California Part 3
The sun was beginning to set in front of me. Maybe it was because of the elevation, I'm not sure, but the sky was a particularly gorgeous spread of warm colors. It danced all through the surprisingly thick set of trees. Growing up I had always pictured Arizona a barren wasteland; a desert devoid of life save its tanned people and cacti. Northern Arizona, in quite the contrast, was a warm shade of burnt orange dotted with tall, green trees that grew together in amazing proximity. I imagined that the trees were similar to those thickset trees that grew together on the side of a mountain.
I was beginning my final climb into Flagstaff. Albuquerque and the chili were four hours behind me and I was beginning to get restless. You know that restless feeling you get in your legs when you've laid around the house all day? That was two hours ago.
I had studied a street map of Flagstaff thoroughly. I knew my way around town without knowing my way around town. I knew numbers and relative sizes of roads, but had little experience with the town itself. But I didn't care. I was excited to be out of the car and in the home of someone I was familiar with. Even more, I was proud of myself. I had challenged the Great American West and was winning the battle. My adventure was far from over, but I was triumphant thus far, and was determined to win the grand prize: the Pacific Ocean.
Interstate 40 made a loose U-shape around the southern base of the town. It came in from the northeast, turned a slow 90-Degrees and left back out of town heading northwest. The city itself sat in the crevice the highway made and only ran a few miles to the north. Flagstaff also sat just to the south of the San Francisco Peaks, a range of mountains that stretched into the sky above the town and created a scene straight out of a postcard.
I had been watching and waiting for my exit for miles now. Country Club Drive was a short street that connected I-40 with State Highway 89, the road I needed to follow. The moment I saw the exit sign my heart raced. I knew I was only ten minutes away.
I made the short right turn, and another, to turn onto Hwy-89. A bustling mall and a busy intersection were the only thing preventing me from the highway that almost immediately turned north. I was staring at people in other cars incredulously. They were standing in between me and Checkpoint One, as my mind began calling it (for no reason). They were living their own lives. Most were probably happy to be getting home after a day of shopping, or heading to see family. I looked down at my clock and reset it to the local time, more as a distraction from the longest intersection in the world.
My brain raced with realization. "5 pm. Shit! It's only 5?! How long have I been on the road? Oh, right. Time change. Wait, whoa, what?! It's 7 pm in Denton. Oh, I have got to get there already."
After (seemingly) a decade of waiting, my light turned green and I was full fledged north. Hwy-89 ran the eastern base of the Peaks, and the road I was looking for was just off of 89. I knew it was a few miles up, but I didn't know exactly where.
My car burst through the last remnants of civilization and I was in awe at the Peaks. They engulfed the entire driver side view of my car. I've been close to mountains, but not this close. I could see there were more than one, but was too afraid to keep staring for fear of wrecking my car this close to being stopped. "You would wreck his close, wouldn't you?" I thought to myself, but I quickly shook it off and began scanning the roads to my right.
Funny how relative time can flow. When traveling through a new place it feels like time has had a baby with molasses. Everything is so new and exciting; our brains perceive that it took much longer to go from Point A to Point B than realistically possible. After we acclimate to the new place or situation, everything moves at a normal pace again.
For example, I know that from when I turned off I-40 to when I arrived at Paula's house that only about six minutes had passed, but that doesn't mean it didn't feel like an extra hour of travel. Fence posts crawled past me in a seeming reversal of time. The mountains, so close but still so very distant, never moved. It felt as if they had grown an ego and puffed out the chest of trees at me, daring me to finalize this leg of the trip.
Then there I was.
Sitting in my parked car in the driveway of my destination. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains and was casting rays of pure joy from behind them like a peacock's tailfeathers.
I had to take a deep breath. I was excited and nervous. I hadn't seen Miss Paula, as I called her, in almost a decade. We both had married since then, I had some kids and she relocated from Houston to Flagstaff. I wasn't the 17-year-old bright eyed kid anymore. She, undoubtedly, was still the warm, loving extra-mom that I remembered from my youth.
The walk from my car to the front door dragged out even further. I investigated the house by habit, scanning the windows for signs of light or movement. I could see Paula and her husband Dave sitting at an L-shaped bar in the kitchen, both on their laptops. They hadn't heard me pull up. They knew that I would be arriving this evening, but didn't know what time to expect me. I scanned the landscape that spanned beyond their house. It was an odd mix of randomly growing grass and shadow casting stones. The land just kept going and going. Eventually, it fell of in the distance creating the appearance that Flagstaff sat near the edge of the world.
I stood on the doorstep and admired myself for just a second. "You just drove across a large mass of land. You're kind of a badass." Sometimes my inner voice can be nice. "Now shut up and ring the doorbell so you can poop." That's the inner voice I know.
I knocked instead. There was some movement, but not the over excited movement I had expected. Paula answered with a weak smile, an expression that someone who survived surgery would give, and looked me up and down like she didn't recognize me. "Mister Casey," she said, her smile widening just a little. She wrapped me in a gentle hug, another unexpected action, and welcomed me in to meet Dave.
This was already giving me a weird feeling. Paula was not living up to the memory I had of her. She was always over excitable and eager to be the loudest. Not obnoxious, mind you, just that loving kind of loud. She's that person in your family that always yells and stomps their way up to you when you visit home and makes the biggest deal about "I'll do your laundry and cook for you if you ever come visit, okay?"
But this was different. She was calm and cool, very collected and methodical. She was purposefully putting on the faces she was wearing and studying my responses to them. There was a brief introduction to her husband Dave, as we'd never met, then she guided me to the guest room. A day bed was tucked in the corner of what was once a sewing room. Several stuffed animals ranging in age from brand new to archaic adorned the flower comforter. A small table sat at the foot of the bed holding up an ancient sewing machine and some loose thread. There were no decorations on the wall, but the dual closet doors were open exposing stacks of boxes. "Storage room?" I asked politely, nodding toward the closet.
