Some of the neighbors thought I was crazy when I was a child. They thought that because I often walked up and down the sidewalk in front of our house for an hour or more. Other neighbors thought I must be composing music or fantastic stories or something exceptionally creative.
I didn’t encourage either idea of what was going on in my mind, but neither did I volunteer any information on what I was thinking. I was embarrassed to say what I thought about during all those hours because, mostly, it was nothing. I might start off day dreaming about what I would be like when I grew up. Beautiful, like my Mother, I hoped, but more sophisticated, with a leopard skin coat, and maybe a leopard too. Or a housewife with children, like her, but one who made chocolate cakes, unlike her. Or maybe one who played bridge in her underwear on hot summer afternoons? That Mom didn’t make cakes. She made “Ladies Drinks,” & the other ladies in their undies enjoyed the drinks and the game. Although I didn’t know anyone with a leopard, or even a leopard skin coat, my imagination didn’t usually roam far from our neighborhood or my parents circle of friends. Despite those limitations, it was obvious that there were many variations in female adults. But after a short while of imagining my adult self, I didn’t think about anything. I just walked my blank mind back and forth. Now I realize it was a moving meditation. The only strange thing about it is that I was a child. Wasn’t I lucky that my Mom never said, “Stop it! The neighbors will think there’s something wrong with you.”
Mother’s Day tribute, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS
HOUSE OF BLUE LIGHTS
The family finally stopped talking about Dad's slow recovery. There was no recovery. His kidney was sacrificed to gods satiated with internal organs, goats, sheaves of corn, rocks wrapped in prayers. They wanted more, much more. Mother called. She said, “He’s dying.” Doris was already on her way home from college, and Evey would be there tomorrow. Rebecca and I put aside our vows not to go home again when Evey was there. She was a mean drunk, and nothing cranked her up like being at home. But we four sisters returned to the house of blue lights to say good-bye to our father. The blue neon house numbers had been there all our lives, like Dad, but now he was in Spohn Hospital's Intensive Care Unit.
When we were children, he took us when he went to Spohn on his weekend rounds. He parked his Packard right in front, as doctor's were allowed. We didn't usually venture into the hushed hospital with him. We ran in and out of the palm tree shadows that reclined on the lawn. When he came out, we dipped our hands into his suit coat pockets and found lemon drops or orange gumdrops. Then he made his house calls, taking his black medical bag inside with him.
House calls, medical bags, and Packard’s are no longer made, and a modern Spohn hospital and paved parking cover the once gracious garden. Now Dad's in there on the wrong end of a stethoscope. It’s hard at the hospital and harder at home.
At the hospital, Evey goes in to see him first. She comes out shaking her head, her long brown hair moving from side to side. There’s a lot of long brown hair in the waiting room - Evey’s, Rebecca’s, Doris’s, mine, and Mother’s, although Mother’s isn’t loose. Rebecca returns with tears falling out of her big brown eyes. There are many large brown eyes there too. When Doris comes out, she walks past us and keeps going. I go in and tell him, “ I love you.” I get no response. Nobody does. He’s in a coma.
We sat around, subdued, until Mother said, “You girls go home and eat dinner. We’ll do some of this in shifts.”
“I could make tostados,” said Evey.
“There’s no need for that,” said Mother. “There’s so much food at the house that friends have brought.”
Evey borrowed money from Rebecca to buy beer and cigarettes on the way home. After eating, Rebecca took a plate to Mother. Mother sent her right back home. “You should all get a good nights sleep. You’re exhausted from travel and grief.” At home, everyone does as she says, including Evey. So far, so good, except for the dying part.
We sat down in the waiting room to begin the second day of our vigil. "Damn it!" said Evey. "I forgot to get cigarettes. Can I bum one of your Mexican smokes?"
Rebecca pushed a blue and white package of "Records" toward her.
Evey lit it. "They taste better than they smell."
"I think they're as good as American," said Rebecca, "and they only cost fifteen cents a pack."
"How about selling me some?"
"I hoped they'd last me till I go back to Mexico.”
"Just one pack?"
"All right. I'll sell you a pack for Forty cents.”
"That's more than double what you paid," said Evey.
"True, but it'll cost me fifty-five cents to replace a pack here."
"Really, Rebecca, you're the stingiest person I know."
"How can you say that? I'd be losing money on the deal."
"You wouldn't either. You'd be making a quarter."
"If I replace the pack, I lose fifteen cents."
"This is stupid. I'll go back to the store and buy a carton. I think I've got enough money." Evey started rummaging through her purse.
"Don't forget you owe me $7.00," said Rebecca.
"I'm perfectly capable of remembering my own debts. Are you charging me interest?"
"No," said Rebecca.
"I should never have borrowed money from you. I knew I'd never hear the end of it."
That evening Evey took two Lone Star beers to her bedroom. When she came back out Mother said, “We have everything for the tostados you want, Evey I thought you might want to fix some for supper."
"I might. Right now I'm going to look around the house."
"What're you looking for?"
"Oh, nothing. Just looking."
"I think I'll go ahead and cook the meat for dinner," Doris said.
"And I'll mash the beans," said Mother.
"Why don't you rest, Mother? I'll do that,” Rebecca said.
"You can make the guacamole. All Evey will have to do is grate the cheese and lettuce and fry the tortillas."
When we were through, we returned to the living room. Evey appeared a few minutes later. "When are we going to eat?" Rebecca asked.
"Eat whenever you want."
"Aren't you` making dinner?"
"No, I'm not. I don't appreciate you telling me when I'm going to cook and what I'm going to cook. If you're hungry, why don't you fix your own?”
"I think I will. I'm starving," I said.
In the kitchen, Evey took a bite of guacamole. "It needs a little more lemon. Is this all the meat? I’d use that amount just for myself. By the time you all get through, there won't be anything left."
"We'll save you some."
"Don't bother. There won't be enough to make a decent one. When I make tostados, I'm not chintzy with the meat. Stingiest Goddamn bunch of people I've ever known." She walked out with two more Lone Stars.
She returned to the kitchen while the rest of us were eating. She entered a hostile atmosphere. I didn’t like Evey eating guacamole out of the serving spoon and then putting it back in the bowl earlier.
Evey had cultivated this field of hostility, and she wasn't going to let it lie fallow. "I can't go back to that bedroom. It's too damn depressing. You can't even be bothered to fix the leaky roof."
"We fixed the roof," said Mother.
"Then why don't you do something about the wallpaper? It looks crappy."
"It costs money to make repairs."
"Money, money, money! That's all I hear around here. You manage to find enough to keep the rest of the house looking nice, but my room looks like a damn storage room and none of it's mine. There's very little evidence that I ever lived in this house."
"You removed the evidence last summer," said Mother.
Evey's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Remember the night you tore around the house collecting everything that was yours? You were mad about something," Mother said. "You even took the pictures of yourself off the walls. I'd like to have them back."
"You don't have them?" Evey asked.
"If I did, they'd be back up."
"I wonder where all the stuff is?" said Evey.
Mother shrugged. "I'm going to call the hospital. Aunt Margie Rae said she’d spend tonight there. After last night, I'm too tired to go. I think we could all use a good nights rest."
"Are you going to eat, Evey?" asked Doris from the stove. "We saved you some."
"I told you not to bother."
Doris said, "Why don't we split what's left? Joanna? Someone?" She spread a thick layer of refried beans on the crisp, open tortilla, sprinkled on the remainder of the meat, grated cheese and lettuce, and topped it with guacamole.
As Doris opened her mouth for the first bite, Evey said, "You're getting fat."
“That’s not true, and it was mean,” Rebecca said.
“What about the way you treated me this afternoon? Bugging me about the money?”
"Can't I say anything without you taking it the wrong way?"
"You knew I wouldn't forget in one day. You're so worried about your fucking money, you and your slum landlord husband.”
I looked up at the wall clock and said, “Hey, it’s time for our show.” All but Evey moved to the den and started watching All In the Family.
Soon she appeared with a sandwich. “What’s happening?” She asked. “What’s so funny? Who’s the new character?"
"Shhhh," said Rebecca.
"Shhh yourself! I can talk if I want."
"It's hard to hear the show with you talking," I said.
"Can't you think of something better to do than watch the boob tube?"
"I like the show too," Doris said.
"Let your brain rot then," said Evey and stormed out. Ten minutes later, she stuck her head in the door and said, "Don't ever tell me to shhh again, or I'll hush you for good."
Rebecca continued to stare, silently, at the television.
"Do you understand?”
"Shhh!"
Evey's face turned grim. "I'm going to get the sharpest knife in the house, and I'm going to slit your throat.”
Rebecca stood, picked up her cigarettes, matches, and coke, and turned toward the other door.
"Did you hear me?" Evey screeched.
Rebecca turned around. "I've heard nothing but you since this show started. You'll be happy to know that you're saving me from brain rot." She left the room.
Evey tried to follow Rebecca, but I stood in her way.
Evey said, "She walked out on me."
"What did you expect?"
"She does that to me every time."
I thought distraction might work better than reason and said, “Let’s play some gin rummy.”
She ignored me and tore through the house, turning on the lights in every room, calling, "Rebecca!" She returned to the kitchen for another beer, and said, “That chicken shit is so scared; she’s hiding.” She laughed wickedly. "Imagine, grown-ups playing hiding-go-seek. She's so stupid."
"So is this rampage you're on. Let's go to bed."
"If you’re tired, go to bed. No one's forcing you to stay up."
"Who could sleep with all your screaming and racing around?" I said. "You've already looked. She's not here."
"Where'd she go?"
“Over to her in-laws probably."
"I didn't hear a car leave."
"She rides the bicycle sometimes. Or maybe she walked. It's not that far."
"I'll see if the bicycle's gone." Evey headed for the back door.
"Pssst!" Mother peeked around the kitchen door and whispered, "Rebecca's hiding in the bushes outside my bedroom. Give me all the car keys. I don't want Evey driving drunk. Oh, and the flashlight off the refrigerator." She took the things back to her bedroom.
