In his garden one summer, I remember him telling a convivial group of gay men from Chicago, “The gay men from the South are always the most fascinating members of our tribe. They are the best conversationalists, the most inventive cooks, and they hold their liquor almost too well, I’d say. And they are wicked to the point of criminality in bed. No party in this city is worth its salt without the inclusion of at least one gay man of negligible character and unquestioned provenance from somewhere in the old Confederacy. I’ve been severely criticized by gay activists with bad breath and British teeth for maintaining my friendships with all my straight friends from Charleston. But they bring me news of that stodgy, asexual world I left behind, where even the missionary position is considered a revolutionary deviation. They remind me that life is a smorgasbord, not just a box of Ritz crackers. And besides, these were my sandbox friends. Metaphorically, of course, but you never desert or dishonor the delicious boys and girls who played in the sandbox with you. Even philistines from Chicago, with your souls frozen by the winds off Lake Michigan, can understand the power of a friendship that goes all the way back to the sandbox. Or do you Midwesterners make your best friends in snowdrifts?”
Then Trevor winked at me with marvelous affection, and I winked back, locked in my colorless, unimaginative straightness. But I could laugh at everything Trevor would say or think or conjure. He always made me and his friends think we were living fuller, richer lives by simply dwelling in his romantic, overeroticized presence. He made Fraser feel like she was watching a Broadway play and Molly feel as though she were starring in one. Trevor brought out the protective side of Niles, the maternal side of Betty, the competitive nature of Chad, and the melodramatic part of me. Only Ike looked sideways at Trevor’s bravura performances, and the accent grated on Ike’s sensibility. “Lose the accent, Trevor. You ain’t from Charleston. You ain’t from the South. And, at best, you sound like a third-rate Negro houseboy,” he once told Trevor.
“My accent sounds like the tinkling of an eighteenth-century chandelier,” Trevor replied. “I’ve been told that by ladies with the name of Ravenel and Middleton and Prioleau, yard jockey.”
As the cab leaves me at 1038 Union Street, I have no idea if I will ever see Trevor Poe again or enter this charming space that has meant so much to me over the years. Cars whip by going much too fast; others jolt past driven by unsure-footed drivers tapping the brakes again and again, surprised by the steepness of the grade on Union as it makes its incursion into North Beach. I move up to the door and ring the bell, expecting nothing, but putting a Southern smile on my face if I am wrong. Sheba has written the woman letters and received no reply; neither has the new renter responded to a series of phone messages from Sheba’s secretary. The renter’s name is Anna Cole, and she’s a young lawyer from Duluth, Minnesota.
“Anna Cole,” I shout, calling up to one of the shapely bay windows that look out from the living room. “I’m a friend of Trevor Poe’s from South Carolina, and I need to talk to you. Will you please open the door?”
A nervous but flashy young woman opens the door with unnecessary ferocity and studies me through the space left by a lock and chain.
“What the fuck do you want?” Anna Cole asks. “Why’re you following me?”
“Ma’am,” I say, “I’ve never seen you before. I’m not following you. My good friend Trevor Poe used to live here, and I’m with a bunch of friends who’re looking for him.”
She looks past me with wild, distrustful eyes. “I thought you were the pervert who’s been tailing me for the past week. What’s with the ‘ma’am’ shit?”
“I’m Southern,” I explain. “It’s instilled in us at birth. Sorry if it offends you.”
“I’ve always thought the South was the weirdest place in the nation.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more. But I’ve never been to Minnesota,” I say.
Again, I arouse her paranoia. “How do you know I’m from Minnesota?”
“We did research on the Minnesota chick who got our friend thrown out of his home.”
“Look, George Wallace, or whatever your damn name is, I’m on edge here. I picked up a bad guy in my life. I’ve called the cops, but they can’t do anything until he rapes me and disembowels me and dumps me into the bay. And I did not get your friend evicted from this flat. He didn’t pay his damn rent. How’s that my fault?”
“You’re right, Garrison Keillor. It’s not your fault.”
“You’re stereotyping me, and I don’t like it worth a shit.”
“We George Wallaces tend to stereotype ice fishermen from Duluth who stereotype us.”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she says. “I apologize. Now, please get out of here.”
“I need to find my friend,” I insist. “I just have a few questions for you, Anna Cole.”
“Oh, Jesus!” Her terror is real. “There he is. He’s in that ugly Honda halfway down the street. He’s ducked back down now. You can’t see him.”
She reveals a pistol that she is carrying behind her. She handles it inexpertly like a girl handling a copperhead for the first time—or a boy, for that matter.
“Do you know how to use that weapon?” I ask.
“I point it at his balls, I pull the trigger. And presto, no balls. How hard can that be?”
“May I borrow the gun, Anna?” I ask with great politeness. “I know how to use one. But if I succeed in running your friend off, I’ll insist you answer some questions about Trevor.”
She studies me as though noticing me for the first time. “Why should I trust you?”
“Do you trust that guy more?”
“You could rob me. You could rape me. You could kill me and the cops would say, ‘What a dumb fucking broad. She gave him her own gun.’”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s one scenario,” I say. “But I think I can get rid of him for you. I have a great imagination.”