"It's where the grandkids sleep when they visit."
Oh, that's right. Her son Paul procreated. I shrugged off that odd thought and set the Backpack of Doom on the bed. "Restroom?" I asked. Those chilis were catching up to me quickly.
"Oh, this way!" she pipped, and promptly turned on her heel. The bathroom was directly across the hall, and had I not been so exhausted, would have seen it clearly. It wasn't fancied up like a guest bathroom one would expect in Texas, but rather stocked and clean, much like a hotel bathroom. It even had a few spare toothbrushes.
After settling my necessary clothing items and letting the chili find a new home, I settled at the bar in the kitchen with Paula while Dave started making dinner. I was about ready to pass out, but was curious enough of Dave and the dynamic that these two had that I decided to wake up and make the effort to be cordial.
I was almost immediately lost in Dave's work. He was truly a master of his craft. At first I couldn't comprehend what he was doing. He kept wandering from cabinet to cabinet taking out seemingly random ingredients and stacking them neatly, almost too neatly, together on the stove. When he'd finally stopped, he turned to me and asked, "Do you like macadamia nuts?"
"Sure, yeah. What are you making?" There were at least fifteen different items on the counter ranging from pepper to some form of deli meat and back.
"Hawaiian pizza. Ham and pineapple, of course, but I add macadamia nuts. It really brings a whole new level of flavor to the pizza," he said in an accent I couldn't quite place. He seemed really into cooking, and I don't mean like he enjoyed talking about Iron Chef. It was clear, even before he started putting the ingredients together, that Dave REALLY loved cooking. It was his zen garden -- his joy. If Dave hadn't worked with his company there is not a doubt in my mind that he would be running some small time restaurant where he knew every patron by name.
The pizza formed quickly and was in the oven before I could recognize what had happened. I had been busy catching up with Paula - explaining what had happened in life since we last were in one another's company, and how I came to be here by myself.
"But Cliff had to go out on the well, so here I am," I said shrugging and sitting back in my chair.
I suppose I had said it with just enough inflection in my voice. She asked, "Are you still upset with him?" Dammit, I gave myself away. Maybe I was a little bitter at Cliff, but I couldn't blame him too much for having to back out of the vacation at the last second. Okay, maybe I could blame him a bit for pulling out of going to Scotland with me, but this last second change in plans was not his doing.
"I can't be too angry. I know he's doing what he thinks is right. He's always been able to use the leverage from one job to find himself more money with another, but eighteen months of planning is a long time to get my hopes up. I mean, it's nice to see you and all, but I'd rather be in a pub in Glasgow." Dave looked at me for just a second after that last sentence and smiled. He knew something, but wasn't giving it away just yet.
She smiled a heart-melting mom smile. "I know, sweetie. But at least you get to have an adventure of a lifetime, right?" With that she stood and walked to the oven, cracking it momentarily to check on the pizza, then settling back down next to me at the bar. Dave didn't even flinch. It appeared he was even better than I had thought. He hadn't set a timer, and didn't even glance at Paula when she checked on the pizza. Either he trusted his wife enough to make a call on the pizza, or he had a mental timer telling him when it would be finished. Or, I suppose, the beer he and I had been sipping on since my arrival was kicking in and he was too far into an article on his laptop to care.
They moved around each other seamlessly. Almost like a natural intuition or hyper-attention, they knew where the other was at all times. If Paula was in the fridge and Dave approached from behind, she'd spin, duck under his reach, and move away without closing the fridge or knowing that he was coming. Either they had been alone around one another enough to build this amazing rapport or Paula had Pavlov-ed Dave into actions so that her living arrangements were made easy. I wasn't too sure, but I was impressed with the whole of it.
They'd speak to one another in tones and phrases that seemed practiced. They'd either land on a tone that inspired the other to retort, or would carefully choose words in an effort to thwart the other's opinion. They could be having an epic battle of the minds, and unless you were paying very close attention to body language and eye contact, you'd think they were background actors in a soap opera. Quite the opposite, Paula and Dave were masters of words that could easily cut down the least suspecting foe without so much as breaking into a high school vocabulary.
Wordsmiths. I was eating it up.
My attention back to the fore-front, I turned to Paula, far more interested in a question that had popped into my mind. "How's Paul doing? I mean, really doing?
"Wellll, what do you mean?" She dragged out the 'well' and feigned ignorance to the question, probably sizing up which angle I would approach concerning her son. Of the many things that separated Paul and I, aside from the years we spent apart and physical distance, his ability to absentmindedly fall into situations that he was incapable of getting out of never ceased to amaze me.
"I was under the impression he was going to be married before me, but never heard from him about it. Now that I think of it, I haven't heard from Paul in months."
Her demeanor changed ever so slightly. Just enough for me to notice this bothered her, but not enough to rile Dave. "He's making some," - she rolled her gaze to Dave as if this was an inside embarrassment, and she wasn't sure how to correctly word it - "decisions" she chose carefully, "that we don't necessarily agree with." Her eyes snapped back to me and she waited for a response.
Dave didn't so much as grunt. He looked over the top of his glasses at Paula for an instant, raising his eyebrows and mocking a frowned, thoughtful face before nodding one bob in agreement. He quickly tucked back into the article.
I've been around the moms of my friends, much less the queen of insincere subtlety herself (my mom), long enough to know what that means. "You don't like her, do you?" She studied me for a second. Her face didn't change, but her eyes drifted from my mouth to my eyes then to my posture before she formed an answer.
She squinted her eyes ever so slightly, then relaxed them before answering, "I rather enjoy the time I get with my granddaughter, and I don't think I get enough of it." She smiled again, but it was a smile that said 'I'm proud I came up with that'.
