Chapter 7
The fog cleared early Wednesday morning, lifting the white sheets from the skies to open onto a grand view of San Francisco from the Tarrington's Berkeley Hills balcony. Beyond the long curving wire strip of the Bay Bridge the unmistakable pencil point of the Pyramid building spiked, and to the right and up a tree-studded slope sat Coit Tower overlooking the Bay from its fortress-like position.
Carrie telephoned her husband at his campus office and left a message with his baby-voiced research assistant that she would be honored if he would join her for lunch. Knowing Edward's penchant for punctuality, she allowed ample time for driving to and parking on the Berkeley campus . . .and maybe a pre-lunch stroll about the grounds.
The aromatic Eucalyptus trees lining the Berkeley Hills bowed in homage to the gorgeous October morning and all of life animated its thanks for the weekend's badly needed downpour. Plump flowers held their heads high in reverence while birds scratched the dirt floor for earthworms. All was healthy and happy . . . except for Carrie.
Dismal, depressing thoughts echoed in her empty mind as the elegant young wife, dressed in a two piece navy blue suit and beige eggshell silk blouse, turned the ignition in her car. He doesn't love me . . . he probably thinks I'm sick, frigid. He's so disgusted with me he won't even touch me.
Since that night, Edward's advances had amounted to a politely aloft peck on the cheek and he slept to the right of the invisible board in their wedding bed, never venturing a hand to caress her waiting body . . . if he came to bed at all. Last night she had lain in bed waiting for him and awakened in the middle of the night to find him sleeping on the sofa. The precious jewel of her virginity, she discovered with grim irony, was actually a cheap rhinestone. She'd been cheated of its true value, guarding it in the jewel box of her secret femininity, adoring it, worshipping it, only to realize it was worth nothing.
While Carrie brooded over these depressing thoughts, swerving her new Volvo down the snaky Berkeley Hills to the campus below, Edward Tarrington was instructing his research assistant to make reservations for he and his wife for luncheon at the Claremont Hotel.
With a wide smile of acquiescence, Una obeyed, then excused herself to the ladies' room, slipped a dime in the hall pay phone and made the call SALM was waiting for. The coup, two years in planning would take place today! Carrie would be coming to meet her husband at precisely twelve-thirty and SALM would snatch her away in their 'borrowed' university car driven by Peter Goldberg. These tightly coordinated plans were verified and repeated in one harried telephone call. All systems switched to 'go.'
"Sorry, lady, but you have to have a sticker on your windshield to drive onto campus," rejected the university police guarding the north entrance to campus, disregarding the disgruntled professor's wife and telling her to park in a public lot for a quarter. Circling around, Carrie pulled into a parking lot and headed for Telegraph Avenue and the campus.
I guess Edward wants me to make the first move, the dark haired Irish lovely muttered to herself as her high heels slapped on the corner street running perpendicular to Telegraph Avenue. But I can't, the virgin bride admitted. I want him to be gentle, but I want him to be forceful and strong. I'll never get over my hang-ups if he doesn't make me. I don't want to end up frigid and forty lying on a psychiatrist's couch contemplating suicide.
It looked as though she'd walked onto a Medieval market square! Her high heels tapped faster on the Avenue's grimy cement as she glowered in disgust at the foul smell and crumbled up handbills littering the gutters. With a little cry of horror, she took a timely giant step avoiding a yellow stream of pungent smelling liquid spiting its way to the gutter to mix and mold with other trash; a dog had lifted his hind leg on a storefront. Two shaggy, grimy nailed, sun burned panhandlers blocked her path and demanded change for food. I feel sorry for m if self because my husband doesn't want to make love to me, but these poor souls don't have a crust of bread to fill their stomachs. Tempted to open her purse and flip them a quarter, she spied the hungry lineup of panhandlers eyeing her vulnerability and, despite a barrage of "fuck you lady, rich bitch cunt," she zigzagged down the street, elbowing past street craftsmen laboring over their wares. Her ears buzzed from the angry cries of self-proclaimed evangelists howling on street corners and nobody seemed to care about the dog droppings smeared over the sidewalk like an obscene layer of fudge.
Shuffled along by the crowd she darted across the street to the campus where the noon time carnival of belly dancers, street vendors and street musicians buzzed about in a frenzy of churning sound and movement.
An empathetic looking sparkly faced girl in loafers and knee sox directed Carrie to the political science building and Carrie's heart beat a pace slower. This place is unbelievable! How can Edward be serious about teaching here?
