Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

excruciating attentiveness, the ardor which bordered on priapism. Now she couldn’t wait to be back. Her heart tap-danced at the thought of him.
    After breakfast, she did the dishes for the last time, then dragged out her suitcases. She decided against packing a bird’s nest she had found in the woods, picturing how forlorn it would look amidst the chrome and whitewash of her loft. Vacations, she had learned, hardly ever survived transplanting.
    As she gathered her loose receipts and paperbacks, she looked at Booter’s check and smiled. He had originally made it out for ten thousand, but she’d insisted that he change it. Five thousand, after all, had been his first offer, and there was no point in being greedy.
    The phone rang. What now? Was her driver lost?
    “Wren Douglas,” she purred, reassuming the mantle of an incorporated woman.
    “It’s me,” came a weak voice. It was Booter, but he didn’t sound like himself.
    “Oh, hi.”
    “I have to see you again.”
    “Are you O.K.?” she asked. “You sound like a truck just hit you.”
    “Something has happened,” he said quietly, his voice drained of color. “I have to see you.”
    “Booter, my flight is at one o’clock.”
    “Cancel it. Please.”
    “I can’t. There’s a driver coming from the city.”
    “He can stay here overnight. I’ll pay for it.”
    “Look,” she said, “if I flake out on my boyfriend one more time … What’s the problem, anyway? Tell me about it.”
    “No,” he said quietly. “Not now.”
    “Well, then, if …”
    “I’ll pay you more, of course.”
    That made her mad. “Damnit, Booter …”
    “Well, what do I have to do?”
    “Nothing,” she said wearily, resigning herself to another shouting match with Rolando. “If it’s really important …”
    “You can catch the same flight tomorrow. Tell your driver he can stay at the Sonoma Mission Inn. It’s very nice. I have an account there. I’ll call ahead and arrange everything.”
    “Well … O.K.”
    “I’ll be there this afternoon.”
    “When?”
    “No later than three,” he said.

His Own Mischance
    W HEN SOMEONE DIED AT THE GROVE, THE NEWS of it rumbled through the encampment like the drums of the Navajo. Jimmy’s death had been no different from the rest, electrifying Bohemia for a few uncertain hours until banality came along to put the horror in its place. Discussing it over breakfast fizzes the next morning, Jimmy’s campmates had spoken with a single voice: “He loved performing more than anything. He died a happy man.”
    Booter knew better. He had been there. He had seen the look on Jimmy’s face. These fond farewells were too damn facile, if you asked him. When he went west, by God, he wanted serious mourning. If not weeping and wailing, at least a little gnashing of teeth.
    Most of this occurred to him during Jimmy’s impromptu memorial service at Medicine Lodge, Father Paddy Starr officiating. Booter knew the priest only slightly (he was a member of Pig’n’ Whistle), but the fellow struck him as a little too swish for his own good.
    “He was one of the greats,” Father Paddy told him afterwards.
    “Yes,” said Booter.
    “I loved him in that Egyptian thing.”
    Booter nodded.
    “I suppose his wife has been notified.”
    “His wife is dead,” said Booter.
    “Oh.” The cleric clucked sympathetically. “What about children?”
    “I dunno,” said Booter, walking away. “I think there’s a son in the East.”
    He downed two Scotches at the Medicine Lodge bar and walked back to Hillbillies by himself. On the way, he passed one of the Grove’s infamous “heart-attack phones.” Housed in their own miniature chalets, these infirmary hot lines had been installed for the sole purpose of saving lives.
    Sometimes they did the job; sometimes they didn’t.
    Bohemians made grim jokes about the phones, the worst of which Booter had heard from Jimmy.
    Poor bastard, he thought, as he stumbled into the compound at Hillbillies. I know damn well you weren’t ready.
    He had two more drinks at Hillbillies, but left shortly thereafter, finding the camaraderie oppressive. He walked down the river road past the Club House, then decided to forsake this eternal gloom for the sunshine of the riverbank.
    The sentry at the guardhouse gave him a funny look. The old codger had always struck him as slightly impertinent.
    “Havin’ a good mornin’?” he asked.
    “Not particularly,” said Booter.
    “Well … hope it gets