New England to New Mexico! Damn, Donny, what country is this? Tooling along the interstate in my pickup, off on a big adventure—or am I just baling out? Like Mama always said, The 80 proof's in the pudding. We'll just have to see. Are you running back to your childhood home because you got fired? Or are you really going there to bring back Mom's piano for Christine? Running away from the humiliation and the contempt of your in-laws? Or need the space and time to clear your head before you try something new? One thing's for sure, miss my darlings already. First time we've been apart for more than a day—ever. Only the second time I'm driving cross country, since Clara and I came out East—what's it been?—fifteen years ago. Can still see her red hair out of the corner of my eye, bent over her notebook in the passenger seat, scribbling her poems, reading them out when she's ready, back and forth with me about this and that. And we've been squawking away ever since, no secrets, no agendas, just, as she named us, her favorite couple, Frank and Trudy. Donny, you're one lucky dude. And don't I know it.
Time is it? Not bad. Two hours travel under my belt. Paid to wait till rush hour was over. Already out here near the NY/PA border where we brought Chris to see that animal farm. Sunday morning about this time. Not a soul around when we pulled off the road across from a couple of barns. Meadows behind them had the usual horses and cows. Oh, and zebras and camels, even a giraffe and some antlered guys. Clara's idea. When we had taken Chris to have her indispensable companion, Rags the reindeer doll, blessed at John the Divine's, Feast of St. Francis, she jotted down the address of the company that provided some of the more exotic members of the four-footed congregation. Out on the cathedral steps there, Chris on my shoulders, waving Rags as the clopping church-goers entered, making animal sounds the way she used to when we read her bedtime stories.... Then inside, howling with the dogs when the choir sang.... She was so happy then, we had to try to duplicate it. Next weekend there we were. And our favorite five-year-old was in her glory chasing ducklings around, feeding chickens some of her car snacks, back up on my shoulders to make faces with the dromedaries, pet the horses, hone her repertory of animal sounds. Heard some scuffling in the barns, but weren't sure if it was animal or manimal. Otherwise we were on our own there. Wandering the road between the barns and fields on one side and several old farmhouses and greenhouses on the other. Just as we caught sight of what seemed to be giant cages behind the buildings, there was a roar like I've only heard in Tarzan movies. We stopped dead in our tracks. Chris grabbed onto my leg. There it was again, this time with a chorus of chimps, I guess. Chris stepped forward and answered them. That's my gal! Then Clara's classic line: Daddy, just what country did you bring us to? Stood there a while listening to the silence of no traffic, no voices, just the occasional chuff, bray or cluck around us. Peaceful again.... Always danger around the edges, though. Just like driving down the highway. Acts of faith: mechanics of car, conditions of other drivers, your own health. Told Clara later about when I was Christine's age and one of Mom's boyfriends treated us to a drive-through safari park where the animals roamed wild and cars crawled on a winding road around hills and crags and creek beds with their WINDOWS UP. So were creeping along on this suburban Serengeti, I'm sitting on Mom's lap, “uncle” Jose or Juan is driving; she points past him. Look at those monkeys, Donny. Over there on the hill. Combing their hair. THWACK! On the vent window which had been open, inches away from my hand on the dashboard. The paw of a lioness, big as the window, trying to get at the morsel on Mom's lap—me! Uncle leaned on the horn, I peed my pants. He tried to pull around the traffic in front: no use, they were all in Never Never Land gazelle gazing. And I cried for the rest of the ride, through another country.
