Black Knight
Everything about the Death Valley dawn, the forms and distances assembling themselves for another day, says we will carry on without you. Even the porter at the Furnace Creek Inn will carry on trundling his baggage cart down the long tunnel beneath the hotel, arched and stuccoed and feeling more like a mine shaft than a corridor. This place, even the human accommodations, is old in the way of mineral time. If rocks have a life they show it here. If you have enough time, which absolutely no one does...especially us, bound for Las Vegas Airport as we are.
In the early morning light, all the strange contrasting earth tones shift and trade places. The eastward highway climbs more than I remembered. Zabriskie Point doesn't look like much of anything. We reach 3000 feet and barely notice it. The air outside the car may be cooler, but our Dodge protects us from all that. Marlou takes the mountain turns fast, swinging me crazily in my wheelchair. Yes, I am riding in the chair. We have hired a disabled van with a wheelchair ramp for the few days. I am safely belted and strapped, but there is little lateral support, and the curves make themselves felt.
Vermillion cliffs next to a pouring of beige mineral custard, which is probably sedimentary, the whole moment framed by pitch black lava hills.... And then it's gone, and the snowcapped range beyond Las Vegas protrudes. Considering that this topography marches on and on hundreds of miles across the inaptly named Great Basin, to Salt Lake City and beyond, with me at this hour coffeeless and not getting any younger, well, it's enough to make one exhausted. At least Las Vegas Airport all but grabs you, positioned as it is at the western edge, signs screaming, although one sign confuses us with its departure and terminal number. This is no time for ambiguity. We circle around once, find the guy from the van hire company at the curb. And that's it.
Well, not quite. We board our plane, finally escaping the clanging, ringing, whirring slot machines in the airport lobby...only to find maintenance guys swarming around. Something's wrong with the landing gear. Which I would rather they discover here rather than above, say, Fresno. We are hustled off one plane and aboard another. I don't really care, except that there's some awful unknown awaiting me at San Jose Airport.
Which also proves to be a non-disaster. The guy driving the Auto Club tow truck arrives like a modern knight. He is perched high, trailing a lance-like boom. I am at his mercy. The Auto Club 800 phone operator has already warned me. Your car will be towed. Where? I give her the name of a garage in Atherton. Why, I ask? She doesn't know. That's what happens to cars that overheat, apparently. Atherton. She's looking up the address. Never mind. Here's the towtruck, rumbling through the airport parking structure. A young black guy hops out. I want to tell him that I will do anything to avoid a tow. The complications will prove enormous. I cannot ride with him, not with a gigantic heavy wheelchair. He'll be hauling my van up the motorway, I'll be on the train way behind him.
He emerges and in the style of all towtruck drivers, leaves his rig running. Mentally, I am bargaining, promising God or San Jose Airport or whatever higher power is in current control of my fate that I will be good, or at least better, if somehow this guy can patch my leaking radiator or reattach its hose or do anything to get my Ford up and running for the 20 mile ride home. I watch as he opens one door, then the other, then the hood. He muscles something out of the interior of his towtruck. One tool chest emerges, with another behind it, then a flashlight. He stares long and hard, flashlight whipping back and forth. The young man sighs, shakes his head and says this is the worst he has ever seen. Ever. No, he has never seen a radiator so dry. What I need, he says, is water.
The same can be said for Death Valley. Conditions there, or anticipation of conditions there, may have infused the last several months, those long months in which the California winter rolled on while my radiator dried out. Death Valley was doing the same, the two being in sync. This fanciful explanation is all I can summon at the moment. The other, more likely, explanation is that I am something of an idiot. It is a tradition when fueling ones vehicle to have a look at the other fluids, the ones that don't burn, at least not usually. The oil and, yes, the water.
Does he have any? No, he smiles and slowly shakes his head as though speaking to a child. He is about to tell me about Mr. Towtruck and why he is different from Mr. Chevron Station, but chooses instead to pause, faintly grin and await my reaction. Well, can he help me get some water? He tells me about Mr. Station. I stare blankly. Well, I explain, in this era of self-service gas stations, a disabled driver is at something of a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with water and radiators, and.... Oh, he says, I'm not sending you out alone. We are not done. We are just done here. Follow me. I want to cry. He is the Black Knight. He is not like one of the black teenagers who shot me 40 years ago, just in case there is any confusion in what's left of my middle-age brain. And there is, I confess, a certain amount.
