First Day Back: A Novel

By Ray Bisso

The Vietnam War is coming to a close and Timbo starts his first day back as a retail ad salesman for the Daily Beacon after an absence of more than three years in San Francisco, where he recently broke off with his girlfriend, Jeanne. The reader accompanies Timbo on his journey through the day as he talks and interacts with his old newspaper buddies; walks the streets of his sales territory in San Pedro, a Southern California seaport town, where he has lived most of his life; remembers people and experiences as he makes his rounds; calls on retail merchant advertisers who welcome his return but are preoccupied with the events surrounding Vietnam and the business changes taking place in the downtown harbor area.

Containerization, a new system of ship loading at the harbor docks has reduced employment and resulted in a loss of Union influence in the area. This is evidenced by an ongoing printers strike at the Daily Beacon that has failed to close down the paper. Now the publisher is thinking of selling to a large newspaper chain.
Part of the downtown business area is being torn down through a Federal grant to establish a new shopping mall. At the end of his first day, while walking through an old demolished building, Timbo comes upon an injured man who was struck on the head by one of his Vietnam veteran drinking buddies. He helps Blackie to a resident hotel a few blocks from the demolition area, where he bandages his wound. They drink whiskey while Blackie relates a Vietnam battle experience.
All through the day Timbo thinks about Jeanne, his San Francisco girlfriend. Mostly erotic visions of her body, her hair, her lips, her lovely guitar-playing presence, her unique anti-Vietnam hippie character, He continues to have a problem with his decision to leave Jeanne in San Francisco.

After the whiskey session with Blackie, Timbo fantasizes an aerial body trip by Jeanne down the misty coastal skies from Frisco to visit him in Blackies hotel room. Jeanne tries to lure Timbo with a dance of veils but her conversation with him seems firm and unyielding and the visit lacks any resolution to Timbos problem.
The last scene finds Timbo departing the hotel with a bottle of scotch, which he plans to leave for one of his fellow admen. On his walk back to the newspaper Timbo begins to realize that the extent to which the Vietnam conflict and the passage of time have changed his town, the newspaper, the merchants, the returning veterans and even his relationship with Jeanne.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 3, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462831852

Ray Bisso

Ray Bisso was born in Wakefield, Mass., educated at Holy Cross College, spent three and one-half years with a U.S.Army Swing Band in the Pacific. He was leader of the Memphis Bold Jazzband in California, owner of a jazz club, worked as an advertising manager for Knight Ridder Newspapers. He has a degree in English from UCLA and the Alice Underkoffer Award for Poetry from Los Angeles Harbor College. In 1998 he published his narrative jazz poem, Buddy Bolden of New Orleans. A novel,Swing Band, was published in 2000 and another novel, Ad Man, appeared in the same year. Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver, a book of two biographical poems published in 2001.

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First Day Back

A NOVEL

Ray Bisso

Copyright © 2001 by Ray Bisso.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation 1-888-7-XLIBRIS

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

To My Longtime FriendROGERGAGNON

A Great Ad ManandAn Even Better Human Being

CHAPTER 1

Bone pop in the neck spine. Turning in the warm bed to the right side. Close to the wall with a dusty smell in the nose. Wallpaper. It’s probably not good for the chest. Emphysema. Who knows, maybe cancer. They don’t know that much about it. If they did they’d cure it. It could be from breathing too close to wallpaper. Jesus. You have to think of that. As if there isn’t enough to think about. Turn away. Why not. Who needs to think that? In the smooth warmth, turning toward the open part of the room. Better. Why sweat about a stupid thing like that?

Face it, Timbo. The big C has been a big thing in your life. So has the bad chest. So you think about it. I am, after all, not a fool. There have been more than the normal appearances of it around me. Maybe It’s in my genes. So you do think of it if you’ve got any sense at all. Papa Tano lying in the bed with the C in him. Sitting back with two pillows against the wall. The wallpaper. Who knows. You get desperate when you don’t know why. Maybe the dust in the paper. Or the chemicals in the ink. Or the stuff in the paste when they lay it against the wall. Stupid idea. The little blue flowers with lines leading to another flower to a line to a flower to a line to a flower behind the pillows. Papa Tano’s face like ivory skin. From the disease. The fight. The struggle. The chicken soup every day and his old Italian buddies bringing drugs from Los Angeles. Underground stuff through old country connections. To help the pain. His face never in distress. Always serene. Ivory. Like porcelain you’ve got to be careful about. Like he was being watchful that this thing wouldn’t break something inside him or maybe his face or his legs. But the odor there from the bag at his side. Like the slight leftover smell from cleaning up after a cat or a dog. You wouldn’t know the slightest smell was there from the look on Papa Tano’s face. Deep brown eyes shining. Lips placid. Hands folded calmly on the neat white bedspread. Fine long white hands with long fingernails and clear moons. Patsy Barbera, his buddy sitting by the bed. The house painter. He helped Papa Tano put up the wallpaper. The dry scraping of the old paper against the wall plaster. The wet pasty glue and the elegant long brush to lay it against the wall. Dusty smell. Could be anything. Even his death. That’s stupid. That would cause it in the chest, not in the intestines. Who knows where it could have started. The friends finally got him to the hospital. A lot of good it did. He returned home soon.

