Wisecracking Across America - 4. Chapter 4

Sunday, May 16, 1999

Sunday morning, we all slept late. Except the dog. She'd spent the night in the truck, Nina and Jeff having one of those cats I'd mentioned. Though Tom reprieved her just after dawn, setting her free in the backyard. Still, when we were all finally considering breakfast, and Tom went out to feed her, she was gone.

"You're kidding," I said from the inflatable thing I'd been sleeping on, stretched on the living room floor.

"No," Tom replied. Tense.

I glanced out the window. No dog. Tom rarely lies.

I went out to look, not that I expected anything---mainly, I was being polite. Tom went with me, calling the dog's name. "That'll get us arrested," I joked.

Turns out you don't joke with Tom. Not about missing dogs.

Nina must've heard us 'cause she soon came out. Then Jeff, who glanced 'round the yard, into the fenced-in side areas, then quickly found the mutt. At least, he spotted the hole.

"Got her!" he shouted. And by the time we caught up, the dog's nose was poking under the fence. She'd clawed from one yard only to be trapped by a second fence, hedged by undiggable roots.

"Bad dog," I said. She replied by pissing too near my feet. Not a beast that takes criticism.

"She didn't mean anything," Tom insisted, patting his ward while surveying the hole. "I'll pay for that," he told Jeff.

"Nah, we'll just stick some carrots in it. Call it a garden." He casually kicked the ditch full of dirt while Nina inspected a chewed bowl.

"I'll pay for that, too," Tom promised.

"Will she be okay?" Nina asked instead.

"Oh, yeah---she likes plastic. My neighbor,"---the pet rescuer---"says it's good for her teeth."

"She must have really wormed under that fence," Jeff soon pointed out. "That hole's tiny."

"She still a pup," Tom grinned. And it was true: she'd only turned two the day before we left.

We put her firmly on a leash, ate, showered, then Tom and I left around noon. We were in no special hurry, having only a hundred-or-so miles to go---to a friend of Tom's near San Francisco. Passing through Castroville, we bumped into the Artichoke Festival.

"Want to buy some?" I asked.

"For Lisa?"

"Not for me."

Unsure of his friend's tastes, Tom waffled. So we drove on.

Lisa was a jazz musician, specializing in tenor sax. We had plenty of time because she had an afternoon gig.

"A wedding," Tom guessed. Though her band also marched after funerals.

So we drifted, in increasing traffic. It peaked in Half Moon Bay, a too-cute town with signs directing folks to: The Orthodontist. The Chiropractor. The Chemist.

"What's that?" Tom asked.

"It's quaint for 'drugstore,'" I told him, but still had to explain. "You need to read more." When we got to Lisa's, she was walking her dog, Lexus. I figured it was named for her car, also black, and sitting in the open garage.

"It's actually 'A-lexis,'" she laughed. "And she was named when I got her."

Tom's dog and Lexy were quickly chasing each other's tails.

"We should take them to the dog run," Lisa suggested.

So we did, loading both the car and truck, since neither had room for five, including the oversized pups.

The dog run, maybe ten miles away, was built on a spit of land once intended for suburbs. "But people protested," Lisa explained. "They do that here." (We were just south of Berkeley.). "This has always been a park."

From which, on a fogless day, you could see three bridges: The Golden Gate. The Oakland-Bay. And the Richmond-San Raphael. You could also see dogs. Hundreds of 'em. Running free.

"Don't they fight?" I asked.

"Nah, they're happy to be loose."

And they couldn't get away---the land's one shore-side was a chain-link fence.

Of course, the dogs jumped into the water, spraying mud all over their owners. There were lots of them, too---it was also a people-meeting place. Though while Tom and Lisa mingled, I read signs, placed around as frequently as waste containers.

In 1850, the field had been a picturesque bulge in the coast, named Point Isabel for the then-mayor's wife, who liked to picnic there. Overlooking it was a wooded hill. A hundred years later, unannounced, the hill was viciously plowed into the bay, and three horrified local women lobbied the resulting political embarrassment into a park. That was quickly divided between dogs and joggers.

"Runners still get in the way," Lisa told us. As proof, Lexy immediately cornered a young preppy.

"That dog under control!" he barked.

"Sure thing," Lisa grinned. "But you're out of line."

The guy reined in. Then ran.

By seven, we were back at Lisa's. Her house had been built into a hill, and, in reverse of many homes, had the bedrooms downstairs. Upstairs, through leafy trees, was Rear Window.

"You can see everything," I told her.

She shrugged. "It's just neighbors."

Clearly, more sophisticated than mine.

The restaurant she chose was also more urbane than I expected---good thing I packed those khakis. We got last-minute reservations because Lisa was a regular.

"I was first taken here by Jessica Mitford's husband. You know, the late writer? American Way of Death? I helped care for her near the end."

Deca, as Ms. Mitford preferred---it was a childhood name---was in her late seventies when Lisa met her. "We were introduced by a friend who knew I'd cared for my mom." By then, Deca had already had a small stroke. "Probably brought on by drinking and smoking." Though by the time Lisa knew her, she'd quit both, and was chewing nicotine gum. "Compulsively."

At first, she didn't trust Lisa. "But she needed someone to walk with, and I wouldn't take any guff. And it sure didn't hurt when I saved Bob's life."

Everyone was so busy tending strong-willed Deca, that no one noticed her husband was wasting away.

"He insisted it only just a toothache, but every time I saw him he looked worse. Finally, I called an ambulance."

"It was that serious?"

"Oh, yeah---it turned out he had a systemic infection. Another few days, he would've been gone."

Saving her eighty-year-old husband assured Deca's friendship. So much so, when she began coughing up blood, Lisa was the first one she told.

"What did you do?"

"Rushed her to the doctors. We must've done three weeks worth of tests in the next two days. But the news was all terrible. Not only did she have cancer---it was everywhere."

She died within a month.

"That's too bad."

Lisa laughed. "No! She took it heroically. Called all her friends. Said, 'I'm dying! Come have lunch!' And they did."

She laughed again. "And how we ate! Three meals a day! All from restaurants like this!"

Dinner that night turned out to be the best food we had on the trip.

"And her friends were people like Maya Angelou---writers I'd only ever heard of. They'd order out from restaurants, load up their cars, and come visit. Every day was a party!"

Indirectly, Deca also gave Lisa The Green Street Band---the one that followed funerals.

"Of course, she had this war on with the industry. They just called her 'Jessica'---one name, like 'Madonna.' So she wanted the cheapest cremation, then a huge send-off that the 'pros' wouldn't get a penny of. Well, Bob found four white horses. I put together a band, uniforms and all. We marched down Main Street playing Deca's favorite songs."

"That must've been something."

"Made all the front pages! And, actually, we became something of a tradition. Because a year later, when Herb Caen was dying---he was a famous columnist---he insisted we play for him, too. Made the front pages all over again!"

It was a funeral Lisa had been playing for earlier. She did a couple hundred a year. She also recorded, and occasionally toured Europe. In her spare time, she tutored at a ghetto grade school.

"My life keeps getting better and better," she grinned. "Though I've been told, if I really want to be considered a serious musician, I have to move to New York---or L.A. One of my students just moved east, and works all the time."

I was surprised. I thought San Francisco fairly cosmopolitan.

"Nothing like the big cities."

I couldn't imagine that, though I didn't have to imagine Lisa's music. Driving north, Tom had played one of her CD's. It was everything you could want.

161 miles