Chocolate Quake (2 page)

“If you don’t believe me, I’ll dial the number, and you can listen to the message.”

A puzzled frown creased his forehead, and, dripping, he padded bare-footed into the lush bedroom we’d been assigned at the Stanford Court, where a conference on environmental chemistry and toxicology was being held. Jason called the number of his mother’s San Francisco sublet. She was spending the summer as a consultant to some much-touted, multipurpose, multiethnic, cutting-edge women’s center.

As he listened to the answering machine message, his face expressed absolute astonishment. When it finished, he said, “Mother, it’s Jason.” He gave her the number of the hotel and our room but explained that he’d be in committee meetings and other first-day activities of the conference until evening the next day, Sunday. “Carolyn will come down to the jail to see you and find out what happened. If you get this message tonight call or leave us a message.” Then he paused. “Murder? You’re kidding, right? Well, get in touch, or we will.”

“
I’m
going to visit her in jail?” I exclaimed. “She doesn’t even like me. She sent me a size sixteen dress for my birthday!”

“I know, sweetheart,” said my husband soothingly, “and I did mention it to her. I hope you sent it back.”

“I certainly did, and I have yet to receive a size ten in that frumpy number or some equally unwelcome replacement gift.”

Jason sighed. “The thing is, the editorial committee is meeting tomorrow morning at eight, and there’s a meeting of the board at 10:30, after which I’m to meet my graduate students from El Paso for lunch and review the research they’ve done since I’ve been in New York. I did tell you that this would be a very busy meeting for me,” he added defensively. “After the students, there’s registration for the conference.”

“I remember your attempt to dissuade me from coming to San Francisco with you. What you didn’t tell me is that I’d have to visit your mother in jail.”

“Caro, that’s hardly something I could have foreseen, and we can’t very well ignore her. I’m sure it’s some ridiculous mistake. Maybe you could visit her lawyer.” Then a bolt of inspiration struck him. “You could take the lawyer out for lunch after you see Mother at the jail, talk about the case, and eat something wonderful that you can review.”

“I can see the column now,” I replied. “While investigating a charge of murder against my mother-in-law, famous feminist Gwenivere Blue, I enjoyed a truly excellent example of San Francisco’s delicious seafood.”

“I don’t see that you need to mention my mother,” Jason interrupted. “We’ll meet back here at six for the welcome mixer. In fact, I’ll try to be in the room by 5:30 so you can tell me what you’ve found out about Mother.”

While carrying on this discussion, Jason had finished drying himself off—for a man of forty-seven he does have an admirable physique—and pulled on his pajamas. If Jason hadn’t been so inviting to look at, I’d probably have been a lot angrier at the thought of spending my first full day in San Francisco rising early enough to get to the jail and afterward pursuing whatever distressing duties might fall my lot.

I had insisted on accompanying Jason to San Francisco because the day he mentioned the meeting, the temperature was 103 degrees in New York City, where we were summering with our daughter in a small apartment. It wasn’t even 103 degrees in El Paso, where we live most of the year and Jason teaches. I had thought:
San Francisco, new restaurants to explore, cool days, light breezes off the bay, fog drifting along the hills, delightful Victorian row houses painted in soft colors with intricate gingerbread wood carving and charming bay windows, and eating at the Cliff House dining room with its view of the seals, sunning themselves on Seal Rocks and barking.
(My mother took me to a seal show at the St. Louis zoo when I was a little girl visiting my Aunt Virginia. I still remember those seals, balancing balls on their noses and doing cute tricks.) Such were my expectations for San Francisco.

I did not think:
Jail #2, my mother-in-law in a particularly foul mood, talking to policemen and lawyers and opinionated women at the center, women who won’t like me unless I volunteer for radical social projects.

I sighed and looked up the telephone number of Jail #2 to be sure that Gwenivere Blue was really there and that I could visit her tomorrow if I arrived early enough to join other relatives of alleged criminals in the competition for visitation appointments. She was; I could; and murder one was the charge. Good grief.

