Authors: Edmond Manning
Perry nods against me.
“They required no throne rooms, no jewels, no gold crowns. They chose to king as they went about the business of living. The gardeners, the blacksmiths, even the tax collectors, were fair and just kings.”
I must glance to my right every now and again to keep an eye on the approaching dock.
“In this tribe, all brothers were rightful owners of the kingdom. You might come across King Ryan the Protector or King Galen the Courier, on your way to visit The Sculptor King. They loved freely with open hearts, some lying with other kings and some seeking women as their queens. I met one such king, a queen seeker, King Malcolm the Restorer, an African giant whose powerful voice commanded love and goodness from those who had abandoned their true selves.”
As the boat rocks itself into the dock, our shipmates shuffle toward the stairs, but I keep Perry standing close to me, speaking right into his ear. The boat sounds have lessened now that we’re not hitting the water at high speed, so I may speak more quietly.
“The orchards were full of ripe, luscious peaches; the beer brewed amber and frothy. King Nareeb the Baker of Gifts delivered blueberry pies and fresh, buttery croissants. You could often find King Jimbo the Bruiser stomping across the countryside tracking Kalista, his beloved falcon. Life continued exceptionally well for a timeless age, more kings discovering themselves and suddenly arriving.”
From the corner of my eye, I watch the front of the boat, ready to elaborate if necessary. But nope, it’s time. “Yes, life was good. Until some got lost.”
A horn blows.
Perry jumps.
The captain welcomes us to Alcatraz Island with the lack of cheer you’d expect from the warden and asks us not to shove our way down the gangplank.
Perry fakes a chuckle and says, “Good timing.”
“Thank you. I practiced.”
As we head toward the stairs to join our fellow inmates, I describe my first visit to Alcatraz, how excited I was, how cool the buildings are to explore.
“You’ll love it,” I assure him.
Perry offers a queasy nod. “I’m not trying to be a total dick. I just… I’ve never done anything this crazy, Vin. I don’t know how to be right now.”
“You’re not being a dick. You’re being nervous.”
I grin big and put my hands on his shoulders as I follow him down the narrow interior stairs.
I’m happy.
I always love the moment when someone begins a journey. Perry will find a piece of himself on Alcatraz, and he’ll abandon something that no longer serves him. A different man will leave this island.
Once we have officially disembarked and have more room around us, he turns to me and says under his breath, “You like to kiss?”
I say, “Definitely. For hours.”
He smiles and looks away. He’s trying to come around.
The island glows with green life, despite today’s lack of direct sunlight. The shiny, rubbery leaves of blackberry vines, the honeysuckle draped elegantly over thick cement walls. A dozen recognizable flowers, yellow and slender, red geraniums too, survive in the under-tended gardens. The enormous gray prison still dominates the landscape, but chirpy white blooms and bold orange nasturtiums suddenly appear around corners along the winding paths to the prison entrance, cheerful surprises amid the dreary stone and sky.
I push my shoulder into his, and he’s startled by this. He scrutinizes me, but when I grin his way, he pushes back some, ready to play.
“What’s with the king story?” he says. “Did you make it up, or is it something I should already know?”
“You may not have heard it, but it’s an old story.”
“Should I be memorizing all these guys’ names? I forgot most of them already.”
“No worries.”
“So what happened when they got lost?”
“To be continued.”
“When?”
“When it’s
time
. You have to wait for the story to unfold.”
He frowns, nodding.
I think he’s pondering this. Not my answer, which was simple enough, but the fact that this weekend will unfurl without explanation, without an agenda, and will possibly include an impossible monarchy full of legislative contradictions. It’s a lot for me to interpret from a single head nod and the silence that follows, but that’s what it looks like to me.
He says, “I’ve always meant to come to Alcatraz, especially when I first moved to San Francisco. Once a year, I think to myself, ‘I should go,’ but then I never make it happen.”
“Today’s your lucky day.”
He says, “I should get a T-shirt.”
“I have three. I recommend the one covered in prison bars. Always a classic.”
I push him with my shoulder again, and this time, he’s ready with a little resistance. When we reach the prison entrance, the guide asks if we want the audio tour and I make a puppy face at Perry, so he says with a droll inflection, “Of course we do.”
