I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them Page 15

  “Win. Tric.”

  She says the two syllables hushed, detached, and a new vision arrives: Wintric on the couch, Halo 2 on the screen, a narcotic, lazy smile as he sips a fourth Coors Light under a spinning ceiling fan. “Oh my God.”

  “Baby, you on your way here? You on your way?”

  Kristen bends over at the waist.

  “Wintric,” she says. “What have you done? God. Shit. What—”

  “I’m sitting here. Where you?”

  “Outside Westwood.”

  “What?”

  “What have you done?”

  “Where you at, baby?”

  She hears another “Baby?” and the hand holding the phone drops from her ear to her side. She sees herself in the doorway of their home, crossing the room to intoxicated Wintric, her arm reaching out to him, handing him the new video game, returning to the kitchen; she’s opening the refrigerator, placing the milk gallons on the center shelf. She’s leaning over the counter, watching Wintric’s joy as he picks up the game controller and hits Start.

  At the turnout a waft of manure hits Kristen and she walks over to the fireplace and reaches out and touches the bricks, pressing her left palm against the chimney. She glances at the square diamond in her ring and moves her ring finger. The bottom of her ring taps the bricks.

  Kristen drafts ultimatums in her head—no more alcohol, no video games, rehab, time to cut out the drugs—but she can’t conjure a threat. She wouldn’t leave, it hasn’t gotten that bad, and really, has it been bad at all? It’s the first relapse in over four months. And what’s a relapse? Drunk at 2 P.M. on a Saturday? He’s not soaking in the tub fully dressed. He’s not running away or locking himself in the bedroom or pulling a gun or driving drunk. What is she worried about? Maybe his foot is killing him from the wood splitting. Maybe he split all the wood and threw back a couple waiting for her. She is later than she said she’d be.

  After Kristen and Wintric’s engagement, her father took her aside and told her that she should never ask Wintric about the war, that there were no answers that would make sense, and besides, there was only one way to gauge if someone was ready for marriage: if he would still love his spouse after one of them had starting shitting their pants in old age. “I’m just waiting on your mother to start,” he said, with a raise of his eyebrows. The comment had made her laugh at the time, and though she couldn’t visualize an aged, pants-shitting Wintric or explain why she felt like he was the only one for her, she yearned to be with him and to care for him—she had as far back as she could remember. It was not a curse or a blessing or a surprise.

  Kristen clutches her phone and the questions and guilt and rage invade. What if she hung up too soon? Wintric installed the ceiling fans and painted their bedroom a light blue for her. He danced at their back-yard wedding reception without a whisper of pain.

  What makes it worse is that he won’t be upset with her. He’s never upset with her. He never asks her to do anything for him. Calm down, she says to herself. The cattle graze in the meadow. The yellow grass. The ridge line in the distance. Almost home. This is the world she knows, but most of it she’s only driven through, and at the moment she’s not sure what she knows or wants or expects. The threat of beginnings gnaws at her. Is this the first in a series of drunken phone calls she’ll get from Wintric? What is her fault? What does he need to recover from? Will she always overreact? Has she now? What does she want?

  She climbs back into the car and her chest tightens and the nausea expands someplace inside. She peers out the windshield and notices a new chip in the glass that will run on her come winter. Her eyes close, and she promises herself that when she opens them everything will still be there. In past moments of stress she’s always heard her mother’s motto that the only folks who experience real anxiety are the ones who don’t know when they’ll eat next. The perspective has always helped, but nausea isn’t just a state of mind. Her stomach clenches and opens, and she leans out of the car and throws up.

  Kristen washes her mouth out with lukewarm Coke and spits. A minivan pulls into the turnout. In her rearview mirror she watches a boy jump out, look around, and scramble behind the fireplace. Soon a stream of pee appears from behind the bricks. She wants to look away, but the scene is fantastically bizarre, this fireplace springing a leak, cows in the background, her little hill and those damn blackbirds. She hears her laugh before she feels it, and she lets herself go and her laughter fills the car and she wipes at her eyes and tastes the Coke film. Soon the pee stream stops and the boy runs back to the van and hops in, and the van pulls back onto the road.

