So here I am, stuck in Berkeley, though it’s a wide heaven after prison, and all I want to do is go out looking for you. This is my fantasy: I find you and I go to the police and they still have those fingerprints on file and I let them take it from there. Or, I find you and do the thing I just spent fifteen years paying for.
Or I could let it go. In prison I taught myself to do internally what I’d been doing outside: drop it, move on. Forward, forward, forward. I read a lot of books, I kept to myself. I wrote one letter — to the Kansas grad student studying worms — but it turned out that she and the grad student she’d married — another worm specialist — had been killed in a tornado while on a worm expedition. Her mother was kind enough to write me back.
So I keep to myself, I do stupid jobs well, I live in a rented room. I saved enough money to buy a used computer and pay a guy living here to teach me how to use it, and now, my friend, I’m tracking you down.
Shallow and Deep
by Jason S. Ridler
Downtown Berkeley
“Worried you were gone, bro.”
We’d circled North Berkeley BART once, like friends who didn’t want to go home. Because this is what the market wants. Not tomes analyzing the realpolitik in Stalin’s Russia. Or the butchery of the Gulag in gold mining. Or anything else from my fields.
“Need fresh shots. Nothing fuzzy. Clear. A hundred. I can make anything work, but a hundred is best. Gives me variety to play with, allows for redundancy. Video good if you can scratch it.”
The homeless bundle shook. Slip-on sandals and black-bottomed white socks, it nestled like a dust bunny on the outer rotunda of the station, desiccated mouth twitching beneath a yellow Warriors shirt. We descended the stairs to a parking lot we didn’t use, Ford bikes with punctured tires stationed to our left.
“Variety is good. But just the face.”
My next class was eight a.m., if Bernie showed.
5Chan snorted, then spat phlegm on the windshield of a red Prius. “The body is useless to the client.”
A gaggle of passengers scurried out of the station with intentional steps and a panoply of uniforms: suits, skirts, bike shorts, designer jeans with custom rips, and everyone’s perfume and cologne long liquidated.
“Meet in two weeks here on Saturday. Old e-mails are dead. Got it?”
I nodded. 5Chan liked me timid, quiet, and listening. Made him feel in control. And it bought me work and information.
5Chan lit up an immaculately rolled joint and took his time dragging in smoke. Hoodie, limited-edition Purple Rain concert shirt before his time by a decade, Chucks, and well-cultivated and shiny beard that smelled of pine. Berkeley trash, but “computers” got him leveled up. He had never offered me a hit.
“Two grand. More coming if you stick. No more vanishing acts. You are my golden egg, Koba. How the fuck do you do it?”
I shrugged, because it was rhetorical.
The smoke flittered out of his mouth as he spoke. “My dad was a grocer. Worked at Andronico’s for years. Said that there was only two things that people always need. Bread and caskets. But he was wrong. Lust, bro. That’s our bread and casket.”
I just wanted the assignment, not a lesson, I had prep. We turned left.
“I saw it coming,” His eyes narrowed, an oracle revealing wisdom to a plebe. “People are tired of fake. Silicon tits and Kardashian ass outside their paygrade. They want to fuck their neighbor, their boss, the UCB slut at Trader Joe’s who thinks they’re a cuck, their mom, their grandma. That’s the escape, Koba. Slap the ex-girlfriend’s face on a porn star, then watch her gangbanged and double-stuffed until she’s sucking come between ten guys’ toes and calling them daddy. That’s the dream. That’s the future, Koba. And we’re the kings in Berkeley. Say, you ever want one for yourself, you let me know.”
I smiled. “Can’t afford our rates.”
He wheezed, holding the joint at his lips. “No doubt. No doubt. Okay, back to work.”
He gave me the target, then went his own way.
Walking down Delaware, I steadied my breathing while the sun flared my skin.
I knew her. But we hadn’t met.
Sonja was a Republican. Former track star who hurt her knee and switched to teaching. She was recently promoted up and into the position of bulldog between teachers and parents. We’d never met face to face, but she’d given a tour around the school’s cubicles once. Busty blonde, high voice, pink heels, with a lime sundress and bubbly affect that assured the parents walking the grounds that the teachers here were first-rate. “We even have PhDs in biology, history, and more. So Ainsley is getting the best.” The mother mentioned her daughter had an intensive cross-country running schedule. “That’s great! Where do you run?”
“My old school, and Aquatic Park.”
“Me too! Maybe we can be run buddies.”
Aquatic Park. Not far from me. Hell. This was almost too easy.
I pressed the crooked gate to the back entrance of my illegal in-law. My monitor shone blue in the dark, casting shadows from book towers onto the furniture of my old life. Love seat. Futon. Books. Mail about debt.
One job. Two grand. Fifty-Seven Hours of Teaching.
Thucydides warned about immediate and long-term causes for landmark events. Empires don’t fall because someone dies. Wars don’t start because an emperor is shot while on tour. The Soviet Union didn’t crumble because Reagan was chosen by God to defeat the Evil Empire.
Beside my futon was my camera bag.
I checked the BP website.
Hey, Russel. Wanted to touch base. Bernie’s parents have requested that Bernie find another teacher after the incident you reported. While we understand their desire, I want you to know that Berkeley Prep is proud to have you and stands by your assessment. You’ve done so well mentoring our most challenged students, and we know that summer is difficult in terms of hours and you’d like to maintain more than ten hours a week (believe me, I know!). I promise that we will fill your roster as soon as possible. Hold tight, Dr. Walker!
Sonja K. Tempest, BSc
Director of Student Relations
I checked my student report.
RUSSEL FIELDS — Student Evaluation. I apologize for the use of feminine pronouns but in the interest of time I will use she as Bernie continues to change her mind on which she prefers. Bernie arrived at class fifteen minutes late. When asked why she said “bus” even though I saw her in study hall in the period before class. As I e-mailed you earlier, the assignment sent via e-mail by Bernie was only two pages long, not ten. When I asked why it was so short she said, “I write concisely.” I indicated that was no excuse and the paper was, as it stood, a failure. She said, “So what?” I said that meant she would have to repeat the entire class again. When she said, “I don’t care,” I informed her that without a proper paper she would fail history and not be eligible for graduation and thus could not apply to college.
At this point Bernie stood and swung her fist in front of my face while calling me a liar, someone who talked behind her back, and then called me a “cunt.”
An hour after that report, I’d found 5Chan’s emergency e-mail. My message? Can shoot.
Ducks hustled for an upper-class family’s artisanal crumbs from Acme Bread on a patch of exposed pathway that ran beside the lagoon. A chunk of property that was grassy, with a parking lot for early-morning stoners and kayakers. A sax player sat on the only bench, a cut tree stump keeping him shining bright as he ran scales through game-show themes: Wheel of Fortune, The Price Is Right, and Jeopardy! before he trailed off.