End at the Beginning

The icy breeze stung him. Hollis squinted as he tried to rub his forearms to generate warmth. Somehow he found it amusing to be shivering in the sun, standing at the edge of the Santa Monica pier, taking in the rolling blue of the Pacific as it presented him with its innumerable possibilities for many adventures across the open seas. He would not be sailing anywhere, but he was about to embark on a journey away from the salty spray, the endless blue horizon. He was parked only a few blocks inland…

Something like a moment later, he was looking into Sandra’s widened blue eyes, less vividly blue than the Pacific Ocean had seemed, but compelling in other ways, as she marveled, “Wow, you’re really here, and it only took you a second to get… how did you manage that, get here so quickly?” Sandra was thirty-two, a year older, with the energy and frame of a woman of twenty, tops — which resulted, she said, from “good genes, and better coffee.” He was taller, but needed more exercise.

“Told you I would make it, but you didn’t believe me,” he chided her only half-seriously. She always chided him, after all — in a gentle way — about how “ancient” he was getting, doing his best to make more money for his corporate overlords, and that he needed a fast injection of something to give him his vigor, his enthusiasm, back. She put her arms around him, and one reassuring squeeze later, directed him to take a load off. Hollis flopped onto her couch, causing Sandra to laugh, as she opened the tiny window in her new kitchen. “Oh, good, that’s just what I need,” he joked. “More fresh air, at last.”

It was like a moment later, but it wasn’t a “moment”, of course. She knew that, as well as he did. They had kept in touch, during his motion to join her. Determined to make his first visit to Sandra’s new place in the best possible time, he was piloting a 1970 Chevy Caprice, the well-maintained gift handed down by his father, who had gotten it from Hollis’s grandfather. He trusted that the 427-cubic-inch engine and, more importantly, the air conditioner would perform well. “Hoped they would” is, perhaps, more accurate.

What, then, of his “short drive over” to her new place? During the “interval” between his phone message to her and his knock on her door, he drove east, across I-10 to Interstate 5 north. He chose not to stop, for gas and lunch, in Monterey Park, driving until he reached San Bernardino—only then to wish, he confessed, that he had stopped earlier; Sandra laughed again, a delightful sound. He would not continue east until he reached a national forest just beyond San Bernie; she did not live in that forest. He turned, headed north, then east of north, encountering an array of new places: Victorville, Barstow, Amboy, then Needles — Sandra’s permanent home was in none of them.

Hollis tried to fill his vision with blue Pacific water, as he drove mile after mile through parched, brown desolation, but he was en route to Sandra’s place, and he did, after all, arrive there, as she noted. The “moment” did not end when he piloted his family heirloom into a rest stop, a few miles west of the Arizona state line, to stop. He was bushed, perspiring despite his A.C., thirsty and a bit overwhelmed. His mother didn’t think he could make such a drive; his father wanted him to keep the car in good shape, if nothing else; even Sandra said he didn’t have to rush right over to see her, he wasn’t obligated to put himself out on her account, but this collective doubt about his fortitude did nothing but fix the undertaking in his mind, fasten it there, like an obligation to prove them wrong about him, if it did nothing else. In the greater scheme of things, it would only take him a moment to get there, as long as his car and his health held up.

^^^^

“Of all the people I would expect to do this,” Sandra said, shaking her head as she grinned, “your name would not have been high on my list.” Hollis, taking no offense at this, held up his bottle; she tapped it, with her own. “You’re always about your business, taking care of yourself, your health. This isn’t like you. Or, okay, I thought it wasn’t like you, but now…” Hollis couldn’t breathe; he checked her blank expression for any hints that she disapproved of his actions, but he found none there. “I’m not saying it’s bad, don’t get me wrong. Change is… it can be a good thing.”

The moment proceeded; Hollis awakened from restless sleep at the rest stop, just before dawn, to the sound of trucks blaring their horns, whooshing by, as if they had been assigned to rouse him for another day. East, north, east again; he took in Yucca, then Kingman, Peach Springs, and Seligman, before deciding, on a whim, to shut down in that comfortable bed in a motel room in Flagstaff, where he stretched out and bid his cares good-bye, for the night. Sandra did not live there, any more than she lived in Winslow, or Holbrook. Not even Lupton, spitting distance from the state line, could claim Sandra, though it almost claimed him —

He didn’t just hear the truck careening out of its passing lane, as if it meant to collide with him; he felt it, like a shock wave had coalesced within a few feet of his car door. Hollis swerved, off of the right side of the highway, as the juggernaut whooshed past him and kept on going. The lunatic — had to be one — driving that eighteen-wheeler blared its horn, punctuating the near-disastrous near-collision with a deafening sneer, only stopping the horn when the truck, too, started to tilt dangerously; the menace to navigation righted the beast, by lefting it, so to speak, and Hollis, watching it roll on, was left there.

He went from cursing the trucker, caring not who heard him (nobody, to be exact) to thanking any and all ethereal forces keeping him from becoming a grape stain on a desert highway. He couldn’t see Arizona receding in his rear-view mirror fast enough, after that; of course, he didn’t tell Sandra a thing about this, not at first. He wasn’t aware of the tire situation until he was a few miles south of Gallup, when it was obvious: he had to pull off of the road. The mechanic at the tire shop marveled at what good luck Hollis had enjoyed, avoiding a blowout on the highway, when it would have been a fatal experience, almost without a doubt. He slept in a smaller motel, this time, but he actually enjoyed the experience more — perhaps his relief at having dodged a thunderbolt improved its flavor for him.