When I glanced at the bed, my husband, far from lying awake worrying about his mother, was asleep. No doubt dreaming of toxic molecules and committee squabbles over the refereeing of scholarly papers. I considered plugging in my laptop to transcribe the notes I’d made on our dinner. The food had been excellent, but I was too tired for newspaper-column writing. Instead I dropped into bed, secure in the knowledge that Jason would awaken at some ungodly early hour to take a healthful and invigorating run up and down the hills around the hotel, after which he’d awaken me in time to get to the jail by 7:30.

How long will that take?
I wondered. I’d use a cab to be sure of arriving in a timely fashion. No doubt the bell captain could accommodate me, and I didn’t have to tell him that I was going to the jail. The Stanford Court is a very nice hotel, known for its stellar service, built on the site of the Leland Stanford mansion, whose owner had led the movement to build a cable car line from the financial district up to his Nob Hill house in 1878.

Of course our hotel probably wasn’t as posh as the old Palace Hotel, which opened in 1875. The Stanford Court didn’t have 7,000 bay windows, a gold dinner service for one hundred, or a chef stolen from Delmonico’s. Still, it was expensive. Thank God, Hodge, Brune & Byerson, the company for whom my husband was consulting during the summer, was footing the bill. The only fault I’d found with our lodgings was the terrifying experience of near death by limousine when I alighted from our cab. Their entrance is a chaos of vehicles zooming around under one roof and endangering anyone on foot. It does have a famous restaurant, which might provide me with solace tomorrow after chatting with my jailed mother-in-law.
Look on the bright side, Carolyn,
I told myself and fell asleep.

2

Storming the Hall of Justice

 

W
hat does one
wear to visit a relative in jail? A suit? Jason’s mother wore suits. Hoping that the weather would stay cool, I paired a tailored, smoke-blue pants outfit with a white shell and set out for the San Francisco Hall of Justice. The cabby let me out at the corner, the best vantage point from which to examine the building. A hedge and grass ran down one side with a large modern pipe sculpture near the corner. Behind the hall, one could see the handsome, round, glass jail buildings. The front of the Hall of Justice, however, was long and featureless, its only decoration blank windows and a stair to the large entry doors.

The interior was equally utilitarian, although it incorporated pinkish marble floors, walls, and columns. The most interesting features were the weapons-check desk on the left side, an espresso bar with an awning plopped down in the center of the lobby, a snack bar whose selection ran from exotic juice drinks to ordinary junk food, and a number of misleading directories and signs, all of which gave conflicting hours for jail visitation.

Trusting that my mother-in-law’s message was accurate, I took an elevator to the sixth floor, where I joined a mob of casually-to-scruffily dressed men, women, and children of various races and ethnicities, largely black and Hispanic. They milled around a desk in front of a red double door manned by deputy sheriffs. The noise was horrendous.

I knew immediately that by the time I made my way to the desk, all the visitation slots would be full. If she had retrieved Jason’s message, my mother-in-law would be very irritated when I didn’t show up. While I was pondering this new low in our relationship, a strange thing began to happen. People in the crowd noticed me and pushed me forward. Of course, I murmured, “Oh no, I couldn’t. . . . Thank you so much, but I couldn’t. . . .” and so forth, but I soon found myself standing in front of the deputies’ table.

Then I discovered why I had been eased forward. The female officer, Deputy Kinesha Jones, a powerful young black woman whose biceps stretched her sleeves to bursting, said, “You must be new. This ain’t the lawyers’ entrance.”

“I’m just here to visit my mother-in-law,” I replied. “Gwenivere Blue.”

“Oh Jesus. The professor. Hear that, Nacho? Her mother-in-law’s the tight-ass, hundred-year-old slasher I was tellin’ you about.”

Her Latino partner, Deputy Ignacio Molinar, looked up from his list and said to me, “OK, you’re the last of the 11:00 to 11:20 group. Name?”

People behind me were grumbling to each other that I wasn’t a lawyer, after all. I suppose the suit had misled them. I was the only person in the crowd wearing one. “Carolyn Blue,” I said. “Spelled with an L-Y-N.”

“I.D.”

I produced my driver’s license.

“Texas?” He squinted at me. “The old lady ain’t from Texas. I’m from Texas. She ain’t.”

“No, she’s from Chicago, and my husband, her son, and I are here for a scientific conference. Well, I’m actually a food writer, so I’ll be visiting local restaurants and, of course, trying to help my mother-in-law.”

