I wanted to tell her all of this, that the song had gotten to me, but it wasn’t over yet, and I had a funny catch in the back of my throat, besides. When it did finally end, the last notes still ringing in my ears over the thrum of the airplane, I took the headphones off and handed them back with a smile.
“Did you like it?”
“I liked it,” I said. “You were right. They get it.”
Ashleigh grinned. “I told you.”
“Yeah, I just didn’t listen.”
About two hours into the trip, the movie started. I hadn’t expected anything worth watching, and my low expectations were rewarded with a “tear-jerking” romantic comedy about a cocky womanizer who finally meets his match in a spunky single mother whose bug-eyed, camera-mugging offspring happens to be a basketball prodigy who may or may not be able to talk to cats. Or at least that’s what it appeared to be about without sound. Ashleigh clapped her hands eagerly and jammed her headphones into the armrest. I sighed and flipped through my book. Rulon Barber had a golly-gee-whiz tone to his writing but managed to cram a number of interesting facts into each sentence. I read about Brigham Young’s settling of Salt Lake City in 1867 with the words “this is the right place,” the state’s pride in its rapidly expanding population, and the light-rail system that connects the University of Utah with downtown. I glanced at the annual calendar in the front of the book and saw that every Fourth of July weekend something called the Northern Ute Pow-Wow was held in someplace called Fort Duchesne. Barber called it “one of the biggest pow-wows in the West.” Big words, Rulon, I thought. It’s a shame I’ll have to miss it. I read on from Barber’s overheated introduction:
From its gold-kissed and sandy deserts to the lapping shores of the Great Salt Lake, Utah, boxy and proud, may well be the most splendiferous state in the union…Founded on a dream, cultivated by a promise, Utah faces the twenty-first century strong in its faith, proud of its heritage, excited for its limitless future. Verily and truly, this is the place!
I tut-tutted and closed the cover. Easy on the exclamation points, Rulon. You’re providing a service, not selling mattresses. I checked out Barber’s photo on the back of the book and found pretty much what I expected: middle-aged man in a crew cut with a neck as thick as his head wearing aviator shades and a shit-eating grin. Ah, Rulon, I thought. It’s the glamorous writer’s life for us, isn’t it?
Still, I had nothing better to do and no love for crossword puzzles, so I read on, trying my best to familiarize myself with the LDS Church, which so thoroughly dominated the state. I did some due diligence on Brigham Young University, where Ashleigh’s parents thought she was spending the weekend. It was located about sixty miles to the south of Salt Lake in the town of Provo and sounded like the least collegiate university in America: There was no drinking, no smoking, no caffeine, and no fraternizing with the opposite sex. Seeing how those were the four pillars of most people’s higher education, I was at a loss trying to imagine what being a student there would entail. I imagined there was a lot of studying. And masturbation.
Throughout the movie, Ashleigh laughed uproariously and occasionally shook my arm to draw my attention to the screen. I just smiled and nodded. For such an unhappy person, she certainly laughed a lot. The stewardess had taken a shine to us ever since she’d found out we were “engaged,” so she kept Ashleigh flush with Dr. Pepper and me flush with Amstel Light. Eventually, I even managed to doze off.
I woke up an hour or so before we landed when a passing thunderstorm caused a neck-snapping bout of turbulence. It reminded me of the roller coaster from the morning, the same dipping and slipping, the same churning sensation in the pit of my gut. Ashleigh didn’t take it well, clamping her lower lip firmly underneath her teeth and making a worried, mewling sound. She turned up the volume on her Discman, grabbed my arm, and buried her face in it. As always, traveling with a nervous flyer made me more calm. It had always been that way. Being cast in the role of the brave one made me try harder to live up to it. I stroked Ashleigh’s arm in what I hoped was a paternal way and waited for the bumpiness to stop.
