The Return of Jonah Gray (10 page)

“Yeah,” I said, meaning never. “I'd better go pay the caterers.”

“I suppose I should scare up that wife of mine,” he said. He went away humming. Much as I disliked him, I had to admit, the man could carry a tune.

IT HAD BEEN NEARLY ONE IN THE MORNING BEFORE
the caterers finished clearing out. Scott had invited me to join a gaggle of them at a bar up in Berkeley, but I didn't want to leave before my parents returned.

“Okay, then. I guess I'll see you around,” he'd said.

I'd nodded, though I knew that the statistical likelihood of our crossing paths a second time was slight. I was okay with that. You reach a certain age and the previously spontaneous “why not?” spirit mellows into a more rational “why bother?” Scott was cute and nice, but the fact was I was more interested in a good night's sleep.

Besides, my to-do list the next day was long. Once back in Oakland, I planned to straighten my closet. I was going to get my car washed. I was going to do laundry. I was going to vacuum. I was going to crack open my new book,
New Approaches in Forensic Auditing.

Those were my plans at least. In the end, the same tasks remained on my list, no checkmarks or lines bisecting them. Instead, I spent the day at my computer, combing through the online archive of the
Stockton Star
and reading everything Jonah Gray had written since taking the job a year before. So much for my determination to follow my standard protocols.

The first mention of him was my favorite.

The
Stockton Star
extends a warm welcome to its newest newsroom staffer, Jonah Gray!
it read. I wondered if all new employees went through this public getting-to-know-you hazing.

There had originally been a picture attached to the article—an awkward, taken-on-the-newsroom-floor headshot, I imagined—but it wasn't included in the text-only archive.

Jonah Gray had gone from microeconomic trend analysis for the
Wall Street Journal
to covering the police beat at the
Stockton Star.
Though I didn't know much about journalism, it seemed like quite a dive. Soon enough, however, his beat had expanded to cover crime in general—chasing down teenagers accused of theft or vandalism, unruly crowds at local football rallies, stolen farm equipment and at one point, pilfered fat.

Hold on to your fryers,
he had written, about four months into his tenure.

If the criminal nature of Jonah's assignments ever depressed him, it didn't show. His style was clear, often lighthearted and revealed a dogged optimism. He ended one article by saying that the police chief “felt certain that the element responsible would be brought to justice.” He ended another by pointing out that one hijacked truckload of grade-B lettuce had been found and donated to a local shelter, rather than remind his readers of the second truckload still at large.

More recently, he had been working the local government beat, a shift I inferred to be yet another promotion. For someone who hadn't been in Stockton long, he certainly followed the city's comings and goings.

I was startled from my reading by the ringing of my telephone. I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost five. I had been reading the
Stockton Star
for nearly three hours.

“Hello?”

“My name is Mel, and I'm a taxpayer,” a man's voice said. “I'm calling to lodge a complaint.”

“How did you get this phone number?”

“You shouldn't go around auditing people pell-mell like that. You're upsetting the balance of things. It's wrong, I tell you. It's fundamentally wrong. That's all I have to say on that matter.”

“So you're a gardener,” I said. “You're one of Jonah Gray's lackeys.”

“I ain't no man's lackey, lady,” Mel said. “I say what I want to say.”

“It was just random chance, you know. Chance that he's being audited. Chance that I was assigned to his case,” I said.

“Yeah, well, what matters is what you do with the chance,” Mel snarled.

“Like calling to harass someone at home?” I asked. “Like that? Right? Mel?”

But there was only a dial tone.

“Dammit,” I muttered. The last thing I needed were random gardeners calling me at home. It wasn't appropriate and it wasn't fair, and what I ought to do, I told myself, was report Mel to the phone company or the police (though I had to admit that he hadn't threatened me). But I hesitated. Such a report might get Jonah Gray in trouble, and I didn't want that either. I realized that I felt strangely protective of the guy. My God, I wondered. Was I turning into one of them?

I'D NEVER HAD TO REQUEST A REPLACEMENT RETURN
before, but I'd heard stories of other auditors who'd had to. Typically, that was a sign of someone on the way out. It wasn't a terminal offense, but when you start to misplace returns, well, you're hitting the bottom of your game. Of course, Jonah Gray's return hadn't been misplaced; it had been destroyed. Thank goodness I'd only handed Ricardo the first page.

It was easy enough to locate the number for the
Stockton Star,
but as I stared at it, I found myself torn. While I was eager to get Jonah on the phone, I dreaded the thought of asking for a replacement. What if he was angry? What if he switched into ferreter mode and began to investigate how his return had gone missing? There would be nothing to stop him from posting the story of its disintegration on his Web site. What if he wasn't the man I'd begun to hope he was, to believe he was? That possibility was perhaps the most troubling.

My heart was beating too fast to call, so I chose to delay a while, to give my approach more consideration. In past years, I'd have begun the next audit awaiting my review. On that day, I killed time in the kitchenette.

