10,000 Miles with My Dead Father's Ashes

by Devin Galaudet

  Daria approached me, looked at the ground, and said, “I don’t think we can help you.”

  My throat tightened, and I prepared to run into the street screaming for help.

  Then I heard a sound from the back of the room. It was coming from Cesar’s computer. The sound became “Ave Maria.” It was beautiful. The classical woman’s voice became the catalyst for all the emotion and denial that I had been holding on to until that very moment. I felt the tears rolling down my cheeks. I couldn’t breathe and then I did what any other self-respecting pseudo-alpha male would do: I ran to the nearest door and closed myself behind it. I would’ve kept running if I had not walked directly into an office supply closet. The only thing that I could see was a brief crack of light at the bottom of the door.

  I stood alone in the closet for several minutes until there was a knock on the door. Before a feeling of stupidity settled, the door slowly pulled open and the light poured in. The kind of light that let me see all the small specks of dust twist in the air and the kind of light that turned a beautiful woman’s skirt transparent. Daria flooded in with that light. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, backlit by what I now reminisce as a somber light.

  In that moment I understood God.

  She handed me a triangular paper cup of cool water. She tried to look me in the eye but instead looked to the ground and took a deep breath. “We have decided that you will not do this on your own. We will come with you, to hug you and kiss you. We will hold your hand, and we will mourn with you. You are safe,” and she stepped out backward, never raising her eyes to mine, and closed the door in front of her. When she left, the light left with her. It was here that I realized I missed my dad and never wanted to say goodbye. I sat alone, surrounded by reams of paper and paper clips, toner cartridges, and the dull ache of unwanted transformation.

  When I walked out of the closet, the small office looked meaningless with the fluorescent lighting lowered and the Tourism Office of Cádiz waiting patiently for me, to close the office for the week.

  I cleared my throat several times, trying to find the words, but none came.

  Everyone was ready to leave, with coats and briefcases in hand, when Daria came up to me and said, “Cesar found ‘Ave Maria’ on the Internet by one of the most famous vocalists in all of Sevilla and made a CD of this song for you.” She exhaled loudly and then smiled broadly. “We will all drive together and find the best spot in all of Cádiz. Anywhere you want. And then we are going to play ‘Ave Maria’ for your father. And together we will mourn.”

  Four people I did not know waited for me outside while I walked on uneven sidewalk to get Dad one last time. My throat was still tight, and I felt a light breeze against my damp face. For a brief moment, and for the first time since I arrived in Spain, I felt gratitude and perhaps some relief. I smelled cinnamon by the bakery and sea salt in the air. I passed uncomfortable cats and worn pedestrians. I inhaled a small dose of peace, which came from being right in the middle of the moment, one foot in front of the other over loose cobblestone.

  “Dad,” I said to myself, “I think you chose well.”

  I walked in acceptance through my father’s adopted home until I came upon the big shady tree. At its base sat nothing. I stared at the empty spot before looking around trying to get my bearings. Many things crossed my mind, but the obvious was that Dad could not resist one cosmic final joyride.

  My tiny blue car had been stolen, along with my dead father in its trunk.

  I stood in front of the spot where I had parked my car, trying to make sense of the emptiness. I walked a block ahead and behind to see if it had rolled somewhere all by itself. Nothing. I walked into the space and walked back out and scratched my head. I put my hands on my hips, clueless, and stared at my feet.

  I understood that the car was gone because, well, it was no longer there. There was action to take, but I could not think of what that entailed. My arms weighed heavy at my sides. My stomach and chest hollowed. I looked around to see if someone would come forward with an answer. No one came. I took aimless steps in every direction until I turned in a complete circle; my head swung back and forth to catch a glimpse of anything that would make sense. Several moments passed, and then I turned around and stumbled back to Cádiz Tourism.

