lastly . . .
One more, one more. Oh, it's not about boys making out. What are we gonna do!
Tell me about how you get home.
Going home . . . what do you want to hear?
You leave through the front door.
Yeah. Your bright green door. I leave. I make sure it’s locked behind me.
What do you see?
The light, first. The new light, the way the street looks overexposed in the morning, like film that’s been left out. Everything looks cut out of the fabric, you know, everything looks like you could peel it off the concrete and stick it in your pocket.
Then?
I go down to my car. I write in the dust on the back windshield of your neighbor’s van. I’m tired, I’m always tired when I leave you. I gotta keep my eyes open. I pop a can of Coke, kill half of it in the first pull, sitting on the curb.
Why on the curb?
Don’t know. Don’t want to get in the car yet, I guess. I like your street at six in the morning. It’s quiet. You can hear Spanish in the buildings. The gutters are clean, the breeze is coming in off the ocean. Runners jog by silently, measured breaths and the even slap of their strides, heading for the park. Old men walk slowly to the 7-11 to buy coffee and newspapers. Almost every house is shuttered, motionless, just the curtains twisting against the window glass.
You sit on the curb, you see all this stuff. I never see any of this stuff.
You’re never up at six in the morning.
That’s true. Keep going.
Okay. I drink my Coke. I smoke a cigarette, maybe two. I lean my head against the mail box. I breathe out, wait for the caffeine to hit. When the fog settles down, I can’t see as far as across the street, can barely see my hand in front of my face. Those mornings I like best.
You and your fog.
Yeah. But, okay. I get in the car. It’s always cold inside, the seat stiff. My hand shakes when I turn on the defrost. I put in the right tape, dig a candy bar out of the glove compartment and eat it. I drive down your street with the window up, but once I hit the stoplight, I roll it down, hike the volume on the stereo. Because I’m heading for the highway, you know.
Sure.
I drive down the Great Highway. The shore is unbroken, fifty yards to my right. The sun’s barely high enough to clear the hills to the east, peeks over like it’s making sure the coast is clear. There’s not too many people out driving, but we fall into a pack, because we all know the string of stoplights are timed to thirty-five miles an hour, keep steady and you’ll never have to stop. I sing along to the tape, talk to myself.
Talk to yourself?
Yeah. To myself. To you. To whoever.
Okay.
San Francisco’s waking up. I’m out at the edge of it, but I can still feel it happen. The city stretches, yawns, blinks in a bleary sort of way. There’s a line for the drive-thru window at the McDonald’s in Stonestown, and I get hungry for hashbrowns. The sea’s baffling, I can see the curve of the earth at the horizon. I look for Japan, imagine I can see it glinting in the sun.
Japan.
Yeah, I can see it, I swear. I get on 280, I drive south.
The most beautiful highway in the world.
Beyond compare. I come to the break in the hills, just past Serramonte, and the South San Francisco valley busts open in the windshield. At night, it’s a shallow saucer down between the hills, scattered with gold lights, and the runways of the airport funnel down to their vanishing points out in the bay. But in the morning, it’s soft and muted, the houses pastel-colored and the grid of streets looks like a net. I can only see the valley for a minute or two, depending on how fast I’m going.
How fast are you going?
At six in the morning? Eighty-five miles an hour. At three in the morning, a constant hundred.
Hot shot.
Yeah. But it’s a forty minute drive and I’ve made it in fifteen, haven’t I?
Yeah, you have.
After the valley, I get to the top of Black Mountain and it’s always raining. Drifting vague mist, curling around the trees on the side of the road, slowly fuzzing on my windshield. I roll down the window again, let the rain come in, get my hair wet.
Like, improvised shower.
Exactly. And I look for the statue of Junipero Serra, and I think, in case you get lost, the man on the hill is pointing west. That statue, the head’s all lumpy, but I love that shit. I turn to look over my shoulder, try to get a glimpse of that Flintstone modern-art house on the northern side of the highway.
That house is crazy.
Crazy and cool, true. I get to the exit for 92, where if you go east you’ll end up in Oakland, and if you go west, you’ll end up in Half Moon Bay, a bisect across the peninsula. I think about Pescadero, I think about San Gregorio Beach.
The one with the caves?
Yeah.
Love that beach.
Yeah. The orchards on the way out to Half Moon Bay, the place where we went to buy Christmas trees last year. Pumpkins in October, strawberries in the summer. The roadside shop selling giant sculptures carved out of redwood. Skyline Boulevard, the long way home through the hills. But no, it’s six in the morning. My route is direct.
You’re tired.
I’m half-dead. You have no idea how hard it is to get out of bed at six in the morning after having only slept a couple of hours, and then have to drive halfway to Santa Cruz before getting to go back to sleep.
That’s what you get for living down there.
That’s what I get because you don’t own a car, dude.
That too.
Anyway. I come in off the highway, whip through town. The streetlights are still on, but the stars are so faded it hurts to look for them. I scan for mountain lions and deer, I see raccoons explode like landmines away from trashcans when I drive past. The sky will be pale pink at this point, the blue creeping in from the edges, the vanishing moon as white and insubstantial as a scrap of cotton. I cut through the Foothills, the turn-off where you almost got arrested when we were juniors.