On the way out of the airport, I have a five-minute exchange with the parking guy. To qualify for the disabled parking discount, I need to prove virtually everything about myself. That this is my Ford. That I really am the person in the photo on my driving permit. That the disabled parking placard really belongs to the person with the photo, and that I not only have a credit card, but a telephone number. Foolishly, I leave the engine running, not quite believing that things can really take this long. But they do. And by the time I'm done, the engine temperature is off the dial. The towtruck starts up and we head out for Northern San Jose.
Down one street, around the corner, and around another. Not a station in sight. Nothing in sight but the H in hot, which is now well to the left of the needle which is as far to the right as it can go. I thought that the entire nation was as far to the right as it could go, but every morning I see evidence to the contrary in the newspaper...and there's always more to the right. I just don't know how much right now. Unfortunately, accustomed to driving slowly, I have to run a couple of red lights to keep up with the Auto Club towtruck. At last, we turn, I pull up to the water/air display, and a sort of healing process begins. A small fountain of water emerges, running at the rate of, say, Panamint Springs in Death Valley. The parched engine absorbs nourishment, draws the healing waters into its flesh. Thank you, I say to the man. Thank you. And how I get to the motorway? Follow me, he says. Two streets beyond, stopped at a red light, he leaps out of his truck and tells me to take the next right turn. He drives on. I drive on. Life.
Death Valley nights seemed to absorb cares and tension more or less the way they absorb water. They drew Marlou and me into a deep sleep. They also drew out dreams. Both of us reported long narrative nights, dreaming on and on. But the first night back in my own bed is a difficult one. Hard to say why. I seem to have no dreams at all. But the next morning, Marlou goes in for one of her regular pre-chemotherapy exams and I drop by for a visit. She's propped up in a bed, laptop computer at her side, ready for an hour of tests or a day of treatment, no one can say. She's got an intravenous going, just in case. The nurse says she's a bit dehydrated. I'm not surprised. There's a low-water theme running through these days. To add to the dehydration, I roll upstairs to get us a couple of café lattes.
We resume our conversation, Marlou propped up in bed, me beside her in my wheelchair. We are talking about plans and arrangements for my brother's weekend visit. There's a pause. I think I see something. A subtle shift in Marlou's expression. I take her hand. She starts to cry. It's very subtle, just a couple of tears. But we look at each other. Here we are in the chemotherapy ward, the place we always return to these days. I want to make the point that we are here together. It's the only point I can think to make. And in full disclosure and fair reporting, in particular deference to Marlou, this is just a moment. We've had four peaceful days in one of the most remarkable spots in nature. And now we are here. This is the place one or both of us dread returning to. But it is one of our current destinations, and the tears are part of it.
In the early morning light, all the strange contrasting earth tones shift and trade places. The eastward highway climbs more than I remembered. Zabriskie Point doesn't look like much of anything. We reach 3000 feet and barely notice it. The air outside the car may be cooler, but our Dodge protects us from all that. Marlou takes the mountain turns fast, swinging me crazily in my wheelchair. Yes, I am riding in the chair. We have hired a disabled van with a wheelchair ramp for the few days. I am safely belted and strapped, but there is little lateral support, and the curves make themselves felt.
Vermillion cliffs next to a pouring of beige mineral custard, which is probably sedimentary, the whole moment framed by pitch black lava hills.... And then it's gone, and the snowcapped range beyond Las Vegas protrudes. Considering that this topography marches on and on hundreds of miles across the inaptly named Great Basin, to Salt Lake City and beyond, with me at this hour coffeeless and not getting any younger, well, it's enough to make one exhausted. At least Las Vegas Airport all but grabs you, positioned as it is at the western edge, signs screaming, although one sign confuses us with its departure and terminal number. This is no time for ambiguity. We circle around once, find the guy from the van hire company at the curb. And that's it.
Well, not quite. We board our plane, finally escaping the clanging, ringing, whirring slot machines in the airport lobby...only to find maintenance guys swarming around. Something's wrong with the landing gear. Which I would rather they discover here rather than above, say, Fresno. We are hustled off one plane and aboard another. I don't really care, except that there's some awful unknown awaiting me at San Jose Airport.
Which also proves to be a non-disaster. The guy driving the Auto Club tow truck arrives like a modern knight. He is perched high, trailing a lance-like boom. I am at his mercy. The Auto Club 800 phone operator has already warned me. Your car will be towed. Where? I give her the name of a garage in Atherton. Why, I ask? She doesn't know. That's what happens to cars that overheat, apparently. Atherton. She's looking up the address. Never mind. Here's the towtruck, rumbling through the airport parking structure. A young black guy hops out. I want to tell him that I will do anything to avoid a tow. The complications will prove enormous. I cannot ride with him, not with a gigantic heavy wheelchair. He'll be hauling my van up the motorway, I'll be on the train way behind him.
