Snows have fallen in the San Bernadino Mountains. It is President's Day weekend and despite the average Los Angelino predilection for despising the current president it seems they are prepared to not look a gift horse in the mouth. A brief scroll through my various social media feeds shows staycations in Malibu, jaunts to Joshua Tree National Park, the Grand Canyon. I click on their geo tags and take the fast lane down the wormhole.
I start in Joshua Tree with my thumb and middle finger. I zoom into the surrounding areas, Landers, and Pioneertown where I celebrated my last birthday. Then with the flip of my finger suddenly I’m rocketing east towards Phoenix. Interstate 10 is a marvel of human engineering. I follow it out as far as Santa Fe. I zoom in on the suburbs and think about the people who live there, the day’s traffic report.
I spend a lot of time looking at maps. In my own home I have half a dozen maps framed in my entry way. I took old Thomas Guides and tore out maps of my home town. In my bathroom I've framed the NPS maps of the mountains I’ve climbed. The Sierras, The Cascade range. I’ve also framed the maps of other cities I’ve called home. My eyes walk down Oxford Street and Jodenbreestraat. I think cartographers are poets who leave the house.
I’ve been rewatching Six Feet Under and it has been keeping me up late. It's too easy to stay up for just one more episode, then another, and another. Four in the morning can come and Nate Fischer discovers he's going to be a father by a woman who is not his fiancee. This revelation was designed to be taken in at 9pm when the audience was forced to turn the television off, turn to each other and reflect on the gravity of the predicament.
I don't mind binging television, in fact, I'm quite happy to do so. But I begin to wonder if I'm cheating Alan Ball and the entire creative team out of their hard work by skipping the reflection period. I take a well designed revelation and instead of allowing it to work on me for a week or an evening, I snuff it out with satisfaction of knowing what comes next. My compulsions like calling the shots.
Guilt is a strange but familiar bedfellow that curls next to me when I finish watching. I brush my teeth and stave off the berating thoughts. I think of a clever meme I saw about cats, they are apex predators and sleep eighteen hours a day. I lay down in bed and it takes an act of will to set my phone down rather than scroll for another twenty minutes.
My mind spins on the things I fill it with during the day to keep occupied. I think of the different websites created to help manage content. I like productivity applications, playing with them and reading about them is one of my favorite uses of procrastination. Then I read about a Silicon Valley millionaire who utilized procrastination to build an empire. I think that he's clever for that.
A strong wind blows up the street. I like to sit with the door open and the screen locked. The chill laps at my bare feet. In Southern California it is rare to feel such biting cold and I savor it. The feeling reminds me of deep October in the east, or an early May in the north. Los Angeles is neither but it is a chameleon city, if you aren't careful it's easy to forget where you came from. It is tempting to view the palm trees as native or to see the sunsets without the filter of chemicals in the air. If you move here with stars in your eyes the Pacific won't do anything to remove them.
This is my third time watching Six Feet Under. I imagine I will watch it at least one or two more times in my life. I imagine watching the series again when it is converted to MindScreen and all I have to do is close my eyes and be transported in a virtual reality to Fischer and Sons. The Fischers are at sea, all lost captains in their skiffs, Ruth, Claire, David, Nate, all split after their father died, but it is Nate, the prodigal son, to whom I feel the closest. Last night, after he buried the biker who dressed as Santa, he took a ride up PCH in a motorcycle gifted to him from the biker's wife. M turned to me and said to not get any ideas. She began citing the horrible injuries motorcyclists suffer, but it was too late, the ideas have been there for a long time. They came with the hardware.
My father would take me to ride motorcycles in the Mojave Desert. We'd pack the truck the night before. His quad, my quad, water bowls for the three golden retrievers Whiskey, Shane, and Champ, and a cooler for our lunch, most often tuna sandwiches. He'd wake me before the sun was up, "hippity hop to the barber shop," and "wash your face." I never washed my face in the morning and I didn't understand what he meant by it. We'd get into the truck and daylight was just spilling down the asphalt on Dolorosa street, my shadow ten feet tall along the golden bed of my father's Ford.
I know the routes now but at the time I didn't. The F-150 was a space ship that could travel from the Los Angeles suburbs into a dirt turn out where we'd post up for the afternoon. I can scroll on a google map now. The 101 to the 405 North, onto the 5 then to the 14 out past Palmdale, Lancaster, out towards the edge of tolerance, into Mojave. The home prices are competitive out there, they come with five acres of undeveloped desert and the question of why you want to live somewhere never meant to sustain life. I couldn't find the dirt turnout now if I tried, but my father always knew where it was. We'd pull into our cul-de-sac and let the dogs out, all tied to one very long leash.
