LA to Portland

Dad is reclined in the driver’s seat. He has it pushed so far back that it couldn’t go back anymore. I glance down at his outstretched leg on the gas pedal, and it is fully extended so that he can only press on it by moving his ankle. He is about an inch shorter than me, but anytime it is my turn to drive I have to scoot the seat forward in order to be comfortable driving.

“What are you? A gangster or something?” I say sarcastically.

“What?” He responds, “we’ve got a long drive ahead of us, I gotta be comfortable.” I laugh out loud, roll my eyes, and look back down at my book.

Outside of the car is endless desert. We are going north on the 15. When we started the trip we took in the breadth of Orange County. The endless sprawl of Los Angeles is fascinating, like God’s great ant colony. The density of mankind’s thumbprint faded slowly though and eventually slipped away altogether, leaving before us an ocean of yellow rolling hills, and at the horizon - tan mountains, snow capped, whose faces are gnarled from ancient geology and stained with contours of dark amber and burnt sienna.

“We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold,” I say as I look up from my book and take in the landscape around me. Dad doesn’t immediately know the reference.

“Drugs?” he says, checking my expression out of the corner of his eye, “I don’t think we will be having any drugs on this trip.”

 “Perhaps not, and I don’t see a sky full of bats either,” I say. I roll down the window and hang my head out. The wind blows my hair. Dad is always telling me I need a haircut. He thinks I should gel it back like him. He is always telling me that. I generally take his advice on most things, but on that, I always have and always will disagree. I think about this as the wind whistles around me, and I feel the freedom of having my hair; untouched by product, blow freely away from my face.

“I was reading from the book,” I say as I settle back into my seat and roll the window back up so the AC won’t be wasted. I do this because I already know my dad is about to mention it.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Dad says, reading the title of the book I am holding in his vision.

“Did you ever read it?” I say. Dad reads a lot, but mostly different types of books from what I read.

“I think so. A long time ago. I saw the movie though.” He says. “It’s a good book to read for this trip, Pat. We probably won’t be doing any drugs, but we may have our own fear and loathing before this is all done.”

“Have you ever been to a casino, Pat?” Dad asks as we casually stroll into the lobby of Mandalay Bay.

“Yeah, you took me and Linz to Pechanga last year remember?”

“Oh yeah, but you could only watch because you weren’t 21. Are you going to try your hand at a little blackjack tonight now that you are able?”

“I think I’d rather play poker to be honest. I’m not very confident in my blackjack abilities.”

“Poker! Jesus. Well let’s see how I do at blackjack and maybe I’ll come play poker with you later.”

Seeing that there is a desk agent open, dad quickly darts away to check us in. I stand back with the bags and look around at the throngs of tourists that are passing by in every direction. Some have fanny packs on and haircuts from the 70s. There are college guys that probably play water polo, there are elderly couples creeping through the mania in the last years of their lives, lots of artificially beautiful women, a lot of Asian people. The lobby has ornately designed marble floors, great white pillars, and elaborate chandeliers. The place has a Hawaiian theme but it is all such an obvious façade. The artificial nature of everything devalues it. The simulacrum is more apparent than that which it so confidently pretends to be. Yet, there is something magical about the farce. I find that I can ignore the truth a little bit. I decide I like this place; this is Disney Land for adults.

I look back at dad; he is flirting with the desk agent. She looks about my age, Thai or Vietnamese maybe. Dad has those brown loafers on that he wears without socks. His legs are crossed casually with one knee bent as he leans on the countertop. He has casual slacks on, an un-tucked dress shirt, and a loose fitting grey sports coat over that. This is a new style for him. He has gone casual ever since losing his job. 25 years of executive suits and ties, all gone in a flash. Now he is honoring his unemployment by dressing in what he calls “Larry David style”. He wants to be just like Larry David. It makes sense in a way, they are both so cynical, deep down they both abhor social structures, but my dad is too afraid to break them. He dresses like Larry David, but could never truly act like Larry David. Never to someone’s face, only when they are out of earshot. I am the same way. So is my sister. We are all so much the same it makes me sick and so I put it out of my mind. I can’t hear what my dad is saying but I can imagine he is crossing some sort of line with the cute girl. Nothing too far, just enough to make her uncomfortable.

