By the time we turn back onto Santa Monica Boulevard, traffic is bumper to bumper, and the discomfort starts to come on strong. I crush a little blue pill between my teeth and wash it down with coffee dregs.
Frustrated, John sits back in his captain’s chair, breathes loudly through his nose. I watch him creep closer and closer to a convertible in front of us.
“Take it easy,” I say. “We’ve just got a bit more to go.” Out the window, I see a homey-looking little restaurant with green awnings called “Dan Tana’s.”
“That looks like a nice little place,” I say to John. “Like Bill Knapp’s.”
He breathes loudly again, says nothing, looks ahead at the traffic. I glance up at a billboard and see an enormous picture of two half-naked men embracing and frolicking in the surf, with these words under it:
GAY CRUISES FROM $899!
We’re in Hollywood, all right.
After a long boring stretch of malls, storefronts, and construction, we finally arrive in Santa Monica. It looks like a nice town, but we’re not here to see the sights. We’re here for one thing only—to get to the end of the road. As the street numbers get lower, I detect the clean salt smell of the ocean. Even mingled with the exhaust fumes, it clears my head and replaces my discomfort with a trill of excitement. Up ahead, a sign over the street reads:
OCEAN AVENUE
In front of us, there are palm trees and a park, and I can see straight through to the flickering luminous Pacific. Above it, the sky glows white and blue. It looks every bit as glorious as I thought it would.
“John. Look. There it is,” I say, pointing ahead of us.
“There what is?”
“The ocean, dummy.”
“I’ll be damned. We made it.”
I am amazed and pleased to hear that John has some understanding of what we’ve been doing. I thought he only knew that it was his job to drive. I reach over and put my hand on his arm. “Yes, we did. We made it.”
“Hot damn,” he says, scratching his head.
“You got us here, John. You did a good job, darling.”
John looks at me with the widest smile I have seen on that face in years. It makes me wonder if I have been too tough on the old boy. I guess I don’t tell him that he does a good job very often these days.
“Turn left here, John.”
Along the avenue, the shoreline park gets wider and I notice hobos milling around, doing nothing in particular. Even with their perfect suntans, they seem out of place here at the ocean, so clean and endless.
A few blocks later, we are at the Santa Monica Pier. The sign looks like it does in all my books, like it’s been the same for years, an old-fashioned arch with letters like from an old Fred Astaire movie.
SANTA MONICA
* YACHT HARBOR*
SPORT FISHING*BOATING
cafes
“Turn right here, John. And go slowly.”
We pass under the sign and I feel my heart flutter and lighten. I was not sure we could do this, but we did. I’m proud of us. Up ahead is a yellow-and-purple Ferris wheel, the one they used in that movie The Sting, so I’ve heard. I decide that this would be a fitting ending to today’s journey.
“Come on, John. We’re going for a ride.”
We find a place to park and John pulls out the You-Go for me. The walk is not too far. The sunshine, the ocean air, and the fact that there are people around somehow steadies my gait, straightens my back ever so slightly, sharpens my wits. Then again, maybe it’s just the dope.
Luckily, the line is short. The carny at the Ferris wheel, an unkempt man who looks like he just finished a three-day bender, says he’ll keep an eye on the You-Go while we go up. I don’t really have any choice, so I believe him.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “It won’t end up in a chop shop.” He laughs and reveals brilliant white teeth that look too perfect to be real. I can smell sweat and cheap hooch oozing from his pores. His periwinkle qiana shirt is grimy around the neck. He gives both John and me a clammy mitt to hold on to as we stumble into our little two-seat bench. I wonder if he expects us to tip him.
“Have fun now, you two,” he says, flashing those Hollywood choppers at us. “No necking.”
He pulls a safety bar down. We are locked in.
As we slowly rise into the air, the Ferris wheel makes a tat-tat-tat noise that is vaguely disturbing to me, but apparently not to John. I look over and find him asleep.
“John,” I say gently.
He tips his head back, opens his eyes wide, then closes them again and lowers his head. I let him sleep. I watch the palm trees as they lift and fall with the breeze. The water is moving just enough to make the reflection of the sun warp and ripple, creating inky ridges in the surface. We rise and rise. This height and all this open air would have terrified me not long ago, but not today. I am a daredevil today. I am Evel Knievel. I am that Intimidator fellow from the NASCAR. I look down and locate the Leisure Seeker in the parking lot.
All the sounds from the amusement park fade now. I hear only the wind and the creaking of the machinery that holds us here. I have my hair pulled into its little pygmy knot at the back, but there are loose strands whipping my face. The higher we go, the more the air pummels me, keeps me from taking a full breath. Just as I start to grow dizzy, it dies down.
I can see the back of the Santa Monica pier sign. I remember that the Pacific Ocean wasn’t actually the official end of Route 66, that the original end was somewhere else in Santa Monica on Olympic Boulevard. The Santa Monica Pier was later accepted as the unofficial ending because it made sense to people for the road to end at the Pacific Ocean. I would have to say that I agree.