Patsy telling stories in the afternoon with the warm sun shining through the bedroom window. Papa Tano laughing easily so the porcelain won’t break. They laugh a lot.

About when they went clamming up north at Pismo Beach. They walked for two miles in the bright sun to a spot where they knew the clams were plentiful. Across from a row of sand dunes. The sun was hot and the walking was heavy through the deep sand. When they arrived at the spot opposite the dunes they got out burlap sacks to hold the heavy stony clams. That was before the State put a limit on the amount you could take. They stood most of the day up to their waists in the surf with pitchforks probing for the sharp striking sounds that told them they had hit a clam below the surface of the sand. All of a sudden young Pat, whom they had taken along to do the driving and help carry the sacks of clams, let out a shriek and started twisting and thrashing around in the water. They thought some water creature had bitten him. They ran into the surf and carried him high up on the beach. He had driven a pitch fork prong through his foot. Old Patsy cried in desperation, not knowing what to do. The others consoled him and Papa Tano suggested that the salt water would keep Pat from any infection. They had to walk back to the car from the sand dunes, helping Pat along the way. The walk over the hot sand tired them and they started to discard clams to lighten their load. By the time they arrived back at the car most of the clams had been left back along the way. They had gathered about seventy large ones but when they got back they found they had less than a couple dozen. They laughed about it in the room with the slight odor and the sunlight streaking across the blue flowered wallpaper. Timbo, there listening, laughing with them and looking through big eyes on the other side of the high bed.

Now here in the room at the San Pedro YMCA. Time to get going. The harbor view. Hell of a thing. This high up and a view. Lucked out on that. Normally, you have to put your name on their list fora room with a view. Let’s get going. Skip breakfast this morning. Don’t want to be late. Down to the lobby. Men sitting in armchairs. An unshaved man talking with an accent.

Waiting in the Social Security office is the shits. I waited and I waited, you know, for all this time and nothing happened. Finally this woman comes up to me and she says, Mr. Martinez, your records have been located in Stockton and it will be several days before they arrive here. So I have to go back next week. Ain’t that the shits? Wait and wait and wait. That’s all you do these days is sit around and wait. Worse than Vietnam.

Two Orientals in a corner of the lobby talking in their native language, ignoring the other people. What are they talking about? Vietnamese. Good looking. Serious. Maybe nothing so much as where they will have lunch. No. Not them. They have problems. Families in Vietnam. How to get them here. Through the bureaucracy. Coping with the job situation. Starting a new life in San Pedro. Jesus.

Harbor Boulevard across to the park overlooking the channel. Relax on the bench for a few minutes before the walk to the Beacon. Japanese freighter passes behind the empty ferry building, oversized, huge above the harbor structures along the west channel. Casts a wide shadow as it moves. Giant intruder dwarfs the buildings at the waterside. Slow silent movement of the great ship past the little strip of grass in the seaside park on the bluff overlooking the water.

Sun warm on the skin. Through the shirt and jacket. But a sudden quick shiver shoots along the spine and into the chest. The ship. That’s it. The thrill. Not Jeanne. No not Jeanne. Sitting here hardly thinking. Warm and cozy. Then the great hulk comes into the eyes and mind and shivers through the body like an electric eel.

Sailors standing on the deck by the rails in their blue, white and spotted red clothing. Sober. Look down like scenery in a passing dream. Because it came from nothing and it will be gone in seconds. No connections. Moves slowly like a cloud reflected off the water. The maroon steel siding with the nifty rows of bolt heads form a surface design. Move huge and silent in the warm morning air. A dream that takes it all, eyes, mind, presence, and moves on and on away to the Orient. Letters on the aft. The Mural. White on maroon with wash of rust across the letters. Finally the fantail floats away leaving a swish of water behind.

Now gone. Across the channel the black mounds come back into view at the coke terminal. The thin steel step crane elevator angles across the sky over the coke mounds like a praying mantis. San Pedro looks like the town it was. Except for this downtown section close to the harbor. Containerization has arrived. No open cargo. Not many longshoremen. The bars, the hotels, the women, the hustle business. Changing. Started even before I left. Now a place of rest. Settling down in the Southern California sun. It seems a suburban place after all that Frisco hustle. Only the harbor makes it different. People don’t count on the presence of the ships and the water life. Nothing about water activity is going to be too sleepy, too suburban. You learn that.

