10,000 Miles with My Dead Father's Ashes

by Devin Galaudet

  I heard Dad laugh in the darkness.

  He once told me, “I remember a bigger guy beat your father up once. I followed him home with a pipe and cracked him with it when his back was turned. Not to kill ’im, just to make him see stars. No Marquess of Queensbury. No fair fight. When he was on the ground, I stood over him, because I wanted him to know who did it. I wanted him to know that I was not fucking around.”

  I wanted a pipe. I wanted Dad to turn around just for a minute. Next to the dining room table, Dad still laughed from deep inside. I peeked from under the table. He looked at me and pointed to himself and said, “Man.” And then pointed at me and said, “Boy.”

  ✴✴✴

  Before I left the stadium, I walked back by the archways that led to the seats and saw a ring of orange dirt, which looked delicious, like pound cake, and reminded me of baseball.

  Dad and I had gone to see the Dodgers when I was a kid. On special occasions, he would scrounge up tickets the day of the game and give me five minutes to get ready after he announced we had seats on the first-base side. I would grab my wrong-handed glove and we would jump in his van and race out the door.

  Sure, Dad and I had the Olympic as an underground world and an extension of Alvarado and Eighth Street when I was younger. I loved it because I thought it connected to Dad’s world. As I got a little older, baseball took over.

  Baseball was different. It was clean, bright, intelligent, and professional. The Olympic and its events were dark, seedy, hidden, and off the grid. I aspired to the former; it was the latter that made me feel more alive. Bullfighting, I would decide, was a complex mixture of both worlds.

  In this way, bullfighting was less like the aggression of boxing and roller derby and more cerebral, like baseball. Eventually, the bull goes down for the long count to be sliced into lean fillets by dawn, but it was the how and technique that brought smartness to death.

  However, what I remembered most about the bullfights was walking through the arena’s long tunnel and out into the stadium. In baseball, there was something magical about walking out and seeing the field. The outfield grass was freshly cut into checkerboard patterns of two shades of surrealist green. Sparkling white bases contrasted against orange dirt base paths. The sky was black from the millions of lights that blotted out the stars, which lit the enthusiastic crowd, whose cheers echoed through me. I never stopped finding that first sight of walking out of the tunnel and seeing the ball field emerge in pieces through the heads of crowd that towered over me magical—no matter how many baseball games I saw. I would be covered with peanut shells by the third inning and anxious for a foul ball to fall into my lap.

  It was only after the bullfights, as I walked back to my hotel, that I felt the amount of work Dad did in attempting to connect to my world. Dad bought piles of books and silly packages with cardboard shots of my heroes and thin, inflexible slabs coated with sugar that represented gum. He pulled them out of his pockets as he bent down to me. And he watched me revel in the delirium of trading cards.

  I’d sift through the cards like I squeezed out golden toothpaste from an enchanted tube. Carefully, revealing only a tiny bit of the baseball card at a time, I built the anticipation with each new player by teasing myself. A red edge might appear, giving me a clue to which team the player was on. Dad’s weight and breath shadowed over me as he peered into my little world. As each player revealed himself, I had player stats and history on the tip of my tongue.

  “Who did you get?” he’d ask.

  I knew every player from endless nights listening to games on the radio in the living room, at a time when radios were furniture with built-in speakers weighing five hundred pounds.

  However, it was not only the baseball cards. Dad was the coach of my first year in Little League, when I was twelve, in the spring of 1979. I could catch but was usually the smallest kid on the field and could not hit my weight, which was miniscule. That year with Dad as coach, I hit .000. I fouled a few off into the chain-link fence behind home plate. I walked a few times, and once I even leaned into a fastball, inspired by the pregame Valium I had taken. Every time, I kicked the dirt and walked away from the plate. Every time, he met me in front of the dugout and put his arm around me. With Dad, there was always a next time, but coaching and baseball were never his thing, unless it was to talk about Ernie Banks.