I take a long deep breath of clean ocean air as our box seat on the Ferris wheel reaches the tippy-top. It’s just about then that John awakens from his nap.
He looks around and starts screaming.
Later, back in the van, on the freeway, on our way back to the trailer park, I can barely keep from panting from the discomfort, which is back in force. In fact, on a scale of one to ten, it’s about a fourteen.
“Are we on I-10, John?”
“Sure.”
I don’t believe him. I frantically search for an interstate sign, even though I’m almost positive we’re on the right freeway. I directed us there, after all. I think I’m frazzled from our little incident on the Ferris wheel, not to mention the wrenching discomfort.
Just before we have to slow down for yet another traffic jam, I spot a sign that says I-10 East. I would breathe a sigh of relief, but I don’t seem to be able to.
Finally I inhale. Loudly. John turns and looks at me when he should be watching the traffic.
“What’s wrong?” he says. “You got a stomachache?”
“Yes, I’m going to take some Tums.” I open my purse and fish out two of my little blue pills. I should have taken two before, but I wanted to be at least fairly clearheaded when we finally reached our destination. I try to wash it down with a swig of flat Pepsi from a bottle I find under the seat, but the pills stick in my throat. Everything almost comes gushing up. I take another swig and somehow manage to get them down.
“That wasn’t a Tums,” says John.
“It’s better than a Tum. Watch the road.”
Great. Now he’s paying attention.
It is only when I wake up that I realize that I’ve been sleeping at all. I’m feeling more comfortable now. I lift my head slightly to look over at John who is staring at the road in his very own trance. Traffic is backed up and we’re going about 25 mph. I wonder how long I’ve been conked out, how far we’ve gone.
“Where are we?” I say, still groggy.
John says nothing. I look at a sign on the side of the freeway and realize that we are no longer on I-10 at all. We are on I-5, just approaching an exit for a town called Buena Park.
“How did we get on this road?”
“You said to get on it.”
“I did not, John. I was asleep. Do
n’t lie to me.”
“Aw, shit.” I don’t know if he’s swearing at the traffic up ahead or at me.
“Damn it, John.” I choke down another sip of Pepsi and look at my map. When I locate I-5, I see that maybe he hasn’t screwed up so badly. We are about to approach the exit for Anaheim. And though I had my heart set on staying back at the good trailer park, I see that this probably makes more sense. We were headed here, anyway.
“Get off at the next exit, John,” I say, smiling at what I’m going to say next. “We’re going to Disneyland.”
Of course, we’re not going to Disneyland today. I’ll settle for finding us someplace to stay for the night. Which turns out to be surprisingly easy. Disneyland is located not far from the freeway and there are billboards everywhere for motels, campgrounds, you name it. I choose one and we get off the freeway, as simple as that.
The Best Destination RV Park is only about three miles or so from Disneyland, but it’s away from most of the congestion. Los Angeles was bad enough, but this area is everyone trying to get to one place. Us included.
As we check in (no curbside service here—I almost fall on my doped-up hind end getting out of the van), the woman in charge mentions that they do have shuttle service to Disneyland. That’s for us.
After we find our space, I make sure John drives in so the back of our van is facing the back of our neighbor’s RV. Then I sit at the picnic table and give him directions as he sets up camp.
This place is not as nice as the good trailer park in Claremont, but it’s not bad. The only problem is that everywhere you look in this campground, there are kids running around like wild Indians. (I guess it’s wild Native Americans these days.) This takes some getting used to.
After my inspection, I happen to look up to see that we are directly in the shadow of a giant two-lobed water tower with a deep roundish base, completely covered with polka dots. It is ugly beyond all my powers of description. Yet another closer look reveals the secret: its silhouette looks suspiciously like a certain cartoon mouse.
After John finishes, I get my You-Go and take a lap around the van to make sure everything’s in order.
“Good job, John,” I say.
“I want a beer,” he says.
It’s 3:20 in the afternoon. Late enough. “Okay, you’ve earned it.”
John just stands there.
“Go get it,” I say. “You’re not crippled.”
“Where do you keep it?”
“It’s in the fridge. Where it always is.”
John disappears into the van.
“Get me one, too,” I yell after him. I think for a moment and realize that I’ve been saying “You’re not crippled” all my life. My mother used to say it to me. Now we’re at the point where we actually are crippled.
But I’m still not going to get John a beer.
It’s dark now and the campground has quieted down. Before, you could tell that there were a lot of oversugared, overstimulated kids all worked up from a big day at Disneyland. (That’s how my Kevin was when we took him. We had to dose him with Pepto-Bismol before he could sleep, poor thing.) They’ve all collapsed into bed by now, stomachs souring, churning up bad dreams of looming giant rodents.
After sandwiches (I force myself to eat to keep up my strength for tomorrow), we set up the projector next to the van for slides. Tonight’s show is Disneyland 1966. It wasn’t the last time we were there, but it was the best time. The kids were both young enough to think it was the most wonderful place on earth. And John and I were plenty young enough to go on rides and enjoy it all through our children’s eyes.
