Das Road

  “W. J.!”

  He looks up at me. He’s aged drastically, transforming overnight from a vigorous senior into a crushed old man.

  “Tyler,” he says. “You found out, eh? Phyllis was gonna call you, but with all the upset ... after she phoned North Carolina ...”

  “What about the funeral?” I ask.

  “Ain’t gonna be no funeral,” W. J. says. “Vance’s ex wife is shipping him back to North Carolina for burial.”

  “Why? She didn’t want him when he was alive.”

  “Who knows, Tyler? Who the hell knows?”

  I can’t stay at the bar. Soon I’ll be drowning in alcohol, totally messed up. I need action to distract my mind.

  Leaving W. J. to his sorrows, I walk briskly to the strip mall parking lot. Maybe Lynn’s husband is lurking there for me. I almost welcome the prospect, a bloody confrontation right out in the street!

  What does he look like, I wonder – probably an ugly s.o.b. with a thick neck. A big hero abusing Lynn. He’ll find me a lot more formidable.

  But I see no one. I get in the Nova and roar off to the general aviation airport, ignoring all speed limit signs.

  “I want to skydive,” I tell the man at the counter.

  “We can try,” he says. “Sky’s turning cloudy though, and if we can’t find a an open spot we’ll have to scratch. It’s illegal to jump through clouds.”

  “Good enough,” I say.

  Soon I am clad in jumpsuit, helmet, and goggles. Nylon harness webbing trusses me about. My instructor and I enter a high-wing Cessna in which all the seats except the pilot’s have been removed. My instructor wedges himself into the back.

  “Sit here with me,” he says.

  “I’d rather not,” I say. “I’m too claustrophobic.”

  So I stay in front beside the pilot’s seat. This is to be a “tandem jump” with me hooked to the instructor. He wears the parachute and will pull the rip cord at the proper time. All I have to do is scream.

  Two other guys, each wearing their own parachute, jam in. Like me, they were well concealed with jumpsuits and helmets. I cannot see their eyes through their darkened goggles.

  We bounce down the runway and take off. I pay scant attention to all this as my back is to the windscreen and my mind is roiling with thoughts of Lynn and Vance. We level out at 10,000 feet. The plane has become very cold.

  “Clouds are pretty thick down there!” The pilot yells over the engine roar. “We might have to scrub.”

  “Wait,” somebody cries, “I see an opening!”

  Beside me, the door slides open revealing a straight drop to a cloud bank thousands of feet below.

  Damn, I realize, I’m not wearing a parachute!

  I wrap my arm around the base of the pilot’s seat and hang on for dear life. Lynn and Vance blow out of my mind, as I want them to. One after another, the two jumpers maneuver onto the wing strut and fling themselves off. As the second guy is getting into position, I glimpse the lettering on his helmet.

  J. Glass, it reads.

  Then he is off.

  “Who was that guy?” I shout. “The one in the red helmet?”

  “Don’t know!” my instructor yells back. “Let’s get ready.”

  I maneuver toward the back where my instructor connects our harnesses together. Then we are outside the aircraft, clumsily positioning ourselves on the wing strut.

  What the hell am I doing here! my mind shrieks.

  We jump. A hurricane of freezing air blasts my face – free falling at incredible speed.

  “Yaaaa!” my instructor howls.

  I am too terrified to utter a sound. If there is a gap in the cloud cover we’ve surely missed it, for a solid floor of grayish white is hurtling toward us. In moments we are through it, in clear air again, above the onrushing ground.

  The parachute blasts open, turning our roaring progress into a silent descent. Beyond my feet the whole world gently approaches.

  40: Julie

  Marcello: “I don’t feel like an egg now.”

  Emma: “Eat it! And chew properly.” – La Dolce Vita

  More weeks pass, and my financial situation spirals downwards. The Clarion vanishes without a trace, as if a flood has swallowed it up. When I submit my resume to the local weeklies, they look at me as if I’d dropped in from Mars. I register again at the employment agency but seldom hear back. Betty seems to have finally given up on my prospects.