That place near Cow Hill?
Yeah. I throw it into neutral coming down that last tall rise before I get into the town proper, scream down at ninety miles an hour.
That’s twice the speed limit, that’s such a felony.
I know. I can’t stop, though. I go past the Veterans’ Hospital and think about when we used to be drug addicts.
Used to be?
No, yeah, I know, nobody recovers, nobody gets better, I know. But I think about that. And then I go past our high school and I hardly recognize it, with all those new buildings and the tree where we used to eat lunch is gone. If it’s late enough, I see some teachers coming in, the men freshly-shaven with bits of toilet paper on their faces, the women smoothly made up, their eyes still bright, all of them sipping coffee and buttoning their shirt cuffs at the traffic light, looking pallid and worn out.
High school teachers, Jesus.
I know, right. I go past the cemetery holding my breath. Past the church with its stark black cross and the crows that nest in its eaves. I’m almost home now, these streets I know as well as anything. Going by the elementary school, I wave to the custodian guy who’s always out having a cigarette break when I drive past. And the park where I used to meet you at midnight when we were trying to get into trouble. And each house I drive past, I name the people who live there, all the history here, all the stuff I forget that I know. I dodge the stray cats and pull into my driveway over the crushed gravel. I sit on the bumper and light a cigarette and call you on the phone like you always make me promise I will. And you say, ‘you get home okay?’ And I say, ‘yeah, of course.’ And you say, ‘go to bed, you sound tired.’ And I say, ‘you too,’ and then you say, ‘call me if you can’t sleep,’ and I can barely even breathe after you say that.
Really?
Really. I go into my house and it’s silent, empty. The pile of mail is sliding off the piano, the food is going bad in the cabinets. I never spend any time here, anymore. I pull off my clothes and I’m too sleepy to brush my teeth, I’ll brush them when I wake up. If there’s a ballgame later that day, I set the alarm on the clock radio to go off at game time, so baseball will be the first thing I hear. I close the curtains, muffle the door, turn off the lights. Take a couple of sleeping pills. Get way down deep in the covers, tuck myself all the way in. I think about the places we could go to escape and I think about who’s pitching that afternoon and I think about whether I have enough money in my wallet to buy some more tapes and I think about how you peered out at me from under the pillow as I got dressed, wide-eyed watching me in the shadows, and eventually I fall asleep. That’s how I get home.
Right! That oughta keep you busy. I'm out of cigarettes. grrrrr.
Tell me about how you get home.
Going home . . . what do you want to hear?
You leave through the front door.
Yeah. Your bright green door. I leave. I make sure it’s locked behind me.
What do you see?
The light, first. The new light, the way the street looks overexposed in the morning, like film that’s been left out. Everything looks cut out of the fabric, you know, everything looks like you could peel it off the concrete and stick it in your pocket.
Then?
I go down to my car. I write in the dust on the back windshield of your neighbor’s van. I’m tired, I’m always tired when I leave you. I gotta keep my eyes open. I pop a can of Coke, kill half of it in the first pull, sitting on the curb.
Why on the curb?
Don’t know. Don’t want to get in the car yet, I guess. I like your street at six in the morning. It’s quiet. You can hear Spanish in the buildings. The gutters are clean, the breeze is coming in off the ocean. Runners jog by silently, measured breaths and the even slap of their strides, heading for the park. Old men walk slowly to the 7-11 to buy coffee and newspapers. Almost every house is shuttered, motionless, just the curtains twisting against the window glass.
You sit on the curb, you see all this stuff. I never see any of this stuff.
You’re never up at six in the morning.
That’s true. Keep going.
Okay. I drink my Coke. I smoke a cigarette, maybe two. I lean my head against the mail box. I breathe out, wait for the caffeine to hit. When the fog settles down, I can’t see as far as across the street, can barely see my hand in front of my face. Those mornings I like best.
You and your fog.
Yeah. But, okay. I get in the car. It’s always cold inside, the seat stiff. My hand shakes when I turn on the defrost. I put in the right tape, dig a candy bar out of the glove compartment and eat it. I drive down your street with the window up, but once I hit the stoplight, I roll it down, hike the volume on the stereo. Because I’m heading for the highway, you know.
Sure.
I drive down the Great Highway. The shore is unbroken, fifty yards to my right. The sun’s barely high enough to clear the hills to the east, peeks over like it’s making sure the coast is clear. There’s not too many people out driving, but we fall into a pack, because we all know the string of stoplights are timed to thirty-five miles an hour, keep steady and you’ll never have to stop. I sing along to the tape, talk to myself.
Talk to yourself?
Yeah. To myself. To you. To whoever.
Okay.
San Francisco’s waking up. I’m out at the edge of it, but I can still feel it happen. The city stretches, yawns, blinks in a bleary sort of way. There’s a line for the drive-thru window at the McDonald’s in Stonestown, and I get hungry for hashbrowns. The sea’s baffling, I can see the curve of the earth at the horizon. I look for Japan, imagine I can see it glinting in the sun.
