RIVER ONE
Previous Next TABLE OF CONTENTS
Rallio drove through San Francisco in the early morning. It took him a stretch of road to get accustomed to driving the van. He kept bouncing the rear wheels against the curb on right turns. We weren't quite up to the Golden Gate Bridge and at the bottom of a large dip when the engine conked. It sputtered like it was a momentary lapse and then shut down. At first I thought we were out of gas but the gauge said no. Rallio gave it a crank and nothing. Deader than the proverbial.
I know I didn't know anything about cars and Rallio was barely able to drive the damn thing, I didn't expect him to be able to fix it. I knew enough to declare, "I think the battery's dead."
I hopped out and went to the rear to lift the engine compartment door. Cars were flying by the driver's side of the van. Fortunately, we were in the far right lane. The battery is inconveniently placed on the right behind the rear lights in a VW van and I reached in trying not to get greasy. The battery was slightly tipped, probably from Rallio's encounters with the curbs. I pushed it back level and then jiggled the cables. One seemed to twist. I lowered the engine compartment hood and opened the back hatch door looking for a wrench.
"Not a good place to stop." I jumped. I expected to see a cop but it was an oily guy standing in front of a tow truck. I felt good about the truck being between me and the increasingly heavy flow of traffic but I wasn't so sure about the driver.
I walked up to the window and had Rallio crank the engine again hoping that the righting of the battery was enough for a little juice. It was. But just a little and not enough to start the engine.
I went back to the rear of the car renaming the van as I went. The tow truck driver reached in and grabbed the cable. He stepped over to his truck and after clanging around in his tool box brought out a wrench and tightened the cable. "Try it again," he said to me.
I looked in through the passenger window at Rallio. "Try it again." Nothing.
"Can we push it?" asked Rallio.
"Couldn't be in a shittier place. We're stuck in this valley. We can't push it uphill." I shrugged and shuffled back to the tow truck man.
"How much for a jump?"
The guy was looking at the engine. "Won't do you much good."
Now, I have a natural distrust of auto repairmen. Perhaps because I know so little I'm at their mercy and I feel vulnerable, perhaps because all the tales I've heard give me pause, perhaps because they're greasy and speak differently than I do. This guy reminded me of someone out of the twangiest part of the midwest.
"Your generator belt is shot. That's why you're not getting a charge."
I frowned. I hoped the frown was knowing.
"The generator light been on?"
"Not that I noticed." But then again I hadn't been driving. Rallio had joined us. "You notice the generator light?"
"Which one's the generator light?"
The tow man had gone back to his truck and brought back a black circle. "Let me change the belt and get you away from here." He was dismantling the pulley wheel before I could ask him how much it would cost. I realized it didn't matter. We had to get out of the predicament.
Ten or fifteen minutes of us looking over his shoulder and he rose, stretched some heavy duty jumper cables from his truck to our little battery and told us to turn the engine over. It coughed and then took off running. I kept it going while I got out to see the damage to our funds.
The mechanic had closed the engine compartment door and was looking in at something through the opened hatch door of the van. We had stuff across the back rise that was above the engine. The guy pointed to Rallio's jacket. "Yours?"
"Yeh, it's mine." It was a definitive affirmation. Given his circumstances, Rallio could have said any number of things any one of which I would have favored over his answer.
The fellow's eye never left the coat.
"It's bad, is it?"
Rallio was staring straight at the man. "Depends on where you are. It's different for everyone." That was more than Rallio had told me. Maybe I hadn't phrased the question correctly.
The man raised his head to Rallio. "My son has one of these, these patches. He was so proud of it."
I fidgeted. I wanted to get moving. Setting here could draw attention to us from the cops. For that matter, maybe this guy might take it upon himself to make a call to the authorities to run a check on us. I watched Rallio reach out for his coat.
"He's over there now," the man said.
Rallio handed him his green fatigue coat, the patch on the sleeve was turned up for the guy to read and touch. I shuffled some more and tried to get Rallio's eye. "Let's get the hell out of here," I wanted to urge him.
"Why don't you keep that. I don't really need it anymore."
"Bullshit," I thought. "It's going to be goddamn cold where you're going. Rallio you're a dumb fuck."
The coat must have meant something more to the guy than I could glean because he kept a tight grip on it and a tight eye on it. Without a word he went back to his truck and pulled out a worn but serviceable heavy carcoat and pressed it into Rallio's reluctant arms. "You take this. No charge for the car and we'll call it even."
"Good deal," I thought. "Ain't gonna cost us a penny. That Rallio is shrewder than he looks. A coat and repair work to boot. Nice bargain." I needed no further nudge and headed for the van door.
Nothing more was said. Rallio patted his coat and shook the grimy hand of the driver. He looked at the tow truck driver and clasped his upper arm and got back into the passenger seat.
I put the van in gear and checked my mirrors. He was still there holding that coat as we pulled away.