  Kristen’s nerves ease momentarily, but she sits in the silent car and the worry creeps back in. She knows what she wants—she wants nothing else to change today. She wants no news or answers, big or small. Wintric hasn’t called back or texted, and she guesses that he’s already forgotten about her hang-up, is now fully reinvested in Halo 2, another half a beer down. She remembers that she gassed up in Susanville before heading to Walmart and she wonders how far she can drive on a tank. Where could she go where there’s no news?

  When she hits Chester, Kristen keeps her foot on the gas, down Main Street, past her home two streets over, past the airport and the Forest Service station. By the time she reaches Mineral she’s guilt-ridden but exhilarated. She knows where she wants to go, just not exactly how to get there, so when she pulls into Red Bluff she asks a 7-Eleven checkout woman the way to the redwoods after paying for two Mountain Dews and a cylinder of Pringles. In the parking lot she debates calling Wintric, but she doesn’t want to hear his voice, so she thumbs out a text: I’m fine. Need alone time. Drove west to clear head. Home tomorrow or next. She considers typing Don’t worry or I love you, and while she means both, she stops herself and presses Send, then turns her phone off and slides it into the glove box.

  At Redding she turns west, singing first to Coldplay, then to the Killers through Weaverville, then parallels the Trinity River under the setting sun. In McKinleyville she smells the salt air and buys a turkey sandwich at the Safeway. She eats the sandwich while a man in a Portland Trail Blazers hat tells her he’s pretty sure there’s a redwood up near Klamath that cars can drive through. A woman with a shaved head seconds that, so Kristen heads north, pulling into Klamath’s Hinkle Motel a little after ten, where the smiling man at the desk tells her she’s in the right spot, that the Klamath Tour Thru Tree is only a mile away, that he’d be happy to show her the way in the morning.

  With room key in hand, Kristen decides to ditch two of the gallons of milk, but she squeezes one into the tiny refrigerator in her room. Exhausted, she lies on the bed and stretches her body. She observes the room’s reflection in the turned-off television screen and begs herself not to think about Wintric, but she wonders if he’s already called her parents. If he shares her text with them, all will be okay. If he plays it up, there could be issues, but it’s only been a few hours. It’s warm, and she closes her eyes and kicks off her shoes and lets the silence of the room come to her.

  A knock at her door jolts her awake and she looks around, dazed. A lit lamp. A television. Brown curtains. White walls. This is her room. She’s in Klamath.

  Kristen searches for a clock and finds one on the nightstand: 11:15 P.M. She’s not sure what that means. When did she get in? Another knock. A double tap. Kristen stands and steps to the door, not thinking to glance for a peephole. She pauses for a moment. Klamath.

  Through the door, a voice.

  “It’s Dennis, from the front desk.”

  Kristen inspects the room, unaware of what she seeks. She remembers there’s no suitcase to find. The bed appears huge. Her purse on the bathroom counter. The clothes she wears. She turns the door’s handle and cracks the door enough to expose her head.

  “It’s Dennis. You know. From the desk. Just wanted to make sure everything was okay in here.” He smiles. His hands are behind him and he rocks back and forth.

  “Yeah. Everything’s fine. Thanks.”r />
  “Good,” he says. “Good.”

  He rocks in place, and Kristen comes to. Eleven-fifteen, she thinks. The motel’s lights cast a blue shade onto the parking lot.

  “Yep,” she says.

  “So the drive-through tree is down the road here. Hell, you could walk to it. You know, there’s three redwoods you can drive through in California. Two of them are down south a bit.”

  “Oh.”

  “I haven’t been there to those two, but . . .” He pauses and Kristen waits for him to continue, but there’s only silence. He rocks in place.

  Kristen thinks Dennis may be wearing a different shirt, and she gets a whiff of his cologne. She notices that he’s combed his now wet hair. He’s tall and overweight, and his large hands appear at his sides, then slide into his front pockets. She cases the parking lot for someone, but there are only two cars parked in front of dark rooms on the far side of the place.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Well. I’m fine with this one. Thanks.” She moves her left hand to the door’s edge and grips, pointing her ring set at him, but his eyes don’t leave hers. At the far side of the parking lot someone appears and walks a few steps in their direction, then pauses and lights a cigarette. Dennis glances at the smoker, then turns back to Kristen.