I don’t know for sure what I was expecting to see when we stepped off the jetway and into Salt Lake City International Airport, but I suppose the image in my mind was something between a John Wayne movie and the Rapture. What greeted us instead was an airport, no different from the one we had left five-plus hours before. The same newsstands, the same crappy theme restaurants. Even the same Grovestand health-food kiosk selling what looked to be the same decades-old mixed nuts. The typical American mass-transit innocuous inoculation. I yawned and stretched and watched Ashleigh’s bag while she went to the bathroom.
It was seven p.m. local time. Through the windows I could see a fiery sun just beginning its descent on what I took to be the western horizon. Unlike JFK, the airport was positively bustling, with wide-waisted families plodding in every possible direction. One clearly related crew all sporting matching leather cowboy hats—even the toddler in the stroller—was the only real sign that we had crossed into the West.
“I can’t believe I’m back.” Ashleigh took her backpack from me and finished drying her hands on her sky-blue jeans.
“I can’t believe I’m here,” I said.
“What? It’s a nice airport.”
“An oxymoron.” We started walking toward the baggage claim where Krystal was due to meet us. We rode the moving walkways and stared at the Tribute to the American Indian photo exhibit that lined the walls. Near the security check was a store called West of Brooklyn. “You’re kidding me,” I said to Ashleigh, gesturing toward it.
“I thought of you yesterday when I passed by it,” she said.
“Why would they call a store that?”
“Why not? It’s accurate, isn’t it?”
“Well, technically.” I glanced inside as we passed by: just the usual assortment of beauty magazines, paperweights, and oversize wolf T-shirts. Why did stores continue to sell wolf T-shirts? Did anyone actually wear them? “We’re west of a lot of things,” I said. “St. Louis, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur…”
“Maybe it’s a tribute to you.”
“Huh,” I said. “Maybe.”
Down in the heavily air-conditioned baggage claim there was no sign of Krystal—though no shortage of people who could legitimately be named Krystal.
“Do you think she’s on her way?” I asked, starting to get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Maybe.” Ashleigh, was back in full-on deer mode, her eyes wide and darting around the crowd. “Oh gosh, that guy is totally from our church!”
“What? Where?”
Ashleigh darted behind me and lifted up the hood on her sweatshirt. “The guy! The blond guy!”
My eyes scanned the entire length and breadth of the baggage-claim hall trying to pinpoint the exact blond “guy” who had Ashleigh so agitated. That was probably when I first noticed: all the guys were blond guys. There was a creepy monotony to the face of every adult male around us: freshly scrubbed, apple-cheeked, hair perfectly coiffed, and a shiny blue, matte finish to the eyes that made it look like either the pupils were made out of glass or kept under a protective coating of it. Still, I tried to act reassuring, and I let my vision settle on a harried-looking fellow who was making his way through the revolving doors. “Don’t worry,” I said as his proud blond mane disappeared into a waiting cab. “Um, he’s gone.”
“He is?” Ashleigh peeked around from behind me.
“I think so.”
I must have picked the correct head of hair, because Ashleigh seemed genuinely relieved. “That was close! I’m gonna go call Krys’s cell phone. She should be here by now.”
“OK,” I said. And while I waited, I flipped through some more of Rulon’s choice passages:
Nestled into the warm embrace of the Wasatch Mountains is Salt Lake City, the state capital and a shining gateway for hundreds of thousands en route to a better life. Salt Lake City is also the spiritual and physical home to
the glorious LDS Church, situated in the beating heart of downtown, Temple Square. Walk through the handsomely paved square and greet the fresh-faced missionaries stationed there, tour the actual home built by Brigham Young for one of his families, and hear the wondrous voices of the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir lift your soul—and your quickly beating heart—straight up to heaven with their majestic song.
Phew. I was tired just reading all of that. Still, it did seem pretty—and more than a little interesting. It was a shame that I wasn’t going to be able to see any of this city that I had just paid a fortune to fly to. Oh, well. Maybe another time.
But then I caught sight of Ashleigh walking back toward me, a warily apologetic half-smile on her face. And I wondered if I wasn’t going to get a chance to prove Rulon wrong after all.