I looked at the wall clock. Only 11:00. It seemed much later. It was going to be a long night. I stomped my foot in the empty room, the same kitchen where I’d stomped my little foot as a child, in the same house where I’d spent too many long nights with Evey. She used to threaten to kill herself. Now it was Rebecca. I didn't understand her animosity toward Rebecca, but when Evey talked about her family, it didn't sound like we were from the same family. It was strange and sad, but it was also getting old and unforgivable, a bad combination.
She dashed back in and started rummaging through the mess on top of the refrigerator.. "I swear I saw the flashlight up here today." She opened the refrigerator. "Shit! There's no more beer." She moved to the liquor cabinet and pulled the handle on the blue gray door. "It's locked," she said quietly. "After all these years, it's still locked." She began to bang the door with her fist. "I HATE IT HERE!” She whirled around and ran to Mother’s room, hurled open the door, smashed on the light, marched over to the bed, and held her hand out. "Hand it over."
"Hand what over?"
"Hand what over?" Evey mimicked in a sarcastic tone. "The key to the liquor cabinet.”
"You've had enough," Mother said. "Go to bed."
"Don't you tell me to go to bed. I'm 30 years old, and I go to bed when I damn well please. I take a drink when I please. I fuck when I please. I'm not your little girl anymore, and if you don't like it, you shouldn't have asked me to come home. Don't bother to ask me again because I won't come. I'd leave right now if I had any money."
Mother ripped the bedcovers off and stood up. "I'll write you a check. Get your things together."
"Where do you expect me to go in the middle of the night?"
"Away."
"When it comes to getting rid of me, you're only too willing to be helpful."
Mother looked at Evey and sighed.
"Now we get into the sighing routine. I like you better when you fight."
“I don't want to fight. Surly you can appreciate how difficult this past week has been for me?"
"Can you appreciate that it hasn't exactly been a picnic for me?" Evey banged her own chest with the outstretched fingers of both hands.
"Of course."
"Okay. I'll go to Waco and see Melody. I'll call her now." Evey sat down at the telephone.
Mother went to the kitchen. "I hope she leaves. I can't take much more. I thought for once I could count on Evey to behave."
I said, "I guess we all expect people to rise above themselves in an emergency, which isn't very logical because that's when they're under the most pressure."
"We're all under a strain, and the rest of us aren't getting hysterical," Mother said.
"Don't you think it was a little hysterical of Rebecca to hide in the bushes?"
"No. I'm not sure Evey isn't dangerous. Are you?"
"I guess not. I hid all the knives while she was in there with you."
Evey flounced in and announced, "Melody said I'm more than welcome, so you can make the arrangements Mother."
On the way to the bus station, Evey looked at the moon shining over Corpus Christi Bay, silhouetting palm trees, and said, “I hope this is the last I see of this cliché of a coastal town. It's not the place it used to be. This town and I were young together. The palms and St. Augustine grass were vibrant and green, the waves in the bay fresh and frisky, the sky as perfect as baby's skin. Now dead palm trees line boulevards and bay like decapitated war trophies. They say some of the trees will leaf out in the Spring. Then they'll know which ones to cut and which to save, but I think they should cut them all. And while they're at it, rip up the miles of parking lots without trees and the assassin malls that have killed downtown. Corpus hasn't grown up so much as it's grown deformed and faded. This winters hard freeze was nature's retribution. With it's tattered palm fronds and dishwater bay it’s exactly the kind of place you'd leave on a Greyhound bus in the middle of the night. It's good I'm getting out of here without hurting Rebecca. They'd lock me up so fast. No F. Lee Baily or Percy Foreman to defend me. I'd get the loony-bin or the clink.”
Evey had a knack for finding the weak spots in people and places. Corpus did look sad, but I felt like my head might burst if I had to listen to her much longer. I was ready to end our relationship unless Evey made some drastic changes, but this wasn't the time to talk about it.
The cashier wouldn’t accept the check.
"My Mother called here an hour ago and was told that you would."
"I'm the one who talked to her, and we do accept checks when the manager's here. But he's not here in the middle of the night."
"Since my Mother called in the middle of the night and wanted the night schedule to Waco, I'd say you qualify for the dumb-ass of the year award."
The cashier looked hurt.
"I don't want to go back to that house," said Evey, "but I don't know what else to do."
And I sure don't want to take you there, I thought, but back we went. Our street was dark except for the house of blue lights. I pulled the car into the garage. Before I'd turned the key off in the ignition, Evey was out and running. The back door slammed behind her.
I hastened after Evey to our parent's bedroom. Mother was sitting up in bed reading. Evey dropped the check onto the newspaper and flopped down on the empty side of the bed. "They wouldn't take the Goddamn check."
"The man on the phone said they would."
"But they won't if the manager isn't there to okay it, and the manager isn't there this late. I feel like a little kid who's tried to run away from home and had to come back because it started getting dark."
“I have an idea.” Said Mother. “You two wait for me in the kitchen."
In a few minutes, she appeared and placed a pile of dark blue packets on the table. “My coin collection. I don't know how much is here. Let's start counting."
I picked up a packet and opened it. Pennies. "Fifty-eight cents. You may not be able to go very far, Evey.” Everyone laughed.
"Write that down," Mother said.
Doris came from her bedroom with a piggy bank and poured the contents out.
Short pillars of coins multiplied across the table.
Mother said, "Let me add this up. Four plus ten...ummm...carry the five...we need 8 more dollars."
"Right here in the 50 cent collection."
"That's it then," said Mother, standing.
Evey surveyed the table. "I have to admit I like it. It's a good way to end things."
The family finally stopped talking about Dad's slow recovery. There was no recovery. His kidney was sacrificed to gods satiated with internal organs, goats, sheaves of corn, rocks wrapped in prayers. They wanted more, much more. Mother called. She said, “He’s dying.” Doris was already on her way home from college, and Evey would be there tomorrow. Rebecca and I put aside our vows not to go home again when Evey was there. She was a mean drunk, and nothing cranked her up like being at home. But we four sisters returned to the house of blue lights to say good-bye to our father. The blue neon house numbers had been there all our lives, like Dad, but now he was in Spohn Hospital's Intensive Care Unit.
When we were children, he took us when he went to Spohn on his weekend rounds. He parked his Packard right in front, as doctor's were allowed. We didn't usually venture into the hushed hospital with him. We ran in and out of the palm tree shadows that reclined on the lawn. When he came out, we dipped our hands into his suit coat pockets and found lemon drops or orange gumdrops. Then he made his house calls, taking his black medical bag inside with him.
House calls, medical bags, and Packard’s are no longer made, and a modern Spohn hospital and paved parking cover the once gracious garden. Now Dad's in there on the wrong end of a stethoscope. It’s hard at the hospital and harder at home.
At the hospital, Evey goes in to see him first. She comes out shaking her head, her long brown hair moving from side to side. There’s a lot of long brown hair in the waiting room - Evey’s, Rebecca’s, Doris’s, mine, and Mother’s, although Mother’s isn’t loose. Rebecca returns with tears falling out of her big brown eyes. There are many large brown eyes there too. When Doris comes out, she walks past us and keeps going. I go in and tell him, “ I love you.” I get no response. Nobody does. He’s in a coma.
We sat around, subdued, until Mother said, “You girls go home and eat dinner. We’ll do some of this in shifts.”
“I could make tostados,” said Evey.
“There’s no need for that,” said Mother. “There’s so much food at the house that friends have brought.”
Evey borrowed money from Rebecca to buy beer and cigarettes on the way home. After eating, Rebecca took a plate to Mother. Mother sent her right back home. “You should all get a good nights sleep. You’re exhausted from travel and grief.” At home, everyone does as she says, including Evey. So far, so good, except for the dying part.
We sat down in the waiting room to begin the second day of our vigil. "Damn it!" said Evey. "I forgot to get cigarettes. Can I bum one of your Mexican smokes?"
Rebecca pushed a blue and white package of "Records" toward her.
Evey lit it. "They taste better than they smell."
"I think they're as good as American," said Rebecca, "and they only cost fifteen cents a pack."
"How about selling me some?"
"I hoped they'd last me till I go back to Mexico.”
"Just one pack?"
"All right. I'll sell you a pack for Forty cents.”
"That's more than double what you paid," said Evey.
"True, but it'll cost me fifty-five cents to replace a pack here."
"Really, Rebecca, you're the stingiest person I know."
"How can you say that? I'd be losing money on the deal."
"You wouldn't either. You'd be making a quarter."
"If I replace the pack, I lose fifteen cents."
"This is stupid. I'll go back to the store and buy a carton. I think I've got enough money." Evey started rummaging through her purse.
"Don't forget you owe me $7.00," said Rebecca.
"I'm perfectly capable of remembering my own debts. Are you charging me interest?"
"No," said Rebecca.
"I should never have borrowed money from you. I knew I'd never hear the end of it."
That evening Evey took two Lone Star beers to her bedroom. When she came back out Mother said, “We have everything for the tostados you want, Evey I thought you might want to fix some for supper."
"I might. Right now I'm going to look around the house."
"What're you looking for?"
"Oh, nothing. Just looking."
"I think I'll go ahead and cook the meat for dinner," Doris said.
"And I'll mash the beans," said Mother.
"Why don't you rest, Mother? I'll do that,” Rebecca said.
"You can make the guacamole. All Evey will have to do is grate the cheese and lettuce and fry the tortillas."
When we were through, we returned to the living room. Evey appeared a few minutes later. "When are we going to eat?" Rebecca asked.
"Eat whenever you want."
"Aren't you` making dinner?"
"No, I'm not. I don't appreciate you telling me when I'm going to cook and what I'm going to cook. If you're hungry, why don't you fix your own?”
"I think I will. I'm starving," I said.
In the kitchen, Evey took a bite of guacamole. "It needs a little more lemon. Is this all the meat? I’d use that amount just for myself. By the time you all get through, there won't be anything left."
"We'll save you some."
