Meeting on the Way

     The last Monday of February, 1980. It’s a miserable day in intermediate school. A skinny, slouching kid in a green windbreaker drags his feet past the classroom doors. His backpack is hanging off one shoulder. He had hoped for no math homework. But he's got three pages of multiplication. He’s in the second lowest math class and can never seem to concentrate on the problems. He would like English more if he didn’t have to spell well. He likes science, but gets marked down because his work is so sloppy and hard for the teacher to read. He likes band, but can’t really take a snare drum home to practice and doesn’t have much passion for it. In fact, he doesn’t have a lot of passion for anything other than trying to be different than everyone else. If he’s learned anything in school, it’s that being an outcast is easier if it’s a choice.

     He has missed the bus because he had to stay after school to do extra math. It’s about a mile and a half walk home, all downhill. He doesn’t mind. Sometimes it’s better than riding the bus anyway. So he walks out of the school grounds and starts the quiet walk home down Lahainaluna Road. 

     There is little traffic until a gleaming silver car seems to burst out of nowhere. It skids to a stop, gull-wing doors open and a man bumps his head as he gets out. The man looks at the boy and smiles.

This is it, the boy thinks. The aliens that are from my true home are here to take me home.

Instead, the stranger walks to the boy and looks around. He's quiet and rocks on his toes. Finally he points to the vacant fields all around and speaks.

     “Someday this will all be houses. That sugar mill down there will be gone. It’s all going to go away. Nothing stays the same, kid. You had a lousy day at school today?”

     The kid nods. What, is this stranger a time traveler? No, that car looks like it ought to fly like the ones in the stories he’s made up. The stranger continues:

     “I’ve got news for you. You’re not an alien from another planet, okay? I know that’s an easy thing to imagine. And when you think that, it kind of exempts you from the responsibility of trying to get along. I mean, it’s okay to be an introvert. But you’re not as different as you think. Even those popular kids have anxieties.

The boy looks from the car to the stranger. The man wears glasses and a long black coat, jeans and boots. The man goes on:

I just wanted to come along and tell you, it gets better. You are a lot smarter than you think, just because you freeze up doing three-digit multiplication, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. You’ve got a great imagination. You know those stories you make up with your toy cars and spaceships? Yeah, I know, you’re not too old for toys, don’t worry. You keep doing that. It exercises your mind to create worlds like that. Don’t ever stop.

     The boy is shocked. This stranger knows about the worlds.

     You made up a story the other night too, as you were going to sleep. You do that also. The story was about two guys doing a rescue mission to a strange planet.

     The stranger sits on a low wall. He looks at the boy with the look that is sad, but proud.

     “I shouldn’t have come and done this. So I’ll just tell you the truth and then fix it. It’s true, David. I did travel back in time. I thought I would come back and see you on the week of your 13^th birthday and then I couldn’t resist saying something. I mean, I remember what it was like. And I wanted to tell you that it will get better. You’ll make some new friends. In a few years, you won’t have such a miserable time every day at school. And when you grow up, oh man, your wife will be the prettiest, sweetest girl ever.

     At this the boy makes a face.

“Now calm down. I know you still don’t like girls now right? At least that’s what you like to think. But here, I’ll prove I’m you from the future, something you never told anyone. That girl who looked out the school bus window at you? I know her name, so do you. Yeah, I know how you feel, that little crush. No, you won’t marry her. At the end of this school year, you’ll never see her again.”

The boy’s knees feel weak. But more than the gelatinous fright he feels, there is a thrill of relief. This person really does understand everything. Questions start bubbling up in his mind. What other advice could his future self give?

“I’m not going to tell you anything else. Well there is a lot more I wish I could tell you. I would like to tell you that in your future, you should make better choices. If it’s something that feels good right away, but you regret it later, then you shouldn’t do it at all. I wish I could tell you so much. Buy stock in Apple, learn to drive a stick shift, don’t watch the movie Serenity until you’ve watched the Firefly series. But no, you’ll have to make your choices and live with them. Anything I tell you to do different, it might compromise you meeting and falling in love with her, the one.  

The stranger beckons the boy close, pulls off his eyeglasses and points to the blue of his eyes.

“Look here. You’re going to forget we met. But you’re going to feel better today. You’re birthday will be fun this week. Life will get better. Forget everything else I said.”

The stranger almost stands, but looks back at the boy.

“But remember this too. Write that story down. The story about the space rescue mission, it’s not publishable, but get a notebook and write it down anyway. You are going to find that you love to write. It’s a better escape from reality than what you do now. You were born on Earth, deal with it. Go on home now. Happy Birthday.