Our rooms are adjacent to each other. We are at The Four Seasons, which occupies the top four floors of Mandalay Bay. My dad, prior to losing his job, has spent much of his life in Las Vegas for business and as such has many friends and connections in the city. One such friend, as a gesture of kindness, and also probably out of sympathy and some sense of duty, set us up with these suites all under the pretense that we are potential business clients. This friend works for the company my dad was fired from. The Las Vegas portion of the trip is, in a way, an underhanded fuck you to the executives of my dad’s former company who value money and pride over human decency. “Go crazy on that mini bar, Pat” my dad says just before we part ways to explore our respective rooms.

That evening we are on the casino floor. This is after sampling every type of booze from my mini bar and eating all the chips. This is after the Grey Goose cocktails at the lobby bar, and getting a $300 bottle of wine to wash down my duck confit at the House of Blues Foundation Room which has floor to ceiling windows at the southern point of the Strip, overlooking this whole great lie. This is after the bouncer at the Foundation Room refused to let me up the elevator because I was wearing Vans, and my dad’s friend took me to Elton’s Men’s Shoe Store and bought me a $250 pair of dress shoes that I never wore again just so we could have dinner. This is after all that. When my dad’s friend went home and it was just the two of us, sitting at an otherwise empty blackjack table, a pack of Marlboro Lights between us, Coors Lights in the plastic drink holders that never perfectly fit under padded edges of the table.

“You see, Pat, gamblers always have superstitions. Good gamblers do anyway. I’m not superstitious of course, but I still have traditions.” He says as he stacks his green chips up neatly next to the smaller pile of black chips. I am listening intently. Focused. There are no chips before me, but because it is a quiet night the dealer and pit bosses allow me to sit without playing. I drink. I smoke.

“I always smoke,” he says “I know its probably bad, but its what I do. I smoke and I like to hold the cigarette a certain way. I like to have the ashtray in a certain place. Sometimes I won’t sit down at a table just because I don’t want to sit in a particular spot at that table. Sometimes I won’t sit a table just because I don’t like how the dealer looks. These things don’t actually matter because they don’t change the randomness of the cards coming out, but your state of mind does matter. I like things to be a certain way so that I can get my mind right, otherwise it will all feel wrong, and I’ll lose. You understand?”

“I think so,” I say, “yeah… you gotta get in the right frame of mind. I get that.”

Dad plays for a while, always explaining his moves. We have played blackjack before, at home, always for a little bit of money, never just for fun. This is the first time I am getting this instruction at an actual table though. I know the moves to make, he has already taught them to me. Hit soft 17. Always split 8’s. I know these things, but I’m watching his mannerisms, seeing the etiquette. His first card is an ace, he lightly pounds the table with his fist, “paint it!” he yells out. The dealer smiles as he couples it with a king. A blackjack. Dad stacks the winnings on top of his original bet to let the whole thing ride. He puts a red $5 chip just outside the betting circle

“This bet is for you James,” dad says to the dealer, “lets both get a blackjack.”

“Thank you sir,” says James the dealer as he deals out a second consecutive blackjack. A-10. Dad is beaming, he is positively thrilled. Dad is drunk, and so am I. He slides a green $25 chip over to me. “You play,” he says. I don’t respond. I just put the chip in the betting circle in front of me. It is time to be serious. I light another cigarette. The cocktail waitress comes by with another Coors Light for me. I didn’t even have to order it, she knew. Drinks are free in Vegas as long as you are gambling but I tip her with a white $1 chip. I do this because I saw my dad do it, and he knows what to do.

