Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

raised a Presbyterian.”
    “The Bible says until ye be born again, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
    If there’s a God, thought Mary Ann, He must get his jollies by bringing these people into my life. Fundamentalist crones. Hare Krishna flower peddlers. Scientologists offering “personality tests” on the corner of Powell and Geary.
    When the streetcar stopped at Twenty-fourth Street, Mary Ann wasted no time in heading for the door.
    The old woman reached into the aisle and said “Praise Jesus,” handing her convert a dog-eared pamphlet. Mary Ann accepted it with a blush and a nod of thanks.
    As the streetcar departed, she stood on the corner and read the pamphlet’s boldly emblazoned headline: JIMMY CARTER FOR PRESIDENT.
    The world was changing, she decided. Even to her untrained Midwestern eye, Twenty-fourth Street seemed almost quaintly anachronistic. Men still wore their hair in ponytails here, and women slumped around in vintage granny dresses.
    “Far out” had the sound of “Oh, you kid.”
    So what’s next? she wondered. What will come along to take the place of free clinics and crisis switchboards and alternative newspapers and macrobiotic everything?
    The entrance hall of the Switchboard was dark. A sliver of light from the back room guided her feet to the sound of a ringing phone.
    “I’m here, Vincent. I’m really sorry! I just lost track of the time. I know you must be … No! … Oh, God, Vincent, no! … You didn’t …?”
    His tongue was the worst part, protruding from his mouth like a fat black sausage.
    He was swinging very slowly from the ceiling, his neck a hideous mass of twine and shells and feathers. Laurel’s macramé had finally served a purpose.
    He had died as organically as possible.

Nightcap
    T HE POLICEMAN WHO DROPPED HER OFF AT BARBARY Lane was so young that he had zits. But he was gentle and he seemed to be genuinely worried about her.
    “You sure you’re gonna be O.K.?”
    “Yes. Thank you.” She had come very close to inviting him up for a crème de menthe…. Anything to keep from being alone tonight.
    Bounding up the stairway into the dark lane, she found herself praying that Mona or Michael would be at home. But no one answered their buzzer.
    Upstairs, she fumbled in her purse for her key, then noticed the light spilling under Brian’s door. She reversed her course without a moment’s hesitation.
    He was wearing boxer shorts and a sweatshirt when he opened the door. His face was shiny with sweat.
    “Sit-ups,” he grinned, jerking his head toward his incline board.
    “I’m sorry if I …”
    “It’s O.K.”
    “I … Does that offer for a joint still hold?”
    He listened to her account of the horror with a face almost devoid of expression. When she had finished, he whistled softly. “He was a good friend?”
    She shook her head. “Not at all.”
    “That’s the part that hurts, doesn’t it?”
    “God, Brian, if I had only talked to him a little more …”
    “No. It wouldn’t have done any good.” He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “So we’ve both had a good day.”
    “What happened to you?”
    “Not much. A house party at Stinson Beach.”
    “You didn’t like it?”
    He took a toke off the joint. “Picture this, O.K.? Five young married couples and me. Well … semi-young. Thirty to thirty-five. Still in Topsiders, mind you, but driving an Audi now and sending a couple of rug rats to the French-American School and swapping notes on their Cuisinarts …”
    “Their what?”
    He handed her the joint. “Next image: a beach full of pink people, the women on one side, chattering about hot tubs and cellulite and the best place for runny Brie … and the guys out by the volleyball net, huffing and puffing in twelve-year-old Madras bermudas their wives have let out at least twice … and all these yellow-haired kids fighting over who gets to play with Big Bird and G.I.Joe …”
    Mary Ann smiled for the first time. “I got it.”
    “So here’s our hero, in the middle of all this … wondering if he can get food stamps if he quits at Perry’s … hoping to hell the Clap Clinic doesn’t call this week….” He stopped, seeing the look on her face. “A joke, Mary Ann … And then this guy runs out of the house with his guitar slung around his neck like some refugee from Hootenanny, only he’s a lawyer , right? … and he drops down in the sand and starts singing ‘I don’t give a damn about a greenback dollar’