Oh, those memories spiked by emotions: see them so clearly, seem to feel the fear or embarrassment all over again. Nacho used to call daydreams head flicks. Well, some of those flicks have vibrating seats like that Tingler movie I read about. I mean, even the memories that are dearest to me, like when Clara agreed to marry me, or when she delivered Chris, don't come sneaking into early morning dreams the way the negative stuff does—me falling off the ladder, or being handed my mother's ashes. Better shake yourself out of this, you behind the wheel there. Got a long way to go. And speaking of vibrating seats, need a rest stop in a little bit. But meanwhile I'm armed with maps and printouts from Team Reyes, right next to me so I don't have to listen to that goddamned GPS voice that Clara depends on in the car. Yeah, the one that's earned her Sissy nickname, short for Sisyphus, 'cause sometimes she just has us rolling around in circles. What a session last night! Chris on her mobile (thanks to in-laws, yet another in-your-face Donny message), Clara on laptop, me with maps of the States spread out on the dining room table. You're so old school, Dad! my daughter says to me. Better than preschool, dear! chimes in her mother. Pretty much like that all night. Chris going to start her Math-o-Path trip planning company so I'll never have to work again. Clara boiling my route down to straight-slide down-straight again. Agreed should be about 2000 miles or 400 a day. Seems doable. Seems about the pace we set when Clara and I made the trip years ago, so she could see the snow again, so the family legend goes. Do-dy-o-do. Wish she was here beside me instead of these maps, and a back seat for the Christine Show. Not bad, that first crossing for a couple of newly-weds. My job transfer, the sale of the house her aunt had left her made it possible. So what I could never join her or Chris on the slopes with this leg of mine, nothing compared to the in-laws. Worst was leaving Mom behind, alone in the old house. No talking her out of there, though. Baking for Adalia's restaurant, with her circle of friends around there: she's stubborn as they come. We'd spend a couple of summer weeks there, she'd join us for holidays out east. Not enough. Not enough. And now selling the house in a few days. Feels like a kind of betrayal. Of course Mom would lob a dumpling at me if I said that. Getting a strange look from the passenger in that SUV. What's a matter, lady? So I'm over here laughing by myself. Got a lot to be happy for.... Oh, Clara, didn't we have a time last night! Just like when we were kids. Nurse Clara, you've still got that TLC. I'm healed! I'm healed! And afterward, as usual, imagining what's next in our lives. These days the focus is our Christine, a.k.a. Lily to her Internet fans. After several months of making videos of her songs which went crazy viral, off to a recording studio yesterday. What an experience! What a group effort! Clara's brother Denny produces, his partner Mike arranges, Clara co-writes the lyrics with Chris, and I do the cover. What a beautiful soul Christine is! Wants to call the album Aria, after her grandmother who brought her out of her shell. Hey, SUV lady, I'm still smiling!
* * *
REST AREA 5 MILES. That was ten minutes ago, just after the WORK AREA SLOW sign. Weren't kidding about that, thought Donny, as they crawled along in the passing lane with plenty of time to regard the workers on the other side of the concrete barrier, with their profilers, rollers, and dozers for the most part matching the traffic speed. All that yellow machinery and hard hats and reflector vests lending the scene a Lego-ish look. But they were turning and burning over there, not like the old joke about the road crew where the super turns up at the job site and tells the guys he forget to pick up their shovels at the shed, so until he gets back just lean on each other. At least they had a job! To his left was the antithesis of this bedlam of dust and steam and grinding and drilling: the wide median with the long lush grass before the first mowing in the spring, spoiled only by the random parked worker vehicle. Smiling, he thought, Bring it on Mother Nature, I am so ready. And looks like I'm gonna see a lot of the buffet this week.
Donny couldn't wait to pull into the rest area. Had to take a piss so bad, needed a convenience, as the mother-in-law called it, she who couldn't call anything by its real name, especially not himself for the nearly fifteen years he had known her. No, he was Clara's or That One. Still, better than her husband, that asshole, who was blunt and crude to his face, even in front of his daughter. He kept his distance from the Stanton palace, holidays and such only. Clara met her mom once a week for lunch in town, likewise they sent a car for their only grandchild. Never visited the Reyes home, even though it was only about thirty miles away. Didn't prevent the Stantons from imposing projects on the Reyes premises: pool, trampoline, play center, doll house. Resistance was futile. Fuck it, Donny thought, less lawn to mow.
