Becoming Chloe

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Only sometimes they’re not.

  Dear Dr. Reynoso. It’s not always as easy as it was with you.

  Chloe is standing beside the truck, saying goodbye to the baby. Little Maria. She’s practicing that look. That loving-beaming thing. She still can’t get over that look.

  Carlos pulls me aside and stuffs a piece of paper in my hand with their phone number.

  “If you’re ever in Kentucky again,” he says, “give us a call.”

  But I know we won’t be. And even if we were, we wouldn’t call. If we did, they’d learn more about us and we’d learn more about them. I’d start wanting to sleep with Carlos and they’d start wanting to study the Bible with us.

  “Absolutely,” I say. “I will. Now please let me give you twenty for gas.”

  “Nope. Don’t even try.”

  “Hang on a minute,” I say. “What size are you? Stand back to back with me for a minute.”

  He does. Our shoulders seem about the same height and width. So I take off the coat and give it to him.

  “You’re kidding,” he says.

  “Please take it, Carlos. I don’t even want it anymore.”

  It’s a relief to watch it drive away. I don’t realize how much I don’t want it until I watch it drive away. I throw away the phone number, just to make sure I never get it back.

  The next ride we get is from a lady wearing two big puffy ski parkas. One right over the other, even though it’s really not all that cold. But we climb in, because we figure she just chills easily or whatever.

  But then I notice that she has about five Fleet enemas sitting on the dashboard. Right in their boxes. She also has three troll dolls pasted to the dash, way over in the corner near the passenger-side window. When I lean forward to get a closer look, I notice she has about twelve more Fleet enemas on the seat beside her. Some are the saline kind and others the mineral oil.

  “Don’t get too close to the trolls,” she says.

  I sit back as fast as I can. She tells us that the trolls ward off evil spirits, but as a by-product of cleansing the evil as it comes into the car, the evil gets stuck in the trolls, and if you get too close it can jump into your body and take over.

  “Okay,” I say. “Good to know. Thanks for the warning.”

  We ride for about twenty miles in silence. Then she sees a gas station out in the middle of nowhere. “I gotta take a whiz,” she says.

  We off-load all our stuff while she does. We hide out around behind the station, waiting for her to drive away.

  She calls for us a couple times first. “You coming or not?” she yells. “Huh? What’s it gonna be?” Then, “Okay. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.”

  “Okay,” I say quietly, for only Chloe to hear. “Thanks for the warning.”

  Chloe and I are standing out on the highway, waiting for a car to go by. So we can stick our thumbs out. We have so much stuff. I didn’t realize how much stuff we had until there was no truck to carry it all. Two duffel bags, a backpack, and a sleeping bag each.

  We’ve gotten two good, long rides so far, and all it’s gotten us is out in the middle of nowhere again. I’m pretty sure we’re still in Kentucky. The air is cool but the sun is hot, and we’ve been waiting for an hour and haven’t seen a single car. Finally we see a van off in the distance. I stick out my thumb and think how awful it will be if this van doesn’t stop. What if it’s an hour between each car and nobody stops? We’re going to have to change this pretty-back-road pattern now that we’re hitchhiking. We’re going to have to stay on the big roads.

  The van stops for us.

  The driver is a guy in his late forties, with the best chest and arm development I think I’ve ever seen, at least in person. He’s wearing a T-shirt, and his biceps are actually stretching out the sleeves. He doesn’t get out or even reach over to let us in. He just indicates to us that we should open the side door of the van. We do, and we pile in all our stuff and climb in. There’s nothing in the back except three beat-up-looking old bicycles. No seats. No seats at all except the driver’s seat. Not even a passenger seat. Where the passenger seat should be, there’s a half-folded wheelchair. I look at the driver again. His legs look like they belong on a ten-year-old.

  “Randy Banyan,” he says, and thrusts one hand out, which I shake. “Where can I take you folks? First of all, where you been and where you going? If you don’t mind my asking. I love hearing where people are going.”

  “We came all the way from Connecticut,” Chloe says. “By way of Niagara Falls.”

