“To see the Grand Tetons—why else?”
I’m shaking my head, because hell if I know why else. I check the routing on my smartphone: a brief stint on I-80 West, turn north on 189, a trunk road.
“Did you leave a tip for the maid?” asks Gearhart.
“Uh, was I supposed to?”
“When was the last time you stayed in a hotel?”
“I don’t remember?”
“Think back. How long?”
“Three or four years. Marina Del Rey.” I pause. “She paid.”
“It’s customary to leave a buck or two. Sleep well?”
“I did the fitness room for a few minutes and couldn’t sleep because I was short of breath, you know, and I thought, oh my God, I’m having a heart attack. But then I realized I’m acclimatizing to ten thousand feet up.”
“No,” says Gearhart. “That was the Riverhorse Burger our waitress advised you against.”
For the first hour, Gearhart is lost in a new stack of newspapers: USA Today and the Salt Lake Tribune and whatever else. He finally perks up when we enter Wyoming, and stirs when we come upon Kemmerer: POPULATION 2651, ELEVATION 692—says the welcome sign.
Oddly, there are five or six motels on both sides of the road of this small town as we enter.
“Who would vacation here?” I ask, the first sound I’ve made since leaving Utah.
“I used to,” says Gearhart softly.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“My grandparents lived here. Born and bred. When I was a kid we used to come every summer to see them.” He twists his neck this way and that. “Hasn’t changed much.”
Route 189 turns into Main Street, with a town triangle instead of a square, a few bars.
Gearhart smiles. “Still here.”
“The town?”
“No. J. C. Penney. That’s their very first store, opened in 1902.” A yellow sign says J. C. PENNEY COMPANY, and the street sign says J. C. PENNEY DRIVE. “Pull over, let’s go in.”
“Why?
“You need supplies.”
“From J. C. Penney’s?”
Gearhart shrugs. “Where else around here?”
He enters and strolls the aisles, marveling at what he sees around him, turns to me. “They still do a St. John’s Bay line. Probably made in China these days.” He inspects a tag. “Yep. I still have a CPO jacket from here, St. John’s Bay, but made in the USA—I’ve worn it longer than anything I own.” He stops in the shirt section, picks up a white button-down—two or more for $19.99. “What size are you?”
“Sixteen-and-a-half.”
“Here, take three of these.”
Next: chinos.
Specifically, St. John’s Bay Worry Free Slider Relaxed Fit Flat-Front at $24.99 a pair.
“Size?” says Gearhart.
“Thirty-four waist.”
He hands me two pairs.
“How about a sport coat?”
“Must I?”
“Jackson is a nice place.”
“As long as it’s not a navy blazer with brass buttons.”
“Try this on.” Gearhart hands me a khaki linen sport coat, on sale for $100.
I put it on.
“Button the top button and turn around,” says Gearhart.
I can’t believe I actually comply.
“Perfect,” he says. “Now, go choose your own underwear.”
Gee, thanks.
We regroup a couple minutes later.
“One last thing,” says Gearhart. “Shoes.”
“Who’s paying for all this stuff?”
Gearhart shrugs. “Me. I’m the one who took you on an overnight road trip without warning. Consider it part of your compensation.”
“I’d rather have the money.”
“In that case, it’s a present.”
“Can I have a pair of sneakers?”
“No. Here’s what I’m gifting you.”
“Florsheim penny loafers? You must be kidding. I need my feet for surfing.”
“After wearing them a few months they’ll be the most comfortable shoes you’ve ever owned.”
The only shoes I’ve ever owned.
I’m sure the sales lady, who might have been there since they opened in 1902, thought we were gay, probably staying at the pink Chateau Motel up the road.
Throw in three pairs of socks—not that I intended to wear them—and the tab comes to just over $350.
Gearhart nails it with a credit card.
“Next,” he says, “a bathroom kit.”
Jubilee Pharmacy is just around the corner on Pine Street.
