I knew too well Mia’s intrinsic need to bolt. Having her basic needs covered wouldn’t nearly cut it in the rebellious stage she was in. Teenagers are simply not designed to settle. Mia was most likely terrified of being trapped here, as her mother had been, forever stuck in the same godforsaken place, retracing the same footsteps for the rest of her life. Instead, as I had, she’d upped and left, though not, regrettably, with the same ways and means I’d finagled, my getting myself into a decent university with a scholarship at the tail end of the state.
The McCleery clan is part and parcel of this property having settled on its bare land during the Gold Rush. In fact, a tinted, tintype portrait of Mary and Patrick McCleery no less sits above the dresser in the dining room to this day. I took my first good, long look at this tough old pair in years as I headed upstairs to ready myself for bed. There they were, decked out in their Victorian best, the first of the McCleerys; Patrick, in his thirties, captured for time immemorial with a firm hold on the reigns of his sturdy horse and cart. His wife was equally stiff backed, stoic and determined looking. She was seated straightfaced beside him, tough, Irish settler stock — proud new Americans.
Mary and Patrick were the brave generation that journeyed an entire continent only to take on a second, even more perilous cross-country expedition to California by wagon trail across the plains.
Little more than the natural beauty of the rolling hills, the wind, fog and the steely blue Pacific was in wait to greet them when they’d finally made it to the edge of the western world. Many early pioneers perished along the way. Getting here was one thing, making a go of it, another. And though the climate is inhospitable to all but the toughest, I’ll wager they welcomed more sunshine in this western coastal land than they were accustomed to in the weeping, wet Ireland they’d left behind.
Never since the mulish McCleery bloodline dug its roots deep down into Northern Californian soil has one of us set foot in the old country. It’s kind of pathetic on our part not to travel when I think of the trouble they went to, this pioneer pair, just to get here in the first place. I’ve been thinking that I may apply for my Irish citizenship through descent and travel the Emerald Isle and into Europe on it some day, find myself some perspective. I’ll even bring Bridget and Mia along if they’re up for it.
Mary and Patrick set up a rudimentary camp. They built their homestead with their bare hands from Pacific redwood bartered from the Russian River sawmills. Commercial logging was just getting started. A rudimentary three up, three down would have fit their basic needs with its open front porch serving as a shelter in the rainy season and a shade barrier in the sparse, sunnier months.
There was no bathroom in the early days, as the old man was fond of telling us when we were kids, a tin tub and an outdoor latrine served the needs of the family until my grandparents put a bathroom in some time in the early 1950s.
Since milk and dairy products were in massive demand in the storefronts and markets of early San Francisco, the Point Reyes Peninsula and coastline proved itself to be cow heaven, birthplace of the California dairy industry. Dairy ranching is one of the toughest forms of farming if you ask me or anyone who was born and raised into it, yet there must have been plenty of money to be made during the initial frenzy of the Gold Rush. Hundreds of thousands flooded Northern California in search of an easy fortune. They were, as you’d imagine, desperate for good food and fresh dairy products that didn’t stink from being transported cross-country. Mining camps of the Sierra Mountains swelled with fortune seekers as newcomers jumped ship in the ports of the Barbary Coast and made their way to the foothills.
I stepped up to closer scrutinize the faded photograph. Mary was a serious woman to say the least, intense and brooding. I closed my eyes and pictured her in an early version of Bridget’s kitchen, seated at a lamp lit table with paper and pencil as she figured out the numbers for the milk and handchurned butter Patrick readied for regular shipment to the city.
By now, Bridget and Bobby were facing a vastly different set of demands for agricultural product. I wondered what Mary would have made of our times. Maybe she too would’ve gotten on with it without judgment of the latest cash crop, just as Bridget was evidently trying to do.
Wander through the Catholic or Protestant cemeteries in our small farming and fishing community and you will see surprisingly ornate plots peppered with headstones of pioneer families. We played amongst these same headstones as kids, Bridget and me, spooking ourselves in games of chase among the familiar last names, known to us from the stories we’d heard from the old-timers.
