Montana, Act I (The Drive Up)

The morning we were set to leave for Montana, things fell apart a little on the home front. 20 minutes before I was to drop the Things off at school and the bus stop, John called me. His car had stopped running in the middle of a busy Portland freeway, causing several fender benders (though his car was fine, as was he). He couldn’t come pick up the Things as he usually does on Fridays. The plan had been for Friend Two and me to leave early Friday morning for Big Sky Country, just as soon as I got the kids off to school. But since we were about to leave, and since it was on our way, Friend Two and I decided to just drive the Things up to Portland and drop them off at John’s house.

The Things were beside themselves with excitement. A chance to ride in Friend Two’s car? For a few hours? The chance to talk to Friend Two, endlessly, about skateboards and rock climbing and other planets? It was all heady stuff for them, and combined with the fact they were missing school, it felt like an adventure. Friend Two and I loaded up the car, put the kids in, and drove off.

We stopped in town to buy the Things doughnuts for breakfast, and that was the place I sensed it first, though it came more as confusion than anything else. Friend Two and I took the kids inside. I helped them order doughnuts and Friend Two helped them pick out drinks. They wanted to sit at the counter and eat, so we let them. The woman behind the counter smiled at us, at the kids. Then Friend Two spaced himself from us, a little, one seat, and I could tell something was up in the way he swiveled on the stool, back and forth, one of his nervous physical habits. I didn’t know what that something was.

In the car, Friend Two ended up taking the first driving shift. We drove. The kids talked. They played. They bickered. I called into the back a few times with warnings and answers to random questions. Friend Two would wait while I answered them, then we’d continue our conversation. He is adept at interacting with the Things, more adept than anyone save Friend One. But driving with them was somehow different, and he seemed nervous about it.

By the time we hit Salem, Friend Two was talking to the kids from the driver’s seat in that familiar parental way, cocking his head to one angle, eyes still on the road, telling Thing One about India and Pakistan, or telling them to listen to their mother.

Thing Two needed a bathroom break, so we stopped. And Friend Two decided to get breakfast (which, in typical form, was a bag of Baked Lays). Inside, post relieving of oneselves, the Things were asking both of us for candy, bags of chips, little plastic toys. I sighed, asked Friend Two for the keys, reached my hand across the three children between us while he waited in line.

When he came from the mini-mart, he was smiling, a genuine smile, but a nervous one. He looked like someone had told him an off-color joke, one that he thought was funny, but wasn’t sure about the social acceptability of admitting so.

We got in the car, drove the second hour to Portland. We pulled up to John’s house, and I got out, got the backpacks loaded with weekend clothes. The kids spilled out of the car, ran to the front door. John was on the porch in a second, hugging them. Friend Two got out of the car, took out a car seat, set it on the curb, then leaned against the vehicle. I watched John watch him, and saw, right then, what everyone else had been seeing. I grabbed the seat, walked it to the front porch.

*****

The Columbia River separates Oregon and Washington with water laid in strips like French ribbons, wide cut, catching light in the cross-weave. I drove the Oregon side, passing waterfalls, cascades of glass and pewter. Watched clusters of trees and hikers glide by us in silence. We talked about the program, about our friends, about stories we loved, but fell silent often, let the music we played do the work. We listened to Neko Case and Gillian Welch and play lists made by friends. We listened to Huckleberry’s play list most, let the voice of Patty Griffin wash over us as we drove through The Dalles. Friend Two slept as I drove, put a folded shirt over his eyes to block out the sun.

Before we crossed the Columbia into Washington, the scenery changed from thick evergreen and moss and ivy, everything green and watery, to low, soft hills of yellow. We stopped somewhere, nowhere, really, and bought snacks. Bottles of water and beef jerky and snack mix and popcorn. On the road, Friend Two took a wrong turn, ended up heading back to Portland, and looked for a turn around. Missed the first three before finding one and getting ourselves righted again.

“In Salem, in that mini mart?” Friend Two said it like a question.

“Yeah.”

“I was in line, and after you left with the kids, the guy in front of me said, ‘go ahead. I know what it’s like. Three!’”

I laughed.

“So I just went ahead. I mean, you have to take your breaks when you can get them.” I was glad that he was laughing, too.

*****

We drove and drove. Watched the hills turn into fields of dirt. “What the hell is that,” I asked at one point, “a dirt farm?” We were tired from sitting all day, and the landscape of eastern Washington was wearing on us.

”Are you hungry?” Friend Two said, nearing Spokane. “I’m hungry.”

We stopped then for dinner, though it was early for that, about 4:30. But we’d had nothing all day but snack food and we were exhausted from the drive. We drove around Spokane’s downtown district for ten, fifteen minutes, until we found an area with pubs. We picked one called The Globe, went in, sat at the bar.

It was decorated with globes of all kinds: a Victorian era, an art deco, one depicting Pangea, one like a giant blue marble reflecting back all the whiskeys as though they were underwater. It was our speed—a place where you could order a drink and get a $10 hamburger. Which is what we both did.

At the end of the bar sat several men. One, I remember, was rounded with age and good food and beer, wore a button up, white shirt and a bolero tie inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He watched Friend Two suspiciously.

Our food came, and we ate, talked baseball, made jokes. At one point, I touched Friend Two’s arm. The guy at the end of the bar shook his head.

Outside, I asked Friend Two about Mississippi. He taught there for two years before I knew him. Taught fourth grade in a rural Mississippi town, in a poor, black school. His novel is based on that experience, but I wondered now, on the streets of Spokane, how you could ever not think that the reason why people were looking at you was because you weren’t white.

“It’s sort of always there,” he said. “Anyway, I think they thought I was Native American.”

I nodded like I understood. Then said, “I’m going to let you drive. And I’m going to make a sign that says ‘Help! I’ve been kidnapped by this Injun!”

It was good to make a joke about it, and we laughed. But through Idaho, whenever someone looked at us, I wondered why.

(to be continued)

*tm

Comments

[Friend Omega]

well don't stop NOW. christ.

even the "The plan had been for Friend Two and I to leave early Friday morning" grammatical train wreck didn't stop me from enjoying this.

[Terrible Mother]

You know I am trying to write while listening to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in the background and being interrupted by three sub-ten year olds?

I also cannot believe you read it that fast.

[Terrible Mother]

You were right. It was riddled with errors and problems.

[badfreak]

We're used to it.

[Friend2]

Yeah.

That guy in the bolero was fun. He looked as if he wanted to square off and say 'draw!' At which point I would have taken out a pen and tried to doodle something on a bar napkin as I bled to death from a shot to the chest.

The biker-guy in the gas station, hair tied in a red bandana but wearing glasses, actually said, "Three. My God. I got one and it's too much. Go on ahead."

I didn't choose the bar stool one step away intending to make a metaphor. I did it because the chairs swivel, and I was turning in circles, which helped me choke down the coffee (it was called something like 'Caffeine Overload' or "Hyper Overdrive" or something like that, and tasted like "Charcoal Folgers"). FYI.