Das Road

“I haven’t seen a black woman in a year and a half,” I say. “Everything is so ... new. I feel like I’ve just been dropped here from Mars.”

  “Yeah,” Bob says. “It’s like we left most of ourselves back in Asia, isn’t it?”

  He slugs down a beer and burger while I imbibe a vodka martini with my club sandwich. After we finish eating, Bob stands up.

  “I’ll be back in a little bit,” he says. “Have another drink; the check’s on me.”

  “Thanks, Bob.”

  I settle into my ersatz leather chair and try to relax. The air feels chilly on my sunburned skin, and it carries the aroma of now unfamiliar foods – steaks, burgers, fries. I savor my first green olive in many months.

  In the air terminal corridor outside the window, masses of people maneuver by – all of them harassed and rushed – while inside the pub, a dim serenity reigns. I order another drink.

  God, do I need a shower! That will be the first priority – get a room, bathe, and crash. Then we can sightsee in Los Angeles for a couple of days. I’ve always wanted to visit Disneyland.

  Bob returns as I am chewing my second olive. He’s hefting a beer in one hand and a martini in the other.

  “Whoa,” I say, “I’m going to float out of here!”

  “So what?” Bob says. “You’re not planning to drive, are you?”

  I take the martini glass, and Bob clinks it with his beer mug.

  “Thanks, Tyler, it’s been real.”

  “So it has,” I say.

  He downs his beer quickly and smacks the mug onto the table with authority. Then he glances at his watch.

  “Gotta go, Tyler. My plane leaves for Detroit in an hour.”

  “What?” I am completely stunned by this curve ball. “You’re not even going to stay overnight?”

  Bob shakes his head.

  “Naw, better to wrap things up quick, don’t you think?”

  “Well ... sure, I guess so.”

  We exchange addresses and shake hands. Then Bob is gone. Just like that, the most important individual in my life for many weeks simply vanishes. A void rips open in my world.

  At least nobody can accuse Bob of wasting time with extended good-byes.

  I gaze into my glass – my Jon Glass. The olive stares back at me with its malevolent crimson pupil. I stab it with the little plastic sword and pop it in my mouth.

  ***

  The next day I catch a plane home, arriving mid afternoon. I don’t call anyone, as I want my arrival to be a surprise. Through a combination of airport shuttle and suburban buses, I get to Allendale by four thirty and walk the last mile to our house.

  I feel like an alien tramping the orderly suburban streets wearing my dirty Cheju Do sweater and scuffed boots – a shabby bag slung over each shoulder, Jewel Eye bumping on my hip. The sidewalk seems to glide under my feet, as pristine as the yellow brick road – except it is not leading out to adventure but back from it. The concrete ribbon runs past houses amazingly large and tidy.

  A police car slows, and the officer gives me a good eyeing over. God, do I look that bad? I smile and try to appear innocuous; the car drives on. Gray, leafless autumn is far advanced, and a chilly mist hangs in the air.

  What a change from Thailand! I stop to transfer my camera into a shoulder bag so as to protect it from the damp. When I look up, two small children are staring up at me wide-eyed.

  I resist the temptation to cry “Boo!”

  Mom is home alone when I appear on the doorstep.

  “Tyler, you’re so thin!” is the first thing she says.

  Talking is difficult because Chief, our collie, has gone mad with joy – practically knocking me over. I have to take him out to the yard before he destroys the house. When I come back in, covered with long collie hair, Mom has poured us two glasses of wine.

  “Welcome home, Son,” she says.

  I take a glass and place my free arm around her shoulders. “I love you, Mom.”

  We down the wine. Mom’s face flushes.

  “Whew!” She fans herself with her hands. “I’m not used to that.”

  I pour myself another glass. “More?”

  “No, no!” Mom says.

  She snatches up the phone and starts dialing.

  “Please don’t call anybody yet,” I say. “I want to make some surprise visits first.”

  She reluctantly puts the phone down.

  “All right, Tyler. That’s your style, isn’t it?”

  We enjoy a fine conversation for some minutes until Chief’s insistent barking makes further talk impossible. I bring him in through the side door by the basement stairs. His wagging tail pounds the wall as he wraps himself around my legs and blocks my way off the landing.