At 6am I am at the Cashier’s desk next to the poker room at Caesar’s palace. This is after turning my dad’s green chip into three black chips back at Mandalay Bay. This is long after dad suggested we walk to Caesar’s and watch the Bellagio fountain on the way. After dad got bored with poker and went to bed. He has a short attention span. He hates poker for this reason. This is after the cowboy looking man with the white beard at the poker table called me “young gun” as I sat down. This is after losing about $100 to the man in sunglasses and a Hawaiian shirt who laughed in my face and told me not to quit my day job. This is after five straight hours of No Limit Texas Hold Em’ and after I won my $100 back plus another $400 from the man in the Hawaiian shirt, who said, “what are you gonna do young buck? Just take all my money and walk away??” as I stood up and did just that. This is the moment when I am standing at the cashier’s window, with two racks full of chips.

“OK, here you are sir. One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven hundred and Ten, Twenty, Thirty dollars,” says the cashier as she places the bills one by one on the counter before me. I take the money, smile politely, like I’ve done this a million times, like this is no big deal, and walk away. I put the money in my pocket and realize I forgot to cash in a white chip. I feel its soft clay exterior; I pinch it and can tell it is strong. I decide to keep it. It is 6 am but it could have been anytime. There are no clocks and no windows. The light in a casino is always the same. I stroll through the casino floor and there are businessmen, still in their suits with loosened ties shouting and high fiving over a craps game. The clanging and chiming of the slot machines is harmonious in a dissonant kind of way, if that is even possible.

I step out of the doors of the hotel and the sun is up. I squint my eyes. I realize I am still drunk. Some joggers are running down the street, they almost run into me. Cars are slowly meandering down Las Vegas Boulevard. The world is still happening. This is a harsh and overwhelming reality. I see a cab and I get in. He takes me back to Mandalay Bay. In the room I drink another mini bottle of whisky because I can. I stand naked in my window, exposing myself to nobody and everybody. I pass out in my bed.

  

We are in Yellowstone National Park. The trip so far has taken about three weeks. We left Orange County at the beginning of October, the Ford SUV that dad rented was white when we started, now it is varying shades of black, brown, and gray. After Las Vegas we saw the Grand Canyon. Rode a helicopter over it. We explored the artsy communities of northern New Mexico. The whole town of Taos was out of power and it was mysterious and exciting. In Amarillo, TX we ate at a roadhouse where my dad tried to convince the waitress to go on a date with me. He is always doing things like that. He always tries to make me feel so awkward. In New Orleans we visited the 9^th Ward and took in the aftermath of Katrina only a year after it happened. We gambled at Harrah’s Casino. We gambled in Biloxi and I lost $300. In Atlanta I packed up my apartment. We put most of my stuff into storage, not that I had much to begin with, and we put what we could fit into the car, along with my dog, Jesse, in his huge rattling cage. We had to put the seats down. After Atlanta we visited my half-sister Sarah and her husband Nate in North Carolina. We took back roads through the coal mining country of West Virginia and listened to Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn. We went to Washington DC. After DC we made a left somewhere and began the long crawl West. We drove longer stretches without stopping. We made it to Indiana where we picked up my dad’s ex-wife, Kimberly. She has an infant son now, Rowan, he came along too.

We made it to Madison Wisconsin. This was before we all visited the Wisconsin Dells, before we had brunch on a rooftop restaurant in Minneapolis, and before Kimberly flew back to Indiana. This was before dad and I went to Fargo and visited the giant statues of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox because we love the Coen Brothers so much. This was before we visited Mt. Rushmore, before we listened to Bruce Springsteen’s album Nebraska in silence while crossing the badlands of Wyoming at sunset. This was before we drifted over the high plains and passed into the heart of the Grand Teton Mountains. This was back in Madison, when we all went to a German beer hall for dinner. Rowan began to cry, so Kimberly excused herself to change him.

“Is it ok that Kimberly is here with us?” dad said once she was out of hearing.