  “Hey, you, fat kid. Yes, you. Looney Tunes. What the hell is this kid’s name,” he said to the ether. “Play third base,” Dad called from the dugout drinking a beer. Dad never understood why he didn’t connect with the other kids, and my batting average went up .400 points the year he left.

  Chapter 4

  I walked out of the train station and pulled my rolling suitcase and my father behind me, in a hurry to find my first appointment in Cádiz—Cádiz Tourism—even though it scared me. It was where I needed to reveal my secret about bringing Dad and finishing his quest. I needed a perfect place to scatter him. I needed a singer for “Ave Maria.” I needed to write him a eulogy. I needed to put my entire relationship with him in some sort of unemotional perspective—I assume for mythical closure, where endings came with a fancy bow. The air was crisp, but I began to sweat.

  My suitcase rattled across Cádiz’s cobblestone sidewalk. I had a map and an address. The beautiful people, who appeared everywhere I looked in Sevilla, were in hiding, as the regular shop owners took to the foreground with their windswept hair and imperfect expressions.

  I did my best to mimic the overly casual energy of the locals. Every block or two of aimless walking, I stopped to attempt map reading and orient myself. I heard gulls and lapping waves, which I imagined called a welcome to Dad. The wind consistently folded the map upon itself as I tried to find where I stood. Then I walked some more along roads that twisted and turned without reason.

  I like logical city grids with bold addresses that make getting lost impossible, the need to ask for directions unnecessary. Southern Spain, as well as much of Europe, is the antithesis. Roads curve and meander and rarely represent anything symmetrical. Street addresses are microscopic and might not be in numerical order. City blocks appear to have been giant lumps of clay that fell from the sky and landed in a splat, forming misshapen areas where people came and built houses a thousand years ago. Cádiz was proving an adventure, and I had not even started yet.

  After half an hour, I discovered I had walked in a circle. The experience was somehow wonderful. I was lost and forced myself to stop every person in my path to show them my address and map. I used body language and said, “Pardon, mi espanol es muy malo” often. They wore light sweaters and aprons, name badges, and a willingness to chat with me. No one had exact directions, but they all knew I was on the right track. Everyone had a smile and the time to help a stranger. An older woman with gray hair, wrapped in a red shawl, who spoke no English, simply handed me a baguette, patted me on the forearm, and kept walking.

  I later found out that the city of Cádiz is broken up into two parts: the “New” part, featuring tall, five-star digs and not enough parking, and the “Old” part, which features traditional courtly charm, afternoon siestas—and not enough parking. I was excited not only to be in a new city, but because this was it. I brought Dad back to his mysterious/phony past.

  After twenty more minutes, I stumbled into an unassuming building near the water. The elevator opened into the fourth floor and directly into the office of Cádiz Tourism. The sound of keyboards clattering was overshadowed only by the enthusiastic Spanish voices that said whatever it is that they said in the office of eight people. I stood for a moment and felt a warm flash across my face and waited for someone to help me. I finally cleared my throat at the closest desk to the elevator. “Hola, me llamo es Devin de Los Angeles.”

  The pretty receptionist smiled and said, “Un momento,” and walked away.

  I was about to confess the real nature of my trip, and a knot tightened in my stomac
h. The secretary returned a minute or two later with her boss—a short, gruff-looking woman in her early forties. She first shook my hand and then kissed me on either cheek and introduced herself as Juanita, a woman’s name I heard many times in previous days in Spain and would hear more of in the coming ones.

  Juanita clapped her hands together, saying something in Spanish to the room. All the clattering of keyboards and office chatter stopped. Writing travel articles is a little like being a minor celebrity, and I was used to this sort of pending introduction. Tourism folks know that their job is to make my life simple and fantastic so that I will, in turn, write glowing things about their city, hotels, attractions, whatever. The ladies approached first with alternating cheek kisses, before the men offered handshakes weaker than Americans thought normal.

