The walk has helped me straighten things out, and I head home without thinking. I rejoice in the prodigal charm of my palm-haunted city. Though I’ve written love letters to Charleston hundreds of times in my columns over the years, I don’t think I’ve ever come close to touching on the city’s uncaptured mysteries. Walking back north along the Battery wall, I realize words are never enough; they stutter and cleave to the roof of my mouth when I need them to blaze, to surge out of my mouth like an avenging hive of hunter wasps. As I go back to my house, I let no sensation pass without my appreciation—on this night, this amazing night that brought forth imaginary cheerleaders, fight songs, screaming, bloodshed, a quest, a gathering of our own aristocracy of the elect and the chosen. It has been a rich and satisfying night, and I am bursting with something I have to describe as joy.
Tradd Street is a European street, not an American one. The houses push their stuccoed facades up against the sidewalks. If not for the street-lamps, darkness would give the night a sinister and claustrophobic cast. The outside light at my house on the south side of Tradd is lit, but I don’t remember flicking the switch on my way out. Such inattention to detail is not common to me. I unlock the privacy door that leads onto my first-floor veranda and see a light on in the living room that I never use. I hear music coming from my third-story study.
“Yoo-hoo!” I call out. “I hope you’re a friendly burglar and not a Charles Manson type.”
I hear Molly’s clear, unmistakable laughter, and it relieves me that she can still laugh. I walk upstairs and find her sitting in one of the leather chairs that look out over the rooftops of the city. Because I have a clear view of the steeples of both St. Michael’s and St. Philip’s, I consider myself a lucky man.
“Could I change into something more comfortable?” I ask. I see Molly’s pretty feet propped up on a footstool.
“Sure. It’s your house.” She smiles.
“If I get in my birthday suit, would that be bad form?”
“Yes, it would. But it might make the evening more interesting,” she says, and again, the good Molly laughter, not the sorrowing kind that can break your heart in an instant.
“You helped yourself to the wine, I hope.”
“Emptied the open bottle, got a head start on a second.”
“Why do we drink so much in Charleston?” I pour myself a splash of Hennessy.
“Because we’re human,” she says. “Like everyone else. And the older we get, the more human we get. The more human we get, the more painful everything becomes. That was a bad scene today, wasn’t it?”
“It was memorable.”
“What happened after I left? I’m terrified to know the answer. But I need to know.”
“Chad bled to death in his sister’s arms. Fraser was like the Virgin Mary, holding Chad in the pietà style. Before he succumbed, he looked at me and said, ‘Leo, thou has a very small peter. And upon this rock I shall build my church.’ Ike and Betty are patrolling the streets hunting down the murderess. Bloodhounds are roaming South of Broad.”
“Why’d I ask you a serious question?”
I take a seat in the chair beside her. Both of us stare out the Palladian window at the rooftops that run together until the steeple of St. Michael’s interrupts their irregular march.
“Your punch was a good one. At first we thought Chad’s nose was broken. As you might expect, he did not handle public humiliation well. He denied that he was having an affair. Claimed you were crazy. But the good news is he’s having you tested next week, and you’ll soon be getting shock treatments and living in a padded cell.”
“He said that?”
“No, but those were the implications.”
“Did he go to the hospital?”
“Don’t know. But he went somewhere. In a big hurry.”
“He went to see that Brazilian bitch, didn’t he?”
“He didn’t leave a forwarding address.”
“How long’ve you known?” Molly asks, still not looking at me.
“Unfair question. I’m a columnist. I hear every rumor, true or not. If Mayor Riley wears a dress to a city council meeting. If the head of the NAACP has a sex-change operation. If your father turns his house into a whorehouse. I hear it all.”
“Sarah Ellen Jenkins saw you going into Chad’s office yesterday,” she says, looking at me with enough fury to put me on fair notice that I need to change my tactics. “Did you discuss his affair?”
“I told him the rumors that I’d been hearing.”
“Why didn’t you come to me? Our friendship’s a lot stronger than yours and Chad’s has ever been. Tell me that’s a lie.”
“That’s the Lord’s truth.”
“You’ve never liked Chad,” she says.
“That’s not true,” I defend myself. “I had to get accustomed to him.”
“Which part?”
“The asshole factor. It’s a strong genetic trait that runs in all males in the family. He denied having the affair, by the way.”
“Did you meet the Brazilian girl?” Molly asks.
I flinch when I nod my head.
“Was she beautiful?”
“She had the loveliest mustache. It covered her harelip quite nicely. She could use a better-fitting set of dentures. Her breath smelled like a bag of shrimp left out in the heat for a month.”
“That pretty, huh?”
“Made me wish I’d been born in Brazil.”
She slaps my hand hard, and we both laugh. We look out again at the white steeple and hear the bells of St. Michael’s tolling the midnight hour. In her chair, she shifts to the left and props her bare feet on my ankles. The shock of her flesh on mine sends a jolt right through me.