Elbowed along by the chokingly close mass of humanity, she found herself wedged in a crowd watching a puppet show. From a distance it appeared to be a typical Punch and Judy show, but upon closer glance, Carrie's mouth gaped open, her rosy lips ovaling, and her velvety tongue clucked in a shamed tut. There were two naked male puppets with exaggeratedly stuffed penises and baby tangerines hanging as testicles, all fringed with dark yarn pubic hair. One puppet's eager fingers were squeezing at the Florida citrus fruit between the other's legs while he squealed in glee: "Oh, squeeze me! Squeeze my oranges! Try orange juice for breakfast . . . or for a snack . . . or anytime of day." The fondled puppet stroked at his own cotton erection and his button eyes rolled excitedly.
Her manicured hand flew to her mouth, and Carrie stepped back onto somebody's toe and, separating herself from the jeering, laughing crowd, read "Gay Rights . . . Freedom for homosexuals . . . " printed on a banner flying over the puppet theatre.
While Carrie charged brusquely through Sather Gate heading north toward the political science building smothered in a glen of trees, a 'borrowed' university car smoothed uncontestedly through the guard's gate at the north end of campus and drove toward Dr. Tarrington's office. Inside the beige walled office, Una Hart sat with a smug expression on her beautiful face, watching the clock and delighting in the knowledge that Dr. Tarrington's boring, snooty-nosed little wife would soon be SALM property! I'd give my graduate degree to see that bigoted little cunt squirm when black Jackson grabs her!
Already James and Carl were stationed outside the campus building sitting on the cement ledge rimming the flower beds reading the Berkeley Barb with disinterested minds, warily watching eyes and ears keened for the whistle blow that would signal Jackson's strong-hold on Carrie Tarrington. Now the only sound was an occasional dog's bark at a Frisbee flying past his nose and the peaceful trickle of Strawberry Creek cutting its watery path through the campus grounds.
Jackson hid in the bushes like a preying panther, his dark, perfidious eyes watching for the professor's sexy little wife. His heavy black penis jerked like it always did when he thought about guns, riots and violence, and the thought of nabbing green eyed, melon-breasted Carrie Tarrington made it lurch an inch higher than normal. Professor's wives were usually dull-minded, flabby-breasted, gray haired women with no sense of humor and even less sex appeal. . . but he had to hand it to Dr. Tarrington. The old boy must be using that tool between his legs to keep a foxy fookin' broad like Carrie happy! snickered Jackson to himself, holding the tree branch to the side with one ebony hand.
Yesterday wily Una had snatched Dr. Tarrington's wedding picture from his desk and had a quick copy made on the building's Xerox machine while the professor gave his three o'clock lecture down the hall. With that crumpled up picture in his hand, Jackson waited anxiously, his heart pounded like an African drum in his muscular chest.
Inside the building, Edward Tarrington pushed up the starched white cuff of his shirt and glanced at his watch, irked by his wife's tardiness. If it takes her as long to make a silly drive as it does to warm up in bed, I'll starve to death! "She did say twelve-thirty, didn't she?" he sternly queried his research assistant who, for an unexplained reason elected to take a late lunch hour today.
"She certainly did, Dr. Tarrington." You may never see that rich little bitch again, thought Una with cruel delight, a warm rush of heightened emotion peaking through her excited body at the knowledge that today was the most important day of her life. She had contributed something meaningful, something that would make history. "I'm sure she'll be along soon. You know how absolutely murderous traffic is around campus. You really ought to get her a campus parking permit, you know."
While Una nervously busied herself watering the plants and filling the stapler . . . keeping a suspicious eye on the professor, outside in the bushes Carrie felt a hot sweaty black hand clamp over her mouth and the cold steel butt of a pistol wedge into her slender rib cage . . .
At precisely one o'clock Una stepped out of the stuffy building into the mind-cooling brisk autumn air and, finding two unread Berkeley Barbs where Carl and James had perched, slid threw back her blonde head and laughed triumphantly at the heavens.
Mission accomplished!
Hoity-toity Mrs. Tarrington was theirs! Una's life meant something now. Taking in a few lungfuls of air and letting them out slowly, she calmed her fierce militaristic passion and, affecting the concerned expression of a faithful research assistant, she headed back down the dirty beige hallways dotted with staple-heavy bulletin boards, turned right and walked into Dr. Tarrington's office:
"Dr. Tarrington, I don't see her anywhere. Maybe she went shopping down on Telegraph Avenue. You know how women are. . . ! "