Ricardo wandered in after a while and asked after my weekend, and in particular, how my parents' anniversary party had gone.

“Did you know that there's a market for used fat?” I asked him.

“Why? Did something kinky happen at your parents' party?”

“No. I'm just thinking about it. You know, lard, cooking oil. Only used.”

“Are you trying to give Susan grist for the mill? She already thinks you're a kook. You don't really have to work to convince anyone.”

“I was reading, this weekend, how people actually steal used fat. From fast-food restaurants mostly. You should be glad to know this. It could make you some money. You know, by asking me about it.”

“That is true,” he agreed. “Where do you get this shit?” He walked over to where I was sitting. “Lordy, what is that you're reading?”

I had spread a newspaper across the table. Now I curled it up.

“Are you—is that—are you reading the
Stockton Star?
” Ricardo asked.

“So?”

“Where did you get that? Where can you buy the
Stockton Star
around here?”

I had to think fast. I couldn't admit that I'd found it at the newsstand near my house. I couldn't possibly explain how elated I'd been to see it carried there, or that I'd struck up a conversation with the newsstand manager about it.

“It's, uh, it was my brother's copy. I told you he lives up there now,” I said.

Ricardo seemed relieved. He sat down across from me and shook his head as if to clear it of contempt. “We got that paper when I was growing up. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just seeing its crappy old layout. Oh, hey, Jeff.”

I looked up to see Jeff Hill at the coffee machine. I gave him a quick nod, then turned back to Ricardo.

“You always say that you're from Sacramento,” I said.

“Of course I do. Who wants to be from Stockton?”

“Oh, come on. Kurt didn't say—”

“Precious,” Ricardo said, taking my hand. “It's cows and farms and railroads and more cows and more farms as far as the eye can see. Total snoresville. You couldn't pick a less appealing place to grow up.”

“Maybe for you. You know, growing up—” I dropped down to a whisper “—gay.”

“Oh honey,” Ricardo said, glancing back toward Jeff. “I appreciate your attempt at discretion, but if that young man doesn't know my stripes already, we never should have hired him. Archivists are supposed to be detail-oriented.” Ricardo turned around. “Jeff?”

Jeff looked over.

“You know I'm gay, right?”

“In the first minute I met you,” Jeff said, without hesitation.

Ricardo patted my hand. “Get yourself a real newspaper. The only use for that one is lining a birdcage.”

“Now you're just being harsh.”

“Okay, wrapping fish.”

“They've got some interesting issues out there,” I said. “See, here, I was reading this article about a recent school-board meeting.”

Ricardo's expression fell somewhere along the spectrum between horror and pity. “Honey, that's it,” he said. “I am getting you out more if it means setting you up with one of my joyriding cousins. A school-board meeting? Those articles aren't even meant to be read.”

“He made it seem interesting,” I argued. “It was even sort of funny.”

“Let me guess, they were debating stolen fat.”

“That was a different article.”

Ricardo looked at the piece I'd been reading. I tried to pulled the paper away from him, nervous he'd recognize the name of the author. But while Ricardo might recognize detail orientation in others, in his own life, he skimmed over most things. He had held Jonah Gray's return in his hand, but it was just a prop. He hadn't seen anything. He certainly hadn't seen what I saw.

“Imagine the poor soul whose job it is to sit through school-board meetings and then go back and barf them into articles—” He squinted at the byline. “Poor Jonah Gray—whoever he is, he's a better man than I am.”

I had come to that conclusion myself. Still, I wished there were a way to know more before I had to call him for the replacement return. Then, as I glanced up at Jeff, it struck me that I had ways of finding out more without ever leaving the building.

“Jeff, are you headed back to the archive room?” I asked.

“You have a return to look up?” He said it as if he already knew. “I'll go now.”

“Lucky for you,” Ricardo said with a smile.

The big events in people's lives—births, marriages, separations, death—they all show up in tax returns. It's almost as if, every year you pay Uncle Sam, you're adding a chapter to an autobiography you didn't realize you were writing. What you did that year, whom you worked for, what you bought and gave away, whom you lost or added to your life—it's all in there.

I had begun to learn who Jonah Gray was—a sailor, a writer, a gardener, a ferreter like myself—but studying his past would tell me where he had come from. And I wanted to know.

I followed Jeff into the archives department.

“Yeah, so maybe the last seven years.”

Jeff frowned. “Seven? That's a long way back. Let me guess, this is for that gardener you're auditing?”

“So you remember.”

“Jonah Gray. Of course. It's not a hard name to remember. Have you got his Social?”

“Not with me. I can go get it for you though. I know it starts with 229,” I said.

“Do you find that Southerners are more evasive than other people? Professionally, I mean. Do they get audited more?”

I would have taken issue with the question, had I not been so startled by it.

“How do you know he's a Southerner?”

