Motional Blur

by Robert Eringer

  “Always right? He doesn’t even know where he’s going!”

  “Let me talk to him.”

  I stare at my phone in disbelief. “Hold on.” I return to Abe and climb behind the wheel, pass my phone to Gearhart. “My boss needs a word.”

  Gearhart takes the phone, listens, talks, listens, talks, hands my phone back. “He wants to talk to you.”

  I put the phone to my ear. “S’up?”

  “You’re going go Park City, Utah.”

  “What? ”

  “It just got prepaid.”

  I get out with the phone to my ear, walk toward the service station shop. “What the fuck? I gotta drive to Park City, Utah, now? That’s another seven hours, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Best fare you’ve ever had.”

  “You’re going to owe me big time. No, overtime.”

  “He’s taken care of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A big tip.”

  “Yeah, well right now I’m not feeling it. I feel like I’m getting boned. Where am I supposed to sleep tonight, in the car?”

  “No, he’s paying for a room at a hotel.”

  “I’m not sleeping in his room!”

  “No. Your own.”

  “Whatever.” I disconnect.

  I’m tired and hungry and now I’ve got to drive to Utah, and then I’ve got to drive all the way back. Son of a bitch. On top that, I’m sick of trying to make conversation with this Gearhart guy, and now I’m pissed off at him, too, for screwing up my birthday, and my evening.

  The road briefly meanders into Arizona before Utah appears with an eighty-mile-an-hour speed limit, which means ninety-five to me, though on clear stretches I push Abe to over one hundred, the passing landscape a motional blur.

  Finally, Gearhart speaks up. “You’re going to get a ticket.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “Then why are you driving so fast?”

  “I have a life I need to get back to.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  “About what?”

  “Your life. And why you’re so reckless with it.”

  “No danger here. It’s all about bursts and passing. I hit it in bursts, when the road conditions are right and cops are nowhere to be seen. You pull enough bursts and it has a cumulative effect. But I always slow down when I overtake another vehicle. It shows respect to the other driver and demonstrates to any cops that you’re driving safe.”

  “Gets you where you’re going four minutes earlier?”

  “More than that.”

  “A few seconds here, a few seconds there,” says Gearhart. “It’ll equal four minutes.”

  “I see. Are you a mathematician?” A smart-ass thing to say, but given my displeasure with this guy, well deserved.

  “No.” He says this matter-of-fact. “But maybe you should enjoy the journey.”

  Yeah, right. You and me. “What do you do?”

  “Retired.”

  “From what.”

  “Government service.”

  Oh, shit. Could this be about jury duty? Or something worse? No way, I’m just being paranoid.

  That’s what happens when I go too long without a toke, another reason I need to get home.

  Maybe the IRS?

  I never declare tips.

  I check out Gearhart in my rearview mirror—and he’s checking me out.

  Now I remember: He’s been in the bar, when I was hosting karaoke. He didn’t sing or anything, just sat quiet, watching.

  Definitely the IRS.

  Unless I’m under investigation for something bigger than tax evasion. (What’s bigger than tax evasion?)

  Or maybe he’s an old homo. I’ve got nothing against gays—I even know a few—but it’s not my scene.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he says.

  I never should have taken this job.

  “I live in Summerland,” I say.

  “You mean it’s always summer for you?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Stinson Beach, north of San Fran.”

  “Go on.”

  “I grew up in Bolinas, just up from Stinson, you know, but it’s a weird place, full of old hippies who migrated from Haight-Ashbury, so I’ll stick with Stinson Beach, where I learned to surf.”

  “What do your parents do?”

  “Singular, dude. Just my mom. Never had a real dad.”

  In the early days, the commune, I had about three dads, but I didn’t want to get into that, just like I didn’t want to get into Bolinas. But what the hell, talking suddenly felt good.

  “My mom grew up during the hippie era, you know. Free love. That’s me, my life: the product of free love.” Like, now you satisfied? “So tell me about your life.”

