Nothing to Declare Read online

  He stands in the doorway, enjoying the surprise crossing their faces. “Hey there,” he says. “Long time.”

  Marty’s tender in their reunion—he keeps patting Jesse’s shoulder, ruffling his hair. Isabel watches from a distance. She holds onto her broom as if she’s forgotten what it’s for, a quiver in her lips. But then she melts. It’s embraces all around, their troubles leached away by the astonishment of being together and just friends once more. Everybody talks at once, and laughs, and talks some more.

  Marty, of course, has hours of stories, and after dinner on Isabel’s back deck, Marty slides Emily into the conversation, the slimmest bit of her, as though she were one more scenic postcard from the trip. She’s gone back to Louisiana, Marty tells them, made homesick by Asia’s heat and ferment. Isabel leans her cheek to Jesse’s, mutters something too low for Marty to hear. Forgive me. He doesn’t reply at first, soaks in her scent and touch.

  Her face brims with pleasure as Marty acts out the proper technique for fishing Burma’s Inle Lake, the fisherman standing with his leg crooked over the oar, pulling fish into his net.

  We’re fine,” Jesse tells her. “Always were, always will be.”

  EIGHTEEN

  MARTY CELEBRATES HIS RETURN with a new preoccupation, drumming on the dozen iron gongs he’s carted home from Indonesia. No matter the weather, he practices in the Escalona backyard, bare to the waist, his batik trousers fog-damp and pasted to his ankles. His rubber mallets build a wall of discord, and it’s amazing, Jesse thinks, Marty’s accelerating skill, the pandemonium he produces and the release. All in the style of the gamelan master who tutored him at the foot of Bali’s Mount Agung.

  “Ten years ago, Agung exploded,” Marty explains to Jesse and Isabel after an hour-long impromptu one February night. “First eruption in a century, and hundreds died, thousands, all of them chanting and dancing in a ceremony to one of their gods or demons—they’ve got millions, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, the Balinese are ecumenical like that. Think of it, there they were, in a religious frenzy three yards from heaven when the ash plume hit. Asia cuts it straight to the bone—nothing but eight kinds of crazy crashing in on you from every side there is, and nobody wants it any different.”

  “That seems horrible and cruel,” Isabel says. “What—the universe’s just a monster? Nothing but spite and chaos?” She’s been solemn tonight, sitting on the lanai, observing Marty at his music with her hands in her lap. “Some of us believe everything happens for a reason, even when we can’t see one.”

  Marty’s eyes soften in pity. “What I saw was the cinder trail, six villages nothing but ash and mud and the occasional bone. It’s hard to find God’s love in that.”

  “Here’s what I believe,” Jesse says. “I believe we drink some Cuba libres and forget about which one of you is right.”

  Marty rises behind his array of gongs and comes to them. He’s sweaty from his playing—an odor shines off him feral enough to prickle the throat. “Aren’t you going to take a stand, lay some money on your own set of convictions?” Marty says to Jesse. “It’s balmy there on the sidelines, but Christ, it’s boring.”

  “I’m for wait-and-see until more evidence shows up one way or the other,” Jesse says. “I’m looking for my sign.”

  Marty sighs—slamming the music out of his gongs has run the battle out of him. He lays his head on Isabel’s lap and shuts his eyes. Her fingers play with his curls; she has a look of faraway. Rags to Riches went bankrupt yesterday, a day before the two-week payroll was due. Isabel skates by her mortgage payments month to month, nothing to spare.

  “Maybe we should put our heads together, think about how to cushion you for now,” Jesse tells her.

  “I don’t want to think. Not for a minute.”

  “You heard the lady,” Marty says. “Thinking’s not to the point. Faith will provide. The unseen hand.”

  “In case it doesn’t, I’ve got $600 I can toss in toward your house payment,” Jesse says. “Loan’s good as long as you need it.”

  Isabel slides Marty off her lap. “I want to dance,” she says. “Lulu’s calls. Don’t bother to get up, I’m going by myself.” The two men watch her leave.

  “I love it,” Jesse says. “She might lose her house, but there she goes to shake her stuff. Maybe we should tag along.”

