the rest of my life. And anger. The thundering kind of fury that
sweeps you along and forces you forward, making you want to do something,
anything--throw things, slam doors, get back on your bike and ride down to Crow
Valley to see if your father was where you suspected he was. I was afraid for
him too. It was as if I was watching him suddenly run out onto a freeway, this
man who had always used the sidewalk.
But when I actually did see his car, parked a
bit up the road from the D'Angelo house, I was so mad, so one hundred percent
mad, there was
113
no more room for fear. There is nothing that
can piss you off half so much as being right.
"Get a fucking brain," I
said.
The driveway was free of Mr. D'Angelo's black
Porsche. My God. Could sex make a man so stupid? And hey why was I alone there,
left holding the bag of morals? Wasn't he the one who taught me all that stuff?
Do Unto Others; Never Lie, Cheat, or Steal. What was all that, just some
birdshit on a windshield? Erased with a flick of the wipers?
I didn't want to go home. I was too furious to
be in one place. So instead I rode clear to the other side of the island, all
the way to the Hotel Delgado, one of my favorite corners of Parrish. It really
is like a corner; that's part of why it feels so good there. The big brag is
that Teddy Roosevelt once stayed at the hotel, and it's a place you could
picture him leaning over the porch rail or maybe standing at one of the
shuttered windows, staring out through his round glasses over the cozy inlet of
the Delgado Strait where the hotel sits. The hotel is over one hundred and fifty
years old and wears a thick sweater of ivy whose loose threads trail down white
trellises. Around the hotel runs a cobblestone street, with paths that lead to
rose gardens full of flowers so ancient they are as big as grapefruits and smell
as strong and powdery as an old lady's perfume.
Cobblestones are tough on a bike rider, so
I
114
dismounted and walked my bike to a patch of
grass where I laid my bike down. My chest burned from the ride. I loved that
part of the island, but I rarely went there, and my thigh and calf muscles,
already cinching up, reminded me why. I sat on one of the iron benches in front
of the hotel and cursed myself. It's no big trick getting yourself somewhere.
It's the going back that's hard.
I just sat for a while, trying to fit the new
facts of my life into the old and watching the water. The harbor docks were
nearly full; the owners of the yachts and schooners, which cruised the San
Juans, stopped there to use the showers and to party. Already the commotion on
the docks was starting. Guys walked down the docks with cases of beer under
their arms, and occasionally I heard a "Hey, Marty!" or "Fuck, yeah!" and then
laughter. I watched a seaplane land, like a heron in one of those animal shows
my mother liked, and the driver got out and made his way across the
docks.
I wondered where my father took her, Gayle
D'Angelo, or whether they stayed there, at her house. I wanted to shake off the
vision of him, his teary eyes lifted to the ceiling, his hands trying to hide
the marks on his neck, but it was too ugly and so I couldn't. I thought about
the time Gayle D'Angelo came into True You. I remembered the brochure, left
behind on the counter.
115
The image of that brochure--the serious,
concerned lettering "Find the True You," the chunky woman staring sadly out a
window-- would not leave me. It was as if my mind was sitting patiently hands
folded, with all the time in the world for me to catch up.
Which I did. "Oh God," I said.
She hadn't run into me by accident. That's what
the image was trying to tell me. That realization started the fear churning
again. If my life were a movie, you would have heard the creepy music start up
seriously then. That's the feeling I had, like that eerie stuff was playing. Her
visit had been planned. She had said it herself: "I'm only here
sweeps you along and forces you forward, making you want to do something,
anything--throw things, slam doors, get back on your bike and ride down to Crow
Valley to see if your father was where you suspected he was. I was afraid for
him too. It was as if I was watching him suddenly run out onto a freeway, this
man who had always used the sidewalk.
But when I actually did see his car, parked a
bit up the road from the D'Angelo house, I was so mad, so one hundred percent
mad, there was
113
no more room for fear. There is nothing that
can piss you off half so much as being right.
"Get a fucking brain," I
said.
The driveway was free of Mr. D'Angelo's black
Porsche. My God. Could sex make a man so stupid? And hey why was I alone there,
left holding the bag of morals? Wasn't he the one who taught me all that stuff?
Do Unto Others; Never Lie, Cheat, or Steal. What was all that, just some
birdshit on a windshield? Erased with a flick of the wipers?
I didn't want to go home. I was too furious to
be in one place. So instead I rode clear to the other side of the island, all
the way to the Hotel Delgado, one of my favorite corners of Parrish. It really
is like a corner; that's part of why it feels so good there. The big brag is
that Teddy Roosevelt once stayed at the hotel, and it's a place you could
picture him leaning over the porch rail or maybe standing at one of the
shuttered windows, staring out through his round glasses over the cozy inlet of
the Delgado Strait where the hotel sits. The hotel is over one hundred and fifty
years old and wears a thick sweater of ivy whose loose threads trail down white
trellises. Around the hotel runs a cobblestone street, with paths that lead to
rose gardens full of flowers so ancient they are as big as grapefruits and smell
as strong and powdery as an old lady's perfume.
Cobblestones are tough on a bike rider, so
I
114
dismounted and walked my bike to a patch of
grass where I laid my bike down. My chest burned from the ride. I loved that
part of the island, but I rarely went there, and my thigh and calf muscles,
already cinching up, reminded me why. I sat on one of the iron benches in front
of the hotel and cursed myself. It's no big trick getting yourself somewhere.
It's the going back that's hard.
I just sat for a while, trying to fit the new
facts of my life into the old and watching the water. The harbor docks were
nearly full; the owners of the yachts and schooners, which cruised the San
Juans, stopped there to use the showers and to party. Already the commotion on
the docks was starting. Guys walked down the docks with cases of beer under
their arms, and occasionally I heard a "Hey, Marty!" or "Fuck, yeah!" and then
laughter. I watched a seaplane land, like a heron in one of those animal shows
my mother liked, and the driver got out and made his way across the
docks.
I wondered where my father took her, Gayle
D'Angelo, or whether they stayed there, at her house. I wanted to shake off the
vision of him, his teary eyes lifted to the ceiling, his hands trying to hide
the marks on his neck, but it was too ugly and so I couldn't. I thought about
the time Gayle D'Angelo came into True You. I remembered the brochure, left
behind on the counter.
115
The image of that brochure--the serious,
concerned lettering "Find the True You," the chunky woman staring sadly out a
window-- would not leave me. It was as if my mind was sitting patiently hands
folded, with all the time in the world for me to catch up.
Which I did. "Oh God," I said.
She hadn't run into me by accident. That's what
the image was trying to tell me. That realization started the fear churning
again. If my life were a movie, you would have heard the creepy music start up
seriously then. That's the feeling I had, like that eerie stuff was playing. Her
visit had been planned. She had said it herself: "I'm only here
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