“She had to go to the dentist?”
Ashleigh was explaining to me why Krystal wasn’t at the airport and wouldn’t, in fact, be coming to the airport at all. But it was taking an inordinate amount of time to sink in.
“Yes.” Ashleigh chewed her fingernail thoughtfully.
“Because she hurt herself.”
“No, because her brother hurt himself.”
“In the teeth.”
“Yeah.” She tried to smile. “In the teeth.”
“Why would anyone try to skateboard on their hands?”
“There’s not that much to do here.”
“I guess not.” I rubbed my forehead. “But really he should have tried to land on something other than his mouth.”
Ashleigh shook her head. “He’s an idiot.”
“Well, he’s screwed us, that’s for sure. How are we going to get you home?” Ashleigh flashed me her pony-buying pout. “Aw, man…”
It was surprisingly easy to rent a car in Salt Lake City, and if the people at the emergency credit card company minded this sudden flurry of activity, they didn’t let me or the twenty-year-old ski bum manning the counter know about it. I had walked the length of rental-car hall—located across the street from the terminal—watching the names go from classy to ashy. Thrifty. Budget. Dollar. I had peeked around a corner looking for Busted, Cheap-Ass, or Broke, but, not seeing them, had settled for Dollar. After declining the insurance in triplicate, I walked with Ashleigh out the back door into a sweltering garage full of bland rental vehicles, most of which were outfitted with racks and hooks for ski equipment. All the license plates said “Utah!” just like my guidebook, and I shook my head. The only state in the union that felt the need to stick on an exclamation point right after its name for extra flash, and I was stuck in it.
“What’d we get? A convertible?”
Ashleigh seemed determined to milk every possible drop of fun out of this strange little adventure before she made it back home. She skipped at my heels like a wound-up puppy. “No, we didn’t get a convertible. I think I’ve spent enough money today.”
“Is it an SUV?”
“No, it’s not an SUV.” I shook my head and tried to navigate a clear path to space K-26.
“My parents drive an SUV. It’s an Escalade. I told them it was bad for the earth but they told me that Utah highways are bad for their peace of mind.”
“Uh-huh.” I stopped short as someone who clearly had shelled out extra for a red Mustang convertible gunned his way past us toward the exit.
“I know I’m not supposed to like it, but it’s pretty cool to sit that high up all the time.”
“Here we go.” Parked glumly in space K-26 was a beige hump of an automobile so devoid of personality it was hard to tell where it ended and the asphalt began. The inside fixtures were oversize and over-rounded black plastic, and there was a prim little American-flag decal affixed to the rear window. The Ford Tempo, pride of the Dollar fleet. “C’mon,” I said. “Hop in.”
Ashleigh face fell. “Ew.”
“Ashleigh, it’s not very punk-rock to care about cars.”
She stuck her tongue out at me. “I’m not punk rock. I’m emo. And this car breaks my fragile heart.” But she pulled open the door and hopped in anyway, which relieved me to no end.
It takes about fifteen seconds after exiting the rental-car parking garage at the Salt Lake City airport to realize—officially and definitively—that you are in the American West. Nowhere else is that flat, first of all. The single snaking roadway in front of us felt like a random squiggly line drawn on an otherwise blank canvas. All around us was dark nothingness with a sprinkling of hard bright lights in the distance. The other dead giveaway was the sign that said DOWNTOWN, TAKE EXIT 1 A. Only out here, in the land of boxy city maps and endless space, could a functioning international airport be located so close to the heart of downtown. I squinted in the nearly gone light and shifted lanes. As I did so, I caught the faintest glimpse of the ridiculous mountain ranges that hemmed in the horizon on all sides. They were craggy and snow-capped even now, and I felt their presence all around me even when the sun dipped farther and I could no longer make them out. They lurked and loomed, like uncapped teeth poised for a vicious, one-sided bite. I could see what Ashleigh meant about having them around all the time. They gave me the creeps.
