Novels
an excerpt from
Still Life
a novel by David Ortmann
Robert turns into Walgreens and walks quickly to the rear of the store where there is a line of five people waiting for prescriptions. He joins the line, his head reeling from the winded tirade with Bill.
"My tolerance for people is lessening these days. That's what Christine would say." he thinks to himself.
He is unable to understand, to wrap his mind around why he cannot just disengage from people who annoy him and who are in his space. It saddens him to know that, for some inexplicable reason, Bill values a connection with Robert. They have nothing in common. Not values, morals, activities. Robert can not even name half the players on the San Francisco 49er's football team. The only things they have in common are that they are white, male, and straight. Are all white gay men friends just because they all happen to be the same? Robert thinks not.
Why does he like me so much? It must be because he knows no one else.
Suddenly he feels very sorry for Bill, with his big fat body and his nicotine-stained teeth. Robert wonders if Bill gets lonely sometimes, the way he does. Perhaps they have more in common that Robert wants to admit. Suddenly Robert does want to have dinner with Jane and Bill at their house in the Excelsior district that is not yet paid off yet and eat off cheap paper plates on a sky blue Formica table with rickety aluminum legs and hear Bill talk nonsense and ask his daughter why she wanted the Castro hat and maybe bring her a tee-shirt to match. He will call Bill tomorrow and tell him his new work extension. He will maybe even give Bill his home phone number.
"Good Lord," an elderly woman in front of him mutters under her breath, She is rail-thin and wears a great amount of expensive gold jewelry-rings, bracelets, dangling earrings and a thick necklace that looks too large for her matchstick neck. He hair is dyed blonde, teased, and hairsprayed into something that looks like a football helmet. She rolls her eyes behind eyeglasses that look as though they might be 1970's Foster Grant's. She looks like a very rich, very angry bug.
She huffs again and this time the black man in lycra shorts and matching cycling shirt in front of her turns around and says, "I know. Could she possibly take any longer?"
Robert looks to the front of the line and sees the fattest woman he has ever seen fishing through a large wicker handbag. She's wearing an immense off-white sleeveless sundress patterned with big light blue daisies. She seems to be looking for something and has pulled out of her purse a travel-size pack of Kleenex tissues, one of those little plastic change purses that holds about five coins and are routinely given out at bank openings (then handed down to children), a daily pill organizer that rattles like a maraca, a small flashlight, a box of Spearmint Altoids and a stack of stamped mail tied together with a dirty bit of twine. Leaning on the counter beside her is a four-pronged cane. The handle is covered with layer upon layer of filthy masking tape.
"I swear! Girl's been up there for at least twenty minutes," Bike Shorts turns around and says to Bug.
"I know. I've been here," Bug snaps.
"Hey, honey, chill out there," Bike shorts snaps back. "I ain't the fat crip holding up the god'amn line."
"Will you two shut up? I'm sure she can hear you." The woman in front of both Bug and Shorts turns around. She's clearly livid about the wait and is tapping her sandaled foot and chewing on a plastic red coffee stirrer. Robert thinks it somehow unjust that Sandals is less upset by what is being said about the slow woman than the fact that she might hear it.
Are insults less potent when they are unheard? If a tree falls in the forest blah, blah, blah.
The woman in the sundress pulls a large pocketbook out of her purse. Someone else in line makes a comment. The pharmacist looks strained. Her young forehead is lined with tension. Robert wonders how long this has been going on. He can't tolerate the remarks and the sighs coming from the people in front of him. He has to shut it out. He looks at his watch and monitors the second hand to see how long it will take the woman with the cane to pay her bill. In his head he sings "The Girl from Ipanema." Focused, those around him eventually fade away.
"Now do I take this with food?" The woman in the sundress has paid her bill is now asking a question. Her tone implies she might have an additional four questions following this one. Exactly four minutes and forty-seven seconds have passed since Robert began timing the woman.
