Tales of the City 03 - Further Tales of the City

believed that?”
    “Some of them did. Others humored him, because they approved of his goals.”
    “Like a lot of people here.”
    “Yes. And a lot of those poor souls believed that he took on their disease as soon as he cured them of it. It was his way of going to Calvary. His illness was all the more pitiful—we were told—because it was really our illness, and he was bearing it for us.”
    “How awful.”
    DeDe shrugged. “You have no idea how noble it made him look at the time.”
    “You weren’t buying it, were you?”
    “The point is,” said DeDe, almost irritably, “the man was sick. Anybody could see that. It’s easy to look back now and see that a lot of it may have been psychosomatic or something … but it looked pretty damn real at the time. So did the arthritis. The swelling in his wrists and hands was quite noticeable. I was shocked the first time I saw it. I came into the nursery one day and found him with the twins …”
    “There was a nursery?”
    DeDe thought for a moment. “The Cuffy Memorial Baby Nursery, to be precise.”
    “Cuffy,” repeated Mary Ann. “That’s sort of sweet, actually.”
    “He was a black liberation leader in Guyana.”
    “Right.”
    “At any rate, Dad was … Jones was standing there in the nursery, holding little Edgar, singing something to him … with those huge swollen hands. It was pathetic and horrible all at the same time. I should’ve felt complete revulsion, I guess, but all I could feel was an odd sort of pity … and panic, of course. I moved closer to hear what he was singing, but it wasn’t his usual revolutionary anthem; it was ‘Bye Baby Bunting.’ ”
    Mary Ann almost said “Aww,” but caught herself in the nick of time. “There must have been something decent about him or you wouldn’t have stayed so long. You didn’t even plan your escape, did you, until you heard about the cyanide?”
    DeDe nodded. “Partly because of his illness, I guess. It made him seem less threatening, more vulnerable. And partly because I was … used to things. It was a shitty little world, but at least I knew how it worked. You know what I mean?”
    Mary Ann nodded, flashing instantly on Halcyon Communications.
    “The truth is,” DeDe continued, “I was an idiot. I actually cried when he called us together and announced that he had cancer.”
    “When was that?”
    “August, I guess. Early August. Later in the month, a doctor named Goodlett came in from San Francisco. He examined Jones and said he couldn’t find any cancer. He said it was probably some sort of fungus eating at his lungs. Anyway, he tried to get Jones to leave the jungle for proper tests to diagnose his illness, but Jones was terrified of leaving Jonestown even for a day. Charles Garry made special arrangements for him to have a medical examination in Georgetown—without getting arrested, that is—but Jones was afraid of a rebellion in his absence.”
    “So he was still thinking clearly.”
    “Always,” said DeDe, “when it came to keeping control. Of course, later that summer the addiction started. Quaaludes mixed with cognac, Elavil, Placidyl … Valium, Nembutal, you name it. Marceline saw him falling apart before her very eyes and realized that something had to be done.”
    “Who was Marceline?”
    “His wife.”
    “Right,” said Mary Ann hastily, feeling stupider by the minute. “I’d almost forgotten he was married.”

Chums
    B RIAN AND MICHAEL SPENT SATURDAY MORNING roller-skating in Golden Gate Park—a precarious undertaking at best, despite the sleek, professional-looking skates Mrs. Madrigal had given them the previous Christmas.
    “You’ve been practicing,” Brian shouted accusingly as they wobbled past the de Young Museum. “That’s against the rules, you know?”
    “Says who?”
    “Mary Ann said you went skating on Tuesday. With your cop friend.”
    “That was indoors. That doesn’t count.”
    “Where’d you go?”
    “The rink in El Sobrante. It’s loaded with Farrah Fawcett minors, blow-dried for days….”
    “Girls?”
    “You wish. Twinkies. It’s an amazing sight. I should take you and Mary Ann sometime. We can take the bus.”
    “There’s a special bus?”
    Michael nodded. “It makes the rounds of half-a-dozen gay bars, then drops everybody off at the rink. It’s a lot of fun. You get to make out on the bus on the way home.”
    Brian smiled nostalgically. “I remember that.”
    “So do I. Only I never did it in high school. I