"Don't bother. There won't be enough to make a decent one. When I make tostados, I'm not chintzy with the meat. Stingiest Goddamn bunch of people I've ever known." She walked out with two more Lone Stars.
She returned to the kitchen while the rest of us were eating. She entered a hostile atmosphere. I didn’t like Evey eating guacamole out of the serving spoon and then putting it back in the bowl earlier.
Evey had cultivated this field of hostility, and she wasn't going to let it lie fallow. "I can't go back to that bedroom. It's too damn depressing. You can't even be bothered to fix the leaky roof."
"We fixed the roof," said Mother.
"Then why don't you do something about the wallpaper? It looks crappy."
"It costs money to make repairs."
"Money, money, money! That's all I hear around here. You manage to find enough to keep the rest of the house looking nice, but my room looks like a damn storage room and none of it's mine. There's very little evidence that I ever lived in this house."
"You removed the evidence last summer," said Mother.
Evey's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Remember the night you tore around the house collecting everything that was yours? You were mad about something," Mother said. "You even took the pictures of yourself off the walls. I'd like to have them back."
"You don't have them?" Evey asked.
"If I did, they'd be back up."
"I wonder where all the stuff is?" said Evey.
Mother shrugged. "I'm going to call the hospital. Aunt Margie Rae said she’d spend tonight there. After last night, I'm too tired to go. I think we could all use a good nights rest."
"Are you going to eat, Evey?" asked Doris from the stove. "We saved you some."
"I told you not to bother."
Doris said, "Why don't we split what's left? Joanna? Someone?" She spread a thick layer of refried beans on the crisp, open tortilla, sprinkled on the remainder of the meat, grated cheese and lettuce, and topped it with guacamole.
As Doris opened her mouth for the first bite, Evey said, "You're getting fat."
“That’s not true, and it was mean,” Rebecca said.
“What about the way you treated me this afternoon? Bugging me about the money?”
"Can't I say anything without you taking it the wrong way?"
"You knew I wouldn't forget in one day. You're so worried about your fucking money, you and your slum landlord husband.”
I looked up at the wall clock and said, “Hey, it’s time for our show.” All but Evey moved to the den and started watching All In the Family.
Soon she appeared with a sandwich. “What’s happening?” She asked. “What’s so funny? Who’s the new character?"
"Shhhh," said Rebecca.
"Shhh yourself! I can talk if I want."
"It's hard to hear the show with you talking," I said.
"Can't you think of something better to do than watch the boob tube?"
"I like the show too," Doris said.
"Let your brain rot then," said Evey and stormed out. Ten minutes later, she stuck her head in the door and said, "Don't ever tell me to shhh again, or I'll hush you for good."
Rebecca continued to stare, silently, at the television.
"Do you understand?”
"Shhh!"
Evey's face turned grim. "I'm going to get the sharpest knife in the house, and I'm going to slit your throat.”
Rebecca stood, picked up her cigarettes, matches, and coke, and turned toward the other door.
"Did you hear me?" Evey screeched.
Rebecca turned around. "I've heard nothing but you since this show started. You'll be happy to know that you're saving me from brain rot." She left the room.
Evey tried to follow Rebecca, but I stood in her way.
Evey said, "She walked out on me."
"What did you expect?"
"She does that to me every time."
I thought distraction might work better than reason and said, “Let’s play some gin rummy.”
She ignored me and tore through the house, turning on the lights in every room, calling, "Rebecca!" She returned to the kitchen for another beer, and said, “That chicken shit is so scared; she’s hiding.” She laughed wickedly. "Imagine, grown-ups playing hiding-go-seek. She's so stupid."
"So is this rampage you're on. Let's go to bed."
"If you’re tired, go to bed. No one's forcing you to stay up."
"Who could sleep with all your screaming and racing around?" I said. "You've already looked. She's not here."
"Where'd she go?"
“Over to her in-laws probably."
"I didn't hear a car leave."
"She rides the bicycle sometimes. Or maybe she walked. It's not that far."
"I'll see if the bicycle's gone." Evey headed for the back door.
"Pssst!" Mother peeked around the kitchen door and whispered, "Rebecca's hiding in the bushes outside my bedroom. Give me all the car keys. I don't want Evey driving drunk. Oh, and the flashlight off the refrigerator." She took the things back to her bedroom.
I looked at the wall clock. Only 11:00. It seemed much later. It was going to be a long night. I stomped my foot in the empty room, the same kitchen where I’d stomped my little foot as a child, in the same house where I’d spent too many long nights with Evey. She used to threaten to kill herself. Now it was Rebecca. I didn't understand her animosity toward Rebecca, but when Evey talked about her family, it didn't sound like we were from the same family. It was strange and sad, but it was also getting old and unforgivable, a bad combination.
She dashed back in and started rummaging through the mess on top of the refrigerator.. "I swear I saw the flashlight up here today." She opened the refrigerator. "Shit! There's no more beer." She moved to the liquor cabinet and pulled the handle on the blue gray door. "It's locked," she said quietly. "After all these years, it's still locked." She began to bang the door with her fist. "I HATE IT HERE!” She whirled around and ran to Mother’s room, hurled open the door, smashed on the light, marched over to the bed, and held her hand out. "Hand it over."
"Hand what over?"
"Hand what over?" Evey mimicked in a sarcastic tone. "The key to the liquor cabinet.”
"You've had enough," Mother said. "Go to bed."
"Don't you tell me to go to bed. I'm 30 years old, and I go to bed when I damn well please. I take a drink when I please. I fuck when I please. I'm not your little girl anymore, and if you don't like it, you shouldn't have asked me to come home. Don't bother to ask me again because I won't come. I'd leave right now if I had any money."
Mother ripped the bedcovers off and stood up. "I'll write you a check. Get your things together."
"Where do you expect me to go in the middle of the night?"
"Away."
"When it comes to getting rid of me, you're only too willing to be helpful."
Mother looked at Evey and sighed.
"Now we get into the sighing routine. I like you better when you fight."
“I don't want to fight. Surly you can appreciate how difficult this past week has been for me?"
"Can you appreciate that it hasn't exactly been a picnic for me?" Evey banged her own chest with the outstretched fingers of both hands.
"Of course."
"Okay. I'll go to Waco and see Melody. I'll call her now." Evey sat down at the telephone.
Mother went to the kitchen. "I hope she leaves. I can't take much more. I thought for once I could count on Evey to behave."
I said, "I guess we all expect people to rise above themselves in an emergency, which isn't very logical because that's when they're under the most pressure."
"We're all under a strain, and the rest of us aren't getting hysterical," Mother said.
"Don't you think it was a little hysterical of Rebecca to hide in the bushes?"
"No. I'm not sure Evey isn't dangerous. Are you?"
"I guess not. I hid all the knives while she was in there with you."
Evey flounced in and announced, "Melody said I'm more than welcome, so you can make the arrangements Mother."
On the way to the bus station, Evey looked at the moon shining over Corpus Christi Bay, silhouetting palm trees, and said, “I hope this is the last I see of this cliché of a coastal town. It's not the place it used to be. This town and I were young together. The palms and St. Augustine grass were vibrant and green, the waves in the bay fresh and frisky, the sky as perfect as baby's skin. Now dead palm trees line boulevards and bay like decapitated war trophies. They say some of the trees will leaf out in the Spring. Then they'll know which ones to cut and which to save, but I think they should cut them all. And while they're at it, rip up the miles of parking lots without trees and the assassin malls that have killed downtown. Corpus hasn't grown up so much as it's grown deformed and faded. This winters hard freeze was nature's retribution. With it's tattered palm fronds and dishwater bay it’s exactly the kind of place you'd leave on a Greyhound bus in the middle of the night. It's good I'm getting out of here without hurting Rebecca. They'd lock me up so fast. No F. Lee Baily or Percy Foreman to defend me. I'd get the loony-bin or the clink.”
Evey had a knack for finding the weak spots in people and places. Corpus did look sad, but I felt like my head might burst if I had to listen to her much longer. I was ready to end our relationship unless Evey made some drastic changes, but this wasn't the time to talk about it.
The cashier wouldn’t accept the check.
"My Mother called here an hour ago and was told that you would."
"I'm the one who talked to her, and we do accept checks when the manager's here. But he's not here in the middle of the night."
"Since my Mother called in the middle of the night and wanted the night schedule to Waco, I'd say you qualify for the dumb-ass of the year award."
The cashier looked hurt.
"I don't want to go back to that house," said Evey, "but I don't know what else to do."
And I sure don't want to take you there, I thought, but back we went. Our street was dark except for the house of blue lights. I pulled the car into the garage. Before I'd turned the key off in the ignition, Evey was out and running. The back door slammed behind her.
I hastened after Evey to our parent's bedroom. Mother was sitting up in bed reading. Evey dropped the check onto the newspaper and flopped down on the empty side of the bed. "They wouldn't take the Goddamn check."
"The man on the phone said they would."
"But they won't if the manager isn't there to okay it, and the manager isn't there this late. I feel like a little kid who's tried to run away from home and had to come back because it started getting dark."
“I have an idea.” Said Mother. “You two wait for me in the kitchen."
In a few minutes, she appeared and placed a pile of dark blue packets on the table. “My coin collection. I don't know how much is here. Let's start counting."
I picked up a packet and opened it. Pennies. "Fifty-eight cents. You may not be able to go very far, Evey.” Everyone laughed.
"Write that down," Mother said.
Doris came from her bedroom with a piggy bank and poured the contents out.
Short pillars of coins multiplied across the table.
Mother said, "Let me add this up. Four plus ten...ummm...carry the five...we need 8 more dollars."
"Right here in the 50 cent collection."
"That's it then," said Mother, standing.
Evey surveyed the table. "I have to admit I like it. It's a good way to end things."
TO TOUCH AND BE TOUCHED
TO TOUCH AND BE TOUCHED
We were driving the unpaved route from San Ignacio to Laguna San Ignacio on the Pacific coast of Baja California. It was February, and the gray whales were already there. My husband, Gene, and I were on our way to see them up close and hoped to touch one. We had driven from Northern California, but they had traveled much further – about 5,000 miles from the Bering Sea.