  “Spare the lady some oxygen, haven’t you learned by now? Besides, there are wheels in motion. Give me a few more days, we’ll all be in the roses, Bel included. Just don’t bug me for details, you might jinx my deal.” Leaning a hand against Jesse’s shoulder to hoist himself to his feet, Marty walks off to take a shower.

  For a little while, Jesse stays out on the lanai. The wind is moving through the trees and Marty’s instruments are chiming on their own, a scattering of phantom tones. Jesse approaches the gamelan, touches the carved teak struts, the brass fittings—so much exacting detail—then strikes the largest gong with his fist. The clang is muffled, vibration charging up his arm and into his shoulder. He hits again using a rock this time. The sound booms deep as church bells.

  I did my tap dance three days later during dinner with the Escalona crew, how I was grabbing up the lease on Rags to Riches and putting Isabel and Jesse in charge. I was thinking not to sell too hard—modesty only—but my friends were used to the froth, so when the food was steaming on our plates—gado gado and satay that Jesse helped me grill—I popped some T-shirts from beneath the table and waited until everybody put one on. The lettering was fresh from the printer, colors as shiny as the sauces we were wiping off our chins. Isabel had done a logo of a grinning monkey with its tail on fire. Hanuman Designs, I announced—after the Hindu monkey god, the hero of the Upanishads, good luck in all his incarnations.

  I rolled out the high points—how my Indonesian contacts had a cornucopia of righteous stuff for us to sell: silver jewelry, carved wood masks, and woven wall hangings, and what would be our central business, exotic leather goods—cobra, lizard, ostrich, frog—my guy in Denpasar’d sew anything that crawled into whatever we wanted. Isabel was designing a line of clothing for the U.S. market. Cheapo headbands and trinkets for the street freaks and teeny-boppers, fancier bags and belts for the moneyed gentry. Jesse would run the import side and shop administration. I’d be Mr. Outside, working our concept and marketing, finding investment, playing to my strengths.

  It’d be a blast—how couldn’t it—we’d run the store at constant party volume and shovel money in our pockets, even-Steven all around. What we needed from the housemates was some upfront grunt work sanding floors and painting walls. Later, hours here and there at the register or helping Jesse in the backroom filling orders.

  I was ready for Lucy and Natalie to turn down their lefty noses at my offer. Money was part of the death culture, after all, and they couldn’t let it stain their hands. But I’d made sure to tell some stories of our workers overseas, how cottage industry would nurture independence for the mostly female artisans. Imagine my surprise when Nat and Luce signed on soon as I finished. They made me promise I’d donate to the S.C. women’s shelter a percent to be determined of the profits. Right-o, I said. Let our good fortune spread equal karma, the Balinese are more than hip to that, and we can be, too.

  Jesse, on the other hand, looked queasy. My eye was on him as he fought what he was feeling, objection written on his face like a rash. Fear of his ability to lead, maybe, so scared of failure he didn’t want to start. As the night went on I was hoping he’d cheer up and be bobbed along by the general confidence, get what it meant I wanted him in charge. But he moped over his food and drank too many Bintang beers.

  At some point, we moved into the living room, most of the group around the couch admiring Isabel’s first paper designs and the samples we were going to send to Indonesia for them to mass produce. Paul put “My Funny Valentine” on the turntable, “All Blues,” Miles’s transcendent horn. I’d seen him play it once, the trumpet painted partly orange, partly black, Miles in his dashiki all impulse and mental
ity and control. I stepped toward Jesse to buck him up, collect him into the fold, whispered in his ear about one of our secret angels, treating him to a taste of private information. Dennis Wilson was fronting us fifteen grand of capital, his piece was twelve percent. “Come on, Little Brother, tell me if you think a Beach Boy’s going to back a loser. Dude survived the Manson Family, right? He’s been hitting trifectas all his life.”

  Jesse took his time wrestling down the nugget—he seemed slugged into silence, and then he pinched out a little dribble of a smile, exasperated, naturally, but also more than a little bit impressed. “You know fucking Dennis Wilson?”