Ashleigh was fiddling with the radio. “Hey,” I said. “So where do you live, anyway? And please tell me it’s close.”
She looked up. “It’s not that far, don’t worry. It’s like, a suburb?”
“OK,” I said. “A suburb. Where do I go?”
“Get off here and head into town,” she said. “My parents are going to be out until like ten or eleven tonight. They have meetings at the church. We could drive past Temple Square and, like, get something to eat.”
I steered the car toward the exit ramp, the red glow of brake lights shining in my retinas. “Are you sure? I’d kind of feel better if I just dropped you safely at home. I don’t want to push it.”
“Come on! You’re on vacation. Let’s just go for a quick tour around. It’ll be fun, I promise. I don’t want you to get caught either.”
I sighed. Some vacation. But what the hell—Rulon had gotten me all in a tizzy about Salt Lake, so I figured I might as well see what all his fuss was about. “OK,” I said. “But quickly.”
Ashleigh clapped her hands and slid a CD from her bag into the car stereo. Jagged, jangly orchestral rock poured out of the speakers.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s the Used,” she said, twisting the air conditioner up higher and rolling her seat back. “They’re from here, so I figured they’d make good backing music.”
The song that spilled out into the space between us was pompous and catchy, and it seemed somehow fitting. The perfectly skewed accompaniment to a truly bizarre evening. The highway ended abruptly, and soon we were on a four-lane strip that could have been the road to Anytown, Anywhere. Roast-beef take-out joints, cheap motels, and expensive gas stations lined my vision. Billboards advertised smooth country radio stations and more divorce attorneys than I figured there could possibly be divorces in such a God-fearing state. As we waited for a light, Ashleigh squealed. “Oooooh, gosh, there’s my dad.”
My heart did a cliff dive. “What? Where?”
Ashleigh didn’t seem too phased. “Up there.” She leaned forward and pointed straight up. I followed her gaze to a billboard perched over the traffic light, which read TIRED? OVERWEIGHT? UNDERAPPRECIATED? GET BORTCHED! There was a phone number, a list of addresses, and an elephantine, airbrushed image of a slick, smiling blond guy like the ones we had seen at the airport, the gleam of his white teeth matching the polish on his cheeks and the dead-eyed enthusiasm of his gaze. Underneath the ghoulish head were the words ROGER BORTCH, FOUNDER AND CEO, BORTCH PHYSICAL WELLNESS CENTERS.
An angry honk from a truck behind me snapped me out of my reverie and through the green light. Ashleigh turned up the volume on the stereo, and I leaned forward and wheeled it back down again. “Holy shit,” I said.
“Hey, I was listening to that!” Ashleigh leaned forward to turn the volume back up, but I
beat her to it and snapped the entire thing off. “Hey!”
“‘Get Bortched’?” I glanced over at Ashleigh, who had her arms crossed in front of her chest. “‘Get Bortched’?”
“He’s really proud of that. He thinks it’s what made him so successful.” She turned her head toward the window. “I think it sounds gross. So does Mom. But he won’t listen.”
“Ashleigh, if that man finds out that I have his precious daughter, he’s going to Bortch me until I can’t walk anymore.”
“He’s not gonna find out.”
I clenched and unclenched my fingers on the wheel. “Jesus, let’s hope not.” We drove in silence for a while, following the signs for Temple Square. “You never told me he was such a big deal.”
“He has four rehab clinics and an ad on local morning TV. That’s not that big a deal.”
“Still,” I said. “That’s a pretty big billboard. His head is ginormous.”
“It is in real life, too.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s great.” Ashleigh put her feet up on the dash. “He cares so much about his precious little ‘centers.’ They’re like his real kids.”
I was still preoccupied with visions of what being Bortched by Roger would entail. One should never mess with the progeny of physical-fitness freaks. “So is he really buff or something?”
Ashleigh pushed air through her teeth, making a dismissive, whistling sound. “Oh, he benches like three-fifty, but he’s never even gotten in a fight.”
Miss Misery Page 23