‘I don’t know if I want to live like that, Jacky. If I can’t do what I want, what’s the sense?’
I hold back; it won’t help getting her upset.
‘OK, Mom. But do what the doctor says. He knows best and he’ll let you out when he thinks you’re ready.’
Then she comes on with the kicker.
‘You know, I’m not sure I had a heart attack, anyway. How do these doctors know for sure? It felt like gas pains to me.’
This had to come but I keep my big mouth shut. What else.
I kiss her goodbye and we leave.
As soon as we get in the car, Dad begins.
‘Johnny, when do you really think she’ll come home?’
‘She should stay in the hospital just’s long as possible. The longer she stays, the better off she is.’
‘I guess you’re right there, Johnny; I guess you’re right.’
But he isn’t believing it.
That evening, we don’t do much. We watch some TV, then I roll my old Honda 175 motorcycle out of the garden shack and into the patio. It needs some heavy cleaning and tuning; it’s been sitting there almost two years. Dad comes out and works in his greenhouse. He can putter around in there by the hour, his private world.
The sun leans quietly up over Ira’s barn.
Each day a mite sooner, a bit to the right.
The start for the day, an end to the night.
I must’ve slipped off because my head jerks and the country’s changed, higher, not so dry.
I only hope to hell we can keep off the subject of what I’m going to do; at least for a while. He’ll never understand why I cut out of Santa Cruz. He did all the paperwork for the scholarship, establishing residence, getting high-school records in, all that crap. And now, after a year, I don’t want it. Sometimes I don’t even understand, myself.
But, Jesus, if he could only have seen that place. It was a giant baby-sitting operation. I mean, Santa Cruz is an old people’s home for kids.
I about vomited when I arrived on my motorcycle, after ten days on the road. I’m caked with dirt from head to toe; everything I own’s in my saddlebags. I couldn’t believe it. There were trucks and cars pulling in with stereo sets, wall-to-wall sound systems, rugs, teddy bears, ten-speed bicycles, tennis rackets, golf clubs, fencing costumes, huge suitcases full of clothes. God, you wouldn’t believe all the junk these people were dragging along. It looked like a junior-high-school garage sale.
Then, there was my crazy roommate, Flash. My mother, my own mother, picked him for me. She filled out a form with what she thought I’d like for a roommate. Would you believe it, Santa Cruz even has a form for that. Mom said how I’d like somebody with a good stereo set who’s interested in electricity, motorcycles and running. I actually hunted up this form in the Registrar’s Office to find out how it happened to me.
I get a guy with a terrific stereo set all right; in fact, he’s an electrical genius. He’s also crazy. For one thing he has a bicycle hanging on pulleys from the ceiling of our room with a monster lock on it. He designed and built the lock himself. There’s a sign on this bike. It says:
IF YOU STEAL THIS BICYCLE, YOU WILL BE STEALING THE BEST BICYCLE IN THE WORLD PROTECTED BY THE BEST LOCK IN THE WORLD AND YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE THE BEST DETECTIVE IN THE WORLD CHASING YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD.
Now, you know this is an out-and-out challenge. We wind up constantly locking our door. Nobody in Santa Cruz is locking doors except us, nobody even closes doors!
Flash wears black clothes; he wears black T-shirts, black jeans, black socks, black jockey shorts, black shoes, black pajamas. He has long black hair combed straight down on all sides, even across his face, and a brush cut on top so you can see the white skin on his skull; it’s the only white you can see. He looks like something out of Mad magazine.
Except for examinations, I don’t remember Flash ever going to class. He only left the room to ride that bike or get something to eat. That’s the way it is at Santa Cruz; nobody’s watching you. It’s a place where nobody gives a damn what you do. At the same time, you wind up with a guilty feeling all the time that you’re not doing enough. They use a pass-no-record system, meaning either you pass or else it didn’t happen; you can’t fail. Still, in some twisted way it’s a superman nursery school; the place is like a hothouse for sequoia trees. To be honest, I actually felt more on my own at that crummy American high school in Paris; at least you could fail.
The dorms at Santa Cruz were weird. Living in a Paris apartment is like living alone in a cave on the side of a mountain compared to living in a dorm at Santa Cruz. Everybody’s into everybody else’s room, and after the third week it was musical-bed time. The lights were lit all the time; there wasn’t one dim corner, let alone dark. I used to close my eyes sometimes, trying to remember what the dark was like. I’ve gone out at three in the morning and looked back. The whole building vibrated with noise and light, electricity being burned by the kiloton. And, the next day in class, these same people would talk about ecology and conservation.
Just to get away, I practically live in the library. I even work a job there; helps me hold on to a corner of my mind. Those people have no moments alone. They write their term papers surrounded with junk, noise and smells. And God, the smells would knock anybody over. The floors in all the rooms are covered with paper, food, dirty socks, clothes, books. Everybody tramps over these piles. People walk around half dressed; it’s a zoo, nothing private.
Dad hasn’t really gotten into why I don’t want to go back. He’s strange that way; he doesn’t talk about things. He can talk to people; I mean, conversation; he’s a great story-teller, and shit, painting’s communication; but he doesn’t talk where something’s important. He tends to ignore anything he doesn’t want to hear. Mom’s the same.
But we’ve got to talk this out sooner or later, only I’m not going to bring it up.
What I want to do is write. Writing’s something I enjoy doing. That’s the way he got into painting. I know I bullshit better than most people; that should help. First, I’ll try a novel or maybe a screenplay; it doesn’t matter. I only want my cabin and some quiet. I’ll bear down and get something done for a change. Christ, my days go by and I’ve nothing to show.
Maybe Debby will come. She’d groove on my cabin. She’s shit tired of Berkeley and it’d be fine having a good woman around.
The trouble is I don’t know how I can make money. I can’t get a carte de travail. With the common market, there’s no way for an American to work in France, legally. Maybe I’ll hire myself out picking sugar beets. I hear you can work up a thousand bucks a month that way. I could live easy on a couple thousand a year. Debby’s old man will chip in something, too.
‘Hey, Dad, let’s stop someplace for breakfast. I’m starved.’
He nods his head. He’s off spinning somewhere. We’ll be crossing from Utah into Colorado soon. The Rockies are somewhere in front but out of sight.
When I pushed across on my Yamasaki, I was so much closer to things. I knew every hill, every bump. I sucked in each goddamned mile and spit it out, a mouthful at a time. I was holding down those handlebars, rattling teeth, jiggling kidneys. At nights, I was a wreck. Twice I peed blood. Also, sleeping out with gnats and mosquitoes was hell. I’d packed a tent but no mosquito net. I swear I’m allergic to mosquitoes; every morning I’d be swollen up like a balloon. Just grabbing the handle and shifting gears with thick sausage fingers was hell.
‘Dad,