ONCE UPON a        TIME
                                                                                          ezine at l'atelier bonita
                                                     established since december 2002

International Relief                            by  Heather M. Borstel                I walked down the stairs into the station. Passing the nineteen-seventies era public sculpture, which was dated the moment they'd dedicated it, I stepped gingerly over a glistening open oyster of mucous someone had spit on the third step down. It was a very hot day and people sprawled out on the grass and in the dry fountain that stood near City Hall. A man in a suit rested underneath one of the granite caryatids that had narrowly missed crushing Jeannette MacDonald in San Francisco. Having seen that movie on TV with my great-grandmother many years ago, I always thought of the scene in which the dome collapsed, whenever I happened to be at Civic Center. Maybe it would happen again. My great-grandmother had snorted derisively at that scene, "the whole thing happened at five in the morning and there's Clark Gable running around in broad daylight! Hollywood," she'd said while cooking a hamburger on the Wedgewood. She wasn't cooking or watching much television any longer, since she'd been in nursing home for several years, but local TV programmers without much imagination still showed San Francisco every April without fail. I'd been to visit her earlier in the month at the massive pink castle the city used for its metropolitan nursing home. She'd had a stroke. Because it was the only public facility in town, it had been extremely hard to get her in, but through creative thinking and the help of a politician my father knew vaguely, it had been done. Now, there she was, an inmate of Laguna Honda Hospital. I was on my way to visit her there right that moment. Amid the vast array of wards and floors, the LHH was like a small city with a full compliment of black workers in white uniforms jiving about Mister Charlie, every type of invalid under the sun and even a small theater with a tiny little postage stamp of a stage, where I supposed they put on wheelchair musicals or something. They kept the loonies on the sixth floor, where the door was locked and a sign warned against bringing in matches or sharp objects of any kind. Sometimes I'd see the inhabitants of the sixth floor drifting the halls below, supervised by huge orderlies, each man holding onto the waistband of the man immediately in front of him. As I reached the bottom step, exchanging the sun of the day above for the half-gloom below, I heard a preacher shouting about the salvation of the Word, the Blood of The Lamb and Unlawful Sex. He had a sandwich board with him that contained a listing of the many varieties of Unlawful Sex and I saw that he possessed an extremely liberal definition of sodomy. People rushed past him on their way into the paid area of the station, ignoring him and the six panhandlers with their Hungry, Homeless And Need Work Or A Sandwich signs. Reaching into my bag to get out my bus pass, I noticed a crazy guy over by the agent booth. He was pleading with the people entering the fare gates. A woman in a gray suit and red tennis shoes shoved him out of her way and he stepped a few feet back, reassessed the situation, and pled with the next person in line. He held rolled up newspaper in one hand and a dollar bill in the other. Not liking to be around the insane, especially those that obviously wanted some money, I thought about walking to the entrance at the far end of the station, but it was so hot I decided to take my chances with Crazy Joe Gimme-A-Dollar. After all, how crazy could he be? If he was a total raving lunatic the police would have picked him up already. Thus, secure in my ability to handle him, I approached the fare gate. "Please, some change for the Vest Portola," he said in a sepulchral deep voice. I stopped because suddenly I'd realized that I'd been totally wrong and he wasn't a crazy panhandler at all. He was just some kind of immigrant-Russian, probably, because the town was full of them since the collapse of communism--who didn't understand that when talking about MUNI the fact that the fare was a dollar didn't necessarily mean that you could shove a dollar bill into the machine and promptly get going. My inner-social worker came alive, and looking at his tan suit--a suit that had probably looked quite hopeful before he'd been so wilted by the sun and cruel commuters--and green tie, I came to the quick conclusion that anyone dressed in such a suit was no threat to anyone. Putting on my best "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" voice, I asked him what the problem was. He seemed relieved that someone was finally paying attention to him and answered, "Vest Portola