  “Some boxes came for you,” Mom calls. “They’re in the basement.”

  Since I can’t climb off the landing anyway, I head downstairs. Chief clatters after me on the linoleum covered steps. The boxes I’ve shipped from overseas are all here filled with personal affects, souvenirs, and presents for the family.

  I hear the front door open. Ed is back, and I know that the happy talk reunion is over. I hear Mom’s enthusiastic voice, Ed’s monosyllabic replies. I go back upstairs.

  “Thanks for sending the money,” I say, shaking Ed’s hand.

  “Sure, Tyler,” he says, “don’t mention it.”

  He has a smile pasted on, but I can tell that the same old face is still underneath it. Off to the side, Mom beams with pleasure.

  I go upstairs to my old room. It is just the same as when I left, including the little kid ceiling light shaped like a wagon wheel. The room is familiar and alien at the same time – smaller than I remembered. I peer out the dormer window at the rows of tract homes. Kids next door are shooting baskets through a garage-mounted hoop.

  I think of Seoul and the view from my second story room. My house stood out among the traditional dwellings with their curving tiled roofs, walled courtyards, and gates facing a lane too narrow for automobiles. Vendors pushed their carts down the paving stones selling produce to the Korean housewives. Nearby, just across the main street, stood Kyungbok Palace where the Korean emperors once lived. The elegant pagoda of the National Museum towered above the wall of the palace grounds ...

  Dinner is a depressing affair. Mom cooks some steaks she’s been saving, and she even puts on some easy listening music. Ed’s sullen demeanor puts a damper on any good cheer, though. By the time we finish the salad, his face has assumed its customary stony set, the jaw muscles bunched tense even when he isn’t chewing.

  Actually, he still is chewing – on his bottled up anger and resentment. Now that I’m back on the scene, he has something else to gnaw on. Mom’s bubbly chatter weaves through the musical pabulum without competition from Ed or me.

  I have a nickname for Ed: Mr. Envy.

  He is angry that he’s a pasty middle-aged guy instead of a dashing young buck; resentful that he doesn’t “have no education” and is the proprietor of a little hardware store instead of working as a bank president. He harbors jealous inferiority feelings because he knows that Mom is out of his league and that I am smarter than him. He’d never dare confront me directly, but his sullen resentment is a black hole in our family.

  How had Don Quixote put it?

  “Envy produces nothing in the heart that bears it but rage, rancor, and disgust.”

  Maybe this is just my limited take on things – possessive feelings, loyalty for Dad – but I doubt it. I know in my heart that I’d be happy if Mom found a nice guy.

  So why did she dig up this yo-yo? Beats the hell out of me. All I know for sure is that I want out of this place. I retreat upstairs to unwind.

  Later, as I am creeping down for a glass of milk, I overhear a conversation.

  “Tyler didn’t want me to tell anybody that he’s back yet,” Mom says. “I’ll hold off another day, but tomorrow night I’m inviting everyone to a surprise welcome home party.”

  “That’s ni
ce,” Ed says.

  “Is Saturday good?”

  Ed grunts.

  I turn in early and dream of springtime in the Korean mountains. Yun Hee is there, and Kathy, and Gloria ...

  32: The Pilgrimage

  Your Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic II is the finest photographic instrument on the market – Operating Manual

  By morning, I feel able to make some plans. My top priority is to purchase car insurance and get my Chevy out of storage. After that will come the employment search, my own place, and a girlfriend somewhere along the way. Everything will have to wait a bit, though, for this is visiting day.

  Outside is unseasonably warm and bursting with sunshine. I decide to walk with Chief to Victor’s house five miles away, figuring that Victor will be home. Mom said that he is on temporary suspension from his post office job. I didn’t ask for details.

  I slice off a plastic milk jug bottom to make a water bowl for Chief. He goes wild with joy at the prospect of an outing, barking and jumping around so much that I can barely get his collar on. I sling Jewel Eye over my shoulder and am ready to go.

