“I gather it’s been a problem for you,” I add.
He nods. “When I reached a senior position, it became my job to decide who got promoted and who went where. My friends had high expectations, but my decisions were based on merit, so I lost a few. That guy I just saw …” Gearhart shakes his head. “One of the best. Such a shame.” He pauses. “Let me tell you something: If, when you awaken in the morning, you do not have to deal with doctors or lawyers or tax collectors, and you can walk without assistance to dinner, and then, for one night anyway, you can afford to eat and drink anything you want, you’re doing damn good.”
20.
Officialdom welcomes us at Oregon’s border with California.
Gearhart is incredulous. “A customs post?”
I ease Abe to a halt.
“Where you coming from?” asks a uniformed officer.
“Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah …”
“Did you buy any fireworks?” asks a female officer.
“Nope,” I say. “No fireworks.”
“Okay. Go on ahead.”
Gearhart shakes his head. “Glad to see they’re finally cracking down on fireworks. Here.” He jabs me with a CD.
“Not more Belmonts.”
“No.”
I pop it in and a melody emerges.
“You kidding me? Doris Day?”
Entering Humboldt County—the marijuana-growing capital of he world—I should be in my element. I’d been invited to Humboldt many times to help with the harvest. Ten grand for two weeks’ work—and all you can smoke.
So I finally make it here and it’s the first time in over twenty years I’ve gone five days straight without smoking. And I’m thinking, I’m doing just fine, maybe I’ll keep going, see how long I can get by without it.
We hit the Pacific, a rocky and lush coastline. I pull onto a scenic rest stop so Gearhart can stretch his legs, take the view (and I can yank Doris Day).
“If you touch her,” he says, reading my mind, “I’ll start it over from the beginning.”
At Eureka, Humboldt’s largest city, I pull off the interstate to check out this beach town as a possible overnight.
“This haze ain’t no fog,” I say to Gearhart, mindful of Eureka’s main industry.
Gearhart glances this way and that, unimpressed. “No epiphany here,” he finally says. “Very scuzzy. Keep moving.”
From the backseat, Pablo whines.
“I think Pablo wants to stay,” I say.
“Pablo is more than welcome to remain.”
“Okay, maybe he just wants a quick walk.”
Waterfront Drive leads to a slice of sandy beach facing Eureka Channel.
I pull over and park behind a decrepit camper. From it, a hose runs across the sand.
Gearhart points it out. “I don’t believe it,” he says, shaking his head. “Those folks are emptying their septic tank in broad daylight. That’s got to be illegal. Can you believe this town?”
I get out, open the back door for Pablo, and we scramble onto the sand.
Not three minutes later, a pit bull jumps out of the camper and barrels straight at us.
Pablo startles and yaps. I manage to scoop him up a split second before the pit bull would’ve snapped his jaws around little Pablo’s neck. And still the muscular beast doesn’t give up, standing on its hind legs, snarling and slobbering as I snuggle Pablo close to my chest.
The nearest thing I can lay my free hand on is an empty Bud Lite bottle somebody discarded on a low wall. I wave it at the pit bull to shoo it away.
Out of the corner of my eye I catch an unkempt dude in swim trunks bounding out of the camper. He’s muscular, like his pit bull, but with a large paunch and multiple tattoos. I assume he’s going to call his dog off, but instead he starts hollering, “Leave my fucking dog alone or I’m going to pound your ass!” He is buzzed; probably drank the beer from the bottle I’m holding.
“Your dog should be on a leash!” I holler back.
Gnarly Dude comes closer, laughing. “He’s hungry, can’t you see? He likes to snack on Chihuahuas before dinner. I think I’ll feed him yours.”
I glance thirty yards to where Gearhart is sitting inside the car, watching us.
Gnarly Dude hoots with derision as his pit bull continues to lunge with snapping jaws at Pablo, who’s trembling, twisting, scared out of his wits, practically jumping out of my arms to get away.
I don’t know what kind of power swell comes over me, but I swing the bottle sideways and whop it as hard as I can against the side of Gnarly Dude’s head.