“How does that help me?”
“Because now we’ll find out about your own imagination, if you’ve got one or not. We’ll also find out if you’re a good judge of character.”
“I don’t like your face.” She stares hard at me.
“I don’t, either. Never have.”
“I’ll be watching from the bay window,” she says.
With understandable nervousness, she slips me her small twenty-two pistol, which I notice is unloaded as I place it in my jacket pocket. I knock on the door again and she is clearly irritated when she cracks it open.
I ask, “Did you buy any bullets for this gun?”
“I don’t believe in violence or bloodshed or even the death penalty,” Anna Cole says with a spiritual certainty I find off-putting.
“What if your pervert kills me? Will you hope he fries in an electric chair? Or gags to death in a gas chamber?”
“I’d hope he’d get life with no chance of parole,” she answers.
“So you think he’d be better off making stop signs and license plates the rest of his life? You think he should take correspondence courses from a community college or enroll in a poetry course taught by some beatnik on Telegraph Avenue?”
“I believe that human life is sacred,” she says.
“Garrison Keillor.”
“Don’t you dare call me that,” she snarls.
“My wife is dying of cancer as we speak. Will you promise to take care of my twelve children if they are orphaned in the shootout on Union Street?”
“It won’t be a shootout,” she says. “You don’t have any bullets.”
“The pervert may have some. Do you promise to help support my orphan children if they need help?”
“Haven’t you ever heard of birth control down South?” she asks, then relents and says, “I promise to do what I can.”
“Now, Anna Cole, go to the bay window. Showtime. The latest installment of A Prairie Home Companion is about to begin.”
I walk across Union Street and head down the hill, passing the Honda without giving it a s
idelong glance. But once I am past it, I circle behind it and write down his license plate number, and the fact that it is a brown 1986 Accord. As I write down this general information, I watch the man’s head rise up a second time. As I approach his car from the driver’s side, he disappears again, dropping all the way to the floorboards along the front seat. When I knock on the window to attract his attention, he lies motionless.
I knock harder. “Sir, open the window. I’d like to talk to you.”
“Fuck you, Officer,” he squeals to the floorboards. “I haven’t done anything. This is a legal parking space.”
“You’re scaring a young lady across the street,” I say. “Open the window, sir.”
“‘Fuck you’ still sounds good to me. Yep, sounds even better the second time,” he says.
I take the handle of the pistol and break a hole in the window. Then I kick the rest of the window in with my right leg, coming at it from an uphill angle. It is a large leg, and the window shatters in an immensely satisfying fashion. I’d once been a Citadel cadet, and I could play the tough guy.
“That’s it! Now you’re a dead man.” He brushes shards of glass from his clothes and body. He jerks upright, red-faced and furious, and I take in his plain, unspectacular features as he adjusts his wrap-around sunglasses. If I am forced to describe him in a court of law, I’ll say his face is modest and plain and functional, just like a Honda Accord. I place the pistol against his forehead, but keep my good humor and wave to passersby to let them know I have the situation in hand. I remove his sunglasses and deposit them in my pocket. His brows are thick and march above his eyes like one large caterpillar. His eyes are brown, a similar shade as the car, and he is wearing a cheap black toupee.
“Your wallet, sir,” I order. When he gives me his wallet, I say, “Thank you for your extraordinary level of cooperation, Mr. John Summey. Ah! This must be the lovely Mrs. Summey. And your three handsome sons. And gee whiz, you’ve been a member of American Express since 1973. And your Visa card’s still valid. Though I must tell you, Mr. Summey, you’ve allowed your Discover card to expire. I’ll just keep your wallet for a month or two. By that time, we’ll see if you can quit stalking that nice young woman who lives across the street. She’s been seeing your ugly mug everywhere she goes. But now that I have your driver’s license and know that you live at 25710 Vendola Drive in San Rafael, you might be looking at my ugly mug more often.”
“I know the mayor personally,” he says. “I’ll have your badge, asshole. You’ll be looking at want ads tonight.”
“Hear that sound? That’s my teeth chattering. But you got it all wrong, pal. I’m no cop. I’m that woman’s husband, and I just got out of San Quentin. Got your car keys, Mr. Summey?”
“Yes, sir,” he says.
“You got any problems with me just letting you go? I promised my wife I’d kill ya. But you know how broads are? Sentimental as hell. I’ll tell her about your three boys, tug on the old heartstrings. See where I’m coming from?”
“Yes, sir.” He fumbles with his key, trembling as he tries to insert it into the steering column.
“I’ll mail you your wallet in a month,” I say.
“I’d appreciate it.”
“Now, Summey, we got to make the next part look good for my wife. I’ll need your help here. You’ve got twenty seconds to get out of here. Then I’m going to start shooting at your head. Two seconds have already passed.” I never saw a car outside of the Darlington 500 cover such a distance in such speed.
I return in a leisurely fashion to the doorway of 1038 Union where I once again ring the bell and again hear Anna Cole’s strained voice through the locked doorway. “You’re a bigger nut than he is,” she says. I can see her outline against the antique lace curtains that had once belonged to Trevor Poe.
