Driving
the Brain
by Kerry Glamsch
There was a message
on the machine when we got back from the beach.
"Hey guys, it’s Elana, you’re probably
not back yet, but Kerry? Give me a call when you get
this, okay? Thinkwell’s looking for somebody to drive
the brain. It’s ten weeks and a lot of driving, you’ll
be out on the road alone, but it pays real well, and,
I don’t know, when they asked if we knew anybody,
for some reason I thought of you."
Thinkwell’s an Austin-based company
that makes digital, interactive textbooks. Part of
their genius lies in promotion, and in the spring
of ’99, they constructed a big, blue, fiberglass brain,
which they mounted like a huge parasite onto the back
of a GMC pickup. In addition to driving the Brainmobile,
the job would include donning a bright orange jumpsuit,
crashing conferences and universities, and passing
out free stuff to an awed and giddy populace. I met
with co-founder Dan Heath and told him to look no
further: he’d found his driver. Dan cocked his head
and listened to my spiel, politely nodding, eyes far
away. After the interview, I wondered if maybe I had
shown too much enthusiasm. Why would any sane thirty-nine
year old man appear so desperate, anyway?
Three weeks later, I slide in a
Pixies CD and cue up the song "Gigantic." There’s
a PA system, and I squeeze the mic and hold it against
the speaker. Feedback. The bass line starts. I put
the brain in drive. A crowd of employees waves so
long. It’s Monday, June nineteenth, twelve noon, ninety-eight
degrees out. The frontal lobe extends over the cab,
providing shade to the air-conditioned black interior.
Boxes fill the cerebral cortex: brochures, packets,
and little foam squeeze brains. I’m supposed to make
a speech.
"Well," I tell them, "here goes
nothing."
More feedback. I wonder if they’ve heard
me.
"Can you all hear me okay?"
They smile and wave, wishing they could
get out of the heat. Dan gives me a sweaty thumbs
up. I take my foot off the brake. All right then.
Here we go.
The Brainmobile creeps forward. I let
go of the mic. Two dirty windows offer distorted views
out the back. Side mirrors leave blind spots big as
a dozen hippos. I hit the blinker and creep out onto
First Street. The truck rocks side to side. I check
the mirrors and toot the horn. The last of the crowd
files back inside.
Highway 71, outside La Grange, and the
first wave of Roadtrip Bliss starts doing its thing.
The land opens up and the blacktop turns gray. Roadkill
becomes exotic. I slap the dash, and give the seat
a bounce. Feels pretty good in here. Check it out.
I’m on my way to Montreal. New York! San Francisco!
Fucking Yuma, Arizona!
Okay, so maybe Yuma’s no big deal, but
look out there, just look: clouds drifting in from
the Gulf of Mexico, unpainted barns sagging in the
summer breeze, double-wides begging for mercy, fresh
rolled hay waiting to be hauled away, sold at auctions,
or hay markets, hell, I don’t know, but listen to
this incredible stereo: Emmylou Harris covering Lucinda
Williams’ heartbreaking Sweet Old World. Neil Young
coming in on the chorus. My God, it’s too much— I’m
snuffling tears when all of a sudden, Beep! Beep!,
a beat-to-shit Toyota pulls up on my left.
Overflowing with farm kids, the car
keeps pace. Scrawny brown arms thrust out from open
windows, pointing at the weird brain thing zooming
down the road. They’re laughing, and I’m wiping tears,
and I think, Uh oh, maybe it’s not the brain they
find so amusing. Maybe it’s the bald guy with sideburns,
what’s he doing, singing his way home from a funeral?
I look over, trying on a smile, sort of a Yeah, I
know, pretty damn crazy, huh? The car speeds away.
Pretty soon, it’s raining.
My father died in October of ’96. He
had been a teenager in Hitler’s Germany, with an extensive
collection of underground Louis Armstrong records.
But because he was also a jujitsu champion, and because
his father had fought in the first world war, he was
expected to join the SS once he turned eighteen. Instead,
at seventeen, he joined the German Navy, but his ship
was destroyed before it left harbor. He and a friend
attempted an escape to Switzerland, were nabbed by
German forces, tried as deserters, and sent to the
front. The war almost over, he sought out and surrendered
to the Americans. During his nine month stay in a
French prison camp, he made friends with a guard named
Bill. Bill hailed from Muncie, Indiana.