I wish I could say we were bouncing off the washboard road, sharing a Corona, and singing zip-pe-dee-doo-da. Instead, we were singing the blues as the gas can on top of the car pounded the roof like a hammer, with every bump we hit. Gene knew it was scratching and denting the roof of our new car, and it upset him. Since it was a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle, I figured no one would ever see the damage. My lack of concern didn’t help matters. I don’t think men mellow with age as soon as women do.
Once in awhile, we left the main road for a parallel, hard-packed, sand track. The car and our nerves would stop rattling for a few minutes, until we had to return to the rougher way. This wasn’t an area where going slow allows you to appreciate the surrounding beauty. The date palms hadn’t ventured far from the oasis town of San Ignacio. A few miles further from town, even the cardon, yucca, and ocotillo gave up. The landscape was sand, salt, and sagebrush, with sand and salt having the upper hand. The salt made the surface dirty and crusty. It is a landscape that makes you want to rush rather than linger, but speed wasn’t an option. I almost wished we would run out of gas, so that we’d be glad we had that plastic can on top. This should be a happy day. We were almost to a destination we’d dreamed of for years, but my spirits were as low as the vegetation.
Forty miserable miles down the road, we arrived at the Laguna and Kuyima campground. I felt like I’d been traveling all day, but it was only noon. It was cold. The wind was fierce. We struggled to set up our tent. It would be nice to open our eyes in the morning to the sight of the water, and, perhaps, whales, but that was the direction the wind came from. We had to turn our backs on the view and face desolation. I know that ugliness, physical and emotional, doesn’t disappear just because you refuse to look at it, but concentrating on the negative doesn’t always help either.
We did manage to get our camp set up, although there was quite a bit of cursing and screaming involved. Then Carlos, the manager of Kuyima, came over and said the wind had died enough that boats were going out whale watching. Did we want to go?
At that point, we might have volunteered for a mission to Mars, just to get into a different space, a better mood. Whales were the focus of our trip. Of course, we wanted to go.
After putting on life vests, we walked down the small bluff to water’s edge. I saw three pangas – sturdy, open boats with outboard motors – pulled up to shore. There were five of us on each boat. We sped quickly out to the observation area near the mouth of the Laguna. All the captains cut their motors to idle. Whales surrounded us. Tall, white plumes blew up high in the air when they exhaled. The water was full of undulating forms as they arched their backs out of the water before diving, their flukes or tails going in last. They were so close to the surface, and to us, that we could easily see which ones were adults and which were calves. Julie, who was leading a study group, said the whales seem to be attracted to splashing, so everyone stuck a hand in the water and commenced splashing. A mother whale maneuvered her baby up close to another panga nearby. All the passengers on that boat managed to reach out and touch the calf. I was so moved, emotionally, that I felt like I had touched that baby whale.
Back on shore, we had a sunset appropriate to the day – dramatic fuchsia and flame. I pictured whales sticking their heads out of the water – spyhopping - to catch the color.
Wind came up again and buffeted the tent all night, causing the metal pulls at the end of the window and door zippers to click like tireless castanets. It didn’t matter. We were happy now.
We went out again the next day. In the air, flocks of black brants flashed their bright white rumps. In the water, there were six boats. I’m not sure if our captain was a loner by nature or if he was trying to maximize the possibility of a friendly gray approaching us, but he often motored away from the other boats. They aren’t supposed to pursue the whales. They’re supposed to let the whales come to them, but when you’re out there with those massive mammals – twenty to forty tons - you realize how difficult it must be for a creature as long as fifty feet to maneuver their bulk into position without capsizing the boat. A number of attempts by whales to get close enough to us failed. They don’t approach the boats for food. Adults won’t eat again until they are back in their feeding grounds in the far north, and calves are nursing. Apparently, they are motivated by curiosity and a desire for human contact, feelings they can indulge in these areas where man no longer hunts and kills them.
We’d been out almost two hours when a baby finally got up next to us. We all got to touch her. She was soft and smooth. I wonder what it felt like to the whale to be touched.
We walked up the road to a fish camp to buy a fresh catch to cook for dinner, but they didn’t have any. In Cabo San Lucas and Loreto, where the fishing is world famous, the same thing has happened to us, so I was prepared to cook something else. I tore up stale corn tortillas and threw them in with a can of chili, another of salsa, and some cheese. It was muy bien.
The drive out was so different from the drive in. It wasn’t the road or weather that had changed. We no longer had the gas container bouncing around on top. Carlos gave us a discount on our bill in return for the big red can full of fuel, but there was more to it than that. We had touched a whale, and that made all the difference.
Our second destination was Bahia Magdalena. This time the way was a two lane highway, paved and in good condition. We set up camp in San Carlos, the village on the bay at the end of the road. Gene found fresh seafood for sale at a little store. They had local clams, called chocolates because of the shell’s color, a bucket of shrimp, and fish. Gene bought fish and grilled it on our small, portable, gas barbecue. We didn’t know the proper name of the fish, but we called it delicioso.
We made an agreement with another couple, Gay and Rick, to share the cost of a boat. We met at 7:30 in the damp morning for the forty-five minute ride to the mouth, la boca, where the Pacific feeds into the bay. The water is deeper there, so we saw more breaching, the whales leaping all the way out into the air, coming down like huge cannonballs.
Gay and Rick have come here almost every year since 1985. It has become a pilgrimage for them. She has a photo of herself kissing a whale, another of her hugging one. They say they don’t recognize particular whales, but I wonder if the whales recognize them after so many return visits.
A whale came close to our boat. Gay started to tap the side of the panga with one knuckle. I started splashing. The whale took a dive and got us wet. Gay asks me, what’s with the splashing? I tell her about San Ignacio. She says these aren’t San Ignacio whales. I don’t splash again. She doesn’t get any hugs or kisses that day. She says every day is different, but I wonder if she blames me.
The most dramatic, up-close-and-personal whale watching is on the Pacific side, but we did see whales off shore from our camp near Aqua Verde on the Sea of Cortez. Agua Verde is a permanent fish camp, but when we ask a fis
herman if we can buy fish from him, he says we must talk to his patron. By the time we found our ideal campsite, we were far from his patron, but we got fresh fish anyway. A frigate bird with a live catch in his beak flew toward the rocky shore by our camp. Three sea gulls harassed him and succeeded in getting him to drop his dinner on the rocks below. While the gulls bickered over the booty, Gene claimed it as his own. Again, we ate fish without a name. We called this one fantastico.
Ojo de Liebre, near Guerrero Negro, was our last whale watching spot. A hard packed sand road from the main highway to the laguna was fast and good. There was a visitor’s center with displays, restrooms, and a restaurant. They sell tickets there and try to get a full boat of ten passengers before they go out for an hour and a half. Just as the operations are different at each place, so are the whales. Here their favorite trick was spyhopping. Triangles of black rose out of the water like small skyscrapers. A man on our boat said, “There’s a whale standing up!” The whale was up so long that I wondered if he really was standing up. Everyone on the boat was ecstatic. One couple was there from West Virginia to see the spectacle. She said, “This is so worth the trip.”
A whale showed a special interest in us. I started to tap on the side of the boat. The captain chastised me. So here’s the deal – splash in San Ignacio, tap in Bahia Magdalena, and keep your hands to yourself in Ojo de Liebre. I’m not sure the whales care, but some of the humans are rather touchy.
We were driving the unpaved route from San Ignacio to Laguna San Ignacio on the Pacific coast of Baja California. It was February, and the gray whales were already there. My husband, Gene, and I were on our way to see them up close and hoped to touch one. We had driven from Northern California, but they had traveled much further – about 5,000 miles from the Bering Sea.
I wish I could say we were bouncing off the washboard road, sharing a Corona, and singing zip-pe-dee-doo-da. Instead, we were singing the blues as the gas can on top of the car pounded the roof like a hammer, with every bump we hit. Gene knew it was scratching and denting the roof of our new car, and it upset him. Since it was a four-wheel drive, high clearance vehicle, I figured no one would ever see the damage. My lack of concern didn’t help matters. I don’t think men mellow with age as soon as women do.
Once in awhile, we left the main road for a parallel, hard-packed, sand track. The car and our nerves would stop rattling for a few minutes, until we had to return to the rougher way. This wasn’t an area where going slow allows you to appreciate the surrounding beauty. The date palms hadn’t ventured far from the oasis town of San Ignacio. A few miles further from town, even the cardon, yucca, and ocotillo gave up. The landscape was sand, salt, and sagebrush, with sand and salt having the upper hand. The salt made the surface dirty and crusty. It is a landscape that makes you want to rush rather than linger, but speed wasn’t an option. I almost wished we would run out of gas, so that we’d be glad we had that plastic can on top. This should be a happy day. We were almost to a destination we’d dreamed of for years, but my spirits were as low as the vegetation.
Forty miserable miles down the road, we arrived at the Laguna and Kuyima campground. I felt like I’d been traveling all day, but it was only noon. It was cold. The wind was fierce. We struggled to set up our tent. It would be nice to open our eyes in the morning to the sight of the water, and, perhaps, whales, but that was the direction the wind came from. We had to turn our backs on the view and face desolation. I know that ugliness, physical and emotional, doesn’t disappear just because you refuse to look at it, but concentrating on the negative doesn’t always help either.
We did manage to get our camp set up, although there was quite a bit of cursing and screaming involved. Then Carlos, the manager of Kuyima, came over and said the wind had died enough that boats were going out whale watching. Did we want to go?
At that point, we might have volunteered for a mission to Mars, just to get into a different space, a better mood. Whales were the focus of our trip. Of course, we wanted to go.
