SAN MARTIN, CALIFORNIA, MAY 1973—Bobby was in the Safeway at Sixth and Miwok. He had just handed the cashier a twenty-dollar bill. In his bag he had two large zucchinis, one jar of spaghetti sauce, a box of mushrooms, a pound of mozzarella, a pound of ground chuck, and bread, peanut butter and cigarettes. In his mind swirled the idea to use zucchini slices instead of lasagna noodles. The entire preparation and cooking time, he reasoned, could be cut to a third, because there’d be no precooking.
“Oh, excuse me.”
Bobby startled. Looked back, down. There was a woman picking up a clutter of coupons from the floor. Behind her were eight children, all about the same age. Bobby lifted a foot to give the woman room. She looked up, smiled. His thoughts crumbled. Bobby bent. He did not take his eyes from hers. Behind her the boys were pushing, pulling baseball cards from the exit displays, dashing into the path of shopping carts. The girls each had food items. Bobby fumbled, picked up a coupon, handed it to her. “Thank you,” she said.
“Sure,” he answered. He stood.
She too stood. She was only as tall as his nose.
Bobby turned to the counter, lifted his bag, walked out.
“Children,” the woman said. “Children. Let’s stay in line.”
“Sir,” the cashier called. “Sir, your change!”
But Bobby had already left.
He sliced, he cooked, he made notes, but he could not get that smile out of his mind. He moved to the dining room table. The sun was high and only indirect light fell on his papers, sketches, finished drawings, notes, “THIS IS A KITCHEN,” read the block letters of the cutline on the drawing in his hand. Below, the text read, “This is the kitchen sink. Be prepared to spend a significant amount of time here.”
Wapinski flipped back to the first sheet—the cover—his cartoon drawing of a befuddled, eight-thumbed man standing amid stacked pots, pans, and pizza boxes. A cartoon dog that looked amazingly like Josh was in the corner looking equally befuddled. Arched across the top were the words The Feral Man’s Cookbook: With Menus for 30 Days. On the bottom, in smaller letters: “Written and illustrated by Robert J. Wapinski.” Under that in much smaller letters: “Recipes tested by Josh—if he wouldn’t eat it, it’s not included.”
Bobby chuckled. He flipped through the next few pages. Dedicated (to Grandma and Grandpa). He smiled, reread the introduction, “An elementary guide to the inner workings of a kitchen.” He flipped to his menu for zucchini lasagna, penned in the word basil. He felt good. He sniffed. The lasagna smelled wonderful.
“You were a company commander. Earned a Silver Star with Oak Leaf cluster, Bronze Star, Air Medals. What were you doing selling real estate?”
“Well, when I first came out my wife, my girl at the time, she was selling real estate. I didn’t have a job and she convinced me to get my license. Almost immediately I had a sale. Things just took off. It was a good job. I liked it. It was good to me and I think I was good to it, too.”
“I’m sure you were. I can’t get over this thought. I mean, it’s not too often I get to interview the commander of a combat company. Honorable discharge. Silver Star. You’re a little light in the education department.”
“I’ve enrolled in a few night courses to get my degree.”
“Good. It’s not a problem, though. You qualify on your work record. Salesman, office manager, planning committee member of the San Martin Board of Realtors. You’re ... why do you want this job?”
“Maybe I shouldn’t say it like this, but I’m tired of what the developers are doing to this town. I think I could be an effective force at helping to design a plan that they could live with and that would keep them from flattening and paving the entire area.”
“You know, you’re overqualified. It’s an assistant plannership. You’d be more clerk than planner. And it doesn’t pay nearly as much as you were making selling real estate. With your combat record, you should be seeking a better position.”
Wapinski chuckled. “You’re the first person that’s ever placed any importance on my military service. I’m proud of it, but truth is, I almost left it off the resume because I thought it might work against me.”
“See that plaque there?” The man gestured to the wall behind him where there was a framed Bronze Star certificate.
“Oh! I didn’t notice it. Viet Nam?”
