Roasted guinea pig.
"Come on," he said, "let's try it. I had one of our guides order it from a local restaurant. We'll get pictures."
Looking at it made me feel suddenly queasy. I leaned toward Micah. "It still has the head. And the claws."
Micah shrugged. "It is supposed to be a delicacy. And besides, the painting shows that it's what they served at the Last Supper."
"You're not really thinking of eating it, are you?"
"I might taste it . . . it's the only chance I'll get. It's not like they serve it where we live."
"Really? You're going to take a bite?"
"I think I have to. And do me a favor."
"What's that?"
"Get a picture. For Alli."
"That's mean. She's going to scream."
"No, she won't. She'll think it's funny. And I'll get a picture of you taking a bite, too."
"Me?"
"Of course. I can't let you throw away a moment like this. Like they say, When in Rome . . ."
I looked at the guinea pig again. "It makes me a little nauseated to even consider it."
"That's why I'm here. To help you experience new things. To make you stretch."
"Gee, thanks."
"Hey," he said, shrugging. "What are brothers for? Now get the camera ready."
I did and snapped the picture as he took a bite. He did the same for me when I took a small bite, my stomach churning like a lava lamp on amphetamines.
"Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"
"I think I'm going to throw up," I admitted.
He laughed before putting his arm over my shoulder. "Think of it this way--it's just the latest in a long line of stupid things that we've done. And this time, it wasn't even dangerous."
During those first years in Fair Oaks, even as we began to test the limits of our courage through daredevil stunts, we continued to drift apart. Micah was spending more time with his friends, and I was spending time with mine. Occasionally, our friends would end up in the same place, but more often than not, they didn't.
Still, there were certain rites of passage that we both underwent, albeit at different times. With the fields and woods in our neighborhood disappearing as new housing developments sprang up, we both began spending more time at the nearby American River. There were bike trails and places to skimboard (sort of like water-skiing, only the board is larger and tied to a tree along the bank instead of a boat; the current keeps you upright). There was also a pedestrian bridge that spanned the river about forty-five feet above the water, and it was an accepted ritual of childhood to jump from the bridge into the chilly water below. Land wrong and the breath would be knocked clean out of you. I first jumped from the bridge when I was ten; Micah had done it a year earlier. Later, I jumped from the fence atop the bridge (intended to keep jumpers from jumping, of course), which added another ten feet to the jump. Micah had done that jump, too, well before I did. Our favorite activity, however, was riding the rope swing, and we could spend hours at it. Tied to the center of the bridge, the rope was stretched taut and with a board fastened to it. We'd jump from the bridge with the board between our legs, and clinging to the rope, feel the g-force as we swooped over the water at eighty miles an hour before swinging up toward the bridge again. It was dangerous and illegal, and frequently the sheriff arrived to confiscate our rope swing. As he did so, he'd eye me or my brother.
"Don't I know you?" he'd sometimes ask.
"I don't see how," we'd answer innocently.
Micah and I also climbed the bluffs alongside the river. They were nearly vertical and the dirt unstable; both of us slipped on more than one occasion, sometimes falling as much as thirty feet and nearly breaking our ankles and legs. Once, I nearly lost a finger bluff climbing--the cut went clear to the bone of my knuckle--but my mom told me not to worry because she knew exactly what to do. (She put a Band-Aid on it.)
But for the most part, Micah and I weren't doing these things together. If I went to the river occasionally, Micah went there almost daily. If I jumped from the bridge once, he would do it ten times and find a way to increase the danger (let's ride our bikes off it!). If I went over to a friend's house on Monday, Micah would be at a friend's each and every afternoon. Micah was simply more in everything, including the trouble he was beginning to get into. Though a relatively good student, he continued getting into arguments with teachers and fights with other students, and my parents were being called to the principal's office at least three times a year. I, on the other hand, spent year after year garnering perfect scores on exams and doing extra-credit assignments, all the while hearing teachers remark, "You're so much easier than your brother was." And I read constantly. Not only the encyclopedias and the Bible, but almanacs and atlases as well. I simply devoured them and, strangely, the information just seemed to stick, no matter how obscure or irrelevant. By the sixth grade, I was prodigious with trivia: If someone pointed to any country in the world, I could recite statistics, name the capital, tell you what the major exports were, or recite the average rainfall months after skimming the information. Still, it wasn't necessarily something that other kids my age found too impressive.
A group of us might be standing around at recess, for instance, when one would say to one of the others:
"Hey, how was your camping trip at Yosemite?"
"Oh, it was great. Me and my dad pitched a tent and went fishing. Man, you should have seen how many fish we caught. And we saw the sequoias, too. Man, those are the biggest trees I've ever seen."
"Did you hike around Half Dome?" another would ask.
"No, but the next time we go, my dad says we can. He says it's supposed to be awesome."
"It is. I did that last year with my dad. It was so cool."
Meanwhile, noticing me standing quietly off to the side, someone might try to include me.
"Hey, have you ever been to Yosemite, Nick?"
