Friday, October 22, 2010
It's Here
This morning, early this morning well before the light of day, I looked out the window and noticed something on the ground outside. The moon is almost full, so I thought it may be moon glow. I didn't have my glasses on, or my contacts in.
Last night rain pattered the roof and the howling of the wind came and went. We built a fire. Chatter Box and Chubby were playing their guitars, singing, dancing, and fighting. Four-year-old Chatter Box said, "Dad, can we have a fire every night? I love fires - I'm so warm."
"That would take a lot of wood," I said.
When the fire started to die she said, "Dad, I'll throw in the little woods and you can throw the big woods."
Upon closer examination, it was the white stuff.
Last night rain pattered the roof and the howling of the wind came and went. We built a fire. Chatter Box and Chubby were playing their guitars, singing, dancing, and fighting. Four-year-old Chatter Box said, "Dad, can we have a fire every night? I love fires - I'm so warm."
"That would take a lot of wood," I said.
When the fire started to die she said, "Dad, I'll throw in the little woods and you can throw the big woods."
Upon closer examination, it was the white stuff.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Lefty
This past weekend I took a stab at cutting off my right thumb. Don’t worry – I was unsuccessful. As soon as I felt the pain, I dropped the saw. When my eyes caught sight of the fountain of crimson bubbling forth I quickly wrapped him in the lower part of my T-shirt. “You stupid son-of-a-bitch!” my thumb screamed.
Standing there by the bench I wanted to take a drink of my beer, but I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the T-shirt tourniquet. Several long minutes later, when I finally took a look, blood was still gushing out. I quickly reapplied the pressure. After a few twists of the shirt I clamped down on the cloth with my right index finger so I could at least get a drink of beer. “You dumbass, Marty,” I scolded myself.
I didn’t really try to cut it off of course; I was cutting off the nubs on a piece of aspen with the handsaw when a knot broke ― releasing the saw in mid-stroke. I’m left-handed, so Righty is the holder. He was at least a foot down the branch but the saw found him anyway. Whenever a tool goes astray Righty is always the one who gets it. There’s quite a few scars.
I counted eight drops of blood on the garage floor and about six on my right pant leg. They had escaped during the brief look-see. I figured I better wander into the house.
“What happened?” my wife said seeing the blood.
“I cut my thumb.”
“Do you need a Band-Aid? I’ll get a Band-Aid.”
I had to chuckle. “I’m afraid I’m going to need more than a Band-Aid, Dear.”
The kids came around for a look.
“What happen Dad?” my son asked wide-eyed with curiosity.
“The saw got me.”
“The chainsaw!”
Earlier in the day I had been cutting rounds for firewood. “No, with the handsaw. It’s just a nick.”
“You need a Band-Aid Dad,” my little girl said. She was four now and had an explanation, or cure, for everything.
“Let’s see,” my wife said.
“Yeah, let’s see it,” the boy said.
“Are you sure?” I said smiling. It wasn’t funny.
“Yeah,” he said squeamishly.
I had had the tourniquet on for maybe five minutes now so I figured it was about time for another peek. I walked over to the bathroom sink followed closely by my wife and son who both jockeyed for the best viewing spot. The little girl stood in the doorway.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Come on,” my wife said sternly.
I started easing off on the pressure. When I didn’t see, or feel, any more blood coming, I slowly lifted the material.
“Ooowwww! You need stitches,” my wife said turning away.
There was a gnarly gash but the blood was starting to coagulate. I covered him up and reapplied the pressure.
*
Back out in the garage, with a fresh beer, all I could do was stand there and think about it. Thank God it wasn’t the chainsaw, I thought. I had never drawn blood with the chainsaw. I had been cutting rounds when the saw started to bog down and then killed. I let it cool down but it still wouldn’t start. In disgust, I threw it to the ground. So maybe the chainsaw told the handsaw to cut me. After all, they were brothers and spoke the same language.
But it could have been the beer’s fault too, I surmised. I normally drink cheap beer from a can, but just before the incident I had opened a bottle of premium beer for some reason. It was still sitting, half full, on the bench. I blended it in with the cheap stuff and took a drink. Not bad, I thought.
The last couple of weekends I had been building aspen furniture. I had finished a bed and had a dresser almost complete. But the piece of aspen I was sawing on wasn’t even intended for one of these, it was just for inventory, I just wanted to sand it, for something to do, because I had been put off the firewood job.
I examined the saw. There was dried, black-purple blood on about six teeth, and a piece of skin. I had never looked up close at the teeth of the big Stanley before. They were jagged and long. Unable to work, I closed the garage door and turned off the lights.
Back in the house I found some gauze and wrapped it around the wound. I had my wife tie the ends tight. It probably could have used a few stitches but I didn’t feel like driving into town. I grabbed another beer and then let gravity grab my ass and pull me into the Lazy-Boy. Instinctively, I reached for the can with my right hand, to hold it, while I popped the top with my left. But then something said ― wait a minute.
Lefty managed to get it open all by himself – applying pressure straight down on the pop-top – without sending it flying across the kitchen. Next it was the boots. Without Righty’s silent assistance Lefty had to unlace, loosen, and remove them all by himself. This was going to be a long night. I was ― handicapped, I think they call it.
*
The beer was finished, I needed a shower. A new method was invented for getting my right leg out of his pants. And just try scrubbing one-handed. How do you wash your left arm and hand? And toweling off? How do you get your back dry?
I got the underwear on okay, and even a clean T-shirt, but there was no way I was getting my pants buttoned. “Honey,” I bellowed, “I need some help.”
That night the wife was frisky, and even though Righty was sidelined, she got what she was after, and then some. I couldn’t let Righty fall below my heart or else he would set to throbbing something terrible, so I held him aloft during the whole episode. I could tell he was jealous. Some things just can’t wait.
The next morning it was time to take care of business. As I sat there I examined the damage. Things were a little swollen, the tip of the thumb and the index finger. I made a loose fist. It felt pretty good. The gauze was still on and no blood had soaked through. I was content until it came time to wipe. Wiping was traditionally one of Righty’s responsibilities.
When Lefty got down there he didn’t know the territory or have a clue as to technique. And, for some reason, he didn’t seem to be able to reach either. What the fuck?
I simulated the right side motion. It was the butt cheek – the butt cheek came up high off the seat for better access. I tried from the left and, this time, was marginally successful, but I could tell there was still work to be done. I fussed a little more, flushed, and then got in the shower. It was obvious ― Lefty would need a lot more practice.
Standing there by the bench I wanted to take a drink of my beer, but I wasn’t quite ready to let go of the T-shirt tourniquet. Several long minutes later, when I finally took a look, blood was still gushing out. I quickly reapplied the pressure. After a few twists of the shirt I clamped down on the cloth with my right index finger so I could at least get a drink of beer. “You dumbass, Marty,” I scolded myself.
I didn’t really try to cut it off of course; I was cutting off the nubs on a piece of aspen with the handsaw when a knot broke ― releasing the saw in mid-stroke. I’m left-handed, so Righty is the holder. He was at least a foot down the branch but the saw found him anyway. Whenever a tool goes astray Righty is always the one who gets it. There’s quite a few scars.
I counted eight drops of blood on the garage floor and about six on my right pant leg. They had escaped during the brief look-see. I figured I better wander into the house.
“What happened?” my wife said seeing the blood.
“I cut my thumb.”
“Do you need a Band-Aid? I’ll get a Band-Aid.”
I had to chuckle. “I’m afraid I’m going to need more than a Band-Aid, Dear.”
The kids came around for a look.
“What happen Dad?” my son asked wide-eyed with curiosity.
“The saw got me.”
“The chainsaw!”
Earlier in the day I had been cutting rounds for firewood. “No, with the handsaw. It’s just a nick.”
“You need a Band-Aid Dad,” my little girl said. She was four now and had an explanation, or cure, for everything.
“Let’s see,” my wife said.
“Yeah, let’s see it,” the boy said.
“Are you sure?” I said smiling. It wasn’t funny.
“Yeah,” he said squeamishly.
I had had the tourniquet on for maybe five minutes now so I figured it was about time for another peek. I walked over to the bathroom sink followed closely by my wife and son who both jockeyed for the best viewing spot. The little girl stood in the doorway.
“Ready?” I asked.
“Come on,” my wife said sternly.
I started easing off on the pressure. When I didn’t see, or feel, any more blood coming, I slowly lifted the material.
“Ooowwww! You need stitches,” my wife said turning away.
There was a gnarly gash but the blood was starting to coagulate. I covered him up and reapplied the pressure.
*
Back out in the garage, with a fresh beer, all I could do was stand there and think about it. Thank God it wasn’t the chainsaw, I thought. I had never drawn blood with the chainsaw. I had been cutting rounds when the saw started to bog down and then killed. I let it cool down but it still wouldn’t start. In disgust, I threw it to the ground. So maybe the chainsaw told the handsaw to cut me. After all, they were brothers and spoke the same language.
But it could have been the beer’s fault too, I surmised. I normally drink cheap beer from a can, but just before the incident I had opened a bottle of premium beer for some reason. It was still sitting, half full, on the bench. I blended it in with the cheap stuff and took a drink. Not bad, I thought.
The last couple of weekends I had been building aspen furniture. I had finished a bed and had a dresser almost complete. But the piece of aspen I was sawing on wasn’t even intended for one of these, it was just for inventory, I just wanted to sand it, for something to do, because I had been put off the firewood job.
I examined the saw. There was dried, black-purple blood on about six teeth, and a piece of skin. I had never looked up close at the teeth of the big Stanley before. They were jagged and long. Unable to work, I closed the garage door and turned off the lights.
Back in the house I found some gauze and wrapped it around the wound. I had my wife tie the ends tight. It probably could have used a few stitches but I didn’t feel like driving into town. I grabbed another beer and then let gravity grab my ass and pull me into the Lazy-Boy. Instinctively, I reached for the can with my right hand, to hold it, while I popped the top with my left. But then something said ― wait a minute.
Lefty managed to get it open all by himself – applying pressure straight down on the pop-top – without sending it flying across the kitchen. Next it was the boots. Without Righty’s silent assistance Lefty had to unlace, loosen, and remove them all by himself. This was going to be a long night. I was ― handicapped, I think they call it.
*
The beer was finished, I needed a shower. A new method was invented for getting my right leg out of his pants. And just try scrubbing one-handed. How do you wash your left arm and hand? And toweling off? How do you get your back dry?
I got the underwear on okay, and even a clean T-shirt, but there was no way I was getting my pants buttoned. “Honey,” I bellowed, “I need some help.”
That night the wife was frisky, and even though Righty was sidelined, she got what she was after, and then some. I couldn’t let Righty fall below my heart or else he would set to throbbing something terrible, so I held him aloft during the whole episode. I could tell he was jealous. Some things just can’t wait.
The next morning it was time to take care of business. As I sat there I examined the damage. Things were a little swollen, the tip of the thumb and the index finger. I made a loose fist. It felt pretty good. The gauze was still on and no blood had soaked through. I was content until it came time to wipe. Wiping was traditionally one of Righty’s responsibilities.
When Lefty got down there he didn’t know the territory or have a clue as to technique. And, for some reason, he didn’t seem to be able to reach either. What the fuck?
I simulated the right side motion. It was the butt cheek – the butt cheek came up high off the seat for better access. I tried from the left and, this time, was marginally successful, but I could tell there was still work to be done. I fussed a little more, flushed, and then got in the shower. It was obvious ― Lefty would need a lot more practice.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
A Cripple on the Highway
By Martin Wageman
I crawled to my brother’s room and woke him up.
“What da ya want?” he said rubbing his eyes.
“You gotta take me to the hospital.”
“For what?”
I showed him my ankle. As soon as he saw it his face changed, his eyes popped, his mouth fell open, and then he looked me in the eyes.
“What the hell happened?”
*
Summer had finally arrived after my freshman year of college. The pressure of finals was behind me and I felt like I was starting to belong in La Crosse. I was growing up. Walking over to the brewery in the evening, I was happy to have a job, good friends, a girlfriend, and a future. The air was warm and pleasant and the day’s last light was still in the sky. In the course of the night I finished my homework in the front guard shack – I had enrolled in a summer computer science class – and then, while on outside rounds, I drank a few beers with one of the union workers in the Malt Plant break room. In the morning I walked home, content and tired, and went to bed.
I had the next night off and we partied. We partied on Third Street until the bars closed and then went to a house party. I remember Pickle J was with me. He always had a smile on his face and a beer in his hand. Towards morning, when we were leaving the house, a guy I worked with, Claw, decided it would be fun to tackle me. We were drunk. He was good and drunk. I thought it was funny too, until I couldn’t get up. Pickle J got me home. I must have passed out for a few hours because I remember waking up in my room. My ankle was the size of a cantaloupe.
*
They couldn’t put a cast on it right away because of the swelling, so I hobbled around on crutches. I went to work and sat in the back guard shack. I was shattered. Claw felt terrible. A few hours later, Les Johnson, the sergeant, comes into the guard shack and tells me that he can’t have me working with a broken ankle. It took me a while to crutch home. I remember the tears rolling down my cheek. I went from shattered to devastated. Water skiing was finished for the summer, and now work.
The next day my girlfriend calls and says she can’t see me anymore – something about reconciliation with her old boyfriend. Great. Later in the day, when I went to file for unemployment, the woman behind the desk tells me that I don’t qualify because I’m not physically able to work. She never said a word about filing for disability. Without income I couldn’t possibly pay my tuition, so I dropped out of school.
A few days earlier my brother had come home with this black puppy and I remember hobbling down to the neighborhood park with the little guy in tow. I never went to that park, but today I had nothing else to do. I couldn’t just sit in that house. Suddenly, everything was gone.
Several days later I was fitted with a walking cast. I remember being at the checkout counter at Quillin’s, the local grocery store, with my roommate Dino – there was a rack of maps there – so I took a map of the United States and put it with the groceries we were buying. Dino gave me a look, but didn’t say anything.
The next morning, after everyone was out of the house, I dumped the books out of my backpack and put in some cloths and other things I thought I might need, and the map, and my toothbrush. Then I wrote a note about going to see the sandpipers. I had read a story in a Reader’s Digest over at the brewery, before I got kicked out, about a kid who was sick, and all he wanted to do was to go and see the sandpipers running on the beach. I knew Dino had also read the story. I left the note on the desk in my room and then walked down to the Cass Street Bridge, the bridge that spans the Mississippi, and started hitchhiking.
