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.