I nodded a series of diminishing nods and closed my eyes slowly conveying I understood completely. She didn't need to go into detail concerning her distaste for her son's girlfriend, and I wasn't inclined to let a soon-to-be elderly woman get a single foot down that path. We both sat in thought for a second before Dave appeared in front of us.
"Pizza?" he asked placing a plate in front of each of us.
It smelled heavenly. I could actually smell the roasted macadamia nuts on the pizza, and what appeared to be red bell pepper pieces. Biting into it was a trip into another world. The salty ham, the sweet pineapple, the bell pepper and the nuts blended well with an amazing pesto sauce he had made from scratch. "Is this wheat crust?!" I asked in amazement, holding the slice above my head and investigating the bottom.
"Of course. It's actually a blended wheat crust with a little extra cheese. When you get to be my age you begin to appreciate the flavors of everything." He was really proud of his work. He stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands on his hips, beaming. He knew he had created something amazing and he was taking in all the compliments he could. It wasn't uncomfortable, though. Usually if I'm proud of something I've done and I await a compliment on it I can feel everyone get tense. Like it shouldn't be expected. But Dave? No. Dave was cool. He was like a younger, hip Mr. Rogers that you wanted to trade stories with without even knowing him. He had an air of ex-skateboarder or surfer to him. His graying-red beard and pencil thin glasses made his face likeable in an instant, and when he smiled the beard smiled with him. He wasn't getting an ego kick, he was just happy that we were happy. This guy was genuine.
-
Dinner was short work between the three of us. Dave quickly retired back to his laptop and Paula was showing signs of settling in. She offered me her computer so I could check in with everyone and get my technology fix. She changed into her pajamas and rejoined me at the bar. "Do you have everything you need? You should probably plug in your phone and set out your clothes. The time change is going to be a killer in the morning."
She was right. I needed to prepare for the road tomorrow. Flagstaff was only a pit-stop on my way to California, and if I got too comfortable I would make mistakes. I slumped to my bedroom and plugged in my cell phone. The battery flashed that it was charging, then stopped flashing altogether. "Oh, come the fuck on," I breathed in frustration.
The charger had been damaged over time and would power up my phone at random. I could usually find a way to weigh down a piece of the cable and ensure the metal connections were in place, but tonight the charger wasn't having it. It kept connecting and disconnecting, chiming accordingly, and frustrating me further. "Fuck it," I thought. "If it charges, it charges. I'll buy a car charger in the morning." I unpacked a set of clothes and set them next to the sewing machine before returning back to the kitchen.
Paula had her Nook out and was reading something that was causing her to furrow her brow. Dave had begun burning a large stack of CDs. He had an external CD-ROM that was buzzing and whirring away while he typed vigorously on his laptop. I sat down in front of Paula's laptop and checked the weather for the next day. "68°F and Sunny," the website told me. I started to log in to my e-mail when Paula spoke.
"So how's your mom?" She didn't even look up from the Nook, but she didn't have to. I knew where she was going with this - I knew where everyone was going with this. Her eyes quickly flicked up at me to gauge a reaction, but I'd been well practiced in answering this question and knew better than to let my face give away my emotion.
My mother, Sheryl, had a way of leaving an impression on people. Much like myself, she was very good about talking her way into your trust quickly. She could escalate and calm almost any situation and was a master of reading body language and subtle nuances in conversation. In her age, she was beginning to lose her ability to calm situations and had a habit of leaving a trail of bitter people behind her. I had grown quite accustomed to family and friends asking how my mom and I got along. We have similar personalities, so one could naturally assume that we'd kill one another eventually. We had a history of having eternal disagreements and are known to go months without talking. Miss Paula was not the first (and most certainly wouldn't be the last) person to inquire as to the status of the current relationship between my mother and I.
Without looking up from the laptop I answered, "I don't know." I had hoped this would be sufficient enough of an answer.
I had apparently used just the right tone. She nodded ever so slightly and changed the subject. "And Cody?"
I breathed hard through my mouth, but turned and raised my eyebrows, thankful for the change. "Cody's doing great. He's an entrepreneur of sorts. I'm not too sure if he'd like me to go into detail," I trailed off. Everyone had thoughts about what Cody did for money, but few people knew the truth. I implied well enough that this was a subject that wouldn't go much farther, and she caught on.
"But he's doing well?" She was full-on looking at me now. Cody and Miss Paula had a special relationship that went beyond what she and I had. She knew that the house we were growing up in was not the healthiest place for someone like Cody, and always took special precaution when talking to him. This net her something that is almost impossible to gain: Cody's full trust. He would confide in her. He'd go to her when he needed someone. He had found someone that truly cared and loved him for who he was, and she had found someone that could love her right back. They were true Best Friends. To be honest, I was a little jealous of the look she was giving me right then.
"Yeah, he's Cody. He knows how to handle money and take care of himself," I answered smoothly, trying to calm her nerves. "Actually, he and I have grown a bit closer now that I live a few hundred miles away. We talk a few times a week." She smiled a real smile for the first time that night. I added, "It's nice having your younger brother come to you for advice. After years of trying to straighten things out between us it's like he's finally going to give it a shot."
Her smile reached it's maximum. I could feel the hair on my arms and neck stand up. She was showing her hand and my little brother had caused it. "I'm so happy you two are finally seeing eye-to-eye. If we could just get your mom on board-"
"Let's not go there." I realized I was tense all over. My hands were frozen above the keyboard where seconds earlier they had been furiously typing an e-mail to Saphron. I was looking her in the face and had to make myself relax the muscles around my jaw. This was not a subject for discussion. "I'm sorry. Things are still sore and I'm not sure how they'll play out."
She leaned forward onto her elbows, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She was giving me that Understanding Mom look now. "You should know something about my relationship with your mom." She waited. She knew I would have to give her permission to continue with the statement.
I mulled it over for a second. While I may have a distaste for my mom, it's always interesting to hear other opinions of her. She did have a habit of pissing people off, but knowing that I wasn't the only one affected had a weird sting to it.