“Korea. Look, I’ll put your application through with my recommendation that we start you off at the top pay bracket. That’s thirteen six. They don’t start anyone off at the top. Chances are, if you’re hired, you’ll be getting more like ten five and if they start you off at the bottom, that’s eighty-nine hundred. You’ll have to be interviewed by a few others.”
“Mr. Reed ...”
“Tim.”
“Tim. I want the job. The money’s not as important as the opportunity to serve.”
“To serve?”
“I mean ...”
“I know what you mean. I’ve just never heard it from a man in your generation.”
Where the heck could she be? It was midafternoon. He’d gone back to the Safeway a dozen times. “I’m doing a cookbook,” he’d explained. “Trying different recipes.”
“Ah, you’re the guy ...”
Bobby looked at the cashier. She turned away, looked at the cash register drawer, squirmed, popped her chewing gum. “Were you talking to me?”
Reluctantly she looked up. “Yeah,” she said. “You’re the guy that walked out without his change.”
“Hmm?”
“God!” Then to the drawer. “He doesn’t even remember. I shouldn’t a said anything.”
“My change?”
“Yeah. I can’t give it to ya.” Again she popped her gum. “It was ten ten. You gotta see the manager.”
“Oh, when I—”
“Yeah. Sheesh!” Again, more to herself than to Bobby, “If Miss Andrassy wasn’t here with her class ... You didn’t even know!”
“The ...” Bobby pointed into the aisle behind him. “What was her name?”
“Who?”
“The woman with all the kids?”
“Teacher. Miss Andrassy. She’s my sister’s teacher.”
“At ...”
“Over at the elementary school.”
“Hey—” Bobby beamed at the sullen cashier, “you know that ten ten?” She looked up at him. “You keep it.” He smiled. “Because you were so honest.”
“There’s the water problem to begin with,” Bobby said. “I know they’re deemphasizing it but the deepest well is pumping salt water and the one south of Bahia de Martin is contaminated with chemicals from the old landfill.”
“Well,” Henry Alan Harrison said, “you know a good deal more about this than most. But it may not be true.”
“True or not,” Bobby said, “it’s easily verifiable. These are the things a planner must be concerned with. How much can be pumped? What population can be sustained?”
“Yes.” Harrison nodded. “We’re looking for an assistant, you understand. Not a chief planner.”
“I’m willing to start at the bottom.”
“Um-hmm.” Harrison sat behind an ornate wooden desk. He was a young man. Bobby judged him to be not more than a year or two older than himself. Maybe even younger, he thought, but he’s already losing his hair. Harrison turned Wapinski’s resume over, read Tim Reed’s notes scribbled on the back. “You were talking to Tim about the ‘problems of homogenized communities’? What’s that all about?”
“We were talking about the demise of the multigenerational, multiethnic, multioccupational neighborhood. What I said to him was that if all the people who surround you have the same problems you have, and there’s no one around who had the same problem a generation or two ago, who lived and worked through it and learned, then you’re apt to have to rediscover the solution. Or worse. It may seem unsolvable. It’s a terrible waste not to draw on previous experience. Or from other socio-ethnic-economic groups.”
“Hmm.” For a moment Harrison was quiet. Then, “You were in Viet Nam?”
“Yes,” Wapinski answered. “Were you?”
“No. I was lucky. I had a high draft number.”
“You seem older than when the numbers ... I mean ...”
“I’m glad I didn’t have to go,” Harrison said. “I know guys who went. They’re very messed up.”
“I—” Bobby stuttered. He did not want to talk to Harrison about Viet Nam.
“You made it through okay?”
“Uh-huh. It was a great experience. Very interesting. Intense. Rough at times.”
“You’re the only person I ever heard say that.” Harrison looked suspiciously at Wapinski as if Wapinski were hiding something.
“It’s in the past,” Bobby said.
“Hmmm.” Harrison closed Wapinski’s file. “We’ll be in touch.”