The kid in the green windbreaker turns and walks down the hill and the stranger watches him go. The kid is still slouching and dragging his feet. But he’s looking up.

The Sad Balloon

     I didn’t write much the week before last. This past week I did better, writing for three mornings. I think writing should be fun. Why else would I do it? I am really looking forward to National Novel Writing Month and have my story, Sidewinder vaguely planned out. But what I am working on presently is not so fun to write. One reason is that I am convinced that it isn’t that good right now. I am working on the first draft of my memoir and writing as much as I can remember, which it turns out is a lot. This first draft is almost like casting a huge mold that I will eventually carve down to size. Before carving it down, I have to make it big enough for its eventual shaping down. So I’ve been sitting down to write, many days knowing that what I am writing will never make it to the final draft, or even survive the second draft. Yet I feel I need to write it anyway.

     And now I am at the part in my life when Naomi had cancer but we didn’t know it yet. Naomi was finally admitted to Maui Memorial Hospital for tests. That afternoon I went to a grocery store to buy her a balloon. Last Wednesday I wrote about that day. And I learned some things about myself that I had not realized before.

     I used to be pretty withdrawn and bitter until I met Prajna. Having her in my life and going back to church helped me to come out of my shell and go back to being more amicable. I stayed like that for a long time. But years later, I found myself plunged into an abyss of depression and mistrust. It hadn’t happened overnight. It was clear that Naomi’s illness and the loss of her are partly responsible for putting me there. But when did it begin? Last Wednesday while I was writing, I think I found out.

     This is an excerpt from what I wrote. (I don’t blame anyone in that grocery store back in July of 1999 for anything. The passage is written in the voice that I was feeling at the time.)

Later that day I went to the grocery store to buy Naomi a Mylar balloon. I wandered through the crowded store. It was a weekend afternoon and the tone of the crowds seemed terribly cheerful to me. I got to the balloons and choose the most cheerful one. I was stunned. Touching it made my eyes start to well up. This happy Get Well Soon! balloon in my hand matched the world around surrounding me where everyone was happy. But it didn’t match my world.  How was this little balloon supposed to cheer up a little girl in the hospital?

I wanted to shout to the store. Didn’t anyone see what I had here? This balloon was for a spindly little three year-old girl was lying in a hospital bed, miserable and lonely, missing her brothers and sister. Didn’t they care about that?

I walked through the store with the balloon and felt everyone looking around and through me. A new thought came to me, or perhaps an old, old thought that I hadn’t felt for so long that I had forgotten it.

No-one cares.

It sure seemed apparent to me there as I walked through the store, feeling ignored. Emotional pain began to rise up in me. It took hold of my bones and weighed down my shoulders and spine. I was hurting, and no-one cared. Maybe if someone had come up to me that afternoon in the store, maybe if someone had looked at me and asked me who the balloon was for, I could have told them.

My little girl is in the hospital, I thought to no-one. We don’t know what’s wrong with her and she’s sad and miserable and the only thing I can do right now is buy her this shiny balloon and hope. I can just hope that maybe this balloon will make her smile just a little.

No-one spoke to me and the friendly casher rang up the balloon and bade me goodbye. I walked out of the store with that emotional pain still. With the balloon lifting up, something new was just beginning to pull me down. The thought that people are not going to be there for me. They didn’t understand and they wouldn’t be a part of my life. I was on my own.

On my own. That was where I had wanted to be for so long. If I was going to take care of Naomi I would have to be strong. And if I was going to be strong, I should not be relying on anyone else to take care of me. That was how it had been in my past, and that was how it was looking to be now.

Naomi liked the balloon. But it didn’t brighten her mood much. Later that day they told us that she would have an MRI the following day.

That was an unhealthy attitude. But I didn’t feel like that constantly starting then. Even the next few weeks had bright spots. When Naomi was diagnosed we were surrounded by prayer from friends, acquaintances and even people we didn’t know. The support was comforting. People did care.

But here is the point. When I wrote this last week, I saw where it began. The start of a long fall. It took more than just time to heal, it took Celebrate Recovery and other people being there for me. Once again, writing allowed me a discovery. I can look back and see it and fortify my life to not let it happen again.

Aside from discovering this leaden milestone in my life I realized something else. Or maybe I was just reminded of something. People are out there having bad days. I might see them right there in a grocery store, maybe even holding a balloon. I wonder if there is anything I could do for them. Is there anything that might make a difference?

     I don’t know what would have happened if someone had stopped me in the store and asked about the balloon and how I was feeling. It wouldn’t have re-directed the course of my life, I’m sure of that. But it would have been a little light in a dark day.