Finally, they were picking up speed, as they cleared the barrier, just in time for Donny to slow down to pull off to the rest area. He wasn't the only one with this idea, as he followed a couple of cars with Connecticut, Massachusetts plates past a canopy of shade trees, some in flower, verging a modest mowed marginal lawn. Lilacs, azaleas in bloom near the rest station almost distracted sufficiently from what Denny calls the adobe Atheneum style: two concrete-walled sheds separated by a roofed, glass-walled atrium. One shed housed a janitor's closet and the lavs, toward which Donny made a peeline as soon as he parked just several spaces away from the main door. When he came out he crossed to a wall of vending machines and grabbed himself a couple of bottles of water, one of which he drank as he walked around the space, studying the critters at the half-dozen tables and stools fixed to the brown tile floor, maneuvering to take a mental snap and inventing scenarios: the twentyish couple (bucking each other up as they travel to introduce her new husband to her parents, when they didn't even know she was dating), the grandparents with goldilocks (taking her to a screen test, without her parents' knowledge), dude in the trench coat (planning his art installation of erstwhile co-workers as battlefield casualties). Easy there, pal. He walked off the set, and, although Nurse Clara had packed him a carton of energy bars, he treated himself to a Milky Way, because a guy can take just so much, you know. Felt good to straighten out his right leg, still not right after all these years since the accident. As he munched and drank, he scoped out the large map covering the expanse from Scranton to Harrisburg, confirming his straight shot to the latter, and browsed the brochures, passing over Fun in the Poconos to collect a few of historical interest for perusal in his motel room later.
Finished his snack and walked outside to make a couple of loops around the little cleared area, mindful of souvenirs from the dog-walkers, before climbing back into his pick-up, grateful for the strong sun these days, a welcome change from the cold weather which just made his leg more uncomfortable. Around the big rigs, marveling at the drivers who cope with cabin fever and delivery deadlines; he knew he couldn't handle it, and appreciated that at this moment in his life he had a little space to complete some good actions without an eye on the clock or fear about paying the bills. Rounding the building again to get back on the road, he noticed an old gent sitting on the bench opposite his pickup, arms spread over the top back slat, decently dressed: white ballcap, striped red and black shirt under a light tan jacket, black pants, sneakers. Backpack next to him, he looked out toward the highway.
As Donny opened the truck door, this character stood, grabbed his pack and sauntered over.
“Wonder if I could ride with you as far as Harrisburg.”
Donny made a defensive face.
“Tell you what: I'll sketch your portrait while you drive. You still like comics? Cartoons?”
Donny sized him up. Shorter than himself, a lightweight, twice his age. Oh, what the hell.... “Sure, like to draw myself.”
“Sounds like we'd have plenty to talk about. What do you say?”
Donny leaned on his open door. “Where's your car?”
“Haven't had one in years. Long story. Tell you on the way.”
“Okay.” Offered his hand. “Donny Reyes.”
The old guy shook his hand. “A king among men. Joey Katz.”
“A cat can look at a king, they say.” Donny smiled.
“Touché´!” Old Joe said, walking around to the passenger side.
In the driver's seat, Donny asked his impromptu passenger if he wanted to put his pack in the truck bed, but Joe declined, saying he had his drawing stuff there. “Keep it at my feet. No sweat.”
Belted and backing out, they exchanged info about destinations. Joe was going to be picked up by a friend at the GetAway Inn just north of Harrisburg. Donny mentioned his mission as he pulled back on the interstate.
“Damn, that's a haul for a piano. Hundred bucks'll get you a keyboard for the gal.”
Donny nodded. “Except this is my mom's, means a great deal to my daughter. Remember her vividly as a toddler sitting on Mom's lap, pecking at the keys. Can still hear them sing together.” Glanced over at Joe who was looking at him. “She passed away a half year ago. Took me this long to work up to this trip. Still can't deal with her death.”
“Brothers? Sisters?”
Donny tried to get comfortable for the next two hours' driving. “Just the two of us. “
“Lucky you.” Joe was bent over, fumbling in his pack.
“Think so, huh?” Donny felt even more uncomfortable now.
“Don't take me wrong. Just that I was always being compared to my older scholar/athlete brother. And always found lacking. Sticks with you.”
“Yeah, I guess. So does feeling out of step.... Jesus, let's lighten the mood here. What you going to do in Harrisburg?”
Pad propped, Joe began to study Donny. Quick lines with the marker, back to Donny. “Friend's house. Little project together. He writes, I draw. Probably takes a couple months or so to put it together.”
Donny could catch the intermittent flurry of the top of marker out of the corner of his eye. “What's that?”
“Comic book. Or what it's grandly called today, the graphic novel.” Joe observed his driver.
Donny looked directly at him for a few seconds. “When we can't see behind the scenery.... Stagehands back there working the pulleys.”
“Come again?”
“Coincidence by any other name. Oh, and you just happened to show up here. Singling me out for a lift. What is this?”