"No, I haven't," I'd answer. "But did you know that even before it became a national park in 1890, the land was actually given in trust to the state of California in 1864 by the U.S. Congress, and signed into law by Abraham Lincoln? You'd think that with the Civil War in full swing, he wouldn't have had time for something like that, but he did. And in the end, the use of land trusts set the stage for Yellowstone to become the first official national park in 1872. And did you know that Yosemite Falls, which are the fifth tallest in the world at 2,450 feet, is actually made of three separate falls? Or . . ."
My friends' eyes would glaze over as I went on and on.
Yep, that was me. Mr. Popularity.
My sister, too, was becoming her own person. Like me, she got along with her teachers, although her grades usually hovered around a C in nearly every class. Though my parents were both college graduates and viewed education as important--my mother had received her degree in elementary education, and my father was a professor--neither seemed concerned about my sister's academic performance. They didn't push her to work harder, nor did they help her with her studies, nor did they mind if she brought home poor grades, the reason yet again being, "She's a girl."
They did, however, enroll her in horseback riding lessons, thinking a skill like that would serve her well in the long run.
The more I excelled in school, the harder I tried to do even better, if only to stand out from my siblings. Somehow, I believed that my parents would then shower me with the attention I felt was given automatically to my brother and sister. If Micah got attention because he was the oldest and my sister got attention for being the only girl, I wanted recognition for something, anything. I yearned for moments when I could be the center of attention at the dinner table, but no matter what I did, it never seemed to be enough. While I never doubted that my parents loved me, I couldn't help but think that had my mother been given Sophie's choice, I would have been the one sacrificed to save the other two. It was a terrible thing to believe--and as a parent now, I know that attention isn't the same as love--but the feeling wouldn't go away. Even
worse, I began to notice those moments with ever increasing acuity. In the fall, when it was time for new school clothes, I would get a couple of new items and Micah's hand-me-downs; both Micah and Dana would receive far more than I did. And my mom, if she acknowledged my feelings at all, would simply shrug and say that "Micah's clothes are new for you." As I grew older, both my parents seemed oblivious to how a child like me would view their actions.
I'll never forget one Christmas when we woke up to find three bikes under the tree. Christmas was far and away the most exciting day of the year for us, because we seldom got anything we wanted the rest of the time. We would count down the days and talk endlessly about what we wanted; that particular year, bikes were on the top of the list. Bikes meant freedom, bikes meant fun, and the ones we'd owned previously had become unusable through sheer wear and tear. When we crept out to the living room, the tree lights were glowing and we stared at our gifts with wonder.
Micah's bike was new and shiny.
Dana's bike was new and shiny.
My bike was . . . shiny.
For a moment, I'd thought it was new as well. But . . . then, ever so slowly, I began to recognize it, despite the new paint job. Like a bad dream, I realized that my parents had given me my own bike--albeit, a repaired one. Granted, it had cost money to repair, but still, it crushed me to think I was given a gift that I already owned, while Micah and Dana got new ones.
When it came to grades, our parents used to post our report cards on the refrigerator, and I couldn't wait for my mom to get home so I could show her how well I'd done. When she saw my report card, she said that she was proud of me, but when I woke the following morning, I noticed that the report cards had been taken down and slipped into the drawer. When I asked my mom why, she said, "It hurts the other kids' feelings."
After that, the report cards were never posted at all. Perhaps, only later did I come to realize, Micah and Dana had had their own insecurities as well.
Despite these perceived childhood slights, I adored my mom. Then again, so did everyone who knew her, including all my friends and our dog, Brandy. At night, Brandy--all eighty pounds of her--would crawl up and lie in my mom's lap as she sat reading in the living room.
My mom's attitude made it hard not to like her. She was always upbeat, no matter how terrible things were, and she made light of things that most people would have found unbearable. For instance, my mom worked (as many mothers did), but she had to ride a bike to work. Whether it was pouring rain or 105 degrees, my mom would dress for work, hop on the bike, and start pedaling the four miles to the office. Her bike had a basket on the handlebars and two more behind the seat; after work, she'd ride the bike to the grocery store, load in whatever we needed, then ride home. And always--I mean always--she beamed when she walked in the door. No matter how hard the day had been, no matter how hot or wet she was, she made it seem as if she were the lucky one and that her life couldn't get any better.
"Hey guys! It's great to see you! I can't tell you how much I missed you today!"
Then, she'd visit with each of us, asking about our days. And one by one, Micah, Dana, and I would fill her in as she began cooking dinner.
She was also a giggler. My mom could laugh at anything, which naturally drew people to her. She wasn't Pollyanna, but she seemed to realize that life had both ups and downs, and it wasn't worth the energy to get upset about the downs, since not only were they inevitable, but they'd pass as well.
