Well, I finally got my California citizenship today—in the form of a 1971 Datsun. I don’t really need a car. I don’t even use Robert’s pickup anymore. Work is but a twenty minute walk. Pacific Beach is a good place to live if you don’t have a car, but if you want to do a little exploring, then car is nice to have. Barbara has a friend she used to work with named Renée who has grown tired of California and decided to return to her home in Nebraska and is practically giving the car away—$600—and I have plenty of money saved up, so I thought why not?
It’s
strange how many people you find here looking for something. I suppose many find
it. I have found something, but I don’t think it has anything to do with what
most people expect to find here. Most people, I think, come for the colorful
and exciting California lifestyle, the beach, SeaWorld, Disneyland, Hollywood, the
glamour and glitter, the sun wearing sunglasses and a straw hat! I don’t know.
It’s a Mecca for some new religion, maybe many new religions and gods that are bought
and sold.
But
this friend of Barbara’s says she is ready to return to Nebraska. Barbara, who
is from Lubbock, Texas, told her that she was crazy to leave, but Renée just
smiled and said she probably was, since she was crazy to leave Nebraska in the
first place. I asked her why she wanted to go back to Nebraska.
“My
folks live there. I know that I won’t be perfectly happy back in Arcadia. The
winters are long and harsh, and compared with San Diego, there’s not much to
do. But there are moments when the earth opens her bosom to you, and time
gathers like evening clouds and suddenly you feel yourself standing at the
center of the world, at the center of time. And you feel you understand nothing
and everything at once. There is no feeling of center here. We never stop.
Nothing around us ever stops. There is no world, only city. Here there’s a
million little things, some good, some bad, but nothing magnificent like geese
migrating, the landscape changing colors in the fall, golden-brown fields
beneath a dark cloudy sky, fields of flowers in the summer, a meadowlark singing
on a fence post, men and tractors working fields of corn and wheat which become
seas of yellow, green, and brown. And windmills, lots of lonely windmills waiting
for the wind to pay them a visit. In Nebraska I can accept life—the good and
the bad because it seems to be part of something bigger than us. There I can
accept all the people into my heart because they aren’t strangers, even if I
don’t know them, they aren’t strangers. Everyone, whether they’re farmers or truck
drivers or seamstresses or teachers or clerks in stores, everyone seems part of
a common way of life, a single great effort that we all participate in equally.
Here each is alone in his or her solitary effort. Everyone is a stranger here.
In Nebraska life is hard for most everyone; the weather alone ensures that.
Here you don’t see the difficulty of life. People hide it behind trendy clothes
and cars and silly behavior. People here don’t seem real to me. And I don’t
blame them. It’s the way of life
here. In Nebraska life leaves its mark on people. You see it in the faces of
men and women who work upon the land. It’s the nature of the work and the
weather, and people aren’t ashamed of having to work hard or not having a lot
of money or not being glamorous. It’s just part of life. People out here live
as if life were a TV show. They’re either spectators or playing some role. I never
really made any lasting friendships out here except for Barbara, and she’s a
Texan whether she likes it or not. People and relationships just seem to come
and go.
“But I had to come to California to find out these things. I wasn’t getting along with my parents. I was so full of myself that I never considered them much, their needing me, or if I did I didn’t care. They were always my parents, the ones who treated me like a child when I was no longer a child. But now I understand that they’re like all other people. Having been away from them for almost three years has taught me to see them as human beings who struggle to survive and to be happy and to do the right thing. Perhaps I can see it now because I know what that struggle is. I realize they are not giants of the earth but fragile human beings. My father is a tractor mechanic at a John Deere dealership. My mother works for the supermarket. They live in a small town on the endless prairie beneath a sky the size of an ocean. They seem small to me now, and that is one reason I want to be near them. I want to be a comfort to them. I realize too that one day I’ll no longer have them.”
“Lately, I too have been thinking about the home I left behind and death,” I said.
“Yes,
Barbara told me that came here recently from New Mexico. A few months ago, my
mother was hospitalized. That made me see my parents in a different light. I
went back for few days. It was a mild stroke. She’s fine. She’ll be okay, but
it made me realized that that my parents aren’t invincible.” Renée paused a
moment, smiled, and then continued. “A brush with death sheds a different light
on things. I see everything differently now, Christine, not just my parents. I
see the weathered faces of the farmers differently, those toilers of the earth.