  We walk to the corner and turn left at the boulevard. A block later we pass the elementary school that Victor and I attended. The once familiar streets now seems entirely new. A car slows and two little kids poke their heads out the windows.

  “Look, it’s Lassie!” they cry.

  Chief gives them a regal glance then turns away, nose in the air.

  Collies are edgy, high maintenance dogs that few people own, and gorgeous specimens like Chief are particularly rare. Mom brought him to the campus when she delivered my Pentax, and he’d caused a minor sensation. Girls I didn’t even know came up to hug and kiss him.

  Damn, I thought, that dog’s got something I could use!

  A block later, I notice an untied boot lace and stop in front of a typical ranch type house to fix it. Chief sits waiting on the sidewalk, surveying the neighborhood haughtily. A minuscule black Scottie trots down the driveway. Chief leans down toward it, curious and sniffing. The Scottie bites him on the nose.

  Chief jerks back, eyes bulging with amazement. This is hardly the deference he expected. The Scottie struts back the way it came.

  “Guess we know who the boss is around here,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  This isn’t Mindanao or high country Korea, yet it still has power. I want a sense of adventure, so I invent my own. Most kids are at school, people are at work, and the area is largely deserted – mystery lurks under its surface. The noon hour approaches. Didn’t the ancient Romans believe that ghosts wandered about at noon?

  We cross the street and turn left past some upscale houses, then through the traffic light where Allendale Road turns commercial. We transition seamlessly into the next suburb. I take my Pentax out of its case. Squinting through the viewfinder, I imagine myself treading some back road in Korea.

  Wouldn’t it have been great if Chief had been there? He is such a wonderful friend and protector. He wouldn’t hesitate to rip a leg off anybody he perceived as a threat to me or Mom.

  Not so Ed. He doesn’t like Ed, and Ed is afraid of him.

  Once Ed was in the den listening to the ball game on his big portable radio. Chief walked in and, with a sweep of his paw, knocked the radio off the end table. Ed was too scared to move. Chief swaggered from the room having established his ascendancy.

  The sidewalk turns into a dirt path along a tacky little urban woods with sundry pieces of trash scattered around. I keep a lookout for broken glass. A huge traffic backup jams the road ahead, courtesy of a freight train creeping through the next intersection.

  “Damn!”

  Watching trains clank slowly by always irritates the hell out of me. It seems so arrogant of them. And the freight train ahead is no Shinkonsin.

  But as I clear the woods, a small bar appears – like a Mayan temple emerging from the jungle greenery. I secure Chief’s leash to a signpost outside the back door and enter. A doleful, middle-aged guy and a couple of frazzled looking women sitting at the bar glance my way. I smile. They turn back to the rubbishy talk show on the TV hanging from the ceiling.

  “What’ll you have?” the girl behind the bar asks.

  “Whatever you’ve got on tap,” I say, “and a large glass of water, no ice, please.”

  The establishment is generally run down with a worn carpet and battered furnishings. Some of the bar stools and chairs sport cracked vinyl upholstery, and the whole place smells slightly musty.

  A bumper sticker plastered to the bar mirror reads: “I tried to see things from your viewpoint, but I couldn’t get my head that far up my ass.”

  My order arrives.

  “Thanks, I’ll be right back,” I say.

  I take the water outside. The door has been propped open, probably to air the place out. I pour the water into Chief’s makeshift bowl, and he laps noisily. Traffic is still halted by the train, so I have lots of time to go back inside and savor the ambiance.

  Me, the two women, and the middle-aged guy comprise the sum total of customers. We sit along the bar like a convocation of the Losers’ Club. The bartender is talking about a mysterious man named Jonny, “the Ghost,” who lives in the apartment upstairs.

  “When I’m here alone at night closing up, he creeps around on the floor up there like a zombie or something.” She points to the area directly over the bar. “It’s really scary.”

  “Fucking A!” the middle-aged guy says.

  “If I play music to cover the noise, the electricity goes out,” the girl says. “I think he can shut it off from upstairs.”

  A telephone repair man arrives and busies himself with some wiring in the nether regions beyond the pool table.

  “This phone behind the bar has been out since yesterday,” the girl explains.

