My hands might have been dirty, but I was only doing what was expected of me. What I agreed to do. What I was getting paid for.
Paid for. What I didn’t say to Loyal, and what I hope he didn’t see, was that the check for six hundred bucks, made out to yours truly, was tucked inside the note about the emergency in Mexico. I’ve never told Uncle Loyal I was getting paid for this trip, although he probably knew I was on the Barbara-and-Warren payroll. Anyway, I slid the envelope into my pants pocket, where it felt as though it weighed twenty pounds.
Barbara had also left directions in the envelope on how to get to Glad Tidings. It wasn’t far away.
“The journey’s not over, eh?” Uncle Loyal asks, and there was a hopeful sound to his question.
“No. Not yet. Not quite. I guess I take you to Glad Tidings.”
He looks pleased. “The trip isn’t done. Good. Very good. This road trip has been quite the experience for me. I have enjoyed it immensely. I’ll gladly go a few miles more with you.”
I start down the hill toward the town and the great lake. I can’t say I’m in a good mood. My thoughts are dark, and I’m not feeling too terrific about myself. I had been lured into making this trip by the promise of a quick cash infusion to support my dwindling finances.
I had done this for fast money.
And then things got complicated.
I ended up liking Loyal. I ended up liking him a lot. I ended up loving him. And that’s where everything got goofy. If I’d been able to keep this a simple cash transaction, service provided, service paid for, Business 101 class, if I’d been able to keep my emotions out of it, if Uncle Loyal had been a doddering old fool, then all of this would have been different.
But did I want it to be different? Would I have exchanged my experiences driving across the plains with Uncle Loyal, and then driving over the mountains, fishing, getting stuck, pitching my keys into the brush, seeing Yellowstone, and the other thousand small experiences for anything?
No. Not at all. So in one sense, maybe it all worked out as it was meant to.
But now we are at the end. He is going to spend the remainder of his days at Glad Tidings; I am going to head back to school, graduate next spring, and then start my career, whatever that meant. The end. The end of our road trip. And while I may not be a hundred-watt bulb, I am bright enough to know how easily we slip from one world to another, and how the bridges between people, while they’re hardly ever burned, do just rust away with time.
I am only half paying attention to Aunt Barbara’s instructions, but I knew we’re getting close. We cross South Davis, then Orchard Boulevard, continuing our downward direction. We’ll be there in five minutes if the instructions are right.
And then something hits me. It hits me with the force of an eight-on-the-Richter-scale earthquake. It seemed like a bright ball of light, pushed by a stiff wind, rolling right toward me from the mountains far to the west, across the lake, blasting up and slapping me across the face. Suddenly, the day is bright again. I feel an incredible surge of joy, a sense of rightness, a solution to the problem. I went from feeling as though I were the gallows master to feeling like an angel of light.
I pull the car off the side of the road, into a big-box store parking lot. My hands are trembling as I put the car in park. Uncle Loyal looks at me with a deep, gentle gaze, his eyebrows raised slightly in an unasked question.
“I’ve got it! I know what we should do! Why didn’t I think of this before?!”
“And what is your idea, if I may ask?”
“This is so cool.”
“Yes, I’m sure it is.”
“This is the best idea ever. I mean ever. In twenty-four years of thinking, this is it. My best idea ever. Did I say that? My crowning achievement. It is the answer.”
“The answer to what, Levi?”
“The answer to the problem. Your problem. My problem. This is what we need to do.”
“I am eager to hear what you have arrived at.”
“This is it. You move into my apartment this fall. We have a place with four bedrooms, and the last time I checked, only three were taken. You become,” and I pause for dramatic effect, “my roommate!”
He didn’t say anything. It was a funny moment, all right, in the big store’s parking lot, the engine running, traffic passing by, life passing by, and a solution to this ugly problem at hand. I hoped that Uncle Loyal would be as pumped about it as I was.
He isn’t.
“I’m not certain that would work,” he murmurs.