That was the last Rallio drove. After that he was either smoking or sleeping. If he wasn't sleeping, he was smoking, if he wasn't smoking, he was sleeping. Didn't seem to eat much either. And he was selfish about his smokes, never sharing them with me. If I asked, he said I was driving and should stay sober so I could make the right decisions.
The road was accompanied by the music on the radio. Somewhere about an hour from San Francisco an old Beach Boys hit came on the radio. I cranked up the sound as far as the little 3" speakers allowed and we sang, "Everybody's gone surfin' ... " and we rattled off the spots, La Jolla, San Onofre, Manhatten. The spots that we had seen and could identify by sight and we let the song take us back to those surfing locations. We bounced to the treble guitar and kept the beat with our palms on the dash. We let the music roll over us like the water once rolled over us. We swung into the song like we had swung into the waves. And when the song faded out I reached over and turned off the radio. I didn't want another song, another tune, another oldie, or another voice to interlope. Neither of us spoke. We drove on in a mournful silence. As the tune slipped away from our grasp, I felt lost and a long way from home. Rallio's hand moved to his face and wiped below his eye.
Emboldened by the tow truck driver's query about Vietnam, I ventured what I thought should be an innocuous question, "Tell me Rallio, what were the Vietnamese like?"
His answer came slow like he had to think about its formulation but then it picked up steam, "Some of the guys made fun of the gooks. They wore flip-flops and sun hats and lived in thatch huts. How was I going to make fun of that? I'd worn sandals much longer than combat boots. The cone shaped hat was goofy looking but I was frying my brain in the damned steel helmet and I've always dreamed of a bamboo hutch somewhere on a beach.
"We'd go through their villages and kill a pig or dump a basket of rice. That was all they owned. They had nothing we wanted and as near as I could tell, we had nothing they wanted. You knew by the way they looked at you that you were the enemy. Old people with that abject stare of theirs. And children scared and curious at the same time. We were the enemy. We were the enemy because we were there."
The road had been crossing and recrossing the river. I told Rallio I wanted to cool off a little and the river looked inviting.
Rallio said he'd stay in the car. He wasn't feeling very good. He said the humidity was getting to him. He looked sick. His hair was wet and he was beaded with perspiration beyond what I thought the humidity warranted and at the same time he wore a greyish pallor. "A little rest might make me feel better."
"You mean a little smoke might make you feel better," I said under my breath.
I made my way through the riparian vegetation down an embankment to the river. Some distance away, down the river bed, voices were echoing unfathomable words. I knew there were people out and about. The day was humid, beads of moisture were dropping on the leaves with a crackling sound. A rancid smell passed in and out of the air.
The singular characteristic of water is not its texture but its sound. From its interplay with its environment you can deduce its volume and speed. I should have been listening more carefully to the rush over the rocks.
I took off my shoes and wiggled my toes deliciously in the sand. The water was cold. River water is always cold, don't ask me why. It may have been raining further upstream or perhaps a dam had been opened but whatever the event, the water was flowing at a heavy volume. I stepped into the stream. The rocks hurt my feet so I moved gingerly. Some rivers have gentle dropoffs. This was not one of them. I was wading in waist-deep water after only a few shuffling steps. I should have known better. Experience is a great teacher but it frequently wears a crown of arrogance. I'd known the rush of waves since I was a child. I thought this was just one more pulse of water pressing against me but this was an experience apart from the others. The lightness of my footing on the smooth slippery rocks made me easy prey for the push from the river. I slipped once and caught myself then stepped again and was so off balance that I fell over.
The onslaught of the water carried me away. I tried to stand but it was like trying to jump a moving train from a train traveling in the opposite direction. The countermanding forces were too great to overcome. Until I hit the first rock with my knee I was enjoying the ride. Other bruises and contortions followed. I slammed against a boulder protruding from the center of the river and the wind gushed out of my lungs. My face fell into the water choking and black bile fell over my eyes. I was drowned. There is no mistake about that. Had a hand not grabbed me by the collar and pulled me onto the bank sputtering and coughing and stunned, my life would have simply floated away.
"You almost didn't make it there, partner." The voice was staring into my face. He was smiling but his wife wore concern. "You looked like a human pinball. If that guy hadn't scooped you up, you'd have been permanently tilted, if you know what I mean."
My eyes fought to focus.
"Thanks," I mumbled.
"Don't thank me. Thank the guy who..." and everyone was looking around. "He was here a minute ago."
I regained my composure enough to shakily stand. I was still woozy. I felt like death warmed just above room temperature. I must have looked as bad. The humidity had turned into a fine drizzle and the moisture added to my discomfort. I slipped going up the bank.
Rallio was sitting outside the van obviously stoned out of his gourd. He opened one eye wide enough to see me and he gave me a big twisted smile, "You're all wet. You swimming to Canada?" he drawled, his voice thick and his tongue heavy, "keep your head out of the water." And he chuckled. His appearance and comments and lack of concern were so unseemly I walked right by him.
I pulled out some dry clothes and changed.
"Don't you know enough to get out of the goddamn rain? Let's get out of here." I snapped.