After putting on life vests, we walked down the small bluff to water’s edge. I saw three pangas – sturdy, open boats with outboard motors – pulled up to shore. There were five of us on each boat. We sped quickly out to the observation area near the mouth of the Laguna. All the captains cut their motors to idle. Whales surrounded us. Tall, white plumes blew up high in the air when they exhaled. The water was full of undulating forms as they arched their backs out of the water before diving, their flukes or tails going in last. They were so close to the surface, and to us, that we could easily see which ones were adults and which were calves. Julie, who was leading a study group, said the whales seem to be attracted to splashing, so everyone stuck a hand in the water and commenced splashing. A mother whale maneuvered her baby up close to another panga nearby. All the passengers on that boat managed to reach out and touch the calf. I was so moved, emotionally, that I felt like I had touched that baby whale.
Back on shore, we had a sunset appropriate to the day – dramatic fuchsia and flame. I pictured whales sticking their heads out of the water – spyhopping - to catch the color.
Wind came up again and buffeted the tent all night, causing the metal pulls at the end of the window and door zippers to click like tireless castanets. It didn’t matter. We were happy now.
We went out again the next day. In the air, flocks of black brants flashed their bright white rumps. In the water, there were six boats. I’m not sure if our captain was a loner by nature or if he was trying to maximize the possibility of a friendly gray approaching us, but he often motored away from the other boats. They aren’t supposed to pursue the whales. They’re supposed to let the whales come to them, but when you’re out there with those massive mammals – twenty to forty tons - you realize how difficult it must be for a creature as long as fifty feet to maneuver their bulk into position without capsizing the boat. A number of attempts by whales to get close enough to us failed. They don’t approach the boats for food. Adults won’t eat again until they are back in their feeding grounds in the far north, and calves are nursing. Apparently, they are motivated by curiosity and a desire for human contact, feelings they can indulge in these areas where man no longer hunts and kills them.
We’d been out almost two hours when a baby finally got up next to us. We all got to touch her. She was soft and smooth. I wonder what it felt like to the whale to be touched.
We walked up the road to a fish camp to buy a fresh catch to cook for dinner, but they didn’t have any. In Cabo San Lucas and Loreto, where the fishing is world famous, the same thing has happened to us, so I was prepared to cook something else. I tore up stale corn tortillas and threw them in with a can of chili, another of salsa, and some cheese. It was muy bien.
The drive out was so different from the drive in. It wasn’t the road or weather that had changed. We no longer had the gas container bouncing around on top. Carlos gave us a discount on our bill in return for the big red can full of fuel, but there was more to it than that. We had touched a whale, and that made all the difference.
Our second destination was Bahia Magdalena. This time the way was a two lane highway, paved and in good condition. We set up camp in San Carlos, the village on the bay at the end of the road. Gene found fresh seafood for sale at a little store. They had local clams, called chocolates because of the shell’s color, a bucket of shrimp, and fish. Gene bought fish and grilled it on our small, portable, gas barbecue. We didn’t know the proper name of the fish, but we called it delicioso.
We made an agreement with another couple, Gay and Rick, to share the cost of a boat. We met at 7:30 in the damp morning for the forty-five minute ride to the mouth, la boca, where the Pacific feeds into the bay. The water is deeper there, so we saw more breaching, the whales leaping all the way out into the air, coming down like huge cannonballs.
Gay and Rick have come here almost every year since 1985. It has become a pilgrimage for them. She has a photo of herself kissing a whale, another of her hugging one. They say they don’t recognize particular whales, but I wonder if the whales recognize them after so many return visits.
A whale came close to our boat. Gay started to tap the side of the panga with one knuckle. I started splashing. The whale took a dive and got us wet. Gay asks me, what’s with the splashing? I tell her about San Ignacio. She says these aren’t San Ignacio whales. I don’t splash again. She doesn’t get any hugs or kisses that day. She says every day is different, but I wonder if she blames me.
The most dramatic, up-close-and-personal whale watching is on the Pacific side, but we did see whales off shore from our camp near Aqua Verde on the Sea of Cortez. Agua Verde is a permanent fish camp, but when we ask a fis
herman if we can buy fish from him, he says we must talk to his patron. By the time we found our ideal campsite, we were far from his patron, but we got fresh fish anyway. A frigate bird with a live catch in his beak flew toward the rocky shore by our camp. Three sea gulls harassed him and succeeded in getting him to drop his dinner on the rocks below. While the gulls bickered over the booty, Gene claimed it as his own. Again, we ate fish without a name. We called this one fantastico.Ojo de Liebre, near Guerrero Negro, was our last whale watching spot. A hard packed sand road from the main highway to the laguna was fast and good. There was a visitor’s center with displays, restrooms, and a restaurant. They sell tickets there and try to get a full boat of ten passengers before they go out for an hour and a half. Just as the operations are different at each place, so are the whales. Here their favorite trick was spyhopping. Triangles of black rose out of the water like small skyscrapers. A man on our boat said, “There’s a whale standing up!” The whale was up so long that I wondered if he really was standing up. Everyone on the boat was ecstatic. One couple was there from West Virginia to see the spectacle. She said, “This is so worth the trip.”
A whale showed a special interest in us. I started to tap on the side of the boat. The captain chastised me. So here’s the deal – splash in San Ignacio, tap in Bahia Magdalena, and keep your hands to yourself in Ojo de Liebre. I’m not sure the whales care, but some of the humans are rather touchy.
ALMOST TO CABO
A lonely woman, with too much time on her hands. That's me after we move to the end of a dead end, dirt road in a rural area where we don't know a soul. There isn't much chance I'll soon have friends in the neighborhood. There is no neighborhood. The two houses closest to us are usually unoccupied because they're vacation cottages. Gene, my husband, leaves early on weekdays in our only car. He has a long commute to work and doesn't return until 6:00 PM. A little later our children, Rich and Fawn, leave for their long walk to catch the school bus. They have to walk even if it's raining, and it rains a lot. When they reach the series of pot holes and bumps that pass for a paved road, there's no safe sidewalk nor even a shoulder. The way is narrow. Part of it is steep, with a blind curve. I picture them wiping blood rather than water from their little faces. I worry. I feel guilty.
I know they'll tell their children this story some day. Their children will think that's the way it was in the olden days, but this is not the olden days. We are not pioneers. It's 1974 in Sonoma County, California, USA. I'm by myself in the redwoods because we don't have a second car or a first friend, and there's no public transportation. If I had a car, I could take the children to school. I could get a job. Then I wouldn't have too much time on my hands. I wouldn't be lonely. There are people who feel isolated in the midst of friends or family. That is not me. I am lonely when I'm alone. But relatives and friends are far away. Gene and the children aren't so distant, but they're gone most of my waking hours.
Cleaning our tiny home doesn't take long. It's a ten by forty-five foot trailer. One way I entertain myself is planning a driving trip from our Northern California location all the way down the Mexican peninsula of Baja California to land's end at Cabo San Lucas. We've made two short camping trips to the upper end, one on the Pacific side and the other on the side interchangeably called the Sea of Cortez or the Gulf of California. Those trips were the foreplay of travel in Baja - they made me want more.
I read, study maps, make mileage and time calculations. I take this factual material into my day dreams. I picture our camp set up under a small grove of palm trees on a cerulean lagoon. Islands float on the still surface. The sun shines. The water is warm. This isn't a fantasy beach. It's Bahia de la Concepcion. We can get there in our regular passenger car without traveling too far from the main highway. The paved road was only completed a year ago, in 1973. I want to go before the wildlife learns to stay away, before the fast food, motels, and moblitude arrive. If I'd been alive when the railroad to the west had just been completed, I would have made that trip. I'd have worried about Indian attacks, but I'd have been on that train - with a companion. It's not solitude I seek. I'm attracted to a geography in which nature remains dominant, but I live in a place like that now. Why do I want to leave?
Then we start building a house on our property and can't afford a trip. I learn to use a staple gun, hammer, and tape measure. I cut and lay linoleum and ceramic tiles, install insulation, paint, make curtains. Have another baby. Boy, can that put a trip on hold. But though my lonely days at loose ends are past, I save my books and maps and
scraps of notes on the Baja drive. I'm putting down roots in the redwoods and the community, but that doesn't keep me from wanting to travel.
When the baby, Gino, is two and a half, Rich sixteen, and Fawn fourteen, we finally make the Baja drive. When we're almost to Cabo, we make a detour to a friend's family place in the private enclave of Las Barracas. A hand drawn map shows that shortly after we cross an arroyo, we turn off the main road onto dirt and gravel. The map is good. We find Las Barracas. Our friend's house, which we have to ourselves, is as close to the ocean as it can get without falling in. There are no other tourists, no commercial facilities. Luckily, we have provisions. Unluckily, the plastic tube with a picture of a pig on it turns out to be pork lard rather than pork sausage. Gene, Rich, and Fawn paddle out in a small boat and dive for oysters. I dip the shucked oysters in seasoned cornmeal, fry them, and serve with wedges of juicy little limes. They are the best oysters we've ever had. We don't miss the sausage. We decide to skip going to Cabo, so we can stay a little longer in our hidden paradise.
It's raining when we leave, but we don't have any trouble on the dirt and gravel roads. Rich and Fawn cheer when we reach the main highway because, on the smoother surface, they can read and sleep. Gene and I are happy, too, because we've put the potential problems of a muddy road safely behind us.
Soon we come to where the highway crosses the arroyo. The road is flooded. This shouldn't come as such a surprise since arroyo is Spanish for creek, but it was perfectly dry when we came this way a few days earlier. Now a long line of vehicles back up on either side of the water. I wonder how long it'll take for this to drain, I ask aloud. Longer than we have says Gene. Th
is is what can happen when a road follows the lay-of-the-land rather than being engineered. We have a thousand miles of lay-of-the-land before we cross the border to perfectly engineered freeways. I wonder how many flooded arroyos await us along those miles? How many bridges washed out? How many detours?
People are out of their cars, smoking Record cigarettes, talking, watching the water not recede. A ballsy truck driver on the other side pulls out of the line of parked vehicles and drives right into the mess. He makes it across. Gene says, if we try that the floors and part of the seats will get soaked. Rich says, I could duct tape the outside of the doors and climb back in through a window. So he seals us up and into the deep we go. I pray to the travel gods that this isn't a terrible mistake.
