fled.
Two blocks away, outside the post office, stood a pay phone with
winglike sound shields. Above the phone, mounted on the wall of the
building, was a security light behind a wire cage.
When I hung my hat on the cage, shadows fell.
I figured that Manuel Ramirez would still be at home. When I phoned
him, his mother, Rosalina, said that he had been gone for hours. He
was working a double shift because another officer had called in
sick.
This evening he was on desk duty; later, after midnight, he would be on
patrol.
I punched in the main number of the Moonlight Bay Police and asked the
operator if I could speak to Officer Ramirez.
Manuel, in my judgment the best cop in town, is three inches shorter
than I am, thirty pounds heavier, twelve years older, and a Mexican
American. He loves baseball; I never follow sports because I have an
acute sense of time slipping away and a reluctance to use my precious
hours in too many passive activities. Manuel prefers country music; I
like rock. He is a staunch Republican; I have no interest in
politics.
In movies, his guilty pleasure is Abbott and Costello; mine is the
immortal Jackie Chan. We are friends.
“Chris, I heard about your dad,” Manuel said when he came on the
line.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Neither do I, really.”
“No, there never is anything to say, is there?”
“Not that matters.”
“You going to be okay?”
To my surprise, I couldn’t speak. My terrible loss seemed suddenly to
be a surgeon’s needle that stitched shut my throat and sewed my tongue
to the roof of my mouth.
Curiously, immediately after Dad’s death, I’d been able to answer this
same question from Dr. Cleveland without hesitation.
I felt closer to Manuel than to the physician. Friendship thaws the
nerves, making it possible for pain to be felt.
“You come over some evening when I’m off duty,” Manuel said. “We’ll
drink some beer, eat some tamales, watch a couple of Jackie Chan
movies.”
In spite of baseball and country music, we have much in common, Manuel
Ramirez and I. He works the graveyard shift, from midnight until eight
in the morning, sometimes doubling on the swing shift when, as on this
March evening, there is a personnel shortage. He likes the night as I
do, but he also works it by necessity. Because the graveyard shift is
less desirable than daytime duty, the pay is higher. More important,
he is able to spend afternoons and evenings with his son, Toby, whom he
cherishes. Sixteen years ago, Manuel’s wife, Carmelita, died minutes
after bringing Toby into the world. The boy is gentle, charming-and a
victim of Down’s syndrome. Manuel’s mother moved into his house
immediately after Carmelita’s death and still helps to look after
Toby.
Manuel Ramirez knows about limitations. He feels the hand of fate
every day of his life, in an age when most people no longer believe in
purpose or destiny. We have much in common, Manuel Ramirez and I.
“Beer and Jackie Chan sound great,” I agreed. “But who makes the
tamales-You or your mother?”
“Oh, not mi madre, I promise.”
Manuel is an exceptional cook, and his mother thinks that she is an
exceptional cook. A comparison of their cooking provides a fearsomely
illuminating example of the difference between a good deed and a good
intention.
A car passed in the street behind me, and when I looked down, I saw my
shadow pull at my unmoving feet, stretching from my left side around to
my right, growing not merely longer but blacker on the concrete
sidewalk, straining to tear loose of me and flee-but then snapping back
to the left when the car passed.
“Manuel, there’s something You can do for me, something more than
tamales.”
“You name it, Chris.”
After a long hesitation, I said, “It involves my dad . . . his
body.”
Manuel matched my hesitation. His thoughtful silence was the
equivalent of a cat’s ears pricking with interest.
He heard more in my words than they appeared to convey. His tone was
different when he spoke this time, still the voice of a friend but also