  “That’s a strange route.”

  “Well,” I say, “the idea is not to get where we’re going fast. More to see the country.”

  “Seeing the country. Boy. Can’t say I don’t envy you that. Not that I don’t get around. I still speed-race twenty miles every morning after my workout. But cross-country, that’s another thing altogether. I may still someday. So, you’re headed where?”

  “The ocean,” Chloe says. “Somewhere we can ride horses on the beach.”

  “Big Sur, California,” Randy says.

  “You can ride horses on the beach there?”

  “I’m not saying it’s the only place, but I know you can. My son just went on a vacation with his wife and my two-year-old grandson, and they sent me pictures of themselves riding horses on the beach at Big Sur. And you know, if you’re going to see the ocean, you really ought to see Big Sur, California. One of the prettiest spots on God’s earth. Ever been there?”

  “No, we never saw that,” Chloe says. “And I really like seeing things I’ve never seen before. Beautiful things.”

  “Then you definitely have to go to Big Sur.”

  “We’re just not really sure how to get places anymore,” Chloe says. “Our truck broke down and we had to sell it.”

  “Bicycle,” Randy says.

  “Bicycle?” we both say at once.

  “Bicycle,” he says. “Can’t beat it. Great exercise, cheapest travel there is. Let you see the country in a way you never would zipping through it in a car. I own a bike shop about thirty miles up the road. That’s all I do. Bikes. I go all around and pick up old bikes that people throw out. Oh, I sell new bikes and bike parts, too. But I really like fixing up the old ones. It’s like bringing something back to life. Sometimes I sell them and sometimes I give them away to the sheriff’s department and they give them to kids that can’t afford bikes.” While he’s talking I’m watching him drive and realizing he does it all with his hands. The gas and the brake are both levers he can control with his hands. “If you wanted a couple of bikes, I’d let you have them for just what it costs me to fix them up. Just the cost of the new tires, mostly. Bearings and brake cables and such only cost a couple dollars. It really doesn’t cost much to fix up a bike if you know what you’re doing.”

  Chloe says, “I’d like to ride a bike all the way to the Grand Canyon, Jordy.”

  “I don’t know, Chlo. That sounds hard.”

  “Nah, it’s not hard,” Randy says. “You’re both young, you’re in good shape. Ride a little, rest a little. Set a nice easy pace. You said yourself you’re in no hurry.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Come on by the shop, I’ll show you what I got. We’ll see if it’s right for you or not.”

  * * *

  The first thing we notice is the cats. The bike shop has a low stone wall out front with two cats sleeping on it. One curled and neat, one sprawled and disorderly. Neither one so much as opens an eye as we lug ourselves and all our earthly belongings by.

  Then, once we’re inside, I notice there are more cats. Maybe more than a dozen more. And of course Chloe has noticed the cats, too. She’s scratching a calico under the chin, and two half-grown gray kittens rise, stretch, and prepare to go investigate Chloe further.

  “I like your cats,” Chloe says. “How many cats do you have?”

  “Lots,” Randy says. He wheels in behind us. “More than twenty. Probably less than twenty-five. But give it time. Th
ey come and go as they please, so just try to keep count.”

  Chloe and I pet cats while Randy shows me some good used bikes. I notice he has snug leather gloves with no fingers for handling the wheels of that chair.

  “These two here, I’d let them go for fifty bucks for the pair.”

  “For both?”

  “Yeah, I told you, it doesn’t cost me hardly anything to fix them up. I don’t even buy these bikes, I find them lying around. People give them to me. The frames are always good, they just need a good going over. True the wheels, new tires, brake shoes, brake cables, new bearings all around. They don’t look like much but it’s just as dependable as a pretty new bike. Maybe not quite as light and fast, but it’ll get you there.”

  “But we have so much stuff.”

  “I got trailers. Bike trailers, one for each. Won’t hold all that stuff. But hey, I got some really crappy old saddlebags, too. Look like hell, I could never sell ’em. They’re yours. Two trailers, two sets of saddlebags. You could probably take two-thirds of what you’ve got now.”

