said I had in a way that implied I probably had more than once; I only walked to Hillcrest at the end of a day wandering around Balboa Park high. My mind jump around trying to remember telling him that pun, then I realized I was staring awkwardly. I took a breath and smiled and said I was hoping Uncle Bob’s watch was ready.
“Sure is. Great watch,” he said. “A classic.”
Moe walked behind the counter and pushed a button to stop the rotating wheel that kept the perpetual motion watches wound. He removed Uncle Bob’s Oyster Perpetual Rolex and polished the new acrylic cover with a lens cloth. He held it up by the thin black leather strap, and I watched the second hand move seamlessly around the face; unlike a quartz watch, which had jumpy motions, a perpetual motion coil spring slowly unwinds in a smooth, uninterrupted pace. A tiny pendulum tightens the spring with every motion of your hand; as long as you’re moving, it’s keeping time. I used to sit with Uncle Bob and watch the New York ball drop on television every new years eve, and he’d adjust his Oyster Perpetual Rolex the two to four seconds it drifted off time every year.
“Yeah,” I told Moe. “It’s the Times New Roman of watches.”
Moe cocked his head and thought about that and said, “I like that. It’s layered. I’ll use it one day.”
He handed me the watch and I stared at the second hand moving more slowly than expected, because I was high; a million federal researchers typing on a million computers for a million years couldn’t explain the mind’s time dilation from strong Septiva. But I would have done that even if sober; the Oyster Perpetual uses tiny coiled springs that unwound precisely and smoothly, not a quartz crystal that made the second hand jump. I had been mesmerized by the smooth, seamless flow of that second hand since I was a kid.
I looked at Moe and held up Uncle Bob’s watch and said, “I wore this for three years as a paramedic in college. You measure pulse and breath rates by watching the second hand move a quarter turn and multiplying by four; not having to do math for digital numbers freed up mental bandwidth to focus on the patient.”
Moe made a “hmm” sound as if he’d comment, but my mind was moving as seamlessly as the second hand on the watch I held, and I continued my stream of conscious.
“When Uncle Bob was dying,” I told Moe. “We watched an all-night James Bond marathon on TV. I can’t remember which one it was, but Uncle Bob pointed out that Sean Connery was wearing this watch. I think it was You Only Live Twice. He said that’s the type of watch a spy would wear: reliable, discrete, and eloquent. He didn’t say eloquent, he used some word I can’t remember, but you get the point. Every New Years we’d watch the ball drop on TV, and he’d adjust this watch and say it was never more than three seconds off.”
I was babbling; I forced my exit by thanking Moe and saying I was on my way for a walk, that it was a beautiful day and I was happy to be alive. I thanked him again for cleaning and oiling Uncle Bob’s watch, and for sending off to Switzerland for a replacement face.
Moe said it was his pleasure. He put out his hand for a slap; I slapped it and we made fists and bumped them as if rehearsed it for a show. He put Uncle Bob’s watch in an small and eloquent felt bag, and put the bag in the sunglasses case I had dropped off the watch in five weeks before. Moe reminded me to wind it a dozen or so revolutions – emphasizing that it had a clutch to prevent over winding – and suggested that if I don’t wear it every day to buy a small version of his rotating wheel.
I said I was thinking making one with my ex-wife’s daughter, who was eight years old, around the same age as Moe’s daughter.
“She loved that book you gave her,” Moe said. “Young Einstein and His Book on Time. Who knew? And she still makes that lens cloth disappear every time someone comes over. Thank you for that.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was glad he called it a lens cloth; I had said that to her, though it was really just a thin, cheap polymer made to look like a fancy piece of silk and squeeze into the small thumb tip that made it vanish. I had pretended to polish my Seiko dive watch with it, then made it vanish and showed her the secret and gave it to her with a wink to her dad that it was his “tip” for replacing the watch band. She didn’t get the joke, but Moe did.
“I thought you’d appreciate chatting about Einstein with her,” I said. “He was working in a patent office on how to sync clocks between train stations when he realized time and space were the same. I’ll bring you a copy of his book from 1914 or something like that; he explains the thought process, but it all started with him realizing two clocks could not be synced no matter how many people filed patents for a method.”
“Sorry Moe,” I said to remind myself, “I have to go…”
We slapped hands and fist bumped again, and I walked out past his rows of fancy watches ticking sounds more slowly than any federal researcher would ever know. I felt the urge for a beer and focused instead on walking away at a pace that would get my heartbeat up.