Six generations of Irish, Swiss, Portuguese, Italian — keeping each other good company, first on neighboring dairy and potato ranches and later, one by one, tucked in, deep beneath the rich, sandy soil that sits atop the region’s Jurassic age volcanic bedrock.
Not all that much has changed in the landscape since the McCleerys first set foot here, aside from the sad reality of most of the dairy herds having vanished from the hills and horizon.
Bridget, as with other struggling souls left in charge of otherwise abandoned family ranchland, had little wherewithal for even the smallest of income generation after the milking cows were gone. At least not until the cannabis laws came in to stir things up into what is basically an ongoing storm of controversy.
Sharp wisps of salty, frigid air slipped through the cracks in the wooden window frames, chilling me sufficiently to remind me of the winters of my youth. We’d roamed this ranch at all hours and in every type of weather as little girls, Bridget and me, gathering and collecting animal bones, sticks, stones as we scoured for feathers and other treasures. We’d chased lizards, thrown rocks, searched high and low for flint arrowheads, abundant remnants of the lost people — the Coast Miwok our grandparents told us of. The fact the first people lived off only what they were able to use and replenish has become all the more poignant to me in my currently frugal situation.
Back when my grandparents were youngsters themselves, the last of the first people were still a big part of the fabric of the place, in specific pockets of the community — oyster fishing, boat building. I can picture my Grandmother on the porch, seated on the swing that, like her, has long since vanished into the past. I watch closely as she points west with her bony, arthritic finger. “The Pacific you see here before you is an ocean like no other, mark my words now girl,” she’d say, a faraway look in her steely blue eyes. How she’d regaled us with stories of these waters being filled to the brim with whales and dolphins when she herself was a girl, numbers and oceanic activity we sadly can’t imagine today.
Big Bobby De Santis, rough around the edges, larger-than-life with a deep bass baritone and shoulders to match, moved in on my sister when her daughter Mia, was five. Bridget was a single mom from the start. I’d never said a word about selling the place, though it was ours to share, on paper, for what it’s worth. I had not had the heart to raise the question after Mia was born and I’m glad of it. Anyway, somehow, some way, we’re still here, holding on tight to this wild patch of earth that is ours.
Tomás, the guy who fathered Mia, had raveled north from some unknown small town in central Mexico. That’s about the extent of what we know of him. According to Bridget, he was a looker, fit, funny, charismatic, hardworking. I never set eyes on him. He was, she’d told me, an industrious, seasonal worker possessed with a charming mop of thick, glossy black hair, big brown, bedroom eyes, a limited grasp of the English language and a natural ease with women, not least my sister. What the elusive Tomás did not have going for him was any scrap of documentation. He’d driven back over the border to visit his family two weeks prior to Bridget finding out she was in the family way. She was 32 at the time, single after a stream of loser boyfriends and pleased as punch at the prospect of a baby despite having zero support system. As for Tomás, he was never seen again. Bridget feared he had fallen prey to the cartels that notoriously ransacked moneyed Mexican laborers for their fat wads of American dollars tucked un
der the floorboards of coveted Toyota workhorse trucks. If you ask me, I was never so sure. The virile Tomás might just have easily stayed put where he’d come from with a pretty young wife and gaggle of little ones who’d also been patiently awaiting his seasonal return.
Each spring, those first few years, whenever the migrant laborers showed up looking for work, Bridget had clung to the false hope that the new season would bring Tomás back north, kind of like a human form of the monarch butterfly in reverse flight I used to think, when she talked of him.
Bobby, on the other hand, he wasn’t going anywhere too far from home. He’d had his fill of life’s brief adventures in the outside world. He came back to where he started, only slightly worse for wear, rattling out Rat Pack hits for the locals while pouring shots behind his brother and sister-in-law’s bar, an old speakeasy known as The Daniel Boone, the isolated roadhouse where Bridget would soon be waiting tables.
Bobby was made from hardscrabble farming stock. Not Irish — like us. Northern Italian, through and through, Genoa, fishing people, old guard, hence the propensity for the old-school Italian American playlist that rolled off his tongue like nobody’s business. Bobby was well familiar with the pros and cons of an isolated coastal life. All of us, me, Bridget and Bobby, we were raised to be tough, to get on with it, to deal with the depressing bouts of fog and bone-chilling wind. I may have lost my edge in this more remote stretch of the craggy west, but I figured I’d soon get it back if I stuck around what was left of my family for any length of time.