“Just load up on whatever you need,” he says. “I recommend deodorant.”
“Huh?”
“Meet me at the cash register.”
I use this opportunity to check in with my mom, tell her I’m in Wyoming and that my passenger is buying me stuff to wear since I didn’t know I’d be away a few days, is that okay?
It makes sense, she says, because I didn’t have a chance to pack my own things. “When will you be back?” she asks.
“That’s what I’d like to know. At least another day. You think I should cut this fare loose?”
“You’re getting paid, and you’re getting away from your comfort zone. Maybe you should just enjoy the ride?”
“Yeah, that’s what my fare says. Gotta go.”
I grab a pack of Bic razors and Gillette foam and roll-on deodorant and bring it to the front.
“Ever have a real shave?” says Gearhart.
“Yeah, I don’t use electric.”
“Put the foam back. Grab some real shaving soap and the finest brush they have. And put these Bics back, too. Here’s what you need.” He holds up a fancy Fusion razor. “You have to take joy in shaving.”
“I don’t see anything joyful about shaving.”
“Then you’re not living your life properly,” says Gearhart. “You’ve got to take joy in all the little things, not look at them as chores, delight in them.”
“In a shave?”
“In many things. But especially a shave.”
I glance at the antique sales lady, roll my eyes. “If you say so.”
Outside, Gearhart sniffs the air. “Smells the same.” He seems to lose himself in time. “It’s amazing the memories an aroma can induce. Smell is the most underrated of senses.”
7.
South of Le Barge, we drive past an old diner called Moondance, deserted and boarded up.
“I read about that place in the newspaper,” Gearhart pipes up. “They moved it from New York City. I guess it didn’t work out.”
North of Le Barge, I hit Abe hard, one of my bursts, and then I slow him down to overtake an SUV.
“I think you just overtook a cop,” says Gearhart with a smirk on his face.
“Really? What makes you think so?”
“The word SHERIFF stenciled on the side.”
At that moment, police lights begin flashing behind me. “You think he’s after someone else?”
“Who?” says Gearhart. “There’s no one else on the road. I guess he wants to thank you for showing him respect by slowing down to overtake him.”
Smart-ass.
I pull over.
The guardian of the law gets out, saunters over. “Where is it you’re going so fast?”
“Uh, Jackson, officer.”
He regards Abe. “Figures. I clocked you going eighty-one.”
“Isn’t this a seventy-mile-an-hour road?” I say.
“You’re talking about the interstate. This is the highway. Sixty-five miles an hour. And you were going eighty-one.”
“I’m very careful driving through towns and passing other cars, you know. Can’t you let me off with a warning, officer?”
He shakes his head. “Not when you’re goin’ eighty-one. I can give you a break and write it up as seventy-nine, help you with your insurance company. License and registration.” He returns to his vehicle with my docs.<
br />
“It was bound to happen,” says Gearhart from behind me. “All your talk about bursts.”
“I can’t believe this. I’m gonna get fired. And I’ll have to enroll in their stupid online driver’s-ed program. And I’ll have to pay a huge fine. I’m totally screwed.”
“If you don’t like the consequences, why take the risk? To get to Jackson five minutes earlier?”
“We would’ve made better time than that.”
“I doubt it. But even if we did, so what?”
I shake my head, totally disgusted by getting a ticket, by being in Wyoming, by having a smart-ass passenger dumping on my driving skills.
“Hello, officer.” Gearhart addresses the bacon through my lowered window when he returns with a pad and pen. “My driver got a little too used to the high speed limit in Utah. But I’ve got an idea.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Charles Gearhart, and this road trip is my project, not his. Tell you what, I’ll change places with him and drive this car myself—his punishment for going too fast.”
“I don’t know—he was going eighty-one.”
Gearhart never takes his eyes out of the bacon’s. “And when he’s back in the driver’s seat, I’ll personally make sure he sticks to the speed limit.”