We emerge on the other side, dry as toast. The brakes still work. The crowd claps and cheers. We could sell a case of duct tape, but we don't have any more. Let's leave the tape on says Gene. Just in case. We make it to our first camp site without having to ford another body of water and make spectacles of ourselves climbing out the windows. We aren't bothered. Our family faced a challenge together, and we are stronger for it, just as the inadequate food provisions earlier gave us an opportunity to provide for ourselves. When there are problems at home, we aren't always on the same team. There are kids versus adults, males against females, and every man for himself. Everyone has escape routes - an office, a friends house, the forest. Those options don't exist on the road. A family driving trip doesn't just force us to be together, it helps us to be together.
I know they'll tell their children this story some day. Their children will think that's the way it was in the olden days, but this is not the olden days. We are not pioneers. It's 1974 in Sonoma County, California, USA. I'm by myself in the redwoods because we don't have a second car or a first friend, and there's no public transportation. If I had a car, I could take the children to school. I could get a job. Then I wouldn't have too much time on my hands. I wouldn't be lonely. There are people who feel isolated in the midst of friends or family. That is not me. I am lonely when I'm alone. But relatives and friends are far away. Gene and the children aren't so distant, but they're gone most of my waking hours.
Cleaning our tiny home doesn't take long. It's a ten by forty-five foot trailer. One way I entertain myself is planning a driving trip from our Northern California location all the way down the Mexican peninsula of Baja California to land's end at Cabo San Lucas. We've made two short camping trips to the upper end, one on the Pacific side and the other on the side interchangeably called the Sea of Cortez or the Gulf of California. Those trips were the foreplay of travel in Baja - they made me want more.
I read, study maps, make mileage and time calculations. I take this factual material into my day dreams. I picture our camp set up under a small grove of palm trees on a cerulean lagoon. Islands float on the still surface. The sun shines. The water is warm. This isn't a fantasy beach. It's Bahia de la Concepcion. We can get there in our regular passenger car without traveling too far from the main highway. The paved road was only completed a year ago, in 1973. I want to go before the wildlife learns to stay away, before the fast food, motels, and moblitude arrive. If I'd been alive when the railroad to the west had just been completed, I would have made that trip. I'd have worried about Indian attacks, but I'd have been on that train - with a companion. It's not solitude I seek. I'm attracted to a geography in which nature remains dominant, but I live in a place like that now. Why do I want to leave?
Then we start building a house on our property and can't afford a trip. I learn to use a staple gun, hammer, and tape measure. I cut and lay linoleum and ceramic tiles, install insulation, paint, make curtains. Have another baby. Boy, can that put a trip on hold. But though my lonely days at loose ends are past, I save my books and maps and
scraps of notes on the Baja drive. I'm putting down roots in the redwoods and the community, but that doesn't keep me from wanting to travel.
When the baby, Gino, is two and a half, Rich sixteen, and Fawn fourteen, we finally make the Baja drive. When we're almost to Cabo, we make a detour to a friend's family place in the private enclave of Las Barracas. A hand drawn map shows that shortly after we cross an arroyo, we turn off the main road onto dirt and gravel. The map is good. We find Las Barracas. Our friend's house, which we have to ourselves, is as close to the ocean as it can get without falling in. There are no other tourists, no commercial facilities. Luckily, we have provisions. Unluckily, the plastic tube with a picture of a pig on it turns out to be pork lard rather than pork sausage. Gene, Rich, and Fawn paddle out in a small boat and dive for oysters. I dip the shucked oysters in seasoned cornmeal, fry them, and serve with wedges of juicy little limes. They are the best oysters we've ever had. We don't miss the sausage. We decide to skip going to Cabo, so we can stay a little longer in our hidden paradise.
It's raining when we leave, but we don't have any trouble on the dirt and gravel roads. Rich and Fawn cheer when we reach the main highway because, on the smoother surface, they can read and sleep. Gene and I are happy, too, because we've put the potential problems of a muddy road safely behind us.
Soon we come to where the highway crosses the arroyo. The road is flooded. This shouldn't come as such a surprise since arroyo is Spanish for creek, but it was perfectly dry when we came this way a few days earlier. Now a long line of vehicles back up on either side of the water. I wonder how long it'll take for this to drain, I ask aloud. Longer than we have says Gene. Th
is is what can happen when a road follows the lay-of-the-land rather than being engineered. We have a thousand miles of lay-of-the-land before we cross the border to perfectly engineered freeways. I wonder how many flooded arroyos await us along those miles? How many bridges washed out? How many detours?People are out of their cars, smoking Record cigarettes, talking, watching the water not recede. A ballsy truck driver on the other side pulls out of the line of parked vehicles and drives right into the mess. He makes it across. Gene says, if we try that the floors and part of the seats will get soaked. Rich says, I could duct tape the outside of the doors and climb back in through a window. So he seals us up and into the deep we go. I pray to the travel gods that this isn't a terrible mistake.
We emerge on the other side, dry as toast. The brakes still work. The crowd claps and cheers. We could sell a case of duct tape, but we don't have any more. Let's leave the tape on says Gene. Just in case. We make it to our first camp site without having to ford another body of water and make spectacles of ourselves climbing out the windows. We aren't bothered. Our family faced a challenge together, and we are stronger for it, just as the inadequate food provisions earlier gave us an opportunity to provide for ourselves. When there are problems at home, we aren't always on the same team. There are kids versus adults, males against females, and every man for himself. Everyone has escape routes - an office, a friends house, the forest. Those options don't exist on the road. A family driving trip doesn't just force us to be together, it helps us to be together.
Our second camp is at Bahia de la Concepcion. It's even more beautiful than I imagined. Tiny waves slide up and down the beach, barely breaking. The ultramarine water is so clear that we see pink and white murex shells resting on the bottom. At night the bay glows in the dark. In the morning a flock of pelicans fish for breakfast. They fold their wings and fall head first into the water. From the dry hills that rise behind the beach, doves call, coo-coo-roo-coo-coo. Rich and Fawn collect sand dollars and play in the water with their baby brother. I wish we had weeks instead of two days. The whole family agrees. Shared pleasures are as good as shared problems at strengthening bonds in a family, a couple, a group of friends, or between strangers.Crossing the narrow peninsula from the Sea of Cortez to the Pacific side, we drive for an hour without seeing another vehicle. Fawn sleeps. Rich reads a science fiction novel. They aren't concerned with scenery,. but when ever we stop, they're interested and involved. They are destination oriented. Our children aren't wanderers like Gene and I. Gene isn't out here in the middle of nowhere just to please me. He and I are travel soul mates.
We make a short detour to Guerrero Negro, hoping to see whales. Our timing is right - early January - yet it seems unrealistic to think we can simply drive to the end of the town pier and whales will be there, but they are. Two adults and a calf stay on the waters surface. Four local men fish from the side of the pier. Their portable radio is turned way up. Instead of being frightened off by the music, I think the whales are attracted. The love song "Nosotros" must be their favorite because while it plays, they come as close as they can get. If the pier platform weren't so high above the water, I'm sure we could touch them. We'll return, I promise.
That night, our last in Baja, we stay at the Celito Lindo Motel near San Quintin. I know one reason I travel is to feed the craving of my senses for something new - a taste, a smell, a sight, sound, sensation. A budget traveler in the US rarely finds any of these in connection with their accommodations, but I'm always fascinated by the unexpected luxuries found at inexpensive lodgings in Mexico. At the Celito Lindo it's floors, showers, and counter tops of marble-like onyx and an excellent seafood restaurant. Rich and Fawn watch Gino while Gene and I go to dinner. Lobster is cheap, and they squeeze fresh limes for their Margaritas. After we return, Rich and Fawn walk over to the restaurant for their lobster dinner. They feel incredibly grown up. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a Margarita. They are too young to buy drinks at home, but Mexico is another country, with different laws. It's the first time they've gone out to dinner alone together. On this trip, each has seen new aspects of the other that they enjoy or respect. They have shared new experiences and landscapes. They are closer. Baja was worth waiting for, even if we didn't make it to Cabo.
Ten years pass before we return to Baja California. Those years are over more quickly than the first months I spent in the forest at the end of the road. I'm still there, in the woods, but I'm happy now, even when I have itchy feet. I learned during the sad slow time that I can plan a trip, and that will help keep my toes from twitching too terribly. But I'm not allowed to help plan this trip. Gene says to butt out, this is his and Harry's trip. He doesn't usually talk to me like that. I'm hurt. But it does seem fair for him to get a turn planning.
They design a manly camping trip to a remote beach midway down the peninsula. Harry, his wife, Anita, and two year old Gabrielle are in their four wheel drive Trooper, while Gene, Gino, his buddy Bryan, and me are in ours. We are the "Trooperadors."
We look like we're moving to Mexico or preparing to open a camping supply store. We have a tent, air mattresses, sleeping bags, table, chairs, Coleman stove, cooking and eating gear, food, clothes, two ice chests, enough water and packaged drinks for a week, wind surfer, surf board, boogie board, inflatable boat, crab trap, tackle box, fishing poles, pitch fork, collapsible bucket, a paddle ball game, snorkel gear, portable radio and tape deck, fireworks, camera, tripod, binoculars, tool box, books, sun shower, towels, and flashlights of all descriptions. Luckily, customs doesn't make us unpack when we cross the border at Tijuana.
We stay at the Celito Lindo, the same place we stayed before with all our children. The bathroom fixtures have corroded from the damp salt air, but the onyx hasn't deteriorated. This time it's Gino and Bryan baby-sitting while the adults go to dinner and then feeling grown up on their own later. The Margarita's are still dangerous and the food good. There are only three tables of diners and one man at the bar, but two different mariachi bands serenade us, fortunately not at the same time.