  “I’m glad the room works,” he says. “There’s not much going on, but we got a bar across the street.” He points.

  “I’m not really—”

  “I know Rick, the bartender. It’s the one game in town.” He gulps. “No pressure, of course.”

  The parking-lot smoker has moved a few steps closer to them and stopped. Kristen eyes Dennis’s boots, a couple feet from the doorjamb. She breathes his cologne.

  “I’m married,” she says. “I mean, he’s here . . .”

  “Wow,” he says, and laughs. “Married. You the only one?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  Dennis lifts his hands and presses his palms to his chest. Kristen decides to shut the door, to slam it, but her hands don’t move. She flexes her arms and the muscles tighten.

  “I mean I’m just being nice, telling you about the bar,” Dennis says. “That’s what we got here. You from some big city looking for the drive-through tree. That’s what I’m saying. I’m not asking if you’re married. Just being nice. You seemed a little out of sorts, that’s all. Just being nice.”

  “I know,” she says. “I’m sorry. Long day.” She hears her words and this repeated apology.

  “So?”

  “Sorry?”

  She tells herself to close the door. Why is she asking questions?

  “So you agree about nice people? That there are nice people?”

  “Sure.”

  “That’s all I’m saying. Why does everyone have to be scared all the time? You’re scared and I don’t know why. I know your husband isn’t here. That’s fine. I’m checking on a guest. I live here, ma’am.”

  “I know,” she says. “Sorry.”

  “You know?”

  “No. Please.”

  “Please?” he says. He lifts his hands to his face. He covers his eyes. “My God. I’m sorry.” He leans back and takes a step away. The smoker sits on the pavement.

  “Okay.”

  “Have a great night,” he says, shaking his head as he starts his walk away. “There’s a deadbolt on the door if you have issues.”

  Kristen closes the door and presses her body against it. She finds the deadbolt and twists it locked and backs up against the door. Her mind whirls and she grabs her purse and sits on the bed. She turns off the lamp and reaches into her purse for her phone, but remembers she’s left it in the car’s glove box and says, “Fuck.” Narrow strips of blue light leak from the bottom of the curtains onto the AC/heater unit. She picks up the room’s phone and hears the dial tone, then puts the receiver down. She stands and walks to the curtains and draws them back and peers out. She sees her car and the unmoving parking lot. Near her knees the AC kicks on, and she jumps back. Quickly she reaches into her purse and grabs her car keys, steps to the door, unlocks the deadbolt and handle lock, opens the door, and looks around. Nothing. In the distance the sound of brakes from Highway 101, and in front of her a deserted parking lot.

  From her car’s glove box Kristen snatches her phone and a bottle of pepper spray. Back in the locked room, she sits in the darkness, surprised to find herself here, on this bed, in this room, confused that she isn’t bound for another place. She sets the pepper spray on the bed next to her and turns on her phone and studies the background photo while the phone searches for reception. Three missed calls and five texts from Wintric, two texts from her mother. She places the phone on her chest and tries to relax.

  The cool air from the AC reaches her legs and she hears a car door shut outside. She grabs the pepper spray and stands.

  From outside, a woman’s voice: “One seventeen. No, one seventeen.”

  Kristen tries to remember her room number, but nothing comes to her. She edges to the curtains and stares out. Outside, a woman stands near a car holding a sleeping child. She enters the room next to Kristen’s. Kristen hears the woman’s movements through the shared wall. A man waits for a moment in the parking lot, then reaches into the back seat and brings out a baby in a car seat and a large bag and follows the woman into the room. Before she closes the curtains, Kristen hears the short beep and sees the headlights flash as the car locks.

