South of Bixby Bridge Read online

  Grandpa also left Mom his money but it wasn’t much money because my dad used it to open his bar and then drank through every penny before they even shipped the bar sign.

  I remember it was March, my 10th birthday, and my mom made me a crocodile birthday cake with 10 candles on its tail. I had a neighbor friend over and we were finishing dinner when my dad stormed in drunk. He paced the kitchen yelling. He said we didn’t respect him. He said we didn’t wait for him to eat supper. He said we didn’t even tell him there was a party. Then he threw the crocodile cake in the trash where it mangled into a mush of green frosting.

  Mom collected the dishes and washed them in the sink. She was always calm. Dad paced faster, yelled louder. My friend ran home and I crawled beneath the table to listen. Dad said,

  Why in God’s name do you need to parade around town in a sports car? We’re struggling to just get by.

  Sometimes Mom yelled back, sometimes she should not have. Getting by? she said. If you didn’t drink your register every week, we’d do a whole hell of a lot better than just get by.

  Dad stopped pacing. His eyes turned serious. He said,

  I’m selling that damn car tomorrow.

  Mom pulled her soapy hands from the sink and stripped off her wedding ring. She held the ring out to Dad and said,

  If you want something to sell, sell this!

  Dad slapped Mom’s face. The ring bounced on the linoleum floor. I watched it roll behind the refrigerator. Mom turned back to the dishes. She said,

  Oh, go to hell.

  She yelped when he wrapped his hands around her neck. Then she went quiet. I wanted to pull him off Mom—choke him—stab him—kill him. But all I could do was beat my fists against his back.

  Mom gasped for air when he let go of her neck to punch me in the face. I bounced on the linoleum too. I wished I could roll behind the refrigerator.

  WHEN I WAKE, Evelyn is gone. The photo of her grandson sits propped beside me in her empty seat—she must have thought I needed the company. As the train hisses to a stop at the Sacramento station, I tuck the photo in my pocket.

  The doors pop open. The train is fuller now and I wait for the other passengers to spill out and then I step off, sling my duffel over my shoulder, and scan the crowd for Stephanie. As the people wash past, I spot Stephanie’s mother Barbara standing alone, her slender arms wrapped around her shoulders even though the sun has already warmed the air. I approach Barbara. She hugs me. I pull away.

  Where’s Stephanie, Barbara? I say.

  She needs more time, Trevor. She didn’t want to come.

  So she sends her mother?

  I wanted someone to be here for you.

  Why didn’t Stephanie want to be here?

  She’s not sure you’ve changed.

  Not sure I’ve changed?

  Have you?

  Yes, I’ve changed.

  ~~~

  I’m not really surprised that Stephanie isn’t here. They only allowed us one hour of evening phone access in treatment and even then, I had to line-jump by trading dessert from my dinner tray and Stephanie’s cell wouldn’t accept collect calls and whenever I dialed Barbara, she would never say if Stephanie was there or not, but I made her promise to tell Stephanie what time the train got in—I even prayed that Stephanie would be here—so I’m not surprised she isn’t.

  ~~~

  Have you eaten yet? Barbara says. You must be starving.

  Barbara drives us east in her Pontiac sedan and I watch the brown, dead November highway roll past. The palm trees here aren’t the ones you see on postcards because nobody bothers to trim them and the new growth folds over and dies until they resemble giant shaggy-headed monsters leaning over broken freeway fences.

  Barbara passes by the Folsom exit—the exit to my house, my house that the bank auctioned on the Sacramento courthouse steps two weeks into treatment. High bidder won my house and everything left inside because I had no money and no way to move things into a pricey Public Storage unit.

  Exiting in Eldorado Hills, Barbara turns up her street and the lawns we pass are all dead-brown but Barbara’s lawn is green as a golf course and her porch swings with baskets of color. Her house is a cozy mid-century rambler with a red terracotta-tile roof and white-painted bricks. She pulls beneath the carport and parks next to my car and I’m glad she remembered to cover it.

  I get out and circle my car tossing the bricks aside that hold the mildewed cover in place and then grabbing the canvas with both hands, I uncover my mother’s white 1983 Porsche convertible.