The first shot is Main Street swarming with people, the castle in the background. In the foreground, I am standing there with Kevin and Cindy, holding both of their hands, all of us smiling our biggest smiles. I notice how nicely dressed we all are.
The entrance to Tomorrowland—flagpoles and a little cart selling ice creams. On one side is a pavilion with a gigantic atom on it, but my eye is drawn to the huge red-and-white rocket ship straight ahead. That must have looked so futuristic then. Now, even to these ancient eyes, it looks ridiculous and old-fashioned. I doubt if that’s still there. Is there even still a Tomorrowland?
The next shot is of Goofy kneeling behind Kevin and Cindy and giving them both a squeeze. The kids are ecstatic, but I notice that Goofy’s oversized hand is behind Kevin’s head. Looks like he’s about to give him a good smack.
“Is that a dog?” says John.
“Yeah, it’s Goofy, John. The cartoon character.”
“That’s not Goofy,” he says.
I give him a look. “You’re goofy.”
In a later slide, the kids are riding around on little flying saucers. This must be Tomorrowland still because I see a futuristic-looking house in the background—a big mushroom with windows.
Kevin and me in Frontierland, both wearing coonskin caps. He’s adorable. I, on the other hand, don’t look so good. I’m put in mind of one of my less successful wigs.
The next shot is of John and Cindy. There aren’t that many pictures of John in our vacation slides, so I must have taken it. Cindy looks darling, but John seems to be missing his head. He must have put that in there a long time ago for comic relief. Apparently, it still works. Next to me, John is laughing like a madman.
The last slide is Main Street at night, with the castle lit silver blue in the background. In the sky, fireworks are going off, cresting, cracking open the darkness, shooting long tendrils of colored light down to the buildings, way longer than I’ve ever seen for fireworks.
“I used an extralong exposure on that one,” says John.
“You did?” I say, still surprised at what he just pulls out of his memory.
I linger on this slide. I study that blue castle and those fireworks and realize that this is the image I’ve had in my head of Disneyland for all these years. Just like the beginning of the Wonderful World of Disney TV show. Maybe that’s why I wanted to head here this time. I know it’s ridiculous, but part of me wants to think that the world after this one could look like that.
Like I said before, I stopped having notions about religion and heaven long ago—angels and harps and clouds and all that malarkey. Yet some silly, childish side of me still wants to believe in something like this. A gleaming world of energy and light, where nothing is quite the same color as it is on earth—everything bluer, greener, redder. Or maybe we just become the colors, that light spilling from the sky over the castle. Perhaps it would be somewhere we’ve already been, the place we were before we were born, so dying is simply a return. I guess if that were true, then somehow we’d remember it. Maybe that’s what I’m doing with this whole trip—looking for somewhere that I remember, deep in some crevice of my soul. Who knows? Maybe Disneyland is heaven. Isn’t that the damnedest, craziest thing you’ve ever heard? Must be the dope talking.
I sleep horribly this night, never actually sleeping, only dreaming. For all my remarks about the sugared-up children, I’m the one who ends up dreaming of mice. Hundreds of them, swarming me, nipping at me, pulling away pieces of me, leaving only areas where wads of stuffing and burlap are exposed on my body.
I wake again and again from my twilight sleep. That’s another expression I got from my doctors. They were forever telling me that their procedures required that I be anesthetized into a “twilight sleep,” a term so gentle and calm sounding that no one could possibly object. Yet I found that, for me, their lovely sunset slumber was always filled with terrors and nightmares.
Unfortunately, the mice are just tonight’s selected short. The feature presentation stars a particular nursing home that I know all too well, though John and I have visited many of them. This is part of your duty as an old person. You do it out of love and obligation, out of fondness for families and friends, out of lack of anything better to do. It is bleak entertainment, but it gets you ready for what’s ahead.
The nursing home I dream of is a place where our friend Jim spent hi
s final months. His wife, Dawn, had died the year before, then his kids put him there. Jim and Dawn were our best friends, so we had to go visit. Twice a month, we’d limp through those rank-smelling hallways to see him, but Jim didn’t even recognize us. Us, John and Ella, fellow travelers, people he had camped with for the past twenty-two years. We weren’t the people he wanted to see. He wanted to see Dawn. The staff would tell us that he did nothing but roll around in his wheelchair all day and call for his wife. “Dawn,” he would say. “Dawn? Where are you?”
My dream is of the last time we visited Jim. It was always torture for John to see his friend that way, but this day it was worse than it had ever been. Jim couldn’t even talk by this time, couldn’t even call for Dawn. He sat there in his chair, drooling, chin resting on his chest. Every now and then, his lips moved as if he were speaking some silent language that only he could understand. When we tried to talk to him, he just looked up at us, reacting to the sound of our voices with an endless, unseeing stare.
After we left, John turned to me in the car and said what he always said to me after we visited Jim. “I will shoot myself before I end up like that.” But this last time, he said something else as well. He took my hand and said, “Ella, promise me, promise me that you will never put me in a place like that.”
I looked at my husband and promised him that one thing.
The Leisure Seeker Page 19