Motional Blur

by Robert Eringer

  When he called The Drive Cycle, he specifically requested me.

  I vaguely recognized him because he had once or twice visited karaoke night at the bar, I guess to see me.

  Our road trip began on my birthday.

  He had lived for a short time in Monterey when my mother was in San Francisco nearby. That’s when they must have met, because I got born around nine months later.

  Took me to see Kemmerer, Wyoming, where his grandparents were from.

  At J. C. Penney, bought me the clothes he wanted me to wear, in the image of himself, as a father does with his son.

  Katharine, the half-sister I never knew, in Jackson, Wyoming, her long hug, not wanting to go because he’d probably told her she would not see him again—and I guess he wanted me to know her.

  During the course of six days and six nights, and 2,859 miles (said my trip odometer), Gearhart taught me things he wanted me to know, trying, I guess, to make up for thirty-nine lost years.

  Spending Father’s Day together.

  Eventually—and by now, emotionally spent, I’ve lost track of time—I return Pablo to the car and numbly walk a block and a half over to Center Street to American River Bank and wait my turn for a teller.

  “Uh, I have this key,” I say, holding it up. “It was given to me. I assume I’m supposed to access something here.”

  She glances at the key, studies my face. “I’ll get the manager.”

  Ah, this is the part where I get arrested and thrown in jail for trying to steal a dead man’s booty.

  The manager, a little blond guy with glasses and a suit, appears in my face. “Do you have any ID?”

  “Uh, yeah.” I fumble with my wallet and show him my driver’s license.

  He looks at it, nods. “Follow me.”

  We go around the counter and into a windowless room.

  “May I have your key?” he asks.

  He uses mine and one of his own to unlock a slot, pulls out a metal drawer, and places it on a table nearby.

  “Let me know when you’re finished,” he says, turning on his heel, closing the door behind him to give me some privacy.

  I sit, staring at The Drawer.

  Finally, I reach in, pluck out a square wooden box, which I unclasp. Inside, a ribbon in red, white, and blue and a medal, the Distinguished Intelligence Cross: For a voluntary act or acts of extraordinary heroism including the acceptance of existing dangers with conspicuous fortitude and exemplary courage, awarded to Charles Gearhart, an employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.

  I stare at it in total awe and astonishment.

  Next, a soft leather pouch filled with something heavy. I loosen its lace and tug it open. Inside, two fistfuls of gold coins, all the same, emblazoned with an Indian head on one side, a buffalo on the other.

  Finally, a short stack of letters bound together with a rubber band. All of them addressed to Luke Andersen at different addresses where I’ve lived throughout my life—Bolinas, Solvang, Goleta, Summerland—with return addresses from foreign countries—France, Lebanon, Iraq—stamped but not postmarked, never sent.

  And that’s not all. When I’m checking out of Hotel Healdsburg, the front desk clerk hands me an envelope. I rip it open and find a handwritten letter on stationery from the Oxford Hotel in Bend dated Father’s Day.

  Dear Luke,

  The greatest tragedy of my life was not being in yours, not watching you grow from birth into a man.

  In some strange way, I think you have accomplished this over the past six days.

  I tried to find the right moment to tell you face-to-face that you are my son, but my life has been one of keeping secrets. Revealing them has never been my strong suit.

  Plus this: I didn’t know how you felt about my absence in your life. And I wanted to spend time with you so much, I did not want to risk having you turn your back on me.

  I love you, son. I always have.

  Dad

  I truly don’t know what to do next. So I find myself thinking, what would Gearhart—my dad—do?

  “There’s no crisis,” he told me in Wyoming, “that can’t be solved with a martini and a cigar.”

  So I stroll over to the Healdsburg Bar & Grill and take a seat on the patio, order a Hendrick’s martini, just the way Gearhart would—up, a twist, leave the shaker—and light the Macanudo he left me.

  Afterward, I drive south, still numb, a jumble of emotions—all except one: as I penetrate a violent thunderstorm over Salinas, I find myself no longer scared, but oddly serene.

  FATHER’S DAY: ONE YEAR LATER

  Forty one-ounce gold coins—one for each year of my life—equated to well over fifty grand.

  I cashed in all but one.

  First thing I did was buy Abe from the The Drive Cycle, and give him the best detailing and tune-up he ever had, and vowed that I would never, ever part with him. Instead, I’d take a road trip every new season, explore and discover and learn new things about life and nature.

  Next, I made a down payment on a shop in Summerland—Surf-dog—to sell surfboards, including a line I design myself and produce in-house. The company mascot is Pablo, and our logo features him on a surfboard hanging ten.

  One day out of five, I hire myself out to clients who need to repair their reputations on the Internet. I’m in higher demand than I want to be, so I’m training others, building a service.

  Stephanie from Boise came out to see me about a month after Gearhart passed—and we moved in together a week later. She handles the books and runs the online surfboard shop.

  My half-sister Katherine visited last Thanksgiving. We’re coaxing her to take a break from buffalo and open an art gallery in Santa Barbara, and maybe she will.

  Clean of weed for twelve months.

  My mom confirmed it all, and added a few things Gearhart didn’t say. Like, they’d met at the Monterey Jazz Festival, September 1974, while Dizzy Gillespie blew his trumpet onstage, and I got conceived soon after. She said she didn’t tell him of my existence until I was five years old because she did not want to burden him or interfere with his career. And after that, without her even asking, he sent a check every month, without fail, to help cover the cost of raising me. It wasn’t a lot, she said, but it helped.

  I carry the remaining gold coin in my pocket every day to remember my dad.

  One day it will belong to my son, Charlie Gearhart Andersen, born just a month ago.

  Oh, I never heard back from the Montana Highway Patrol. I’d bet my good fortune that the guileful Gearhart fixed that one, too.