  My connection with Rosewood is irretrievably broken. Pam has quit the drug store. When I stop at the Riverside Inn, the bar girl looks at me blankly with no trace of recognition.

  “Has W. J. been around?” I ask.

  “Who’s W. J.?” she says.

  At least I have plenty of time for the judo club and for visiting Grandfather Alois.

  “Maybe you came back too soon, Tyler,” Grandpa says at one point.

  I spend long hours daydreaming in my room. A Republic of Korea flag and map decorate one wall, and the big Philippine road map covers another. I stare at the battered maps, retracing my routes while recalling the ‘good old days.’

  And I think about Jon Glass, too. How can I help it? He sure made his victory complete – bounding gracefully into the slipstream while I, freshly unemployed, lumbered behind tethered to an instructor.

  Someday I’ll even the score.

  I don’t dare resume my treks through the Bum Nation, for fear that I might not be able to get out again.

  One day a mailing comes from my alma mater concerning an art exhibit on campus:

  The paintings of Barb Alma, inspired by the poems of Robert Mitchell, and the drawings of Greg Wright.

  I have no idea who these people are, but the pictures on the invitation are interesting, and a reception / poetry reading is scheduled for the closing day of the exhibition. Sounds like fun.

  Then again, compared to my current circumstances, a trip to the Frosty Virgin might be fun. I make room in my busy schedule and head out.

  It’s good to be on the road again, even on such a minor adventure. The freeway miles tick off, and everything seems a little better with the world.

  My thoughts turn toward Julie Lindberg. Maybe I’ll run into her on campus. It’s a small place. Of course, I could have tried to call her but didn’t.

  She’s a junior now, I rationalize, and she was just a freshman when I last saw her. She’s probably forgotten all about me. Somebody as cute as her would have no lack of prospects.

  But there is another reason for my reluctance. Julie had been too controlling for my taste. She’d sort of taken over my room – straightening up, rearranging things. These actions seemed freighted with expectations.

  While we were dating, I’d never looked neater or better groomed. Julie did not favor the college grunge style, especially for young men who were about to enter the real world of careers and responsibilities.

  She was extremely sensuous, in her virginal way. I’ve never seen a woman with such compelling eyes. If she had given in to my sexual advances, no telling what might have happened. I may never have gone overseas.

  Julie regarded my desire for foreign adventure as a childish excess to be outgrown, something like acne. When I finished my final term and left campus, I lost touch with her. And then my Peace Corps acceptance arrived.

  I exit the freeway and drive through town. It appears to be the same boring little place. At the outskirts of the campus, I turn down Oak street intending to park by my old house.

  “Damn!”

  I get out of the Nova, shell shocked. The area beside the pavement is empty now – just a belt of grass along the railroad track where the small housing units had once been. A forlorn strip of sidewalk leads nowhere.

  “That’s the end of that, eh?” I say aloud.

  I’d loved the tacky little house where I lived. It was so much more fun than the cookie cutter dormitories – the good times, the parties. Then again, if it hadn’t been for all those parties I might have fini
shed school on time, rather than having to go an extra term.

  Then I wouldn’t have met Julie. I would have entered the Peace Corps earlier, at a time before middle school volunteers were being assigned to Seoul – and I wouldn’t have met Yun Hee. Kathy would not have been in my training group.

  I might even have been sent to some other country. The ramifications seemed endless.

  And Jon Glass. Would I have missed him, too, or would he have shown up in whatever other country the Peace Corps assigned me?

  Another shock awaits as I cross the campus.

  “Oh!” I can’t help gasping.

  Landis Hall is gone, and its elegant walnut trees have been reduced to stumps. A sign indicates that the area is being developed for a new classroom building.

  Landis Hall had graced this spot since the previous century and had balanced the generic modern buildings. Its white brick walls and towering porch columns looked like something out of Gone with the Wind. I’m not opposed to change, but why does it have to be so ugly?