I'd trail my father when we'd go riding. Every minute or so he'd turn his head to look back at me, to make sure I wasn't too far behind, or worse. We had an unspoken agreement that if I ever fell off my bike or if my bike quit or if I just got tired my dad would double back and come for me. Once my motorcycle ground out in a ditch and I couldn't get it restarted. Another time I decided that I wanted to take a break. So I pulled off the trail and killed my engine. I listened as my dad's engine whirred out of hearing, and over the hill ahead, out of sight. I sat contended in the desert silence, miles away from anything, with only a brief moment to myself. It was hot and quiet. Then I heard the faint yet growing whine of my father's engine again. He appeared at the top of the hill and I waved to him.
I would collect bullet shells on our trips to the Mojave. I would find them in the dirt around the truck tires. They were usually .22 shells but occasionally I’d find a shotgun shell. Once and only once I found a bullet that hadn’t been fired. I would take these home in a sandwich bag and put them in a white box that had children’s designs on it, meant for coloring. I never colored the box but I filled it with ammunition shells. When friends would come over I would take the box out and inspect the bullets and tell of my trips out to the Mojave. I don’t remember when I decided to get rid of my bullet shell collection. It might have been shortly after my father stopped taking me to ride bikes in the desert.
M has a call with a patient and so I put on my jacket and jangle my keys.
-Why don’t you just get a coffee or something around here?
I like the Blue Bottle Coffee in Echo Park. They’ve pulled off a bright and corporate decor that soothes me. I’m on decaf because my mind has been racing without the need for stimulation. The barista doesn’t smile. Doesn’t make eye contact. I sense that my presence in the final hour of operation for the day upsets her. But I don’t decide to take it personally. I tip and wait as the espresso machine fires up. My mind drifts back to a bar in Union Square when I used to work eleven hour shifts with holes in my shoes. Some days each customer was an unwelcome one. It wasn’t about the customer. It was always about preferring to be somewhere else.
The barista whispers to her employee, but doesn’t go out of her way to be quiet.
-I’m going to make a list of everything that wasn’t done when we came on…
I understand the difficulty before she finishes her thought. The day crew left the evening crew with unfinished business. I take my espresso and sparkling water and sit by the window next to a woman reading Cujo. That poor dog. Turned into a monster by a supernatural disease. I think about the dead little boy and waiting in that hot car for a day and a half for help to arrive.
I open my notebook and nothing comes. I pick up my phone.
If only the heroine of Cujo had a cellphone she and her boy would be alive today. The dog would still be dead. And the town still haunted. In his memoir Stephen King reflected that he can’t recall writing a single word of Cujo. His addiction kept him from experiencing the very sad and strange world he built. I am nothing like King in more ways than a dozen. I’ve tried to write high or drunk. It doesn’t give. I need an early morning, a good disposition, a hint of positivity, a warm coffee, sober mind, a toilet nearby, and healthy foods in the cupboard. As I get older, the more acute I feel this.
I spend some time with the espresso. Such a small amount of liquid. An introvert’s drink. Not long on conversation but what it does speak makes an impact. Always sad to see it go almost as soon as it arrives.
I return to the barista for a second helping. I try to appear grateful for her help and time but she doesn’t make eye contact, just punches my order into the computer. It’s that day crew ruining her shift. I tip and I wait by the machine wishing I could mold my body into an apology for her. I’m sorry barista for my idleness. I’m sorry for my drink which takes as long to make as it does to finish. I’m sorry for your day crew and I am sure that the note you leave them will be enlightening and will forever have an impact on the company.
The espresso machine whirrs and the white noise sounds like the dishwasher behind the bar I used to tend in Times Square. I wore a green wristband which held my bar blade against my forearm. Black buttoned shirt with patches and pins. White noise all around me. The dishwasher, the blender down on service bar, the chatter mingling with the rock and roll music. My arms sticky from daiquiri syrup, my pants stiff with dry beer from the tap. Socks slightly damp.
Ruby comes around the corner—
-Johnny left all the tubs.
-Yeah, for us to do. Now we gotta re-stock and do tubs? I’m going to Gerrard and you need to back us up.
She walks briskly past me shaking her head cursing.
I toss two napkins down in front of a couple that just took seats.
-For me, un biere, for my wife, nothing.
His wife nods and smiles.
I reach for the stack of pint glasses stacked four high, the one on top still warm from its spin in the dishwasher. I reach for the ones in the back, the ones that have cooled. If you put a hot pint glass under a cold tap and it’ll shatter. I place the pint under the nozzle and pull the tap. I didn’t even bother to ask what kind of beer. They always want Bud, a novelty this side of the pond. As the glass fills with gold I’m showered in a brilliant white cosmic spray all over my face and up my nose.
Ruby shouts from the end of the bar— come on we gotta do the tubs…
I close my notebook and look out the window. I take the espresso slower this time. I want to feel it cool in my lungs.
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