Linen Tonic
Chapter IV
(Author’s note: still a bit dissatisfied with this chapter—it’s been a busy couple of weeks at House Rockwood—but that’s why you edit serials before the print edition.)
μή πως ὡς ἀψῖσι λίνου ἁλόντε πανάγρου ἀνδράσι δυσμενέεσσιν ἕλωρ καὶ κύρμα γένησθε: οἳ δὲ τάχ᾽ ἐκπέρσουσ᾽ εὖ ναιομένην πόλιν ὑμήν.
Earlier that very morning von Pfiff regained consciousness a quarter mile from the campus in a canary-yellow Victorian—or, more precisely, its scullery, now serving as an AirBnB to the tune of $300 a night plus cleaning fee. He dutifully turned off the alarm on his phone and inspected the notifications he had received while the device had been in sleep mode. Most prominent were half a dozen missed Signal calls. W. Katzbube, 7:33 AM. W. Katzbube, 7:37 AM. W. Katzbube, 7:42 AM…
It was now 8:22 AM. He scrambled out of bed, threw on the satin dressing-gown he always brought on business trips, and punched Call Back.
The other end of the line picked up and emitted a noise not unlike the meow of a despondent Siamese.
“Good morning, Mr. Katzbube. You called earlier. More than once, in fact.”
“My AirBnB,” Katzbube mewled, “has been ransacked.”
“Ransacked.”
“After a fashion,” Katzbube elaborated as helpfully as he could. “Not quite demolished. The tarp is still there. They took my suitcase—“
“Wait, wait—now hold up,” said von Pfiff, summoning the diplomat’s ability to remain calm in the face of disaster. “Who are they, and where are you, anyways?”
“Irving Street, between 28th and 29th avenues. Not far from campus. They’re—“
“Are you in immediate danger?”
“No, not anymore. I’ve got my wallet, I’m just out of clothing and toiletries.”
“I see.”
“In fact, the AirBnB doesn’t have running water. I was going to call anyways and ask where you were staying to see if I could wash up there.”
Von Pfiff checked Google Maps. Three blocks away.
“If you could bring a pair of pants and a shirt,” Katzbube added, “that would be ideal.”
“I’ll…I’ll be there in fifteen. Text me the address of the AirBnB.”
Five minutes later von Pfiff stepped out of the shower to a text that read Irving Street between 28th and 29th. Doesn’t really have an address, it’s complicated. He dressed as fashionably as he could given the time pressure and recent incident and removed a spare pair of khakis and dress shirt from his luggage. Grabbing a travel briefcase marked Samples from next to his bed, he opened the scullery’s external door.
He was greeted by American civic participation at its finest.
On the sidewalk in front of the old mansion was found the better part of a hundred concerned citizens, holding signs and chanting in unison.
“SAVE OUR TENTS! CUT THE RENT! SAVE OUR TENTS! CUT THE RENT!”
A marcher with a prematurely aged appearance offered von Pfiff a pamphlet. He took it before his better judgment could stop him.
TENT JUSTICE TUESDAYS
A Grassroots Movement to Save Prop 284
The seriousness of the cause was further underlined by an image of a raised fist clenching a hypodermic syringe, ringed by the slogan Tents for People, Not Profit.
“I thought it was Monday,” von Pfiff remarked.
“Oh, it is. This is just the pre-demonstration. Would you like to sign up for the email list and join us for the real action tomorrow?” the marcher asked.
“I’m—I’m afraid I can’t,” von Pfiff responded. “I need to go help a friend of mine whose AirBnB has just been broken into—do you know which way Irving Street is? 28th or 29th avenue…”
“AirBnB? AirBnB?!”
“I—“
“Yeah, we just saw him! Fucking tech bro! End tentrification!”
“END TENTRIFICATION! END TENTRIFICATION! END TENTRIFICATION!”
Von Pfiff scrambled away from the madding crowd towards the nearest stoplight, paused to check Google Maps, and made a mad dash for Irving Street between 28th and 29th Avenues.