Bobby continued to work on his cookbook, continued his running regime, continued to talk to Josh, care for Josh, walk or run the mountain trails with Josh. And he tried to think of ways to meet Sara Andrassy. Finding her name now seemed the easy part. He knew nothing about her except that she taught second grade. And she had an incredible smile, a nice voice, dark eyes. Physical infatuation, he told himself. To fall ... he thought, on sight! He chastised himself. “Frivolous!” he said to Josh. “But ... What do ya think, Josh? Bovine scat? Good grief! In a supermarket! Dumb, Man, dumb. Not even a single word and I melted. Dumb.”
At two thirty on Friday, June 8th, 1973, Bobby settled the questions. Five days before the end of the school year, he simply walked into Sara Andrassy’s classroom.
“May I help you?” Her skin looked deeply tanned, or perhaps she was dark; her hair was dark brown with a few red highlights wisping in the curls; her eyes glistened like polished obsidian.
“Sara Andrassy?”
“Yes. I’m Sara Andrassy. May I help you?”
He must have looked ridiculous, standing there before her and her twenty-two second graders. Her smile was broad. The children giggled. “I’m Robert Wapinski. I’m a new clerk with the Regional Planning Board.”
“Yes?”
“I ... I wanted to catch you before you left. Maybe I should come back after class ...”
“Certainly. If you’ll excuse me ...”
“Yes.”
He began to back out of the room, not taking his eyes off her. Before he was more than a few steps she said, “Do you play tennis?”
Then three little girls giggled loudly, sang and giggled while singing, “Miss Andrassy, in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.”
“I’d like ...” Bobby held Sara close. A mile off, over the waters of the bay, skyrockets erupted in the blackness. They had been together nearly a month. He’d swept her off her feet; she’d jolted him to his core. She was exactly everything he’d always wanted though perhaps quieter, perhaps shorter too, and more fragile, though not as fragile as he’d imagined. She was exactly everything he had always imagined in his ideal except not a single facet matched the image he maintained. The night was beautiful. He released her, leaned forward, opened his shirt. “I’d like you to have this,” he said.
“You never take it off, do you?”
“Would you wear it?”
“Always.”
“It’ll protect you. And that’s more important to me than anything in the world.”
“But what’s to protect you?”
“You. You make me want to live a thousand years.” With those words Bobby Wapinski slipped the chain with his silver Jumping Mary medallion over Sara Andrassy’s head.
Sara thought they should move more slowly. Bobby had no doubts. On their second “date” (he’d taken her to a Pizza Hut) he simply told her, “I’m going to marry you someday.”
In mid-July of 1973 Sara Andrassy moved into Bobby’s Old Russia Road cottage. The ensuing months were the happiest time of Bobby’s life. It was a time free from searching for a life partner, a time to follow his dreams, a period in which he would develop most of the concepts—though he did not fully realize it himself—of High Meadow and The Code.
Daily in July and August they walked Josh from the cottage down Old Mine Trail, circling the peak, sometimes descending Gold Mine Trail to Cataract, then climbing the old stairs by the lower dam and plodding through Reservoir Estates, into the bowels of North Peak CondoWorld. Farther on, beyond the Upper Res, they escaped into the still undeveloped west slope, then climbed Steep Hill Trail to the edge of the old Nike site, and back to the cottage. At times the sight of the development infuriated Bobby. But now, with Sara, he was often oblivious to everything but the two of them, Josh, and whatever was their current topic.
Sara was open, nondefensive. She told Bobby she was the fourth of four children, three older brothers. By heritage she was Hungarian, Chickasaw, and English. “And with gypsy and American Indian roots actually being in Asia,” Sara said, “I guess I’m an Amero-Euro-Asian mutt.”
“Perfect blend,” Bobby said. “Look at Josh and how great he turned out.”
“Oh thanks.” Sara laughed.
On one walk Sara explained, “Life just sort of acted upon Mom.”
“Um.” Bobby wanted to know details.
“She wasn’t very aggressive, but I know now she was passive-aggressive. She always got her way. She’d pout or whimper. Make us all feel guilty. Poor-me-type behavior. And everybody’d cave in.”
“When you meet Miriam”—Bobby had already told Sara about his mother—“you’ll see that different isn’t necessarily ... well ... Miriam isn’t passive.”