He emerges and in the style of all towtruck drivers, leaves his rig running. Mentally, I am bargaining, promising God or San Jose Airport or whatever higher power is in current control of my fate that I will be good, or at least better, if somehow this guy can patch my leaking radiator or reattach its hose or do anything to get my Ford up and running for the 20 mile ride home. I watch as he opens one door, then the other, then the hood. He muscles something out of the interior of his towtruck. One tool chest emerges, with another behind it, then a flashlight. He stares long and hard, flashlight whipping back and forth. The young man sighs, shakes his head and says this is the worst he has ever seen. Ever. No, he has never seen a radiator so dry. What I need, he says, is water.
The same can be said for Death Valley. Conditions there, or anticipation of conditions there, may have infused the last several months, those long months in which the California winter rolled on while my radiator dried out. Death Valley was doing the same, the two being in sync. This fanciful explanation is all I can summon at the moment. The other, more likely, explanation is that I am something of an idiot. It is a tradition when fueling ones vehicle to have a look at the other fluids, the ones that don't burn, at least not usually. The oil and, yes, the water.
Does he have any? No, he smiles and slowly shakes his head as though speaking to a child. He is about to tell me about Mr. Towtruck and why he is different from Mr. Chevron Station, but chooses instead to pause, faintly grin and await my reaction. Well, can he help me get some water? He tells me about Mr. Station. I stare blankly. Well, I explain, in this era of self-service gas stations, a disabled driver is at something of a disadvantage when it comes to dealing with water and radiators, and.... Oh, he says, I'm not sending you out alone. We are not done. We are just done here. Follow me. I want to cry. He is the Black Knight. He is not like one of the black teenagers who shot me 40 years ago, just in case there is any confusion in what's left of my middle-age brain. And there is, I confess, a certain amount.
On the way out of the airport, I have a five-minute exchange with the parking guy. To qualify for the disabled parking discount, I need to prove virtually everything about myself. That this is my Ford. That I really am the person in the photo on my driving permit. That the disabled parking placard really belongs to the person with the photo, and that I not only have a credit card, but a telephone number. Foolishly, I leave the engine running, not quite believing that things can really take this long. But they do. And by the time I'm done, the engine temperature is off the dial. The towtruck starts up and we head out for Northern San Jose.
Down one street, around the corner, and around another. Not a station in sight. Nothing in sight but the H in hot, which is now well to the left of the needle which is as far to the right as it can go. I thought that the entire nation was as far to the right as it could go, but every morning I see evidence to the contrary in the newspaper...and there's always more to the right. I just don't know how much right now. Unfortunately, accustomed to driving slowly, I have to run a couple of red lights to keep up with the Auto Club towtruck. At last, we turn, I pull up to the water/air display, and a sort of healing process begins. A small fountain of water emerges, running at the rate of, say, Panamint Springs in Death Valley. The parched engine absorbs nourishment, draws the healing waters into its flesh. Thank you, I say to the man. Thank you. And how I get to the motorway? Follow me, he says. Two streets beyond, stopped at a red light, he leaps out of his truck and tells me to take the next right turn. He drives on. I drive on. Life.
Death Valley nights seemed to absorb cares and tension more or less the way they absorb water. They drew Marlou and me into a deep sleep. They also drew out dreams. Both of us reported long narrative nights, dreaming on and on. But the first night back in my own bed is a difficult one. Hard to say why. I seem to have no dreams at all. But the next morning, Marlou goes in for one of her regular pre-chemotherapy exams and I drop by for a visit. She's propped up in a bed, laptop computer at her side, ready for an hour of tests or a day of treatment, no one can say. She's got an intravenous going, just in case. The nurse says she's a bit dehydrated. I'm not surprised. There's a low-water theme running through these days. To add to the dehydration, I roll upstairs to get us a couple of café lattes.
We resume our conversation, Marlou propped up in bed, me beside her in my wheelchair. We are talking about plans and arrangements for my brother's weekend visit. There's a pause. I think I see something. A subtle shift in Marlou's expression. I take her hand. She starts to cry. It's very subtle, just a couple of tears. But we look at each other. Here we are in the chemotherapy ward, the place we always return to these days. I want to make the point that we are here together. It's the only point I can think to make. And in full disclosure and fair reporting, in particular deference to Marlou, this is just a moment. We've had four peaceful days in one of the most remarkable spots in nature. And now we are here. This is the place one or both of us dread returning to. But it is one of our current destinations, and the tears are part of it.
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