I can’t even remember the first ride, but I know they got me out to La Crescent. Then another took me to the Winona turnoff. Then a trucker dropped me off in Austin, my hometown. I didn’t want my parents to know what was up so I called Peach, a high school buddy that I knew was home for the summer, to come and pick me up. We partied – or my friends partied – I just drank, the beers having no effect on my mood, at another friend’s, Bob, that night. I borrowed two-hundred dollars from Bob. In order to get the money I had to tell him my rough plan. I insisted that he keep it to himself.
My parents were leaving on a motorcycle trip that morning, but when I got to the house they were still there. I think my mom could tell that I was depressed. They probably just thought I was back in Austin to use their house for some parties. Why I even went to the house, I don’t know. I left a few hours after they did.
Walking the couple of blocks down to highway 218, I reminisced about delivering papers to the houses that I was passing by. Then, a few minutes after sticking my thumb out, two guys that I had gone to high school with pulled over. They were just driving around, so without anything better to do they drove me down to Lyle.
My destination was Iowa City, or West Branch to be more precise, to Uncle Willy’s house. Willy had hitchhiked around the US a few years back and I figured he could give me some good advice. I had several rides through Iowa. I remember a guy in a Cadillac, the car super clean and air conditioned, and then there was a young kid who produced a nice bag of weed from under the dash and got me stoned. Just after the kid dropped me off a State Trooper pulled up. Here we go, I thought. But he didn’t hassle me, rather, he gave me a ride about thirty miles to a better location. This was in 1980 mind you; I don’t think it would happen these days. Luckily, I was in Iowa City by supper time and called Willy.
I chilled out at his house for a few days. My cousin John was there helping Willy for the summer. John had gotten a finger in the table saw and his hand was bandaged up, but he still had a smile on his face. I remember sleeping under the stars on the back deck. When it was time to move on I got a few phone numbers and addresses of relatives from Willy and headed for St. Louis.
I had a bunch of rides. I was young and clean cut, with only a small pack, and I always faced traffic so that drivers could get a good look at me. I went at it aggressively, staying up close to the white line, arm straight out, thumb flying, with eyes focused on the target. I’ve always believed that if you want something in life you have to work for it.
The cast worked wonders too. I’d stick it out there, people would stop, I’d get in, and then on the way I’d explain how it happened. I’d end up telling the story dozens of times in the next few weeks. Everything was going good, I started to relax, I was riding with an older gentleman who was on his way to a cabin in Kentucky. I got out my map.
But then that night the old buzzard got weird. Luckily, we were stopped at a gas station when he made his move, so I just told him to f**k off and got out. It was around midnight. I tried to hitchhike, holding my flashlight up to my face so passersby could see me. I didn’t work. I was rattled. I slept under a bridge, or tried to anyway. I was uncomfortable, questioning myself again, and the traffic noise never ceased.
In the morning I gathered myself, found some breakfast, and got back on the road. That afternoon I was at Uncle Jim’s in St. Louis, a guy had dropped me right at his house. But when I knocked no one answered, so I wrote them a note, popped it in their mailbox, and continued on.
I wanted to see the ocean, the beach – those sandpipers the kid was talking about – so I set my sights on Galveston. But then somewhere south of St. Louis I got stuck, I couldn’t get a ride, and it was incredible hot, well over a hundred degrees I found out later. So I walked to a gas station and tried to cool off. I didn’t know what to do. I asked a friendly looking couple for a ride. At first the man hesitated, but then said, “Yeah sure, jump in.” So I did. They were heading north. I didn’t care.
I had been quietly riding with them for some time when the guy explained that up ahead they would be veering off to the east. I had no desire to head east, so, without thinking or consulting my map, I asked to be let out. I ended up getting dropped off were two freeways intersected in the middle of nowhere. I think it was 57 and 70, in Illinois. All of the on and off ramps were high speed. There were no frontage roads. I followed a long, sweeping transitional ramp to get to the westbound lanes of I-70. Exhausted and drenched with sweat, I finally arrived at a place where I could put out my thumb. Traffic flew by at top speed. It was hot as hell.
No one stopped. There was nowhere to walk to. I was crushed. I shouldn’t have gotten out where I did, I cursed myself. My thoughts drifted to La Crosse – the house, bare-ass beach, the bars – and I dreamed of being back there. I wished I could be anywhere except where I was. Then I got out my black electrical tape and wrote the word HELP vertically on my cast.
All of a sudden I noticed a big rig pulling off onto the shoulder. Is he stopping for me, I thought? It took him a long time to come to a stop. I stood dumbfounded. And then he was out of the cab waving the full length of his arm as if to say, “Come on, let’s go.” It took me an eternity to cover the distance to his truck. He was standing in the shade alongside the trailer, laughing.
“I couldn’t make it to church today, so I figured I pick up a cripple on the highway,” he said as I came closer. It was Sunday. I was spent and speechless. He was still laughing.
He opened the passenger door of the cab and helped me up. As he climbed in he asked, “So, where ya headed?”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
That sent him into hysterics. Then I heard the air brakes release and watched as he went through the gears. He was looking in the side mirror, checking oncoming traffic as he brought the truck up to merging speed.
“Well, you’re in luck kid,” he said as the laughter subsided, “I don’t know where I’m going either.” When he had the truck settled into traffic he introduced himself as Frank and asked, “Do you smoke?” He was holding up a joint.
I nodded and said, “Man, you saved my life.”
He tossed me the joint and a lighter. I can’t remember if there was AC or not, but it was cool in the cab of that truck. He was headed for Springfield, Missouri. After we finished the joint I got out my map and found Springfield. I smiled. I was alive again.
We sailed through St. Louis again. At least I did. My savior had me roll two more joints, one for him and one for me, so we wouldn’t have to pass one back and forth. I remember it took me a long time. He had given me a clipboard for deseeding the weed, but my seat, unlike his air-ride, was fixed to the chassis and I was bouncing all over the place. I remember trying to catch all the seeds, and when he saw me doing it he said, “Don’t worry about it. They can’t search my truck – this is my home – they need a warrant to search it.”
I told him my story and he told me many of his; and many hours later in Springfield he pulled off the freeway onto the shoulder. “See that building right there?” he said pointing, “You can get a good room there for ten bucks.”
I thanked him and was about to alight when he said, “Wait.” He took his bag of weed, and taking a healthy pinch, put it into an envelope. Then he added several rolling papers. “Here, take this,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Take it – for the road.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Good luck,” he said smiling.
Tears came to my eyes as I watched the truck pull away. I believed in God. I had been riding with him most of the day.
When the truck was out of sight I found a way around the freeway fence and walked to the motel. It was dusk and the air had cooled. He was right about the price of a room. I spent a long time in the shower and then went for something to eat.
*
When I woke up I didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered. It was dark in the room, and when I opened the door, the sunlight came flooding in. It was still early. Then, as I was walking across the parking lot, a man asked me, “Which way ya headed?”
“West,” I said.
“Get in.”
My recovery was well under way.
He took me to Joplin. Then I remember going through Ft. Scott, Kansas. A black man had picked me up and I had asked him how far he was going. “Ft. Scott,” he had said with a noticeable accent, “I’m going to Ft. Scott.”
I worked the two lane highways up to I-70 where a guy about my age picked me up. His vehicle was packed with stuff. “I’m moving to Hays,” he announced. He moved some of his belongings around to make room for me. An hour in, he produced a joint.
Early the next morning a big Plymouth towing a trailered Harley pulled over. The driver, RJ, was a rough looking guy, but he was friendly. A short distance later we stopped to pick up his buddy Steve. Another Harley was loaded as well as Satan, a big black Rottweiler. Satan rode on an old door that was positioned between the bikes. When we got up to speed on the freeway Satan’s mouth would open up in the strong wind. His cheeks and lips would flap all around. It was hilarious. Satan didn’t seem to mind.
The guys were roughnecks heading to Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had one of those big round metal water coolers in the back. I sat next to it. It was filled with cans of beer. We started cracking them around 9 AM. An hour or so later we stopped at Steve’s mom’s place. They visited, and Satan and I hung out. When they came back Steve had a plastic bread bag filled with sandwiches.
We roared across the flats of Colorado – drinking beer, smoking joints and listening to loud rock n’ roll – Satan’s cheeks fully inflated – and then slept in the car outside of Denver. In the morning we drove into the city and visited the Harley dealer. The boys bought a lot gear and parts. On the way up I-25 we stopped for gas. After taking a leak, I went in and bought a case of beer and a bag of ice. I got about a twelve pack in the cooler. As we drank the cold ones I replaced them with the warm ones. I could see the whole country just looking out the window.
I didn’t want it to end, but soon we were in Cheyenne and saying goodbye. They wouldn’t take any gas money. “Hitchhikers don’t pay gas money,” one of them laughingly scoffed. They were really good guys, decent guys, wild boys as free as the wind, willing to share what they had with whoever crossed their path. I was lonely the instant they drove away.
But not for long, a big rig had pulled over. I was on my way to Rock Springs. I checked the map. He was an older fella and we talked, or he talked mostly, and I listened. He had opinions about almost everything. I could tell he was kind of lonely. We stopped and washed his truck. He gave me a roll of quarters and I feed them into the machine when he told me to. He had an acreage outside of Rock Springs. We stopped to eat supper, he insisted on paying, and then went out to his place. He let me crash in the sleeper of his truck while he went into a little trailer for the night. It was dark when we got out there so I didn’t see the place until morning.
We had breakfast at a diner then he dropped me at the Interstate. I got a few short rides. Then, later that morning, a pickup with Oregon plates passed me. I tried to get his attention – I tried to get everyone’s attention – but I really tried to get his. I knew he saw me, but he cruised on by. I got a few more short rides. Then, low and behold, here he comes again. I jumped up and down. I jumped up and down as good as a guy with a cast on his leg could. I waved my arms. He pulled over.
Getting in, I said, “Thanks, I really appreciate it.” I didn’t ask right away, I contained myself for at least a minute. I introduced myself. He told me his name. “Are you going to Oregon?”
“Yeah, Portland. Where are you headed?”
“Portland.”
He gave me one of those what-have-I-gotten-myself-into looks and said, “Well, I’ll get you to Salt Lake, maybe farther, but no promises. I want to make a few stops along the way.”
“Salt Lake’s fine – whatever you can do for me.”
He was on his way home from a road trip in which he was looking for potential places to relocate. When I told him that I was from La Crosse he said that he had been there, and liked the area. He quizzed me for details and the miles rolled by. Salt Lake came and went. We camped somewhere in Idaho. In the morning I called my Aunt Mary. She lived in Portland.
“Mary, it’s Marty…hey I’m on a little road trip and I was wondering if I could stop by for a few days – I already have a ride to Portland….”
The guy gave me a ride right to their door. I remember it was super early, like six-thirty, we had driven all night – he wanted to get home. I didn’t want to knock on the door, but Mary was up already and opened the door before I had to. She made me breakfast and we chatted. I told her about my adventure. The kids were still in bed, so after the eggs and toast I went downstairs and slept for a while. I woke up in the presence of three very curious, rambunctious kids. Mary said they couldn’t wait for me to open my eyes.
I spent a couple of fun days with them, just relaxing and resting up, sleeping in a bed and taking a shower every day. It was hard with that stupid cast on. I had a shave. Danny, who was probably five or six then, ran into the guide wire of a telephone pole and cut his head. I accompanied Mary and Danny to the ER. On the way home Danny was already smiling and laughing, saying, “I have a hole in my head, I have a hole in my head.”
Mt. Saint Helens had blown her top that May and Julie, Janae, and Danny showed me their coffee cans of ash that they had harvested from their yard. That evening Stan, Mary’s husband, came home with a new station wagon. The kids went wild. The next morning I got to check out the new ride with Mary and the gang when they dropped me off at the freeway.
It was tough getting out of Portland – a few short hops – but then this bareback American Indian with long flowing black hair riding a Motto Guzzi stopped and offered me a ride. I remember his long hair whipping me in the face, and me, trying to keep that cast on the foot peg. He took me to the Tillamook cheese factory. We went on the tour. He told me about the time he had hitched around the US without a dime in his pocket and the generosity of the people he encountered. At the end of the tour he bought me several long strands of smoked beef. He insisted that I take them, and after wishing me good luck, rode off into the distance like a warrior on an iron horse.
After another short ride I was at the ocean. I smelt it first, then heard it, and then actually saw the waves rolling in. That ocean took me for a ride. I took my shoe off and walked on the beach. It was mostly deserted. I hobbled a ways, then sat down in the dry sand and cried. After the tears dried I got back up and walked. There were gulls and other birds, but no sandpipers. I learned later that they were migratory birds – they would be up in Alaska during the summer. It didn’t matter.
That night I slept on the sand under a little bridge. My leg was itching like crazy so I got out a screwdriver that I had in my pack for some unknown reason and punched air holes about four inches down from the top of the cast. It helped a little. In the morning I was alarmed to see the water right next to me. I had not considered the change in tide.
It was just after dawn and I found myself ravenous. I stumbled across a woman working in a restaurant – it wasn’t open yet – but she invited me inside and gave me a bowl of clam chowder. It was warm and delicious. When I finished I wanted to pay her but she said, “That’s yesterday’s chowder, you don’t have to pay for that. There’s more – would you like some more?” I couldn’t refuse.
Up on the coast road traffic was sparse. I started walking some. I had gotten the cast a little wet walking on the beach and the rubber footpad was starting to come loose, so I got out the black tape and wound it around a few times to tighten it up. It was pretty sorry looking. I walked some more. The skin under the cast was itching like crazy. I had a little piece of wire in my pack and I got it down in there to scratch. Then a Volkswagen Beetle came by. I jumped to my feet and waved my arms over my head and watched the car getting smaller. Then it slowed and pulled over.
“I usually don’t stop for hitchhikers,” the woman said, “but you seem to really need a ride.”
“Thanks – I do,” I said getting in.