  It’s hard to imagine giving up one-third of our meager stuff. Then again, it’s hard to imagine walking or hitchhiking with even half of it. Mostly, it’s hard to imagine riding a bicycle all the way to the Grand Canyon, or the Pacific Ocean. What about the mountains?

  While I’m thinking, Randy is plowing through a storage bin looking for saddlebags. He throws one set over his shoulder into the middle of the shop. Dives in after the others.

  “I don’t know,” I say, “about trying to bike there. I’m worried about those mountains.”

  Randy’s hands stop moving, just for one beat. The look in his eyes changes, like he just left the room. Just for a second, he’s looking past everything that Chloe and I can see. Chloe notices, too. She takes her hand off the latest cat. She’s watching so intensely. It flashes through my head that I’ll look at her notebook later and see she’s written “Randy’s eyes.”

  In the good column.

  Then Randy speaks, breaking his own reverie slightly. “The mountains,” he says. “You’re going to the mountains.”

  “I don’t see that we have much choice,” I say. “How do you get to the West Coast without going over the Rocky Mountains?”

  “Oh, it can be done, if you’re willing to dip far enough south, squiggle around a bit. The better question would be, why would you want to?”

  “You don’t think we’re crazy trying to pedal over a mountain?”

  “I’d think you were crazy if you had the chance and passed it up. People bike those mountains all the time. They’re gentle mountains. There are roads over them. It’s not Everest. By the time you get from here to there you’ll be in plenty good shape.”

  A tabby cat brushes against my leg, arching his back. I reach down to scratch him and his tail end rises to meet my hand. “I worry that our timing will be exactly wrong. We don’t want to hit the Rocky Mountains in the middle of winter.”

  “Sure you do,” he says. “Of course you do. Afraid of a little cold? Don’t be. Just bundle up. Best season of the year in the mountains, the winter. Second best would be the fall. But you’ll miss that anyway. Whatever you do, don’t go in the spring. Spring in the mountains they call mud season. All the runoff from that melting snow. Half the time the roads are impassable and the rest of the time they’re just a mess. And you don’t want to go in the summer because of the thunderstorms. No, you’ll be up there at a great time. You won’t be sorry. Where’re you thinking of crossing over?”

  “We’re not sure,” I say. “Maybe you can suggest something. You seem to know the mountains pretty well.”

  Randy is putting a trailer and saddlebags on one of the bikes now. He turns the chair around, and before he can wheel it back to his tool kit, a black cat jumps up onto his lap and takes the ride with him.

  It occurs to me that I haven’t exactly said yes yet, but it’s all just happening anyway.

  “There’s not a mountain over twelve thousand feet in the contiguous United States I haven’t stood on top of. I’m proud to say.”

  “So where do you think we should go?”

  “Straight,” he says. “You’re in a hurry to get up there before the thaw, so go straight. Don’t bother going north into Colorado like everybody always does. Can if you want, but it’ll only set back your time. They got Rocky Mountains in New Mexico, too, you know. The Sangre de Cristo range. And if you go due west from here, maybe bow just a little bit south, like you’re headed for Big Sur, you’ll find out yourself how pretty they are. You’ll end up around the Taos and Santa Fe area. If you get a chance, stop in a pretty little town called Angel Fire. I spent a month there once. One winter.”

  I’m pretty sure Chloe is off in her own world, which is a cat world. She has seven of them now, all clustered around her, sniffing and rubbing against her and purring. But when she hears about Angel Fire, she comes back to us. “Angel Fire,” she says. It’s like she’s rolling the words around in her head and then testing them out. “I can’t believe there’s a place called Angel Fire.”

  “It’s a ski resort town,” he says. “A little commercial in the winter. A little busy. But it’s right next door to the Carson National Forest. Now that’s the mountains. That’s undeveloped wilderness. You want to climb a mountain, climb Wheeler Peak. Highest peak in New Mexico. Once you’re in Angel Fire, it’s the mountain next door.”

