BERKELEY
Previous Next TABLE OF CONTENTS
Pity the poor people driving behind me. The drive north along the coast twists uphill. Unfortunately, my van doesn't twist well nor does it go uphill very well. We staggered up the coast like a drunk on his knees looking for his keys trailed by a line of cars cursing and swearing and trying to kick us in the ass. The bridge came into sight as we rounded one of the switchbacks. We crept closer. It was a marvelous simple construct that seemed to enhance the surroundings.
We pulled off onto a dirt patch on the side of the road and exited the van watching for traffic. "Why is this special to you?" I asked Rallio.
"It's not particularly special to me." He sensed my anxiety. Two hours of rough driving and name calling and it wasn't special to him. "But it was a place that meant something to one of my buddies. So I wanted to see it." Rallio was tracing the coastline with his eyes. "It's where he use to go when he wanted to get away." Rallio explained, "Everyone went somewhere - cars, girls, wives, kids, places they'd been, places they were going, dreams they'd had, dreams they were going to live."
"Where'd you go?" I asked.
"Me, I went surfing. Not a day went by when I didn't close my eyes and ride a swell."
He stopped at that and I didn't know what to say. Although I thought I knew the answer, I timidly ventured, "Have you been out since you got back?"
He avoided the question by stating, "Steamer Lane. I think that's the place. I've always wanted to surf Steamer Lane. It's the name. What a great name." His voice took off down the face of a wave.
"We could do that." I mapped out the route aloud, "It's past Monterey but we're in the right direction. Then, after we hit Santa Cruz we can swing over and catch 101 going back South. Yeh, we could do that."
Highway 1 swung us just north of the boardwalk along Santa Cruz and I had to double back to catch a look at it. Carnival rides operate on the beachfront but instead of draping the waterfront in a festive atmosphere the place looks like a sad and seedy afternoon drunk. We slowly rolled north through town to the bluff that overlooks Steamer Lane.
We both squeezed into our wetsuits. I knew it was going to be cold. Summer or no summer, water this far north was bound to be freezing. It's the direction of the current. Have you ever been at an airport on one of those moving sidewalks? Waves are like the people walking on the moving sidewalk. Current is like the moving walk. Water that comes to California circles away from Japan north through the frigid Arctic seas and then down the coast of North America. That's why the water is cold even though the warm sun does its best to instruct the cold current in the proper California attitude.
"You lead the way." Rallio said.
I wound down the cliff and into the ocean. When I looked back Rallio was at the top of the ridge. The waves were horrible, almost non-existent. I went in because I expected Rallio to follow. When he didn't my ire began to rise. I felt duped. Duped into driving to Santa Cruz and duped into going out into the water. I mean he wasn't standing on the beach trying to muster courage to get through the shorebreak. There was no shorebreak. I knew what he was doing. He was drawing long tokes.
After about 30 minutes of sitting and waiting, I paddled in on an ankle slapper. I was pissed. Rallio was by the car, smoking. I looked at him and said, "Maybe if you didn't smoke so damn much, you could go out."
I grabbed my clothes. Rallio changed and stepped into the passenger seat. I flung my rubber suit into a plastic bin and slammed down hard the back hatch door, then carried my shoes to the driver's side. Rallio began to talk. "I knew skin was fragile but I didn't know how fragile in here was."
"You mean ribs and bones and stuff." I was still huffy.
"No, in here," he was thumping his hand towards his chest. "In here, man, the part that was me. That was Rallio." Rallio was looking away towards the ocean. "It's like he opened the door and went home and left me. I can see him but he keeps moving away."
"Maybe if you went back into the water."
"No," he snapped. "No. He'll move further out and won't be able to make it back, I know it, then I'll never see him again. He'll be lost forever."
I finished putting on my shoes and got in behind the wheel. For a moment we sat. In that moment the specter of depression howled through my skin and rested in my gut. Maybe it was let loose by Rallio's admission of vulnerability, maybe it was waiting for a signal that confirmed that the surf adventure had ended, maybe it was in the neighborhood and just thought it would drop in. Whatever the cause for the visit, I knew I needed help in showing it the door because I couldn't throw it out on my own.
"You want to visit Snake?"
In the instant that his words took to sink into meaning I asked him to repeat himself.
"Snake. He lives in Berkeley. If you don't mind visiting him, I've got his address."
"Yeh. Let's go see what Snake's up to."
We hit a patch of bad traffic. I don't do well behind the wheel when I'm riding the bumper of the car ahead and monitoring his brake lights for my next move. I don't mind concentration and heaven knows I can handle a state of stupor but I have a very difficult time with the in-between where you have to come out of your catatonia in an instant or be smashed to pieces. I tried for some conversation. "This is what America has become, a nation of commuters."
Rallio let the comment go for a bit, then said, "More like a nation of surfers. They ride waves. They take one wave and then catch the next viewing each as separate occurrences."
"And the Vietnamese?"
"They're rice farmers."
At the time, I figured it was Rallio's lack of formal education that prevented him from completing the metaphor. But that was my own arrogance and unlearnedness because Rallio had completed the metaphor perfectly.
"I can't take this any longer, you drive." I pulled off the freeway and switched places with Rallio. He drove us into Berkeley.
We had driven around the same block three times looking for Snake's address. "Where'd you get these directions, Snake's mom who would just as soon lead us on a wild goose chase as help us find Snake?" I asked.