  My flight was leaving at seven o’clock from Sevilla the following morning. No car, little money, and no Dad. My knees buckled on the cobblestone from the heaviness of confusion. Up to that point in my life, I had attempted to believe in an organized, magical world that cared for its participants—or at least those who believed in said magical world. I hoped for a god that watched out for me, although I never quite bought into the idea. I hobbled along as perspiration slowly dripped down my sides from my armpits.

  On the plus side, I had a place to stay in Cádiz, but no idea how to get home from, or to, Seville. There were four people who waited in front of the tourism board. When I got there, I planned to lie down on the street and throw myself at their mercy as a pathetic, helpless blotch on the pavement. That’s all I had.

  I felt nauseated, and my head felt like it was made of balloon. The thought of leaving Dad unscattered and my relationship with him symbolically unresolved gave me a sense of dread. I thought I could barf out enough sadness for my tourism friends’ sympathy, as if pity would drive them to wave magic wands and reappear Dad. It was an odd sense, as life was great. I traveled Spain for free. People were sympathetic and helpful. None of this made sense then, just the fear of losing my father and knowing how stupid I was for not schlepping him up the stairs to the tourism board with me. I passed the smells of warm bread on wobbly knees and saw my four familiar strangers chatting in a small circle.

  As I approached, Cesar called toward me after seeing me empty-handed, “Did you forget your keys in the office?”

  I did not answer, and the group waited patiently until I got closer. As I stopped in front of them, I said, “My car is not there.” I know that I spoke the words, but no one was home.

  I found myself sitting in the back seat of a tiny European car with Cesar driving, Anna in the front seat, Javier and Daria in back with me. Daria was sitting on my lap, but considering my state, this could have been wishful thinking. I heard the car’s tires strain across the crooked streets of Old Town Cádiz. It was Friday, at the end of a work week, and I had lost Dad.

  Yes, I knew I was a jackass.

  Daria broke the noise in my head and tire sounds outside of it, saying, “You know, you are not the first person to have their car stolen in Cádiz.”

  Without thinking, I responded, “You mean with their dead father in the trunk?” Although I did not get the joke at first, the car erupted with laughter. The sound took me out of the hopeless future my self-loathing painted in my head, but I quickly returned to the present. I stared out of the window and looked closely at every small blue car we drove by. Everyone else loosened up. Anna began to talk in Spanish with pauses, which were followed by nods of agreement and more conversation among the four.

  Anna then turned around from the front seat. “We are trying to figure out where to look for your car. It cannot be so far away, unless someone planned to put it on the ferry to Africa.”

  My whole body itched, but there was nowhere to scratch. The marble continued to roll around in my hollow skull. I then began to realize that all my sweating had an effect. My BO wafted in my face and it stunk. I forgot about Dad to think about how Daria wouldn’t find me attractive, as if all my stupidity and crying were some big turn-on for her. Anna continued, remembering that I was still a journalist in assignment, “Cádiz is very safe, but things happen in every city. We also think that maybe you saw a red triangle on the ground where your car was parked. This means it was towed.”

  Towed? I thought. That would be good.

  She slowed down and waited for my answer. She said, “The red triangle would be obvious.”

&
nbsp; I closed my eyes and tried to picture a red triangle in the space under the tree. I stopped thinking about my increasingly awful BO. What is a red triangle? I thought. I then realized Daria was sitting on my bladder and started worrying about urinating on her. If not for my stupidity, crying, body odor, and that I might pee on her, she could be mine.

  Anna continued, “Well, we should start at a police station.” We meandered around Cádiz until Cesar pulled the car over to the side of the road and Anna hopped out. She looked at me and said, “I will be right back. Wait here.”

  I sat in the car and heard my father’s voice in my head, “Some jackass you are. You just left me in the fucking car?” I could still hear him take a frustrated drag from one of his Salem regulars. “Why didn’t you just dump me in the water when you got here?” It had been ten years since I quit, but I wanted a cigarette. It was the prop I had used to punctuate any moment.