He goes down with a thud.
Next I toss the bottle at his pit bull, catching it smack in the face, and it scuttles back into the camper.
I tread sand back to Abe, jump in, and zip off.
Gearhart doesn’t say a word. Until a minute or so later when he suggests we drive twenty miles south to Ferndale, the kind of Victorian town travel guides suggest as the right place to overnight in Humboldt County.
But we hardly arrive and Gearhart is shaking his head again, and keeps shaking it up and down Main Street. “I’m not staying here.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Forlorn,” he replies. “Creepy.”
“But it’s already four thirty.”
“Just get back on 101, keep going south. I know where we can overnight.”
Garberville doesn’t make the cut; neither does the Benbow Historic Inn, and we leave those places, also, in our wake.
“I hope I didn’t hurt that guy,” I finally say about my Humboldt Beach incident.
“He got what he deserved,” growls Gearhart. “You protected your own and stood your ground. I’m proud of you.”
21.
It is way past six thirty when we pull into Healdsburg, another marathon driving day.
“Turn left and pull in over there.”
Gearhart guides me into the forecourt of Hotel Healdsburg and climbs out.
By now, I know the drill.
“It’s a stretch, price-wise,” he says, returning. “But what the hell? This is our last night.”
“Really?”
I no longer want this road trip to end.
Our rooms aren’t ready, so the management sends us to the bar for complimentary cocktails while we wait.
Gearhart is delighted to see his favorite gin, 209.
“Hello, Mister Gearhart,” says the middle-aged bartender, a long-term professional from the look of him.
“You’ve been here before?” I say.
“Yes.”
I look at him for further explanation, but he gives none.
Even after our receptionist delivers keys, Gearhart doesn’t want to move; this is his longest martini yet.
“You can go ahead,” he waves me on. “I’ve got a table booked in Dry Creek Kitchen, their restaurant next door.”
Upstairs, by a long shot, the finest room of all: dark hardwood floors and teak furnishings; plantation shutters on French doors to a balcony overlooking Healdsburg’s main square with a gazebo and a flagpole and everything I ever imagined a real hometown to be.
After showering and changing into freshly cleaned clothes, I descend to the restaurant and find Gearhart on their patio in the open air, with a bottle of red wine and a decanter.
“Opus One,” he says. “You only live once.”
I sit down, sip from my glass, utterly astonished. “I’ve never known anything like it.”
“You look a lot different than the first morning I met you,” says Gearhart. “You were wearing a tank top under a denim shirt. Now look at you.”
In truth, I feel different, too: whether the clothes, the wine—or maybe the company.
Gearhart takes one of his deep nose breaths, relaxed, satisfied. “Do you have any religious beliefs?”
I shake my head. “I told you, I was brought up in a commune that believed in peace and love until it became inconvenient. My grandparents in Solvang wanted me to attend a Lutheran
church with them, but I wasn’t interested.”
“What about spiritual beliefs as you grew up learning about the world for yourself?”
I pull a pendant from my shirt. “Saint Christopher. Patron saint of surfers. Why do you ask? Do you believe in God?”
“You’d have to define what you mean by God.”
“God. You know, God.”
“You know. It means many things to many cultures. Which god are you talking about?”
I pluck a one-dollar bill from my wallet, about all I have left. “See? In God we trust. That God.”
Gearhart chuckles. “It’s missing the L. I’d rather have it backed by gold than God.”
“Then why are you asking me about God?”
“Just curious. I’ve been to places where no god exists, and based on what I’ve seen, I’m not even sure humankind deserves protection from a god. So you wonder, if there’s no god, what is there?”
“The devil?”
“More believable.”
“But how can you have one without the other?”
“I don’t have the answer, just positing the question. I have another: Who was your idol as a child?”
I consider this for a few seconds. “My dad.”
He absorbs this with surprise. “But you told me you never had one.”