“Daddy’s a bit introverted. Sometimes he’s nice. Now Granddad Coolwater, he was downright mean. I remember when we were little and we’d driven from Atlanta to Cleveland to visit. And George, the brother just older than me, and me ... Granddad’d be sitting on the porch, in his chair, and he would ask us to come up and he’d say, ‘Put your hand there.’ He’d pat the arm of the chair. We’d put our hands there and he’d play chicken with us with his cigarette.”
“What!”
“He’d see how close he could come to our skin before we’d pull away. That was Sunday afternoon entertainment at Pawpee’s. I hated it.”
“I guess so.”
“Tamas, my oldest brother, once refused to move his hand and Pawpee refused to stop. Daddy got so angry when he found out.... He was my hero that day. He threw the chair from the porch and broke it. Then Lynette got angry at Daddy and they had a big fight.”
“Phew!”
“I was Daddy’s favorite at that time. He always said that. Lynette did too. I don’t know why but when I got a little older and they would fight I’d end up being the peacemaker. ‘Sara, tell your mother I won’t blah-blah-blah.’ ‘Well, you tell him blah-blah-blah.’ I used to feel like I must be this really terrible person. I mean, I felt I was the only thing holding them together.”
As Bobby and Sara’s relationship deepened Bobby could feel his singleness evaporating. He was as afraid of the commitment as a Dog Patch bachelor, and yet, with Sara, the evaporation pleased him. He saw in her a woman he could trust. For a son of Miriam Cadwalder Wapinski to be able to trust a woman and to recognize that, was the equivalent of popping a flare in the middle of a night-cloaked jungle.
Their relationship deepened quickly. Bobby told Sara about Viet Nam, the country, people, Americans he knew. “I must have been very fortunate to have been with the units I was because compared with some of the stuff I’ve read, we were outstanding.”
On the 19th of August, during his birthday call to his grandfather, Bobby said, “She’s pretty as Stacy, Granpa. Different though. She reminds me of Granma. She’s that kind of person.”
He’d driven the course—those sections that followed the road. And he’d parked and walked sections of the staircases and the mountain trails. It was 10 A.M., Sunday, 26 August 1973. Bobby was relaxed, happy, a little apprehensive as he lined up with the 1,235 other runners in Lytton Square. In the canyon the morning was cool, overcast. Bobby had not designed a prerace schedule for this Dipsea but had simply maintained his normal routine.
Numbered runners were released in order, by age, by handicap, the Dipsea being time trial, not mass release. Out of the gate, easy, not sprinting like some, loose, to the stairs, to the one hundred or five hundred cursed stairs, three cases with uphill road sections between, which better than half the field walked. He did not think of the stairs, did not count them, paid no attention to the people he passed, felt no irritation at the few who passed him. Up, up, out of the canyon, up, pines and redwoods giving way to eucalyptus, up, chuckling to himself as he burst out onto Edgewood Avenue, feeling comfortable with his steady pace, feeling strong up to Panoramic Highway. You scare me, sometimes, he said to Sara in his mind. You telling me how courageous I am when I’m such a coward. These dreams, these designs, they terrorize me. The pieces come slowly to me. The drawings take forever.
He reached the first crest at 750 feet, could see over the clouds to the Pacific, began the descent into Muir Woods. His thoughts meandered in the magnificence of the redwood forest. Suddenly he was across the gap in the cathedral of eastern hemlocks and he wanted to show Sara Muir Woods and the gap and the cathedral and he wondered how Granpa was doing. Up again, steep rutted trail to 700 feet, then down, rolling trail, then up to 900 feet, to 1,450 feet, to the edge of the woods, the sun breaking through, the protected forest giving way to open grassland and suddenly the steep descent dropping 800 feet in less than two-thirds of a mile. The trail leveled, the Stinson Beach Post Office and finish line were but a thousand feet. Bobby felt great. Sara had said to him, “There’s enough gypsy in me that I could live anywhere as long as there are hills and water.” He felt his long strides propelling him in harmony with an energy, a universal understanding, a power totally outside himself. A few people were clapping. He became aware of other runners and broke into a competitive sprint to the finish with a guy in green running silks and fancy shoes and he beat him by ten yards. Then slowing, turning to shake the man’s hand just across the finish line, but the man collapsed into him and both fell, the man grasping his calf, panting out, “Cramp!” and Bobby gritting his teeth, a pain shooting from his left knee up through his thigh, then gone until he stood and his left leg gave out and he couldn’t stand on it.