I see children differently. I want to be close to them, to love them, to watch
them play, to enjoy their innocence. I want to say hello to my neighbors and
pass the time of day with the old man in overalls who pumps gas at the Mobil
station. I want to shop at the market where my mother works, where the floors
are dusty and sometimes muddy from the boots of working men. Even the air in
the market smells different—old and musty. New air isn’t allowed because it’s
either too cold or too hot. But I miss those smells—of people, animals, old
rooms, barns, the feed store, the sharp scent of the morning cold, the sweet
smell of summer. I even miss the young people who I thought I had to get away
from. They’re nice. No matter how wild or rough around the edges, they’ll treat
you kindly if you give them the chance, and they have always been decent and respectful
to my parents. And many of them weren’t so different from me—wild and aching to
get away. They couldn’t wait to be someplace else, someplace bigger and more
exciting. What I did many of them would do—leave. It was strange when I was
there. I hadn’t been back in three years, yet those people gathered around me
as if I had never left. They knew me, cared about me and my family. And here,
where I have been living for three years, I’m still a stranger. I will always
be a stranger here. But that’s not going to happen because now I’m going back.”
Her eyes began to glisten. She turned her head and sighed.
“Your
parents don’t think like you, Renée, nor do I for that matter,” interjected
Barbara in a tone of maternal exasperation. Yet, right away I knew that Barbara
had done what Renée had done but she never went back. Of course Lubbock, Texas,
isn’t a country town but an unlovely city like Albuquerque, much worse even
because Albuquerque still retains scattered memories of its Spanish and Native
American past. I know because I spent a two days in Lubbock with my father who
was attending a water-well drilling conference. Mother refused to go, so I did.
Dad appreciated that. And I enjoyed the trip. We drove but didn’t take I-40
like I thought we would but the back roads. I enjoyed looking at the
countryside. It’s empty and wild, all sky and rolling or flat prairie land. We
talked off and on but Dad seemed to enjoy looking at the countryside as much as
I did. I think he was remembering the good old days when he was less of a city
slicker because every once in a while he’d say his company drilled a water well
for so and so near where we were passing through. It’s strange how he and I are
alike in some ways.
Anyway,
I understand why Barbara never had the desire to return to Lubbock. It reminds
me of the ugly dusty towns in Clint Eastwood westerns, but with no imagination
or sense of history, perhaps because the Americans who built the city were
without traditions, just a practical people who built a city in the same
fashion my father would drill for water. But you would expect some sense of
beauty today, that the architects would have read at least one book on the
history of architecture. Perhaps the early Texans had an excuse when they had
to build their towns in rough and ready fashion but not today. And the builders
of Albuquerque had no excuse at all since the Indians and the Spanish had
provided them with a pueblo-adobe style perfect for the region, but it seems
Americans always have to do things their own way, unwilling to learn from the
past, or perhaps the builders, who are usually men, believe thinking too much
about beauty is unmasculine, especially when a box with a logo will do just
fine.
On the way home I mentioned to my father that I thought Lubbock was an ugly city. He smiled. He always liked the fact that I spoke my mind. He agreed but said it didn’t matter because Lubbock was all about growing cotton, not attracting tourists, couldn’t if it wanted to. But what about the people who live there? I asked. They don’t matter, he said, because they don’t know any different. They’re working people, not tourists either. He looked over and smiled. I could see that he was satisfied with that answer, as if he had just given me a precious kernel of truth. I understand now that his view of the world and its people is that of a man who has worked hard all his life, often in rugged terrain and unaccommodating weather. His brother lost an arm doing the same kind of work. Perhaps Dad thought that if you wanted beauty you could always go fishing, which he still does with a couple of the men he works with. When we were younger William and I would go with him, but that was before William went off to college and came back changed. Citified is how Dad once described him to me. And once I started spending summers in Taos I never went fishing with Dad again. The few times he asked Mother she said no way. She was through and through a city slicker. She enjoyed nature when it was presented on a postcard or in painting. Poor Dad must feel like the family has abandoned him. Perhaps me most of all, and I always thought no one loved him as much as I did. The difference between me and Renée is that I’m not sure I can ever go back home.
In
response to Barbara’s comment about Renée’s parents not thinking like her,
Renée said bluntly, “No, Barbara, they don’t,” but the expression on her face
was full of loving patience for her motherly friend. And who knows, maybe
Barbara was a constant reminder of the people she left behind and unknowingly
convinced her that those were the people she wanted to be with. Life’s funny
that way.