“I must have had a dad, or I wouldn’t be here. So he was out there, somewhere, doing something.” I pause, not wanting to get emotional about this, but my voice breaks anyway and my eyes well up. “And I always imagined it was something great, something heroic.”
Gearhart swirls the wine in his glass, tight-mouthed, and suddenly reaches for his gut. “I must be having too much fun again. I think I’m about to have another gallbladder attack.”
“Shouldn’t you see someone about that?”
“Usually it subsides. If it gets worse, I go to the hospital for a shot of Demerol.”
I consult the menu. “What’s indigenous to Healdsburg?”
“We’re in Sonoma County, where wine and food are celebrated beyond all else, and worshipped like God. You can order anything and it’ll be the best.”
“Can I have a hamburger?”
“You can have whatever you want.”
In this place, a hamburger means Wagyu Mini Burgers on Toasted Brioche with Black Truffle Aioli. (I would never look at Tinker’s mini-burgers the same way again.)
“I probably shouldn’t ask for ketchup,” I say to Gearhart.
“Probably not.”
Dusk turns to dark, it’s cooler, and a gas heater is switched on for us. Gearhart shows no sign of wanting to get up. He orders us both something called Armagnac, which he describes as “triple-refined cognac.”
“It’s not going to make your gallbladder worse?” I say.
He shrugs. “Sometimes it helps.”
When finally he finishes, and Healdsburg is quiet, no diners left, no one on the streets, he gets up and crosses into the main square.
I check on Pablo, feed him some of the fancy burger meat I’d set aside, and scoop him up for a walk.
Gearhart, strolling way ahead, finally settles near the flagpole. He looks straight up at the fluttering stars and stripes in what I can only describe as a mournful gaze. In my mind I hear “Taps” playing.
I quietly leave Gearhart to his thoughts.
Tiptoeing away, toward the hotel, I hear Gearhart ask after me, “Are you kind?”
I turn. “What?”
But he is already gone, somewhere in the shadows.
22.
I am where I’m supposed to be at 9:03 the next morning, as stipulated, for the hotel’s complimentary breakfast.
Gearhart isn’t.
The night before he seemed tired, worn out, so I assume he’s sleeping late, or just taking his time, and I see it as an opportunity to engage in a pre-breakfast of cooked-to-order scramble with everything in it, set me up for waffles when he appears.
After waffles (I couldn’t help myself), and no Gearhart, I hit up reception for his room number and use the house phone to call up to him, find out when he wants to hit the road (maybe he rose early, ate breakfast without me).
“Charles Gearhart?” she says. “He was taken to Healdsburg District Hospital late last night.”
“Why?”
She shrugs, but I already have it figured out: the gallbladder attack got worse, he went in for a shot of Demerol, and they probably kept him for observation. Or maybe they took the damn thing out, which would mean he wasn’t going anywhere today, or tomorrow.
“Where’s the hospital?”
“About a mile away.”
Her directions are simple.
I climb into Abe and, with Pablo at my side, find my way to University Avenue and stroll into the lobby, approach reception.
“Where can I find Charles Gearhart? He came in last night.”
She consults a board, clacks her computer keyboard, and picks up her phone, exchanges a few words.
“He’s coming down to see you,” she says.
I’m waiting, and I realize I owe my mother a call from yesterday, so I phone her, tell her I’m fine, that I’m finally on my way home, hope to be back tonight, just waiting for news on my passenger, who had to go the hospital.
And—who the hell knows why—she finally asks my passenger’s name.
“Gearhart,” I say. “Charles Gearhart.”
Silence.
“Mom, you there?”
“Yes.” Silence. “Luke … ?”
I lose her to more silence or a patchy connection. Just when the line clears and she starts to speak, a man wearing scrubs and a stethoscope around his neck appears in front of me.
“Gotta go, Mom—I’ll call you back.” I turn to face him.
“I’m Doctor Bloomfield. You are?”
“Luke Andersen.”
He nods solemnly.
I look over his shoulder. “I’m looking for Charles Gearhart.”
“I know.” He pauses. “I’m sorry to tell you, he expired.”