“Yeah,” I said, wanting to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, “of course it is ok. I’m glad she is here, I love Kimberly.”

“Look Pat, I know things are sometimes weird with me.” Dad said, aware of the fact that I was just giving him the answer I thought he wanted to hear. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. There have been times in the past that I have been wild, and that I drank too much, and my judgment was clouded by what was before me. I was always living in the moment. I have done things that I cannot be forgiven for, and there are things that you have no idea about and that you probably will never want to know about.” His hands were shaking, and so were mine. We are always shaking though. It’s a genetic thing. We are just a shaky family. A serious or emotional conversation only makes the shaking worse.

“So are you bringing Kimberly along on this trip because you feel bad about the past? Like, because she is having a hard time as a single mom and you want to make up for that past by rescuing her?” I said. I’m usually not this frank with my dad. My whole life I have lived out the son to father relationship by avoiding conflict as much as possible, and avoiding direct accusations. We had spent nearly a month in a car together though, exploring the country together, both of us starting new lives, and I felt like I could speak to him this bluntly, maybe for the first time ever.

“No, its not that,” he said after looking me in the eyes for a few seconds, “I love Kimberly. I have never stopped loving her. We just couldn’t be together, we couldn’t work. I will always love her though. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on this trip. I have been very humbled by losing my job and this bankruptcy. Pat, you have no idea what this has done to me. I have cashed in my 401K. This whole trip is being funded by my retirement savings.”

“Really?” I asked. I had never asked how he was paying for all this. I just assumed he had it taken care of. I hadn’t spent a penny of my own money except to gamble with at the various casinos we always stopped at along the way. I began to feel selfish. I began to realize how presumptuous and spoiled I have been for so long. Walls were starting to break down.

“Yes, I cashed in my retirement just before we left,” my dad said, “I realize how fleeting material things are. That is why I am on this trip with you, and that is why I wanted Kimberly here. I can’t make the past ok. I can’t change the way I have been neglectful or hurt people. I am calmer now though. More mature. I want to be with the people who are important to me. Right now I am happy we are all together. Can we agree on that?”

“Yes, of course,” I said, feeling slightly choked up. My eyes were watering a little bit. I’m not one to cry so I held it in. “I’m sorry,” I said after a minute.

“Why are you sorry?” dad asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just so sorry.”

“Its ok Patty boy,” dad said and he put his hand on my shoulder. “I love you.”

“Woah stop! Stop! Stop!” my dad screams. I slam on the breaks just in time as the enormous buffalo strolls onto the road, without a care in the world.

“What the hell is going on?” I say, hardly able to contain my laughter. We hear a loud groaning sound and both instinctually look across the street at the dust cloud being kicked up by a female bison who is rolling on her back and kicking her legs up in the air. Dad rolls down his window, flabbergasted and awed. We begin to whisper.

“This is so crazy,” I say softly, holding back giggles, “have you ever seen anything like this?”

“Never,” dad says.

We check into the Lake Lodge, and after dropping our bags off in the room, we head to the large back porch where we can still see the wild buffalo herd grazing. It is late October and this is the last weekend the lodge will be open. The snow has already begun to fall. Soon it will cover the whole caldera and the only way in or out of the park will be by snowmobile. This is the first time Jesse has seen snow, and he is wagging his tail with enthusiasm.

“So what is your plan Patty?” Dad asks as we both look forward at the placid blue water of Yellowstone Lake.

“My plan for what?” I ask

“Well you are 21, you are not in school, you don’t have very much money saved up, and you are moving to Oregon on a whim with no guarantee of a job.”

“I guess I’ll just figure it out. I mean, I know it’s a risk, but making this move is important to me. I need to get out of Atlanta, and I want to prove to myself that I can make it on my own, truly on my own.”

