Leave It to Me - Bharati Mukherjee [34]
I knew not to let her snideness rile me, but I did envy her overmuscled biceps and self-confidence.
Ham introduced the woman as Jess DuPree, the Jess of media escort agency Leave It to Me, didn’t I remember him calling her that first time I stopped by his office? Wasn’t she the one who always came through for him?
“ME,” Jess said. “Media Escort, get the pun?” She gestured towards the fitting room. “Benita Farias, the mystery writer. Needs a softer look. TV’s cruel.”
I didn’t need Madame K’s computerized crystal ball to figure out that Jess and Ham had had—probably still had—a heavy thing going. For a fiftyish woman, Jess could still turn heads. She dismissed me as the newest on Ham’s arm. I knew that because she said to Ham, “I think you’re ready for a red Miata.”
Over soba and fishcakes in Japantown I got the Jess & Ham Story, Abbreviated Edition. Yes, they’d been lovers in Berkeley. They’d co-protested McNamara’s Vietnam, they’d co-organized a takeover of Sproul Hall, they’d co-lobbed rotting fruit at a motorcade that should have been escorting President YankeeStooge NguyenSlime, and for a while they’d cohabited in a commune. The commune living on Derby Street must have been as far back as in the fall of 1967, because by the spring of 1968 they’d moved on to Napa and coworshiped at Baba Lalji’s feet.
Baba Lalji?
Oh, he was a guru guy who set himself up in an ashram before going on to bigger things.
Like what, Ham? Like sex, drugs and prison time?
No, more like gunrunning and Cold War politics. Ham filled me in on Hesse and Hinduism and Holymen with funny names like God-ji and Rishi-ji who came over on tourist visas and when the visas expired founded ashrams.
Ashram?
Ham could have made a living as a teacher or a preacher. He was most inspired when he was explaining. “Devi,” he said, “think of Baba Lalji’s Napa ashram as a B and B in wine country. Pure air, great meditating, tantric fucking, holistic healing, the works, and all of it gratis!” He said he’d lost track of Jess after her abortion.
“Love and abortion in a Napa B and B?”
Ham ignored the dig. “Think Vietnam, Devi. Think big Uncle Sam fucking over bandy-legged little VCs. Think McNamara fucking over bennied-out grunts. Rent the Apocalypse Now video if you can’t think. You made your life one continuous flying fuck or you didn’t survive the times.”
“Jess had an abortion?” I was thinking, in spite of everything, I was glad Bio-Mom hadn’t.
Ham changed the subject. “You’re a cheap date,” he said. “That must be why I’ve fallen for you. The one woman who keeps me solvent.” He pulled a fistful of crumpled twenties out of a pants pocket and paid for our fishcakes and noodles with two bills and waited for change. “Got to be back at ShoeString right away, a call’s coming in from Bangkok,” he said. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“I’m not going home.” That part was true. “I’m meeting a friend.”
“I’ll drop you where you need to be. No trouble.”
“I don’t mind taking MUNI.”
“If you don’t want the person you’re meeting to run into me, say so.” He grabbed my wrist, and twisted it, but not hard enough to hurt. “Be straight with me, hon. Otherwise there’s no relationship.”
Relationship sounded so dated. “It’s nobody you’d be interested in, Ham.”
“Let me be the judge.”
“It’s nobody you’d want to meet. This guy’s weird, really weird. He lives in my building. Loco Larry.” My plan was to barge into the Vulture office and check out the latest fax.
“Loco as in ‘crazy’?”
“Hates immigrants, hates feds. Hangs an I ‘HEART’ MY ARSENAL on his door.”
“Is that the guy in army surplus on your stoop?”
“Not surplus. He’s shown off knife slits and old blood.”
“Poor fucker! Guys like him had their brains fried.”
“Was it your baby? Did you love Jess, Ham?”
“What baby?”
“The abortion. You said something about an abortion …” Abortion,