  In a few more minutes, I am at the art center having crossed almost the entire campus. I’d transferred here as a sophomore because I hadn’t been able to adjust to the giant university where I’d begun school. Now I’d probably go out of my mind in a place like this – having seen the wider world.

  Small groups of students walk past. I recognize nobody.

  An incident from high school pops into my mind. A girl who’d been in my classes for years wrote in my Senior yearbook:

  Tyler – Yeah, I knew you.

  I’d been taken aback by what seemed a very off hand treatment of our acquaintance, but now I see her wisdom. Life goes on, you never see people again when you move to the next phase.

  The art center is a recycled gymnasium constructed of drab red brick with a pseudo-oriental tile roof. Inside is nice, though. The gallery area is thickly carpeted, and little spotlights hanging from the ceiling illuminate the various drawings posted on the walls. It is now late afternoon. After this initial viewing, I plan to have dinner in town, then return to campus for the reception.

  I move along the walls. Some of the prints are monochromes, including several abstract animal forms with skull heads. Lines of poetry accompany each print. I’m not a poetry scholar, but this material seems a bit rough to me – like something Charlie Streicher might have written.

  Other prints are languid and voluptuous. One in particular absorbs my attention – flowing patterns of gold, red, and blue. The picture seems to be in motion. I stand for a minute, contemplating.

  A soft voice speaks at my side. “Hello, Tyler.”

  I turn, and there she is.

  “Julie!”

  I take her hands. We kiss, long and sensuous like the picture on the wall before us. She is even more incredible than I remembered – beautifully matured, blond, shapely.

  “I saw you walking across the campus,” Julie says, “and I wondered: ‘Does he want to see me again?’ I decided to find out.”

  “I was wondering the same thing, Julie.”

  Her eyes have even more magnetic power than I remembered. I am no longer in a mere art gallery but on the fringe of heaven itself.

  I never make it back to the reception. After a long stroll with Julie and dinner together, we end up at a motel. When the sexual fireworks are finally over, Julie stretches herself luxuriously beneath the sheets.

  “So, this is what it’s all about,” she says.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Sure did,” she says, “first time for me.”

  She primps her hair a bit, magically restoring it to perfect order.

  “I’ve got a feeling that we might find ourselves in this situation again, sometime,” she says. “What do you think?”

  “Yeah!”

  Julie laughs, a delightful sound that makes me want to start the lovemaking all over again.

  “You must have been around the block a few times though, right, Tyler?”

  I mumble something noncommittal.

  “That’s okay,” she says. “It’s typical for a man to ‘sow wild oats’ for a while. As long as he knows when to quit. When he’s found the right girl.”

  We lay quietly for a while, enjoying easy listening music from the radio. Ordinarily I hate such music, but now it sounds wonderful. Julie speaks again.

  “I always wondered if I made a mistake by holding out, when we first knew each other,” she says. “But now – well, I guess the issue is settled.”

  “To your satisfaction?” I say.

  She nips my ear.

  “Ow!”

  “Yes, Tyler. You know that.”

  41: Underground Realty

  He wants his home and security.

  He wants to live like a sailor at sea. – Beautiful Loser, by Bob Seger

  More weeks pass without employment. Not to worry, I can always be a clerk at Ed’s store. Mom has actually floated this idea – still trying to engineer the big reconciliation. I would rather be shot first. Besides, Ed already has a full staff. He’d have to let somebody go to take me on.

  Julie comes down for a weekend, and we have an incredible time at the Holiday Inn. Her sexual appetite is voracious, as if she’s making up for a lifetime of abstinence.

  She wants to meet my family. Fortunately, Ed is working Sunday, so I bring her home to see Mom. They hit if off big time. Mom seems to have already placed Julie in the daughter-in-law role.

  I don’t dare take her to see Victor, for fear that he might fly into one of his rages. We do visit Grandfather Alois, though.

  “What did you think of her, Grandpa?” I asked later.

