Sometimes, I wish I were Irish. Then, I could WRITE, or at the very least, people would believe my stories of drunken dialogs near Howth. I've been reading Dunleavy and Joyce this week.
When you head west from I-25 on twenty-eighth street, the transients' sprawl, hotels, the Happy Church, only extends maybe two blocks from the Interstate corridor. Sharp as wind, you're in a different part of town, where all the houses are connected, close to the road, without lawns, and very white. I'm conditioned by too many films about Mexico -- just seeing white wooden houses makes me think it's hot outside. It is, though. 90 degrees and holding, and people are sitting outside on porches, on broken chairs, leaning against the white walls, watching cars go by, little groups of four or five men, all with moustaches and white shirts. Smaller sets, maybe two or three, women in blues and long green gowns, laughing, walking along the street, not feeling the sun. The mens' eyes rise briefly as people walk by, or drive by, but then they look back into whatever place they were, without talking. I wonder what they're thinking, wonder if I'll end up on my neighbors' steps when I'm sixty. It could happen. I could live like that, can see a divide that takes me there. I've already got the ratty car.
Lawns, now, and a few houses set back, painted blue, with trees. Upended bathtubs with iconography going on in the back yards. Grandma lives in an area that was brand new in 1955, but aged faster than that.
The back of the flapper is broken, and it isn't sealing right because the flapper hits against the float. They got it from some Home Hardware Whorehouse. Grandma gives directions how to get there for a replacement, and I quote: "You drive down Sheridan until the other light. Turn right, go a little and it's off to the side." Thanks, Grandma.
A moment of telepathy, though -- "It's where we used to, you know" and I say, "take the go-cart Granddad made?"
"Yeah," she says. We both start laughing like maniacs. Blood will tell.
Down Sheridan to the other light. Twenty years ago, this was a big, abandoned parking lot for a big, abandoned drive-in theater, complete with lots of poles where the speakers used to be. Granddad made the go-cart from old plumbing he found, lying around behind houses. The wheels were mismatched lawnmower debris. He painted it red, white, and blue, to match his Jeep and his house and most of his tools. The frame, of roughly straightened pipe, was brushed bright red. The cracked vinyl seat, from heaven knows where, sprayed white. The engine, bright blue.
"That's a Briggs und Stratton tree horsepower," he'd say, pointing at it. "Somboddy just trew it away. Who would do tat?" Granddad flew his rented Jennie from Hackensack to Dayton, barnstorming, during the Depression. He was acutely aware of how to time magnetos, and the worth of a good, American engine. It took me six years to realize that Gates Rubber didn't make things called wee-belts.
Big sale at the Home Hardware Whorehouse. This beatiful black woman walks out the front door, wearing an enormous bright blue dress with green and yellow flowers all over it, and walks over to a VW Rabbit, a two-tone job, the smallest car in sight. Lots of pick-ups, handsbreadth of clearance above the pavement, heavy flame paint jobs on the fenders, or all in white with big spoilers on the tailgates, little white lines across the headlights and taillights. A kid rides past me on his bicycle, 48-spoke wheels gleaming with gold plating. He's wearing a Primus baseball cap. Beside me, a family gets into their brand-new burgundy Honda, and the guy behind the wheel starts it with his right hand, as he's holding three two-by-fours, eight feet long, in his other hand, resting them on the rear-view mirror. They stick out behind the car. I give him a forty percent chance that he won't even get to the stoplight without dropping one. Win the bet with myself. I make lots of eye contact with people.
In the middle of Sheridan, cars slowing, as I pull out. There's a white Mercedes 280, hood up, in the middle of the lane. Four guys standing around it. One, tall, marine haircut, huge tattoo of a dragon winding around his dark arm, is pulling the valve cover out, putting it on the pavement by his feet, beside the air cleaner. Behind them is Sloans' Lake, where the Sportsmens' Club was, in the '20's. The water is crystal-clear. No fish, no algae, no ducks. When the light is right, you can see the grey-white mounds on the bottom of the lake, 2,000 kilograms of lead from missed shots on the target range. The guy who is pulling the upper radiator hose off looks over at me as I drive by, looks at my car, wrinkles his nose. He's got a mouth like Jack Nicholson. So does my boss. It's a hard, gray, inflexible mouth and it doesn't belong to them, or to Jack. None of them have mouths that fit the rest of their bodies, not even Jack. It's somebody else's mouth, someone meaner, who has rented or loaned it to them as some form of advertising, or maybe just a sign: watch out, buddy. I always watch my boss's lips when he's talking because they're saying different things than the rest of him does. At lunch the other day, we were talking about lasers, computers and guns, all he really likes in life. Somebody says something about that rape/murder in Denver. It was maybe four days after they'd caught the guy, the day she finally died. My boss looked over at Dave, who'd mentioned it, and said, "Shit. That's what ropes are for."
I said, "yeah" and for a second I believed it.
Then my brain said, "that's not justice, that's revenge." Silently.
I wanted to scrub my brain with lye, clean it out. I didn't want to be the person that had those thoughts.
Driving by the long white houses again, slowly, behind a bus. They grow geraniums in pots on the windowsills. I pass the Zapateria and drive down Tejon, pull into the parking lot in front of Maroon Bells. A guy yells across at me, "Hey, Blondie, que pasa?" Laughter... I look over, yell back, "Lo paso'!" and walk inside.
It's cooler in here, and darker than outside. Maria waves at me as I wander in, and comes over.
"You look tired. It's been a while."
"Busy," I say.
"You're always busy. Want the usual?" she says, as I rest my elbows on the countertop.
"Sure."
"You want to slow down for a while," she says, over quick elbows and clinking. "When was the last time you just simply didn't work, didn't do anything?"
I think for a while, watching her. "1987," I say.
"See?" She turns around, hands me the coil of silver wire. "You need to take some time off. Make some more necklaces."
I walk out of Maroon Bells, probably the only place I'll ever be considered a Regular.
Back on the Interstate, heading north. The annual slow flood of Harleys, migrating to the northeast, is picking up now. They rumble by, black Sportsters, big bearded guys wearing American flag jackets, or t-shirts with four letters in blood-red, "WACO" on the backs, tightly hugging their compound curves. They're hairy eyeballing the yuppie couple in the gray Explorer, with the "We Remember: Oklahoma City, April 14 1995" bumpersticker. The sun is lower and the shadows of the bikes are immensely tall, solid aluminum front wheels, schlieren behind the twin tailpipes giving ghosty shadows on the pavement behind them. The cumulus clouds are all in yellows and oranges, and standing lenticulars form rows parallel to the mountains, gently rotating in place.
I pull a Dove Promise out of my backpack, part of the candy stash from last weekend, and open it. The little motto on the inside of the foil wrapper is divided -- half on each side, neither legible. I get two half-benedictions, both useless. The chocolate sure tastes good.