  After all the formal introductions, Juanita presented my itinerary in a manila envelope. I was to be given a car and then I would spend the better part of the upcoming week cruising through Andalucia. There would be hilltop villages slathered in whitewash that appeared to be right off a postcard, vine-ripened bodegas, family-owned B&Bs, and each, I imagined, with a black-vested Geppetto-like character taking care of the grounds. It all sounded great. As Juanita hunched over my itinerary and several office staff formed a small semicircle around us, I wondered, maybe this was Dad’s last joyride? I felt a little bit of happiness, like I was doing something good for him. Maybe he was looking down at us and grateful for the opportunity. I placed my itinerary back into the manila envelope and tucked it under my arm.

  The formality of business faded. I heard a couple of relaxed sighs and saw a couple of postures soften. A few Cádiz staff stayed to ask me questions about myself and my family.

  “Where do you live?” Anna asked. She wore a pantsuit and had long, dark hair held in a ponytail.

  Daria said, “I have been to Los Angeles once,” and then asked, “Is this your first time in Spain? What do you think of it?” Daria had shoulder-length, curly light brown hair and an earthy, unpretentious glow that made me suck in my stomach and push out my chest.

  The questions and conversation continued and flowed in a relaxed way from my new Spanish friends, as I felt progressively more anxiety. I abruptly pointed at my bag—after all, the secret portion of my mission was over, and I needed help. I raised my arm and swung it around to point at my rolling suitcase a few feet away and told them all, “Mi padre is muerto in la bolsa.” I continued, “Necessito cantante para ‘Ave Maria’ tambien.” I had no idea whether or not what I had said made much sense to them. I hoped they would piece everything together so I did not have to repeat myself. My face went scarlet. I held my arm out like I was a model on The Price is Right. I held my breath and waited.

  I watched as they looked at each other, then to me, and then at my suitcase for about thirty seconds of collective bewilderment. Juanita asked, “What do you mean your father is dead in the bag? And you need a singer for ‘Ave Maria’?”

  As she spoke, I took a deep breath and felt less red. I bent down and began to unzip my suitcase, when Juanita waved her hands frantically to stop me from what I was doing while the rest of her crew began to lean in for a closer look. I relished in the absurdity of the moment, and my anxiety disappeared.

  There were dramatic expressions and wide eyes. I began to tell them the whole story, even the unsolved mystery of my father’s desire to be set adrift in Spain. The group reaction—slacked jaws and wide smiles—garnered me extra double-kisses from the ladies and a hug from Daria, my new point of contact while I traveled. Cesar, the web designer, also came up to me, putting his arm around me, and said, “Don’t worry, we will help you through this,” which felt ironic. I mean, what was there to help? I was in Spain and carrying around my dead father while sorting out a lifetime of questionable history.

  I was handed the keys of a tiny blue car and given instructions to my first destination, about two hours away. I called to the room as I was leaving, “Please find me a singer, so I can scatter my dad.” As I turned toward the elevator, my brain clicked into overdrive, desperate to connect all the puzzle pieces. I left with the glow of new friends and their assurances that they would find a singer, but I was certain that their kindness meant little to them. They probably offered similar support to every writer who blew through town.

  ✴✴✴

  He caught my punch the same way my mitt stopped soft tennis balls that sprung from the front porch steps when I practiced grounders. It was a low point between Dad and me. The worst part about the event was that it meant nothing to him. He woke up the next morning and went about his day. He never commented on it again.

  I, on the other hand, sulked in my closet for a week. In the closet, I had my records, an old record player, a drawer half-full of airplane miniatures of rum, and a pillow shaped like the back of a chair that let me lean against the wall and have deep thoughts that filled up the closet.

  I forgave him the first time I needed an extra twenty.

  I graduated high school weighing 122 pounds and standing at five feet nine. My skin remained an adolescent mess of acne and irritated redness, which I treated with every kind of Stridex pad, antibacterial roll-on, medicinal cleanser, and ointment, in addition to washing compulsively. Most days I was uncomfortable. My face burned, and I was as awkward as I looked. I remember taking a class from a rabbi who suggested that acne is caused by telling lies. On bad days, I slathered my face with a heavy coat of Noxema, which accomplished nothing beyond hiding my face behind a layer of tingly sour cream. I took painkillers and refused to leave my room, and it never occurred to me to tell the truth.