She was a few years older than me, and beautiful, with long blonde hair and soft features. We talked a little, she was rather quiet, she told me that she had been visiting her sister and now she was on her way home. For awhile it seemed like we were the only souls around, driving through the trees on that small road. Then she asked if I liked to smoke. She pulled out her stash and handed it to me. It was sticky green bud, some of the first I had ever seen. Five minutes later I was comatose.
After sometime, she stopped and said that she was heading inland from here. I realized I needed to get out. I was still stoned to the bone. I don’t recall what happen next. I do remember that the going was slow, short rides, long waits, so I decided to make my way to I-5. I spent the night in Yreka, California.
In the morning I walked to the freeway. There I found three other people on the ramp waiting for rides. The girl in the Beetle had warned me not to hitch up on the freeway itself in California – “You’ll get a ticket,” she had said. So I waited, fourth in line. It was an hour before the first person caught a break. Another hour went by before I realized this wasn’t going to work. There was no way I would make it down the coast at this pace. Defeated, I walked back to the Greyhound station and bought a ticket for Reno. It cost thirty-three dollars, about as much money as I’d managed to spent thus far on the trip.
I remember seeing Mt. Shasta bathed in the last light of the setting sun as we cruised down I-5. There was a transfer in Sacramento during the wee hours of the morning. I entertained myself by watching the strange characters and other weirdness around the terminal, and then I slept, arriving in Reno at six in the morning. I walked to the freeway. The first guy that stopped had obviously been partying all night.
“Wanna party?” he said, “I’m into anything,” he added.
I asked him to drop me at the edge of town.
Then I got a fast ride to Winnemucca. That’s where I met Willard. I had gone over to a gas station on the opposite side of the road for something to drink and was only half way back, standing in the median, when a car pulls over. I wasn’t sure if it had pulled over for me because I hadn’t even stuck my thumb out yet.
“Are you looking for a ride?” the guy asks getting out of his car.
“Yeah.”
When I got over to his car, a little Nissan, he was cleaning off the front seat. He was pretty rough looking; unshaven, yellow teeth, dirty. The ashtray was overflowing. There was a carton of Winstons on the dash.
“I’m Willard,” he said getting back in, “Where ya headed?”
“Salt Lake,” I said. I’d gotten into the habit of just rattling off the next major city.
“I can get you there,” he said, “I’m on my way to Wisconsin Dells to see my brother.”
“Wisconsin Dells,” I said, “I’m on my way to La Crosse, Wisconsin.”
“Well hell, you can ride with me all the way if you want,” he said with enthusiasm and a smile.
Standing on the freeway that morning in Reno I figured it would take about a week to get back to the Midwest. Now, suddenly, I had a ride all the way.
“My name’s Marty,” I told Willard.
“Do you want a beer, Marty?”
“Sure, why not.”
“There’s a twelve pack on the back seat. Grab me one too.”
We fell into conversation as Willard tooled down I-80. I remember the beer being warm and not very enjoyable. He seemed a little edgy, distracted sort of, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Sometimes he’d gradually slow down, cars passing us up, and then he’d realize it and speed up again. After the next town he asked, “Can you drive?” He was looking at my cast. His Nissan had a manual transmission.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
So he pulled over and I got behind the wheel.
Then, as I am bringing the car up to speed and merging, he says, “Marty, I got something to tell you.” But he doesn’t tell me what he has to tell me. I’m busy looking in the side mirror and going through the gears. When I get the car into traffic I ask, “What is it Willard?”
“I’m dying.”
I looked over at him. He was trembling.
“I got cancer. I just found out last week. The doc says I got three months to live.”
I was speechless. A big knot welled up in my throat. I stared through the windshield. Then I swallowed and said, “Man, I’m sorry.”
“So I’m going to see my brother before I die. All I want to do is see my brother before I die. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Does he know?” I heard myself ask.
“No. I just called him and said I was coming for a visit. I’ll have to tell him when I get there. How long do you think it will take us to get there?”
“If we drive straight through – maybe a day and a half.”
“I’ve never driven across the country before,” Willard explained, “In fact, I’ve never been out of California, Nevada and Oregon.”
Once he opened up it all came pouring out of him. He told me where he was from – Sacramento – that he worked as an auto mechanic – and that he had never married. When he found out that he had cancer he quit his job, loaded up his tools – there was this massive tool chest in the back of the Nissan, it was a hatchback – and called his brother. I listened and drove. Pretty soon he was sleeping.
I just kept driving and thinking, thinking about Willard, thinking about how fragile we humans can be, and how quickly things can change. I thought about how I had changed over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it’s cruel what the world dishes out, things we have no control over. And then I thought about how we change ourselves, what we do to ourselves, how we treat out bodies, and how we treat our minds, how we make decisions and the things we teach ourselves, and the things we learn along the way. My problems were nothing compared to the man I was sitting next to.
Soon the Nissan’s gas gauge was reading empty. I pulled into a filling station. Willard woke up.
“I guess I dozed off. I get tired easy now. I used to be a strong man,” he said.
He allowed me to pump the gas but would let me pay for it. And he felt like driving again. I bought a bag of ice and fashioned a makeshift cooler.
“Doc says I have three month unless they cut on me. I don’t want them to cut on me. I don’t believe in all that,” Willard went on.
Salt Lake came and went. I reflected back on my westbound journey. Willard tired. Driving by Rock Springs I saw the restaurant where I had eaten breakfast with the trucker. Now I was on my way home. I was healed. Willard was dying. Then a crazy notion crossed my mind that he was dying so that I could live; that delivering me was to be his final act. I’d probably be there tomorrow. We switched off again. I got out my map.
“Which way do we go?” Willard asked almost cheerfully.
“Well, we could stay on 80 all the way to Des Moines and then head north – or we could go north from Cheyenne to the Black Hills and then take 90 across.”
“Isn’t that were that guy is carving that Indian out of a mountain?”
“Crazy Horse – yes, that’s in the Black Hills.”
“I’d like to see that,” Willard said, “I watched a show about it one time. They use dynamite to blast away the rock.”
“Okay, that’s the way we’ll go.”
Setting our sights on Crazy Horse renewed Willard’s energy. He talked for a while, reminiscing, and then slept again. I stopped somewhere north of Cheyenne and slept a few hours. We arrived at Crazy Horse early – the gate was still locked.
“Oh well, Willard said, “You can see it pretty good from here.”
He didn’t want to hang around so we carried on. Driving through South Dakota reminded me of a trip I had taken with the family when I was a kid – the Wall Drug signs, the Corn Palace in Mitchell.
As we crossed into Minnesota I told Willard that I had grown up in Austin and explained that my parents still lived there, and that I wanted to stop and see them. We got into town sometime after midnight. It was hard saying goodbye to him.
“I’ll be fine – go see your parents.”
“Take care of yourself Willard.”
The tears came as I walked up the driveway. I watched as the lights of the Nissan disappeared. The night air was cool and delicious. I slipped in the back door. I remember being down in the laundry room, trying to be quiet, rolling a joint, when my mom came in.
“I heard you took a little trip.”
“Yeah, it turned into quite a trip.”
‘What are you doing?”
“Rolling a joint.”
“Where’d you get that,” she asked looking super close at the weed I was deseeding because she didn’t have her contact lenses in.
“From a trucker in Missouri.”
“Oh,” she said.
By Martin Wageman
I crawled to my brother’s room and woke him up.
“What da ya want?” he said rubbing his eyes.
“You gotta take me to the hospital.”
“For what?”
I showed him my ankle. As soon as he saw it his face changed, his eyes popped, his mouth fell open, and then he looked me in the eyes.
“What the hell happened?”
*
Summer had finally arrived after my freshman year of college. The pressure of finals was behind me and I felt like I was starting to belong in La Crosse. I was growing up. Walking over to the brewery in the evening, I was happy to have a job, good friends, a girlfriend, and a future. The air was warm and pleasant and the day’s last light was still in the sky. In the course of the night I finished my homework in the front guard shack – I had enrolled in a summer computer science class – and then, while on outside rounds, I drank a few beers with one of the union workers in the Malt Plant break room. In the morning I walked home, content and tired, and went to bed.
I had the next night off and we partied. We partied on Third Street until the bars closed and then went to a house party. I remember Pickle J was with me. He always had a smile on his face and a beer in his hand. Towards morning, when we were leaving the house, a guy I worked with, Claw, decided it would be fun to tackle me. We were drunk. He was good and drunk. I thought it was funny too, until I couldn’t get up. Pickle J got me home. I must have passed out for a few hours because I remember waking up in my room. My ankle was the size of a cantaloupe.
*
They couldn’t put a cast on it right away because of the swelling, so I hobbled around on crutches. I went to work and sat in the back guard shack. I was shattered. Claw felt terrible. A few hours later, Les Johnson, the sergeant, comes into the guard shack and tells me that he can’t have me working with a broken ankle. It took me a while to crutch home. I remember the tears rolling down my cheek. I went from shattered to devastated. Water skiing was finished for the summer, and now work.
The next day my girlfriend calls and says she can’t see me anymore – something about reconciliation with her old boyfriend. Great. Later in the day, when I went to file for unemployment, the woman behind the desk tells me that I don’t qualify because I’m not physically able to work. She never said a word about filing for disability. Without income I couldn’t possibly pay my tuition, so I dropped out of school.
A few days earlier my brother had come home with this black puppy and I remember hobbling down to the neighborhood park with the little guy in tow. I never went to that park, but today I had nothing else to do. I couldn’t just sit in that house. Suddenly, everything was gone.
Several days later I was fitted with a walking cast. I remember being at the checkout counter at Quillin’s, the local grocery store, with my roommate Dino – there was a rack of maps there – so I took a map of the United States and put it with the groceries we were buying. Dino gave me a look, but didn’t say anything.
The next morning, after everyone was out of the house, I dumped the books out of my backpack and put in some cloths and other things I thought I might need, and the map, and my toothbrush. Then I wrote a note about going to see the sandpipers. I had read a story in a Reader’s Digest over at the brewery, before I got kicked out, about a kid who was sick, and all he wanted to do was to go and see the sandpipers running on the beach. I knew Dino had also read the story. I left the note on the desk in my room and then walked down to the Cass Street Bridge, the bridge that spans the Mississippi, and started hitchhiking.
I can’t even remember the first ride, but I know they got me out to La Crescent. Then another took me to the Winona turnoff. Then a trucker dropped me off in Austin, my hometown. I didn’t want my parents to know what was up so I called Peach, a high school buddy that I knew was home for the summer, to come and pick me up. We partied – or my friends partied – I just drank, the beers having no effect on my mood, at another friend’s, Bob, that night. I borrowed two-hundred dollars from Bob. In order to get the money I had to tell him my rough plan. I insisted that he keep it to himself.
My parents were leaving on a motorcycle trip that morning, but when I got to the house they were still there. I think my mom could tell that I was depressed. They probably just thought I was back in Austin to use their house for some parties. Why I even went to the house, I don’t know. I left a few hours after they did.
Walking the couple of blocks down to highway 218, I reminisced about delivering papers to the houses that I was passing by. Then, a few minutes after sticking my thumb out, two guys that I had gone to high school with pulled over. They were just driving around, so without anything better to do they drove me down to Lyle.
My destination was Iowa City, or West Branch to be more precise, to Uncle Willy’s house. Willy had hitchhiked around the US a few years back and I figured he could give me some good advice. I had several rides through Iowa. I remember a guy in a Cadillac, the car super clean and air conditioned, and then there was a young kid who produced a nice bag of weed from under the dash and got me stoned. Just after the kid dropped me off a State Trooper pulled up. Here we go, I thought. But he didn’t hassle me, rather, he gave me a ride about thirty miles to a better location. This was in 1980 mind you; I don’t think it would happen these days. Luckily, I was in Iowa City by supper time and called Willy.
I chilled out at his house for a few days. My cousin John was there helping Willy for the summer. John had gotten a finger in the table saw and his hand was bandaged up, but he still had a smile on his face. I remember sleeping under the stars on the back deck. When it was time to move on I got a few phone numbers and addresses of relatives from Willy and headed for St. Louis.
I had a bunch of rides. I was young and clean cut, with only a small pack, and I always faced traffic so that drivers could get a good look at me. I went at it aggressively, staying up close to the white line, arm straight out, thumb flying, with eyes focused on the target. I’ve always believed that if you want something in life you have to work for it.
The cast worked wonders too. I’d stick it out there, people would stop, I’d get in, and then on the way I’d explain how it happened. I’d end up telling the story dozens of times in the next few weeks. Everything was going good, I started to relax, I was riding with an older gentleman who was on his way to a cabin in Kentucky. I got out my map.
But then that night the old buzzard got weird. Luckily, we were stopped at a gas station when he made his move, so I just told him to f**k off and got out. It was around midnight. I tried to hitchhike, holding my flashlight up to my face so passersby could see me. I didn’t work. I was rattled. I slept under a bridge, or tried to anyway. I was uncomfortable, questioning myself again, and the traffic noise never ceased.
In the morning I gathered myself, found some breakfast, and got back on the road. That afternoon I was at Uncle Jim’s in St. Louis, a guy had dropped me right at his house. But when I knocked no one answered, so I wrote them a note, popped it in their mailbox, and continued on.
I wanted to see the ocean, the beach – those sandpipers the kid was talking about – so I set my sights on Galveston. But then somewhere south of St. Louis I got stuck, I couldn’t get a ride, and it was incredible hot, well over a hundred degrees I found out later. So I walked to a gas station and tried to cool off. I didn’t know what to do. I asked a friendly looking couple for a ride. At first the man hesitated, but then said, “Yeah sure, jump in.” So I did. They were heading north. I didn’t care.
I had been quietly riding with them for some time when the guy explained that up ahead they would be veering off to the east. I had no desire to head east, so, without thinking or consulting my map, I asked to be let out. I ended up getting dropped off were two freeways intersected in the middle of nowhere. I think it was 57 and 70, in Illinois. All of the on and off ramps were high speed. There were no frontage roads. I followed a long, sweeping transitional ramp to get to the westbound lanes of I-70. Exhausted and drenched with sweat, I finally arrived at a place where I could put out my thumb. Traffic flew by at top speed. It was hot as hell.