Something happens, and I still haven’t figured out what Gearhart did. But the sheriff’s deputy puts his ticket pad back into in his pocket and says, “Just make sure he doesn’t drive again till you’re clear out of Wyoming.”
Gearhart holds his gaze. “You’ve got my word.” He opens his door, climbs out, and stands next to mine. “And you have Luke’s word, too. Right, Luke?”
Like, I don’t have any say in this?
“Right, boss.”
As the bacon retreats, I shake my head in disgust, muttering, “I don’t friggin’ believe this.” But I get out, walk around the front, and get into the passenger seat next to Gearhart, who adjusts the driver’s seat and mirrors to his own specs, winces in pain briefly, then eases onto the road.
“You know,” says Gearhart, turning to look at me. “You have a you know problem.”
“Excuse me?”
“Half the time you say something, you say you know, but by almost getting a ticket you proved you actually don’t know shit.”
“I’m supposed to sit here and be insulted and let you drive?”
“You have no choice,” says Gearhart. “I gave my word. You did, too. A man is nothing without his word.”
“My fingers were crossed. How did you do that, anyway?”
“Do what?”
“Get Mr. Authority Figure, oink-oink, to cut me some slack.”
Gearhart shrugs. “Just looked in his eyes. He used discretion, which is very rare these days in law enforcement, rare anywhere for that matter. Their penalties are based on collecting revenues. The point is, he made you a deal, he did you a favor, and now you’ve got to stick to your end of the bargain.”
“Hell, he’s going to turn around and drive back to Le Barge,” I say.
“You’re going to stick to your word for you, not for him.”
“Or what?”
“Or you’ll never have any self-respect. And, by the way, you’re the first person I ever met who got a speeding ticket from a cop who was driving in front rather than behind.”
In the distance, serious thunderheads grab my attention. “That’s some storm ahead.”
“Cumulonimbus,” says Gearhart. “Beautiful.”
“What’s so beautiful about rain?”
“It washes all the crap away.” He sets the wipers in action to clear the first sprinkles of rain, and with it a smattering of squished bugs. “See?”
A bolt of lightning cracks from sky to ground, dead ahead of us.
“Whoa!” I say. “Did you see that?”
“We’re going smack into the center of the storm,” says Gearhart, with the most enthusiasm I’d seen him muster since we left the Biltmore in Montecito.
“I’m not sure about this.”
“About what?”
“We could die!”
“You can’t be serious,” says Gearhart. “You’re frightened of a little rain?”
“Not the rain. The lightning!”
At that moment, an enormous bolt strikes the road ahead of us, impacting with a flash of orange—BOOM!
“See! We could die! I should drive!”
“Relax. Lightning is much safer than artillery shells.”
“Artillery shells?”
“I’ve driven in places where incoming is targeted, not random. I think I can get us through a thunderstorm.”
“What were you doing in places like that?”
“My job.”
A deluge like no other I’ve ever experienced consumes Abe, pummels him, as more lightning crashes around us. I curl up, hands over my ears, waiting for it to pass—storms always frightened me as a kid—but it goes on and on and on until I close it out with a brief snooze.
8.
On the other side of the storm, mountains dusted with snow appear, and nature glistens beneath moody clouds.
“You survived,” says Gearhart, eyes on the road. “Congratulations.”
“Where are we?”
“Not far from our destination.” He points at an upcoming sign to Jackson, only twelve miles away.
“Is that your final destination?”
“Everyone has the same final destination,” says Gearhart. “That’s why you have to enjoy the journey.”
“Where is this journey taking us?”
“After Jackson? Told you already: big sky country. Montana.”
He’s serious.
Not ten minutes later we pull into Jackson. First the modern part, then the historic town, bustling with tourists.
Cowboy and Indian heaven.
“They truly are astonishing,” says Gearhart, craning his neck to look up.
“What?”
“The Grand Tetons. French for tits.”
“Now you’re talking my language.”