Renée
paused as if expecting me to add something, then seemed to understand my
interest in her story. Her smile returned, embracing us both and softening the
solemn intensity of her words. In her hazel eyes shone a goodness born and
nurtured in the country. It would be worthwhile having Renée as a friend, I
thought, better yet as a sister.
“My
thinking has been changed by California,” she continued, “by the big city. It
has become the thinking of an outsider—the way of the prodigal daughter who had
to repudiate everything old and conventional, who had to repudiate all the old
values and all the old morality, who had to stand naked before the world, not
in shame but defiantly and provocatively. But I have grown weary of it all, Christine.
Living here has been like swimming in a fast, treacherous current. It has been
exciting but perilous. And as with any river, there are no roots, there is no
permanence, there is only current. But now I have a need for roots that only
the land and sky and my parents and the people can give me. I want to go back a
hundred years, Christine. I have seen and lived the present. I fear the future
because it’s unknown and doesn’t seem to offer any more than what I have now. My
only home is in the past and with its people, my people.”
“Do
you feel that you have given up, that you have been defeated?” I asked.
She
laughed. “Oh yeah! But that’s okay. There are so many defeated people who
remain. And I don’t want to become like them. I still have a home. Oh, I don’t
just mean my parents, but also two sisters and a way of life that I can return
to. I feel it’s calling me, and I fear that if I do not return soon, I will
never be able to go back. I suppose it is a little like going to church. If you
stop going long enough, you’ll never go back. I don’t want to end up unhappy here
and no home to return to.”
“Do
you go to church, Renée?” I asked.
“No,
not since leaving Arcadia.”
“But
won’t they expect you to go to church in Arcadia?”
“Not
everyone there attends church, but my parents do. And I will probably go. I
will take from it what I can use and leave what I can’t. It’s not a huge
sacrifice.”
“You
don’t think you’re going back to something you really don’t believe in?”
“What
else is there to believe, Christine? Anyway, whatever the worship may be, it
all means the same thing—the worshipping of life, its mystery, its goodness. It’s
appreciating something that is not merely bigger than you are or more powerful,
but appreciating that mysterious vital something which is the source of
everything. God and I haven’t talked for long time, but I still love his
creation and his creatures. And I love the compassionate Virgin. I love her
most of all. If Christ is God incarnate, then the Virgin is love incarnate. I
suppose I identify with her because I share her sorrow, and who knows, maybe
one day I’ll share again the hope that Jesus offers. I was rebellious,
Christine, but not in that way. I grew up going to church. Jesus and Mary are
like relatives. I don’t spend a lot of time worrying whether or not it’s all
make-believe. What’s the good of that? I do want to believe in something, and I’m
leaving California because I’ve discovered that what I seek can’t be found
here, or at least I haven’t found it. Malls, movies, restaurants, endless
freeways... It’s all about getting and spending and going endlessly. That’s no longer
what I want. And churches in small towns are about more than Sunday services.
They are a caring part of the community, in a way the heart of the community.
They help people and organize lots of activities. You know most of what people
do to have fun in small towns involves the members of the community, like
school sports. Even at the rodeo sixty miles away you find yourself among
friends and know even some of the contestants. I once told some friends here about
going to the rodeo. They laughed thinking I was making some kind of joke, but I
wasn’t. I resented their laughter. In a way I had to come here to realize what
I had back home. It’s not like here where people entertain themselves among
strangers, hanging out at the mall or at bars or the beach. Friendship here is
a revolving door, former friends leave as new ones arrive. In Arcadia you grow
up with childhood friends, you are with them when they marry and have children,
you watch their children grow up, and you grow old among people you have known
and loved all your life. Suddenly the life here has made me sad, perhaps
because for the first time in my life I’ve been thinking about the future. I
realize now that I had a lot in little Arcadia, including a future among friends
and loved ones I’ve known all my life. And when I return I will be welcomed as
if I had never left.”
Barbara
suddenly spoke up. “You’re pregnant, aren’t you, Renée?”
Renée’s
eyes widened and her expression saddened. She didn’t speak for a moment. Then she
seemed to regain her spunk and said to Barbara, “I should have known I wouldn’t
get away without you finding out. One way or another, you find out everything.
That’s okay. You’ve been like a mother to me, and I was going tell you, but
later in a letter. Oh well.”
“So
that’s the real reason you’re going home?” I asked.
“All
that I’ve told you, Christine, are the real reasons I’m going home, but I had
to get pregnant to see it. And I definitely don’t want to raise a child out
here alone.”