I lowered my volume just enough to make it sound like Miss Paula needed to tread lightly. "What did she do?"
I watched her glance at Dave again, but I didn't follow her gaze. I readjusted my posture and crossed one leg over the knee of my other leg while turning to face her directly. I put one elbow on the counter and sat my jaw on the heel of my hand so I was leaning ever-slightly sideways. I knew what air I was giving off, and it firmly had her attention.
She sat up straight and answered as plainly as if I was a principal questioning a student. "One of the biggest reason I left Texas was to get away from your mom." She paused and gauged my reaction again, which didn't change, so she continued. "She was always so intense. She needed to go or do, but most importantly, she needed to be in charge." I could see how saying this was draining her. Her eyes went vacant and she formed a trembling frown like someone on the verge of crying. "She was always chiming in with how I should raise Paul and Daniel. After a few years of being around your mom twenty-four/seven I began to lose my sanity. She's an intense person to be around that long."
She quickly regained confidence. Talking about her sons had reminded her of what she did and it was clear she was proud of the decision. "I was always under the impression you moved out here to be closer to Daniel after he was sent to live with your parents," I said as neutral as I could muster. I sat up and leaned forward, trying to convey I wasn't angry, but curious.
"That's what I told her. I knew Daniel would do fine with mom and dad, I just needed to be on my own. I had been in that suppressive marriage to their dad for years, and when I got out I made a good friend in your mom. She was always available when I needed someone, but she was always there when I needed to be alone, too. I think on it now, and the more I realize how much your mom just needed someone to be around, but she ALWAYS needed them around."
All I could do was nod. It was true. I really didn't want to go any further, so I just nodded. Paula picked up on this and changed the subject.
"But here you are. You're a man now. And what a handsome man you've become. You're married! And two kids, Casey, I always knew you'd do something with yourself. I'm proud of you."
Dammit, Paula.
I smiled. I loved hearing that.
The conversation dwindled after that. I look back now and think that she needed to get that out to someone other than Dave. She said that she rarely speaks to my mom now (I don't blame her) but she keeps in touch so she knows what's going on. She turned off her Nook and offered me a kiss on the forehead with a warm, "Good to see you've become the man you are now," before she left us for her bedroom in the back of the house.
It was growing late but my mind was wide awake. This happened every night around 10 pm. I'd be on the edge of passing out while standing up and my mind would get over the wall and I'd be ready to go all over again.
Dave and I alternated who would refill the beers. He had a keg in a refrigerator in his garage filled with Miller Lite. It wasn't my favorite, but it was free and he offered. By the time Paula went to bed he and I were a good six pack in, each. Now was the time for some male bonding. I didn't know him that well, and as he's married to a woman I cherish, I intended to get some good ideas of who I was dealing with here.
He was not at all shy to tell his story, which immediately put me in a trance. He was born in Scotland and moved to San Francisco when he was 4. He grew up a stereotype skater kid (as best one can in the 70s), but being in the Bay Area afforded him the opportunity to watch music evolve from its source. He saw the hippie movement of the 60s. He watched disco and metal form side by side in the 70s. He was an adult and aware when punk rock emerged on the scene in the 80s. He traveled to Washington for grunge in the 90s. Dave, simply put, was The Shit.
We talked bands and music for hours. He was "...never a good enough musician..." but he knew the bands and the stories. He was like the ultimate fanboy of Rock, except he was there. He told me stories of seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn play for David Bowie, and seeing Alice Cooper pre-makeup at a personal show in Berkeley. He knew where the flow of music was going because he had been riding this wave of awesome for years already, and just because he became a responsible adult, didn't mean he had to stop paddling out.
I asked as many questions about California as I could. I had only been once, but it was many years and several whiskeys ago, so it was all faded memories at best. He told me how vast the climate changes were, and how the mentalities of the people changed the farther north you went. He detailed which places I should eat and where I could find the best beer in San Diego and Los Angeles. His love of growing up there was apparent in his tone, but maybe that was just Dave. He loved most things.
He warned me about traveling through the desert. "I-10 coming back to Phoenix is nothing but sand, man," he said slipping into surfer-voice. "Try to fuel up just west of LA. The gas will be a bit cheaper and you won't have to fight anyone to get to a pump. It'll save you time from stopping in the desert. I hope your car is tuned up for the trip."
"It had better be. I had almost the entire front end replaced before I left. New CV joints, new axles, new brakes, radiator, headlights. It cost me enough; it had better be ready for this." My car had a nice tendency of surprising me, but it never let me know if it would be for the better or worse. I remember saying that and swallowing hard, hoping for the better.
2 am rolled around before either of us could catch our breath. We had been discussing music and trends for hours. Tales of my Scotland adventure creeped in, and he expressed how jealous he was. He had never gone back. In fact, he wasn't nationalized. He had tried taking the exam a few times, but always ended up in a financial bind, so he just kept renewing his Work Permit. Eventually, he had stood up to go fetch another beer and looked down at his laptop before exclaiming, "Shit dude, it's 2." He looked at me with pursed lips and raised eyebrows that said, "What do we do now?"
I shrugged. "I suppose it's about that time." I stood and washed my beer mug before walking to the bedroom. I checked my phone again. It was still fluctuating between charging and not charging. My battery was floating at 15% at this point, and I guessed it might be at 50% by morning, but it was of no concern because I was getting that car charger.
I walked back into the kitchen and thanked Dave for the conversation. He did something that caught me off guard: He shook my hand.
Let me rephrase: He made eye contact, set the grip, and shook my hand like I was a long-lost friend he had re-acquainted with, then said, "It was a pleasure getting to know you, Casey. I hope you feel welcome enough to come back whenever you like," and he smiled a very real smile. "Oh, and how do you take your coffee?"
I laughed a little. "Just enough milk to change color. No sugar."
"I gotcha. Goodnight, bud."