  Please stay and have lunch, Barbara says.

  I’m tempted to go inside for lunch and see if Stephanie is staying here but I throw my duffel behind the seat and climb into the Porsche. The interior smells like damp leather and vanilla—Barbara hung a vanilla tree car-freshener from the mirror. I rip it free and toss it beneath my seat.

  Where are you staying, Trevor? Barbara says.

  I don’t know yet.

  She drops her head. I wish you could stay here for a while, she says. Maybe after the holidays then, when Stephanie goes back to the dorms—if you’re not already settled.

  Don’t worry about me.

  You need a peaceful place to repair yourself.

  I am repaired, I say.

  Pushing in the clutch, I slide the key in the ignition and turn it—Click—click—click. The battery is dead.

  I pop the boot, rummage through my dirty clothes, and pull out the cables. I can feel Barbara watching me. She says,

  What are your plans for Thanksgiving tomorrow?

  I drag the cables around to Barbara’s car. I say,

  Pop your hood, will you?

  Barbara gets in her Pontiac, pulls the hood release latch, and starts the engine. I lift her hood and connect our batteries. The Porsche turns over slow and weak. I lean out and give Barbara a thumbs-up. Give me some juice, I say. She revs her engine and the Porsche starts. I close the hoods and put the cables away.

  Barbara stands next to me with her arms wrapped around her shoulders again. She says,

  I feel just awful about this, Trevor.

  Don’t feel bad.

  I just wish I could help, she says.

  Maybe I could use your phone number on my résumé? I’ll call you and check for messages. And you know—check in.

  Barbara nods fast and I see she’s choked up so I kiss her on the forehead. Stephanie’s wrong, you know, I say. I have changed.

  She’ll come around, she says. She loves you.

  I love her too, Barb.

  I know you do, Trevor.

  I climb in, shut the car door, and wave goodbye. I back the Porsche into the street and the engine dies. I jump out, push it rolling downhill, jump in, and pop the clutch—the engine fires back to life.

  I turn around at the intersection and drive back to reassure Barbara still standing in her driveway with her arms wrapped around her shoulders. I press the clutch, rev the engine, toot the horn twice, and then speed away.

  3 God Always Provides

  Highway 99 runs south from Sacramento on the eastern edge of the valley. In summer, rotten tomatoes pile up in the ditches bounced from a parade of tomato trucks and when a truck turns over the road turns slick as oil. In winter, the tule fog rolls in a thousand feet deep, fog so thick you can’t see the cars piling up in front of you and the cleanup crews bring floodlights to find the bodies flung in ditches.

  My mother’s car points for home like a whipped horse returning to its stable even though the barn has burned down. It’s been a dry fall. No fog yet. Out my window, a sea of silver tassels flutters in the breeze, tassels tied to grape vines to scare the starlings away.

  On the grape farm near our house, the farmer draped netting over the vines and when I was a boy, I would duck beneath the netting, crawl beneath the vines, and imagine a labyrinth of secret caves leading to a new world. It was my favorite thing to do until I came face-to-face with a hissing rat snake.

  It feels good t
o be back behind the wheel, to be moving. Moving steadies my mind. Driving, I let my thoughts slide along with soft edges and if I grasp at them for a closer look, they bob and disappear like apples in a barrel of water. I like it that way.

  I exit the highway.

  Passing beneath the famous Modesto Arch, I read the town slogan and laugh—WATER, WEALTH, CONTENTMENT, HEALTH.