The uniformed guide nods and says, “Return the sets as you leave.”
Once we’ve crossed into the gloomy interior, Perry punches my arm. “You didn’t want a sex buddy for the weekend, you wanted a tour guide. We’re going to be tourists all weekend, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely. Wait until you see what I have planned for the Golden Gate Bridge.”
He laughs.
The audio tour always impresses me with its ability to evoke the prison’s dark history, incorporating the sounds of muffled clanking doors and prisoners yelling up and down the galley. We walk when we’re supposed to walk, stop and look where the narrators tell us to stop and look. I occasionally point to a thing as it’s explained and shoot him a meaningful glance implying “Cool, huh?” We gawk at the bullet holes riddling the floor from a failed prison escape and share uneasy glances as a former prisoner describes the weekly regime in detail.
He pulls off his headphones to ask, “What time were cocktails?”
I remove mine. “After the oil painting classes.”
We snicker at our little jokes, the same jokes every other tourist makes, but we think they’re funny because right in this moment, they’re uniquely ours, and suddenly every observation is hilarious compared to the hard lives whispered into our ears. While we stroll through the abandoned dining room, a thousand scraping knives and metal forks shriek in our ears as an invisible horde slops down chow.
Though we don’t have great conversation while listening to the prison tales, we read each other’s expressions, small gestures, and movements, gradually attuning to each other. He expresses disbelief at a few details, and I nod in agreement. It does sound horrible. I can feel Perry relax further, somehow reassured that we’re compatible.
I take off my headphones and point at a bunk. “Those look comfy.”
“Ugh,” Perry says, pausing the narration. “I’m exhausted and even I wouldn’t lie down on it.”
Exhausted? Good to know.
I say, “Why? Do you believe in Alcatraz ghosts?”
“No,” he says, “I believe in vermin.”
His eyes flash in recognition for a split second, remembering my art gallery story, and he starts to stutter a shocked apology.
I hope my smirk indicates that it’s completely okay.
I say, “Do you believe in rat ghosts?”
He reads me; I can see it on his face. He makes a significant gesture of pushing Play, and he turns away.
There are no rats on Alcatraz.
If there were, I would smell them. I can always smell them.
I have hunted for traces of rats or mice on previous visits, idly wondering which would feel worse: Billy’s basement or a cell in Alcatraz. I used to think Alcatraz, because they locked the door. But I change my mind right now. Choice is always harder.
Billy used to call down that it was my choice whether to leave the basement. He would stand at the top of the stairs yelling at me, offering asylum from the dark. But I knew he wasn’t alone up there, so I stayed below, never answering.
He wasn’t alone.
Maybe bringing Perry to Alcatraz wasn’t such a great idea. I thought I considered all the angles, thought that I could handle it. But Billy already popped up a few times today, and I can’t have him in my head all weekend. I don’t normally associate Billy with Alcatraz. Why today?
C’mon, Vin. Perry’s making sexy, grinning faces. Pay attention.
One snippet of the audio tour always grabs me: the description of New Year’s Eve. Prisoners would unite in total silence to listen for party sounds floating in from across the bay, remnants of a life they would never know again. Behind the narration, a faint piano tinkles and partygoers laugh, sending chills down my spine, every single time.
We finish the tour and dump our mechanical companions. We decide to explore the rest of the island, wandering at a casual pace and watching the waves. Perry and I exchange observations on prison life and wonder what we would miss the most. Would we break? Could we endure?
I say, “I would miss onion rings first, then lasagna, then cake, in that order. But part of it is that I like the word
cake
, so I might have to put deep-fried cheese curds ahead of cake.”
He says, “Sounds gross. What’s a cheese curd?”
“Little nuggets of deep-fried cheese. They’re popular in Minnesota and Wisconsin, but not in Illinois, which I don’t understand. The land of Chicago-style hot dogs, deep-dish pizza, and deep-fried anything, but they don’t serve cheese curds? It doesn’t make sense. But I bet in a Minnesota prison they serve cheese curds.”
Perry is quiet for a moment but finally says, “You would have eaten one of those hot dogs on the ferry.”
“Cheese was only seventy-five cents extra.”
“Now
that’s
gross. It’s canned cheese from a dirty ferry, Vin.”