We all knew Bobby had a thing for Bridget back in high school. He’d tried all the usual tricks to turn her head. She had never given him so much as the time of day. Like me, Bobby ditched his family’s failed ranch. The difference was the time it took us to crawl back. After giving up on Bridget the first time around, the impatient hothead had gone and married another local girl, too soon out of high school for it to stand a reasonable chance.
Mia was in kindergarten when Bobby and my sister finally hooked up. Bridget called me out of the blue one night, asking if I remembered that Bobby De Santis guy. He was back on the scene, officially divorced and on the wagon, she’d said. He’d had his fill of a dozen years or so of marital unrest, fueled, on both sides, by drugs and booze and bar fights. By that time, my sister, who’d struggled through the early years of raising Mia on her own, was way more inclined to take notice of Bobby’s newly sober and never more adoring gaze.
“He sings to me, Maggie. We slow dance like a couple of kids.” I clearly recall how she was tickled to admit it, her voice, light and hopeful, for the first time in years. “Just the two of us, here in the kitchen after he’s closed up for the night.”
~
Mia’s juvenile posters were plastered over the same flowery wallpaper I’d studied each and every interminable night of grade school as I’d fantasized about the glamorous world of celebrities from the television shows to relieve the boredom of my own reality. A poster of Miley Cyrus depicted her captured in a wide expanse of butterfly wings, bedazzled in body sparkles and silver eye shadow. In stark contrast, a sepia photo in a medium-size wooden frame balanced on the top shelf of a half empty bookcase, caught my eye.
“Ever heard of a duster, Bridg’?” I asked, walking over to take a closer look. Bridget had followed me upstairs. I’d squeezed myself into an old, brown leather jacket, a relic from my high school years I’d been more than taken aback to find was still there, exactly where I’d left it in the bedroom closet. It had been one of my more successful thrift store finds, its short, leather fringe dating it’s design to classic ‘70s. I remembered well how its zip-out liner had come in handy during the chillier winter months. It just about fit me still, snug, but wearable. Aside from a couple of scrunched up Bubble Yum gum wrappers circa 1988, I was disappointed not to find a love note or at least a phone number scribbled hastily in class in the pockets.
It was like I’d simply shut the door to my old bedroom and walked away. I guess that’s what had happened and Mia’s subsequent impression on it, aside from the obnoxious posters was a minor imprint. The small, wooden frame held an awkward portrait: Bridget; me; Mom and Dad, all decked out in one of those touristy Wild West photo booths, a goofy “Wanted Dead or Alive” poster shot, captured during one of our rare overnight trips into Old Sacramento. “I don’t remember any other fun outings as a family,” I said, as Bridget looked over my shoulder. On that occasion, we’d visited the rail museum after it was completed, if I recall, an added outing after spending the night in a cheap motel close to the California State Fair.
“We’d gone up for Grange Day, remember? Most of our neighbors were there, along with their wives and kids,” Bridget replied, a cloudy look in her eyes as she brushed her thumb over the dusty glass.
It was Mom who had sprung for the souvenir, a spontaneous, tacky photo taken on the boardwalk outside of the rail museum despite the old man’s pissing and moaning, on the count of it being a foolish waste of his hard-earned money. There I was, a kooky teenager dressed up as a rifle-toting frontier woman. Inside, I was already bursting with big ideas, secret plans. Back then, the months and years had moved at a snail’s pace. That evening, ironically, all I wanted was to slow it all the hell down.
I sank into the lumpy mattress beneath the pink chenille coverlet. Bridget sat beside me. I realized I had absolutely no idea what a double mastectomy looked like in the flesh and so I had taken the opportunity to let her know I truly did care about how she was doing in that department, specifically the recovery part. “The scarring,” I asked?