“Work? Of course it would work! This is so elegant. It answers everything! You become one of the guys, the buds, a dude. You stay at home and maybe keep the place looking good, and we come back at night and just hang. Like what we’ve been doing this last week. Only in a place with no wheels. It just goes on and on. It doesn’t change. A road trip without the road. You’d have a place to live. We could fish anytime we wanted. We could watch baseball on TV. Cable. We have cable, Uncle Loyal! There’s a nice trout stream ten minutes from town. And the girls—they’d really dig it with you there. You’d be everyone’s grandfather.”
I try to think of the right words to convey to him how perfect this would be. Loyal as my roommate. I search for the right phrase, the right words, the right intonation to sway him. “You’d be a chick magnet!”
Well, maybe it wasn’t a case of clear, convincing logic, but it was true. The girls would love Uncle Loyal. And if they loved him, maybe they’d love me if things didn’t work out with Rachel. Share the love, Uncle Loyal. Feel the love. We’d be unbeatable.
“I assume that means I would help you and your roommates secure dates with young ladies, eh?” he says.
“Yep. Bottom line. In a nutshell. That about sums it up.”
The words are gushing out of my mouth. The more I talk about it, the more I felt it was the right thing to do. Think of how cool it would be to take Loyal to church with me on Sundays. Of course, he would need to go to a real ward most of the time, and not a student ward, but he could drop in occasionally. He’d be right there for me, my roommates, for all of us. And it would be a lot cheaper for him to live with us than at the Glad Tidings Assisted Living Home. All the angles were covered. It all felt so good, and since I was a three-year-old in Primary, I’d been taught about feeling good and doing the right thing. This nailed them both.
“Do you see it, Uncle Loyal? This would work. I think Barbara would even go for it too. You’d still be close to her.”
My words hang still in the air. Only a few seconds go by, but it seems like an hour. I can see Uncle Loyal thinking about what I had said. I could tell he was considering it. I understood that the whole notion is interesting to him. He was seriously trying to figure out if it would work.
“It feels right,” I say slowly, quietly, trying to close the deal.
Finally he turns toward me. There we are in the dirty red car, hardly recognizable from the flashy, souped-up vehicle I had rolled down his old street in North Dakota. So much had changed. I am a different person than the one who picked him up a week ago.
Uncle Loyal’s eyes are sad, and his chin seems to quiver. “I’m sorry, Levi. I can’t. I just can’t. It would upset so many things. But you’ll never know how much you honor me to even suggest this thing. How I have loved these days on the road with you. How I have learned to respect and love you.”
No, no, no! This was it. This was our answer. I tell Uncle Loyal just that.
Again, silence, as all that wisdom rattles around in his head and he carefully selects his words.
“It just won’t work out, Levi. I am sorry. So terribly sorry. The age difference . . .” and he stops for a few seconds. “Well, it just would not be the way you envision. It is so complicated. Barbara and Warren have selected a place for me. Now, I must go to it.”
“Can you think about it? If you don’t like this Glad Tidings joint, call me, let me know. I can come up in a heartbeat and break you out of there. You know I will. You kno
w it.”
“Yes, I do. I know that. What a measure of a friendship, to unconditionally help another. I know that there are few things you wouldn’t do for me. And I for you.”
The traffic is heavier. I want to stay right there, in the big-box store parking lot, where we are at least out of the flow. I have no desire to get back into the thick rush of things, the race, the competition, the rocky road ahead on my way to become . . . to become something and someone to make my mark in the world, even if it were a tiny smudge. But what did Uncle Loyal teach me, what did he say? You gain more by wanting less. That we all could be photographers. That peace and contentment are gifts. That tiny things really are big things.
If I am a smudge, I’m going to be a happy smudge and do my part well.
It was Loyal who finally said it.
“I think it’s time that we press on. It would be wonderful to get to Glad Tidings before daylight leaves us.”
I can see my choices are limited. We could spend the night stuck in the mountains, we could spend the night off to the side of the road, but we can’t spend the night in a parking lot in Bountiful, minutes from the Glad Tidings terrace.