  “Friend of a friend of a friend. He dug our samples, what can I say? But keep it to yourself. I think Izzy knew him way back when, and who knows if that memory is sweet. Look, everybody comes at this on a different tangent. For Bel, it’s a shot at controlling her livelihood. My money guys see an easy buck or three. You and me, what we sell, the money, that’s an excuse. It’s the energy, slipping through the whirlwind together, seeing what falls to us if we do. Monday morning, put some ideas together about the physical operation, draft us a floor plan of how you want the store.”

  “I already have a job,” Jesse said.

  “Quit it. We do this with you running things or I’ll bag the whole deal.”

  “And if you’re wrong and there’s no market? Times are shaky and some of us have more to lose than you.”

  I went over to the stereo, yanked the volume up. “Listen to the man play. You hear any lack of nerve? From the mind, to the heart, to the hand. That’s what it takes to make something that matters, you just close your eyes and go.”

  Jesse looked at me. “I say yes and then what?”

  “Who knows? That’s the idea.”

  We stood there listening to the music, and I told Jesse it was better for things if he was the one who told Isabel about Dennis Wilson’s contribution. Start himself off as the one in control. I watched him as he did as told, shaky on his pins at first, but smooth as champagne at the finish.

  At Jesse’s direction, they paint the store interior in baby greens and pale yellows—a palette chosen to trigger desire and acquisition. Lucy and her band of women carpenters put together beach-cabana dressing rooms and rough-sawn showcases that Jesse stencils with oversize tropical flora. On the wall behind the main sales counter he sketches the Hanuman logo five feet high. He spends days speckled with paint, giddy on the fumes. He paints the wall over twice to get the thing exactly right. Marty’s been pushing him to goddamn finish, but Jesse stays the course. At last he’s down to pesky details. He sets each hair on the monkey god’s body with a glorious tick of his brush.

  In the backroom, Isabel has been struggling at her design table in a silent clot of effort. It’s up to Jesse to pull her out for a late night coffee or a dip into the ocean to clear her head, bring her takeout hot and sour soup or chile rellenos. He knows he should be nudging her to move more quickly, but he finds himself absorbed in watching her—how she bears down on her work, the density of her pencil line, the stern angle of her forearm on her pattern paper. Her torn-up drawings are in too many pieces to rescue.

  For weeks Marty’s been traveling the San Francisco-L.A. axis, booking newspaper ads and Yellow Pages listings, sniffing out private label accounts for a wholesale division. He’s cherry-picked Isabel’s address book for all her old connections—glam-rock costumers and Israeli consignment kings and Malibu wheeler-dealers. His dentists have fed the kitty thousands more in promissory notes.

  Each night near midnight, the Hanuman phone rings and Jesse and Isabel receive the gush of Marty’s optimism, the business he’s corralled, the heavy hitters he’s dined at Ernie’s or Pips, the gross of Day-Glo Hanuman posters due in Santa Cruz a week from Tuesday, artwork bartered from a strung-out silkscreen maestro who did album work for Dylan and the MC5. All he wanted was a couch where he could catch some zees and four lids of Columbian skunk.

  Later than they wanted, all the designs have flown their way to Bali, and Isabel relinquishes the conversation to Jesse. Her ear grazes the shared receiver; her breath is slow and polished by the scent of burnt orange. Marty expects good news only, so Jesse marches him through the day’s triumphs, holds silent on how many Southern Comfort bottles he’s fished out of Isabel’s trash. After a while, almost in boredom, Isabel pulls the receiver from Jesse, turns her back on him for low-voiced conversations that drift on into the night. Best to keep distance as he cleans his brushes and sweeps the floor, stalling with make-work so she won’t be left alone in the empty shop. Isabel’s voice murmurs below his hearing. She might be crying or laughing, Jesse can’t decide.

  By the middle of April, the store is coming together, but there’s nothing in it to sell. Marty’s got himself a blow-dried razor cut, a Goodwill business suit, a pair of used wingtips past their glory. He’s generous with backslaps and praise for everyone’s hard work. Once a week, he hands out paychecks, dishing them out like the jolly lord of the manor.

  Jesse hasn’t seen Isabel for a month—according to Marty she’s making magic up in Felton by her lonesome, new designs more beautiful than anything they’ve dreamed about for shipment number two. He looks so bullish and radiant of eye, why couldn’t it be so? Marty’s never functioned with this much focus—no time anymore for pickup basketball or night-crawling after the essential sopaipilla. Work now, play later, he brings the hammer down.

