Plague Year by Jeff Carlson Page A

to him that his sons understand there was more to the world than their own urban neighborhood. He did not want them limited in any way.
    For much the same reason, he never allowed them to wear their older siblings’ hand-me-downs, though that would have meant less overtime for him. And if his decision made for birthdays and Christmas mornings of more underwear and socks than new toys, at least the Najarros looked good.
    Their father treasured pride and appearance above all else.
    For him, the highlight of each day had been to sip one beer in the living room of their three-bedroom home, which he invariably described to his own brothers as “right on the ocean.” In English. Always in English. Maybe Cam was never offended by Bear Summit’s half-truths because his father indulged in the same habit of exaggeration. The city of Vallejo, where they lived, actually sat deep inside the San Francisco Bay—and in any case, three blocks of commercial properties lay between them and the flat, listless green murk of the delta.
    Their father loved the ocean like he loved them, almost formally, and from a distance. He did not fish or swim. He would have drowned since he never took off his shoes, much less unbuttoned his shirt. He just liked to look and listen and maybe walk in the sand. That alone was victory to him, having grown up landlocked in a cow town near Bakersfield.
    He couldn’t have realized he was restricting his sons’ perspective in exactly the way he’d worked so hard to avoid. Their vacations ranged north or south for hundreds of miles, but always along the coast that he found so exotic—the Santa Cruz boardwalk, Disneyland, the Pismo Beach pier. He raised a generation of lowlanders who would keep their eyes and their own dreams facing west toward the Pacific.
    Cam was the only one to break free.
    * * * *
    Hollywood quit moving as soon as they emerged from the rock field and waited for Price and the others, raising one arm, calling, “This way! You got it!” Erin hesitated, but picked up the pace again before Cam could grab at her. Good girl.
    Almost nothing remained of the ski patrol shack that had sat alongside Chair 12—a concrete pad, steel struts they hadn’t been able to tear free. Every other scrap of material had been lugged up the mountain to build their huts, and looking at the raw foundation aroused an odd, melancholy satisfaction in Cam.
    He’d done the best he could.
    * * * *
    His father only took them to the mountains to show up a coworker. A white coworker. The boys went berserk, sledding and hucking snowballs for ten hours a day while he took pictures of them having fun. Later in the week he insisted on splurging for ski rentals and lift tickets.
    Cam was soon lost in the confusion of the bunny hill, although in retrospect getting separated had been at least 50 percent intentional. For someone with three brothers, even biking down to the store for milk was a competition—and Cam was always the odd man out. His two older brothers tended to gang up and his kid brother Greg was three and a half years younger, not much help and often a hindrance.
    The other boys spent their morning bickering and showing off and started racing, which wasn’t so bright since they lacked the ability to turn. Or stop. Rocketing downhill in straight lines, they eventually smashed into a blond six-yearold and spent their afternoon on a bench in the patrol office.
    Cam returned to the car late, shivering with excitement and cold—they were all wearing jeans—and happily infuriated his brothers with his tales of success. The next day they shunned him. That only gave him more time to get hooked.
    He didn’t ski again until he was fifteen, after one of his friends got a driver’s license—after his father was in the hospital. The Najarro boys were expected to find part-time jobs upon reaching high school and Cam burned through his savings before February, buying better gear than he needed and fewer lessons than might