Santa Cruz

Can't see straight. Can't hear straight. Sure as hell can't think straight. Always been like that. Always been just two steps over and one back. Always not getting the joke 'til an hour later. Always not seeing the chance until it's long gone by. Always never having enough of whatever would be really great to have at the time. Looking back. Looking back not seeing straight. God, if I believed in you I'd be pissed.

What kind of handicap is this? Isn't this some kind of syndrome? Some kind of quirky genetic defect? Can't I get some kind of special dispensation?

Okay, this is really how I ended up with a wife who is not my mother's daughter. No kidding.
I needed a job. I needed a job so bad that I decided to join the Air National Guard. I was still young enough, only twenty nine or so. I went over for the physical. I hadn't smoked pot for two weeks before. All I could think about was Arlo Guthrie and Alice's Restaurant.
At the physical, I passed everything except for the....


Okay, I'm stalling again. Here it really is.

I can't tell you how I ended up with a wife who was not my daughter's mother. I try to remember that time and what happened and who said what and all I come up with is a bunch of impressions. Just some sort of fuzzy scenes that I can't bring into focus. It all happened so fast.
Here's what I remember. It was a company party. It was in the Santa Cruz Sheridan hotel on Ocean Avenue. There were a couple hundred of us, factory line workers, drinking free wine and beer and eating free chips and cold vegetable platters and sliced French bread. It was a wine and cheese party, that's right. Cheap wine and common cheeses. The party was given by the Sheridan to the employees of Victor Electronics in appreciation of all the business Victor Electronics had done at the Sheridan. I don't know if the Sheridan really expected several hundred factory line workers. They probably expected 50 or 75 front office people and upper management.

I'm terrible in party situations. I can never talk to people I don't already know. I only knew two or three people there, so I mostly followed them around. I would pretend to go off on my own. Mingling. Really what I'd do is I'd make a circuit around the room. I'd visit the bathrooms, check out the food tables, look out the windows and smile at the servers. I'd get another beer and another plate of cheese or crackers or pretzels. Then I'd go looking for the two or three people I knew. I'd show up wherever they were as if I was surprised to find them there. I'd try to join in the conversation, but usually I couldn't follow it or it was too stupid to pay attention to.
Not really my friends, I guess, you couldn't call them that, Arthur and Merry and Hal. They were work acquaintances. People I knew from the factory floor. I didn't even like Hal that much because he was lazy and kind of a jerk, but I acted like I liked him and sometimes we actually had fun when we were busting up the cardboard boxes back at the cardboard box crusher.
Anyway, at the party, at this particular party, one time I came back from my pretend mingling and I found Arthur talking to two women, one of whom became the wife who was not the mother of my daughter, but this was before the daughter was born, so I didn't know.

Darlene put some kind of spell on me, I think, now. I don't remember what she said or what I said or what we talked about but it was probably about work and school and life in general. Whatever it was, it was the most fascinating conversation I'd ever had, or at least in a long time and I found myself hanging on her every word. I found myself trying to say things that sounded clever. I found myself trying to make her smile. I found myself not wanting her to go away.
We formed a complete unit of two and we blocked out the rest of the party. We talked for an hour, maybe two hours, in the main room, in the hallway, sitting at some table, standing by some doorway, people walking by, saying hi, drinking wine, feeling really good and I think we even held hands a little.

Her friend came by and said she was leaving. Darlene was supposed to ride home with this friend. I offered to drive her home myself. She said Excuse me and went away and came back a minute later saying Okay.

I found out later she'd gone to ask Arthur if I was okay. I mean if I was an okay kinda guy. A guy who would drive her home and not rape her or kill her or drive drunkenly off a cliff. I guess I was that kind of okay guy. Arthur didn't really know me that well. I could have been that other kind of guy, but Arthur said I was an okay kinda guy.

"It's way up in Boulder Creek," Darlene said.

"Where's that?" I said.

"Way Way up there on Highway 9" Darlene said.

I shrugged, "Okay," I said, "It doesn't matter."

It didn't matter. I just wanted to be with her more time. She was beautiful, I thought. She was intelligent, I thought. She seemed clear headed and right minded and mature and fun, I thought. When I was with her, that first day and for months after, I felt handsome and smart and funny. Her eyes told me I was smart and funny and strong and good looking. I don't know what my eyes told her.

* * *

Boulder Creek was way up there.

Actually, it was past Boulder Creek. Up a paved narrow road off Highway 9 and then up an unpaved narrower road and there was the house that Phil built. Phil was dead, now. Then. Phil had died six months after Rachel. Rachel was Darlene's mom. Phil was Darlene's dad. Rachel died of heart trouble the year before and Phil had hung around the house for about six months acting helpless and drinking heavily and then he died, too, of heart trouble. Darlene had come back from Sacramento to help straighten up the affairs and so she lived in the house with her younger sister Susie and Susie's husband Frank and their daughter Gina. Gina was just a baby.

This is what I remember about the house. It was a low kind of ranch style house with the front on a level with the road and the rest of it on stilts out over a little valley with a dry cement lily pond down in the valley. It had a big dark living room with a pool table and a big bright kitchen with modern appliances and three bedrooms. There were lots of toys and clothes and motorcycle parts around. Darlene gave me a quick tour and blamed the mess on Frank and Susie and Gina.
We were bumping together a lot and touching hands. That I remember. When I left, we hugged and I felt those bumps on her back, just below the shoulder blades. Those hills and valleys that get formed when someone gains weight. I told myself it didn't matter. Myself told me it did. I told myself, "It's the person inside." I told myself, "She's not very big, just pleasantly plump."

Myself said, "Remember Eve?"I told myself not to worry. Myself stopped arguing.