“If we have to.”
“I think we do. We must. But I want you to remember this. I was tempted. Sorely tempted to take you up on your kind offer,” Uncle Loyal says softly. “I believe I would have relished, as you said it, being a chick magnet, a role that I have never been cast in. And at my age. A delightful thought, Levi. Simply wondrous.”
I put the road-weary red car into gear and, less than three minutes later, spot the long, curving driveway of the Glad Tidings Assisted Living facility. The grounds are filled with blooming rose bushes, grass that is still mostly green, and a few tall trees. It looks well kept and, considering what it is, somewhat inviting.
“We’re home,” I say glumly.
It’s a three-story building, painted white, with long rows of square windows. Some of the rooms at the top have little balconies outside a sliding glass door. The building itself faces to the south—I guess good for sunshine in the winter, but it was clear Uncle Loyal would not have much of a view of the mountains or of the lake.
“Yes, home,” he says softly. “We might as well go in.”
We pull up under the overhang at the front of the building. We climb out of the car and pass through the automatic sliding glass doors. To our right is a desk with a receptionist. She looks up at us and says, “Good evening. May I help you?” Her name tag reads, “Heather.”
Uncle Loyal looks around the lobby, taking it all in. Then he focuses on Heather and says what I knew he would say.
“My name is Loyal. I believe arrangements have been made through my daughter, Barbara Bates, for me to take up residence here.”
“Oh. Okay. Let me see. Your name again?”
“Loyal. I am Loyal.”
“Excuse me. Loyal?”
“Yes, Loyal.”
“Will you be staying with us tonight?”
Uncle Loyal looks around at the lobby again. Lots of plastic ferns and flowers, and big prints of children playing or walking near a pond. A huge aquarium with brightly colored, vacuous fish idly swimming. A natural-gas fireplace, and even on a warm August evening, the small flame flickers yellow and blue. The light is subdued. Elevator music hums aimlessly through speakers in the ceiling. I see a line of wheelchairs near the entrance to a large room, probably where the residents eat their meals. Heather, the woman helping us, is clean, polite, and I think, somewhat mean-hearted, and likely made mostly of synthetic material. Her smile was so big that her toes must have been curling. The aroma in the lobby is an off-the-shelf concoction, smelling only a little like oranges, more of antiseptic.
This is as far away from the plains of North Dakota as you could get.
I would have given anything for a blast of icy wind at that moment. Or even a jaw-dropping rattler of a thunderstorm. I would cheer the sight of a funnel cloud.
“Yes. I’ll be staying,” Uncle Loyal says, then, drawing in his breath, and with what I believe to this moment was a forced smile, he adds, “This is my new home.”
“Let me make a call and have someone show you to your new room.” She efficiently pushes a button on the desk console and says quietly, “William, we have a new resident at the front desk. Can you come and help him find his way?”
I guess I don’t remember much about the next hour or so. Maybe I chose not to remember. I do know that my heart broke a little more each minute I was there. William came, tan, dressed in a blue uniform, grinned a glittering grin, and welcomed us. We went to the car and grabbed Uncle Loyal’s belongings. A lifetime, I thought, and this is what it comes down to. Boxes and a pair of suitcases. Everything he needed, really. Loyal is a simple man.
William showed us Uncle Loyal’s room, and about all I recall of it was that it was painted in neutral tones and seemed bland. Uncle Loyal exchanged pleasant chatter with William, who was just a little too slick for my tastes. Soon we are back on the elevator on our way down, and Loyal, true to form, is more worried about me than himself.
“I’ll be fine here,” Uncle Loyal says placidly. “Just fine. The people seem nice. I’ll get along well, I believe. Perhaps I will make new friends.”
“Yeah. Sure. You will. You’re Loyal. How could you not?”
He looks directly at my face. He seems to be studying me as though trying to figure out what I’m thinking. And for the first time on the trip, he starts to say something, stops, starts again, and gets tangled in his words.
I think, Sometimes you don’t need to talk to have a conversation.