  I should have been thinking about college. College felt more like an idea rather than a plan, like a birthday. I expected a letter with a fancy embossed logo to show up at my door that read: “We have heard good things about you and can see beyond your 2.0 grade point average. Welcome to college. Don’t worry, we have taken care of everything. Show up at your leisure in September. We have taken the liberty to sign you up for all your favorite classes. We have also picked out a nice girl from the Midwest with frosted hair and acid-wash jeans. She will not think you are lame for spending most of your time eating muscle relaxants and listening to Billy Joel records. Sincerely, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton (take your pick).”

  The admissions letter never showed up. Instead, I enrolled at a local junior college when the lone university I applied to never panned out. However, all wasn’t lost.

  I rewarded my graduation, on my eighteenth birthday, by moving into my room a wooden, square ashtray with a shiny metal trapdoor top that dropped cigarette butts and ash into a hidden compartment—it was all so 1960s retro, and I was growing wings. I bought cheap leather loafers with tassels to contrast Dad’s work boots and walked around like I owned a yacht. I swaggered into my parents’ bedroom to tell my dad the news of my open-smoking liberation.

  After all, Mom accepted the news, five minutes prior, quite well. She was in the kitchen eating soup over the oven, right from the pot. I don’t think she even turned to face me. “Ugh,” she said. “Well, how surprised could I be?”

  I waited a moment for any secondary reaction, taking a swallow of milk from the carton as I paused by the refrigerator. I heard the sounds of soup slurping. “Okay, so I am just going to start smoking in my room,” I said, and left to let Dad know the good news. I assumed he would love the idea.

  “You, the fuck, what?!” He had been lying shirtless, watching a rerun of Bonanza or some other show with technicolor cowboys. He turned to sit up, and I knew to run. I could feel it. I sprinted down the hall and out the front door, hearing his feet pound on the floor after me. I ran down the block, glad that he was fat and glad I was not on weed and downers.

  When I got about five houses down, I turned and saw him in front of the house, hands on his hips, bent over, sucking wind. The subject of me smoking cigarettes was never debated again. In the evening, I enjoyed my fir
st legal cigarettes in my life in the coziness of my own space.

  As much as Dad hated the idea of me smoking, he began to accept me as a grown-up capable of making just as many stupid decisions as he did. This led to the sharing of the most magical of uniting forces: alcohol.

  On the way home from an afternoon of sweeping out an empty apartment, Dad pulled into the parking lot of Tom Bergin’s House of Irish Coffee. The name rang a bell. It was a local cop bar that Dad had referred to once in a while. By that time, I had also admitted to drinking. Dad opened the van door and stepped out. I did not move a muscle, thinking this was a trap. While he had accepted my grown-up decisions, I was far from trusting. “Well,” he said. “What are you waiting for?”

  I sat looking at Dad, trying to size up the situation. “Dad, I am underage. Should I wait in the car?”

  “What are you, weird?” he said. “Come on.”

  Bergin’s walls were covered in hand-painted green clovers with the white letters of the names of the many patrons who had become regulars over the years. The clovers nearly covered every inch of available wall and ceiling space from Bergin’s seventy years of business. Bright green-and-white clovers became smoke-stained brown-and-olive-toned within a year. The rectangular bar was dark, with tall wooden benches bolted to the ground, and uncomfortable until about the sixth pint of lager. The background chatter filled the room and always felt lighthearted. I loved Bergin’s, mostly because it was Dad’s bar. Walking through the front door with him for the first time was surreal, in much the same way as when Dorothy walked out of her relocated, brown Kansas home into a vibrant Munchkinland.

  The bartender wore a white dress shirt and a green tie. He was sixty, gray, and had a stomach that required pants with an expandable waist. He had powder-blue eyes and plump, rosy, spider-veined cheeks. As Dad and I walked in, he eyed us with suspicion.