No one stopped. There was nowhere to walk to. I was crushed. I shouldn’t have gotten out where I did, I cursed myself. My thoughts drifted to La Crosse – the house, bare-ass beach, the bars – and I dreamed of being back there. I wished I could be anywhere except where I was. Then I got out my black electrical tape and wrote the word HELP vertically on my cast.
All of a sudden I noticed a big rig pulling off onto the shoulder. Is he stopping for me, I thought? It took him a long time to come to a stop. I stood dumbfounded. And then he was out of the cab waving the full length of his arm as if to say, “Come on, let’s go.” It took me an eternity to cover the distance to his truck. He was standing in the shade alongside the trailer, laughing.
“I couldn’t make it to church today, so I figured I pick up a cripple on the highway,” he said as I came closer. It was Sunday. I was spent and speechless. He was still laughing.
He opened the passenger door of the cab and helped me up. As he climbed in he asked, “So, where ya headed?”
“I don’t know,” I answered.
That sent him into hysterics. Then I heard the air brakes release and watched as he went through the gears. He was looking in the side mirror, checking oncoming traffic as he brought the truck up to merging speed.
“Well, you’re in luck kid,” he said as the laughter subsided, “I don’t know where I’m going either.” When he had the truck settled into traffic he introduced himself as Frank and asked, “Do you smoke?” He was holding up a joint.
I nodded and said, “Man, you saved my life.”
He tossed me the joint and a lighter. I can’t remember if there was AC or not, but it was cool in the cab of that truck. He was headed for Springfield, Missouri. After we finished the joint I got out my map and found Springfield. I smiled. I was alive again.
We sailed through St. Louis again. At least I did. My savior had me roll two more joints, one for him and one for me, so we wouldn’t have to pass one back and forth. I remember it took me a long time. He had given me a clipboard for deseeding the weed, but my seat, unlike his air-ride, was fixed to the chassis and I was bouncing all over the place. I remember trying to catch all the seeds, and when he saw me doing it he said, “Don’t worry about it. They can’t search my truck – this is my home – they need a warrant to search it.”
I told him my story and he told me many of his; and many hours later in Springfield he pulled off the freeway onto the shoulder. “See that building right there?” he said pointing, “You can get a good room there for ten bucks.”
I thanked him and was about to alight when he said, “Wait.” He took his bag of weed, and taking a healthy pinch, put it into an envelope. Then he added several rolling papers. “Here, take this,” he said.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Take it – for the road.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Good luck,” he said smiling.
Tears came to my eyes as I watched the truck pull away. I believed in God. I had been riding with him most of the day.
When the truck was out of sight I found a way around the freeway fence and walked to the motel. It was dusk and the air had cooled. He was right about the price of a room. I spent a long time in the shower and then went for something to eat.
*
When I woke up I didn’t know where I was. Then I remembered. It was dark in the room, and when I opened the door, the sunlight came flooding in. It was still early. Then, as I was walking across the parking lot, a man asked me, “Which way ya headed?”
“West,” I said.
“Get in.”
My recovery was well under way.
He took me to Joplin. Then I remember going through Ft. Scott, Kansas. A black man had picked me up and I had asked him how far he was going. “Ft. Scott,” he had said with a noticeable accent, “I’m going to Ft. Scott.”
I worked the two lane highways up to I-70 where a guy about my age picked me up. His vehicle was packed with stuff. “I’m moving to Hays,” he announced. He moved some of his belongings around to make room for me. An hour in, he produced a joint.
Early the next morning a big Plymouth towing a trailered Harley pulled over. The driver, RJ, was a rough looking guy, but he was friendly. A short distance later we stopped to pick up his buddy Steve. Another Harley was loaded as well as Satan, a big black Rottweiler. Satan rode on an old door that was positioned between the bikes. When we got up to speed on the freeway Satan’s mouth would open up in the strong wind. His cheeks and lips would flap all around. It was hilarious. Satan didn’t seem to mind.
The guys were roughnecks heading to Cheyenne, Wyoming. They had one of those big round metal water coolers in the back. I sat next to it. It was filled with cans of beer. We started cracking them around 9 AM. An hour or so later we stopped at Steve’s mom’s place. They visited, and Satan and I hung out. When they came back Steve had a plastic bread bag filled with sandwiches.
We roared across the flats of Colorado – drinking beer, smoking joints and listening to loud rock n’ roll – Satan’s cheeks fully inflated – and then slept in the car outside of Denver. In the morning we drove into the city and visited the Harley dealer. The boys bought a lot gear and parts. On the way up I-25 we stopped for gas. After taking a leak, I went in and bought a case of beer and a bag of ice. I got about a twelve pack in the cooler. As we drank the cold ones I replaced them with the warm ones. I could see the whole country just looking out the window.
I didn’t want it to end, but soon we were in Cheyenne and saying goodbye. They wouldn’t take any gas money. “Hitchhikers don’t pay gas money,” one of them laughingly scoffed. They were really good guys, decent guys, wild boys as free as the wind, willing to share what they had with whoever crossed their path. I was lonely the instant they drove away.
But not for long, a big rig had pulled over. I was on my way to Rock Springs. I checked the map. He was an older fella and we talked, or he talked mostly, and I listened. He had opinions about almost everything. I could tell he was kind of lonely. We stopped and washed his truck. He gave me a roll of quarters and I feed them into the machine when he told me to. He had an acreage outside of Rock Springs. We stopped to eat supper, he insisted on paying, and then went out to his place. He let me crash in the sleeper of his truck while he went into a little trailer for the night. It was dark when we got out there so I didn’t see the place until morning.
We had breakfast at a diner then he dropped me at the Interstate. I got a few short rides. Then, later that morning, a pickup with Oregon plates passed me. I tried to get his attention – I tried to get everyone’s attention – but I really tried to get his. I knew he saw me, but he cruised on by. I got a few more short rides. Then, low and behold, here he comes again. I jumped up and down. I jumped up and down as good as a guy with a cast on his leg could. I waved my arms. He pulled over.
Getting in, I said, “Thanks, I really appreciate it.” I didn’t ask right away, I contained myself for at least a minute. I introduced myself. He told me his name. “Are you going to Oregon?”
“Yeah, Portland. Where are you headed?”
“Portland.”
He gave me one of those what-have-I-gotten-myself-into looks and said, “Well, I’ll get you to Salt Lake, maybe farther, but no promises. I want to make a few stops along the way.”
“Salt Lake’s fine – whatever you can do for me.”
He was on his way home from a road trip in which he was looking for potential places to relocate. When I told him that I was from La Crosse he said that he had been there, and liked the area. He quizzed me for details and the miles rolled by. Salt Lake came and went. We camped somewhere in Idaho. In the morning I called my Aunt Mary. She lived in Portland.
“Mary, it’s Marty…hey I’m on a little road trip and I was wondering if I could stop by for a few days – I already have a ride to Portland….”
The guy gave me a ride right to their door. I remember it was super early, like six-thirty, we had driven all night – he wanted to get home. I didn’t want to knock on the door, but Mary was up already and opened the door before I had to. She made me breakfast and we chatted. I told her about my adventure. The kids were still in bed, so after the eggs and toast I went downstairs and slept for a while. I woke up in the presence of three very curious, rambunctious kids. Mary said they couldn’t wait for me to open my eyes.
I spent a couple of fun days with them, just relaxing and resting up, sleeping in a bed and taking a shower every day. It was hard with that stupid cast on. I had a shave. Danny, who was probably five or six then, ran into the guide wire of a telephone pole and cut his head. I accompanied Mary and Danny to the ER. On the way home Danny was already smiling and laughing, saying, “I have a hole in my head, I have a hole in my head.”
Mt. Saint Helens had blown her top that May and Julie, Janae, and Danny showed me their coffee cans of ash that they had harvested from their yard. That evening Stan, Mary’s husband, came home with a new station wagon. The kids went wild. The next morning I got to check out the new ride with Mary and the gang when they dropped me off at the freeway.
It was tough getting out of Portland – a few short hops – but then this bareback American Indian with long flowing black hair riding a Motto Guzzi stopped and offered me a ride. I remember his long hair whipping me in the face, and me, trying to keep that cast on the foot peg. He took me to the Tillamook cheese factory. We went on the tour. He told me about the time he had hitched around the US without a dime in his pocket and the generosity of the people he encountered. At the end of the tour he bought me several long strands of smoked beef. He insisted that I take them, and after wishing me good luck, rode off into the distance like a warrior on an iron horse.
After another short ride I was at the ocean. I smelt it first, then heard it, and then actually saw the waves rolling in. That ocean took me for a ride. I took my shoe off and walked on the beach. It was mostly deserted. I hobbled a ways, then sat down in the dry sand and cried. After the tears dried I got back up and walked. There were gulls and other birds, but no sandpipers. I learned later that they were migratory birds – they would be up in Alaska during the summer. It didn’t matter.
That night I slept on the sand under a little bridge. My leg was itching like crazy so I got out a screwdriver that I had in my pack for some unknown reason and punched air holes about four inches down from the top of the cast. It helped a little. In the morning I was alarmed to see the water right next to me. I had not considered the change in tide.
It was just after dawn and I found myself ravenous. I stumbled across a woman working in a restaurant – it wasn’t open yet – but she invited me inside and gave me a bowl of clam chowder. It was warm and delicious. When I finished I wanted to pay her but she said, “That’s yesterday’s chowder, you don’t have to pay for that. There’s more – would you like some more?” I couldn’t refuse.
Up on the coast road traffic was sparse. I started walking some. I had gotten the cast a little wet walking on the beach and the rubber footpad was starting to come loose, so I got out the black tape and wound it around a few times to tighten it up. It was pretty sorry looking. I walked some more. The skin under the cast was itching like crazy. I had a little piece of wire in my pack and I got it down in there to scratch. Then a Volkswagen Beetle came by. I jumped to my feet and waved my arms over my head and watched the car getting smaller. Then it slowed and pulled over.
“I usually don’t stop for hitchhikers,” the woman said, “but you seem to really need a ride.”
“Thanks – I do,” I said getting in.
She was a few years older than me, and beautiful, with long blonde hair and soft features. We talked a little, she was rather quiet, she told me that she had been visiting her sister and now she was on her way home. For awhile it seemed like we were the only souls around, driving through the trees on that small road. Then she asked if I liked to smoke. She pulled out her stash and handed it to me. It was sticky green bud, some of the first I had ever seen. Five minutes later I was comatose.
After sometime, she stopped and said that she was heading inland from here. I realized I needed to get out. I was still stoned to the bone. I don’t recall what happen next. I do remember that the going was slow, short rides, long waits, so I decided to make my way to I-5. I spent the night in Yreka, California.
In the morning I walked to the freeway. There I found three other people on the ramp waiting for rides. The girl in the Beetle had warned me not to hitch up on the freeway itself in California – “You’ll get a ticket,” she had said. So I waited, fourth in line. It was an hour before the first person caught a break. Another hour went by before I realized this wasn’t going to work. There was no way I would make it down the coast at this pace. Defeated, I walked back to the Greyhound station and bought a ticket for Reno. It cost thirty-three dollars, about as much money as I’d managed to spent thus far on the trip.
I remember seeing Mt. Shasta bathed in the last light of the setting sun as we cruised down I-5. There was a transfer in Sacramento during the wee hours of the morning. I entertained myself by watching the strange characters and other weirdness around the terminal, and then I slept, arriving in Reno at six in the morning. I walked to the freeway. The first guy that stopped had obviously been partying all night.
“Wanna party?” he said, “I’m into anything,” he added.
I asked him to drop me at the edge of town.
Then I got a fast ride to Winnemucca. That’s where I met Willard. I had gone over to a gas station on the opposite side of the road for something to drink and was only half way back, standing in the median, when a car pulls over. I wasn’t sure if it had pulled over for me because I hadn’t even stuck my thumb out yet.
“Are you looking for a ride?” the guy asks getting out of his car.
“Yeah.”
When I got over to his car, a little Nissan, he was cleaning off the front seat. He was pretty rough looking; unshaven, yellow teeth, dirty. The ashtray was overflowing. There was a carton of Winstons on the dash.
“I’m Willard,” he said getting back in, “Where ya headed?”
“Salt Lake,” I said. I’d gotten into the habit of just rattling off the next major city.
“I can get you there,” he said, “I’m on my way to Wisconsin Dells to see my brother.”
“Wisconsin Dells,” I said, “I’m on my way to La Crosse, Wisconsin.”
“Well hell, you can ride with me all the way if you want,” he said with enthusiasm and a smile.
Standing on the freeway that morning in Reno I figured it would take about a week to get back to the Midwest. Now, suddenly, I had a ride all the way.
“My name’s Marty,” I told Willard.
“Do you want a beer, Marty?”
“Sure, why not.”
“There’s a twelve pack on the back seat. Grab me one too.”
We fell into conversation as Willard tooled down I-80. I remember the beer being warm and not very enjoyable. He seemed a little edgy, distracted sort of, smoking cigarette after cigarette. Sometimes he’d gradually slow down, cars passing us up, and then he’d realize it and speed up again. After the next town he asked, “Can you drive?” He was looking at my cast. His Nissan had a manual transmission.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
So he pulled over and I got behind the wheel.
Then, as I am bringing the car up to speed and merging, he says, “Marty, I got something to tell you.” But he doesn’t tell me what he has to tell me. I’m busy looking in the side mirror and going through the gears. When I get the car into traffic I ask, “What is it Willard?”
“I’m dying.”
I looked over at him. He was trembling.
“I got cancer. I just found out last week. The doc says I got three months to live.”
I was speechless. A big knot welled up in my throat. I stared through the windshield. Then I swallowed and said, “Man, I’m sorry.”
“So I’m going to see my brother before I die. All I want to do is see my brother before I die. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“Does he know?” I heard myself ask.
“No. I just called him and said I was coming for a visit. I’ll have to tell him when I get there. How long do you think it will take us to get there?”
“If we drive straight through – maybe a day and a half.”
“I’ve never driven across the country before,” Willard explained, “In fact, I’ve never been out of California, Nevada and Oregon.”
Once he opened up it all came pouring out of him. He told me where he was from – Sacramento – that he worked as an auto mechanic – and that he had never married. When he found out that he had cancer he quit his job, loaded up his tools – there was this massive tool chest in the back of the Nissan, it was a hatchback – and called his brother. I listened and drove. Pretty soon he was sleeping.