I don't even remember laying down. Exhaustion had taken my brain into a zombie-like mode and I undressed and crawled into the daybed more in a routine. The last remnants of thought that crossed my mind were of how I imagined California looking and if my car was ready: I sure as hell was.
I was beginning my final climb into Flagstaff. Albuquerque and the chili were four hours behind me and I was beginning to get restless. You know that restless feeling you get in your legs when you've laid around the house all day? That was two hours ago.
I had studied a street map of Flagstaff thoroughly. I knew my way around town without knowing my way around town. I knew numbers and relative sizes of roads, but had little experience with the town itself. But I didn't care. I was excited to be out of the car and in the home of someone I was familiar with. Even more, I was proud of myself. I had challenged the Great American West and was winning the battle. My adventure was far from over, but I was triumphant thus far, and was determined to win the grand prize: the Pacific Ocean.
Interstate 40 made a loose U-shape around the southern base of the town. It came in from the northeast, turned a slow 90-Degrees and left back out of town heading northwest. The city itself sat in the crevice the highway made and only ran a few miles to the north. Flagstaff also sat just to the south of the San Francisco Peaks, a range of mountains that stretched into the sky above the town and created a scene straight out of a postcard.
I had been watching and waiting for my exit for miles now. Country Club Drive was a short street that connected I-40 with State Highway 89, the road I needed to follow. The moment I saw the exit sign my heart raced. I knew I was only ten minutes away.
I made the short right turn, and another, to turn onto Hwy-89. A bustling mall and a busy intersection were the only thing preventing me from the highway that almost immediately turned north. I was staring at people in other cars incredulously. They were standing in between me and Checkpoint One, as my mind began calling it (for no reason). They were living their own lives. Most were probably happy to be getting home after a day of shopping, or heading to see family. I looked down at my clock and reset it to the local time, more as a distraction from the longest intersection in the world.
My brain raced with realization. "5 pm. Shit! It's only 5?! How long have I been on the road? Oh, right. Time change. Wait, whoa, what?! It's 7 pm in Denton. Oh, I have got to get there already."
After (seemingly) a decade of waiting, my light turned green and I was full fledged north. Hwy-89 ran the eastern base of the Peaks, and the road I was looking for was just off of 89. I knew it was a few miles up, but I didn't know exactly where.
My car burst through the last remnants of civilization and I was in awe at the Peaks. They engulfed the entire driver side view of my car. I've been close to mountains, but not this close. I could see there were more than one, but was too afraid to keep staring for fear of wrecking my car this close to being stopped. "You would wreck his close, wouldn't you?" I thought to myself, but I quickly shook it off and began scanning the roads to my right.
Funny how relative time can flow. When traveling through a new place it feels like time has had a baby with molasses. Everything is so new and exciting; our brains perceive that it took much longer to go from Point A to Point B than realistically possible. After we acclimate to the new place or situation, everything moves at a normal pace again.
For example, I know that from when I turned off I-40 to when I arrived at Paula's house that only about six minutes had passed, but that doesn't mean it didn't feel like an extra hour of travel. Fence posts crawled past me in a seeming reversal of time. The mountains, so close but still so very distant, never moved. It felt as if they had grown an ego and puffed out the chest of trees at me, daring me to finalize this leg of the trip.
Then there I was.
Sitting in my parked car in the driveway of my destination. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains and was casting rays of pure joy from behind them like a peacock's tailfeathers.
I had to take a deep breath. I was excited and nervous. I hadn't seen Miss Paula, as I called her, in almost a decade. We both had married since then, I had some kids and she relocated from Houston to Flagstaff. I wasn't the 17-year-old bright eyed kid anymore. She, undoubtedly, was still the warm, loving extra-mom that I remembered from my youth.
The walk from my car to the front door dragged out even further. I investigated the house by habit, scanning the windows for signs of light or movement. I could see Paula and her husband Dave sitting at an L-shaped bar in the kitchen, both on their laptops. They hadn't heard me pull up. They knew that I would be arriving this evening, but didn't know what time to expect me. I scanned the landscape that spanned beyond their house. It was an odd mix of randomly growing grass and shadow casting stones. The land just kept going and going. Eventually, it fell of in the distance creating the appearance that Flagstaff sat near the edge of the world.
I stood on the doorstep and admired myself for just a second. "You just drove across a large mass of land. You're kind of a badass." Sometimes my inner voice can be nice. "Now shut up and ring the doorbell so you can poop." That's the inner voice I know.
I knocked instead. There was some movement, but not the over excited movement I had expected. Paula answered with a weak smile, an expression that someone who survived surgery would give, and looked me up and down like she didn't recognize me. "Mister Casey," she said, her smile widening just a little. She wrapped me in a gentle hug, another unexpected action, and welcomed me in to meet Dave.
This was already giving me a weird feeling. Paula was not living up to the memory I had of her. She was always over excitable and eager to be the loudest. Not obnoxious, mind you, just that loving kind of loud. She's that person in your family that always yells and stomps their way up to you when you visit home and makes the biggest deal about "I'll do your laundry and cook for you if you ever come visit, okay?"
But this was different. She was calm and cool, very collected and methodical. She was purposefully putting on the faces she was wearing and studying my responses to them. There was a brief introduction to her husband Dave, as we'd never met, then she guided me to the guest room. A day bed was tucked in the corner of what was once a sewing room. Several stuffed animals ranging in age from brand new to archaic adorned the flower comforter. A small table sat at the foot of the bed holding up an ancient sewing machine and some loose thread. There were no decorations on the wall, but the dual closet doors were open exposing stacks of boxes. "Storage room?" I asked politely, nodding toward the closet.
"It's where the grandkids sleep when they visit."
Oh, that's right. Her son Paul procreated. I shrugged off that odd thought and set the Backpack of Doom on the bed. "Restroom?" I asked. Those chilis were catching up to me quickly.