He did not see Katzbube. He sent a quick text saying I’m here and paused to catch his breath against a lamppost, in the process detaching a torn, faded poster depicting a gorilla in a keffiyeh. Martyrs Unite May 15th—DICKS OUT FOR G-. The rest was illegible. Several pamphlets identical to the one he had been handed littered the pavement.
He opened his copy and began to educate himself.
Three years ago, the people of California passed Prop 284 to fight displacement in vulnerable urban communities by giving existing tent owners the same legal protections as working-class homeowners. Prop 284 has helped hundreds of people in San Francisco alone stay near their families and build generational wealth. Tent owners are disproportionately members of multiple marginalized communities and are often the victims of structural addiction.
Today, Prop 284 is under attack. Although much-needed rent control on tent rentals has slowed the rate of gentrification in San Francisco’s tent community, deep-pocketed tent developers, gentrifiers, and tech bros are conspiring to push native San Franciscans out of the tents they call home.
We’re fighting back with Tent Justice Tuesdays.
His phone beeped. It was Katzbube. He absentmindedly ignored it and continued reading.
What We’ve Accomplished
Won a competitive grant from the city to make zero-interest, forgivable tent renovation loans of up to $20,000 available to San Franciscans suffering from structural addiction for at least three years;
Ensured that 70% of tents at major tent developers like Dick’s Sporting Goods are reserved for historically underrepresented minorities;
Protected established tent renters from eviction by capping rent increases at -0.5% per year;
Streamlined the tent inspection and permitting process to no more than sixty months;
Decentered monoamory by abolishing maximum person-to-sleeping bag ratios;
Protected workers from unsafe exploitation by requiring new tent construction enlist labor from the Fraternal Union of Pole-Benders.
“Mr. von Pfiff…”
Von Pfiff looked up.
“MEHMET VON PFIFF!” the voice beckoned from a cyan tent twenty yards away.
Von Pfiff pocketed the pamphlet and strolled over. A gash in the nylon and a loose peg untied from an adjacent parking meter attested to the direct action of Tent Justice Tuesdays. Dimly visible through the mesh netting of the tent sat Katzbube, dressed only in boxers, and a distressingly unfashionable pair at that.
“God,” said von Pfiff, “you must be freezing. Don’t you have a sleeping bag?”
“It was requisitioned. I was told I was exacerbating a sleeping-bag crisis.”
“I’m confused. Didn’t you say you had an AirBnB? Surely you haven’t taken up heroin.”
“This is the AirBnB. Last one I could find at my price point. I’m newly unemployed, remember.”
“You booked it for the entire time?”
“I did,” Katzbube said ruefully, “though I might be able to get some of my money back now. At the very least the owner might need to provide a replacement sleeping bag.”
“There’s a spare closet at my AirBnB with an extra bed. I’d rather share lodging than see you fall victim to these nuts again.”
“It would be appreciated.”
“Here’s the pair of pants and shirt you requested,” said von Pfiff, passing the garments through the slash in the back of the tent. “They’ll probably be too big for you but I was planning to go shopping for new clothes today in any case.”
“They are,” said Katzbube, “but they’re much better than nothing.”
“Will you need me to take your laptop bag? I’m afraid I don’t have an extra belt for you.”
“The AirBnB,” Katzbube reassured him, “came with $100 of complimentary credit at the San Francisco Pleather Experience.” He exited the tent and handed von Pfiff a gift card to an establishment across the street.
“The San Francisco Pleather Experience,” von Pfiff repeated. He turned his attention to the dark storefront in front of them and found his mind’s eye hosting regrettable visions of the Fully Vegan World of Excitement to be found therein.
“It really wouldn’t have been a problem for me to take your shoulder bag,” said von Pfiff twenty minutes later, opening the door to the scullery. “We had to do strength training in the diplomatic corps in any case. I don’t think this is much less embarrassing than holding your pants up by hand.”
“I’d rather get blood all over my bag than all over your pants. It’s fine. It’s San Francisco, nobody will blink twice.”