Sara hugged him. “You finished! Are you okay? What happened? You beat ... I saw you way up there and you passed almost everyone.”
“Yeah, I, ah, ha, hum. Just twisted my knee right here.”
The gas and oil crisis had opened up a thousand avenues to city, regional and state planners. The possibilities excited Wapinski. By late October there was talk of constructing an experimental solar village at Hamilton Air Force Base only ten miles south of San Martin. Sara heard from friends in Davis about phase I plans for a self-sustaining community with a sewage composting plant. Bobby visited both sites, talked to everyone he could. He had laid his cookbook aside. Now he abandoned it. Energy production-consumption policy gripped him.
“Look at this.” He waved an eleven-month-old Life magazine at Sara. “People knew this would happen. Listen, ‘We can’t escape shortages.’ This is John G. McLean, CONOCO chairman. ‘The critical “balance-wheel” will be the volume of foreign oil imports; this will be the element which will adjust for our failures or successes in other energy areas. Balance of payments ... by the early 1980s this deficit could be twenty to thirty billion dollars per year versus today’s three billion.’”
“Bobby,” Sara interrupted him. She was sitting opposite him at the dining area table, correcting papers. “What did the doctor say?”
“One minute. McLean says—he’s talking about the new financial centers in the oil-producing countries of Africa and the Middle East—‘Most of these countries are not ready to use internally new funds of this magnitude. A large portion of the oil tax revenues will thus move into the short- and long-term money markets of the Free World in ways, and with impacts, which are difficult to predict. One clear possibility is that these countries could become large equity holders in the financial institutions and industrial companies of the United States, Western Europe and Japan.’”
“Come on now,” Sara interrupted again. “I’m serious. What did the doctor say?”
“He said to live with it.”
“Can you go back to running?”
Bobby shrugged. “He gave me some exercises. I could have the cartilage removed but he thought it wasn’t that bad. He said something like my hematocrit was low. Thirty something. Maybe because of my cold. Geez, I wish I could get Harrison to read this stuff. Tim Reed agrees with me but he’s the only one and Harrison overrules him at every turn. Listen to this. ‘We need some practical trade-offs in the ecological area. The production and consumption of energy inevitably involves some ecological impairment. We can not achieve our environmental goals overnight and still give the U.S. economy all the energy it requires and the public demands.’ Ha! That sounds like Harrison. Take a flying leap! It’s fine to discover supplies at a faster rate, but how about using them at a slower rate?”
“I think you’re absolutely right.”
“You know, my position at work’s a sham.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yeah, really. We’re more an arm of the business community than a planning/regulating office. Harrison’s more interested in ‘expanding the tax base.’” Bobby looked down, shook his head. “I feel like the office curmudgeon.”
“Patient investigation and disciplined perseverance,” Sara teased.
“I want to be a force, a catalyst, for changing how people think,” Bobby said. “How they react and relate to the environment, to minorities, to different ideas.”
“Then you will be,” Sara said. They strolled between the hillside trellises with their clipped vines. Josef Andrassy I’s fine home looked down upon them.
“I could be, you know, if you’re with me.”
“I am with you.” Sara smiled.
“If you believe in me,” Bobby said.
“You can’t really believe in someone, and no one will believe in you, if you don’t believe in yourself. That’s what I tell my children. And if your self-esteem is damaged or destroyed, you won’t believe in yourself even if I believe in you.”
“Granma and Granpa always told me I could do anything I wanted, if I wanted to enough,” Bobby said. “My mother was just the opposite. She always told me I couldn’t do anything. Sometimes I have this dream of setting up a business or an institute or a community and I think I could pull it off. And then I think, What! Am I nuts? Who would listen to me?”
“I would. And I know your grandfather would. I really liked talking to him.”