I just kept driving and thinking, thinking about Willard, thinking about how fragile we humans can be, and how quickly things can change. I thought about how I had changed over the last couple of weeks. Sometimes it’s cruel what the world dishes out, things we have no control over. And then I thought about how we change ourselves, what we do to ourselves, how we treat out bodies, and how we treat our minds, how we make decisions and the things we teach ourselves, and the things we learn along the way. My problems were nothing compared to the man I was sitting next to.
Soon the Nissan’s gas gauge was reading empty. I pulled into a filling station. Willard woke up.
“I guess I dozed off. I get tired easy now. I used to be a strong man,” he said.
He allowed me to pump the gas but would let me pay for it. And he felt like driving again. I bought a bag of ice and fashioned a makeshift cooler.
“Doc says I have three month unless they cut on me. I don’t want them to cut on me. I don’t believe in all that,” Willard went on.
Salt Lake came and went. I reflected back on my westbound journey. Willard tired. Driving by Rock Springs I saw the restaurant where I had eaten breakfast with the trucker. Now I was on my way home. I was healed. Willard was dying. Then a crazy notion crossed my mind that he was dying so that I could live; that delivering me was to be his final act. I’d probably be there tomorrow. We switched off again. I got out my map.
“Which way do we go?” Willard asked almost cheerfully.
“Well, we could stay on 80 all the way to Des Moines and then head north – or we could go north from Cheyenne to the Black Hills and then take 90 across.”
“Isn’t that were that guy is carving that Indian out of a mountain?”
“Crazy Horse – yes, that’s in the Black Hills.”
“I’d like to see that,” Willard said, “I watched a show about it one time. They use dynamite to blast away the rock.”
“Okay, that’s the way we’ll go.”
Setting our sights on Crazy Horse renewed Willard’s energy. He talked for a while, reminiscing, and then slept again. I stopped somewhere north of Cheyenne and slept a few hours. We arrived at Crazy Horse early – the gate was still locked.
“Oh well, Willard said, “You can see it pretty good from here.”
He didn’t want to hang around so we carried on. Driving through South Dakota reminded me of a trip I had taken with the family when I was a kid – the Wall Drug signs, the Corn Palace in Mitchell.
As we crossed into Minnesota I told Willard that I had grown up in Austin and explained that my parents still lived there, and that I wanted to stop and see them. We got into town sometime after midnight. It was hard saying goodbye to him.
“I’ll be fine – go see your parents.”
“Take care of yourself Willard.”
The tears came as I walked up the driveway. I watched as the lights of the Nissan disappeared. The night air was cool and delicious. I slipped in the back door. I remember being down in the laundry room, trying to be quiet, rolling a joint, when my mom came in.
“I heard you took a little trip.”
“Yeah, it turned into quite a trip.”
‘What are you doing?”
“Rolling a joint.”
“Where’d you get that,” she asked looking super close at the weed I was deseeding because she didn’t have her contact lenses in.
“From a trucker in Missouri.”
“Oh,” she said.
Monday, June 14, 2010
June 14
This is a story I wrote three years ago.
June Fourteenth
Al is a crazy guy with a crazy roof, which he has employed me to mend. I don’t exactly seek roofing jobs but this being a continuation of other work I’ve done around here I’ve accepted it. I’m free to come and go as I need to, the view’s not bad, and it pays cash. Al’s an ass.
By mid-morning the heat has driven me to the shade given by the branches of a large spruce tree growing next to the house. After drinking some water, splashing some over my head, replacing my hat, and letting my breathing return to normal, my mind, idle now from the task, begins questioning me. Where are you Marty? Where are you on your time map?
“It’s June 14th,” I offer for conversation, not expecting a response.
“Where were you last year on this day, June the 14th? What were you doing?”
“And two years ago today?”
“Five years ago?”
“Ten?”
From Al’s roof I can see the Animas River flowing; it’s rafting season and I watch the boats float by. They’re twenty degrees cooler than I am. Next to the river run the tracks of the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway. Every morning the trains belch plumes of black smoke and blow their whistles for the 32nd Street crossing.
Watching the seen unfold from up there I start thinking about it. I can remember some. Last year I was building a spec house in Bayfield. Martina was eight days old. We were home from the hospital, I was back at work, my mother had returned home.
After running a few more rows of shingles I went down to my truck for and orange and something more to drink. My notebook was there in the front seat so I took it back up on the roof and started making a list.
I noted 2006, feeling again my daughter in my heart, thanking God, and then for 2005 I wrote “Building House in Forest Lakes.” It was my first spec house. I remember being nervous. I was inexperienced and had all my money invested in that project. My partner was turning into a boss.
I watched a couple pedal by on their bikes. Across the street the sidewalk runs along the tracks and the river. People walk their dogs, jog, walk themselves, stroll, and talk on their cell phones. Some of them notice me on Al’s roof; some are surprised, some could care a less, some wave, some don’t, one guy even said “hello up there”.
I wrote the numbers 2004, 2003, then, 2002 - “Missionary Ridge Fire.” Five years ago that fire would flare up every afternoon. We hadn’t been evacuated yet. I stood up and looked at the ridge. I could see it from Al’s roof. After evacuation we stayed at the Comfort Inn just down the street from Al’s. I didn’t know where to go. I remembered watching the helicopters and water bombers and thinking my new house is on fire.
“Its toast; its gone,” I said to my wife. She didn’t say anything.
Imagine staying at a hotel in your own town, eating restaurant meals, waiting, your material treasures - pictures, writing, and the what-not, thrown in the back of your old van which you managed to get down the mountain into town, waiting and watching, using the laundry mat, still waiting - and you, yelling at your wife for no reason and your wife yelling back at you, and your almost-one-year-old child looking at the both of you, not knowing what to do.
Looking north from Al’s you can see the traffic on Main Street, the traffic coming and going to and from Mac’s Liquor, and the chaos in the City Market parking lot. After the vehicles finally find a parking spot you can watch the shoppers hustling about their business, most unaware of a carpenter watching them from Al’s roof. If the wind is right I can smell donuts in the morning, then the fried chicken.
For 2001 I wrote “Pregnant with Rock/Durango Hills house being built.” Rock was our first child. My dad’s nickname was Rock. In my mind’s eye I saw a picture of the foundation of the house. But after I had thought about it, that picture was from later in the summer, after Rock was born. On June 14th we were still clearing trees.
In 2001 we were living in the condo in town, I was working at the Millworks; we were newly married, new to Durango, excited and nervous, looking forward, planning the future, me measuring our progress. I was adjusting from single guy to family man.
I had to go down for more shingles. I try to get a days supply on the roof right away in the morning, but even today, with all the day dreaming, I‘d ran them already. I ordered the beast of burden in me to haul a few more bundles up the ladder. “When those are finished you’re going home,” I said to myself. Sweat pouring, I retired again to the dwindling shade.
On this day in the year 2000 I was in San Diego with Erna. Erna is my Balinese wife. We had just returned from Bali. Or I guess I had just returned; it was her first trip to America. We met in 1998 when I was traveling in Indonesia. After that we wrote love letters for eighteen months; no phone calls, no e-mail, just the letters. So there we were at my old house in San Diego seeing if it would all work out. I could see us there, and Scott, our good friend, and that house, and the backyard, and I realized I could examine that point in time for a long time so I pushed my memory along.
For 1999 I couldn’t think of anything special. For 1998 I wrote “Alaska Trip.” I had climbed into my old Ford van and drove to Minnesota to pick up my mom and my brother Marco. Marco and I had been talking about it. My dad died in 1994 so I invited my mom to come along. I hadn’t exactly told Marco. We put an easy chair in the back of the van and drove to Fairbanks. They flew home from Anchorage and I drove back to San Diego. Eleven thousand miles – it made me smile remembering it. I was teary-eyed running the next three rows. It was getting really hot now.
For 1997 I had to think a minute. That was the summer I went to Africa. I had landed in Johannesburg on the 6th I think. So I figured by the 14th I was in Malawi. But I could still have been at Victoria Falls. I know it was early July when I climbed Kilimanjaro. “God that was ten years ago already,” I said to myself out loud. I wrote the number 10 next to the year 1997.
I was getting quite involved in the memories now and I thought I need to start writing this story. I used to write some, when I was single. I imagined getting home and telling my wife and kids I needed to have a little quiet time so I could sit at the computer and write a story. “For what”? I can hear my wife saying. “Are you done yet?” my son would ask, waiting to get online.
For 1996 I wrote “China?” I thought about the courier flights I’d made.
Express companies check their mail as luggage on regular commercial flights. They simply buy a seat on the plane for the checked baggage. But the airline requires that someone occupy the seat. Courier companies sell these seats on the open market. The closer to takeoff the cheaper the seats get. Last Minute Specials they call them. They need a body.
In the mid nineties I was a freelance accounting consultant, single, and travel thirsty. Many flights left LAX for Asia. The company had a hotline for Last Minute Specials. Off I’d go to Singapore for $325; Hong Kong for $275; to Beijing for $300. Ten or twelve days later I’d be back in San Diego.
I pondered that part of my history. I had finished my Masters in December of ’95 and that was when the whole courier thing started. I’d flown to Hong Kong and traveled to Yangshuo in June of either ‘96 or ‘97. I had made a run to Beijing and then out to Lhasa and back, but I couldn’t decide which year that was either. But if I had been in Africa in ’97 it must have been in ’96.
I put on my hat and entered the heat. I try to keep the shingles in the shade too, but there is only so much to go around. These had had sunshine and were limp; easy to cut, hot to handle. I work fast; lining up the shingle, firing the staple gun; lining, firing; the compressor kicking on. It’s so hot now about ten minutes is it.
I drank and splashed and then sat for a minute. I took a look at where I was. I couldn’t think of anything for ’95, ’94, or’93 except living in San Diego, university, and hang gliding. I was addicted to flying from ’87 until marriage.
I went down the ladder and walked over to City Market. The automatic doors opened and I entered the air conditioned. The produce in the produce department was worth a look but not worth staring at. After using the restroom I went back to check out the discounted meat; my normal routine. There was nothing today, so I went for a gallon of water, another scan of the talent, or would be, grabbed a banana, and checked out.
After another session I reviewed the list. In the summer of 2003 I went to China on business for the Millworks. We were outsourcing product and I visited the factories in Yanji and Harbin. We had driven to Minnesota the week before the family reunion, Erna and Rock stayed at my mom’s and I caught a flight out of Minneapolis. I couldn’t decide if that trip was in the middle of June or later in the summer. I do vividly remember coming home with presents, clothing and art work, arriving late and being in the kitchen of the house that I had grown up in. I could check the dates in my passport, I thought.
For 1992 I wrote “Back from South America – Up North fishing.”
I was hooked on the memory quiz now. Visions of fishing with my dad and my brothers, my dad’s boat, the lake, the water skiing, the sun on the lake, the small waves when the wind came up, the dock, my mom in the cabin, my brothers’ kids on the little sand beach, and my brother with his cast on, all flashed through my mind’s eye. He had fallen off the castle wall in Cartagena.
Four of us had gone down to South America for six months; my bother Marco, a couple of college buddies and I. Up and down the Andes we went. From the mountains we saw the roof tops of Quito and Cuzco, La Paz and Santiago, and the beautiful people who lived under them. Then it was just Marco and I in Brazil, the Amazon, Venezuela and then Cartagena. I’ll never forget that.
I noted that that was 15 years ago. Noting that cast me back to the present. Visions of my wife and kids flashed. My work was right in front of me. “Keep going Dude, keep going,” the inner voice urged, and I obeyed.
I visited City Market again. If you are in one place for a while and develop a routine and there are those around you who are about their daily business, you notice them and they notice you. While working on Al’s roof I was in City Market two or three times a day. When you are current circulation you know the faces and the names and you converse while you are transacting. I was so focused on my past, I wasn’t talking today. The topic was too long and involved for a grocery store conversation.
I recorded nothing for ’91 or ’90. 1989 was the World Tour. I circled the globe; India, Everest; Thailand, China and the USSR. By June 14th I would have experienced Tiananmen. Not first hand, but the repercussions that rocked China. I first witnessed the demonstrations in Hong Kong. I didn’t know what was up, nor did the world. Everyone was more concerned with a cyclone that was blowing through. I was in Xian when the tragedies of June 4th occurred. Everyone I was traveling with fled the county; I went to Beijing. Scenes of it flashed from my memory, a story in itself, the unreal reality I witnessed there. So was I still in Beijing or on the Trans-Siberian on June 14th 1989? I wasn’t quite sure. At that point in my life I got on that train, barely, and instantly met Jacsik. We drank his vodka until Irkutsk. And that is also another story. I could have relived that event on Al’s roof but I knew if I dove into it the shingling would not continue.
There was ’88 then ’87. I wrote “Santee- Home Owner and Hang gliding lessons”. I may have already mentioned the hang gliding. It all began in 1987. We bought the house, I quiet my job and I began learning to fly. I thought about launching and landing my first hang glider. You don’t start flying until later. You launch, and three seconds later you land. Then you walk your glider fifty feet back up the grassy slope for another go. Again you hook in, launch, land or crash, and then carry your wings back up again. If the wind is right, you, and the other students, continue all afternoon, dreaming of the day you will soar.
That had all transpired twenty years ago in June of 1987 under the California sun. Scott still owns and lives in that house. The family and I stay with him on our trips to Bali.
I was so drunk on the memories I had to return to task for fear of falling off Al’s roof. The heat was fierce. My tears evaporated in seconds as they lit on the asphalt, but that did not stop them from coming.
From Al’s roof I can see the City Market employees in the parking lot collecting carts. I knew when they went on break, where they smoke their cigarettes, and they could see me working, or sitting, on Al’s roof. Many of them have known Al’s roof for more June 14ths than I have.
For ’86 I wrote “L.A.”. I was working in Los Angeles, the beginning of my accounting career. I could remember some things but nothing I felt like dwelling on. For ’85 I noted “Europe – Dino and Ziggy”. I had spent the past year studying at the University of Grenoble in the French Alps. Ziggy is my brother Marco, and Dino, a good friend of ours. They had come over and we raced around. We met in Paris; saw Springsteen in Saint Etienne; then tandem hang gliding flights; glacier skiing, and a night train to somewhere. I should look at the slides of that summer I thought, I should show them to Erna.