  Not that I was interested, just wanted to get off mine.

  “I’m from the East Coast. Pennsylvania. I joined the army near the end of the Vietnam War and they sent me to Monterey for language training: French and Vietnamese. They were going to deploy me to Saigon to interrogate prisoners, but the war ended and I wound up in Washington, DC. I used the GI Bill to earn a master’s in international relations at Georgetown University and joined the government. They sent me to Africa.”

  For a guy who’d hardly said boo the first six hours, this was quite the mouthful.

  “Right on,” I said, almost sorry I’d asked.

  “Is that where you grew up, Stinson Beach?”

  “Solvang. It’s a Danish town in the valley.”

  “Bolinas didn’t work out?”

  This guy is actually listening. Better than my last two therapists.

  “I think hippie-dom didn’t work out. Solvang is where my mom was from. She ran away when she was sixteen, and ran back again so my grandparents could help bring me up. Solvang sucked for me, you know. No ocean, no waves, no surfing.”

  “Surfing is your sport?”

  “Surfing isn’t a sport, boss, it’s a lifestyle.”

  “What else do you do?”

  “What else is there?”

  “To make a living, I mean.”

  “This.” I grip the wheel. “And I have a karaoke gig at a bar. Uh, I did until last night.”

  “What happened last night?”

  Nosy bastard. “No big deal.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Well, since you asked: I’d like to get you where you’re going, as soon as possible, and then get back to Summerland, as soon as possible.”

  “I understand that,” says Gearhart. “But when I want whine, I open a bottle.”

  Funny guy!

  “I get that. But it’s my birthday today, you know. That’s why …”

  “Happy birthday.”

  “You think? I’m sitting behind this wheel all day.”

  “Aren’t you enjoying the ride, the scenery?”

  This stumps me. I actually hadn’t noticed any scenery, just the road ahead.

  “Aren’t you getting hungry?” I ask. My mind won’t let go of a billboard we passed offering all-you-can-eat Asian buffet for $6.99.

  “I had a good breakfast. However, I just noticed that the clock has jumped an hour to Mountain Time, which means it is almost time for a cocktail. I suggest Cedar City, just up ahead.”

  4.

  I fork right onto South Main for a sweep through this southern Utah town.

  Being Mormon territory, there are only two bars, Toadz and Mike’s Tavern. I sincerely doubt Gearhart would want a drink in either, which is fine by me, since the last thing I need is a drink on an empty stomach (my pretzels, long gone) or another DUI, which makes this just a time-waster.

  Mike’s, just off Main, is the easy find, and from the outside a typical dive.

  Gearhart gets out of the car and buttons his blazer even though it’s ninety-two degrees.

  My mother had phoned earlier, so I tell him go ahead, I need to return a call.

  He disappears insid
e and I have a mad impulse to hit the accelerator and barrel the hell out of there, leave Gearhart to his cocktail, to Cedar City, to the rest of his life. But I’d already screwed up my karaoke gig, and Santa Barbara is not the easiest place in the world to find work, especially without wheels.

  So I call my mother, and she asks if I’m back yet, and I tell her no, can you believe this? The guy I’m driving changed his mind and wants to go all the way to Utah instead.

  And all she has to say: call me when you get back, we’ll celebrate my birthday with a lobster dinner at Fish Enterprise.

  Which makes me hungrier than I already am, and I’m starving.

  I lock Abe and go after Gearhart into Mike’s Tavern, maybe hurry him up.

  He’s standing at the bar, trading small talk with local characters and a female barkeep with more tattoos than teeth, and sipping something transparent from a martini glass.

  “Beefeater,” he says to me. “Not my favorite, but it’s all they have.”

  The inside is worse than the outside, dark and dingy, the opposite of the Biltmore where I’d picked him up, shit, nine hours ago—and we still have another three to reach Park City. Maybe the longest drive I’ve ever done in a day, in my life.