What came next was not what I had expected. Bra-less, because, let’s face it, she has no need of one now, Bridget pulled her sweater and T-shirt up under her armpits so that I could see for myself. Though to me, it was something like the misplaced seam of a crudely stitched rag doll, my sister was evidently in no way ashamed of how her body looked. I could see she was proud of it in a way, like a warrior. This made it seem less barbaric, somehow.
“The world’s not gonna end because of my surgery,” she’d declared. “I’m still the same old Bridget.” Supper’s special ingredient was beginning to kick in by then. From what I remember, this was good timing in that it was helping take the edge off the heavy-duty heart-to-heart and show-and-tell we were having, at least for me. I recall desperately needed a drink of water. I couldn’t shake the image of the four of us in the photo, posed in our stiff western outfits, forced smiles plastered to our faces, gripping a fleet of fake wooden guns. An illtimed urge to giggle came over me as I’d headed down the stairs, clutching the handrail to steady myself. I felt my eyes welling, not sure at first if I was about to laugh out loud or burst into a flood of tears. Initial stifled giggles turned into a bout of full on, sideclutching hilarity, while my mind and body traveled through time and space, completely weightless, unburdened, free. I was aware of Bridget and Bobby watching me with some degree of concern but there was no stopping myself.
“I’m floating,” I announced. “I’m light, so very light . . . ” Until I wasn’t — and the last thing I remember was crashing face down on the couch. At least one of them was kind enough to cover me with a warm blanket. Bridget, I’m sure.
At some point during supper, I’d apparently agreed to assist in the preparation of Bridget’s edibles. I’d had little else to do, besides, I guess I was curious to see what she was up to, to be of some small help in the measuring, mixing and making up of a batch of my newly enterprising sister’s chewy, chocolate, nut and pot granola bars, as well as her signature peanut butter ‘medible’ cookies and whatever the heck it was she’d described as her ‘special’ almond bars.
Chapter 8
Bridget
Bobby drove me into town, our weekly routine. Since I’d started treatment I’d felt weak and scatterbrained, nowhere near fit to take the wheel on the bumpy, waterlogged backcountry roads. In truth, his bar work had barely paid the bills. We both were hopin’ I’d figure out a way to make a little money out of this n
ew enterprise of mine.
“You ready, babe?” he asked. I sure as hell was not feelin’ like much of anyone’s babe but it was his way, bless his heart, to keep on with his kind words. Bobby never once flinched, the way I had at first when I’d stood myself in front of the bathroom mirror some time after my surgery. No offense, but I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been butchered like a farm animal, basically, no matter how skilled the surgeon — a walkin’, talkin’, Raggedy Ann bag of sewn-up skin and bones. And yet, darn it if Bobby didn’t look at me in the same dumb, lovesick way he always had. I’d gotten real lucky with my guy and I knew it. If he felt bad for me, he dug real deep. He took pains not to show it.
Bobby stepped up and hauled the basket off the countertop like it was light as a feather. I followed as he turned the door handle and nudged the door ajar with his big, ol’ broad shoulder, motionin’ his head for me to walk through before him, chivalry bein’ one of his strong points. Whatever you might say about Bobby and his country ways, he was ever the gentleman when it came to me.
As I have said, women like me were few and far between in the legitimate side of the cannabis business until recently, though times they are a changin’. I could never have gotten this far without Bobby’s help haulin’ my product to market. Enterprisin’ gals such as myself are really steppin’ it up with the launch of all manner of new cannabis-related businesses, not just here in my home state of California, but clear across the country. In time, you’ll see, what we’re doin’ is creatin’ a ton of decent payin’ jobs for hundreds of thousands more ordinary women just like me.
It’s a frickin’ wonder, breakin’ through the barriers of what was for the longest time one of the biggest of the white male dominated arenas. Keeps me motivated in the darker moments if you really wanna know. I’ve taken the sorts of risks I’d never have dared to go anyplace near before the cancer, before Mia took off. If pockets of the general public are still shit-scared of legalizin’ the pot market, hell, they should know, it’s the deeper pockets of the black market they should be afraid of. Anyhow, the way I look at it, from a purely personal point of view, now that the door is open, what’s the worst that can happen to me?
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