The inhabitants of Al’s palace are not only he and his spouse. There are dogs, cats, renters and guests of Lou’s B&B. It is the traffic of people and animals going out and returning. Cats cruise the high ground and there are crows in the trees smart about the opportunities that City Market presents. I used to soar with crows in the thermals above Horse Canyon in California. They are smart animals and great flyers.
Sometimes I would see the renters going about there daily business and they would measure my progress. “Looks good,” they’d say. Al’s wife agreed. Al was not so forthcoming. I couldn’t imagine the guests returning.
For 1984 I put down “Leaving for Europe”. I was still in the States on June 14th, excited for the big trip, talking it up to everyone, all nervous inside.
Then I heard the grown of the tow plane’s engine. I looked up and spotted the sailplane under tow. The glider port is just up highway 550. I could see the activity almost every day from Al’s roof. I missed flying.
In June and July of 1983 I traveled through Mexico with my friend Art. We drove his dad’s truck from Texas to Cancun and back. I had spent the summer of 1982 in Europe partying and seeing the sights with a group of students. I was starting to feel pretty fortunate for myself. The feeling gave me the strength to continue.
After that session I considered packing up. I had to sit really close to the end of the gable to keep my head and bare torso out of the sun. I finished my water and looked at the list. I wrote the number ‘81 then ’80 followed by “Hitchhiking.” It was the summer after my first year of college. We partied every night and one of those nights a friend of mine decided to tackle me, which I thought was funny, until I couldn’t get up. Three days later I was in a walking cast, out of work, and seriously depressed. A week later I was silently on the road. I didn’t even know who Jack Kerouac was then. A month later I had traveled five thousand miles and had cleared my head. Standing on the highway waiting for a ride gives a guy a lot of time to think about things. Thanks to all of you who stopped.
Al’s roof has so many dimensions and planes and contours and transitions and beginnings and endings it is truly a landscape. You just need to climb a ladder to get there. Its part of Durango and people I talk to know about it. Tourists can see it from the train and catch glimpses of it from the river. Parts of it are growing and parts are in decay. Some things are Al, some are previous to Al, and some of the creations are things Al could not bring himself to attempt on his own – thus the hired guy on his roof dreaming of the future by examining his past.
The layers of material will tell their own story. If I knew of all the June 14ths of the house I am standing on I might tell you about them but it would be best if you were here, like me, seeing it and letting her tell her own story. There have been those who have come before me, but today it is I who am here.
Soon the heat is too great. I wipe the sweat and gather my tools. Up and down the ladder I go. My June 14th at Al’s is complete.
For some years I couldn’t remember. I could recollect where I was living or traveling, or working, what sports I was crazy about, and who I may have been sleeping with, but I couldn’t remember exactly what I was doing in that year on the 14th of June or what I may have cooked for dinner that night. I had grandiose visions that might have been true but honestly I couldn’t remember whose roof I was on. For 2007 I wrote “Al’s Roof – Durango.” If I ever needed to remember I didn’t want to forget.
The List
2007 – Al’s Roof – Durango
2006 – Building House in Bayfield – Martina one week old.
2005 – Building house in Forest Lakes
2004 – Durango Hills / Millworks
2003 – “ “
2002 – Missionary Ridge Fire
2001 - Pregnant with Rock / Durango Hills house being built
2000 – Santee with Erna
1999 –
1998 – Alaska Trip
‘97 – Africa - Malawi?
‘96 – China?
‘95
‘94
‘93
’92 – Back from South America – Up North fishing.
‘91
‘90
’89 – Trans Siberian – USSR.
‘88
’87 – Santee – Home owner/ Hang gliding lessons
’86 – L.A.
’85 – Europe – Dino and Ziggy
’84 – Leaving for Europe
’83 – Mexico
’82 – Europe
’81
’80 – Hitchhiking?
Post Script
Its November now, I’m back at Al’s adding to the palace. I’m referring to it as the Taj Mahal. Al’s taking it pretty well. I’m in the process of renewing my passport which has given me the opportunity to review my last one. For June 14th 1999 there is an exit stamp from Singapore. It was a courier flight I had made. For June 15th 1999 there are stamps from Narita and San Francisco. When you fly east on those big planes time almost stands still, otherwise it just flies by. That business trip to China in 2003 was in late July not June. History is a funny and wonderful thing. And I was wrong about my family’s tolerance to allow dad to write a story. I hope you enjoy it.
June Fourteenth
Al is a crazy guy with a crazy roof, which he has employed me to mend. I don’t exactly seek roofing jobs but this being a continuation of other work I’ve done around here I’ve accepted it. I’m free to come and go as I need to, the view’s not bad, and it pays cash. Al’s an ass.
By mid-morning the heat has driven me to the shade given by the branches of a large spruce tree growing next to the house. After drinking some water, splashing some over my head, replacing my hat, and letting my breathing return to normal, my mind, idle now from the task, begins questioning me. Where are you Marty? Where are you on your time map?
“It’s June 14th,” I offer for conversation, not expecting a response.
“Where were you last year on this day, June the 14th? What were you doing?”
“And two years ago today?”
“Five years ago?”
“Ten?”
From Al’s roof I can see the Animas River flowing; it’s rafting season and I watch the boats float by. They’re twenty degrees cooler than I am. Next to the river run the tracks of the Durango-Silverton Narrow Gauge Railway. Every morning the trains belch plumes of black smoke and blow their whistles for the 32nd Street crossing.
Watching the seen unfold from up there I start thinking about it. I can remember some. Last year I was building a spec house in Bayfield. Martina was eight days old. We were home from the hospital, I was back at work, my mother had returned home.
After running a few more rows of shingles I went down to my truck for and orange and something more to drink. My notebook was there in the front seat so I took it back up on the roof and started making a list.
I noted 2006, feeling again my daughter in my heart, thanking God, and then for 2005 I wrote “Building House in Forest Lakes.” It was my first spec house. I remember being nervous. I was inexperienced and had all my money invested in that project. My partner was turning into a boss.
I watched a couple pedal by on their bikes. Across the street the sidewalk runs along the tracks and the river. People walk their dogs, jog, walk themselves, stroll, and talk on their cell phones. Some of them notice me on Al’s roof; some are surprised, some could care a less, some wave, some don’t, one guy even said “hello up there”.
I wrote the numbers 2004, 2003, then, 2002 - “Missionary Ridge Fire.” Five years ago that fire would flare up every afternoon. We hadn’t been evacuated yet. I stood up and looked at the ridge. I could see it from Al’s roof. After evacuation we stayed at the Comfort Inn just down the street from Al’s. I didn’t know where to go. I remembered watching the helicopters and water bombers and thinking my new house is on fire.
“Its toast; its gone,” I said to my wife. She didn’t say anything.
Imagine staying at a hotel in your own town, eating restaurant meals, waiting, your material treasures - pictures, writing, and the what-not, thrown in the back of your old van which you managed to get down the mountain into town, waiting and watching, using the laundry mat, still waiting - and you, yelling at your wife for no reason and your wife yelling back at you, and your almost-one-year-old child looking at the both of you, not knowing what to do.
Looking north from Al’s you can see the traffic on Main Street, the traffic coming and going to and from Mac’s Liquor, and the chaos in the City Market parking lot. After the vehicles finally find a parking spot you can watch the shoppers hustling about their business, most unaware of a carpenter watching them from Al’s roof. If the wind is right I can smell donuts in the morning, then the fried chicken.
For 2001 I wrote “Pregnant with Rock/Durango Hills house being built.” Rock was our first child. My dad’s nickname was Rock. In my mind’s eye I saw a picture of the foundation of the house. But after I had thought about it, that picture was from later in the summer, after Rock was born. On June 14th we were still clearing trees.
In 2001 we were living in the condo in town, I was working at the Millworks; we were newly married, new to Durango, excited and nervous, looking forward, planning the future, me measuring our progress. I was adjusting from single guy to family man.
I had to go down for more shingles. I try to get a days supply on the roof right away in the morning, but even today, with all the day dreaming, I‘d ran them already. I ordered the beast of burden in me to haul a few more bundles up the ladder. “When those are finished you’re going home,” I said to myself. Sweat pouring, I retired again to the dwindling shade.
On this day in the year 2000 I was in San Diego with Erna. Erna is my Balinese wife. We had just returned from Bali. Or I guess I had just returned; it was her first trip to America. We met in 1998 when I was traveling in Indonesia. After that we wrote love letters for eighteen months; no phone calls, no e-mail, just the letters. So there we were at my old house in San Diego seeing if it would all work out. I could see us there, and Scott, our good friend, and that house, and the backyard, and I realized I could examine that point in time for a long time so I pushed my memory along.
For 1999 I couldn’t think of anything special. For 1998 I wrote “Alaska Trip.” I had climbed into my old Ford van and drove to Minnesota to pick up my mom and my brother Marco. Marco and I had been talking about it. My dad died in 1994 so I invited my mom to come along. I hadn’t exactly told Marco. We put an easy chair in the back of the van and drove to Fairbanks. They flew home from Anchorage and I drove back to San Diego. Eleven thousand miles – it made me smile remembering it. I was teary-eyed running the next three rows. It was getting really hot now.
For 1997 I had to think a minute. That was the summer I went to Africa. I had landed in Johannesburg on the 6th I think. So I figured by the 14th I was in Malawi. But I could still have been at Victoria Falls. I know it was early July when I climbed Kilimanjaro. “God that was ten years ago already,” I said to myself out loud. I wrote the number 10 next to the year 1997.
I was getting quite involved in the memories now and I thought I need to start writing this story. I used to write some, when I was single. I imagined getting home and telling my wife and kids I needed to have a little quiet time so I could sit at the computer and write a story. “For what”? I can hear my wife saying. “Are you done yet?” my son would ask, waiting to get online.
For 1996 I wrote “China?” I thought about the courier flights I’d made.
Express companies check their mail as luggage on regular commercial flights. They simply buy a seat on the plane for the checked baggage. But the airline requires that someone occupy the seat. Courier companies sell these seats on the open market. The closer to takeoff the cheaper the seats get. Last Minute Specials they call them. They need a body.
In the mid nineties I was a freelance accounting consultant, single, and travel thirsty. Many flights left LAX for Asia. The company had a hotline for Last Minute Specials. Off I’d go to Singapore for $325; Hong Kong for $275; to Beijing for $300. Ten or twelve days later I’d be back in San Diego.
I pondered that part of my history. I had finished my Masters in December of ’95 and that was when the whole courier thing started. I’d flown to Hong Kong and traveled to Yangshuo in June of either ‘96 or ‘97. I had made a run to Beijing and then out to Lhasa and back, but I couldn’t decide which year that was either. But if I had been in Africa in ’97 it must have been in ’96.
I put on my hat and entered the heat. I try to keep the shingles in the shade too, but there is only so much to go around. These had had sunshine and were limp; easy to cut, hot to handle. I work fast; lining up the shingle, firing the staple gun; lining, firing; the compressor kicking on. It’s so hot now about ten minutes is it.
I drank and splashed and then sat for a minute. I took a look at where I was. I couldn’t think of anything for ’95, ’94, or’93 except living in San Diego, university, and hang gliding. I was addicted to flying from ’87 until marriage.
I went down the ladder and walked over to City Market. The automatic doors opened and I entered the air conditioned. The produce in the produce department was worth a look but not worth staring at. After using the restroom I went back to check out the discounted meat; my normal routine. There was nothing today, so I went for a gallon of water, another scan of the talent, or would be, grabbed a banana, and checked out.
After another session I reviewed the list. In the summer of 2003 I went to China on business for the Millworks. We were outsourcing product and I visited the factories in Yanji and Harbin. We had driven to Minnesota the week before the family reunion, Erna and Rock stayed at my mom’s and I caught a flight out of Minneapolis. I couldn’t decide if that trip was in the middle of June or later in the summer. I do vividly remember coming home with presents, clothing and art work, arriving late and being in the kitchen of the house that I had grown up in. I could check the dates in my passport, I thought.
For 1992 I wrote “Back from South America – Up North fishing.”
I was hooked on the memory quiz now. Visions of fishing with my dad and my brothers, my dad’s boat, the lake, the water skiing, the sun on the lake, the small waves when the wind came up, the dock, my mom in the cabin, my brothers’ kids on the little sand beach, and my brother with his cast on, all flashed through my mind’s eye. He had fallen off the castle wall in Cartagena.
Four of us had gone down to South America for six months; my bother Marco, a couple of college buddies and I. Up and down the Andes we went. From the mountains we saw the roof tops of Quito and Cuzco, La Paz and Santiago, and the beautiful people who lived under them. Then it was just Marco and I in Brazil, the Amazon, Venezuela and then Cartagena. I’ll never forget that.
I noted that that was 15 years ago. Noting that cast me back to the present. Visions of my wife and kids flashed. My work was right in front of me. “Keep going Dude, keep going,” the inner voice urged, and I obeyed.
I visited City Market again. If you are in one place for a while and develop a routine and there are those around you who are about their daily business, you notice them and they notice you. While working on Al’s roof I was in City Market two or three times a day. When you are current circulation you know the faces and the names and you converse while you are transacting. I was so focused on my past, I wasn’t talking today. The topic was too long and involved for a grocery store conversation.
I recorded nothing for ’91 or ’90. 1989 was the World Tour. I circled the globe; India, Everest; Thailand, China and the USSR. By June 14th I would have experienced Tiananmen. Not first hand, but the repercussions that rocked China. I first witnessed the demonstrations in Hong Kong. I didn’t know what was up, nor did the world. Everyone was more concerned with a cyclone that was blowing through. I was in Xian when the tragedies of June 4th occurred. Everyone I was traveling with fled the county; I went to Beijing. Scenes of it flashed from my memory, a story in itself, the unreal reality I witnessed there. So was I still in Beijing or on the Trans-Siberian on June 14th 1989? I wasn’t quite sure. At that point in my life I got on that train, barely, and instantly met Jacsik. We drank his vodka until Irkutsk. And that is also another story. I could have relived that event on Al’s roof but I knew if I dove into it the shingling would not continue.