“Yeah, take it easy, my friend. Learned a long time ago that truck drivers were my best bet for a lift. Big time outfits frown on it, but the indie guys are good for it, appreciate the chatter. I'm a CB substitute, is what I am.”
Donny was quietly simmering, gripping the wheel tightly, eyes straight ahead. Peripherally, the marker was flying. Some minutes later: “Still sounds like a plant to me.”
“This look like a hoax?” Joe held the pad under the rear view mirror so Donny could take it in, bobble-headed: road-pad-road-pad. Couldn't deny the heavy brows, squinted eyes, high forehead, curly hair, wide low-cornered mouth, solid chin. Also the sureness of hand that could render this in broad black lines without preliminary sketch. “Man, what are you doing here? Lemme see that again. What did you sign there?”
Joe lowered the pad and propped it on his knees. “My pen name, so to speak. Linus Faccett.”
“This is a real head-shaker for me, Joe. Linus. Been a fan of Faccett's for at least twenty years. He shows up in my truck? Come on! “
“You were expecting someone taller? Seriously, I learn so much from guys I hitch with: stories, characters, expressions, images. Graphic guys's dream-come-true. But it's not only because of the classroom on wheels. Tell you later, promise. Anyway, pedigrees for my pen name from back in the day. Schultz's insecure younger brother peanut transformed to a couple of Fawcett captains of the industry: Marvel and Midnight. Had to change the last name a tad. Legal reasons. Between the two names was trying to get at ideas like inner complexity, hidden potential, stuff like that. But, bottom line, it's just as you see.... So here I am.” He'd been digging in his pack. “Wanna a juice box?”
Donny shook his head. Still trying to process the odds-of dimension to this encounter. Might as well work it out in public. Price the passenger pays for the ride. Gas about as expensive as therapy these days anyhow. “Guess I wasn't expecting this to happen again.”
“No hidden agenda here.” Joe was piercing his juice box with his straw. “Ride for a drawing is the bargain. Everything else a bonus. I'm listening.”
“You may regret it. But I assure you, my possible paranoia in no way interferes with my driving. Only the idiot riding my tail back there does, and that truck in the left lane. So. This meeting takes me back about fifteen years ago when I kept running into people poking into my business: cops, kids, profs, patients. Got so I was really edgy. Got so bad I was almost clobbered by a guy twice my size 'cause I mouthed off in a parking lot, pissed 'cause he was asking all these questions: Where was I from? Where was I going? What am I gonna do when I get there? Luckily my wife saved my ass, batting her baby blues and saying I was exhausted from all the driving and that we were newly-weds and you name it. Guy cut me some slack, and we drove out of that lot in one piece.”
“So, that's a happy ending.” Joe filed his empty juice box on the floor. “And I'm here to tell you that fisticuffs ain't my style. Never was. Check it out. Old man's body. Never weighed much more than I weigh now. “
“But, listen, what am I to make of this back story coming true? Clara, my wife, gave me a signed copy of one of your books before we even started to date. Got it from her brother Denny, she said, which he confirmed.”
Joe was gently tugging the portrait out of the pad. “Ah, of course, Denny Stanton. Did a project for his firm years ago. Been out of touch lately. Solid guy. Large hearted. Quite the kidder. But, seriously, Donny, I think it's just fortuitous us running into each other.” He picked up the brochures on the seat between them and put the portrait in their place. “Let's make the most of it. Tell me about your artwork.”
The day was gloriously bright, traffic lighter along this stretch, hills and ridges and outcrops shaved next to the highway. As Donny told Joe how he started drawing, his eyes drank in the landscape, reinforcing just how therapeutic the examination and rendition of natural details has been in his life. “Lotta time on my own when I was a kid. Didn't really fit in, one of a few Hispanics in the neighborhood. Read comics all the time I wasn't watching cartoons on the tube. Drew what I saw there first, then stuff I saw all around me. Kept at through high school art classes and stuff. Couldn't afford college, so first job was with one of Mom's friends who worked billboards. Back when I was a kid, I thought nothing could be cooler than paint a huge picture along the highway that everybody'd see driving by. I'd be famous. Yeah. Found out I was just a paper hanger on a ladder. Five years later I fell off that ladder. But I stuck with drawing. Do a comic book for my kid's birthday every year. She's the best audience ever. Famous for her is all I really need.”
