On My Winter
Vacation
[Part I]
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For example, after searching the yellow pages for a cheap car rental, I discovered one located a little way up the coast and telephoned them. When I asked for directions to their location, they told me exactly how to drive there on the freeways. I pointed out that if I had a car to drive on the freeway, I wouldn't need to rent a car from them. They were so nonplussed by this concept that they lapsed into a series of lamentations in Urdu, and eventually broke down into wordless sobbing. I had apparently put my finger on the reason why their business rarely succeeded in renting out any cars.
Most of the time I made use of the public transit system to get around, which is still legal in southern California, although just barely. Most of my fellow passengers carried all their worldly possessions around with them in plastic bags and talked to themselves continuously on the bus, so I felt right at home. Carlos' flat is located some distance from bus stops or stores, and I assume that it was several weeks of this healthy regime of walking back and forth in the bright sunshine that cured my back trouble completely last winter.
This winter, however, there were a few unforeseen inconveniences. First, Carlos had neglected to warn me that the neighbors are building a large structure, undoubtedly a replica of the World Trade Center, in the lot next door, fifteen feet from the bedroom. The sawing, hammering and drilling started promptly at 7 AM every morning, including Sundays, which gave me the opportunity to adopt a healthy, early-rising schedule, before setting off on my day's walking to and from bus stops.
Then, a series of historic rainstorms struck southern California, making it the second wettest winter since time began, according to the overwrought TV weathercasters.
Next, Carlos' friend Fred from Mexico turned up and essentially moved in with me uninvited. Fred is an elderly hippy who has been living in the 60s for the last 40 years. He subsists on a simple diet of avocados, green tea, and marijuana, travels around the world mooching on everyone in sight, and periodically restores his revolutionary spirit by visiting Revolutionary Cuba.
We amicably shared a joint (my first in 25 years) but Fred's mannerisms tend to get old (as they say) in about one hour. As a matter of fact, the familiar combination of mooching, revolutionary tourism, and self-congratulation had already gotten old by about 1975. Fred had evidently taken early retirement when he was a flower-child and here he was, a flower-senior-citizen. Only in California!
Accordingly, in order to spend as little time as possible in the flat, I determined to attempt some more serious tourism in golden California, despite the fact that it was raining cats and dogs. I discontinued my healthy regimen of the mile walk to and from the bus and stores, and rented a tiny little car from the local Bargain Rent-A-Wreck. I think it was called a Ford Amoeba, assembled by a Ford subsidiary in Paraguay, and it ran noisily but reliably, at least after the garage had replaced all the parts which the previous renter had stolen.
The poor drainage in southern California means that many streets turn into small lakes when it rains heavily, and I can report from direct experiment that the Ford Amoeba will actually run under water. After one of these exciting excursions, I guided the Amoeba with difficulty through the flood back to Carlos' place and arrived with a full bladder, only to discover that Fred was monopolizing the bathroom. As I relieved myself in the dripping-wet bushes outside the flat, the first intelligent thought of the winter came into my head:
After completing these housekeeping arrangements, I told Fred to be sure to look me up if he was ever in my neighborhood, and gave him a mythical address in Nome, Alaska. With that, I bade him "Hasta la Victoria Siempre", pointed the Amoeba toward the airport, and shook the dust of the golden state from the soles of my feet. I mean this literally, since the security agents always make me strip naked at airports these days. Maybe I seemed unusually suspicious when they asked where I was going, and I babbled "anywhere airplanes fly."
Once back in Seattle, I dropped to my knees and kissed the ground at the airport (resulting, of course, in the security agents leading me away for another strip-search). No matter, it was good to be home. People told me that the weather had been mild and sunny --- "like California" they termed it --- the entire time I was away. Without hesitation, I lapsed into a series of lamentations in Urdu, and then wordless sobbing.