The music gushes from the sound system. Violins. Syrupy and sweet.
“I cannot . . .” his voice sounds as dry as a plains wind blowing through a field of cornstalks. “Thank you, Levi, for the last week. You are that shooting star in my life. What an adventure. Our very own road trip. I will cherish the experience forever.”
“So will I. It’s been . . .” What am I trying to say? Think, Levi. Keep it simple. Okay. It comes down to this. Nothing more than this, and all of this, at the same time. “I’ve made a friend, Uncle Loyal. A good friend. That doesn’t happen too often in this life. I know that already.”
We stand in front of the fireplace, the soft heat rising. This is it. This is the good-bye. This is what I have been dreading, what I have been fighting for almost two thousand miles. The very horrible moment of separation.
“You need to push ahead, I suspect. Your parents have missed you and may be worried. Barbara will check in with me later. I will be well, Levi. And you need to find out if your world lights up when you see a certain young lady. Eh?”
“I know. Maybe Rachel is the one.”
“No worries?”
“No,” I lie. Honestly, I am worried about everything.
And I mean everything.
School, career, people, Rachel, family, and certainly, not least of all, Uncle Loyal. I needed something to tie it all down. Something to help me make sense of all of this.
I hold out my hand, and Uncle Loyal clasps it warmly. I am surprised, although I shouldn’t have been, at the firmness of his grip. He is a man of the plains, after all, strong because of the wind and broiling sun and cutting blizzards. Strong because of his experience, what he knew, what he understood. Strong because of his wisdom, and strong because he was not only a man of the plains but a plain man.
His was a life of simple, plain, pure beauty. The way I now understood I wanted mine to turn out. I also want to be a beautifully plain man. Can you be a plain man and a shooting star at the same time? I think so. It doesn’t sound possible, but I think it can be done. Maybe one comes because of the other. Maybe they are linked.
He lowers his head and says, “Good-bye, Levi. My best wishes to you, always. My brotherly love to you, always. All will be well, eh?”
“Good-bye, Loyal.” I step away from him and walk a couple of steps.
“Levi,” he calls. “Do you know what yo
ur name means in Hebrew? It means joined.”
I look back at him and nod. Joined. I thought of all the miles we drove together. How fitting. How right, because through this incredible trip, we had become joined, as any two people must be who travel over long, hard roads together. It was the last piece of wisdom that Loyal imparted to me. Then I turn slowly and walk toward the glass doors. Eh.
I did not turn around to look back again. I could not.
I thought of all I had seen and experienced on this journey. I thought of the thunder, the lightning, of Evelyn, of Libby and her broken-down old boyfriend. I thought of Glenn and what a fine man he must have been. I thought of Daisy and how Loyal loved her. I thought of Jason and Marty and the three firefighters who pulled us out of the mud. I thought of the thuggy people in the bar and how they also had something to give. I thought of all the faces of all the people we stopped to help. And it hits me again: all of them crossed my path for a reason. I understood that it’s not a short trip here and there, but a long and sometimes dangerous journey and we need to help each other, belong to each other, to arrive at our destinies. None of us can stand alone.
I thought of all those things and more, and then I arrive at the desk.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the envelope. Heather looks up at me, a question in her eyes. I had one of my own.
“Do you have a shredder?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Would you mind running this through for me?”
“Not at all. I’ll take care of it right now.”
And the zazzing of the machine eating the envelope, check inside, sounds to me like freedom.
I thought of what was ahead of me. Studies and books and exams, places to go, acquaintances to make. Appointments to keep. Meetings and responsibilities. Men and women with fancy and impressive degrees and credentials, all climbing up, ever up, in a restless search for a false peace, using one another as objects, mere objects. Appearances and more appearances and then thinking even more about appearances. The shoulder-sagging worries about impressions and saying the right thing and being seen in the right places. The specter of ambition and pride and greed and having so much yet still wanting more was so real that I could feel it, see it, touch it if I wanted, as it beckoned me with a long, thin, bony hand.
Road to Bountiful Page 19