“What?” I cannot believe my ears. “From a gallbladder attack?”
Dr. Bloomfield shakes his head. “No. He had pancreatic cancer.”
“No, that’s not … What the … ?” Now I’m feeling dizzy. I need to sit down. I stagger to a row of waiting-room chairs, nail one.
Dr. Bloomfield sits beside me, his hands on his knees. “I’ve been treating Charlie for six weeks.”
“What are you talking about? Who are you talking about? Charlie who? Are we talking about the same person? How can you be treating him? He was just traveling through here—with me!”
“No. Charles Gearhart lived here, in Healdsburg. He found out just over six weeks ago that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer. The prognosis was terminal. He knew he had less than two months to live.”
I’m sitting with my mouth agape, in a state of shock. “No, this can’t be,” I finally say. “We have a road trip to finish. Is this some kind of bad joke?” I look around frantically, willing Gearhart to appear.
“I’m sorry.” He pauses. “Charlie told me there was something he needed to do. Then about a week ago he walked out on treatment—it wouldn’t have helped anyway—and disappeared.”
“When did this happen?”
“Your father passed at 5:33.”
“No, no—you see, you got the wrong guy. He wasn’t my father.”
Dr. Bloomfield looks me square in the eye. “You’re Luke Andersen, right?”
I nod my head, over and over again, uncontrollably, my eyes filling up so much that I can’t even see straight. “Yes, I’m Luke Andersen, but …”
“If it’s any comfort to you, your father was very happy at the end.”
I can barely talk through trembling lips. “Happy? What do you mean, happy?”
“He told me that he finally got to know his son. That was very important to him.”
I can no longer speak, my throat is so dry, and anyway, I don’t have anything left to say.
“Your father told me all about you, Luke,” says Dr. Bloomfield, holding out a large orange envelope. “He said he was very proud of how you had grown up. And he asked me to give you this.”
I look down, not wanting to accept it, not wanting to accept anything.
“Please take it.”
I numbly allow it to be placed in my lap.
“Are you okay, Luke?”
I shake my head, back and forth, back and forth. “No, I’m not okay.” Tears are streaming down both my cheeks. “I’m definitely not okay.”
“Would you like a prescription for a sedative?”
“No. No. I don’t … I …”
Dr. Bloomfield stands and shakes my hand, tells me he’s sorry again, that he’s needed elsewhere, and disappears, and somehow I make it to my car, fuzzy and disoriented.
Sitting behind the wheel, I rip open the envelope he’d given me and its contents tumble into my lap. Gearhart’s vintage wristwatch, the Benrus he wore that had belonged to his dad. A tiny pouch, which I unbutton and find the railroad nail pin from that REALSTEEL jeweler in Boise, the one I told him I liked because of its symbolism. Nailed.
I can hardly believe he went back and bought it for me.
I feel something else in there, jostle the envelope, and out falls a small metal key with a plastic tag: AMERICAN RIVER BANK, 412 CENTER STREET, HEALDSBURG, CA, BOX 33.
And an un-smoked Macanudo and matches from a shop called Tobacco Row in Jackson, Wyoming.
23.
My mind is reeling as I pull Abe into a spot outside Flying Goat Coffee and stagger with Pablo in my arms over to the Plaza, Healdsburg’s main square, where I’d last seen Gearhart.
From motional to emotional blur. From sadness to anger, for not knowing sooner, say, while Gearhart was still alive, that he was my dad.
Why didn’t he just tell me?
I’m dizzy, my mind trying to process too much, so I find a bench to sit on, beneath an oak tree, and try to regain my focus.
Anger passes, and the tears come and come, I’m crying my eyes out as if I were nine years old, and Pablo on my lap, trying to lick my face clean, drink my tears, soothe my hurt.
When I finally run out of tears, I just sit there, for a long, long time, thinking about Gearhart and our road trip together, my mind flashing back to different moments, things he said, until everything begins to crystalize into some kind of lit up chandelier.
Motional Blur Page 8