Sandra didn’t live there, either, or in other parts of the state of New Mexico, but this did not impair his experience. He took in the craggy beauty of the Land of Enchantment; glancing at the scenery, when it was safe to do so, and trying to make conversation with other motorists in the places where he stopped for gas, cold drinks, pit stops, the usual traveling reasons one stops. He wanted to save his money in Albuquerque; he would sleep at the roadside rest stops, whenever he could, but upon reaching Santa Fe, his fatigue was so bone-deep that he took another motel room. He spent the next day there, sightseeing, eating, drinking and thinking over his move-to-move; he helped a local family wish their young daughter a happy birthday, and later, drank at a local bar, making some friends just-for-one-night. The next day he barreled ahead to a place that sounded like an exotic bird: Took ’Em Carry. Was it rash, impulsive, wrongheaded of him, to have done this? Many in his circle would say so. He didn’t know if they were right — but he wanted to press on, if only to find out.

Texas happened to him next, as he cut a swath across its Panhandle, which Hollis thought looked more like a smokestack, and ought to have earned a nickname to fit. Glenrio stepped aside for some nothingness, after which, with some determined effort, he skirted the edge of disaster: all but out of gas, as he crept into Amarillo, which struck him as a proper setting, indeed, for one of those high-lonesome country songs. He fed his car, then himself, and decided he was good for another four hours on the road, at least. He put one of his compact discs on play; as the last rays of sunset warmed his left cheek and forearm, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Ramble Tamble”, an epic-mystic guitar exercise, played. Dad would have loved the imagery and the soundtrack of this, Hollis thought, smiling.

^^^^

The loneliness hit him, hard, in Oklahoma. Grinding down the ribbon of concrete, mile after indistinguishable mile, Hollis felt like he had passed reasonable hope of turning back, yet he was still so far from Sandra’s that arriving still seemed all but impossible to achieve. Elk City morphed into Weatherford into El Reno; he paid for a motel room in Oklahoma City. He was pleased to report that “OK City” was indeed okay, spending part of a day there, but he couldn’t stand being this far from his destination, so he pushed onward, to Edmond, to Sapulpa, and at last, to Tulsa. He spotted a beautiful young woman in a local restaurant, and wished with a fever that he could put aside his transient status long enough to work up the nerve to approach her; she smiled at him on her way out of the place, which would have to suffice.

He infiltrated Kansas next, because his moment had still not ended. A few more state lines to go, he reminded himself, as he pushed his Caprice on. The antique vehicle had impressed him, over and over, during this foolish errand, if it was foolish: Dad had kept it in such staggering good condition! North, through Baxter Springs, he drove until he reached — no kidding — a Rainbow Bridge, which supported his car just fine, even though it had the name he associated, metaphorically, with a journey to the afterlife. Hollis survived to turn east, again, and power onward to Riverton, then Galena, where he decided to stop for the night, again.

He wondered, as he shaved and brushed his teeth, the following morning, whether his things had arrived at the other end. It was a matter of no small importance to him that they would, but he had no way to confirm it in his current surroundings, nor did he want to add that stress to his plate yet. A late start, because he had decided to sleep in, got him off to a belated but welcome series of arrivals in the state of Misery — sorry, Missouri: Joplin, Carthage and, at last, one of America’s many fine Springfields, certainly, his favorite one to that point in his travels. A bit of steady wending and winding northeast, as Dad’s Chevy propelled him through and beyond Marshfield, Lebanon, Saint Robert and Newburg, a process of arriving, wearied but pleased to be alive and whole and free to move about, in St. Louis, where he made a point of seeing the famed arch, in person.

He wasn’t so frantic about his odds of surviving the jaunt, with a single state line left to cross; nor did he always, encountering a pretty face or a delightful place or an intriguing event, wince in bittersweet curiosity. Hollis wanted to cease his roaming and get there. He was rehearsing a speech he thought he needed to give to any possible doubters when it presented itself to his eyes, a sign welcoming him to the great state of Illinois. Hollis thought he was going to cry, but days of driving, and breathing pollen and engine fumes, had irritated his eyes: that could explain such a strong reaction.

He was looking around at the second city of Springfield of this trip, when the thought struck him: I did it—though, of course, any number of… disastrous fluke encounters could sever his dream of surprising that skeptical Sandra, before he made it to her neighborhood. Hollis kept planning what he wanted to say to her, how he forgave her doubting, absolved his parents and his former coworkers and friends, back in California, for thinking this was just beyond his capabilities. He had reached Bloomington before acknowledging that she would, almost certainly, agree with him, that he had possessed the willpower to get himself to his destination — no aircraft required — and he marveled at America’s variety, danger and beauty.

That last leg of the trip, short as it was, was suspenseful to an almost painful degree, but then, he was passing Joliet and ignoring the turn toward Napier, and a dull shock crackled through him. If he could do this, where else could he go? Pinwheels of invigorating possibilities lit up his imagination. He had a new luxury: ease of mind, about finding a place to live; finding new, gainful employment, new friends, that special woman. He drove across downtown Chicago, with unexpected calm, until he found his parking spot. At her door, Hollis sucked in his breath, hoping he could explain all of his feelings to her. Sandra flung open the door and tossed back her head, in a theatrical, comic way. A grin spread on his face. “Check this out, sis,” he divulged. “I drove the Mother Road, and I did it backwards.”

© Eric Wolf 2023.