please." Oh, West Portal. "You mean West Portal Station?" He nodded and looked at me hopefully. He had extremely pretty green eyes, and that sealed it. "Just follow me", I said. We walked over to the other attendant booth and he paid through the window. I headed down the stairs into the station proper and he followed, thanking me profusely. It's no problem, I thought. It doesn't cost a penny to be nice to people, and here this poor man probably now thinks things were better back in Minsk or Odessa. There was a M train already at the platform, so I gestured to him and we got on and found a seat near the front. He took off his jacket and sat down. "Don't worry," I told him, "I'll let you know when we get to West Portal." He thanked me again and smoothed his newspaper out on his lap. He had it open to the job listings and he dressed to the left. "Looking for a job?" I asked as breezily as possible. "Yes," he answered and stuck out his hand, "I have bad manner. Thank you for helping. My name is Muyo Saladinovich. Hello." I took his hand, which was stained black from the newspaper, and told him my name. He told me it was a nice name but hard to pronounce. Speak for yourself, buddy, I thought. Pulling a pen from his chest pocket he wrote his name on the margin of his paper. Mujo Saladinovic. "Is not so hard," he said, "to spell or to say." "OK. Where are you from Mujo? Azerbaijan?" I tried to think of one of those new formerly-Soviet countries where they might have names like Mujo. "No," he laughed showing suprisingly good teeth, "I am from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Do you know it?" Oh yes, Bosnia. It was on the news every night and I'd really been meaning to learn more about it. Zepa was poised to fall, Peter Jennings had reported a few nights before. Zepa. I mentioned all I knew about the country. They'd had the Olympics there hadn't they? Mujo said he'd helped out at the Olympics when he'd been a boy. "Carrying the wire for television cameras. We would get in free to watch the skiing for helping." I mentioned the name of one of the skiing medalists that had apparently lurked in my subconscious for ten years just waiting to be called up at the appropriate moment. "Yes, he was very good. You like ski?" I told him I'd never been skiing. "That is too bad," he said. The train lurched forward into the next station and passengers got on and were replaced by a new crop. Mujo and I sat in silence for a while. As the train rattled into the next station, I looked at him. He didn't look very slavic, except for a mournful cast to his mouth, more like a Spaniard or Italian. He took a pack of gum from his pocket and offered me a stick. I declined but complimented him on his English, which despite a few grammatical errors was quite understandable. "Oh, we have had the Brady Bunch on the television and I was studying English at the University" he said smiling again. The Brady Bunch. Small world. I told him that the Brady Bunch wasn't a very realistic show about America. "I had suspected this to be true. Don't tell me that Dallas was not accurate representation of American life, please," he said laughing. "No. That kind of stuff happened to me daily, "I answered, starting to laugh as well, "comas, adultery, shootings..." Mujo had a small half-moon scar bisecting his left eyebrow and I was suddenly seized with a strong urge to kiss it. I resisted and instead said, "Bosnia is a part of Yugoslavia right?" I was unsure about its true status but was pretty sure I was correct. "No," he said, his face darkening, "is not any longer part of. We are independent country. The people who live there, I mean, not me." He refolded his newspaper and sighed, "In our former Yugoslavia we Bosnian people are thought of as being stupid. We are for joking by Serbs and Croats and even Shiptaris," he made a disparaging gesture with his fingers, "all the time. This may be true." The train had reached the point where it slowed down to a crawl to roll over the switches that led to other tunnels. "You must help me to get to Forst Ceedy, please," he said. "For-what? Huh?" I had no idea what he was talking about now. His voice rose an octave. "Forst Ceedy! Forst Ceedy!" He grunted a frustrated sound and wrote again on his paper. "Do you know this?" I read it. Forest Side. Oh, Forest Side Street. "Sure," I lied, "I know exactly where that is." Well, it couldn't be too far away, since all the streets around West Portal were named after greens of some sort. "This is where," Mujo said quietly, "I am living with my uncle and cousins. Before I was on 540 Eddy Street." That was considerate of the government. To take someone from a war zone and drop them into another. "That is not a very nice neighborhood, Eddy Street," I said. "Was all right," he mused, a thoughtful look settling on his face, "we had heater for when it was