“Do you remember our dance Friday night?”
“No,” I lie.
“Do you remember how we kissed once we got free from the others?”
“No,” I say again.
“Sheba saw it,” Molly says. “She thinks we kiss pretty good.”
“I was drunk. I don’t remember a thing.”
“Let me tell you about it, then, Leo. You kissed me like you meant it. Like I was the only woman in the world you cared anything about. You kissed me like you wanted my mouth around yours forever. You’re only the second man I’ve ever kissed. I liked it a lot. Now you say something.”
“I’m glad you liked it.” I rise to pour a little more Cognac. “It was one of the great moments of my life. I’ve dreamed about kissing you since we met. Never thought it would happen. But we’re both married. Both of us. Me in name only, but you’re really married, and I happen to know you still love Chad. I know something else that you probably can’t even imagine now: he still loves you, and he always will. He’s a guy, Molly. He’s got a dick. It makes us all act nuts.”
With surprising grace and speed, Molly rises from her chair and sits in my lap. She sets her wineglass down, wraps her arms around my neck, and puts her face close to mine. Her eyes are clear and pale and determined. The whole scene feels dangerous and wonderful, like a prayer I threw at God in high school has finally arrived in his range of hearing.
“Do you think Starla is ever coming back to you, Leo?” she says. “A year is a long time to be gone. She used to run off for a month or two. It’s gotten serious, and I know it bothers you.”
“She calls me every week, Molly. No, that’s not true now. It was true at first. Now she calls me once a month, sometimes two months. Cries a lot. Feels guilty. Asks me to wait for her. I say, ‘You’re my wife. I’ll always wait for you.’ Which makes her mad for some reason. As though that was the last answer she was waiting for. Lots of times, she’ll start screaming. Tells me the number of men she’s sleeping with. Tells me their names. Their professions. Their wives’ names. Then she catches herself. She comes back to herself. The real Starla. Cries again. Feels guilty. And on it goes into the night. It always ends the same way. She passes out.”
“Leo.” Molly kisses my nose. “What a darling, foolish man.
No, let me change that. Let me be a little more accurate: what a stupid, stupid, stupid man.”
“I knew what I was getting into,” I say, then think better about it. “Or I was foolish enough to think I did.”
“I need you to answer a question,” Molly says. “I’d like a serious answer.”
“Go ahead.”
“Are you in love with me?”
I twist uncomfortably in the chair and try to get up, but she pins my shoulders and glares at me with an expression that brooks no opposition.
“I thought I answered that Friday night. Why do you keep asking? Why now? Why tonight? Ask me on the happiest day of your marriage with Chad. Ask me on the day you think you have the perfect marriage with the finest man in the city limits. But it’s not right to ask it now. Look, you just smashed his nose, got blood all over his Porsche, and canceled his trip to Brazil for Mardi Gras.”
She hits me on the shoulder, then cries out in pain. She used the same fist to bust open Chad’s schnozzola, and I think she is going to weep from sheer pain.
“Let me see that hand.” I lean over and turn on a lamp. Her hand is swollen and turning purple. Gently, I feel for broken bones, but cannot tell if there has been real damage. I did notice that Chad was lucky Molly had punched him with her right fist: the two-carat wedding ring she wears on her left hand could have put out one of his eyeballs.
“You’ll need to get that X-rayed tomorrow,” I say.
“Are you really in love with me?” she insists. “Answer my damn question. Everyone has always teased me about it. Especially Fraser, and even Chad. Hell, Starla used to tease me about it in the early years, when she actually lived with you.”
“I’ve loved you since the day I first met you, like I told you the other night,” I tell her.
“Why? That’s stupid. That’s unheard-of. You didn’t know me, or one thing about me.”
“I knew your style. The way you carried yourself. Your courtesy and attentiveness to everything going on around you. I loved your defense of Fraser the day I first met you. I knew you were a match for Chad. A match for anyone. I felt your strength. Then there was your beauty, your extraordinary beauty. Does that answer your question, Molly, you pain in the ass? Does that mean you won’t punch me again?”
“If I punch you again, I’ll use the other hand.”
“Why are you sitting on my lap?” I ask her.
“Gosh, Leo,” she says, laughing. Reaching over, she turns off the lamp and we are staring at each other in dim moonlight. “Let’s put our heads together and try to figure this out as a team. Let’s look at the evidence. I have a fight with my philandering husband in front of my best friends. I bloody his nose and run home to wait for him. Silly me. I thought he’d come and apologize for putting me through such hell. But no, time goes by, and I realize he’s gone over to seek comfort in the arms of his piña colada. Do they drink piña coladas in Brazil?”
“Never been there.”