“Sometimes I want to get back there. Back where people are a bit more sane. Sometimes San Martin makes me sick.”
“I know. All these little rich kids. And some of them are so poor. To them life already is the cost of their clothes.”
“Sara?”
“Um.”
“When should we get married?”
Sara smiled. “Is that a formal proposal, Mr. Wapinski?”
“No.” Bobby reached into his pocket. “This is.” He pulled out a small velvet box, opened it.
“In the spring,” Sara said.
“You know what I like about you?” Bobby stood downhill from her, looked up into her face. “You never dish out crap.”
Wedding plans moved in steps, in spurts, in rushes and rests. Bobby’s new design project, blessed by Tim Reed, moved in minute steady increments—maps, charts, graphs, outlines, breakdowns.
“The most fundamental element for success,” Bobby explained to Tim Reed, “is the public relations campaign. We’ve got to reteach the people. Change their views on energy.”
“Let me see what you’ve got.”
“Tim, before I open it up, understand it’s not just San Martin. I want to affect this entire corridor from Santa Rosa to the Golden Gate.”
“Good. Let’s see.”
“This is just the transportation end of it and it’s preliminary.” Bobby opened his large portfolio, laid a topographic map of the North Bay on Tim Reed’s desk. Overlying the map was an acetate cover with hundreds of blue arrows representing wind currents. “First, we’ve got to understand our present energy consumption,” Bobby began. From oil companies he’d obtained bulk gasoline sales records for the entire region. From county and state offices he’d gotten vehicle registration figures. From the Department of Transportation, daily, monthly and yearly traffic across the Golden Gate Bridge, including rush-hour surge figures. Step by step Bobby Wapinski explained his findings to Tim Reed. Tim found the details fascinating.
Again Bobby said, “This is preliminary. I’ve explored—”
“Skip to this one.” Tim tapped the map. “This is where you’re going, isn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” It excited Bobby that Tim was enthusiastic. “These are prevailing wind patterns. The study’s got to be expanded but for some locations, like at the Nike site on North Peak, we’ve got decades of year-round data. There’s always the Pacific wind. It always comes through these passes here, here, here. A whole series of em. Tim, we can tap the wind. We could have a thousand windmills, some small, some large, on the ridges and in the saddles.”
Tim was perplexed. “And do what?”
“Use them to generate electricity.”
“For homes?”
“To electrify the third lane of Highway 101.”
“Hmm?”
“Follow me. Look.” Bobby opened up another folder.
“What—”
“It’s an electric commuter car.”
“You designed it?”
“It’s preliminary. I haven’t worked out all the details. But there are a lot of people working on electric cars.”
“Sure, but the batteries are way too heavy. They’ve got no range and—Oh!”
“See?”
“Hmm. You know, I thought you’d come up with a proposal for mass transportation ...”
“People won’t give up their cars, Tim. Americans like their independence. The freedom individual autos offer is exactly what mass transit takes away. My cars become pods in a mass transit system. This is a population corridor. Here, look.” Bobby quickly shuffled his notes. He was afraid of losing Tim Reed and Tim was critical to any future presentations. “Ninety-six percent of the people in Marin and San Martin—and seventy-eight percent in Sonoma County—live within fifteen miles of 101. That’s the advantage to this mass transit system. People get all the benefits of a regular car. The privacy. The freedom. The power for the lane comes from the windmills. In spots, that wind averages thirty miles per hour for at least four hours per day two hundred days per year. Excess power can be sold to PG and E. Our entire region essentially becomes a clean, efficient, environmentally sound power plant. And the amount of excess electricity on windy days can offset the costs of electricity needed on calm days.
“Where are you going to get all these cars?”
“Build them.”
“Come on, Bob. You mean everybody would have to go out and buy a new car?”
“Tim, this is a ten-, maybe fifteen-, year project. The average household”—again Bobby shuffled his papers—“buys four cars in that period. I don’t want this to be a revolution. It should be an evolution. By 1983, or maybe even ’93, we’ll have transformed northern California’s perspective on transportation and energy. Personal consumer habits will change. They’re going to change anyway. We can impact the direction of that change.”