“Well, I’m proud of you” dad says. He stands back a little and looks me up and down. I am wearing my checkered vans slip-ons, the only shoes I own besides the expensive dress shoes I got in Las Vegas. I have on blue jeans, and they are way too tight for me but I am abnormally thin for my height and I believe they are the only ones that look any good on me. I have on a plain red hoodie with no string, and the hood is up. I am slightly hunched over, arms straight down at my sides, and Jesse is attached to the leash in my hand, sitting silently next to me with his big red tongue hanging out. He is unaware of us, he is staring out across the lightly snow dusted lawn with his deep blue eyes, he wants to frolic in the snow because he is a Siberian Husky and it just makes sense to him.

“Thanks,” I say, “but I sort of expected you to give me some lectures or something by now. Something about how foolish it is to not have a safety net and how I shouldn’t have stopped going to school bla bla bla.”

“Those things are true,” dad says, “you know them though. I will always give you advice when you ask for it, and even when you don’t ask for it. Sure it is dangerous what you are doing, but I know it is what you really want to do. You are still young and you may never have another chance in your life to do something like this. I’m really happy for you. I am glad we are taking this trip together. I never expected my life to turn out the way it has, but I’m glad in a way that the circumstances allowed for me to be able to drive you to Portland.”

“Los Angeles to Portland via Atlanta,” I say laughing.

“LA to Portland the hard way.” He says.

The next day we visit old faithful. We drive around the park and out into Montana just so we could say we went to Montana. We see more buffalo. We see large herds of elk. We see a black bear. We see some female moose. We tour along the volcanic caldera that causes the surface water to boil and geysers to spew steam and fiery hot water into the air. There are pools that smell of sulfur but they are beautiful to look at, oblong shaped with swirls of color on their surface, emerald green, sapphire blue, ruby red.

“Did you know this whole place is one huge volcano?” I ask as we stroll back to the car across a wooden plank that spans a pond gurgling mud.

“What?” Dad says, not paying attention, distracted by his own thoughts.

“Nevermind.” I say, and I continue thinking about the volcano privately to myself. I am wondering what would happen if a super volcano erupted at Yellowstone. I wonder if the world would end.

“Do you want to leave here tonight?” Dad says.

“Why?” I ask, contemplating the possibility.

“Well, I mean, we’ve seen it. What more is there to see?” Dad is always so impatient. I am impatient too. It makes sense. Yes it is beautiful, but the memories are there. I am persuaded.

“Sure, ya, let’s just leave tonight.” I say

That night we are quiet as we drive through the darkness. This is before we have to sneak Jesse into a “no dogs allowed” hotel in Boise which he dutifully chews to pieces and pisses all over. This is before we cross the long boring desert of Eastern Oregon and before my heart races as I first see the tip of Mount Hood ahead of us, piercing the sky like a giant tooth. This is before my dad drops me off at my friend’s house in Portland where we unload my things into the empty room that is waiting for me there. This is before our simple dinner and before he buys me a futon so I’ll have a bed to sleep on. This is before the last morning in Portland, when we have some breakfast and don’t talk about much, when dad says he loves me and gets in the car and drives away. This is before it is all over.

This is the moment when we drive west on Wyoming State Highway 191 in the pitch black of a moonless night. Jesse’s cage is rattling so loud that we have to pull over and put blankets and sheets between the connecting pieces of metal to silence the rattle. Before getting back into the car we pause for a moment and look up at the sky. The stars are like a painting or a photograph. There are so many that they are indistinguishable from one another. The dense middle of the galaxy is a bright white blob reaching across that endless expanse.

“I never did anything like this with my dad,” my father said to me. “We went on trips, family trips and stuff like that, but it was never like this.”

“Never something this long and involved?” I asked, still looking up, captivated.

“I mean we were never this close. We didn’t talk about things. We didn’t gamble and drink together. We didn’t talk about relationships or hard things. He never shared himself with me like that. I feel like I can do that stuff with you though, Pat. It took us a long time to get there, but I feel really good about it.”

“Yeah,” I say, as I look down from the stars and over at him. He looks at peace. “It feels good.”