“How old's your daughter?” Joe had settled back against the door, listening intently.
“Thirteen, going on thirty. Hated to leave her and Clara. But for this.... Worth it. Talk to them every night is the plan. You have kids? Hang on. Gonna pass this guy. Speed up, slow down. Make up your mind.”
Joe checked the cab of the truck as they passed. “Just gave me the finger. Who says chivalry is dead? Nah, too much of a nomad. Always have been. I regret. But those unborn are probably better off. Whatever that means.”
“No kids. No car. Gonna tell me about that now?” Donny saw him look away from his window and fold his arms.
“All right. But let's hear more about your daughter first.”
“Don't have to ask me twice on that score. For starter's, yesterday she went into the recording studio and made a demo that should be making the rounds of the major labels this week.”
“The next Trixie Maxwell, huh?”
“Whoever she is.”
“One of those tween phenoms, I don't know.”
“Have to understand a few things about her.” The right hand always came off the wheel to gesture about something important to Donny; drove Clara crazy. “She was really, really quiet as a kid. Still waters and all that, yeah. But not a lot of consolation to parents worried sick about her. Music with her grandmother really brought her around, so we knew there wasn't anything physically wrong. Brilliant grades. Just her choice to be on the quiet side. The one person on this earth she opened up to more than anyone was my mother. When she died at Thanksgiving, we were all three devastated, but Christine was inspired to speak for her, sing for her. Started writing songs, performing them in her room and sending the videos out to ViewTube. Three months or so, must have a million fans.”
“Damn, you are one lucky dad!”
“Telling me! Want to hear her? Just pop that CD back in the player. Listened to it over and over this morning. It stays with you. Clara's great lyrics. Just Chris and piano now from Denny's buddy Mike. He's working on the sound as we speak.”
Joe pushed in the CD. Some background noises, fading to quiet, piano intro for an angelic voice.
I’ll walk a way
through your star-tangled deep
to the stand of the fish-bone trees.
Where land’s but a ledge,
and our path is denied
by the granite ground that we tread.
Far from the portals of purpose
and hearths of those now hardened against you
I’ll show you the strands of tomorrow:
the Sisters, the Twins and the Heroes.
For this night then you’ll be safe
from the Wolves unleashed in your sleep,
the Serpents seen coiled within,
And the unhooded Hawk on your heart.
Just after the closing notes from Mike's piano, Christine giggled. That did it for Dad, every time.
“Can't find the words, Donny. This is worlds beyond what I expected. Thirteen! I am astounded! She's absolutely terrific. Let's hear this again.”
At the ultimate giggle, they were both shaking their heads.
“Tell you one thing, want an autographed CD when it comes out. They still do that kind of thing? At my age what do I know. Seems a little tough to autograph a download though.”
They were quiet for a while, Donny enjoying headflicks of Chris in the studio, as natural to her as if it were just an extension of her set-up at home. Joe shuffled through the brochures Donny had collected from the rest stop. He paused and let loose a la W. C. Fields in My Little Chickadee a bombastic “What a euphonious appellation!”
“Beg pardon?”
“Sus-que-han-na!” Joe held up the brochure for What To Do Around and About Susquehanna. “STC thought it was music, poetry!”
“Losing me here....”
“Samuel Taylor Coleridge. 'Kubla Khan' guy. Ever hear of him?”
“Hell, yeah. Had a teacher in eighth grade used to read us poems like that out loud three or four times, asking us to draw what we saw in our imaginations. Boy, did that ever get the wheels spinning! So how'd you come by Coleridge?”
“Well, here goes. 'Bout forty years ago, at the tail end of my teens, I was not a nice person. Lotta drugs and booze trying to compensate for that inferiority complex from my god's-gift brother. Ah, long story short, got into an accident behind the wheel. One of my buddies with me and the gal I hit were hurt real bad. I pretty much walked away without a scratch and right into a jail cell for a few years. Haven't driven since.” Joe was talking to the side window by this point. Donny was riveted. “So at first while I was inside I was still an asshole. I decided I'd read authors who had done drugs. That should be trippy, or some shit attitude. Ken Kesey, de Quincey, Baudelaire, Burroughs, Huxley—the usual suspects. But Coleridge got to me. Too much alike I think.” He was quiet, turned away. Started to recite “Kubla” almost under his breath and turned quizzically to Donny, who gave him a thumbs up. When he was finished he drolly observed, “Had a lot of time on my hands back in the day....”