“Hmm.” Tim Reed rested back in his chair. “Let me go over this for a few days. You know, PG and E might be interested. They could own the windmills and be, ah, or have a public utility branch responsible for that third lane. Hmm. Oh, by the way, can I give you this? Save me the stamp.”
“Ah ... of course.”
“Jinny and I are really happy you invited us. Jinny likes Sara.”
“You can make it?”
“To dance at your wedding! You bet your sweet ass.”
Saturday, 23 March 1974, Sonoma, California. They stood, he in front as tradition dictates, in the chapel of the San Francisco Solano Mission—the northernmost and last built of the Spanish missions along El Camino Real, the Royal Road. He was nervous yet tranquil. Others chatted quietly, smiled, nudged one another now and again, turned often. The guests stood, more than one hundred, because there were no pews, no chairs, no furniture except the two individual kneelers the couple would use. The room was small, dim, cool, with thick walls, tiny windows and a low ceiling, constructed at a time when the average man in the territory stood only five feet two inches tall and fossil-fuel heat was unknown.
On the right, facing forward, was Pewel Wapinski, clean shaven, spiffed up in a new suit, leaning, on one side, on his brass-head cane, on the other on Anthony Pisano’s arm. Tony, too, was in a suit and tie, clean, his hair pulled back, a leather thong with a carved apple-wood motorcycle-wheel slide holding his ponytail. Beside him were Miriam and Doug. Behind were Bobby’s friends; in the back Dan Coleman and Tom Houghton, officially ushers, held Josh, officially the Best Dog.
In front Bobby turned to Al Bartecchi, stammered, “The ring?”
“Right here.”
“They should be here, shouldn’t they?”
“It’s still early. Jane’s with em. They’ll be okay.”
On the left stood Josef and Eva Andrassy, Sara’s grandparents, and her brothers Tamas and Peter and their wives, Colleen and Donna, and the youngest and unwed brother, Gyorgy (George), and Aunt Karolyi, and behind them, the principal of San Martin Elementary and twenty teachers with spouses or friends, plus friends of Sara from Sonoma and Davis and Berkeley.
Finally Dan Coleman escorted Lynette, Sara’s mother, to her place at the front. Everyone turned, expectant.
The rehearsal dinner had been held the night before at La Casa, Sonoma’s classy Mexican restaurant on The Square across from the mission. Before most of the participants had arrived Sara sat alone with Miriam in the upper balcony room while Bobby, Doug and Tony stood at the downstairs bar drinking margaritas and Pewel sat near them inhaling the good feelings.
“You’ll regret the day you ever met this man,” Miriam said to Sara.
“Excuse me?” Sara said. She did not know whether to laugh or to be angry.
“I’m telling you not to marry him,” Miriam said. “You don’t have to go through with it. I’m telling you, he’s just like his father.”
“And just who is his father?” Sarah shot back. “He told me he doesn’t know his father.”
“Well ... I knew his father. He’s going to be just like him. He’ll drink. He’ll carouse. He’ll do exactly what he pleases. Eventually you’ll regret the day you met him.”
“I resent you even saying that.” Sara’s voice was firm but her hands began to quiver.
“He’ll knock you around and abuse you,” Miriam said. “Then he’ll start messing with other women. Don’t marry him.”
“How dare you!” Sara began.
“Oh,” Miriam huffed. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you? You might as well admit it so I can get ready.”
Sara stood. “I’m not pregnant.”
“Sit down. You don’t have to show me.”
Sara sat, leaned toward Miriam. “What’s your problem? What kind of mother would talk about her son like that?”
“I told Cheryl, who’s married to Brian, the same thing. And I’m telling you. Okay, you’re not pregnant. Keep it that way. It’ll make your divorce easier.”
“OH!” Sara coughed out the utterance in disgust.
Miriam stood, strode from the upper level toward the stairs that Al Bartecchi and Jane Boswell were climbing and behind them Bobby and Tony and Pewel and Doug. “Didn’t you bring me anything?” Miriam snapped at Doug.