My mother’s people rode an oxcart from
Georgia and homesteaded a portion of land east of
what is now Tampa. Mom grew up in Plant City, Florida,
Strawberry Capital of the World. In the spring of
‘55, while working for the local newspaper, she interviewed
a young immigrant who had just driven a noirish Buick
down from Muncie. She wanted to know why he had left
Germany.
Dad worked as a traveling salesman.
He’d go away forever, then show up again with presents,
drink a lot of beer, and show me martial arts moves.
His face would turn red, and I remember telling other
kids he was an Indian. He said that my brother and
I were the last of the Glamsches. His sister had married
a Mexican fighter pilot, and an Uncle Fritz disappeared
during the war.
A few weeks after he died, I searched
the Net, and came up a cousin Gundula living outside
of Munich. Together, we located fifty-nine other Glamsches.
One of those, Suzanna, said she had tracked the name
back to seventeenth century Austria. Seems there was
an expression going around at the time. If you had
a "glamsch" in your family, you had someone who would
take off and go traipsing around the world. Sort of
like the werewolf curse. I look in the rearview mirror,
and ask Dad what he knows about it.
Just this side of Houston, I pull off
for some gas. A big guy with a crewcut breaks into
a smile. The sort of man who would, under any other
circumstances aggressively want nothing to do with
me, today he’s just a big boy in overalls, excited
by this, this... thing that’s just pulled in.
"I give up," he says. "What the heck
is it?"
"You got me," I tell him. "Woke up this
morning, there it was."
He laughs and shakes his head.
"Tried everything to get rid of it,"
I say. "Figure oh well, what can you do."
"I hear that."
He places his hands on the brain and
rocks it back and forth.
"Top heavy," he says.
"Yes it is."
"Be careful out there."
"Thanks," I tell him, "I’ll try."
I should’ve expected this. Starting
with a hitchhiking adventure at age eighteen that
took me from Tampa to Vancouver, I’ve crisscrossed
this country more times than I can remember. And every
time, it’s the same sweet song: people are good. Differences
fade once you’re out on the road. But this? This is
even better. Now I’ve got a topic of conversation.
A link. Something that says, Hey everybody, I’m one
of you, a working stiff, on the move, breaking the
rules, sticking it to the man. An American, and damn
proud of it.
My first night out, I stop at a restaurant
in Lake Charles, and sit down to a table of mudbugs.
I try to blend with the locals, as folks come in and
say things like, What is that y’all got out there?
Seems the second most popular question, right after
the what is it thing, is, How come it’s blue? I still
don’t have an answer to that one.
It’s storming in Baton Rouge. Dan’s
suggested I take treats with me when I go calling;
there’s a store that sells Krispy Kremes right at
the gates of LSU. I drive around the university, mic
in hand, doing my best Gene Kelly. Singing in the
rain, yah de dah de dah de dah... A Biology professor
shows me his hissing cockroaches. His secretary eats
a chocolate-covered glazed.
Folks in Alabama eye me with suspicion.
Everywhere else, people pull alongside, snap pictures,
laugh, wave howdy. But this whole brain thing might
be a little too much. Maybe they think I’m making
fun of them: We don’t have much use for that down
here. Or that The Devil’s behind this, out to
snatch their souls. I’ve met people from Alabama,
and they seem all right. But they’re the ones who’ve
left. These people still live here. Even the kids
look sour.
A store clerk in Georgia wonders how
much they’re paying me for this. She tells me I’m
lucky, and that she wishes she had my job. I tell
her it’s a lot of driving, and that part of the time
I’ve gotta wear a goofy uniform. She says that she’d
do anything to get away from here, and that the uniform
can’t be any worse than what she has to put up with.
I tell her we have a lot in common. She says she wants
to come with me. I tell her I’ve got a girlfriend.
She rolls her eyes and says, Whatever.
Marcy and I moved to Austin by way of
St. Pete, San Francisco and Asheville. Adventures
in living along the U.S. Artist Trail. When The Texas
Center for Writers (a.k.a. the Michener Center) offered
me a three year fellowship, I panicked. Would I be
able to devote myself to writing and a relationship?
What talents might bloom if I was to plunge alone
and unprotected into the great unknown? Part of my
application asked why I write. I answered that I wanted
to know God, to give myself over completely. I believed
then, and still do, that the daily practice of any
art can be preparation for that moment when "I" gets
out of the way, and "It" (God, chi, ki, collective
unconscious, whatever), begins to flow. But in searching
for something so metaphysical, was I willing to risk
losing the greatest person I’d ever known?