"My God!" Bug finally explodes, catching the attention of the weary pharmacist. Everyone turns around, accept for the woman for whom the remark was intended.
"Ma'am," the pharmacist says politely, "I'll have to ask you to direct any questions you might have about the medication to our pharmacy staff."
"But aren't you a pharmacist?" the woman asks slowly.
"Yes, I am," the young woman continues calmly, "But we have a special pharmacist for questions. If you step aside and talk to him at the next window, I can take care of this line." She indicates the crowd with a pointed finger.
"Oh, goodness!" The woman in the sundress turns her head, apparently for the first time, and sees the line that has formed behind her. "I am sorry," she says, shuffling aside-too quickly- and tripping over the cane, and, in trying to grasp it and maintain balance, falls to the floor with the thud. The cane falls next, followed by the handbag.
"Jesus H. Christ," Shorts says, but does not move.
The pharmacist disappears, apparently to get help. Robert is amazed that no one in line has made a motion to help her up. He feels heat rising up to his face. He steps forward tentatively, steps back into line, and then rushes forward to the fallen woman's side. "Do you need some help up?"
"Goodness, yes," she pants. "How embarrassing."
The woman is too heavy for Robert to lift alone, even though she is also attempting to draw herself up using a nearby chair. Finally, the female pharmacist and another male pharmacist appear and between the three of them they help the woman to her feet.
"Thank you so much," she says quietly, her cheeks burning fuchsia.
"Are you alright. Is anything broken?" The female pharmacist asks breathlessly.
"No, no dear. I'm just embarrassed is all." She tries to muster a smile but is panting too hard. Robert notices the attempt, a rather pretty smile, though short lived. "I just didn't see that big line. I'm so sorry. Me with all my questions." She shakes her head.
Robert, assured the woman is fine and the recipient of a heartfelt "thank you young man," rejoins the line.
Young man?
The pharmacist helps the next two people. Now he is only waiting behind the people he has come to know as Bug and Shorts.
The large woman is on her feet again and leaning on her cane for support. Now at the second window, she asks the male pharmacist again if she must take a particular medication with food.
"Looks like she takes everything with food," Shorts says, loud enough for the fat woman to hear. Robert feels the heat burning in his face again. Both pharmacists are looking at Shorts with disapproval. Bug's mouth is a thin line, but Robert is sure the thin line is intended for the woman who fell, not for Shorts. The fat woman in the sundress turns around and looks at Shorts and smiles at him in a way that makes Robert think she wants to disappear. Shorts folds his arms and turns away. Robert hates him instantly and wishes he could watch Shorts die right now.
Painfully and slowly. Spontaneous combustion would be too quick and dramatic. A long painful heart attack would be more pleasing. I wonder if he can see me smiling and if he knows why? I would like to see him grovel on the floor, convulsing painfully, before finally dying, all for that evil comment and for that huge, poor, crippled woman's resulting shame.
Robert pays for his medication, makes sure the two bottles are correct: allergy medication and sinus medication. He didn't get the headache pills. No matter, he thinks, there is some form of painkiller at home and he can always order the migraine medication tomorrow. He feels another headache coming on. The strain of helping that poor woman up and having to witness how nasty some of the people in line were to her. Why would someone-he thinks of the man in the bike shorts specifically-want to say something so cruel to that woman and make sure that she heard it? Commiserating with other people stuck in an uncomfortable situations with you is one thing, but to be so intentionally and viciously mean is another. He can't imagine how that woman must have felt when Shorts said what he said. Robert buys a small bottle of Crystal Geyser water and takes one of his sinus pills. He looks at his watch again. It is 1:37pm.
It's time to get out of here. I want to be home. I need, right now, to be away from people for awhile. It has been a nice walk, and there is that word again. Nice. I still don't really know what it means. Most of the time when I describe something as "nice" I wasn't particularly enjoying it. But the walk was good, or at least parts of it. Was it nice, or was it something else?