“That Social is from Virginia. In my last job, I made it a point to memorize which state or territory each three-number combination refers to.” He looked proud of himself, as if it were a fact he might trot out at parties. In that instant, I understood what Susan and Ricardo and Kevin all saw when they looked at me. It was a little jarring.

“Will 229 be enough?” I asked. “I think last year he had a Tiburon address.”

“I'll find him. So, seven years?”

“Unless you've got more,” I said. I was joking.

“Oh, I could get ten, but it'll take a few minutes.”

“You can get ten? I thought we only keep seven.”

“Officially, sure. It's all about who to ask and where to look. You want ten, don't you?”

“Sort of.”

“What did this guy do anyway? Must have been pretty bad.”

“He ran away,” I said.

“He's a runner? From what?”

“That's the part I'm still trying to figure out.”

 

Back at my cubicle, I straightened my desk. I sorted through some office announcements. I wondered how long I would have to wait. I stared at my phone.

I picked up the receiver, then put it down. I wasn't ready yet. I still didn't know enough. I looked around my cubicle, wondering what else to do. I sniffed the air to try to detect whether the scent of lemon still lingered. I looked at my stacks of audit folders, then looked away. I picked up the receiver, then again put it down. I wondered what he would sound like. I wondered what he would think of me. I reminded myself that I could always hang up if he answered. I picked up the receiver and called the
Stockton Star.

“Jonah Gray, please,” I asked the operator.

I was on hold for a moment before his voice mail picked up.

“This is Jonah Gray at the
Stockton Star
,”
he said.

So this was Jonah Gray's voice, I thought. It was lovely, like autumn leaves in the sun. Somewhere between tenor and baritone, somewhere between Virginia and California, the sort of voice that would wrap around you when the lights were off, that was Jonah Gray's voice.

“Thanks for your call. I'm away from the phone right now, but please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can.”
He advised callers that, if it was an emergency, they ought to press zero to be connected to the operator.

I smiled, wondering what sort of emergency calls he might receive. A fire at a zoning meeting? A top-secret source on the school board? A fertilizer spill? A lead on more stolen fat?

I hung up without leaving a message, then called right back. I wanted to hear that voice again.

“This is Jonah Gray at the
Stockton Star
,”
he said again, exactly as before.

I closed my eyes to listen. There was barely any trace of a twang in his intonation. Maybe he had left Virginia while still young. My father still had a deep Southern drawl, but his kids had all been raised with California bland.

“Here you go,” Jeff Hill said.

I jumped in my seat. I hadn't heard him approach, and now there he was, standing before my desk. I scrambled to hang up the phone before Jonah Gray's voice mail began to record my fumbling. Jeff handed me ten files, all neatly labeled.

“That was quick,” I said.

“He didn't give me too much trouble,” Jeff said. “Will there be anything else?”

Now that I knew just how detail-oriented he was, I wondered what else Jeff was noticing as he looked around my cubicle. My tax code books, newly dusted and arranged in numerical order. The picture of Kurt and my nephews. The stain on the carpet from the fifth-floor leak. My dog-eared
Principles of Accounting
book. What did he think of the lopsided pile of audits still waiting on my table? And why did I care?

“No, that's all. Thanks,” I said.

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

“I sure will. Thanks.”

“All right then. I guess I'll be going.” I had the distinct impression that he wanted to stay, but now was not the time.

“Okay. Thanks again,” I said.

As soon as Jeff left, I turned my attention to Jonah Gray's life in the previous decade. I began with the oldest return Jeff had provided me, back when Jonah was just twenty-three and lived in an apartment in South San Francisco, hardly a glamorous address. He was a year out of college—I found the details in his student loan information—and was scraping by as a waiter and occasional freelance writer, selling mostly to local magazines.

By the following year, I saw the inroads he had made at several San Francisco newspapers. Online, I found a restaurant review he'd written of a place I'd always thought sounded great. Jonah had loved it. I found another piece he'd written about a club everyone had said was fantastic. I'd gone once and found it pretentious and overpriced. He'd said nearly the same thing in his review.

Around the time he was twenty-six, Jonah had gotten what I took to be a big break. He'd landed the job at the
Wall Street Journal
and his income rose significantly. I read on, watching as he began to invest in stocks and add to his retirement account. I wondered whether he'd been influenced by his colleagues or simply had more disposable income.

His freelance work petered off from that point, though I did find a review of an art show that I'd actually read before. In fact, I'd gone to see the show because of what he'd said about it. I remembered liking the way he'd described the paintings as “a view into a world I found myself wishing I lived in.” I knew that sense of not-quite-regret. I felt that I was peering into the life he'd built for himself in much the same way.

It was when he joined the
Journal
that he left the apartment for a condo in the city, and two years later, he bought a small house in Tiburon, across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. I figured that was also when he bought the boat, though it wasn't deductible and there were no receipts for it.