“For once, the French got it right. They are magnificent. Now, a place to stay … right there.” He points left, up North Glenwood Street. “That’s the one I’ve read about. The Wort Hotel.” He pulls over on West Broadway. “Stay with the car, I’ll see if they have rooms.”
And I’m sitting here, thinking, what the hell am I doing in Jackson, Wyoming?
Five minutes later, Gearhart returns. “They just have one room. You have to sleep in the car.”
“What?”
It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Just kidding. They had just two rooms left. It’s a nice place. Good thing you have something decent to wear.”
Another ten minutes and I key myself into maybe the coolest room I’ve ever had to myself: Western décor, comfortable bed, and a clean, modern bathroom.
Unlike the marathon drive of the day before, I have a couple hours to relax and I finally think to Google Charles Gearhart, see who the hell he is.
I do this in the Wort’s business center. Eighty-seven of them in Whitepages. I go to Images. Nothing matches my passenger. So I add US Government to his name. Zippo.
Gearhart said I should do whatever I wanted the rest of the afternoon and evening, but that he would be at the Wort’s Silver Dollar Bar at 5:33 precisely and I should feel welcome to join him for a cocktail.
He is sitting there—last stool, far end of the bar—when I arrive, a martini before him.
I’m sporting my new threads: white button-down, chinos, sport coat, and loafers.
Gearhart rubs his eyes for a second look, smiles. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Looks like you finally grew up.”
I shake my head. “That’s not possible.”
“Would you like a real drink?”
“You mean a shot?”
“No. Only people who want to get drunk drink shots. The key to smart drinking is the opposite: turn a strong libation into a long one, never get drunk.”
“What’s the point?”
“You drink to relax your faculties, not lose them.”
“How does that work?”
“Bartender?” Gearhart calls out. “Another just like mine.” He turns to me. “Hendrick’s gin, barely a dash of vermouth, lemon twist—and I make him leave the shaker.”
“Why?”
“I stir it around, pour it myself, a little at a time. One, it keeps the gin nice and cold; two, it gives the ice time to melt and dilute the gin with water. In ten minutes my glass will still be full. The other way, shake and pour? It’s like injecting alcohol directly into a vein.”
The barkeep sets a martini glass and shaker on the bar in front of me.
“It’s about the ritual,” says Gearhart. “You always need the right accoutrements, whether you’re shaving or drinking a martini.”
I swirl the shaker, pour a little liquid crystal into my glass.
“Start by touching your lips with it, go slow,” says Gearhart. “Taste the juniper.” He does this himself. “The only thing as good as a well-made martini is a fine cigar.” He consults the bartender about a smoke shop in town. “There’s no crisis that can’t be solved with a martini and a cigar.”
“What if the IRS is after you?”
“Martini and a cigar.”
“What if you’ve got cancer?”
Gearhart considers this. “A martini and a cigar. And it’s a damn shame I can’t smoke one in this bar.” He goes through the motions with a pretend cigar, the most animated I’ve seen him. “So, what are you missing by being here?”
“Surfing. Some people surf the Net all day and all night. I keep it real. There’s nothing more real than getting axed.”
“Axed?”
“A heavy wipeout.”
“No ambition to do anything else?”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“Why bother?”
“Self-respect, change the world.”
“Look, I grew up with three dads in a commune, they taught me to enjoy nature, and in Bolinas that meant the beach and the ocean. They all believed in peace and love, but by the time my mother and I left, everyone was squabbling with everyone else over everything, and they were suspicious of outsiders, to a point where they hated anyone new who showed up in town. They went from flower power to paranoia. Do you know to this day there are no road signs to Bolinas? You know why? Every time Caltrans puts up a new sign, a bunch of old hippies—the self-proclaimed Bolinas Border Patrol—take it down. They think the whole town belongs to them—and they don’t want visitors. When I moved to Solvang, no dad, just a granddad who thought he was still in Denmark. So I found my own way.”
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