There was ’88 then ’87. I wrote “Santee- Home Owner and Hang gliding lessons”. I may have already mentioned the hang gliding. It all began in 1987. We bought the house, I quiet my job and I began learning to fly. I thought about launching and landing my first hang glider. You don’t start flying until later. You launch, and three seconds later you land. Then you walk your glider fifty feet back up the grassy slope for another go. Again you hook in, launch, land or crash, and then carry your wings back up again. If the wind is right, you, and the other students, continue all afternoon, dreaming of the day you will soar.
That had all transpired twenty years ago in June of 1987 under the California sun. Scott still owns and lives in that house. The family and I stay with him on our trips to Bali.
I was so drunk on the memories I had to return to task for fear of falling off Al’s roof. The heat was fierce. My tears evaporated in seconds as they lit on the asphalt, but that did not stop them from coming.
From Al’s roof I can see the City Market employees in the parking lot collecting carts. I knew when they went on break, where they smoke their cigarettes, and they could see me working, or sitting, on Al’s roof. Many of them have known Al’s roof for more June 14ths than I have.
For ’86 I wrote “L.A.”. I was working in Los Angeles, the beginning of my accounting career. I could remember some things but nothing I felt like dwelling on. For ’85 I noted “Europe – Dino and Ziggy”. I had spent the past year studying at the University of Grenoble in the French Alps. Ziggy is my brother Marco, and Dino, a good friend of ours. They had come over and we raced around. We met in Paris; saw Springsteen in Saint Etienne; then tandem hang gliding flights; glacier skiing, and a night train to somewhere. I should look at the slides of that summer I thought, I should show them to Erna.
The inhabitants of Al’s palace are not only he and his spouse. There are dogs, cats, renters and guests of Lou’s B&B. It is the traffic of people and animals going out and returning. Cats cruise the high ground and there are crows in the trees smart about the opportunities that City Market presents. I used to soar with crows in the thermals above Horse Canyon in California. They are smart animals and great flyers.
Sometimes I would see the renters going about there daily business and they would measure my progress. “Looks good,” they’d say. Al’s wife agreed. Al was not so forthcoming. I couldn’t imagine the guests returning.
For 1984 I put down “Leaving for Europe”. I was still in the States on June 14th, excited for the big trip, talking it up to everyone, all nervous inside.
Then I heard the grown of the tow plane’s engine. I looked up and spotted the sailplane under tow. The glider port is just up highway 550. I could see the activity almost every day from Al’s roof. I missed flying.
In June and July of 1983 I traveled through Mexico with my friend Art. We drove his dad’s truck from Texas to Cancun and back. I had spent the summer of 1982 in Europe partying and seeing the sights with a group of students. I was starting to feel pretty fortunate for myself. The feeling gave me the strength to continue.
After that session I considered packing up. I had to sit really close to the end of the gable to keep my head and bare torso out of the sun. I finished my water and looked at the list. I wrote the number ‘81 then ’80 followed by “Hitchhiking.” It was the summer after my first year of college. We partied every night and one of those nights a friend of mine decided to tackle me, which I thought was funny, until I couldn’t get up. Three days later I was in a walking cast, out of work, and seriously depressed. A week later I was silently on the road. I didn’t even know who Jack Kerouac was then. A month later I had traveled five thousand miles and had cleared my head. Standing on the highway waiting for a ride gives a guy a lot of time to think about things. Thanks to all of you who stopped.
Al’s roof has so many dimensions and planes and contours and transitions and beginnings and endings it is truly a landscape. You just need to climb a ladder to get there. Its part of Durango and people I talk to know about it. Tourists can see it from the train and catch glimpses of it from the river. Parts of it are growing and parts are in decay. Some things are Al, some are previous to Al, and some of the creations are things Al could not bring himself to attempt on his own – thus the hired guy on his roof dreaming of the future by examining his past.
The layers of material will tell their own story. If I knew of all the June 14ths of the house I am standing on I might tell you about them but it would be best if you were here, like me, seeing it and letting her tell her own story. There have been those who have come before me, but today it is I who am here.
Soon the heat is too great. I wipe the sweat and gather my tools. Up and down the ladder I go. My June 14th at Al’s is complete.
For some years I couldn’t remember. I could recollect where I was living or traveling, or working, what sports I was crazy about, and who I may have been sleeping with, but I couldn’t remember exactly what I was doing in that year on the 14th of June or what I may have cooked for dinner that night. I had grandiose visions that might have been true but honestly I couldn’t remember whose roof I was on. For 2007 I wrote “Al’s Roof – Durango.” If I ever needed to remember I didn’t want to forget.
The List
2007 – Al’s Roof – Durango
2006 – Building House in Bayfield – Martina one week old.
2005 – Building house in Forest Lakes
2004 – Durango Hills / Millworks
2003 – “ “
2002 – Missionary Ridge Fire
2001 - Pregnant with Rock / Durango Hills house being built
2000 – Santee with Erna
1999 –
1998 – Alaska Trip
‘97 – Africa - Malawi?
‘96 – China?
‘95
‘94
‘93
’92 – Back from South America – Up North fishing.
‘91
‘90
’89 – Trans Siberian – USSR.
‘88
’87 – Santee – Home owner/ Hang gliding lessons
’86 – L.A.
’85 – Europe – Dino and Ziggy
’84 – Leaving for Europe
’83 – Mexico
’82 – Europe
’81
’80 – Hitchhiking?
Post Script
Its November now, I’m back at Al’s adding to the palace. I’m referring to it as the Taj Mahal. Al’s taking it pretty well. I’m in the process of renewing my passport which has given me the opportunity to review my last one. For June 14th 1999 there is an exit stamp from Singapore. It was a courier flight I had made. For June 15th 1999 there are stamps from Narita and San Francisco. When you fly east on those big planes time almost stands still, otherwise it just flies by. That business trip to China in 2003 was in late July not June. History is a funny and wonderful thing. And I was wrong about my family’s tolerance to allow dad to write a story. I hope you enjoy it.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Mosquito Bite
Last night I got a mosquito bite on my penis. At least I think it’s a mosquito bite. They just came out. I noticed a few a couple of days ago. Then the evening before last, while I was hooking up the hose to the water tank, there were dozens trying to get at me. But last night, while I was mixing up sac-crete for the last section of the sidewalk, they came out in force. There were hundreds. I had shorts and a T-shirt on and they were getting to my legs, so I went in the house looking for some bug spray. Of course, there was none.
So I put on long pants and a long sleeve shirt because I had started now and I couldn’t stop until it was done. Back outside the little bastards were thicker than ever. They reminded me of Japanese kamikazes going in for the kill. They reminded me of the time I was in Alaska. I pulled up my collar and mixed another bag of crete. As I turned the shovel they were landing on my hands. I swatted a few. I drank some beer. I mixed. Thank goodness I only needed four bags.
When I had the mud between the boards and screed off I went to the garage for refuge and relief. I just needed to wait a little bit for the mud to settle so I could edge it. I finished the beer. Then I went to the house for another one. I stood inside for a moment. Then, after a few minutes, I decided to get on with it.
They were on me instantly. I knelt down and started edging. I had to pee. I trowelled. I edged. One little section was giving me trouble. I worked it back and forth. I slapped my neck. Finally, the edge came clean and I stood up. I had to pee bad. I started for the house. I told myself, just keep going, but I had to go now. So I stopped and whipped it out.
Then this morning, while taking care of business, I noticed a little red spot on my penis. Damned mozzies, I thought. At least I think it’s a mosquito bite.
So I put on long pants and a long sleeve shirt because I had started now and I couldn’t stop until it was done. Back outside the little bastards were thicker than ever. They reminded me of Japanese kamikazes going in for the kill. They reminded me of the time I was in Alaska. I pulled up my collar and mixed another bag of crete. As I turned the shovel they were landing on my hands. I swatted a few. I drank some beer. I mixed. Thank goodness I only needed four bags.
When I had the mud between the boards and screed off I went to the garage for refuge and relief. I just needed to wait a little bit for the mud to settle so I could edge it. I finished the beer. Then I went to the house for another one. I stood inside for a moment. Then, after a few minutes, I decided to get on with it.
They were on me instantly. I knelt down and started edging. I had to pee. I trowelled. I edged. One little section was giving me trouble. I worked it back and forth. I slapped my neck. Finally, the edge came clean and I stood up. I had to pee bad. I started for the house. I told myself, just keep going, but I had to go now. So I stopped and whipped it out.
Then this morning, while taking care of business, I noticed a little red spot on my penis. Damned mozzies, I thought. At least I think it’s a mosquito bite.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Shitman and Shakey
The next day Bobby was setting up when the guys came to service the port-a-potties that served as the bathrooms of the Torrey Gliderport.
“I’m the Shitman,’’ the guy said. “I pump shit.”
And he was. He was pumping out the port-a-potties. His helper had that disease where you have the uncontrollable shakes. The Shitman called him Shakey, but it didn’t seem to bother him. They came once a week to pump and clean the potties. Shitman pumped and Shakey cleaned.
“I’m the only port-a-potty company with a car wash on my truck,” Shitman explained to Bobby. It was one of those high pressure washers. “We have the cleanest port-a-potties in the business,” he proclaimed.
Shakey was smoking a cigarette. He held it between his lips while he was cleaning. When he started shaking the ashes would fall off.
“You should take me for a ride one of these days,” the Shitman suggested.
“Sure, it’s a hundred dollars,” Bobby said.
“Oh, you can work me a deal can’t you? I take care of your potties for Christ’s sakes.”
“It’s not up to me. I have to register all my passengers with the glider shop and turn in a waiver for each one.”
“When I’m ready I’ll have a talk with the guy in the shop,” he said as he moved to the second outhouse.
“Okay,” Bobby said, “I gotta go,” he added and started for the van. The smell was terrible.
“See-ya,” said Shakey.
*
A week later, the Shitman, whose real name was Al, wanted to go for his flight. And he was insisting on a deal. Bobby told him to go talk to the Flight Director. Shakey busied himself watching the gliders fly, and smoking a cigarette.
“Drop him in the ocean,” Shakey said to Bobby, “he can’t swim.”
Five minutes later Al came out of the glider shop with Uncle Bill in tow.
“Go ahead and take him Coop,” Bill said. “I’ve got his waiver. Come and see me after the flight. Have fun.”
Al was a big, burly, hairy man. And he stunk. He looked funny with a helmet on.
“How much do you weight?” Bobby asked him.
“Why is there a weight limit?”
“Yeah, a hundred and seventy-five pounds.”
“That’s what I weigh, one-seventy-five.”
Bobby figured he was more like two hundred, but he didn’t say anything. The conditions were strong. He squeezed Al into the passenger harness and told him the launch procedures. They practiced the run.
“Okay, enough of the formalities, I don’t have all day.”
“We’ll be in the air in a few minutes. There‘s two more things you need to know. Number one: Don’t touch the control frame.” Bobby showed him the control frame. Then he showed him where to put his hands.
“What’s number two?”
“Don’t scream like a girl.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Al said.
They walked down to launch and Bobby hooked Al in, then himself. They did a hang check. Bobby had quit explaining things to Al; he just wanted to get this flight over with.
“Ready?” Bobby said.
“I’m ready,” Al confirmed.
And into the air they went. Even with the breeze Al’s stench was palpable.
“You want to buy a port-a-potty business?” Al asked Bobby as they flew up north. “I’ve got a hundred of them at a hundred bucks a month. You do the math.”
“Why are you selling it?” Bobby asked to keep the conversation going.
“I’m tired of it. I’m going into real estate.”
“How much are you asking?”
“A hundred grand - that includes the potties, the truck and a septic truck -I pump septic tanks too- and the customer list.”
“I don’t think I could do that type of work.”
“I can break your nose in a minute. You won’t smell a thing.”
Bobby didn’t say anything else. He was thinking about getting his nose broke. He subconsciously felt his face to see if there was any blood. Then he went into his routine of pointing out the landmarks. Al waved to Shakey as they flew over the glider shop.
“I’m going to sell one of those mansions down there,” Al said as they flew by. “You know La Jolla is the most expensive place to live in the country don’t you?”
“It is?”
“That’s right, five million times three percent. You do the math.”
Bobby did, and it was a lot of money. He recalled how much he had paid for the van. Then he tried to imagine some rich guy and his wife buying a house from Al, but he couldn’t.
“This is pretty cool.” “Do you do this all the time?”
“Most days, it depends on the weather.”
“It’s pretty cool. Where do you take lessons?”
“I took lessons here in San Diego.”
“Here at Torrey Pines?”
“No, back in Sorrento Valley, on a small hill. You have to have an advanced rating to fly at Torrey.” He wished he hadn’t said it as soon as he had said it.
“How long does it take to get an advanced rating?” Al asked. Bobby explained.
“Look at those fools down there on the golf course. What a dumb sport,” Al said as they flew back up north. Then he said, “This is easier than it looks.”
Bobby was just about to ask Al if he wanted to try it, but then bit his tongue. Maybe he’d let Al try landing, he thought, and started to chuckle to himself.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Do you want to go down now?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know. How long does it last? I could float around like this all day. I’m not doing anything.”
“Don’t you have to get back to work?”
“I can pump shit anytime, morning, noon, or night. It all pays the same.”
Bobby made one more lap and then told Al to get ready for landing.
“Fly over the potties,” Al requested.
“I’m the Shitman,’’ the guy said. “I pump shit.”
And he was. He was pumping out the port-a-potties. His helper had that disease where you have the uncontrollable shakes. The Shitman called him Shakey, but it didn’t seem to bother him. They came once a week to pump and clean the potties. Shitman pumped and Shakey cleaned.
“I’m the only port-a-potty company with a car wash on my truck,” Shitman explained to Bobby. It was one of those high pressure washers. “We have the cleanest port-a-potties in the business,” he proclaimed.
Shakey was smoking a cigarette. He held it between his lips while he was cleaning. When he started shaking the ashes would fall off.
“You should take me for a ride one of these days,” the Shitman suggested.
“Sure, it’s a hundred dollars,” Bobby said.
“Oh, you can work me a deal can’t you? I take care of your potties for Christ’s sakes.”