Harbor cops coming out of the ferry building with their black shoes shining. Early meeting. A class of some kind. Books and notepaper. Walk around the side of the building, down the cement stairs to the boat dock. Start the patrol boat motor and pull away into the channel.

Tugboat passes with its waterline deep in the water. Moves easily. You know from its low growl and its swift move that it’s got a thousand times the motor power it needs to move its bulldog form across the water. Easy does it yellow stacker. Your duck’s ass is wet.

The City building, landmark in the harbor area. Buff colored brick. A square six story structure, in the style of the l920’s. For years it overlooked the Beacon Street skid row bars and small hotels. Now the five block square will be demolished in a Federal Redevelopment project. Those crusty old brick and wood and stucco structures going down, one by one. All but the city building.

Up the hill, the alcoholic clinic, the post office, the San Pedro YMCA, the Beacon House, the Episcopal Seamen’s Center, the Norwegian Center, all lined along the far side of Beacon Street across from the long strip of park overlooking the harbor. Benches set on the park. Here and there a wino and his buddy, with the familiar brown paper bag over the sweet wine bottle.

Last week, here in the park with Harold:

Tim! Hey, Timbo!

Harold the Canadian on the bench munching on the usual sandwich out of his briefcase. Gold fillings flash on one side as his long teeth close over the slab of bread. Looks over the top of his glasses with that familiar brown sparkle in his eyes. Faded brown hair, combed to one side. Thin body in the overlarge shirt and suit. Slumped down in the green park bench.

Timbo, you lead the lazy life of a loafer. Aren’t you lucky. Fortunate is the word for you, Timbo.

An accent from his British Colombia past creeps into his words. Especially the word ‘fortyoonate’.

When are you coming to work, man? My God, it’s scandalous the way you lay around like a regular San Pedro water bum. Are you living off the dole?

Scandalous, scandalous. Harold will not shut up. A ship horn shakes the air and Harold looks in the direction of the water. A dirty, rusted freighter floats past in the channel accompanied by a trim little yellow and black tugboat.

Mickey wants to see you. Tim, are you listening?

Yes.

Mickey has to see you soon. The position won’t remain open much longer. He’s got to fill it. We’re working our bloody asses off, Gustafson and I.

Think of all the money you’re making.

Umph. There’s not much chance of that happening. Not at the San Pedro Beacon.

Oh balls, Harold. You’ve got the first penny you ever made.

Well I don’t give it all away, if that’s what you mean.

You eat lunches at park benches.

Only when I have to chat with riff raff such as yourself, Timbo.

I’ll be in to see the Mick within a week.

Don’t wait any longer than that or we’ll have to blow the whistle on you. We can’t go on this way much longer. Business has been too damn good for comfort.

Harold gets to his feet and puts his empty sandwich bag into a trash barrel.

I’ve got to have coffee before I hit the street. See you later, Timbo.

CHAPTER 2

Now, across the way a black man in a suit and felt hat stands at the doorway of the post office building holding, face out, a copy of the Watchtower Magazine. A black guy. Jesus. What happened there. He must have gone all the way down to come up with that. Walking on thin ice with that one. They yell and confess and testify and all that stuff to get it going again. That lonely walk back from nowhere to nowhere. A statue for my thoughts. No, he moved. By God, he sold one. He’s actually moving. In all the years I’ve never seen one of those things sold. A black guy doing that. Going it alone. No race hassle. A personal salvation with no brothers and sisters and no community involvement. The last of the one liners. The black man bends down and takes another magazine from a briefcase at his feet and holds it in position again. A statue for my eyes. Waiting for me to pass. Or anyone. There with his testicles hanging over his socks. All day waiting to save a soul. Maybe two, three a day. Selling souls like selling ads.

I’ll walk the rounds with you some one of these days, I said to Harold that day.

You do that. I’d love to have you, Tim. Catch me some morning around ten o’clock.

Okay. It didn’t happen.

Take it easy now.

You know me.

Harold had picked up his briefcase and walked down the sidewalk toward Seventh Street.

Attaché cases, briefcases. The professionals always carried them. Now everybody carries them. Badges of honor. Harold never uses his except for when he carries lunch in it. Stuffs his ad copy in his jacket pockets. The black guy thinks he’s hot stuff with his briefcase. Gives him that respectable look. Gets his kicks out of the look. It’s all an act, anyway. Why not use a prop? The whole thing’s a scam for himself. Trying to kid himself, building a whole new person for himself to believe in. Why not. What the heck, no one else knows the difference. For a black guy it’s easier. No one gives a damn, anyway. His blackness already sets him in a totally different scene. No matter what he wears, he’s already marked for a difference, so what’s a little more, like a crazy hat or tie or shoes or hairdo or briefcase or whatever.