“Best thing you can do for her,” said the female deputy, “is keep her away from them big knives an’ tell her to stop tryin’ to cause trouble in the women’s section.”

My heart sank. What had she been up to? Trying to raise the feminist consciousness of her fellow prisoners? Organizing a hunger strike? That would be just like her. She has no interest in food so wouldn’t miss it, while her converts, getting hungrier by the day, would also be getting more dangerous.

“Here’s your appointment card,” said Deputy Molinar. “Be here at eleven. You show up late, you miss your group an’ can’t see her ’til next Saturday.”

I nodded cooperatively. “Could you recommend a restaurant in the area?”

Deputy Jones laughed. Nacho shouted, “Next.”

The woman behind the man who stepped up said to me, “Nothin’ open around here on Sunday ’cept McDon ald’s, honey.”

McDonald’s? I couldn’t write a column about the McDonald’s near the San Francisco Jail. Or could I? I began to edge my way toward the elevator.

“You’re not a lawyer?” asked a young woman with pink hair.

“No,” I replied apologetically.

“Maybe you are, but you won’t admit it.”

“Really, I’m not.”

“You know a good one? My sister’s in for possession again, an’ if she don’t get a real lawyer insteada one a them public defenders, she’s in deep shit.”

“I’m sorry,” I replied. “I don’t know any lawyers.”

“If you’re visitin’,” said a burly man, whose jeans were riding at a perilously low ebb, “you know a criminal, an’ if you know a criminal, you know a lawyer.”

“Right,” said the woman beside him. Her hair was braided down her back, and she was wearing a cerise flowered muumuu.

Are these people going to prevent me from leaving because I’m not a lawyer and don’t know one?
I wondered desperately. It wasn’t my fault they’d pushed me forward. I’d tried to decline the kindness politely. A chocolate-colored child took her thumb out of her mouth and said, “My granny’s upstairs. She’s behind the red doors.”

At that moment the elevators released another flood of visitors, and I wiggled through that crowd and boarded an elevator. It wasn’t going down, but I didn’t care. Eventually, I’d reach the first floor, which I did and got directions to McDonald’s from the woman at the espresso bar. Had it been the twenties or thirties, I’d have been only a block away from Manilatown, about which I’d read. There I could have eaten something interesting like chicken
adobo.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t have been welcome. Manilatown had been a bachelor enclave of Filipino migrant workers, small business owners, and gamblers.

Well, there’s nothing like an Egg McMuffin in frightening company while you’re waiting to visit the women’s floor of the jail. My poor mother-in-law. She wasn’t even in one of the fancy, blue glass jails, which probably had much nicer facilities and views.

3

San Francisco Jail #2

 

T
he Latino deputy
led the first group up the stairs at precisely eleven. Breathless, I reached the top and got my initial view of the visiting facilities, a long glass window with partitions and telephones on either side. No chairs. I sighed and moved down the line to the middle compartment behind whose portion of glass stood my mother-in-law. She wore a v-necked orange shirt, which displayed some of her thin, wrinkled chest and arms, and baggy pants at least a size too big. Nonetheless, she looked as formidable as ever when she picked up the phone and asked where Jason and Gwen were.

“As Jason said, he has meetings all day,” I replied, trying to sound pleasant. “Gwen’s back in New York.”

“You left the girl on her own in New York City?”

“She’s staying, under protest, with Charlotte Heyde mann, the widow of a friend of Jason’s. Gwen’s managed to become part of an off-Broadway company for the summer and—”

“I’d hoped the girl would have found some more sensible path in life during her first year at university,” interrupted my mother-in-law. “Now, Carolyn, about your accommodations. With me in jail, perhaps you’ll see the sense of staying at my sublet. Paying for that fancy hotel when you can stay free at the apartment is—”

“Actually, Hodge, Brune & Byerson is paying.”

“Please take down the address. You can get a key from Mr. Valetti, who lives on the second floor. You’ll have to call ahead because the outside door requires a key as well. Tell Jason—”

“But Professor Blue, I don’t know if Jason will agree. The conference is in the hotel where we’re staying.”