  “Still in a hurry?” says Gearhart. “I never rush a martini.”

  When he finally finishes, the June sun is still bright in the sky—coming up on the longest day of the year.

  “I think I’ll sit up front,” says Gearhart.

  “Suit yourself.” I’m happy just to get going.

  I follow the one-way system and cut right onto N 100 West, double back toward Main.

  Gearhart shakes his mane.

  “Something wrong?”

  “Tattoo parlors, pawn shops, abandoned shops … what has become of this country?”

  “I guess you’ve never been to Oxnard. This is nice. Where’ve you been?”

  “Overseas, mostly.”

  “Nicer over there?”

  “I used to think of it as the Third World.”

  We rejoin I-15 after a wrong turn. Now my stomach is seriously pissed off.

  “You wanna stop for something to eat?” I ask.

  “Depends where.”

  “Subway’s good, you know. You can usually find them at a Chevron station.”

  Not ten minutes later, an exit looms with signs for Chevron gas and Subway. I veer onto the ramp, right, and right again into their forecourt.

  Gearhart alights, stretches, yawns, and ambles after me into Subway.

  “I’m not eating here,” he says.

  “Why not?”

  He raises and shakes his hands, by way of explanation, and turns on his heel, back to the car.

  Truth be known, it truly is the scuzziest Subway I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a few. I follow him out.

  “I’ll wait till we arrive in Park City to eat,” says Gearhart, re-immersing himself into his book.

  5.

  We reach Provo as the sun begins its final descent, late, but this is June and Mountain Time. We leave I-15 to its own destiny and take Route 189 all the way through this clean and wholesome town, past Brigham Young University, to mountains that yank us up a winding canyon road to over ten thousand feet.

  The sun is setting by the time we reach Deer Creek Reservoir; a short dusk quickly morphs into a dark, moonless night. I keep going straight in Heber City on the wrong road until a sign sets me right.

  By this time, we have been on the road for twelve hours, and I’m weary.

  Finally: Park City. I pull into a space on the steep incline they call Main Street and consult my trip odometer: 793 miles. Unbelievable.

  “What now, boss?” I cannot tell if he detects my sarcasm.

  Gearhart presses a button to wind down his window, takes a good deep breath with his nose, and slowly exhales through his mouth. “Time for something to eat,” he says.

  I follow as he, on foot, conducts a quick inspection of eateries, up one side of the block, down the other, most of them closed. He stops at Riverhorse, consults a menu posted near the door, and nods. “This will do.”

  After ascending a staircase, he cuts right into the bar, asks a hostess if they serve the full menu there, they do, and he nails a high-top in the corner, back to the wall.

  I’m ready to order everything on the menu and all he wants is a glass of their finest chardonnay, which he insists must be very cold and from a fresh bottle, opened not necessarily in front of him, but no earlier than today.

  “When you pay fourteen dollars for a glass of wine,” he says to me, “it ought not to be from yesterday. Would you eat yesterday’s bread?”

  He’s asking the wrong guy, because right now I’d eat just about anything, including last week’s bread, but I’ll settle for a beer in deference to Gearhart, knowing my driving for the day is done, other than whatever short distance it takes to reach a hotel.

  This is the subject Gearhart addresses with our server: a good place for an overnight stay.

  She recommends the Marriott a mile down the road in Park City’s modern commercial zone.

  Next he tackles what to eat, asking her recommendations.

  “What about the Riverhorse Burger?” I cut in.

  “I wouldn’t order that,” she says.

  And I’ve had just about enough of being told what to do and what not do all day long.

  Gearhart settles on red trout.

  “I’ll have the Riverhorse Burger,” I say.

  He drains his white wine and orders a glass of red, their finest pinot noir, he says. Fresh.

  “When you’re traveling,” he says to me, “you should stick to what’s indigenous to the region. You can order a hamburger anywhere.”

  “I like hamburgers.”

  An air raid siren sounds. I jump up to see what it’s about.