“So then I realize there’ll be no tender reconciliation, none of the sweet crap. So I take a walk to clear my head, and walk straight to your house. Like all of us, I know where you hide your spare key in the gutter spout, so I let myself in. I grabbed a bottle of wine, crawled into your bed, and slept for two hours. I felt safe. Relaxed. I got up and took a shower, washed my hair, made myself at home. At Starla’s dressing table, I used her cosmetics and makeup and perfume. Then I turned on the Braves game and waited for you to come home.”
“Who won the game?”
“Shut up,” she says. “The question in the air is still in the air. Why am I sitting in your lap?”
“You go first,” I suggest.
“Friday night, when Sheba caught us making out, she went back to the guesthouse. She came over for lunch. We talked a little girl talk. Turns out that Chad sneaked back to the guesthouse to hit on Sheba. Sheba told him it was one of the highest compliments she ever received. But she thought it a bit tacky to bang him while staying in his and his wife’s guesthouse. He admitted she had a point, and skulked back to his office. Big case, you know. Big, big case.”
“A gentle rebuff from Sheba. Chad, ever the gentleman.”
“We all know who Chad is,” says Molly. “We always have. He’s the only one among us who never pretended to be good. I always admired that about him. Chad’s view of the human race is a dark one. He’s finally convinced me. Now his Molly has changed. Ergo, you thick-skulled son of a bitch, that is why Molly presently finds herself on your lap.”
“Good forensic argument,” I say. “Bad idea.”
“Have you noticed lately, Leo, that I’ve been looking at you in the same way you’ve always looked at me?” She kisses me sweetly on my lips, on both cheeks, on the tip of my nose.
“I don’t want your anger at Chad to get hooked up to your feelings about me—in any way, shape, or form.”
“You don’t know a thing about women.”
“I know a few bad things about them,” I say. “I even know some good things.”
“No, listen to me. You’re a blank, a zero, when it comes to what makes a woman tick. Or what turns them on or off or puts them in neutral or overdrive or on cruise control or whatever the hell I’m trying to say.”
“Chad’s putting you through a hard time. May I make a suggestion?” I ask.
“Ah, an invitation to your boudoir at last.”
“No. Here’s what I’d like you to know: if Chad leaves you, if Starla leaves me as she’s threatened to do a thousand times, I’d rather be married to you than anyone in the world. I’ll never be good enough for you, and I know that better than anyone. But if that kiss the other night was the beginning, then I’d like that feeling to last the rest of our lives. Together.”
“What do we do in the meantime?”
“Let me make you some coffee,” I say. “Let’s go down to the kitchen. Because I have something important to tell you, something that’s going to change all our lives. I think it’ll prove whether Chad’s right about humanity—its darkness, its hopelessness—or it might prove that there is reason to hope, that we can be better than we were born to be.”
Molly kisses me a last time, but this one is sisterly, the sealing of a friendship, a door opening to the future. “Give me a hint. What’s going to turn us all toward the light? Where does this path to goodness begin?”
“San Francisco,” I say. “The Renegades ride again. We’re going out to find Trevor Poe. He’s dying of AIDS. We’re going to bring him home, Molly. We’re not going to let him die alone.”
PART THREE
CHAPTER 14 Pacific Heights
The West is both a great thirst and a dry, weatherless curiosity. In California, the mad, deep breath of deserts is never far away. The sky above San Francisco is often so dazzling a blue that it merits the overripe description of cerulean, or comparison to lapis lazuli. Its clouds are sea-born and formed in the odd depths of its mysterious bay, where the fog moves inland in a billion-celled, mindless creature, amoeba-shaped and poisonous, like a stillborn member of the nightshade family. Southern fogs calm me as they paint the marshes with their milk-stained fingers. The San Francisco fog is a silver-lined hunter of the predator class, and I always find it troubling. When I awaken to its fog horns, they sound like the exiled whimpering of a city in endless sexual distress.
As a Charlestonian, I know I am not supposed to bend a knee in admiration of a hill country of such amazing, brittle wildness. But San Francisco seduced me on my first visit to Trevor Poe’s flat on Union Street. In its profusion of roses and eucalyptus and palms, the city seems voluptuous and decadent in its very pores, a place that revels in folly and rolls around in the carcasses of human vice. The whole place feels graded, uplifted, maxed out; the views are all spectacular and aha-inducing. San Francisco is a city that requires a fine pair of legs, a city of cliffs misnamed as hills, honeycombed with a fine webbing of showy houses that cling to the slanted streets with the fierceness of abalones. You can spot a whale sounding i
n the waters between the Presidio and Sausalito in the morning, buy a live eel for lunch in Chinatown, see the Shakespeare Garden at Golden Gate Park in midafternoon, catch a wave in the Pacific along the Great Highway, inhale the unforgettable farts of sea lions on Pier 39, catch part of a gay-lesbian film festival at the Castro Theatre, get a book signed by Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights Books, buy a drink at the Top of the Mark. Trevor Poe gave us this astonishing city as a gift, once he abandoned us to our less glitzy lives in Charleston.