Our camping destination on the Sea of Cortez is Gonzaga Bay, at the end of two or three hours of dirt road, depending on the choice between two routes. We cut across, inland, a little south of Catavina on the two hour road. The way isn't frightening, but it's rough. We get a flat tire. Gene changes the flat, and we head down the rocky track again. There are no services until Gonzaga Bay, so I hope we don't have another flat. But we do. Since we had only one spare, now we have none. We're at Harry's mercy. He makes us promise never to vote Republican and lets us use his spare. After that, we
have no spare tires between us. Gene beats himself up for not bringing more than one. I don't know how we could have brought anything more. Both cars are packed like puzzles. I'm not the only one worried now. We aren't exactly on a busy thoroughfare. How long would we wait for someone to come by and help us?
Our short caravan exchanges happy horn toots when the gulf comes into view, and soon we are there, without further mishap. We're able to buy a spare tire for $20.00.
Gonzaga Bay has a classic horseshoe shaped, white sand beach. Out in the blue water lies Willard Island. There's a backdrop of not so distant mountains. It takes thirty minutes to drive from one end to the other on a dirt back road. A small settlement is at either end with nothing in between but deserted beach. The guys decide to set up camp at Alphonsina's end of the cove. There are a few houses and trailers, mostly Americans, some with two seat planes in the driveway instead of cars, and Alphonsina's - four basic rooms for rent and a restaurant that has to be informed an hour ahead that you're coming to dinner and what you want to eat. The main item on their menu is shrimp which they get with their own shrimp boat that never needs to leave the bay.
Setting up is never the most pleasant part of a camping trip, especially if children are involved. They don't help as quickly, willingly, or long as needed, and quite a bit is needed for this unimproved site. There are no tables, barbecues, bathrooms, not even an outhouse.
Gene usually wants things done his way without having to play the tyrant, so he's patient with the boys. He's usually patient with me too, but not today. He snaps orders and criticisms. Ordinarily, I'd say something snappish back to him like, it's not my fault we had a flat tire. Oops, make that two. Or maybe I'd say, travel days are always hard; don't take it out on me. But I don't say anything because I know he doesn't love me right now. I don't want to make matters worse, and I wonder what made them bad to begin with. He hates my new short hair style, but he's not shallow enough to stop loving me over something like that, at least not permanently. If nothing else, my hair will grow out. But not on this trip.
It's unpleasantly windy and cooler than we expected. Gabrielle is fussy. Anita takes care of her, while Harry sets up camp alone. Then Harry tries to entertain Gabrielle while Anita prepares a dinner of garbonzo beans, dried mushrooms, and onions. Gene barbecues chicken for our family. He complains that I shouldn't have brought chicken quarters. He says they take too long to cook. We are all starving. Unfortunately, we're all hungry for barbecued chicken. Nobody is salivating for the garbonzo bean, dried mushrooms, and onion dish. We offer to share. Anita says no. Gabrielle starts to cry again. She begs for "bones." Harry gives her a chicken leg. Anita is hurt and furious that he's ignored her refusal, humiliated that her meal is not well received. At bedtime, the boys argue over the sleeping arrangements. We are not happy campers. A coyote howls in the desert behind us. He's answered by one on Willard Island. They sound as mournful as I feel. I want to howl with them.
The next morning, I wake to the beloved sound of surf, not wind. I climb out of the tent. I smell the warming earth, the salty sea, and the coffee Gene has already made. I pour myself a cup. Gene's down on the shore, setting up his wind surfer, back lit by a pagan purple and pink sunrise. A school of dolphins play in the bay, rising, diving, and rising again out of the water in a scallop design. Cormorants dive for fish, followed closely by a garbage patrol of seagulls. Gene looks up at me. Without thinking, without remembering that he doesn't want my attention, my love, or anything from me, I smile at him and at the wonder of the morning. He smiles back - the smile he's never learned to fake for the camera. His totally sincere, fabulous smile. He loves me again. He tells me he'd love me even if I had no hair, but maybe not on a two flat tire, setting up camp, travel day. I don't remind him that we weren't on the road when the unfriendliness began. I'm just glad it's over.
I like to think love warmed the weather and calmed the wind. Fanciful thoughts and far fetched dreams aren't out of place here. Words of Victor Hugo's come to me:
Anywhere one can dream is good
providing the place is obscure
and the horizon vast.
Gonzaga Bay is such a place in 1992. In the mountains behind us there isn't a single light at night. So far from electricity, the night sky is v
ery black and the stars very white. Although we're less than a fifteen minute walk from Alphonsina's, a vehicle passes our camp only two or three times a day, pedestrians even less. The bay is equally quiet: one sailboat, one shrimp boat, one wind surfer - Gene. Five small fishing boats go out beyond the bay each day. John Steinbeck said in his 1940's Log From The Sea Of Cortez, "Trying to remember the Gulf is like trying to re-create a dream." Is it a place to dream, or is it a dream?
One morning, at low tide, we all pile into one car, with our pitch fork and bucket, and drive to the laguna behind Alphonsina's. We walk out onto the glistening sand to dig for clams, but we don't need the fork. As though we've waded into the Garden of Eden, we scoop up small clams with our hands. Even little Gabrielle can do it. Within twenty minutes we have enough for two meals. The clams taste like tiny miracles.
From our camp, we look across the bay to Willard Island. It's uninhabited, with a minor shipwreck at one end, a suitable reminder of why a beacon is installed at that end. We've never used our inflatable boat, and Harry and Anita haven't used theirs either. Willard Island beckons. We take turns at the foot pump, inflating the boats. Everyone is excited about the maiden voyage of our small fleet. Half way there, one of our plastic paddles snaps in half, and the part that isn't in Gene's hand sinks before we can save it. Harry rescues us again, this time with an extra paddle and earns the honorary title of "Baja Harry." It never occurred to us not to leave shore without an extra paddle, but fifteen minutes later, when the spare breaks, at least I'm swift enough to retrieve the paddle part before it sinks. What is this two time deal? First tires, now paddles. Gene's self respect is somewhat assuaged by the fact that he has not only brought duct tape, something we never travel without, but more important, he has it on the little yellow boat. He tapes the two paddle pieces together, and we complete the voyage in an hour and a half.
We snorkel around the rocky shore of the island, and explore on land too. One of the coyotes that we hear howling and yipping at night shows himself. After a picnic lunch, we launch the boats for "home." A pair of seals come close to check us out. Evidently, we're fairly interesting, because they stay with us for a good part of the return paddle.
Gene and the boys are in charge of fireworks each night but the first. It's hard to say which of them is the most excited. We all look forward to the display. We know we won't start a forest fire, destroy anyone's home, or get in trouble with the law. Our last night, right after our last bottle rocket blooms and sparkles over the bay, someone down the beach reciprocates with their own fireworks. It's a fine good-bye to a beautiful bay.
Our return route is along the Sea of Cortez beneath a sky blue as a flame. Clouds stand erect and proud, as if they feel their home is superior to the sea below. Vegetation is sparse, but the sea is often in sight, sometimes up close and intimate, other times a vista from a hill top. Three hours of dirt road brings us to the tacky little community of Puertocitos. From there to the border the road is paved. Mesquite, ocotillo, smoke trees, cholla and cardon cactus look friendlier than usual now, when they're in bloom.
We spend our last night in Baja in Mexicali, on the California and Mexico border, enjoying the luxuries of the cities best hotel, the Lucerno, as only those who have been camping can. A shower with endless hot water and a bed in the most humble establishment would be cause for celebration, but we also have a swimming pool with a waterfall and a fountain. We have room service. We have a sumptuous breakfast buffet. We have a big bill. We don't care, because we have no bill for our preceding five nights accommodations.
When the opportunity finally comes for me to go all the way to Cabo San Lucas, I hesitate. It has become a true tourist Mecca with the familiar fast-food outlets, hotels for all budgets, many golf courses, night clubs, and condominiums. Everything I hoped to avoid by rushing down the road before the asphalt cooled, has happened at the end of the road. Even Terry, who extends the invitation to stay at her family condo, declares Cabo "ruined." My eyes narrow. And I would want to go there because...? It's a very nice condo, and it's free she says. It's a mother and daughter trip, and it's free. All the mothers are your good friends, and it's free she says. So I go. It isn't free. There's airfare, car rental, meals out, Pina Coladas on the beach, Pacificos at the swim up bar. It all adds up, but it's worth every peso. It's not just the time with my daughter and all the other women. It's weather and water warm enough to make a bedtime dip a sensuous pleasure. It's tuna
so fresh it still shimmers with yellow until it becomes part of a fish t
aco. We don't have this at home. This isn't home. Even the familiar feels fresh in new surroundings. Fawn and I play cribbage at the Hotel Cabo San Lucas beach bar. There are no other commercial establishments in sight. We face the ocean. Even in Cabo, the horizon is endless, when you look out to sea.
I tell Terry that Cabo isn't ruined. It's just changed. I've changed too. I've traveled a zillion miles of unpaved road, been in wild and remote places, but I've discovered I also love some big cities and resorts. I'm a bit wanton in my desires, as those in the throes of lust are wont to be.
That lonely woman with too much time on her hands also had an undiagnosed case of wanderlust. That busy woman with friends and family near at hand has it still. A map. A road. An unseen beach. I turn my back on a place I love to wander the world. But I return to the end of the road less paved where the dream of Cabo first began.
They design a manly camping trip to a remote beach midway down the peninsula. Harry, his wife, Anita, and two year old Gabrielle are in their four wheel drive Trooper, while Gene, Gino, his buddy Bryan, and me are in ours. We are the "Trooperadors."
We look like we're moving to Mexico or preparing to open a camping supply store. We have a tent, air mattresses, sleeping bags, table, chairs, Coleman stove, cooking and eating gear, food, clothes, two ice chests, enough water and packaged drinks for a week, wind surfer, surf board, boogie board, inflatable boat, crab trap, tackle box, fishing poles, pitch fork, collapsible bucket, a paddle ball game, snorkel gear, portable radio and tape deck, fireworks, camera, tripod, binoculars, tool box, books, sun shower, towels, and flashlights of all descriptions. Luckily, customs doesn't make us unpack when we cross the border at Tijuana.