“It’s not up to me. I have to register all my passengers with the glider shop and turn in a waiver for each one.”
“When I’m ready I’ll have a talk with the guy in the shop,” he said as he moved to the second outhouse.
“Okay,” Bobby said, “I gotta go,” he added and started for the van. The smell was terrible.
“See-ya,” said Shakey.
*
A week later, the Shitman, whose real name was Al, wanted to go for his flight. And he was insisting on a deal. Bobby told him to go talk to the Flight Director. Shakey busied himself watching the gliders fly, and smoking a cigarette.
“Drop him in the ocean,” Shakey said to Bobby, “he can’t swim.”
Five minutes later Al came out of the glider shop with Uncle Bill in tow.
“Go ahead and take him Coop,” Bill said. “I’ve got his waiver. Come and see me after the flight. Have fun.”
Al was a big, burly, hairy man. And he stunk. He looked funny with a helmet on.
“How much do you weight?” Bobby asked him.
“Why is there a weight limit?”
“Yeah, a hundred and seventy-five pounds.”
“That’s what I weigh, one-seventy-five.”
Bobby figured he was more like two hundred, but he didn’t say anything. The conditions were strong. He squeezed Al into the passenger harness and told him the launch procedures. They practiced the run.
“Okay, enough of the formalities, I don’t have all day.”
“We’ll be in the air in a few minutes. There‘s two more things you need to know. Number one: Don’t touch the control frame.” Bobby showed him the control frame. Then he showed him where to put his hands.
“What’s number two?”
“Don’t scream like a girl.”
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Al said.
They walked down to launch and Bobby hooked Al in, then himself. They did a hang check. Bobby had quit explaining things to Al; he just wanted to get this flight over with.
“Ready?” Bobby said.
“I’m ready,” Al confirmed.
And into the air they went. Even with the breeze Al’s stench was palpable.
“You want to buy a port-a-potty business?” Al asked Bobby as they flew up north. “I’ve got a hundred of them at a hundred bucks a month. You do the math.”
“Why are you selling it?” Bobby asked to keep the conversation going.
“I’m tired of it. I’m going into real estate.”
“How much are you asking?”
“A hundred grand - that includes the potties, the truck and a septic truck -I pump septic tanks too- and the customer list.”
“I don’t think I could do that type of work.”
“I can break your nose in a minute. You won’t smell a thing.”
Bobby didn’t say anything else. He was thinking about getting his nose broke. He subconsciously felt his face to see if there was any blood. Then he went into his routine of pointing out the landmarks. Al waved to Shakey as they flew over the glider shop.
“I’m going to sell one of those mansions down there,” Al said as they flew by. “You know La Jolla is the most expensive place to live in the country don’t you?”
“It is?”
“That’s right, five million times three percent. You do the math.”
Bobby did, and it was a lot of money. He recalled how much he had paid for the van. Then he tried to imagine some rich guy and his wife buying a house from Al, but he couldn’t.
“This is pretty cool.” “Do you do this all the time?”
“Most days, it depends on the weather.”
“It’s pretty cool. Where do you take lessons?”
“I took lessons here in San Diego.”
“Here at Torrey Pines?”
“No, back in Sorrento Valley, on a small hill. You have to have an advanced rating to fly at Torrey.” He wished he hadn’t said it as soon as he had said it.
“How long does it take to get an advanced rating?” Al asked. Bobby explained.
“Look at those fools down there on the golf course. What a dumb sport,” Al said as they flew back up north. Then he said, “This is easier than it looks.”
Bobby was just about to ask Al if he wanted to try it, but then bit his tongue. Maybe he’d let Al try landing, he thought, and started to chuckle to himself.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. Do you want to go down now?” Bobby asked.
“I don’t know. How long does it last? I could float around like this all day. I’m not doing anything.”
“Don’t you have to get back to work?”
“I can pump shit anytime, morning, noon, or night. It all pays the same.”
Bobby made one more lap and then told Al to get ready for landing.
“Fly over the potties,” Al requested.
When I rolled over and looked at the clock it was 5:27AM, three minutes before the alarm would sound. I silently turned it off and slid my legs out from under the covers and let them drop to the floor. There was just enough natural light to navigate out of the room and into the kitchen. After walking past the island and the sink, I turned on the coffee pot. I had filled it with water and coffee last night before I went to bed. Then I sat down in the third bathroom to take care of business.
The window was open and the cool morning air was flowing in. My right nostril felt plugged up. The kids had recently had it. Afterward, I went back to the master bath and had my standard three minute shower (I have a buzz cut, so there isn’t a lot of shampooing). I dressed, and upon exiting the bedroom, I quietly told my wife that I loved her.
I filled my travelling coffee mug, found some breakfast and lunch, grabbed my bag, put on my boots and walked out into the cool mountain morning just before six. It was then, just after starting the truck, that I caught myself saying it, “just keep going dude, just keep going.” I had only taken a few drinks of the coffee and I wasn’t fully awake yet. I had had a few beers last night watching the game. Man, how about that Fisher. I really liked his emotions after the game. So anyway, I put the truck in gear and started coasting down the hill.
The window was open and the cool morning air was flowing in. My right nostril felt plugged up. The kids had recently had it. Afterward, I went back to the master bath and had my standard three minute shower (I have a buzz cut, so there isn’t a lot of shampooing). I dressed, and upon exiting the bedroom, I quietly told my wife that I loved her.
I filled my travelling coffee mug, found some breakfast and lunch, grabbed my bag, put on my boots and walked out into the cool mountain morning just before six. It was then, just after starting the truck, that I caught myself saying it, “just keep going dude, just keep going.” I had only taken a few drinks of the coffee and I wasn’t fully awake yet. I had had a few beers last night watching the game. Man, how about that Fisher. I really liked his emotions after the game. So anyway, I put the truck in gear and started coasting down the hill.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
Keep Going
“Keep going Mart, just keep going.”
That’s what I was saying to myself last night while standing in the garage just after exhaling. I was drinking a beer too; I’d been drinking them most of the day. My name’s Marty, actually Martin, Marty for short, and Mart is short for Marty. Anyway, yesterday was Sunday and once again I spent all day working on the house and property. First thing in the morning I went for a load of water, to Bayfield because the bulk water facility in Durango was tore down on account of road construction. I have to haul water because my #@$% well went dry a few years back. We live on a mountain.
The drive to Bayfield was pretty casual-it just takes time. The next thing I did was sand some drywall patching in the house. We’re painting some of the walls trying to get the place fixed up to sell. We love it; we just can’t afford it anymore. After the sanding I mixed some more hot mud and gave the cracks a final coat. While I was up on the ladder spreading the mud my wife and our four year old daughter, it was her birthday today, headed out for town. They were after the cake.
My next task was concrete, actually sac-crete. I’m extending one of the sidewalks, the one to the front door, out to meet the one that goes to the back door. After framing up the next section, it had a step in it so it was kind of tricky; I mixed up my first batch. I just do one 80lb bag at a time, it’s easier. After about the fourth bag I cracked my first beer. Shortly after that I went to the garage for the first hit of the day. I’m a casual user, have been for about 36 years. If you ever want to get good at sac-crete, I highly recommend this practice.
Back at the jobsite after the mini-break, I mixed up another four bags and then screed off the excess. It was looking good. Just then my son pops his head out the back door and say, “Lunchtime.” He hadn’t made lunch and wasn’t calling me in to sit down, he’s only eight; he was hungry and his mother was in town. Oh well, I thought, I need another beer anyway.
“So what’ll it be?” I said to him.
“Just a sandwich,” he replied, “but don’t use the turkey, mom says it’s like a month old.”
So I pulled out the ham and that was like a month old so I threw it in the garbage. I checked the date on the turkey, it wasn’t even to the ‘sell by’ date, and it smelled OK.
“This turkey is fine.”
“No it’s not,” he protested, “just put cheese on it.”
So I made him a cheese sandwich and grabbed another beer. Back out in the heat I edged and trowelled the mud then went to the garage. When I came out the girls were just driving up, so I unloaded the groceries and carried in the cake. Carrying the cake, walking behind my daughter, I marveled once again at her beauty and reminded myself of how lucky I am.
“How old are you, sweetie?”
“Aaa, four months?”
“Four years, silly.”
“Oh,” she said with a laugh.
The mud in the house was dry so I started sanding.
“Hey, you’re getting dust everywhere!” my wife exclaimed.
“I can’t do this without making dust,” I said. “Just a little bit more and I’ll be done.”
She didn’t say anything else; she just gave me the look.
When the sanding was finished I started taping. This wall is fifty feet long with two elevation drops, four stairs each, six windows, French doors, two sets of cabinets, and eleven feet of kitchen counter. After I’d extinguished two rolls of blue painter’s tape I went to the garage looking for more. There was none. I found two rolls of old masking tape.
When the actual painting finally got underway the gang wanted to get in on it. The wife is okay with the roller and I got her started after I’d cut in most of the kitchen section. On the open wall above one set of stairs I let the boy have a go with the roller. Two hours later my eyes were spent. I made it past the French doors and only had the twelve foot high section next to the fireplace left.
After cleaning my brush it was time for the cake. My wife had already fed the kids. I grabbed the camera and sat on the floor. My daughter is all about princesses so that’s what was on the cake. We sang and I took pictures as fast as the camera’s memory card could save them.
When the party started to die down I went for my mandi. Mandi is the Balinese word for bath, or bathing; my wife is Balinese and that’s the word our family uses. Then, while the brats were boiling, my wife and I put the kitchen back together.
I usual water all my house plants, I have about 40, on Sunday mornings, but yesterday it didn’t happen until about 8:30PM. It was the third quarter by the time I turned on the basketball game.
Well, those were some of the things I did yesterday, those things and about twenty other odd jobs I won’t bore you with, so that’s why that evening I found myself standing in the garage giving yours truly a little pep talk. “Just keep going Mart, just keep going.” I’ve caught myself saying it quite a bit lately, it’s almost religious. I’m old as dirt, but my family is young and beautiful so I just gotta keep going.
P.S. The wife just called-we’re out of water.
That’s what I was saying to myself last night while standing in the garage just after exhaling. I was drinking a beer too; I’d been drinking them most of the day. My name’s Marty, actually Martin, Marty for short, and Mart is short for Marty. Anyway, yesterday was Sunday and once again I spent all day working on the house and property. First thing in the morning I went for a load of water, to Bayfield because the bulk water facility in Durango was tore down on account of road construction. I have to haul water because my #@$% well went dry a few years back. We live on a mountain.
The drive to Bayfield was pretty casual-it just takes time. The next thing I did was sand some drywall patching in the house. We’re painting some of the walls trying to get the place fixed up to sell. We love it; we just can’t afford it anymore. After the sanding I mixed some more hot mud and gave the cracks a final coat. While I was up on the ladder spreading the mud my wife and our four year old daughter, it was her birthday today, headed out for town. They were after the cake.
My next task was concrete, actually sac-crete. I’m extending one of the sidewalks, the one to the front door, out to meet the one that goes to the back door. After framing up the next section, it had a step in it so it was kind of tricky; I mixed up my first batch. I just do one 80lb bag at a time, it’s easier. After about the fourth bag I cracked my first beer. Shortly after that I went to the garage for the first hit of the day. I’m a casual user, have been for about 36 years. If you ever want to get good at sac-crete, I highly recommend this practice.
Back at the jobsite after the mini-break, I mixed up another four bags and then screed off the excess. It was looking good. Just then my son pops his head out the back door and say, “Lunchtime.” He hadn’t made lunch and wasn’t calling me in to sit down, he’s only eight; he was hungry and his mother was in town. Oh well, I thought, I need another beer anyway.
“So what’ll it be?” I said to him.
“Just a sandwich,” he replied, “but don’t use the turkey, mom says it’s like a month old.”
So I pulled out the ham and that was like a month old so I threw it in the garbage. I checked the date on the turkey, it wasn’t even to the ‘sell by’ date, and it smelled OK.
“This turkey is fine.”
“No it’s not,” he protested, “just put cheese on it.”
So I made him a cheese sandwich and grabbed another beer. Back out in the heat I edged and trowelled the mud then went to the garage. When I came out the girls were just driving up, so I unloaded the groceries and carried in the cake. Carrying the cake, walking behind my daughter, I marveled once again at her beauty and reminded myself of how lucky I am.
“How old are you, sweetie?”
“Aaa, four months?”
“Four years, silly.”
“Oh,” she said with a laugh.
The mud in the house was dry so I started sanding.
“Hey, you’re getting dust everywhere!” my wife exclaimed.
“I can’t do this without making dust,” I said. “Just a little bit more and I’ll be done.”
She didn’t say anything else; she just gave me the look.
When the sanding was finished I started taping. This wall is fifty feet long with two elevation drops, four stairs each, six windows, French doors, two sets of cabinets, and eleven feet of kitchen counter. After I’d extinguished two rolls of blue painter’s tape I went to the garage looking for more. There was none. I found two rolls of old masking tape.
When the actual painting finally got underway the gang wanted to get in on it. The wife is okay with the roller and I got her started after I’d cut in most of the kitchen section. On the open wall above one set of stairs I let the boy have a go with the roller. Two hours later my eyes were spent. I made it past the French doors and only had the twelve foot high section next to the fireplace left.
After cleaning my brush it was time for the cake. My wife had already fed the kids. I grabbed the camera and sat on the floor. My daughter is all about princesses so that’s what was on the cake. We sang and I took pictures as fast as the camera’s memory card could save them.
When the party started to die down I went for my mandi. Mandi is the Balinese word for bath, or bathing; my wife is Balinese and that’s the word our family uses. Then, while the brats were boiling, my wife and I put the kitchen back together.
I usual water all my house plants, I have about 40, on Sunday mornings, but yesterday it didn’t happen until about 8:30PM. It was the third quarter by the time I turned on the basketball game.
Well, those were some of the things I did yesterday, those things and about twenty other odd jobs I won’t bore you with, so that’s why that evening I found myself standing in the garage giving yours truly a little pep talk. “Just keep going Mart, just keep going.” I’ve caught myself saying it quite a bit lately, it’s almost religious. I’m old as dirt, but my family is young and beautiful so I just gotta keep going.
P.S. The wife just called-we’re out of water.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