“He was more difficult to get rid of than I thought,” I say.
“Why’d you kick out his window?”
“He refused to talk and I thought it might get his attention.”
“Leave now, this very moment, or I’ll call the cops. You’re obviously a lunatic. I don’t want to talk to you, and I don’t know what happened to your friend. If I did, I’d tell you. Just go.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks for your help.”
I turn again and walk down the short flight of steps and back onto Union Street, then hear the door open.
“May I have my dad’s gun?” she asks.
“No. You don’t believe in bloodshed or violence, remember? By keeping the gun, I’ll be helping you live a pious, liberal life. You can’t have the gun, nor can you have the stalker’s license plate number, nor his wallet, which is chock-full of information about his degenerate life.”
We stand facing each other in a hostile standoff, but she is thinking fast. “Would you like a cup of herbal tea?”
“No, I would not,” I say. “Do you have coffee?”
“I don’t like coffee.”
“I don’t like herbal tea,” I say. “Look, I’ve got to be going. Here’s your dad’s gun. Buy some cartridges for it. If that guy’s not a sexual pervert, then he’s missed his calling. Here’s his wallet. Send a copy of the driver’s license to the cops.”
“Would you like a glass of V8 juice?”
“Yes,” I answer. “I’d like that very much.”
I receive a shock when I enter the living room: she has barely changed a thing in Trevor’s space. She has placed photographs of her own Minnesota family on top of Trevor’s piano, where there had once been pictures of his best friends and the celebrities he met along the way. When I mention to her that she is in possession of every piece of furniture and work of art that once belonged to my friend, there is alarm in her voice as she explains, “I didn’t steal any of it. I rented the flat furnished, and was delighted to find it furnished by a man of impeccable taste.”
“Why would he leave all this behind? He loved every single piece of furniture, every book, every piece of silver.”
“I’ve no idea. He was evicted five months ago, I think. I’ve been here for three months. He had not paid a penny of rent for over a year. It killed his landlord to evict him, but Mr. Chao felt he had no choice. Trevor never told Mr. Chao he had AIDS. Never even told him he was sick. Mr. Chao broke down and wept when he admitted this to me, and he insisted that I keep all of Trevor’s furniture exactly the way it was. It still belongs to Trevor. I’m the caretaker.” Then she asks, “You got a name?”
“Leo King. I went to high school with Trevor.”
“He was in pretty bad shape when he left here, evidently. The neighbors talk a lot about him. They hate me because they think I stole his apartment.”
“Where are his photograph albums?” I ask. “I’d like to take them with me so my friends and I can study them.”
She opens a drawer and takes out the albums, then asks me curiously, “Are you married, Leo?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re not wearing a wedding ring,” she notes.
“My wife wants a divorce. The last time I saw her in Charleston, she stole it while I was taking a shower. I haven’t seen her or the ring since.”
“Children?”
“I’ve always wanted some. Starla never has,” I say.
“Starla?” Anna says. “What a strange name.”
“I think it’s from the Cherokee language.”
“What’s the translation?” she asks. “I’m interested in all things Native American.”
“A strict constructionist would translate it this way: ‘By the shores of Gitche Gumee.’”
“Another Minnesota joke.”
“Last one,” I promise.
“Thank God. Not one of them’s been funny. Tell me everything you know about Minnesota.”
“The Vikings. The Twins. St. Paul’s the capital. Minneapolis hates everything about St. Paul. And vice versa. The Mall of America. Ten thousand lakes. Paul Bunyan. Babe, the Blue Ox. Mayo Clinic. Lake Superior. Lampreys. Beaver. Loons. No poisonous
snakes. By the shining Big-Sea-Water. The wigwam of Nokomis. Canadian geese. A million Swedes. Lots of Norwegians. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Lake Itasca. Lake Wobegon. And though I hate to say it because it seems to piss you off—Garrison Keillor.”
“Not bad, Leo. I’m impressed.”
“Good. You heard from the gander. Let’s hear it from the goose. Tell me everything you know about South Carolina.”
“Didn’t you start the Civil War or something?” she asks with some tentativeness.
“Very good. You know about Fort Sumter?”
“The Research Triangle. Duke University. The Tar Heels.”
“That’s North Carolina,” I say.
“It’s all the same thing to me. I’ve never given a shit about the South.”
“Strange. Minnesota is a constant subject of conversation in Southern drawing rooms. Listen, can I take these photograph albums with me?”
“Of course. What about all the other stuff?”
“What other stuff?”
“Over thirty boxes. I packed it all up and put it in a storage room down in the garage. His clothes. His personal effects. And his unmentionables.”
“We’ll send for the boxes. What are his unmentionables?”
“Some of it …” she begins.
“What?”
“Some of it is the vilest pornography I’ve ever seen. I don’t care if a guy is gay or not. Hell, I live in San Francisco. But some of that stuff could land you in the federal pen.”
“Trevor liked his porn. He called it his ‘foreign film collection.’ We’ll pick all that stuff up too.”
“I watched some of it. You don’t want to carry that stuff across state lines.”