  “A lovely girl,” he replied. “She reminds me very much of your grandmother.”

  “Really?”

  “She’ll keep a tight rein on you, Tyler.”

  The remark made me uneasy, probably because it’s true.

  Of course, I’ve developed feelings for Julie, and I know that her feelings for me are genuine. But she has a maternal, controlling streak that wraps around me like a python. I can see this most clearly when I am away from her fantastic sexual power.

  Hell, there is so much of the world left to explore! Can’t everything else wait a while? But women like Julie don’t grow on trees – if I don’t pluck the fruit, somebody else surely will. This awkward metaphor perfectly expresses my mixed feelings.

  Am I a Beautiful Loser, futilely trying to “have it all” like in the Bob Seger song?

  Seger, who also hails from Michigan, is Bob West’s favorite rock star. What is Bob West up to these days, I wonder. Increasingly, our time together on DAS ROAD is taking on a mythological aspect. Bob himself is assuming operatic hero status. And up ahead on the road, just beyond reach – the mysterious figure of Jon Glass beckons.

  Korea starts to glow in my memory with absolute perfection, freed from all unpleasantness – no confusion, loneliness, or bouts with diarrhea. No GG shots, boredom, or visits to the Frosty Virgin. The vilest makoli tastes like nectar in retrospect.

  I miss Bob. Maybe I should write, but what could I say?

  Dear Bob:

  My economic situation is totally screwed, how’s yours? By the way, I saw Jon Glass jumping out of an airplane right after my boss dropped dead and my girlfriend told me she was married.

  He’d think I was hallucinating. Maybe I had been.

  And what is Jon Glass up to now? Probably accomplishing more heroics, blowing them off with casual explanations: “I thought it would be interesting to stop him, so I took him down.”

  Jeez!

  Hunting through newspaper want ads becomes a daily ritual, a sort of desperation drill, and I have nearly resigned myself to a career of flipping hamburgers. Then, one ad in Help Wanted, Sales offers a flicker of hope:

  Mature person wanted for commission sales. Must have professional demeanor. Car provided.

  I dial the number and am startled by the answer.

  “Valley Oaks Memorial Park,” a wom
an’s voice says, cold and distant, as if it is coming from deep inside a cave.

  Memorial Park? That means a cemetery, right?

  “Uh ... I’m calling about the ad in the News,” I say.

  “Yes?” the woman says.

  I feel a powerful urge to slam the phone down, but I fear to shun any potential job, however weird the first impression might be. Besides, the voice is oddly compelling.

  “What are your qualifications?” the voice asks.

  I rattle off my resume – college graduate, returned PCV, “between jobs” at the present time, etc. I seem to be talking into a void, as no replies come back across the phone line – no monosyllabic comments, throat clearings, nothing. I finish talking and wait.

  “Are you married, Mr. Lakatos?” the voice says.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Oh.” A note of disapproval enters the voice. “We have a preference for family men.”

  “I am engaged,” I blurt out.

  “I see.”

  The voice sounds somewhat mollified by my fib, and it begins rattling off monotone questions:

  “Do you object to working irregular hours?”

  “No.”

  “Would you mind visiting clients at their homes?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Am you a self-starter type individual?”

  “Yes.” I self-started myself half way around the world, didn’t I?

  “Do you consider yourself a ‘people person?’”

  “Yes,” another fib.

  “Have you received any traffic tickets during the past 18 months?”

  “No.” I don’t mention my run-in with the Rosewood cop.

  The voice explains that the job involves direct sales of cemetery plots. Valley Oaks is a fairly new establishment and needs to aggressively promote itself with the public.

  This sounds just great! A real dream job.

  “All right, Mr. Lakatos.” The voice is fading out. “You’ll be contacted.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  There is no response.

  “Good-bye?”

  The phone is dead.

  I ease the receiver down and wipe a sweaty palm on my shirt front. Real Edgar Allan Poe stuff. And I can’t believe I told that shabby lie about being engaged.

  Then again, what the hell business is it of theirs?