“I’m appalled you’re allowed to sell anything with spikes that sharp. They can’t do anything refined here. Complete maximalism in perversion, portion sizes, mansions.”
“Let’s at least cut off the strip running between my thighs and cover up the motto on the back. If I’m known as Daddy’s Little Angel Investor at the cocktail party this evening I’ll be swarmed with founders.”
Von Pfiff beheld the suits, arranged more-or-less neatly on the mannequins, and contorted his face into a barely perceptible sneer of contempt.
“Abominable, Mr. Katzbube. Utterly appalling. And do you know the worst part?”
“The fabric?” Katzbube suggested.
“No, Mr. Katzbube. The worst part is that the people who buy here are—to a man—neither poor nor uncouth. No, I know for a fact that some of the richest venture capitalists and financiers in this city can be found buying suits here. I mean, my god. Everyone from Hacole Havèle to Bondsman Savile Row holds trunk shows here and they still—”
Von Pfiff paused for a moment to study the display. Noticing a sign reading Summer Essentials he furrowed his brow and inspected the offerings further.
“There you go,” he said, pointing his index finger towards the window. “That’s all you need to know.”
“All—what?”
“Look at the sign. The one that reads Summer Essentials.”
Katzbube found nothing unusual on the list of articles printed and looked back at his compatriot with a look of bemusement.
Von Pfiff sighed. “Cotton Wool. Cotton. Wool.”
“I must admit,” said Katzbube, “that I’m really not sure what’s wrong with ‘Cotton Wool’.”
“It’s not a seersucker is what’s wrong with it!”
Katzbube peered at the suit—grey with a hint of buff—and struggled to spot the implied defects.
“Cotton…” von Pfiff continued— ”Cotton is a very peculiar fiber. As a plant fiber cotton is completely rigid and has no give, unlike wool. It accordingly wrinkles very easily if it isn’t adulterated with synthetic fibers. Now you might say that this is true of other vegetable fibers as well, and you would be right, but those nearly always have advantages cotton does not.”
Von Pfiff touched the bridge of his nose as if pushing up a pair of glasses.
“Linen is an excellent thermal conductor, and quite permeable to water–in reasonably dry weather it will wick both sweat and heat away from the wearer. Bamboo and ramie, while rarely used for suits, bring a touch of fineness and smoothness to the cloth woven from them. Cotton, on the other hand…”
He paused for a moment to reflect on the judgment he was about to cast.
“Cotton’s principal advantages are that it is resilient and cheap. The Applebee’s of the textile world.”
“Surely better than the Golden Corral.”
“No, the Golden Corral of textiles is polyester. Completely beneath our concern. But if you’ve ever seen a cotton suit—again, excluding seersuckers—you will doubtless have noticed a particularly strange aspect of such a garment. The fabric needs to be a relatively dense, heavy cotton. Great for chinos, but in a suit the effect is really quite remarkably unflattering. I know that this kind of accoutrement used to be popular with the sort of patrician who joins Skull and Bones, but I really have to say I don’t have it in me to give it the time of day.”
He sighed again and returned to the cotton-wool mélange suit on display.
“This—” he said, pointing at the offending garment, “this is nothing but an exercise in cost saving. If you do wish to use a mélange, wool and linen is an excellent way of achieving both a relaxed look and excellent thermal properties. Wool, silk and linen, even better if you can afford them. Cotton and linen can work if the intent is to soften the natural creases of linen, but cotton and wool? The only thing that has going for it is being cheaper than a proper pure wool high-twist. No. Cotton ought in the general case to be reserved to shirtings and casualwear. Linen!—pure linen!—is the gold standard. But I don’t think I have to explain its virtues to you.”
Katzbube bade him continue.
“Well, I always appreciated the linen suit for its unique ability to combine crispness and sharpness with the naturally careless look any well-wrinkled linen garment will create in its wearer. Unlike cotton, of course, it wrinkles in a flattering way, creating harmonious ripples rather than a myriad of tiny creases in all directions. If—that is—one uses a proper linen.”
“I must confess to not knowing the different kinds of linen”, replied Katzbube.