  Suddenly the phone rings and everyone jumps. She snatches it up.

  “Hello ... hello?”

  No reply.

  “Was that you ringing?” she calls back to the repairman.

  “No, ma’am!” he says.

  “It must be Jonny, then,” she says. “See what I mean?”

  The front and rear doors, both of which had been open, suddenly slam shut as if by a sudden gust of wind. But it isn’t windy outside.

  Time to get going!

  I free Chief from the signpost and we circumvent the building. The upper story, painted an ominous green, has no windows – although several have been cinder blocked in. A metal door offers access to an exterior stairway. I peer up the stairs; they are dark and foreboding like a covered bridge the Headless Horseman might come riding down.

  What the heck kind of guy would be living up there? This Jonny character must be one strange dude.

  “Let’s get out of here, boy.”

  We approach the freeway interchange. Nature still holds on bravely by the entrance ramp – some landscaping, a few trees. In a small marshy area, a discarded bicycle lies partly submerged in the muck. I christen it the .End of the Road Bike. and take a picture.

  “Kind of sums up my present life, eh Boy?” I tell Chief, who wags his tail happily. “It’s going nowhere, stuck in the mud.”

  Is that the underlying purpose of my walk, to see this depressing symbol? No. The true reason has unfolded itself to me gradually.

  I am performing a childish ritual, I understand, attempting a pilgrimage back to a happier reality. By exposing myself to the ‘perils’ of the open road, I hope to somehow rediscover a time where things were better. At the end of my pilgrimage, if I keep my naïve faith intact, I will find the old Victor – the easy-going, condescending, wise-assed elder brother I loved so much.

  I even brought Chief along on my quest. Chief had originally been Victor’s dog – a puppy back when he’d first gone off to college. Then Victor flunked out, got drafted for Vietnam, and came home an entirely different and frightening person. Chief had been left behind; all of us had been.

  We walk under the freeway overpass,
steeply banked concrete walls pressing in on either side. It’s surprisingly dark down here, shaded from the bright sunlight above. The roar of traffic echoes about the cave-like enclosure. A guy whips past on a powerful motorcycle.

  Where is he going, I wonder – off on some romantic adventure? I see a vanity plate on the back of his machine. It reads: Big J

  As I wait for the light to change at the next intersection, a gray-haired man carrying a bulging plastic trash bag approaches from across the road. He is obviously lost in his mind and is mumbling nonsense, mostly just a singsong: “yeah ... yeah.”

  We easily outdistance him. But then I stop to buy a cigar at a tobacco shop. By the time I come outside again and light up, the ‘yeah, yeah man’ is ahead of us. Worse, another befuddled person is coming down the sidewalk from the opposite direction, a young man this time. I detour through some parking spaces. The two men on the sidewalk exchange nonsensical words.

  We arrive at a neighborhood of modest single story houses. The blue wooden siding of Victor’s place is showing its age, in contrast to the aluminum covered walls of the neighboring houses. We climb the front porch and ring the bell. Victor yanks the door open.

  “Tyler!” he shouts. “How you been, Bro?”

  We enter the living room. Victor flings his arms around me in a bear hug, then transitions to a headlock. Chief jumps about barking, uncertain whose side to take.

  “Godammit,” I say, “let go!”

  Victor releases the hold.

  “You’re not the high school wrestling champ any more,” I say.

  “How true, how true. Great to see you, Tyler!”

  He shakes my hand vigorously and socks my arm. Well, it hasn’t taken him long to reestablish who the senior brother is. Anytime you see brothers together, no matter if they are kids or old men, you just know who wields the Authority.

  It’s always there, even if it no longer has any real basis. I could have broken the headlock, thrown Victor down. When we were kids and I’d been overmatched, I’d fought back full force, but now that I have surpassed Victor, I don’t care to challenge his status any more.

  Besides, it is all part of the illusion. Victor seems like his old self. Maybe my pilgrimage has paid off! But then he breaks out the beers, and my faith starts to waver.

  “Kind of early in the day,” I protest.

  This was a rather lame statement, seeing as I’ve just come from a bar.