While stuck in traffic, I try to call
home, using a cellphone provided by Thinkwell. The
machine picks up, and I leave a rambling message full
of loneliness, love, and desire. Marcy’s majoring
in Social Work. On weekends, she works at a home for
pregnant teens, changing one heart at a time. I use
her life as a template, hoping that someday I might
be nearly as good.
More traffic in Greenville, where a
hipster in a pickup offers up a cryptic smile. Wondering
what he’s up to, I pull ahead, losing sight of him.
But when his truck glides forward again, I notice
a pretty young woman sitting on the seat beside him.
She’s turned to face me and has lifted her shirt,
pointing to her chest as if I have any hope of looking
anywhere else.
Something’s in air. At a traffic light
in Charlotte, a smoking Chevy pulls next to me. The
shirtless guy behind the wheel flicks his cigarette
into the street. With eyes the color of circus vomit,
he motions for me to roll down my window.
"If that was a pussy," he tells me "you
could climb right up inside of it."
In Raleigh, while walking through the
parking lot of a Motel Six, I see a young couple going
at it on the front seat of a white Camero. I go back
to my room and try to call home again. I open a drawer,
and flip through a Gideon’s Bible. I go to the window
and look out at the parking lot. The Camero’s gone.
I try the TV. Seventy-seven stations, nothing worth
watching. I turn off the light, get under the covers,
close my eyes and pray for some sort of guidance.
On the Rue Sainte Catherine in Montreal,
female prostitutes step off the curb and yell, Sex!
Last summer, I came here for a film festival with
my friend Scrappy. He and I ate pizza and watched
the action from behind a big window. I’ve sworn to
myself that I’ll never go to a prostitute. When I
was a teenager, my father told me sordid tales of
the road. Once, I asked him why he ever had children.
He said that he never wanted to be lonely.
I don’t guess I want children either.
Too many here already. Children without parents. Without
food. Without a place to call home. Marcy says that
someday she’d like to adopt. She’s the kindest person
ever. We’ve been together for nearly eight years,
and I figure it’s about time to do something. Though
she’s never pressed me for marriage, I feel like it’s
coming in from all directions at once. The honorable
thing to do. There is nobody I’d rather be with.
Yet here I am, on Rue Sainte Catherine
again. A young woman in a black leather vest steps
out from a doorway, and says something in French.
I tell her I don’t understand. She switches to English,
and becomes more specific, mentioning a couple of
very popular sexual practices, and the very low price
for each. She says her name is Maude, and she opens
the door and says, Let’s go. A florescent staircase
leads up to the innards of a pay-by-the-hour motel.
I hesitate behind Maude. She limps up a couple of
steps, then rests on the railing. In this light, her
skin looks yellow. I wonder if she’s stoned. I tell
her that I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it. She sighs
and mumbles, and says it takes money to live. I hand
her a twenty, then go back to my room, and sit on
the edge of the bed. Outside, they’re setting up for
the jazz festival. The afternoon light turns violet.
I listen to someone test a microphone. Test, test,
test. It echoes out through the empty air.
The jumpsuit is a thick, one hundred
percent nylon, and zips all the way up the front.
In New York State, this sent up warning flags. Turned
out that it’s the same style and color as the prison
road crews there. Secretaries stepped away from their
desks when I waltzed into their offices, their voices
wavering when they asked how they might help me. In
Binghamton, I thought it was an inherent skepticism,
but an Economics teacher in Albany cleared things
up after asking me if I was lost. A yellow hard hat
with an attached blue brain in front completes the
picture; in stairwells and rest rooms, I slip into
it and pretend that I’m transformed. There’s a list
of six conferences and thirty-nine universities to
visit, with top priority going to the conferences.
Thinkwell hasn’t paid my way in, so presentation is
everything. This is what we mean by "crashing."
Back in Washington DC, The 4th
Annual Green Chemistry & Engineering Conference
was meeting at the Academy of Science, which sounded
innocuous enough. But I didn’t realize that the Academy
of Science was directly across the street from the
State Department, and next door to the Federal Reserve.