Donny looked over him. “Impressive. So, then, what about Susquehanna?”
“Getting there, my friend. So way back in the late Nineteenth Century, few years after the French Revolution, things are getting pretty repressive in England 'cause the powers that be don't want that infection crossing the channel. Folks like Joe Priestley, for instance, who want to talk liberties in the streets and in print were getting their homes burned down. Time to jump ship. While Priestley moves his family over here on the banks of the Susquehanna, his sons fail to develop a land sale scheme there. Meanwhile STC and Bob Southey, a mere twenty-one and nineteen, cook up a plan to create a community of a dozen families along the Susquehanna in which everything is shared. And I mean everything. Called it Pantisocracy: “Rule-by-all.” Gung ho for the better part of a year, then everything falls apart. Just out of their teens and full of ideas and naïve and self-delusional as all get out. Could see myself running with that pack back then. But I learned from their failure. None of them knew a goddamn thing about farming or carpentry. Talk's cheap. So I hunkered down in my cell and practiced drawing for long days. Taught myself something practical. Paid off. That's the story.”
“Covers a lot of ground, Joe.” Donny looked over and smiled. “Thanks for telling me.”
“Hey, you asked for it. Tried to warn you.” Joe was fishing around in his pack again. “Gum?” Passed a stick over when Donny nodded. As he thumbed the wrapper off with a hand still on the wheel, he grinned as he thought of Clara sitting next to him, unwrapping it for him and popping it in his mouth as he drove.
“So, back to your drawing. What's the latest project?”
“Still just playing with an idea. Remember I mentioned the birthday comics for Christine? She's the main character in each one, with special powers that change depending on what she is interested that particular time in her life. Like, say, kittens, where she rescues them from the most unlikely places and brings them to animal shelters so little kids and their parents can rescue them for real, like we really did for her pet Cozmo. Of course, there's always a villain, like Quitkit in this one, guy who's allergic to cat hair and sticks them out of sight whenever he finds them. Sounds lame, I know, but she starts bugging me for the newest one months before her birthday. Lately, Clara helps me with the storyline, so they're a whole more sophisticated for a much more demanding audience.”
“Good going, Dad...and Mom. So, new idea? About music, I bet. Let's see, a young woman who uses her great gift to influence her generation to make the right decisions about something like, I don't know, say, drugs? How's that? Am I getting warm?“
“You reading my cards over here? Pretty damn close. Gonna call her Arial, after her grandmother Aria, who will appear to her with advice when the going gets tough. Have this image of people on a crowded street stopping when Arial starts to sing, mesmerized by her message.”
“Admirable, my friend. No higher purpose for art than to raise the human spirit, somebody said. Wish you well.” As they passed the sign for HARRISBURG 5 MILES, Joe turned his pack on his lap and said, “Lest you think I am truly a hobo, have a full closet at my friend's place. I wonder, could we listen to your daughter one more time?”
And they did so, both sharing a smile at her giggles. Small talk about this weather, the route Donny was taking, his old neighborhood, hospital stays. And then Donny was turning off at the exit where they could see the GetAway Inn sign from the road. And then a hand shake and Joe was out, walking across the parking lot to a black SUV.
Several hours later, Donny pulled into the parking lot of a decent-looking motel next to a Mexican restaurant, had enchiladas and a couple cervezas, and replayed today's encounter, trying to parse all those P's and Q's: paranoia, qualms, probability, and quirks. And this was just the first day; just can't wait to see what tomorrow brings, he thought, no wonder I don't go out much. After a shower he called home before it got too late. Chris answered on the first ring, full of details about how difficult it was to keep her feet on the ground today, after yesterday in the studio. He wanted to know all about it, and kept details of his trip to a minimum: her recording, wonderful weather, daydreaming, etc. Before she handed him off to Mom, would he like to say hello to Denny? He just stopped by with some music Mike said she should listen to. Love, big hugs, and pleasant dreams exchanged, then Denny got on. No sooner had Donny said that he had met a friend of his today, Linus Faccett, then Denny burst out, “Did you see that silver Jag he has? Oh, man, he came by with that over the holidays. That is one sweet ride!”