  “Jordy, we have to go there,” Chloe says. “I want to go to Angel Fire.”

  “Ever been to the mountains?” Randy asks Chloe.

  “No, never,” she says. “And I really like seeing things I’ve never seen before.”

  “You’ll love it up there,” he says. “I know you will. You’re a mountain person. I can see it in your eyes. You’ll get up there and you’ll never want to leave again.”

  That look crosses his eyes again. We both catch it.

  When he’s all done with the bikes he charges us a grand total of seventy-five dollars for the whole deal. I feel a little disappointed, because now we have to go.

  “I guess we’re going to have to stop and buy a lot of cold-weather gear.”

  “Army surplus store right on your way out of town,” he says. “Other end of this street, on the right-hand side. Unless you want to get a bunch of that stuff for free.”

  That just sits in the air for a moment, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

  “In return for what?” I ask.

  “Well, it’s pretty simple,” he says. “You’d just have to climb a mountain for me.”

  Randy takes us back into his house, which is right behind the shop. Through a garden area that’s beautiful even in the fall. Rocks formed into planting beds, a marble fountain, and bare trees.

  In the house are more cats.

  Randy wheels himself to a closet, throws it open, wheels inside. Winter jackets fly out over his head. “People give me this stuff because they know I’ll give it away again. To just the ones that could use it, you know? It doesn’t all look too pretty. Kind of ratty and old, but the point is to be warm, right?”

  “Right,” we both say.

  “Now, you say you got good sleeping bags.”

  “Yeah, we needed that just to get this far.”

  “What about a tent?”

  “We don’t have a tent.”

  “What about socks?” he asks. “Socks are very important. People all the time go out in the cold and snow and forget decent socks.”

  “Well, we have socks,” Chloe says.

  “But not wool ones.”

  “No,” I say. “Not wool ones.”

  “Here,” he says. “Here’s a whole box of wool ones. Take about four pairs each. Now all of this has been washed, so don’t feel weird about who was wearing it last. Ski masks. One for each of you. Make all the difference. Keep your ears and nose from freezing. Also keep all your body heat from going out the top of your head. And gloves. Here are a whole bunch of gloves. Find two jackets that fit you, I thi
nk we’ll have it. Oh. Have you got pads to go under those sleeping bags? I didn’t think so. Take two pads, keep the cold from coming right up through the bag from the cold ground.”

  “We’ve never climbed a mountain,” I say. “I’m not sure we’d even know how. Not to mention climbing one for somebody else.”

  “Wheeler is a gentle mountain,” Randy says. “It’s non-technical. There’s a trail all the way up. It’s just a day hike. I’ll give you two pieces of advice and you’ll be fine. First off, don’t try to get at the mountain as the crow flies. There’re good trails and bad trails. Go in at the trailhead at the Taos Ski Valley. When you look at the map you’ll think I’m crazy, taking you around in a circle like that. But trust me. Set up camp there by the trailhead. Like a base camp. Get a good night’s sleep. Or even two. Longer you spend up there, the more you’ll acclimate to the altitude. Then climb the mountain first thing in the morning. You’re climbing to a little over thirteen thousand feet. The air is thin up there. So you’ll want plenty of time to adjust. Secondly, stop at the ranger station and get more advice. Tell them you never did this before. They’ll give you a trail map and show you the best trail, and tell you what you’ll need and what to watch out for. There’s people up there that know the mountain. Never be afraid to ask questions. Never guess what you could ask.” He digs even farther into the back of the closet. “One more thing you need that you probably don’t know you need. But you do.”

  He pulls out two pairs of what look like snowshoes. Not that I’ve ever seen snowshoes.

  “Snowshoes?”

  “Yup.”

  “We’ll need those?”

  “You might. Of course, it’s been a mild winter. Not much snow in the mountains. So maybe it’s patchy and you can work around it. Then again, which is worse, having what you don’t need or needing what you don’t have? Now you folks dig around and get what you need. I’m going to go make us some lunch. You’re going to climb a mountain for me, we have to break bread together.”