“That is quite simple. Linen, in the general case, is grown in France, with some additional production in the Low Countries, and woven and finished in Ireland or Italy. The linen woven in Ireland is generally preferable—the fabric is woven sturdier and they finish it less…though it must be admitted that Irish linen is less useful in a hot Italian summer than Italian linen. But the improved drape really more than makes up for it, especially when the designer specializes in double-breasted suits. Hacole Havèle’s are superb…”
“And the exception?”
“The exception is the French house Maison Godard, which has its cloth woven in Italy, but to a much more robust specification. I don’t think we’ll find any of theirs here, though...”
He sighed. “This is making me miss looking at real suits, not these paltry imitations…let us continue on to the thrift stores. Perhaps a gentleman of taste has left something in my size…or, for that matter, yours…”
He continued down the street at a leisurely saunter, still preoccupied by the nouvelle richesse of the garments on display. The pair had not gone three blocks when von Pfiff, his attention turned towards an exhibition of summer overcoats, crashed into an ill-positioned lamp-post and lost hold of the briefcase marked Samples.
At length he came to and thought of the snuff. The snuff! He peered ahead, across a twenty-foot stretch of sidewalk now dusted with a fine brown snow of Grubi Šnuf, where Katzbube was conversing with an officious-looking woman in a uniform on the subject of the briefcase. He–now she approached him, holding the briefcase–think, man, think!
“Good morning, Mr…Mr…”
“Von Pfiff,” said von Pfiff. “Mehmet von Pfiff.”
“I’m Clara Boodle, a social worker.”
“Ch–charmed.”
“Is this your…your…”
“Yes,” he replied, “my samples. I do apologize.”
“You’re lucky I was on duty,” she said curtly. “The brown powder–”
“Snuff. It’s snuff.”
“Well,” the social worker replied, “the safe injection sites and markets are–”
“No, no. It’s tobacco.”
Tobacco. He could sense gears of great torque but low velocity begin to turn in her head.
“Can I see your license?”
“License?”
“I’m assuming you’re a tobacco supplier if it’s marked Samples.”
“Well–no, not really–”
“What rehabilitation center do you work with?”
Von Pfiff paused and consulted six years of increasingly rusty diplomatic expertise. Clearly–no, surely they hadn’t outlawed selling tobacco–wait, yes–
“Ah, I don’t, I’m afraid. It’s for personal use.”
“Quite a lot of tobacco for personal use,” she replied.
“It’s quite normal for Europeans,” he said.
She sighed.
“As a certified social worker with the City of San Francisco I do have to inform you that I’m allowed to check people into rehab.”
Von Pfiff reached into the open briefcase and selected a ten-gram tin from the jumbled pile of ostensible Snuff des Philmes. As Clara Boodle’s gaze grew increasingly skeptical he tapped the tin, poured a large pile of snuff onto the back of his hand, pressed his nose down to it and inhaled. Oh god. This absolute crap. There was nothing for it. He took another pile—then another.
By the time he was on the last pile of snuff in the tin waves of nausea began to overcome him—whether from the nicotine or from the quality of the tobacco he could not tell. He could feel his face growing a clammy shade of potato-green.
“Perfectly—perfectly normal amount for personal use,” he gasped.
“I see,” said the social worker. “I’m sorry for bothering you. Do you think you might have a problem with nicotine?”
A problem with nicotine suddenly made itself known to Clara Boodle, or at least her boots, in the form of half-digested eggs benedict on sourdough.
“I—thank you very much for asking,” he said. “No, I think I just—Winty, can you—”
Still in great discomfort, von Pfiff tapped his watch and mouthed Think of something.
“I’ll take care of him,” said Katzbube, racking his brains for an excuse. “He’s…he’s got a doctor’s appointment at one.”
“A doctor’s appointment.”
“Yes. For…chemotherapy.”
“Oh.”
“Yes. For his…brain. I’m his caretaker.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I do appreciate it. Come on, Mehmet.”
He took von Pfiff by the arm and stumbled, victorious, back in the direction of the scullery.
Continue to Chapter V.