cold and there was very little shooting." He laughed. "I am making a joke there. There wasn't no shooting. You looked like you were believing me on that. There is no shooting in San Francisco." At that moment he leaned forward and noticing a wet patch of sweat at the small of Mujo's back I was immediately flooded with an intense feeling of love. For a few seconds it hurt to breathe. It was weird the way small things like that could affect me so strongly. A bell rang and the operator's voice shocked me out of my thoughts. West Portal Station. The train entered and rolled to a stop and he practically skipped off as the doors opened. He was a big, thickset man, and to see him so light on his feet was surprising. "Now for For-rest Zide!" he said loudly. "We shall find this street." I followed him through the exits, shouldering past a group of teenagers. It was getting dark and the fog was rolling down from Twin Peaks in a steady sheet, looking like a huge plate window of frosted glass. Our hot spell was definitely ending. Mujo was waiting for me on the opposite side of the street, and as I crossed it suddenly entered my mind where Forest Side Street was. "This way," I said and started walking West. After two blocks I saw the sign for Forest Side peeking out from behind a magnolia tree. "Oh it is up this way," he said pointing up the hill and started walking that way. I followed even though I'd discharged my responsibility by getting him that far. He stopped in front of a house halfway up the block. It was one of those faux-English country manors that populate the West of Twin Peaks area like mushrooms populate a shady lawn after rain. "Here it it," he said, smiling proudly, "you must come in and have some coffee and rakija. Do you know rakija? Is very nice." "Well...um," I fumbled for something to say. He smelled like soap and shampoo, which was quite an accomplishment considering how much he'd been sweating earlier. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my bus turning the corner and heading into its terminal stop. "Naw, I don't think so. I've got to go now. There's my bus." Social bravery has never been one of my strongest personality traits. He looked disappointed, but then he smiled. "I must thank you some way. You have been very nice in helping me. You are very nice person. Thank you." "You're welcome," I said, but didn't go anywhere. I took off the sunglasses I was wearing because I knew he was going to kiss me. He did and he tasted of cigarettes and Big Red. I kissed him back and could feel him pressed against my leg, which pointed up the fact, among others, that here I was and I hardly knew this man. I pulled away and said something about missing the bus. "OK," he said, "I will see you I am sure again," and he tore off the corner of his newspaper and wrote something on it with his pen. "We must have coffee somewhere and I can tell you about my country. You can tell me," he broke into a wide smile, "about Brady Bunch and JR." "Sure," I said, smiling back, "that would be great." I took the piece of paper from him and turned towards the bus. "Goodbye," he said, "you are very nice for helping." The bus had restarted its engine so I ran down the hill to catch it. Later, on the bus, I looked at the piece of paper Mujo had written for me. It said: Muhamed Saladinovic 142 B Forest Side 665-3251 and I put it in my pocket. I rode the bus home reflecting on the strange synchronicity of events and how interesting things happen when you least expect them to. When I finally got home I found out that both Kurt Cobain and my great-grandmother had died that morning and I had completely missed the news throughout the day. To the best of my knowledge, Zepa held out until the very end. ©2003 Heather M. Borstel _____________ Heather M. Borstel was born in San Francisco, California, at the dawn of the 1970s. She lives in the shadow of Twin Peaks, went to Catholic school and San Francisco State University, and is of average height, build and appearance. She enjoys contract bridge, falconry, Gandhian nonviolence and whipping up a nice pot of Vegetable Medley. Her favorite song is "Superstar" by the Carpenters, which she sings without shame at karaoke bars, and her favorite book is Anna Karenina. Heather was once said to have a wit which rivals that of Bennett Serf by her third grade teacher, but she has yet to find any evidence that Bennett Serf was witty. She has never had the stigmata, curses like a stevedore, and makes a mean White Russian. Heather would like the phrase "I told you I was sick!" chiseled on her tombstone.

                                                   ONCE UPON      a TIME
                                                                                          ezine at l'atelier bonita
                                                     established since december 2002