The Things You Didn't Used to Do

The Things You Didn't Used to Do

Every morning I force myself to climb out of bed, select an appropriate coat and tie

This morning, like every morning, I force myself to climb out of bed. In case today happens to be the day, I stand a long time at the closet before selecting an appropriate coat and tie. My mother couldn't believe the clothes my father wore the day he stood in the underground walkway outside Steinhardt Aquarium in Golden Gate Park and put the pistol to his temple. After I dress, I grab a quick bite to eat, then head out the front door of my Mission District apartment and into the city to search for work.

But with the economy being as rattled as it is, there are no jobs. It's no secret that the longer a person stays out of work, the more difficult it is getting back on his feet.

Still, I climb aboard a city bus and make the rounds, leaving a copy of my resume on the desks, or in the hands of anyone willing to have it.

I learned long ago there is no need to hang around for replies. Today is no different. After handing my application to a young lady at a small accounting firm on Market Street, I can see the answer I don't want to hear written in her eyes.

The bus growls as it leaves the curb. I see my reflection trapped in the glass and wonder if my father felt this same sense of despair and uselessness when his day arrived. The bus, filled now, roars up Divisadero and before I realize where it's headed I catch a glimpse of green grass and high trees.

The sight of Golden Gate park flowing past both sides of the bus sends emotion from different directions pouring through me. Before her mother took her back to Oklahoma, my daughter asked me to bring her here. Of course, the memories of my father rush in as well. I check the creases on my coat sleeve, make sure they are crisp. Just in case.

I yank the wire above the window and when the bus stops at the corner I step down and cross the sidewalk onto the manicured lawn. I follow a curving pathway until the pine trees that fill The Japanese Tea Garden appear ahead. On the other side of the road from the Garden stands the Steinhardt Aquarium and Planetarium. I stand at the base of its wide concrete steps, staring up at the glass entrance.

Off to my right, just beyond the hedgerows are the narrow steps leading down to the graffiti-spoiled tunnel where my father ended it all. I consider going down those steps. Slowly, I choose instead to climb up the steps to the Aquarium. After doling out money I can hardly afford, I enter the enormous lobby, and make my way past the gift shop to the Hall of Natural History, where I amble alongside glass displays of wild animals posed forever motionless. When my father used to bring me here as a boy, the antelope and lions seemed so alive.

The corridor banks left and takes me through a room filled with precious stones. Even as a boy this room never kept my attentions. I hurry past the displays and emerge into a roundabout where the reptiles and amphibians are housed behind glass. A deep pit surrounded by a metal gate fills the center of the roundabout. Down below are the alligators. I lean over the fence, lingering long, recaling how my father put a coin in my hand to toss into the pit and make a wish.

I reach into my pocket and take out a quarter, let it drop near the alligators and make a wish. I wish instead of spending so many days working, I'd brought my daughter here when I still had the chance. I wish I'd taken her up into the hills, camped overnight a weekend. Or raced with our boots crunching through snow. How many opportunities had I missed in which we could have shared the view of the city lights at nights from high up in a Ferris Wheel? She'd never even watched a Giants game with me from the bleachers. At least my father, with all his failings, did these things with me. We'd hauled up nets laden with crabs onto concrete piers. We'd selected music together. We'd dined at the seaside. And of course, we came here to Steinhardt where together you studied the two-headed snake. Here at Steinhardt, where on his knees with his face hovering alongside mine, my father peered into and located the tiny venomous African tree frog clinging to the underleaf of a drooping fern.

I turn away from the pit and head to the dark corridors where the fish are. Slowly I make my way along the displays. But once I reach the jellyfish, I stay for a long time to observe, without judgement, these semi-transparent, bell-shaped sea creatures that seemingly drift through their wold without purpose. Their gelatinous forms contract and expand, moving like skirted lightbulbs. As they pulse their mesmerizing rhythms with their barbed tentacles drifting behind them, I can't pull my gaze away.

It is only when a woman's voice rises from the darkness to my right, that I stir. “Did you know,” she says, “that in some cultures the paralyzing toxins of the jellyfish are considered an aphrodisiac.”

The statement is so ridiculously absurd and unexpected that I stand a long time without replying, pretending instead to ponder. When she clears her throat to speak again, I say, “I didn't know people ate jellyfish.”

“I'm sure they didn't used to,” the woman says. Now, I turn my head slightly so I can see what this woman looks like. She glances down at her watch. When she raises her face, I can see her eyes misting in the dim light. For a long time we stand quiet, as if to study one another for flaws. Finally, she looks again at the jellyfish behind the glass.

“It tears me up,” she says, softly. “It tears me up thinking of all the things I didn't used to do.”