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan was speaking the morning
I circled the block, big blue brain looking for a
place to park. I put in some Al Green: "Love and Happiness"
sweet and funky through the PA. Finally, I found a
space, ducked into the Brain, and donned my crash
costume. But at the entrance into The Academy, a man
with mirrored sunglasses held up his hand, shook his
head, and said no. Another man with sunglasses approached
me on the sidewalk and kindly asked me to leave. I
very cautiously explained that sidewalks are wonderful
things that belong to each and every one of us. An
American Institution, like libraries, public schools,
the Humane Society, Thanksgiving.
"If I see you accosting anybody," he
tells me, "I’ll have you arrested. Got it?"
So I was limited to parading in front
of the attendees whenever they dashed out for a smoke,
fishing them into conversation using paltry juggling
skills as a lure. Luckily, two guys from Ohio soon
asked me what the deal was. After showing them The
Brain’s interior, and giving them some squeeze toys,
they agreed to act as moles, sneaking in dozens of
CD ROM samples and stacking them on tables.
Compared to Washington, The World Conference
on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia, and Telecommunications
at the Montreal Sheraton is cake. I park out front,
hit the flashers, and fill my shoulder bag with goodies.
Riding escalators, I spread The Word to a delighted,
friendly, and appreciative crowd. Somehow, the city
of Montreal seems to have escaped the 1980’s, that
period in history that ripped away a part of our nation’s
soul, leaving so many overworked, cynical slaves to
capital in its wake. The change here is startling.
Like time travel, or dreaming.
When I cross back into The States, it’s
Canada Day, and they’re giving out tiny maple leaf
flags. A border patrol asks me to pull it over. I
hear him on the radio, calling for reinforcements.
Other men in uniform appear. They stand there and
laugh, then wave me forward, telling me to have fun.
Thanks, I say, I’ll try.
Nine years ago, I was attacked by a
burglar, stabbed eleven times, thrown through a window,
and left for dead in a suburban hedge. My heart stopped
twice on the operating table. The doctors said I would
not make it. Waking up a couple of weeks later, I
said a prayer, offering myself up, a servant to God,
do with me what you will.
Everything became a possible sign. I
spent my time listening for instructions. Nine months
later, when offered a job as a volunteer forest ranger
in the Cascades, I figured I’d better take it. And
though I don’t believe I’ll ever know exactly what
God is, while living at the Hart’s Pass cabin, I experienced
some mighty expressions of what It could possibly
be. Heaven here, word made flesh, thought and prayer
transmuted into substance. I imagined someone with
whom I could share my life.
Before the stabbing, I’d been an actor.
Marcy cut hair for a theater where I worked. At the
end of my Cascade summer, that same theater offered
me a job as a stage manager. Returning to St. Pete,
Florida, I went to Marcy’s shop and asked if she knew
of any apartments for rent. On November 3rd,
1992, the night of the presidential election, we climbed
to the roof of my new apartment and consummated our
relationship. We’ve been together since. I’ve helped
her through school, and if I die tomorrow, I’ll feel
that I’ve at least done one thing good.
On the 4th of July, I drive
out to Coney Island, and park The Brain on Mermaid
Avenue. Red brick tenements box in courtyards, where
elderly Russians sit in folding chairs, playing cards,
cautiously soaking up the sun. A group of black kids
plays in an open fire hydrant. Puerto Rican mothers
set up homemade sidewalk grills; the smell of meat
overpowers the sweet, salty air. Under the boardwalk,
tattooed Dominicans pump serious iron. But then? Then
there’s the beach; laughing, sexy, alive with a thousand
stories, each one a different door that opens into
a thousand more. I step into the middle of it, and
close my eyes and listen. If God is a river, then
this is the Mississippi: strong and fertile, the lifeblood
of a nation.
My friend Clay rides with me from Atlanta
to Memphis. We stay at a Red Roof Inn. Marcy makes
plans to meet me in Frisco, our first time back since
we moved away. Clay says he’s been depressed. He says
he’s looking for meaning. I ask him what a tree means.
What is the meaning of the ocean? I tell him about
that long-ago Vancouver trip, how I hitchhiked coast
to coast and stood at the Golden Gate, end of the
road, three a.m., a blanket of fog obscuring the Pacific.
I suggest that God is everywhere, and that one key
to happiness is to give thanks for all we have. We
lean against a wall on Beale Street, drinking beer,
and watching local kids do tumbling tricks for money.