"Oh, this way!" she pipped, and promptly turned on her heel. The bathroom was directly across the hall, and had I not been so exhausted, would have seen it clearly. It wasn't fancied up like a guest bathroom one would expect in Texas, but rather stocked and clean, much like a hotel bathroom. It even had a few spare toothbrushes.
After settling my necessary clothing items and letting the chili find a new home, I settled at the bar in the kitchen with Paula while Dave started making dinner. I was about ready to pass out, but was curious enough of Dave and the dynamic that these two had that I decided to wake up and make the effort to be cordial.
I was almost immediately lost in Dave's work. He was truly a master of his craft. At first I couldn't comprehend what he was doing. He kept wandering from cabinet to cabinet taking out seemingly random ingredients and stacking them neatly, almost too neatly, together on the stove. When he'd finally stopped, he turned to me and asked, "Do you like macadamia nuts?"
"Sure, yeah. What are you making?" There were at least fifteen different items on the counter ranging from pepper to some form of deli meat and back.
"Hawaiian pizza. Ham and pineapple, of course, but I add macadamia nuts. It really brings a whole new level of flavor to the pizza," he said in an accent I couldn't quite place. He seemed really into cooking, and I don't mean like he enjoyed talking about Iron Chef. It was clear, even before he started putting the ingredients together, that Dave REALLY loved cooking. It was his zen garden -- his joy. If Dave hadn't worked with his company there is not a doubt in my mind that he would be running some small time restaurant where he knew every patron by name.
The pizza formed quickly and was in the oven before I could recognize what had happened. I had been busy catching up with Paula - explaining what had happened in life since we last were in one another's company, and how I came to be here by myself.
"But Cliff had to go out on the well, so here I am," I said shrugging and sitting back in my chair.
I suppose I had said it with just enough inflection in my voice. She asked, "Are you still upset with him?" Dammit, I gave myself away. Maybe I was a little bitter at Cliff, but I couldn't blame him too much for having to back out of the vacation at the last second. Okay, maybe I could blame him a bit for pulling out of going to Scotland with me, but this last second change in plans was not his doing.
"I can't be too angry. I know he's doing what he thinks is right. He's always been able to use the leverage from one job to find himself more money with another, but eighteen months of planning is a long time to get my hopes up. I mean, it's nice to see you and all, but I'd rather be in a pub in Glasgow." Dave looked at me for just a second after that last sentence and smiled. He knew something, but wasn't giving it away just yet.
She smiled a heart-melting mom smile. "I know, sweetie. But at least you get to have an adventure of a lifetime, right?" With that she stood and walked to the oven, cracking it momentarily to check on the pizza, then settling back down next to me at the bar. Dave didn't even flinch. It appeared he was even better than I had thought. He hadn't set a timer, and didn't even glance at Paula when she checked on the pizza. Either he trusted his wife enough to make a call on the pizza, or he had a mental timer telling him when it would be finished. Or, I suppose, the beer he and I had been sipping on since my arrival was kicking in and he was too far into an article on his laptop to care.
They moved around each other seamlessly. Almost like a natural intuition or hyper-attention, they knew where the other was at all times. If Paula was in the fridge and Dave approached from behind, she'd spin, duck under his reach, and move away without closing the fridge or knowing that he was coming. Either they had been alone around one another enough to build this amazing rapport or Paula had Pavlov-ed Dave into actions so that her living arrangements were made easy. I wasn't too sure, but I was impressed with the whole of it.
They'd speak to one another in tones and phrases that seemed practiced. They'd either land on a tone that inspired the other to retort, or would carefully choose words in an effort to thwart the other's opinion. They could be having an epic battle of the minds, and unless you were paying very close attention to body language and eye contact, you'd think they were background actors in a soap opera. Quite the opposite, Paula and Dave were masters of words that could easily cut down the least suspecting foe without so much as breaking into a high school vocabulary.
Wordsmiths. I was eating it up.
My attention back to the fore-front, I turned to Paula, far more interested in a question that had popped into my mind. "How's Paul doing? I mean, really doing?
"Wellll, what do you mean?" She dragged out the 'well' and feigned ignorance to the question, probably sizing up which angle I would approach concerning her son. Of the many things that separated Paul and I, aside from the years we spent apart and physical distance, his ability to absentmindedly fall into situations that he was incapable of getting out of never ceased to amaze me.
"I was under the impression he was going to be married before me, but never heard from him about it. Now that I think of it, I haven't heard from Paul in months."
Her demeanor changed ever so slightly. Just enough for me to notice this bothered her, but not enough to rile Dave. "He's making some," - she rolled her gaze to Dave as if this was an inside embarrassment, and she wasn't sure how to correctly word it - "decisions" she chose carefully, "that we don't necessarily agree with." Her eyes snapped back to me and she waited for a response.
Dave didn't so much as grunt. He looked over the top of his glasses at Paula for an instant, raising his eyebrows and mocking a frowned, thoughtful face before nodding one bob in agreement. He quickly tucked back into the article.
I've been around the moms of my friends, much less the queen of insincere subtlety herself (my mom), long enough to know what that means. "You don't like her, do you?" She studied me for a second. Her face didn't change, but her eyes drifted from my mouth to my eyes then to my posture before she formed an answer.
She squinted her eyes ever so slightly, then relaxed them before answering, "I rather enjoy the time I get with my granddaughter, and I don't think I get enough of it." She smiled again, but it was a smile that said 'I'm proud I came up with that'.
I nodded a series of diminishing nods and closed my eyes slowly conveying I understood completely. She didn't need to go into detail concerning her distaste for her son's girlfriend, and I wasn't inclined to let a soon-to-be elderly woman get a single foot down that path. We both sat in thought for a second before Dave appeared in front of us.
"Pizza?" he asked placing a plate in front of each of us.