  Near the end of the month, Jesse takes a call from San Francisco, the goods are in. Time to drive up north and pick up the shipment from their customs broker, Rudy Moskowitz. In the empty storefront, the smell of paint still in the air, Marty explains the drill. Pay the broker his money, sign for the shipment, and drive their future home.

  “Why me,” Jesse asks. “What happened to the division of labor?”

  “You’re the guy. Don’t fuss.”

  Jesse explains he still has plenty to do in Santa Cruz putting finishing touches on the store, organizing things for the arrival. Marty says all well and good, but it’s Jesse has to go, he’s on the paperwork, his name and Social Security number.

  “Me? When did that happen?”

  Marty’s eyes soften in almost sympathy. He puts an arm around Jesse’s shoulder, speaking slowly, as if explaining long division to a child. “Always was, Little Brother. Anyway, for me, duty calls. I’m going back to L.A. for another money-raising trip. I may have a line into Asylum Records. Fingers crossed, we could be doing Jackson Browne tour jackets come end of summer.

  “Anyway, S.F.’s a milk run, Moskowitz will tell you what to do. Just follow the dots and all will be well. Course you might have to cut your hair and smile your little schoolboy smile. The man is haimish as the day is round, but I don’t think he wants to be in business with the great unwashed.”

  “My hair is perfectly clean,” Jesse tells him, but Marty’s already across the room and dialing someone on the phone.

  The broker’s office is in the Ferry Building close by the Embarcadero, an overheated warren yearning for a paintbrush or a wrecking ball. For most of an hour, Jesse awaits Moskowitz’s pleasure, alone in the musty anteroom, his hands clenched in his lap, his legs stretched out in front of him. Out on the sidewalk before coming in, he stuffed his ponytail inside his collar, but like a living creature, the thing threatens to leap free at any second.

  The only reading material is a small wall calendar courtesy of the Chinatown Benevolent Society. It’s the Year of the Tiger, celebrated by an airbrushed nude on every page. Miss April cups her dainty breasts for the camera’s eye. Tigers are passionate and intemperate, the caption reads. They reject the authority of others.

  Moskowitz advances out of his office flashing a chunky gold wristwatch and matching ID bracelet. He gives Jesse a good going over—the faded Rep tie, the Frye boots needing a shine. The broker wears the all-purpose scowl of a fifty-five-year-old man whom nothing can surprise. He smells heavily of cloves.

  “Jesse Kerf,” the man says. “Hippi
e boots and the whole shebang. My kid has those shit-kickers, won’t dress like a human even if I pay him. Follow me.”

  In his private office, Moskowitz lights a cone-shaped cigarette, clouding the air between them with the scent of a curry house. Jesse snaps opens his briefcase with what he hopes is professional éclat. “I’m told you’re going to help us expedite our shipment in case we run into trouble at the dock.”

  “Expedite, nice. Me, I dropped out of school ninth grade, never made it up to ‘expedite.’ You’re a college boy, aren’t you, good for you, you got yourself a vocabulary.”

  “I dropped out,” Jesse says.

  Moskowitz grunts and pulls Jesse’s documents out of a file folder. While the broker reviews the collection of manifests, bills of lading and invoices, Jesse deals several hundred dollar bills onto the desk. Hold your tongue and let the money sit in front of him, Marty instructed. Jesse watches the bills curl in the heat.

  Moskowitz puts the papers aside and tips back in his chair for a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. “You look like a decent kid. You’re a babe in the woods, O.K. everybody gets a first time. But don’t insult me, if you don’t mind? I got to reduce the blood pressure.”

  “It’s not enough?”

  “Christ, don’t be a jerk-off. Here’s some advice, no charge. Nobody pays cash anymore. My line, the green stuff makes everybody think too hard. I’m like a doctor or a plumber. I send you a bill—thirty days net. I take a bite for every entry on your list, a bigger one for every classification, messenger fees, it adds up. You send me a nice check, helps me put Janice and Larry through summer camp, buys me some more of these goddamn smokes, going to kill me before my time.”