“Would you eat cheese cubes on a fancy cruise ship?”
“That’s different.”
“Oh, please. Cheese on a boat.”
“Completely different.”
“
Cheese on a boat.
”
We wander the south part of the island, fondling the low-hanging leaves, admiring flowers, and watching gulls hop around on one foot. We discuss the merits of hot dogs in general and climb the steep, twisting stairs up the landscaped terrace facing the San Francisco skyline. After admiring the city from a few strategic spots, we stroll through an empty foundation, a great cement slab on the southeast side of the island, perfect for valet parking if that were remotely feasible. Or useful.
I lead us around the perimeter of the foundation, pointing out heron nests as I spot them among the rubbery honeysuckle, and we contemplate four or five enormous debris hills dotting the parking lot foundation. Entangled with giant metal rods and crumbling cement blocks, these things could pass as modern sculpture. Instead they suggest a hellish, futuristic landscape built on the ruins of a previous hellish landscape.
I have a nice little “I’ll be back” moment for Perry tomorrow. It doesn’t have to work out that way, that tone exactly. But let’s see if this is a hit.
I say, “I heard they’re thinking about making another Terminator movie.”
“Never saw the first two. Were they any good?”
“
T2
was awesome, but I think they should leave well enough alone and skip the third.”
He says, “Yeah, they always do that.”
Okay, no Arnold Schwarzenegger lines. I guess the guy doesn’t have much impact on Perry’s world of finance. Chatting about movies, we wander further and descend a half dozen stone steps to a vista facing east, right to the edge of a low stone wall with a wide, flat top. Another lovely view, more bay than skyline, beautiful for different reasons.
“Join me,” I suggest, crawling on the wall and dangling my feet over the edge.
Perry nods in acknowledgement of my suggestion but makes no move. He says, “See that gold dome? I actually knew a—”
“Perry.” I pat the space next to me. “When I
suggest
you do something this weekend, I expect you to do it.”
Perry stiffens and remembers, glancing in all directions before awkwardly hoisting himself to sit by my side. He drags his legs to dangle over the wall facing the bay. Except for the rare appearance by one or two people a good distance away, we’re fairly isolated. After all, we arrived on the last tour of the day.
I say, “This reminds me of the wall in the Charlie Brown comic strip.”
Perry looks around and says, “Yeah, I guess.”
I say, “Who’s your favorite Charlie Brown character?”
“Marcie.”
“Lemme guess. Her glasses?”
“I liked how she called Peppermint Patty ‘Sir’ all the time.” Perry smiles and says, “Don’t read too much into that. Your favorite?”
“Sherman.”
Perry’s face scrunches. He has no clue.
“Black-haired kid, lanky, sometimes with Violet and Frieda. He didn’t interact much with Charlie Brown or Linus.”
“I don’t even remember him.”
I say, “Nobody does.”
I hop down three feet to a ledge below us. “Let’s go.”
Perry jumps immediately, perhaps extra sensitive to suggestion after my recent rebuke.
I still haven’t figured out the original purpose of the giant limestone blocks beneath the Charlie Brown wall. Perhaps they were dumped here, or, more likely, they’re from an older wall. Of everyone I’ve asked, nobody is sure. Perhaps they’re a fossilized circus train from prehistoric days.
I put my hand behind me, and when he doesn’t grab it right away, I snap my fingers. His fingers find mine, and I lead him downward. Our ancient circus train winds down a couple of hundred feet toward the gravel shore, following the island’s curve. After a moment, we’re not visible from the Charlie Brown wall. But before we get close to the smashing waves, still a hundred feet away, I guide Perry to a patch of green earth.
I love this spot, the Hammock. Roughly the size of a small bedroom, it’s plenty big enough—I’m delighted to confirm—for both of us to lie here comfortably. Two thick trees block a good portion of the ocean’s easterly wind; the canopy of branches hides us from anyone above who happens to look over the railing. I drop to the grass, patting the earth next to me.
“Let’s lie down.”
He shivers and complies.
“Cold?”
He says, “Chilly but not bad. I’m okay.”
I turn him toward the wall, blocking him from any ocean breeze, and wrap my left arm around him, holding him until he is quiet. We breathe this way for a few moments, feeling each other’s warmth, listening to the breaking waves.