"There it is. Take this drive." And I pointed the way.
We pulled up beside a small house located behind a larger one. As we exited the van Rallio said, "No. I got Snake's whereabouts from his sister."
"Sister? Snake has a sister?"
"Three of 'em. And this one is kind of cute."
"You go out with her?" I inquired as we stepped up the walk. We were almost to the screen door of the little bungalow.
"No. It's weird but when I talked to her I kept seeing Snake in her face. I can't even imagine kissing her."
That slapped me silly. The image of a female Snake got me going and then Rallio started in laughing along which only made it funnier. Rallio propped himself against the side of the house, flush with the door, chuckling.
A girl came to the door. She had straight blond hair parted in the middle and hanging down long past her shoulders. We were on a step down from her and I straightened up to greet her, "Hello. We're here to see Snake."
She swung on the door and said nothing as if she hadn't heard what I'd said.
"Is Snake here?" I tried again.
"Who do you want?" Her voice slid through the sieves in the screen door. I wanted a better view of her and I peered intently.
"Snake," I repeated.
"There's no snakes here," she said and began to move the door close.
Rallio came from the side and she was startled. Apparently, she hadn't noticed him pressed into the corner. "Carl. Carl Serpenti."
"Oh, Carl. That's who you want. I'll go get him."
I looked aghast at Rallio. "I didn't know that Snake had a real name." I rolled the name around on my tongue, "Carl." Coming off our former light headedness it was easy to get silly again. "Carl, good ole Carl."
We were both having a good time at Snake's expense when a figure in a ruffled shirt, blue and gold vest, striped pants and a big buckled belt that matched his buckled boots opened the door. Rallio looked at the curls falling down from his head and the French cuffs and said, "Snake, you're a pirate."
We stumbled through the door chortling and choking like kindergartners telling potty jokes. Poor Snake. He must have felt like the odd man out. In part, maybe that's what contributed to what followed.
Rallio grabbed Snake's hand. "How you been? Nice place you got here."
Rallio seemed genuinely glad to see Snake. I was even glad to see ole Snake. It took Snake a little while to warm up but he too caught Rallio's infectious good will. He asked us to make ourselves comfortable and we grabbed some chairs.
Rallio was leaning forward pressing in on Snake. The blonde was evidently Snake's girlfriend. She was snuggled up against Snake on a ratty old couch that was covered in a thin tie-dyed chemise. She sat with her legs twisted underneath her so she could play with her toes. Snake was impassive but that was always the way he looked. He never smiled. I suppose that was one of the reasons I loved to give him a bad time. I strained to eavesdrop. Rallio was talking about Damon and others who were mutual friends.
"So you're friends of Carl."
The girl talking to me was cute. She looked a lot like the first girl but with darker hair and much wider eyes.
"We're from Snake's, er Carl's hometown. We all went to high school together."
It wasn't more than fifteen or twenty minutes into our reunion when a camper pulled up and unloaded two guys and three girls. The first guy through the door was a short almost pudgy fellow. He appeared to be about 5'4" but he had a mass of hair piled on his head that brought him to about 6'6". The next guy was tall and thin. Where the first guy had energy bundled up inside him, this guy was cool. He was so cool he seldom emitted words. He just nodded - at everything. The girls came next. The first wore black glasses and had a severe case of acne and whether it was because of a world that thought the wrapping paper reflected the present or because of her natural disposition, there seemed to be a streak of meanness that ran through her and kept everyone at bay. The next girl was a hamster. Not a rat or a little mouse but a hamster, the in-between rodent that is so nondescript it can be a pet. The last girl was willowy and not unattractive. Unfortunately, after plowing through her four companions, no energy was left to appreciate her.
It soon became apparent the nature of their visit.
Snake wasn't surfing. He was dealing.
He had hooked up with a chemist, a doctor of psychoeuphoria and apparently had opened shop. Reefer was liberally passed around like guests being offered soda. The two guys and one of the girls followed Snake into a back bedroom. Records spun on the stereo and bodies sprawled on the furniture and floor. We settled in for the night.
"He's kind of creepy." I had gone to use the toilet and overheard two of the girls talking. "It's his hair."
"Yeh, if he had long hair, he could be a cool guy."
I knew who they were referring to and I took offense. He was my friend and they didn't even know him. I sat down across from Rallio and stared at him. Were my perceptions failing me? I caught the tail end of a conversation between one of the guys and a couple of the girls.
"Let's face it. The Haight is filled with pseudo freaks."
Rallio asked in all seriousness, "How can you tell a pseudo freak from a real freak?"
They obviously had never contemplated the line of reasoning. So, they ignored the question and the questioner.
We had been at Snake's house several hours. Sleep was beginning to weight my senses. I hadn't noticed Snake being pulled aside and spoken to by one of his customers but I felt the kick on the sole of my shoe. "C'mon, we're leaving." Rallio was hovering over me. I staggered towards the door.
"I'm tired. I don't feel much like driving. Besides, where we goin'?"
We were outside before Rallio told me, "The fuckhead threw us out. Jesus Christ, what a dick." He turned towards me and I could tell that he was hurt. "We were bad for business and the girls were getting jittery with us around," he modulated his voice to show contempt for the original speaker of the words, "the girls are getting jittery."
Rallio took the keys and pulled out of the drive. It was close to 11:00 at night.