It smelled heavenly. I could actually smell the roasted macadamia nuts on the pizza, and what appeared to be red bell pepper pieces. Biting into it was a trip into another world. The salty ham, the sweet pineapple, the bell pepper and the nuts blended well with an amazing pesto sauce he had made from scratch. "Is this wheat crust?!" I asked in amazement, holding the slice above my head and investigating the bottom.
"Of course. It's actually a blended wheat crust with a little extra cheese. When you get to be my age you begin to appreciate the flavors of everything." He was really proud of his work. He stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands on his hips, beaming. He knew he had created something amazing and he was taking in all the compliments he could. It wasn't uncomfortable, though. Usually if I'm proud of something I've done and I await a compliment on it I can feel everyone get tense. Like it shouldn't be expected. But Dave? No. Dave was cool. He was like a younger, hip Mr. Rogers that you wanted to trade stories with without even knowing him. He had an air of ex-skateboarder or surfer to him. His graying-red beard and pencil thin glasses made his face likeable in an instant, and when he smiled the beard smiled with him. He wasn't getting an ego kick, he was just happy that we were happy. This guy was genuine.
-
Dinner was short work between the three of us. Dave quickly retired back to his laptop and Paula was showing signs of settling in. She offered me her computer so I could check in with everyone and get my technology fix. She changed into her pajamas and rejoined me at the bar. "Do you have everything you need? You should probably plug in your phone and set out your clothes. The time change is going to be a killer in the morning."
She was right. I needed to prepare for the road tomorrow. Flagstaff was only a pit-stop on my way to California, and if I got too comfortable I would make mistakes. I slumped to my bedroom and plugged in my cell phone. The battery flashed that it was charging, then stopped flashing altogether. "Oh, come the fuck on," I breathed in frustration.
The charger had been damaged over time and would power up my phone at random. I could usually find a way to weigh down a piece of the cable and ensure the metal connections were in place, but tonight the charger wasn't having it. It kept connecting and disconnecting, chiming accordingly, and frustrating me further. "Fuck it," I thought. "If it charges, it charges. I'll buy a car charger in the morning." I unpacked a set of clothes and set them next to the sewing machine before returning back to the kitchen.
Paula had her Nook out and was reading something that was causing her to furrow her brow. Dave had begun burning a large stack of CDs. He had an external CD-ROM that was buzzing and whirring away while he typed vigorously on his laptop. I sat down in front of Paula's laptop and checked the weather for the next day. "68°F and Sunny," the website told me. I started to log in to my e-mail when Paula spoke.
"So how's your mom?" She didn't even look up from the Nook, but she didn't have to. I knew where she was going with this - I knew where everyone was going with this. Her eyes quickly flicked up at me to gauge a reaction, but I'd been well practiced in answering this question and knew better than to let my face give away my emotion.
My mother, Sheryl, had a way of leaving an impression on people. Much like myself, she was very good about talking her way into your trust quickly. She could escalate and calm almost any situation and was a master of reading body language and subtle nuances in conversation. In her age, she was beginning to lose her ability to calm situations and had a habit of leaving a trail of bitter people behind her. I had grown quite accustomed to family and friends asking how my mom and I got along. We have similar personalities, so one could naturally assume that we'd kill one another eventually. We had a history of having eternal disagreements and are known to go months without talking. Miss Paula was not the first (and most certainly wouldn't be the last) person to inquire as to the status of the current relationship between my mother and I.
Without looking up from the laptop I answered, "I don't know." I had hoped this would be sufficient enough of an answer.
I had apparently used just the right tone. She nodded ever so slightly and changed the subject. "And Cody?"
I breathed hard through my mouth, but turned and raised my eyebrows, thankful for the change. "Cody's doing great. He's an entrepreneur of sorts. I'm not too sure if he'd like me to go into detail," I trailed off. Everyone had thoughts about what Cody did for money, but few people knew the truth. I implied well enough that this was a subject that wouldn't go much farther, and she caught on.
"But he's doing well?" She was full-on looking at me now. Cody and Miss Paula had a special relationship that went beyond what she and I had. She knew that the house we were growing up in was not the healthiest place for someone like Cody, and always took special precaution when talking to him. This net her something that is almost impossible to gain: Cody's full trust. He would confide in her. He'd go to her when he needed someone. He had found someone that truly cared and loved him for who he was, and she had found someone that could love her right back. They were true Best Friends. To be honest, I was a little jealous of the look she was giving me right then.
"Yeah, he's Cody. He knows how to handle money and take care of himself," I answered smoothly, trying to calm her nerves. "Actually, he and I have grown a bit closer now that I live a few hundred miles away. We talk a few times a week." She smiled a real smile for the first time that night. I added, "It's nice having your younger brother come to you for advice. After years of trying to straighten things out between us it's like he's finally going to give it a shot."
Her smile reached it's maximum. I could feel the hair on my arms and neck stand up. She was showing her hand and my little brother had caused it. "I'm so happy you two are finally seeing eye-to-eye. If we could just get your mom on board-"
"Let's not go there." I realized I was tense all over. My hands were frozen above the keyboard where seconds earlier they had been furiously typing an e-mail to Saphron. I was looking her in the face and had to make myself relax the muscles around my jaw. This was not a subject for discussion. "I'm sorry. Things are still sore and I'm not sure how they'll play out."
She leaned forward onto her elbows, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She was giving me that Understanding Mom look now. "You should know something about my relationship with your mom." She waited. She knew I would have to give her permission to continue with the statement.
I mulled it over for a second. While I may have a distaste for my mom, it's always interesting to hear other opinions of her. She did have a habit of pissing people off, but knowing that I wasn't the only one affected had a weird sting to it.
I lowered my volume just enough to make it sound like Miss Paula needed to tread lightly. "What did she do?"