We stay at the Celito Lindo, the same place we stayed before with all our children. The bathroom fixtures have corroded from the damp salt air, but the onyx hasn't deteriorated. This time it's Gino and Bryan baby-sitting while the adults go to dinner and then feeling grown up on their own later. The Margarita's are still dangerous and the food good. There are only three tables of diners and one man at the bar, but two different mariachi bands serenade us, fortunately not at the same time.
Our camping destination on the Sea of Cortez is Gonzaga Bay, at the end of two or three hours of dirt road, depending on the choice between two routes. We cut across, inland, a little south of Catavina on the two hour road. The way isn't frightening, but it's rough. We get a flat tire. Gene changes the flat, and we head down the rocky track again. There are no services until Gonzaga Bay, so I hope we don't have another flat. But we do. Since we had only one spare, now we have none. We're at Harry's mercy. He makes us promise never to vote Republican and lets us use his spare. After that, we
have no spare tires between us. Gene beats himself up for not bringing more than one. I don't know how we could have brought anything more. Both cars are packed like puzzles. I'm not the only one worried now. We aren't exactly on a busy thoroughfare. How long would we wait for someone to come by and help us?Our short caravan exchanges happy horn toots when the gulf comes into view, and soon we are there, without further mishap. We're able to buy a spare tire for $20.00.
Gonzaga Bay has a classic horseshoe shaped, white sand beach. Out in the blue water lies Willard Island. There's a backdrop of not so distant mountains. It takes thirty minutes to drive from one end to the other on a dirt back road. A small settlement is at either end with nothing in between but deserted beach. The guys decide to set up camp at Alphonsina's end of the cove. There are a few houses and trailers, mostly Americans, some with two seat planes in the driveway instead of cars, and Alphonsina's - four basic rooms for rent and a restaurant that has to be informed an hour ahead that you're coming to dinner and what you want to eat. The main item on their menu is shrimp which they get with their own shrimp boat that never needs to leave the bay.
Setting up is never the most pleasant part of a camping trip, especially if children are involved. They don't help as quickly, willingly, or long as needed, and quite a bit is needed for this unimproved site. There are no tables, barbecues, bathrooms, not even an outhouse.
Gene usually wants things done his way without having to play the tyrant, so he's patient with the boys. He's usually patient with me too, but not today. He snaps orders and criticisms. Ordinarily, I'd say something snappish back to him like, it's not my fault we had a flat tire. Oops, make that two. Or maybe I'd say, travel days are always hard; don't take it out on me. But I don't say anything because I know he doesn't love me right now. I don't want to make matters worse, and I wonder what made them bad to begin with. He hates my new short hair style, but he's not shallow enough to stop loving me over something like that, at least not permanently. If nothing else, my hair will grow out. But not on this trip.
It's unpleasantly windy and cooler than we expected. Gabrielle is fussy. Anita takes care of her, while Harry sets up camp alone. Then Harry tries to entertain Gabrielle while Anita prepares a dinner of garbonzo beans, dried mushrooms, and onions. Gene barbecues chicken for our family. He complains that I shouldn't have brought chicken quarters. He says they take too long to cook. We are all starving. Unfortunately, we're all hungry for barbecued chicken. Nobody is salivating for the garbonzo bean, dried mushrooms, and onion dish. We offer to share. Anita says no. Gabrielle starts to cry again. She begs for "bones." Harry gives her a chicken leg. Anita is hurt and furious that he's ignored her refusal, humiliated that her meal is not well received. At bedtime, the boys argue over the sleeping arrangements. We are not happy campers. A coyote howls in the desert behind us. He's answered by one on Willard Island. They sound as mournful as I feel. I want to howl with them.
The next morning, I wake to the beloved sound of surf, not wind. I climb out of the tent. I smell the warming earth, the salty sea, and the coffee Gene has already made. I pour myself a cup. Gene's down on the shore, setting up his wind surfer, back lit by a pagan purple and pink sunrise. A school of dolphins play in the bay, rising, diving, and rising again out of the water in a scallop design. Cormorants dive for fish, followed closely by a garbage patrol of seagulls. Gene looks up at me. Without thinking, without remembering that he doesn't want my attention, my love, or anything from me, I smile at him and at the wonder of the morning. He smiles back - the smile he's never learned to fake for the camera. His totally sincere, fabulous smile. He loves me again. He tells me he'd love me even if I had no hair, but maybe not on a two flat tire, setting up camp, travel day. I don't remind him that we weren't on the road when the unfriendliness began. I'm just glad it's over.
I like to think love warmed the weather and calmed the wind. Fanciful thoughts and far fetched dreams aren't out of place here. Words of Victor Hugo's come to me:
Anywhere one can dream is good
providing the place is obscure
and the horizon vast.
Gonzaga Bay is such a place in 1992. In the mountains behind us there isn't a single light at night. So far from electricity, the night sky is v
ery black and the stars very white. Although we're less than a fifteen minute walk from Alphonsina's, a vehicle passes our camp only two or three times a day, pedestrians even less. The bay is equally quiet: one sailboat, one shrimp boat, one wind surfer - Gene. Five small fishing boats go out beyond the bay each day. John Steinbeck said in his 1940's Log From The Sea Of Cortez, "Trying to remember the Gulf is like trying to re-create a dream." Is it a place to dream, or is it a dream?One morning, at low tide, we all pile into one car, with our pitch fork and bucket, and drive to the laguna behind Alphonsina's. We walk out onto the glistening sand to dig for clams, but we don't need the fork. As though we've waded into the Garden of Eden, we scoop up small clams with our hands. Even little Gabrielle can do it. Within twenty minutes we have enough for two meals. The clams taste like tiny miracles.
From our camp, we look across the bay to Willard Island. It's uninhabited, with a minor shipwreck at one end, a suitable reminder of why a beacon is installed at that end. We've never used our inflatable boat, and Harry and Anita haven't used theirs either. Willard Island beckons. We take turns at the foot pump, inflating the boats. Everyone is excited about the maiden voyage of our small fleet. Half way there, one of our plastic paddles snaps in half, and the part that isn't in Gene's hand sinks before we can save it. Harry rescues us again, this time with an extra paddle and earns the honorary title of "Baja Harry." It never occurred to us not to leave shore without an extra paddle, but fifteen minutes later, when the spare breaks, at least I'm swift enough to retrieve the paddle part before it sinks. What is this two time deal? First tires, now paddles. Gene's self respect is somewhat assuaged by the fact that he has not only brought duct tape, something we never travel without, but more important, he has it on the little yellow boat. He tapes the two paddle pieces together, and we complete the voyage in an hour and a half.
We snorkel around the rocky shore of the island, and explore on land too. One of the coyotes that we hear howling and yipping at night shows himself. After a picnic lunch, we launch the boats for "home." A pair of seals come close to check us out. Evidently, we're fairly interesting, because they stay with us for a good part of the return paddle.
Gene and the boys are in charge of fireworks each night but the first. It's hard to say which of them is the most excited. We all look forward to the display. We know we won't start a forest fire, destroy anyone's home, or get in trouble with the law. Our last night, right after our last bottle rocket blooms and sparkles over the bay, someone down the beach reciprocates with their own fireworks. It's a fine good-bye to a beautiful bay.Our return route is along the Sea of Cortez beneath a sky blue as a flame. Clouds stand erect and proud, as if they feel their home is superior to the sea below. Vegetation is sparse, but the sea is often in sight, sometimes up close and intimate, other times a vista from a hill top. Three hours of dirt road brings us to the tacky little community of Puertocitos. From there to the border the road is paved. Mesquite, ocotillo, smoke trees, cholla and cardon cactus look friendlier than usual now, when they're in bloom.
We spend our last night in Baja in Mexicali, on the California and Mexico border, enjoying the luxuries of the cities best hotel, the Lucerno, as only those who have been camping can. A shower with endless hot water and a bed in the most humble establishment would be cause for celebration, but we also have a swimming pool with a waterfall and a fountain. We have room service. We have a sumptuous breakfast buffet. We have a big bill. We don't care, because we have no bill for our preceding five nights accommodations.
When the opportunity finally comes for me to go all the way to Cabo San Lucas, I hesitate. It has become a true tourist Mecca with the familiar fast-food outlets, hotels for all budgets, many golf courses, night clubs, and condominiums. Everything I hoped to avoid by rushing down the road before the asphalt cooled, has happened at the end of the road. Even Terry, who extends the invitation to stay at her family condo, declares Cabo "ruined." My eyes narrow. And I would want to go there because...? It's a very nice condo, and it's free she says. It's a mother and daughter trip, and it's free. All the mothers are your good friends, and it's free she says. So I go. It isn't free. There's airfare, car rental, meals out, Pina Coladas on the beach, Pacificos at the swim up bar. It all adds up, but it's worth every peso. It's not just the time with my daughter and all the other women. It's weather and water warm enough to make a bedtime dip a sensuous pleasure. It's tuna
so fresh it still shimmers with yellow until it becomes part of a fish t
aco. We don't have this at home. This isn't home. Even the familiar feels fresh in new surroundings. Fawn and I play cribbage at the Hotel Cabo San Lucas beach bar. There are no other commercial establishments in sight. We face the ocean. Even in Cabo, the horizon is endless, when you look out to sea.I tell Terry that Cabo isn't ruined. It's just changed. I've changed too. I've traveled a zillion miles of unpaved road, been in wild and remote places, but I've discovered I also love some big cities and resorts. I'm a bit wanton in my desires, as those in the throes of lust are wont to be.
That lonely woman with too much time on her hands also had an undiagnosed case of wanderlust. That busy woman with friends and family near at hand has it still. A map. A road. An unseen beach. I turn my back on a place I love to wander the world. But I return to the end of the road less paved where the dream of Cabo first began.
This essay first appeared in COLORADO REVIEW, Summer 2002
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