Tales of the City 01 - Tales of the City

are. You’ve been running around for three days acting like Gale Storm organizing a shuffleboard tournament.”
    “Don’t you like Christmas?”
    He shrugged. “That isn’t the point. Christmas doesn’t like me .”
    “Well … I know it’s gotten commercial and all, but that’s not …”
    “Oh, that part’s O.K. I like all the tacky lights and the mob scenes and the plastic reindeer. It’s the … gooey part that drives me up the wall.”
    “The gooey part?”
    “It’s a conspiracy. Christmas is a conspiracy to make single people feel lonely.”
    “Mouse … I’m single and …”
    “And look at you … scrambling like mad to make sure you’ve got someplace to go.” He swept his hands around the room. “Where’s your tree, if you’re so crazy about Christmas? And your wreath … and your mistletoe?”
    “I might get a tree,” she said defensively.
    “It wouldn’t make sense. It wouldn’t make a damn bit of sense to trek down to Polk Street to pick out some pathetic little tabletop tree and spend two days’ pay decorating it with things you used to like back in Cleveland, just so you could sit there alone in the dark and watch it blink at you.”
    “I have friends, Mouse. You have friends.”
    “Friends go home. And Christmas Eve is the most horrible night of the year to go to bed alone … because when you wake up it’s not going to be one of those Kodak commercials with kids in bunny slippers … It’s going to be just like any other goddamned day of the year!”
    She slid closer to him on the sofa. “Couldn’t you ask Jon to the party?”
    “Hey … drop that, will you?”
    “I think he liked you a lot, Mouse.”
    “I haven’t seen him since …”
    “What if I called him?”
    “Goddammit!”
    “All right … all right.’“
    He took her hand. “I’m sorry. I just … I get so sick of the We People.”
    “The what?”
    “The We People. They never say I. They say, ‘We’re going to Hawaii after Christmas’ or ‘We’re taking the dog to get his shots.’ They wallow in the first person plural, because they remember how shitty it was to be a first person singular.”
    Mary Ann stood up, tugging on his hand. “C’mon, Ebenezer.”
    “What for?”
    “ We’re buying Christmas trees. Two of ‘em.”
    “Mary Ann …”
    “C’mon. Don your gay apparel.” She giggled at the inadvertent pun. “That’s funny, isn’t it?”
    He smiled in spite of himself. “We are not amused!”

Enigma at the Twinkie Factory
    A FTER WEEKS OF WORRYING ABOUT IT, MONA FI nally embarked on her secret plan to reunite D’orothea with her parents.
    There wasn’t that much to go on. She learned that Twinkies were made by the Continental Baking Company and that there were two locations in the Bay Area. One was the Wonder Bread bakery in Oakland. The other was on Bryant Street.
    “Thank you for calling Hostess Cakes.”
    “I … do you make Twinkies?”
    “Yes, we do. Also Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, Crumb Cakes …”
    “Thank you. Do you have a Mr. Wilson there?”
    “Which one?”
    “Uh … I’m not sure.” She almost said “the black one,” but somehow it sounded racist to her.
    “Donald K. Wilson is a wrapper here … and we have a Leroy ?. Wilson, who’s a baker.”
    “I think that’s the one.”
    “Leroy?”
    “Yes … May I speak to him, please?”
    “I’m sorry. The bakers work the night shift. Eleven to seven.”
    “Can you give me his home number?”
    “I’m sorry. We’re not allowed to divulge that information.” Christ, she thought. What is this? A nuclear power plant or a fucking Twinkie factory? “If I came down there … tonight, I mean … would it be possible to talk to him?”
    “I don’t see why not. On his break or something?”
    “Around midnight, say?”
    “I guess so.”
    “You’re on Bryant?”
    “Uh-huh. At Fifteenth. A big brown brick building.”
    “Thanks a lot.”
    “May I leave a message for him or anything?”
    “No … Thanks, anyway.”
    D’orothea got home at eight o’clock, devastated by a ten-hour session before the cameras.
    “If I never see another plate of Rice-a-Roni, it’ll be too soon!”
    Mona laughed and handed her a glass of Dubonnet. “Guess what’s for supper?”
    “I’ll kill you!”
    “Hang on … pork chops and okra!”
    “What!”
    Mona nodded, smiling. “Just like your mother probably used to make.”
    “What a shitty thing to say about somebody’s mother!”
    “Well … your foremothers,