Around three hours later the Septiva was peaking. I stopped to refill my water bottle at an upscale thrift store in Normal Heights that I knew had a cooler of water and usually a plate of cookies. But there were no cookies this time and I felt sad; of course it was ridiculous to be sad for not finding cookies, and that made me chuckle in the up and down of how my mind was going that day. I didn’t recognize the little elderly lady behind the counter, which was a good thing because I wouldn’t have been able to do small talk.
I refilled my water bottle and thanked the lady for the water. I was about to walk out when I saw an old SLR 35mm film camera in the glass display case, partially hidden under the empty plate that usually held cookies. It was a Pentax, a brand I knew but a smaller one than I had ever seen.
I asked the lady if I could see it, and I was surprised by how light it felt. It had a 50mm lens, a close approximation of what our 48mm eyes see. I rotated it in my hands, looking for a dial that wasn’t there; there was no aperture adjustment, just one for speed.
I asked the lady if I could hold on to the camera while I looked up some information. She said of course. It was only ten dollars, I said, over-talking and talking too quickly, but I wanted to look up something before deciding. She smiled and assured me it was okay. I stepped aside and near the door to force myself to be quiet, then pulled my phone from my rear pocket and typed the camera’s brand and model. According to Google, the camera was upper-middle quality and used by journalists and travelers because the reduced functionality allowed it to be lightweight and more comfortable carrying around your neck all day. The cost was a loss of aperture adjustment.
“Hm!” I uttered to myself. I hefted the camera up and let it back down around my neck. It was heavier than my phone, but not by much.
I remembered sorting through and deleting hundreds of images from Cuba on the flight back; and, perhaps because I had Uncle Bob’s old analog watch in my backpack, I envisioned myself traveling with a film camera again, choosing photos with the discretion of a sniper carrying a limited number of bullets. Focusing. Being selective, like the 12 photos from my disposable camera in Desert Storm.
I was still staring at my phone when an incoming call’s number popped up. I stared intently, shocked by the invasion into my thoughts, wondering how that had happened. My phone was set to ignore numbers not in my contacts, but I hadn’t realized they still showed on the screen; instantly, as seamlessly as Uncle Bob’s second hand moved, my emotions adjusted to the number’s area code, 225, the old school Baton Rouge area code before they added a second, and my heart skipped a beat and began to sink. I was scared; no, not scared or terrified or frightened, but aware that this was going to hurt, and feeling an overwhelming sense of trepidation for the inevitable. As my heart fell down to the pit of my stomach, my mind began racing with ways to get to Baton Rouge as soon as I could.
I shook my head and asked the lady if I could step outside to take a phone call. She said of course, and I pivoted and stepped outside and swiped to answer. I put the phone to my left ear and plugged my right with my forefinger.
“Hello,” I said weakly.
“Jason?” a woman’s voice I recognized said. With the speed of a Septiva fueled mind, snapshots from my childhood coalesced and formed a memory. Cindi, or Cathy, or something like to that. My mom’s childhood friend. Debbie’s older sister.
“This is Jason,” I said.
“Jason, this is Cathy, your mom’s friend. I know we haven’t talked in a long time, and I’m sorry to have to tell you this on the phone…”
My chest clamped down on the breath of air I had just taken; my heartbeat sped up and I pushed my finger more tightly into my ear and leaned into the phone.
“Wendy’s in the hosptial,” Cathy said.
My teeth clenched together.
“She went in two days ago for a minor surgery” Cathy continued. “And went into a coma. Her liver’s failed. The doctor says she probably won’t wake up.”
I felt I would vomit.
Wendy was my mother. She lost her virginity to my dad when she was a 16 year old girl and he was the 17 year old drug dealer for her high school. Two weeks later she realized she was pregnant. It was two years before Chief Justice Earl Warren oversaw Row versus Wade, and abortions were hard to come by. She didn’t have the cash for a place that offered abortions despite the religious south, so she accepted my dad’s offer to drop out of school and elope an hour and a half away to Woodville, Mississippi, where Big Daddy had been born and we still had family. They returned to Baton Rouge as Mr. and Mrs. Edward Partin and lived in one of Big Daddy’s houses, convenient because the name was already Edward Partin in the phone book. My dad soon left with some of his friends to buy drugs in Jamaica, and Wendy had two nervous breakdowns and abandoned me both times. She and my dad both returned on their own, but a judge had already put me into foster care. She spent the next seven years fighting the Partins and my foster parents for custody while being allowed to visit me one day a month, but was embarrassed by her age and what she had done and taught me to call her by her first name so people would think I was her little brother. Old habits are hard to break, and I still called my mother Wendy.