Clay says I collect memories like others do trophies.
I tell him that years from now, I want to be able
to look back over a lifetime of experiences, to know
that I’ve done something, lived a life not ordinary.
He says that Alzheimer’s is really gonna be a bitch
for me. And could I please stop talking about God?
Driving through Oklahoma, you get all
the God you can stand. They tell you here that Jesus
Christ is God. They proclaim it on billboards. On
bumper stickers. Jesus on the television. Flashing
signs say that He is Risen! He’s everywhere. A man
on the radio tells me I should fear God. Another voice
says that I should fear my government. But hold up
a minute: I thought that God was love, and isn’t that
the opposite of fear? So if Jesus Christ is God, and
God is love, then aren’t all these media Pharisees
some sort of Anti-Christ? I’m not saying I know. But
I am thankful when I finally cross into New Mexico.
The radio announcers here speak an entirely different
language.
There’s a massage parlor in San Francisco
that calls itself The Green Door. Marcy and I used
to walk by and joke about how it might be fun to one
day go inside together. A week before we moved to
Asheville, we stopped and rang the bell. An Asian
woman in a kimono ushered us inside. She looked to
be in her fifties. She asked us what we wanted. We
asked if we could get a massage together. She nodded,
yes, of course, and led us into a room with side by
side tables. We took off our clothes as instructed,
and then waited for a very long time. Finally, our
hostess brought in a large blond woman with dark eyeliner
and vodka breath, who looked to be plucked off the
streets. Marcy and I held hands and watched each other,
looking for signals to leave. The older woman, very
professional, worked on Marcy’s back as if she were
in a dental office. Hulga, on the other hand, treated
my back like so much dirty laundry, pulling, twisting,
and slapping. Her sweat dripped onto my flesh. I’m
certain I heard her belch.
Five years later, I pick Marcy up from
the S.F. airport. She slides into the front seat,
and we hold each other close. Car horns honk. A policeman
blows a whistle. Marcy smells just like home. I’d
like to sit here forever, but instead, I put The Brain
in gear and we hit the highway, taking it down Market
Street, past The Green Door, and out through the Haight.
We pass our old apartment, 9th and Judah,
then west along the N line to the Ocean View Motel.
This is where we stayed when we first moved here—
a foggy end of town, where gray row houses suggest
1950’s communist Europe. We’re unloading our suitcases
in front of a coffee shop, when we hear our names
being called.
It’s our friends from the old neighborhood
Jim Yurt, and his fiancee Cassandra, who now live
down in San Bruno. We’ve lost contact, and it seems
like providence has brought us together again. Cassandra
hails from New Orleans. A frustrated actress, she
now works as a dominatrix, making enough money for
both of them. Jim drinks more coffee than any man
alive. He’s a Gulf War vet, who loves to make up stories.
For awhile there, he went around spreading rumors
that Marcy and I were witch and warlock. And so for
our going away party, I told him we were sacrificing
a goat, knowing he would get the word out. I drew
a circled chalk pentagram on the wood floor, and covered
it with a throw rug. Just before midnight, Marcy lit
candles, and threw the rug aside. Solemnly marching
in from the bedroom, I held a pillow out in front
of me, and on the pillow, a folded paper boat. Urged
on by the chanting partygoers, I lit the boat afire,
and placed it in the center of the circle. Later,
Jim swore to everybody that he was certain I had said
"goat," but after that, his rumors never carried the
same sort of credence they once had. Funny thing is,
the boat left a tiny charred pentagram on the floor
that would not scrub out. We left it there when we
moved back East.
Jim shows us a new tattoo on his arm:
‘Cassandra,’ wrapped around a bleeding heart. That’s
great, I tell him, wondering what the hell’s the matter
with me. Is it the old Glamsch curse that keeps me
from tying the knot? Fear of domesticity? A journey’s
end? Or is it fear that keeps me here? The desire
for comfort, reassurance, and family, growing stronger
than the pull of hollow rambling every year? Marcy
and I have matching tattoos: ‘Tulsa’ in a cursive,
almost Sanskrit lettering. We got them in Carlsbad,
on our move to San Francisco. We tried to get them
in Tulsa, but a motel desk clerk there with the name
Donna tattooed in block letters across her chest said
that tattooing is illegal in Oklahoma. We should’ve
known. Oklahoma, an American metaphor.