     When I wrote that, and as I reread it now, I feel moved to go to the grocery store and see what kind of light I might be able to shine. Let’s be there for each other.

Dissapointment at a Red Light

     Show and tell at school was usually tedious because it often meant that I had to sit through other first graders going on and on about something. But one day I didn’t even hear what the other kids shared. I was too caught up in the awesomeness of the story I had to tell. When it was my turn I went to the front of the room and launched into the story of my family visiting Phoenix.

     We went to Phoenix every month or so. My grandparents lived there and my dad had district meetings. I didn’t share that or anything about the drive down. I just told them that we had gone shopping. But the shopping wasn’t the story either.

     “And then,” I gasped to the class. “Right when we were walking out of GemCo, a great big fire truck went by! With its siren and lights on! And it was honking its horn! It was loud!”

     I’m sure my sharing was probably loud too. With my story done I went back to my seat. I didn’t notice or care if anyone was impressed. I thought it was neat. If I had been any kind of writer back then, I could have painted the picture better, with less exclamation points. It was night and the streets were wet with rain. The red lights of the fire truck blended with the red and white of the rest of the traffic. The truck sort of emerged from the rest of the lights, mostly in its noise. It blasted its horn, the kind unique to fire trucks and perhaps locomotives. But the story I told to the first grade that morning was emotional and not descriptive. I had been thrilled and needed to share that.

For most big city-dwellers, it was nothing special. But the town I lived in at the time had only a volunteer fire department and I lived on a quiet suburban street where the loudest thing was the neighbor’s Corvette. At a young age, I wanted to be a policeman only so I could drive a cool car with lights and a siren. Later on, perhaps starting from that night, I wanted to be a fireman. I didn’t care about fighting fires, squirting water or anything else like that. All I wanted to do was drive fast, have a siren and flashing lights and run red lights. How much more king of the streets was that?

Sometimes my blog is like that. I get caught up in something that maybe thrills me or just sparks my imagination. I rattle on about it and post it. Later on I look back and wonder what I was thinking. I have gone and re-written a couple of entries, making improvements, being more descriptive and trying to make better sentences. I think it’s growing as a writer.

I kind of miss the times that all it took to thrill me beyond words was a speeding fire truck. And not only thrill me, but inspire me. I wanted to do what they did.

A year or so after seeing the fire truck that night, I was riding with my dad and we approached an intersection. Out my window I heard the wail of a siren. We had a green light but my dad came to a stop anyway. I looked out my window and saw an ambulance speeding up to the intersection, where it had a red light. I bristled with excitement at the thought that they would blast through and run the red light.

The ambulance slowed, came to a quick halt, then proceeded through the intersection. My stunned heart sank. They had stopped for the red light. The disappointment I felt was crushing. I asked my dad why they had done that and he explained that they were just being safe and careful.

Careful of what? Could someone actually not hear the siren and mosey out into the path of an emergency vehicle? It was inconceivable. But yet, I saw the ambulance pause. At that moment, I didn’t want to live in a world where ambulances were not free to run red lights.

Well I pulled through that disillusionment that time. There were more significant betrayals of my innocence and trust later in my life that I am still working through today.

And then last Wednesday I was driving the family van to the bank in my hometown. Coming up to a busy intersection, I heard a siren off to my right and stopped at the green light and waited as an ambulance came up, made a complete stop and then sped on. The shock of recognition hit me. I hadn’t thought of the ambulance at the light for years and was taken back at the sight of that replay. I got to the bank minutes later and was thankful I had my notebook and pen. I wrote “the ambulance at the light” on the first blank page I found. I thought about the fire truck when I was coming out of the department store and I remembered sharing it for show and tell. Then I anxiously awaited the time I would compose my blog. I would write about the loss of innocence seeing the ambulance stop at the light.

Then as I wrote this I realized that there is another recurrence. Again, I saw something so awesome that I had to share it. I usually tell the story without being able to really gauge any reaction. I was pretty impressionable back then and thought I was less so now. But not being impressed by things does not make for a good writer.

The goal of Roadwalker isn’t just to be writing every week, but to be looking for things to write about. They’re out there, sometimes it’s a noise out the right-hand window that recaptures the picture of an old memory. And sometimes that memory brings on a string of others, and finally a realization. That kid telling the story to the first grade hasn’t changed that much.