On the way out of Walgreens, he gives the Street Sheet to the homeless man who approaches him on the way it. "I read it in line," he lies, "Maybe you can sell it again."
"Thanks," the man nods.
Holding the plastic Walgreens bag at his side, he makes his way up Castro Street, past the Walgreens window displays, with their neon tubing pop art replicas and $5.99 sandals, past what used to be the Pride Grocery and Market store which has gone the way of Josie's Cabaret and Juice Joint.
Gone. Replaced by store chains. All of them.
Robert hasn't heard any news about what is going to occupy the space. Walgreens may expand. The Bar on Castro, on the opposite side of the vacancy, may also expand. There is also word it may be converted into a slick, "respectable" porn mall. He wonders what happened to the elderly Russian couple who owned the Pride Market.
The patio of the Bar on Castro is full of pretty young women and even more equally pretty young men sipping aqua, blue, clear, amber, and pink cocktails from oversized martini glasses. These exotic drinks seem to be the Bar on Castro's trademark. Robert had gone in once with Christine after a long dinner at Catch with friends of hers. The bartender looked at him oddly when he ordered a lemonade. The bartender asked if he meant a Lynchburg lemonade. Robert said no, just the regular kind. The Bar, as it was known by regulars, was a comfortable place and Robert liked the feel of it, with its long low tables flanked by oversized ottomans. It reminded him of what almost every bar looks like in Tribeca.
Men in leather vests and tight denims congregate outside Daddy's bar smoking cigarettes. Robert remembers at time when it was legal to smoke inside bars and restaurants in California.
It was only five or six years ago but it feels like forever.
A fairly good-looking man with a handlebar mustache and tight black leather pants smiles at Robert and winks his right eye. Robert smiles back, friendly but non-committal.
Why is it that the older gay leather men always cruise me? At least it makes me feel young.
Passing Rolo clothing store he sees her again, hobbling up the street, about ten feet ahead of him, trying to dodge the festive Sunday crowds that are completely oblivious to her-fat, and crippled in her faded daisies.
I hope they cheer her up. The daisies, I mean. Those washed out flowers. Her Sunday best, perhaps, but not good enough for them. Them, the people brushing her by with their spiked hair, Gucci bags, newspapers, and coconut Mocha Frapacinnos. Ugly people are invisible in the Castro. Ugly people are invisible. Just plain invisible, not only in the Castro. Invisible everywhere. Unless they are holding things up, things like lines. Then they become visible in a way that is the darkest opposite of nice.
The unforgiving sunlight shows her once white dress yellowing with age. The daises are dull and faded. The dress has been washed and worn a lot. He wonders if she is poor and then berates himself for asking stupid questions. The bag of medications is too much for her to carry in one hand while trying to balance her weight on the cane with the other. He hopes she doesn't fall again, partially because he doesn't want her to get hurt but, mostly, because he doesn't want to have to feel obligated to help her up again. He purposefully slows his pace to lag behind her, hating himself now in the same way he hated Shorts moments ago.
Suddenly, for the first time since he successfully quit smoking over ten years ago, Robert wants a cigarette. He stops walking and leans against a telephone pole in front of the Diesel store at the corner of Castro and Market Streets. He wants to feel his lips pucker against the spongy filter of a Camel or Marlboro. He needs to take a full drag of smoke into his lungs, and puff on the cigarette until the paper burns all the way down to the filter and he feels the heat of the cherry head on his fingertips. He wants it to burn him and then pretend the burning was unintentional. Another lie. He thinks about pressing the cigarette into the palm of his hand and feels the vein in his neck throb so hard his ears ring. Watching the old woman hobble up the street with her twisted foot and bag of medications Robert want to do something hurtful, something that is not good for him, but before he decides on anything he feels tears rolling down his face and he can't understand quite why he is crying but knows it has something to do with that woman with her hideous foot, with the dirty masking tape on her cane and with the faded daisies on her dress, that invisible and sometimes briefly visible human being.