  On the day I quit, I choked down eighteen delicious American Spirits cigarettes in a row, on the tile floor of my bathroom in my underpants. I threw all the butts into the toilet. Smokes were the tool that I had used to convince myself I was of age, a man. Mostly, I smoked when having feelings I wanted to avoid. After my final drag of the devil nicotine on that day in the bathroom, I flushed the toilet six times before all the butts would go down—like they never wanted to leave.

  I stared out the window, hungry for nicotine, and watched my blue car not coast by. Javier and Cesar casually chatted in Spanish and laughed a few times as Anna appeared in the car’s open window. She asked me, “What was the license plate of your car?”

  I had no idea.

  She asked, “Do you know the make and model?”

  I had no idea.

  Even if the police had towed the car, we needed to know which car it was and how to identify it. I drove that stupid car for a week and knew nothing about it.

  “Do you know the color?” I did. It was blue. “Blue,” she said, waiting for me to offer some more information.

  Then I felt a gurgle in my stomach that started at my solar plexus, quickly descended into my colon, and ominously rattled down. The gurgle was unmistakable. My body was responding to all the stress with a gas bubble and about a gallon of nervous water that had just emptied itself into my large intestine. My face grew hot. Daria started to weigh a ton. If I had not turned her off by all the crying, body odor, stupidity, and potential urine, shitting in my pants would do the trick.

  As I clenched, Anna started back toward the station, when she turned around. “Do you have the keys to the car?” I had them on the plastic keychain that was imprinted into my sweaty palm. I looked down and saw a small miracle. The keychain contained the VIN number, license plate, make, and model of the car. It was a small victory. Then I placed my arm across Daria’s leg for a moment, until things felt too awkward and unfamiliar and I felt like a fool, and then I clenched tighter.

  Anna turned around and disappeared. Javier, who had said nothing up to that point, began to speak Spanish, but I knew what he was saying while he gestured with his hands, “Of course, it was a rental car.”

  We could have called the rental car guy to get the information sooner.

  A few minutes later, Anna returned to the car, her hair disheveled. “Good news. They have your car. But it is not here. It is…” Then she began to speak more Spanish. “We must hurry. It is Friday and the city department closes early for the weekend.” Anna jumped back into the car and off we went. She turned to me and said, “We need one hundred six euros. You will have to pay for the ticket and the towing.”

  I had about seventy euros on me.

  After what seemed like an eternity of winding streets and increasing traffic, we pulled over again. Anna turned to me and said, “Come with me.” Daria lifted off of me, and I realized my legs were asleep. I limped down the block clenching, into the underground garage that smelled like burning oil and desperation, or maybe that was me, which was lit by a handful of fluorescent tubes that showed how the soot covered everything.

  We walked around the lot until we found the dim glow of the glass cashier’s cage. A tall man in an official-looking uniform was flipping through a large stack of pink papers. He had jaundiced coloring and his face drooped from years of disinterest and shuffling pink papers in a glass box in a photon-free zone.

  We stood for a few seconds before Anna cleared her throat, waiting to be acknowledged. Nothing. After a few moments more, she launched a few decibels louder and said, “Hola,” which was followed by a lot of fast Spanish. He never looked up. She began to read off the car’s keychain. He did not look up, but slowly turned, as if practicing tai chi, and pulled a clipboard of yellow papers. He licked his thumb and slowly waded through them. He spoke calmly and sounded a lot like the tires that churned over the cobblestones.

  I did not understand a word.

  She looked at him and then me. “We need more money.”

  I told her I did not have more money. I looked at the disinterested man behind the glass. I said, “Por favor…” but my crumbs of Spanish blew away in the underground breeze. I looked at Anna and shook my head. I pulled out my small wad of crumpled euros, giving her the coins as well. Anna exhaled deeply and banged her fist at the glass, holding my money. The disinterested man looked up after the second series of bangs. Anna’s voice was soft and earnest, and I could feel her imploring the disinterested man to take kindly upon this weary traveler. She pointed at me, explaining my predicament. I looked down to my shoes, attempting to elicit sympathy.

  The disinterested man shrugged his shoulders and went back to shuffling papers.