I took the deepest breath I could and saw the thrift store wobbling in front of me. I held my breath as if I were diving down to recover something from the bottom of a deep river.
I mumbled a sound to Cathy because I couldn’t unclench my teeth. She continued by saying that Wendy had been on the liver donor list for three years but had been too embarrassed to tell me. She was in the O’Neal Medical Center. Cathy reiterated that the doctor didn’t believe Wendy would come out of a coma, that the life support machines were keeping her alive in the intensive care ward. She was saying other things, but I wasn’t listing. My mind was re-contextualized the past three years of phone calls with Wendy, and what I saw wasn’t just her mumbling about the past after a few glasses of wine, it was a brain perpetually poisoned by a failing liver, and Wendy trying to reconnect with her son; at that thought, my tension faded into sadness and my jaw loosened.
I told Cathy I’d fly to Baton Rouge as soon as I could, and I asked her to text me the hospital so I wouldn’t forget it. That was ridiculous, of course; I had spent my high school years only a couple of miles from O’Neal lane, but my mind wasn’t seeing that and was so focused on leaving San Diego that details of what Cathy was saying didn’t register. I got off the phone, added Cathy’s number to my contacts, and opened a travel app. There was nothing from San Diego that afternoon. There was one flight later that day from Los Angeles to New Orleans, but I’d never make it to LA in time, so bought a ticket for the next morning.
A text message popped up with Wendy’s hospital, the O’Neal Medical Center, and it’s address on O’Neal Lane, which was about thirty minutes from the Baton Rouge airport and Glen Oaks High, where Wendy and Cathy had gone to high school. I knew both areas so well that I could already see myself there, taking a Lyft from the airport, past downtown, and out to the sprawling suburbs that were woods and new development plans when I was there last.
The San Diego airport was only two miles from my condo across from Balboa Park. I set the alarm for early in the morning with enough time to ride a bike there if I had to, scheduled a Lyft to pick me up, and returned my phone to my rear pocket. My mind was playing too many scenarios to follow any one, but probably because of the Septiva, a part of the churn that kept bubbling to the surface was the sense of premonition I had felt when answering the phone, and the memory of missing Wendy’s calls in Cuba a month before, and feeling an even worse sense of dread then that I ignored, assuming my mind was worried about itself and searching for something to cling to and justify itself. I had ignored that feeling, and I was feeling so much guilt that the chaos overflowed and came out as tears building in the corners of my eyes.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyes with my thumb and forefinger to clear the tears. My mind jumped to the replacement thumb tip and little handkerchief in my jean watch pocket, saying that wiping my eyes would be a logical reason to pull out the little handkerchief and then make it vanish one day; that thought put a smile on my face, and I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. A few more breaths later, I walked back inside the thrift store.
The little elderly lady had arranged some fancy-looking cookies on the tray, but I was no longer hungry. I told her I’d like to buy the camera, and pointed to sunglasses inside the case and said I’d like those, too. It was $18 total. I took out Uncle Bob’s gold money clip, monogramed with RMD for Robert M. Desico, and slid out a $20 bill and asked her to add the change to the cookie fund. I put the camera in my backpack, put on the sunglasses, and walked out the store.
My mind wouldn’t stop racing, replaying scenes but with me knowing then what I had just realized. I tightened the straps on my backpack, took a deep breath, turned left – away from home – and walked quickly enough to quiet my mind. I was around three hours from my condo, but the edibles would last at least twice as long as that and I didn’t want to sit around with just my thoughts. Besides, if I were going to be sitting in an airplane again tomorrow, I wanted to fatigue my body today. The flight had a layover in Houston, so the total travel time would be almost nine hours. Because of time change, I’d arrive late at night and take a Lyft straight to the O’Neal medical center.
The sun was shining and the day was as beautiful as could be, but I didn’t see that through the tears that kept pooling in my eyes. At least my high mind knew enough to buy sunglasses, I thought.
I stopped and removed the glasses and pulled up the corner of my shirt to wipe my eyes. I wasn’t in the mood to use the little red handkerchief tucked inside my thumb tip, and my mind wasn’t reaching for anything to smile about.
“Damnit, Wendy!” I said loudly enough that you could have heard me from 50 feet away.
Releasing that pent up anger helped settle my mind.
Interesting, I thought. I’m not hungry.
I wondered what would have happened if I had chosen CBD instead.
I put the glasses back on, took a deep breath, and focused on walking as quickly as I could while not attracting attention. I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. I began walking and picked up my pace until my heartbeat and breath rate were all I could focus on.
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