My mom also seemed to know everyone's parents, and when I'd meet someone new, this new friend would frequently mention how much their mom liked visiting with my mom. This always struck me as a mystery, because my mom had no social life. Almost all her evenings and weekends were spent at home with us, and she ate lunch alone. Nor, by the way, did my parents socialize together, or even go out on what might be considered a date. In all my years growing up, I remember my parents going out to a party together only once, and it was downright shocking to us when they casually mentioned that they were going out for the evening. I was thirteen at the time, and after they left, Micah, Dana, and I called a powwow to discuss the extraordinary turn of events. "They're leaving us on our own? What can they be thinking? We're just kids!" (Never mind that we were on our own every day . . . but who needs logic when you're feeling sorry for yourself?)
How, then, did people know her? It turned out that various parents of new friends were attended to by my mom at the optometrist's office, and struck up conversations with her. But it wasn't simply idle talk; my mom had a way of getting people to open up to her. People told her everything--she was the veritable Ann Landers of Fair Oaks, and occasionally, when I mentioned a new friend, she'd shake her head, and say something like, "It's fine if he comes here, but you can't go over there. I know what goes on in that house."
Yet, my mother was--and always will be--an enigma to me. While I knew she loved me, I couldn't help but wonder why she wouldn't acknowledge my successes. While we kids were the center of her life, she let us run wild in dangerous places, doing dangerous things. These inconsistencies have always puzzled me, and even now, I'm at a loss to explain them. I've long since given up trying to understand it, but if there was anything consistent in the way she raised us, it was in her refusal to allow any of us to indulge in self-pity of any kind. She achieved this through a maddening style of argument, in which the following three statements were repeated in various sequences:
A. It's your life + social commentary.
B. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things.
C. No one ever said that life was fair.
For example, an argument I had with her when I was eleven:
"I want to go out for the football team," I said. "There's a Pop Warner league, and all my friends are playing."
"It's your life," she answered. "But I don't want to be responsible for you hobbling around on crutches your whole life because you blew out your knee as a kid. And besides, we don't have the money for it."
"But I want to."
"What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things."
"That's not fair. You always say that."
She shrugged. "No one ever said that life was fair."
I paused, trying another approach.
"I won't get hurt, if that's what you're worried about."
She looked me over. "Someone your size? You'd definitely get hurt. I've seen football players. You'd be nothing more than a bug on the windshield to them. You're too small."
She had a point there. I was small.
"I wish I was bigger. Like my friends are."
She put a consoling hand on my shoulder. "Oh sweetie, no one ever said life was fair."
"I know. But still . . ."
"Just remember this, okay?" she'd offer, her voice softening with maternal affection. "It'll help you later in life when you're disappointed about anything. What you want and what you get are usually two entirely different things."
"Maybe you're right. Maybe I should try another sport."
My mom would smile tenderly, as if finally conceding the argument. "Hey, do what you want. It's your life."
The older I got, the more I hated these arguments, because I lost every one of them. But still, deep down, I could never escape the feeling that my mom was probably right about most things. After all, she spoke from experience.
CHAPTER 9
Easter Island, Chile
January 29-30
As we looked out the airplane window, Easter Island slowly came into view, a remote and exotic sight that only underscored how far from familiar surroundings we were.
Easter Island, like most islands in the South Pacific, was first settled by Polynesians. But because Easter Island was so far from the rest of populated Polynesia--nearly 2,200 miles from the coast of Chile, it's the remotest inhabited island in the world--the native people developed their own unique culture, which included the carving of giant statues known as the Moai.
Of
all the places listed in the original brochure, Easter Island had been the most intriguing to me. I'd read about the Moai and had longed to see and touch them ever since I was a child. Because it was so remote, I fully realized that this trip might be the only time I ever set foot on the island, and I craned my neck, looking out the window as we circled in preparation for landing.
What struck me immediately was the scarcity of trees. I suppose I'd imagined the palms and rain forests typical throughout the South Pacific, but instead the island was largely covered with grassy meadows, as if part of Kansas had been dropped into the middle of the ocean. Later, we'd find out from the archaeologists that the absence of trees partially explains the cultural history of Easter Island, but at the time I remember thinking how odd it seemed.
Another interesting thing about Easter Island is the time zone in which it is located. Because we were flying west, we would cross time zones and lose a day on our way to Australia, but it enabled us to maximize our days. If we left at ten, for instance, and flew for five hours, we might arrive only three hours after we departed, as measured by local time. But because the island is part of Chile and thus shares the Eastern Time Zone (along with New York and Miami, despite lying geographically west of California), we were told that the sun wouldn't set until 10:45 P.M.
Dinner was served outdoors, and afterward, a few of the tour members strolled over to a seaside bluff to watch the sun go down. Waves crashed violently against the rocks, the plumes rising forty to fifty feet in the air. In the west, the sky turned pink and orange, before finally changing into the brightest red I've ever seen. And then an impenetrable darkness descended.
Micah and I were sitting together, watching all of this when he finally turned to me.
"I think I know what your problem is," he said.
"What problem?"
"Why you get so stressed all the time."
"Why do you keep talking to me about this? Here I am, enjoying my first South Pacific sunset, and you want to start probing my psyche."
"Your problem," he said, ignoring me, "is that you need more friends."