  Back on the bed, Kristen listens to the family settle in the room next to hers. She retrieves her phone and opens the first text from her mother: Okay? Worried. Call ASAP. Love you. From the next room, the rising cries of the baby and the muffled reaction of the parents. The infant unleashes a full-blown wail as Kristen types a text to her mother: Drove to coast. Need deep breath. I know weird. All okay. Home soon. Help with Wintric. All okay. Love. The baby screams, then quiets, then screams, and Kristen realizes that Dennis may have put the family next to her as some sort of punishment, but tonight the noisy family and thin walls comfort her. They’d hear if someone knocked on her door. They’d hear her if she called out. Kristen rereads her text to her mother—All okay. She hits Send and keeps her phone on but in silent mode. The AC kicks off, and though she’s still hot, she stays on the bed, guessing it will turn on again soon. The baby cries, and Kristen wonders how young the child is, if it’s a boy or a girl. She grabs the pillow that Wintric would use if he were here and clutches it to her chest.

  In the morning, about half a mile from the motel, Kristen slides five dollars into a slot in a yellow shack beneath a handwritten sign that reads $5 FOR CARLOAD. PUT MONEY IN THE SLOT. WE TRUST YOU. Guiding her car up a steep road just behind the shack, she comes upon the Tour Thru Tree so fast that the scene instantly surprises and disappoints her. A green car is parked halfway through the massive tree and two teenagers stand nearby, taking photos with their phones. Kristen stops and glances around, but there’s only this small clearing with the massive, holed tree and a thin paved road looping through. Somehow she’s already here. She rolls down her window and hears a group of Harleys on 101 and one of the teenagers saying, “Humboldt.”

  Kristen searches amid her building frustration for preconceived images of this place, but there’s only a residue of expected wonderment. Whatever it was, what she hoped this moment would bring, it was never this tourist trap, this huge redwood practically on the highway, these two teenagers posing in front of her. It wasn’t Dennis or a crying baby or a glass-of-milk-and-potato-chip breakfast or two days in the same clothes. It wasn’t alone.

  She doesn’t want to curse herself for driving here. What if she’d driven home and handed Wintric Dead Rising? She leans her head back on the headrest and watches the young men move around the tree to the back of their car and snap more photos. One jumps up on the trunk of the car and gives two thumbs-up to the other. After several more photos, their show is over and they pull away, circling back the way they came in, waving to Kristen, who ignores them.

  Kristen eases forward, and
by the time the nose of the car enters the tree she’s almost numb. The car fits comfortably, engulfed in the redwood. The tree’s darkened innards sport horizontal scratches and carvings from side mirrors and knives. Scattered graffiti dot the upper reaches of the cutout. Kristen looks to her left and reads some of the inked messages: “Amy and Brett 98,” “alien tree,” “Calvin Hobbes Me.” She wonders if the other drive-through trees are marked up like this, and she lets herself think they are in fact worse—spray-painted inside, with long lines of cars and a ten-dollar entrance fee. Outside the tree a light rain begins, and she stares right and reads “CA sucks.” Suddenly she understands she’ll learn nothing here.

  She reaches for her bottled water in the front cup holder and drinks. In her rearview mirror a truck with a thick deer guard pulls in behind her. She peeks at the windshield and thinks she sees Dennis at the wheel. She squeezes the water bottle and turns around to get a better view, but the rain beading on the truck’s windshield distorts the man’s image. Blood rushing, Kristen waits for the wipers to wipe, but they don’t move. She presses the lock button, but the doors are already locked and all she gets is a weak reminder click. She’s kept the car in drive, and she lets off the brake. The car moves, slowly at first, emerging from the tree into the rain. She circles around and tells herself not to look, to drive away from this place, back to somewhere she knows. Still, she glances at the truck, hoping for a view of the driver, but the truck has already entered the tree, so all she sees as she exits is the bed and rear tires and the illuminated brake lights.

  Kristen isn’t sure what caused her to swerve off 101 only an hour into the trip home—maybe the funny name on the sign, Lady Bird; maybe the lure of a final choice and the hope of not walking through her front door in Chester empty-handed—but here she stands in a dripping redwood forest halfway into the 1.3-mile Lady Bird Johnson Grove Trail outside Orick.

  Alone on the dirt path, she hugs herself and takes in this other world: the trees monstrous and time-warped, the lichen fluorescent and the moss dark green, the forest floor covered in flattened ferns, billions of needles and insects seeping into the dark soil. She’s lived within Lassen National Forest her entire life, but it’s nothing like this, this place where there’s no medium growth, only the world-aged giant redwoods, a few pines, and the ground cover.