“What
about the father?” Barbara asked.
“The
father doesn’t know, and wouldn’t be interested if he did. He’s a fun sort of
guy, not ready for family life. Why should I burden him with the knowledge that
I am pregnant with his child? It wouldn’t help any because he doesn’t make much
money and wouldn’t be interested in being a full-time dad, and to be honest, I
don’t want a part-time dad who takes the kid out on week-ends. Besides, I never
loved him that much. We were just fucking friends, pardon my French, Barbara.
And if he did find out, he’d probably insist I stay out here so he could take
his child to Chargers and Padres games. In Arcadia my child will have a real
family and a real community. I don’t him or her being brought up in la-la land.”
“What
about his family?”
“They
live in Florida. I don’t want that kind of complication raising my child.”
She
smiled, but it was a smile without happiness. She seemed so forlorn. It was
strange because from what she just told us I would have thought she would be
happy. But then it won’t be easy returning as an unmarried, single mother to
live with her parents in a small, conservative Nebraskan town. What will she
say when they ask her about the father, that he was a Southern California party
animal? I could see she was about to cry so I went to her and held her in my
arms. I think I did so I wouldn’t cry!
“Thanks,
Christine,” she said. “I’ll be okay. It’s just that all this has happened so
fast.”
We
talked a while longer. Barbara scolded all youth for their foolishness. But
added that she hadn’t been any different, divorced from her first husband at
seventeen and from her second husband at twenty-seven. “It wasn’t our fault
that we were young and foolish. Foolishness came with the territory, and men
took advantage of it.”
I
then asked Barbara if she had had any children, regretting the question as soon
as it came out of my mouth.
“None
that survived,” she said solemnly. There was an uncomfortable pause, but I knew
better than to ask another stupid question.
Finally
Renée said. “That’s too bad. You would have been a great mom.”
“Yeah I would have, but I did have the guts to go it alone like you, Renée. You’re doing the right thing for you and your baby.”
As
I watched Renée and Barbara I felt I had met two women who, like myself, had
left their homes, either to find something better or to escape some unhappiness.
Renée had left in search of greater happiness and now was now returning because
she didn’t find it. But what she did find was a fuller appreciation of the home
she had left. For that all the trouble was worthwhile. I thought it strange how
sometimes we don’t see the full value of something until we lose it. Of course,
the child made a big difference. I too wouldn’t want to raise a child in
Southern California or Albuquerque. From what Renée said, Arcadia seem like a
better place than most to raise a child, even without the father.
I
wanted to know everything about her. I had forgotten about the car, which I
finally bought—it was really more of a gift. I think she just wanted to get rid
of it. I asked her why she didn’t drive it back to Nebraska. She said she just
wanted to get back home as soon as possible and didn’t want to take a chance of
breaking down out in the middle of nowhere. She said her dad would pick her up
in Omaha. That would give them plenty of time to talk on the way home. The car
wasn’t that important. All that was important she carried within. I ask her if
her father would be upset when he hears about the baby. She said he wasn’t that
way.
“When I think of my dad I think of country roads. Being a tractor mechanic about once a week he’d have to drive out to a farm to fix a farmer’s tractor or bring it in if it couldn’t be fixed there. He called himself a tractor veterinarian. Summers when I was a little girl I’d often go with him. Sometimes I’d hang out at the farmhouse with the farmer’s wife and kids and dogs. There were always dogs. On the way back we’d sometimes stop at the Dairy Queen for hamburgers or the Colonial Inn Restaurant, my dad’s favorite hangout because it’s the hangout for the farmers, cattlemen, mechanics, crop dusting pilots, anyone who had anything to do with raising crops or livestock. It’s like the hub of the town. It was everything I wanted to get away from, but now want to go back to. Maybe it’s having a kid that makes the difference. My child might never have a father but he will have a grandfather and grandmother and lots of local aunts, uncles, and cousins because that’s the way the town is—one big family.”
It
seems I’ve taken Renée’s place. How strange, or maybe not. Maybe it’s just the
way life is today, leaving one’s hometown, returning years later, or not. I
hope I don’t hurt Robert’s feelings, getting a car now that he’s sick. What am
I thinking? Well, right now I need to stop thinking and try to rest a little
before going to work. It’s been an interesting but unsettling day—like so many
others.
From Frank Kyle’s not yet published novel Christine & the Remarkable Lives of Ordinary People.