  I park in front of the bar. After all these years, the neon-yellow CARL’S BAR sign still glows in the window. Someone added a smaller neon-red sign beneath it, and at least that sign is honest—ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

  ~~~

  I remember when the call came—Mom’s breast cancer was back. A recurrence she called it. The cancer ate through her body like a pack of hungry dogs in a butcher shop and when I wasn’t at the hospital with Mom, I was here at this bar sucking down whiskey and Cokes with Dad. I hated my dad but I wasn’t 21 yet and drinking with him was the only way to be served.

  THE CLICK OF POOL BALLS mingles with the mindless sound of TV as I step in the door. Across from the pool table, the antique jukebox still bubbles like a lava lamp. The unfinished wood floors still reek of stale beer, and the long bar top has been shellacked so many times beer glasses still float two inches above the wood. This bar is a world between worlds—it never changes.

  As I approach the bar, peanut shells crunch beneath my feet and Hank looks up from his romance novel with moist eyes beneath his scarred brow. He recognizes me and smiles. He says,

  Hey, Trev! Goddamn it’s been a long time. How are ya?

  Fair to midland, Hank.

  You mean middlin’?

  You’re awfully learned for a fella who names his bar Carl’s Bar when he himself is named Hank.

  He laughs and sets his book down on the bar.

  You know better’n anyone it had that goddamn name when I bought it, he says, grabbing a glass. Whiskey and Coke, right?

  No, I say, not today, Hank.

  Shame on me for assuming, he says, putting the glass back.

  I nod to his romance novel and say,

  Still reading the classics, I see.

  Ah shit, who knows anything about anything anyways?

  Well do you know where Carl is?

  Down at the old Carver Road Church.

  I thought this was his church.

  Well, you know how these damn Christ-ers have a day before Thanksgiving sermon—bad for business. Shit. But you can probably just catch him.

  I know Hank wants to tell me not to bother, to leave and not come back. But I dismiss the concern in his eyes with a smile. I say,

  It’s good to see you, Hank.

  I SLIP UNNOTICED inside the cramped Carver Road Church. It looks like every nondenominational church I’ve ever seen. Tight weave red carpet and cheap wooden pews with Hymnbook holders in their backs and tiny yellow pencils stuck in holes. And flocked in the pews are rows of heads with shorn, farmboy haircuts. They look like bobble heads lapping up the sweaty sermon of the young, wild-eyed preacher. I stand quiet and listen.

  For the times past may have sufficed to have wrought the desire of the Gentiles to have walked in lasciviousness, lusts, winebibbings, revelings, carousings, and abominable idolatries. Here Peter admonishes us as being now called and ordained to contend against the devil by faith and prayer. Later on he brings in the same warning in clearer phrase, exhorting Christians to be sober and watchful. He says—Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion in the midst of a flock of sheep, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour!

  The preacher pauses to wipe his brow and drink from his glass of water before continuing in a calmer tone.

  As we give thanks tomorrow, let us resolve to be sober and watchful. God bless and keep you my striving lambs. Keep coming back!

  In the corner behind the preacher, at the wood bench of an old melodeon, a woman’s tower of gray hair, sprayed up and cropped flat like a garden hedge, moves up and down as she pumps the pedal and organ music rides the stale air like screeching cats screwing on a roof.

  The congregation shuffles past me. I spot him at the back of the crowd. He looks much older than I remember. His shoulders are still wide, his barrel chest still hangs over his waist, but his legs are thin and he’s dragging a crooked foot. How long has it been, almost 10 years now?

  He limps by without noticing me.

  I reach out and touch his shoulder. Dad.

  He turns around with no expression and stares at me silent until I wonder if he hasn’t soaked his brain for good. Then he coughs into his hand and says,

  Well, well—if it ain’t the Prodigal Son.

  WE WALK TOGETHER down the street to a greasy-spoon diner called the Hangtown Fry. Dad carries an enormous Bible that he has highlighted and underlined so many times it springs from its binding like an accordion. We sit on cracked vinyl stools. Dad flops his Bible on the counter. On the other side of Dad, a skinny punk with a ring through his eyebrow leans over to his buck-toothed friend and mutters, Great—fucking church crowd.

  A tired waitress appears behind the counter. Her eyes seem to apologize for having to work here. She folds her hands in front of her apron and sighs.

  What’ll it be boys? she says.

  Dad smiles. Doll, could I get just a drop of whiskey if you have it? For medicinal purposes, you know.

  Don’t push it, Carl, she says.

  Figures, he says. Coffee and apple juice in front of my son—but make it organic!

  Then he turns to me saying,

  I know damn well she’s got a bottle back there.

  You ever try to quit?

  You want to reform me?

  I open my menu and say,

  Dinner’s on me, Dad.