  “Ten o’clock,” explains the hostess. “An old miner’s thing. Means everyone came up safe. I can hear it all the way where I live in Deer Valley, but right here we’re at ground-zero.”

  “You know what this means?” I say to Gearhart, re-grabbing my bar stool.

  He shrugs.

  “If you have a buildup of intestinal gas, save it till 10:00 p.m. then let it rip as loud as you want.”

  He nods, sips his fresh glass of pinot noir. “You never really grew up, did you?”

  “Why bother?”

  To prove his point, and mine, I practically swallow the burger whole when it arrives.

  “You always eat fast?” says Gearhart, barely starting his trout.

  Only when I’m starving to death.

  “You should take your time,” he continues. “It’s good manners. Chew. Savor each mouthful. You eat like you don’t know where your next meal is coming from.”

  Yup, that’s me.

  When he’s done, he puts his knife and fork down. “Well, I guess we should find a hotel. We have a long day tomorrow.”

  I know I do, driving twelve hours back to southern Cal, dammit. But I don’t know why he’s saying we.

  Until he drops the bomb.

  “Oh, didn’t I mention?” says Gearhart. “We’re heading north.”

  I’m too flabbergasted to say a thing, so he keeps jawboning.

  “Big sky country,” he continues.

  “W-w-what?” I stammer. “Why?”

  “I want to see what heaven looks like.”

  I’m shaking my head. “I’m not going north. I’m going home.”

  “Oh, didn’t your company contact you? It’s all arranged.”

  “No way.” I’m still shaking my head. “Nobody has contacted me.”

  Nobody really had, even though it’s my birthday.

  “Well, I’m sure they will.” Gearhart settles the tab and dismounts from his stool. “I guess we should find that hotel.”

  We roll down Main Street, curve right, and weave through a retail area, strip malls, into the Marriott’s forecourt.

  “I don’t have a change of clothes,” I think aloud. “
I don’t even have a toothbrush. Do they give you one in the hotel?”

  “One what?”

  “A toothbrush?”

  Gearhart regards me with an amused expression. “We passed a CVS. Why don’t you go back for toothpaste and a toothbrush, I’ll get us a couple of rooms.”

  He gets out, goes in.

  As I’m driving to CVS, I connect to The Drive Cycle. “What the hell is going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My passenger says we’re driving to big sky country tomorrow!”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. He called us. We’ve billed his card.”

  “I never signed on for this!”

  “We don’t have anyone to replace you with—you’re too far away.”

  “I know I’m too friggin’ far away! I’ve just spent the last twelve hours driving too friggin’ far away!”

  “Sorry, another call …” He disconnects me.

  “That’s it.” I swing into the CVS lot, slam the brakes. I’m outta here.

  And then I realize I’m not going anywhere. It’s almost eleven, I’m dog-tired, and it’s so dark outside I can barely find my way back to the Marriott.

  A man awaits me with a key card and a room number. “Mister Gearhart has retired for the evening,” he says. “He asked me to give you a key and requested you be ready for departure at 8:33.”

  “That’s what he said—8:33?”

  The receptionist double-checks his note. “Yes.”

  6.

  For a few moments, upon awakening, I do not know where I am. It is still early, not quite seven, but daylight is streaming through my window, so I get up anyway, shower, turn my underwear inside out, and drive a couple blocks to a Starbucks. Then it’s Abe’s turn. I drive into Maverick’s to quench his thirst. By now I am resigned to a second day with Charles Gearhart.

  I position my wheels right outside the front door, trunk popped at exactly 8:33, and Gearhart appears on the dot, stows his garment bag, gently folds his blazer, and slides into the backseat.

  “May I ask you a question, boss?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Why 8:33 and not just 8:30?”

  “When you’re precise like that with the time people are more likely to be punctual.”

  “Got it. Next question: Where we headed now?”

  “Wyoming. Jackson, Wyoming.”

  “Why?”