      

Glorious Noise Going Nowhere

     My broken Toyota pickup truck has been sitting in our yard for over half a year. I see it each day and think, my poor truck. It’s not my truck that’s feeling bad at all through. It’s just a motor vehicle with no feelings. Pathetically sitting there, covered with cobwebs and leaves that shows blatant age and stagnation, it’s going no-where and has no reason to go anywhere anyway. When I think how sad the truck looks, I might be thinking of myself. I feel like I’m just sitting still doing little more than whining.

     I haven’t exactly had a stagnant past 7 months. It’s only lately that I’ve felt burned out, like a car running on vapors sputtering and coasting. It has started to show in my blog. If you read last week’s lame entry, you know.

     And I just think, if only my truck was working… if I could just get out on the road in it, everything would be alright. I’ve been feeling bugged, burned out and bilious for awhile now, not all the time, but more frequently and for no apparent reason. I keep thinking that it’s because I need a sabbatical. That’s when I wish my truck was working. If only…

     I reminds me of a story where the prevailing thought was “If only the car was working” and “I just can’t wait until that car is done and then…”

     Back in 1985 my good friend Eddie had a car in the works. Works, meaning it was having a lot of restoration and body work done. It was supposed to be a stock 1967 Mustang Fastback. But the bored out 302 motor replaced the stock 289. It was rumored to have a limited slip differential too, not stock. Eddie and I dreamed of the day the car would finally be done. What frustrated us was how the shops doing bodywork and paint seemed to be taking their time.

Eddie had a road nemesis named Martin with a blue Dodge Dart. Martin provoked Eddie with his own souped-up hot rod acting like he was king of the road. We knew the Mustang would blow the doors off of anything existing on the road. Whenever I saw Martin in his Dodge all I could do was think, if only that car was working. And the months went by.

The summer of ’85 was young. The whole summer was. I was at the beach with a group of friends one morning. Then one friend’s eyes widened and he pointed. Pulling up in the parking lot was a dark metallic red 1967 Mustang Fastback. The engine sounded like artillery. Eddie was usually as cool as the other side of the pillow. Today was no exception as he casually stepped out.

We all were at the car in moments. The car’s vanity place said: 1Trick. Eddie drove me around the parking lot playing George Thorogood’s Bad to the Bone. The inside of the car was clean and white. There were turn signal indicators in the reverse-facing hood scoops. Built in a year before they were the law, it had no seat belts.

Eddie let me out and took two girls for a ride. I followed in my dad’s Mazda sedan. At a shopping center parking lot, Eddie got out and I saw one of the girls bounce into the driver’s seat. They tooled around the parking lot and then headed out toward the avenue.

The universe, time, and space did a magic twitch of the hand at that moment and things came together. Looking right at the stop sign, I saw Martin in his blue Dodge. My first thought came automatically. I wish Eddie had his Mustang… Then like a hard dope-slap to the back of my head, the next thought came. Eddie does have his Mustang.

Eddie saw Martin too. His head was out the passenger window and he was calling Martin’s name in a long noise like a roaring volcano. Martin gunned the Dodge engine, answering the challenge.

No-one got out of Eddie’s car. The girls both tumbled backwards into the rear seat and Eddie dove into the driver’s seat. The One Trick vanished after him in a cloud of tire smoke. I figured they were headed to an empty stretch of highway to officially have it out. I didn’t bother to try to follow.

The center of our universe back then was the Ihop, so we waited there. Eddie pulled up in the Mustang a little later. The girls were quiet and dazed and went to the ladies room. Eddie sat and filled his coffee cup.

“Did you win?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie didn’t sound that thrilled. He wasn’t being his usual cool self either. He looked a little disappointed.

I asked for details. In the cool of the restaurant, Eddie said that he had beat Martin in the race, but probably not in a quarter-mile. He had burned out for too long and the Dodge had gotten ahead. Posi-Track or not, he must have floored it right away and just sat there making smoke. Eddie eventually moved forward and got past the Dodge, but if it had been on a regulation track, it probably wouldn’t have been soon enough.

The excitement leading up the events may have been better than the actual thing. The best part of it all for me was the slap of realization that Eddie did in fact have the Mustang.  And in the years following, it made a great story to tell. I can still hear the sound of Martin revving the Mopar motor being drowned out by Eddie’s battle call. 

The bored 302 with chrome accessories

My lower half posing at the rear of the 1 Trick 

So here I am today, thinking that all could be made right if only this little pickup truck would move. I still don’t know if it’s the differential or a U-joint. One of the tough things about this is that the truck is not an essential in my life. I can’t justify an expensive repair for it if I can take the family van places.

But even broken, the truck has helped me a least this time to recall an awesome story to share and a truth to reflect upon. If I spin my wheels in exhibition and noise, I won’t move forward. Time to quit whining about the truck being broken and move on.