Japan.
Yeah, I can see it, I swear. I get on 280, I drive south.
The most beautiful highway in the world.
Beyond compare. I come to the break in the hills, just past Serramonte, and the South San Francisco valley busts open in the windshield. At night, it’s a shallow saucer down between the hills, scattered with gold lights, and the runways of the airport funnel down to their vanishing points out in the bay. But in the morning, it’s soft and muted, the houses pastel-colored and the grid of streets looks like a net. I can only see the valley for a minute or two, depending on how fast I’m going.
How fast are you going?
At six in the morning? Eighty-five miles an hour. At three in the morning, a constant hundred.
Hot shot.
Yeah. But it’s a forty minute drive and I’ve made it in fifteen, haven’t I?
Yeah, you have.
After the valley, I get to the top of Black Mountain and it’s always raining. Drifting vague mist, curling around the trees on the side of the road, slowly fuzzing on my windshield. I roll down the window again, let the rain come in, get my hair wet.
Like, improvised shower.
Exactly. And I look for the statue of Junipero Serra, and I think, in case you get lost, the man on the hill is pointing west. That statue, the head’s all lumpy, but I love that shit. I turn to look over my shoulder, try to get a glimpse of that Flintstone modern-art house on the northern side of the highway.
That house is crazy.
Crazy and cool, true. I get to the exit for 92, where if you go east you’ll end up in Oakland, and if you go west, you’ll end up in Half Moon Bay, a bisect across the peninsula. I think about Pescadero, I think about San Gregorio Beach.
The one with the caves?
Yeah.
Love that beach.
Yeah. The orchards on the way out to Half Moon Bay, the place where we went to buy Christmas trees last year. Pumpkins in October, strawberries in the summer. The roadside shop selling giant sculptures carved out of redwood. Skyline Boulevard, the long way home through the hills. But no, it’s six in the morning. My route is direct.
You’re tired.
I’m half-dead. You have no idea how hard it is to get out of bed at six in the morning after having only slept a couple of hours, and then have to drive halfway to Santa Cruz before getting to go back to sleep.
That’s what you get for living down there.
That’s what I get because you don’t own a car, dude.
That too.
Anyway. I come in off the highway, whip through town. The streetlights are still on, but the stars are so faded it hurts to look for them. I scan for mountain lions and deer, I see raccoons explode like landmines away from trashcans when I drive past. The sky will be pale pink at this point, the blue creeping in from the edges, the vanishing moon as white and insubstantial as a scrap of cotton. I cut through the Foothills, the turn-off where you almost got arrested when we were juniors.
That place near Cow Hill?
Yeah. I throw it into neutral coming down that last tall rise before I get into the town proper, scream down at ninety miles an hour.
That’s twice the speed limit, that’s such a felony.
I know. I can’t stop, though. I go past the Veterans’ Hospital and think about when we used to be drug addicts.
Used to be?
No, yeah, I know, nobody recovers, nobody gets better, I know. But I think about that. And then I go past our high school and I hardly recognize it, with all those new buildings and the tree where we used to eat lunch is gone. If it’s late enough, I see some teachers coming in, the men freshly-shaven with bits of toilet paper on their faces, the women smoothly made up, their eyes still bright, all of them sipping coffee and buttoning their shirt cuffs at the traffic light, looking pallid and worn out.
High school teachers, Jesus.
I know, right. I go past the cemetery holding my breath. Past the church with its stark black cross and the crows that nest in its eaves. I’m almost home now, these streets I know as well as anything. Going by the elementary school, I wave to the custodian guy who’s always out having a cigarette break when I drive past. And the park where I used to meet you at midnight when we were trying to get into trouble. And each house I drive past, I name the people who live there, all the history here, all the stuff I forget that I know. I dodge the stray cats and pull into my driveway over the crushed gravel. I sit on the bumper and light a cigarette and call you on the phone like you always make me promise I will. And you say, ‘you get home okay?’ And I say, ‘yeah, of course.’ And you say, ‘go to bed, you sound tired.’ And I say, ‘you too,’ and then you say, ‘call me if you can’t sleep,’ and I can barely even breathe after you say that.
Really?
Really. I go into my house and it’s silent, empty. The pile of mail is sliding off the piano, the food is going bad in the cabinets. I never spend any time here, anymore. I pull off my clothes and I’m too sleepy to brush my teeth, I’ll brush them when I wake up. If there’s a ballgame later that day, I set the alarm on the clock radio to go off at game time, so baseball will be the first thing I hear. I close the curtains, muffle the door, turn off the lights. Take a couple of sleeping pills. Get way down deep in the covers, tuck myself all the way in. I think about the places we could go to escape and I think about who’s pitching that afternoon and I think about whether I have enough money in my wallet to buy some more tapes and I think about how you peered out at me from under the pillow as I got dressed, wide-eyed watching me in the shadows, and eventually I fall asleep. That’s how I get home.
Right! That oughta keep you busy. I'm out of cigarettes. grrrrr.