I’ve worked extra hard in the days preceding
Marcy’s arrival, doing the brain thing at universities
in Fresno, Berkeley, Sacramento, Davis, and San Jose.
This offers us a little more time alone, without the
orange jumpsuit in the way. Thinkwell’s provided me
with a digital camera, so that I can take pictures
for their calendar. We park by the Golden Gate Bridge,
a perfect Sunday, cool, no fog. Sailboats race around
Alcatraz Island. Marcy wears a pink sweater, her beautiful
red hair tied up in a high pony. Ghostly foghorns
wail across the waves. This is the woman I’d like
to spend the rest of my life with. I open my mouth
to speak, but the words don’t come. Marcy asks if
anything’s the matter. On the other side of the bay,
Sausalito creeps up into the hills. Beyond that, The
Muir Woods, the coastline, Oregon, Washington, Alaska.
People say that the Northern Lights are a wonder to
behold. I start the truck and head back toward Chinatown.
I’m in L.A. for a week, hitting four
schools and two conferences there. For the past six
years, I’ve been writing screenplays, working up a
crazy fantasy of living in a little weekly motel on
Wilshire, writing crappy multi-million dollar movies,
calling out for champagne and escorts, and snorting
up ropes of crystal meth. The reality of the place,
however, seems to be a city so chockfull of cars,
that it takes hours just to get anywhere. Everybody’s
beautiful, and everybody’s on the go. Beemers and
Porches honk and speed past. I hold my breath when
I change lanes, hoping I don’t crush somebody important.
On August 3rd, my birthday,
I drive to Venice Beach and check into the Cadillac
Hotel. A restored art deco where Charlie Chaplin once
stayed, the building juts from the boardwalk like
a four-storied, Technicolored-colored ocean liner.
The Brain seems happy to be parked out front. Happy,
and oddly proud. By now, we don’t even have to speak
to each other, we’ve established a motor-psychic connection.
The lobby of the hotel feels like a youth hostel;
the people there speak French, Italian, and German.
The Australian at the counter tells my brother has
called, wishing me a great big happy birthday.
Horst is two years older than me. One
morning, when I was fifteen, I woke up to hear our
mother yelling. She’d discovered a buddy of his in
bed with him. Big deal, I thought, so his friend spent
the night over. What’d she want him to do, sleep on
the goddamn floor?
I open my third-floor window and look
out at the beach. The room faces north; in the distance,
the Santa Monica pier. Horst and his partner Brian
have been together for seventeen years. For more than
a dozen of those years, Brian has lived with HIV.
Horst continues to test negative, but they both still
party like teenagers. Having been through various
twelve-step programs myself, and having learned to
imbibe with some sense of moderation, I’ve offered
to help them more often than is welcome. Last summer,
I spent a couple of weeks at their house. Horst, who
took over our father’s pool cleaning business, has
developed the habit of falling asleep in front of
the television. One night, I sat next to him as he
polished off a bottle of wine. Once he fell asleep,
I went to the bookshelf and pulled down some scrapbooks.
In all of his pictures, Brian is the life of the party,
dressed in costume, or half naked, radiating like
the sun. And Horst is there with him, smiling, laughing,
soaking in the rays. If I choose to, I can marry the
person I love. Walk arm in arm, hold hands, kiss in
public, with no fear of threats or violence. Half
the people in these pictures are already dead. Who
am I to tell anybody how to get through life?
Dear Marcy. You remember that coffeehouse
here Jim Yurt talked about? Last night, I tried to
find it, walking slow through Venice Beach. There’s
canals here, just like the real Venice, and classic
architecture, built around the turn of the century
by some guy named Abbott Kinney. There used to be
gondolas, too, an original still hangs in the Cadillac
Hotel lobby.
It takes me an hour to find the place,
and when I do, it’s closed, so I opt for a beer instead.
I pass by cocktail lounges with softly glowing counter-tops,
aqua martinis sipped by people in their early twenties—
people living inside of movies, perfect bodies, shiny
black leather, resplendent glowing teeth. Tanned foursomes
ooze from open restaurants, snapping their fingers
at ready valets. The gap between rich and poor is
astonishing. One of these days, the beautiful people
will be dragged from their cars and castles and eaten.