“They’re here.” Whispered, person to person. Commotion. Then a hush falling over the chapel. Mother of the bride glancing, smiling, to the mother of the groom.
The ceremony was not simple, not short and sweet. It was built around a full Catholic mass—Bobby’s marriage to Red was not recognized by the church and thus the church sanctioned this rite—though extended by their own additions, and by the importance Bobby and Sara placed upon ceremony and tradition. Eleven flower girls and four “ring bearers,” Sara’s students all, led the procession. Then came the maid of honor and bridesmaids carrying new candles instead of bouquets and then Josef Tamas Andrassy with his daughter in white satin and lace and Sara too had an unlit candle and every guest and family member also raised a candle as the transformation of Robert Janos Wapinski and Sara Coolwater Andrassy which had begun so long and so short ago continued. Tamas Andrassy read Genesis 2:18–24 and—at the insistence of Pewel Wapinski—Tony Pisano read a letter from Paul to the Corinthians. These were followed by the reading of a gospel according to John by Father Paul Weiss, and finally by Father Paul’s homily and the lighting of the candles.
With this light, as we pass the flame from church to grandparents to parents to children, and on to all assembled to witness this blessed sacrament of marriage between Sara and Robert, we cast new light upon this couple, upon ourselves, upon each other, and upon our world. In this new light we recognize and declare a transformation of spirit, a moving from the order of the self to a higher order—to the unity of two, and perhaps in the future to yet an even higher order above the self, above this couple following their shared dreams, to a level of family—the great circle—from which this light has been passed to you to transform you to what has always been.
In the small chapel the scores of candles flickered and the light glinted from the low ceiling, refracted from the tiny windows, reflected in hundreds of eyes. It was midday and yet the ambience of a candlelight vigil enveloped all. The priest continued—changing momentarily to the earthly.
Many do not understand what love is, what it looks like. Today we are told that love is simply a supportive arrangement, a relationship of mutual, positive reinforcement. Yet the difference is not one of degree, not one of time spent together. When you truly love, you love the other the way the earth loves the sun on the first warm morning of spring, and you know this love holds the potential for arid and parched summers, for cold autumns and overcast winters, and you must have faith that spring will come again, and again relight the land.
Follow your dreams, Sara. Follow your dreams, Robert. Follow your dreams in the light of this new light.
“By gawd, you’re an old man,” Pewel, 84, said to Josef Andrassy, 87.
“And you’re still just a pup,” Josef said, and both men laughed.
The reception was held at Juanita’s in Boyd’s Hot Spring, an ancient smorgasbord resort hotel fifty years past its heyday, run by an infamous ex–San Francisco madam who had crammed and choked the pink-and-white stuccoed hotel with beads, bangles, Christmas lights, stuffed owls, old gaming tables, thousands of trinkets and treasures, now mostly chipped, broken and dusty; with live animals—monkeys, pigs, a donkey; with a huge hot table piled high with delicious (if not elegant) food; with music; and finally with her brash, outrageous, hilarious self.
“Come on.” Bobby pulled Pewel’s sleeve.
“You too.” Sara grasped Josef.
“We want a picture of the four of us,” Bobby said. Then outside by the fountain, in the bright sun, “the five of us.” He pulled Josh, and Josh was thrilled to get between him and Sara.
“Six of us,” Pewel said. “Tony, get in here.”
“Oh, this really isn’t for me.”
“Yeah, come on,” Bobby said. He could not have been happier, livelier. It was contagious. Tony stepped closer.
“Come here,” Sara said. “Before ... ooOOH!” Josh leaped, pulled Bobby’s hand into Sara’s buttocks. Then he barked and dug in, pulling against the leash like a sled dog in harness, aiming for a big sow who’d just ambled out the front door.
“I’ll put him in the office-mobile,” Tony volunteered.
“Naw.” Bobby laughed. “He should stay here and enjoy.” Then Bobby turned to Tony, smiled, said quietly, “Granpa’s told me about you. Thanks for helping him when you can. And ah, lighten up, Man. We gotta lotta living to do for a lot of guys who didn’t make it back.”