  I took a deep breath and I held it until I felt lightheaded and let out a bursting gasp for air. Anna did not give up. She pounded the glass one more time, this time not waiting for the disinterested man to look up and started yelling at him. She pointed at me and said something that included the word “muerto.”

  Ah yes, “Muerto,” I jumped in. “Mi padre es muerto en la bolsa en mi trunko de autobilio,” I said.

  The disinterested man looked up. Anna continued yelling in Spanish and kept yelling as she rummaged in her purse before pulling out her business card and pressing it against the glass. She pushed the card through the metal tray, the space that bridged the gap between us and the disinterested man. He did not take the card. She then turned to me and said, “Give me all your money.”

  I handed her the ten-euro note I had folded in the secret pocket of my jeans for an emergency and added all the money to the metal tray.

  The disinterested man did not look up. He said, “Un momento,” and just stood there not taking the money or Anna’s business card. This went on under the dim lights of the garage, the smell of oil making me sick.

  Anna began tapping her foot. I wanted a toilet break desperately. The disinterested man flipped through some papers, saying, “Un momento. Un momento…” before he finally said okay.

  Okay! I thought. Please let this not be some odd Spanish word, meaning “fuck off.”

  The disinterested man reached for a pegboard filled with keys in a tai chi maneuver I would later describe as “beyond the setting sun.”

  Even if the car were there, I had no idea if Dad was still in the trunk, or if I would find a toilet in time. I bounced in place.

  Anna looked at me and smiled. After another ten minutes, the disinterested man, Anna, and I walked five feet to my little blue car, which I didn’t recognize at all in the underground lighting. Anna handed me the keys and fumbled with them to open the trunk. I dropped them on the floor and then dropped them twice more while trying to pick them up. Finally, I got the key into the lock and popped the trunk. There was Dad, in the blue backpack next to my suitcase.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  And I picked him up and slung the backpack with him in it across my chest. Anna and I jumped in my car and we pulled out from the parking garage, leaving
the smell of oil and my desperation behind me, and, thank god, I found a bathroom.

  We drove in tandem, Cesar leading the way with Anna and Javier, and Daria and me driving in my little blue car, in silence, along the crowded seaside streets of Old Town Cádiz looking for a place to say goodbye.

  The crew from Cádiz Tourism had taken my absurdity in stride and with good humor. Now I sat alone with Daria, but I was caught between the exhaustion of having tracked Dad down and the burden of having to gather myself up to say goodbye to him. I felt drained, anxious, and, somehow, vindicated. Dad would have the send-off he wanted, with a couple of minor adjustments, and I could feel like a good son, perhaps for the first time in years. Still I lacked the energy and the words, Spanish or otherwise, to express any of this to Daria. There I sat, with this beautiful woman, and felt completely alone.

  After about fifteen minutes of winding streets, Cesar pulled onto the curb after I found a scenic spot. Actually, I do not remember finding anything. I think they just decided to pull over after we had been driving around long enough. It was a good spot, though. Or as good as any. Charming, old world, teaming with strolling Spaniards on a cloudless spring afternoon. The location was on a street that jutted out over the sea, which made for an uncomplicated sending off.

  Dad would have liked Cádiz, the soft breezes, an easy vibe that dropped my shoulders from my ears. As I unbuckled my seatbelt, I heard him say, “Represent your father well.”

  I got out of the car and walked straight to the cement railing about fifteen feet above the water that overlooked the Sea of Gibraltar and a distant African coastline. Everything seemed to move so slowly.

  I sat my backpack on the floor and carefully pulled its zippers apart. As I did, I realized I had never opened up the black bucket before, not even out of curiosity. Not knowing what was inside sent a chill of nervous expectation through me. Would it be some sandy rubble and then a tooth or a piece of Dad’s nose? My knees were unsteady to support my weight. I considered that all the things that Dad was would not be in the drum: his humor, charm, guile, and belligerence, not to mention his fatness, would not be there. At best, what I saw could only be the symbolic remnants that Dad was most completely, most certainly, dead.