I’ve given up hope and started back
to the hotel, when a stick of a woman stops me on
the sidewalk. Arms crossed, she holds her elbows,
speed muttering some sort of witchy incantation. The
sound of men fighting grabs my attention, and I look
over, and see I’m standing in front of some sort of
apartment house. The front windows have all been removed,
and on the airy porch, two men grasp each other’s
throats, dancing in a drunken circle. A bamboo bar
has been set up in one corner. A boom box on the floor
cranks out some early Foghat.
A woman named Linda gives me a tour
of the back hallway art gallery. Her face looks tightened,
pulled back across her cheeks and forehead. Hard,
freckled breasts push out from a vee-necked sweater.
We stop at reproduction of a European cityscape, the
sort of thing you’d see at Sears. She asks if I know
what city it is. I guess, say maybe Vienna. She says
she used to travel with Van Halen, back in the David
Lee Roth days. I ask her what she did. She winks and
says that’s none of my business. A hall door opens.
A three hundred pound man in a Panama hat stumbles
from the bathroom. With a nose like W.C. Fields, he
plays the part, lifting his hat and introducing himself
as Tim. He says he works as an airline pilot, and
that he used to be involved with the CIA.
Back in the lobby, Linda introduces
me to Daisy, an intense young woman with Charlie Manson
eyes. She tells me her brother is a filmmaker, and
that his first film has just shown at Cannes. I ask
her if there’s a place that sells beer nearby. A Johnny
Depp character with prominent bicuspids steps forward
and tells me there’s a place just around the corner.
I excuse myself, hurry down the street, and return
in minutes with a couple of tall six packs. I set
them on the bar and tell everyone to help themselves.
A gray-haired man steps from the huddle
of now-exhausted, best buddy fighters, and says that
he’s from Arkansas. He says that he owns the place,
and that a friend of his in Little Rock knows a black
woman who gave birth to Bill Clinton’s son. The talk
turns political, so I drift over to Daisy and ask
about her brother’s film. She looks puzzled, as if
it’s the first time she’s ever heard of it. Big Tim
grabs my elbow and leads me over to a shirtless guy
with bleached hair and scabs on his knuckles. He wants
to set things straight. Tim’s told him that I bought
the beer for everybody, but that can’t be true, can
it? I tell him it is. He asks if I want to get high.
The music grows louder, a pipe goes
around, beer gets drunk, and the cops show up. They
ask who lives here, and everyone raises a hand. Before
they leave, they tell us to keep it down. Tim looks
worried. Someone starts to giggle. A hunched-over,
Uncle Fester looking fellow peeks out from a doorway
and waves. Johnny Depp starts talking about his uncle,
Pancho Villa, and how he was into some mean black
magic. The shirtless guy tells me about a trip he
once took with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend.
Driving down from Michigan, they ended up in Tijuana,
ran out of money, and the girlfriend offered to turn
tricks so they could get back to The States . The
slut, he says, the whore. I wonder if this is some
sort of home. If maybe the attendants lie bound and
gagged in a closet. Uncle Fester sneaks forward, talking,
his voice high-pitched, like air from a balloon. I
watch his lips, and slowly make out the words. He
says he used to be a hockey player. But then there
was an accident. Something bad happened. He shakes
his head and shrugs.
Before moving to Texas, I spent a month
in Florida with my father. His cancer had metastasized,
and the doctors had just started him on morphine.
He was terrified of dying, it’s all he talked about,
and I tried everything to take his mind away from
it. One night, while sleeping, a voice came to me,
strong, not at all like dreaming. It said, Don’t worry,
everything’s perfect. I sat up in bed and listened
to see if there was anything else.
Sometimes, I try to recall what it was
like when my heart stopped. People ask if there was
a tunnel of light. It’s amazing what they’re willing
to believe. And though I’m not sure what comes after
this, after the voice that night, I’m certain that
there’s nothing to fear. I tried to tell my father
this, but it was already too late for him to hear.
Crossing back through Arizona, a blast
of wind jerks me onto the shoulder. An ocean of rain
falls from the sky. I turn on the flashers and park.
For awhile, there’s only water. It obliterates the
landscape, thundering against the brain. Once it passes,
the sun reappears, flooding the valley in front of
me with light. I get out, hop a fence, and climb to
the top of some rocks. The storm moves off to the
north. I breathe through my nose: sage, rain, and
dirt. It’s hard to imagine a more astounding world
than this. I open my arms to heaven, and give thanks
for all I have.