I watched her glance at Dave again, but I didn't follow her gaze. I readjusted my posture and crossed one leg over the knee of my other leg while turning to face her directly. I put one elbow on the counter and sat my jaw on the heel of my hand so I was leaning ever-slightly sideways. I knew what air I was giving off, and it firmly had her attention.
She sat up straight and answered as plainly as if I was a principal questioning a student. "One of the biggest reason I left Texas was to get away from your mom." She paused and gauged my reaction again, which didn't change, so she continued. "She was always so intense. She needed to go or do, but most importantly, she needed to be in charge." I could see how saying this was draining her. Her eyes went vacant and she formed a trembling frown like someone on the verge of crying. "She was always chiming in with how I should raise Paul and Daniel. After a few years of being around your mom twenty-four/seven I began to lose my sanity. She's an intense person to be around that long."
She quickly regained confidence. Talking about her sons had reminded her of what she did and it was clear she was proud of the decision. "I was always under the impression you moved out here to be closer to Daniel after he was sent to live with your parents," I said as neutral as I could muster. I sat up and leaned forward, trying to convey I wasn't angry, but curious.
"That's what I told her. I knew Daniel would do fine with mom and dad, I just needed to be on my own. I had been in that suppressive marriage to their dad for years, and when I got out I made a good friend in your mom. She was always available when I needed someone, but she was always there when I needed to be alone, too. I think on it now, and the more I realize how much your mom just needed someone to be around, but she ALWAYS needed them around."
All I could do was nod. It was true. I really didn't want to go any further, so I just nodded. Paula picked up on this and changed the subject.
"But here you are. You're a man now. And what a handsome man you've become. You're married! And two kids, Casey, I always knew you'd do something with yourself. I'm proud of you."
Dammit, Paula.
I smiled. I loved hearing that.
The conversation dwindled after that. I look back now and think that she needed to get that out to someone other than Dave. She said that she rarely speaks to my mom now (I don't blame her) but she keeps in touch so she knows what's going on. She turned off her Nook and offered me a kiss on the forehead with a warm, "Good to see you've become the man you are now," before she left us for her bedroom in the back of the house.
It was growing late but my mind was wide awake. This happened every night around 10 pm. I'd be on the edge of passing out while standing up and my mind would get over the wall and I'd be ready to go all over again.
Dave and I alternated who would refill the beers. He had a keg in a refrigerator in his garage filled with Miller Lite. It wasn't my favorite, but it was free and he offered. By the time Paula went to bed he and I were a good six pack in, each. Now was the time for some male bonding. I didn't know him that well, and as he's married to a woman I cherish, I intended to get some good ideas of who I was dealing with here.
He was not at all shy to tell his story, which immediately put me in a trance. He was born in Scotland and moved to San Francisco when he was 4. He grew up a stereotype skater kid (as best one can in the 70s), but being in the Bay Area afforded him the opportunity to watch music evolve from its source. He saw the hippie movement of the 60s. He watched disco and metal form side by side in the 70s. He was an adult and aware when punk rock emerged on the scene in the 80s. He traveled to Washington for grunge in the 90s. Dave, simply put, was The Shit.
We talked bands and music for hours. He was "...never a good enough musician..." but he knew the bands and the stories. He was like the ultimate fanboy of Rock, except he was there. He told me stories of seeing Stevie Ray Vaughn play for David Bowie, and seeing Alice Cooper pre-makeup at a personal show in Berkeley. He knew where the flow of music was going because he had been riding this wave of awesome for years already, and just because he became a responsible adult, didn't mean he had to stop paddling out.
I asked as many questions about California as I could. I had only been once, but it was many years and several whiskeys ago, so it was all faded memories at best. He told me how vast the climate changes were, and how the mentalities of the people changed the farther north you went. He detailed which places I should eat and where I could find the best beer in San Diego and Los Angeles. His love of growing up there was apparent in his tone, but maybe that was just Dave. He loved most things.
He warned me about traveling through the desert. "I-10 coming back to Phoenix is nothing but sand, man," he said slipping into surfer-voice. "Try to fuel up just west of LA. The gas will be a bit cheaper and you won't have to fight anyone to get to a pump. It'll save you time from stopping in the desert. I hope your car is tuned up for the trip."
"It had better be. I had almost the entire front end replaced before I left. New CV joints, new axles, new brakes, radiator, headlights. It cost me enough; it had better be ready for this." My car had a nice tendency of surprising me, but it never let me know if it would be for the better or worse. I remember saying that and swallowing hard, hoping for the better.
2 am rolled around before either of us could catch our breath. We had been discussing music and trends for hours. Tales of my Scotland adventure creeped in, and he expressed how jealous he was. He had never gone back. In fact, he wasn't nationalized. He had tried taking the exam a few times, but always ended up in a financial bind, so he just kept renewing his Work Permit. Eventually, he had stood up to go fetch another beer and looked down at his laptop before exclaiming, "Shit dude, it's 2." He looked at me with pursed lips and raised eyebrows that said, "What do we do now?"
I shrugged. "I suppose it's about that time." I stood and washed my beer mug before walking to the bedroom. I checked my phone again. It was still fluctuating between charging and not charging. My battery was floating at 15% at this point, and I guessed it might be at 50% by morning, but it was of no concern because I was getting that car charger.
I walked back into the kitchen and thanked Dave for the conversation. He did something that caught me off guard: He shook my hand.
Let me rephrase: He made eye contact, set the grip, and shook my hand like I was a long-lost friend he had re-acquainted with, then said, "It was a pleasure getting to know you, Casey. I hope you feel welcome enough to come back whenever you like," and he smiled a very real smile. "Oh, and how do you take your coffee?"
I laughed a little. "Just enough milk to change color. No sugar."
"I gotcha. Goodnight, bud."
I don't even remember laying down. Exhaustion had taken my brain into a zombie-like mode and I undressed and crawled into the daybed more in a routine. The last remnants of thought that crossed my mind were of how I imagined California looking and if my car was ready: I sure as hell was.