  ~~~

  My dad bankrupted his bar, almost before he opened the doors. The neon CARL’S BAR sign arrived the same day he closed the sale with Hank. Hank felt bad so he hung the sign. The name stuck and so did Dad. He picked out a barstool where he could see his name in the window and then he spent the next 18 years polishing that stool into a perfect wood-worn impression of his ass. He tells everyone the bar is named after him. He says Carl is Old Norse for ‘‘Free Man,’’ but to me there isn’t anything free about being stuck on a barstool.

  Mom willed me her interest in the family house but before her headstone was even up, Dad listed the house and didn’t offer me a penny. By the time I got the job at Edward & Bliss, he had burned through the money and he called me.

  ~~~

  My dad’s gruff voice snaps me back to the diner.

  You listening to me, Son? Why would you stop sending money?

  I want to tell him he’s lucky I ever sent a dime. I want to remind him he drank my inheritance. I want to get up and walk out. Instead, I just look over my menu at him and say,

  I lost my job, Dad.

  Dad covers one nostril, leans over and blows a string of snot onto the floor. He calls it a farmer’s salute. He says,

  It should be easy enough for a greedy stockbroker to find work in this drunken economy. You know damn well things are tough for me without your mother around. It ain’t cheap for me keepin’ up her flower service either, you know. You gotta honor your mother, Son.

  I knew coming here was a mistake. In treatment, Mr. Shaw said I need to deal with my family issues to recover. But I only came here because I don’t know where else to go. I need a base camp. Dad must read my mind.

  You ain’t staying for Thanksgiving tomorrow, he says. I won’t be home—no siree. Pastor invited me to supper with them.

  ~~~

  I remember Thanksgivings at our house, never a big deal the way they were for other kids. My mom would cook a royal feast but Dad made her serve it in the living room on TV trays and he would be halfway through his plate by the time Mom and I sat down to say grace—Dad the big Christian, Dad who carries his Bible around.

  ~~~

  Dad, I don’t care anything about Thanksgiving, I say. But I was actually hoping to maybe crash at your place for a while—just
until I find a new job.

  He clicks his tongue, shakes his head. He says,

  I’d put ya up but ain’t got no room cause I quit workin’ to serve the Lord full-time and Pastor put me up in an apartment but it’s a shoebox for Christ’s sake. You’d think the damn church’d treat their elders better’n this—me followin’ the good book’n all. I gotta walk around hunched over all the time.

  He straightens up on his stool and measures his stature against mine. Then he slumps back down and pats his hand on his Bible. You’re young yet, Son, he says. You’ll figure something out—God always provides.

  The punk next to Dad rolls his eyes. He leans over to his buck-toothed friend. Fucking Bible thumpers, he says.

  Dad whips around. What’d you say, son?

  Nothin’, old man.

  Dad smashes the punk in the face with his Bible, knocking him off his stool. Then he leans over and says,

  Now that’s what I call Bible thumping.

  I jump up to get between them. My coffee spills, burning my hand. The punk picks himself off the floor. I stare him down while his buck-toothed friend drags him from the diner and threatens to return with friends, nail us to the wall, and beat the souls out of us.

  Dad hops off his stool, blows another farmer’s salute and then limps toward the bathroom. Calling back to me, he says,

  I gotta go drain my snake. Order me some eggs, Son!

  4 The Bridge

  I roll onto the 580 and speed toward the orange glow burning in the western sky. A wave of determination lifts me over Altamont pass where tall wind turbines stand black on the horizon, their giant blades turning slow in the wind, and as Modesto fades into darkness in my rearview mirror, I release my dad and he slips away in a sea of memory and sinks beneath me like a shipwrecked skeleton resting on the dark and silent valley floor.

  I hit the Bay Bridge. Drop a gear. Floor it. The Porsche pushes me back into the seat until she hits 110. The speed makes me feel immortal and I’m tempted to jerk the wheel right and fly, to plunge off the bridge and sail into the night, to cut free from the world and join the stars—one weightless wink that beats any drug.