Mobile Junkie IV: Oregon Postcards

Moe's Recipe for Martinis
1/2 oz vermouth (white, dry)
7 1/2 oz vodka or gin (Ketel 1 vodka)
dirty: add about a tsp of olive juice

drawing by MJ

Georgia and I sat in a restaurant called Pier 101 and I sipped a martini, realizing that no drink would ever meet my expectations. No drink would ever give me more personality, more beauty, more fun, more communion. My problem was the experience that I thrived always transcended happiness. I was looking for the real to become surreal. Working in Yellowstone National Park for a summer after graduating from college showed me how fantastically unreal reality can be. But it wasn't
grandeur that I was after. I was after the spectacular nature of a more commonplace kind, the kind people overlook. I read a book once by a man who hiked the populated and unwanted places of the world, through suburban parking lots and busy city campgrounds, and he found unusual stories there. Sipping my martini, I looked around the restaurant, wondering what stories were being acted out there that night.

Do you believe in destiny? I searched faces, wondering why we were brought to that particular restaurant in that particular instant, but came up void. Our waiter, politely aloof, obviously couldn't wait to join his life wherever it was happening. We were of no interest to him. Real estate agents in the next booth energetically strategized their next conquest and critiqued their fellow employees. A family sat loosely around a large table, picking at the remnants of their much-too-large meals. Dad disconnected, mom quiet, kids raggedly moving further out from the edge of the circle. Oregon had become much too connected to Georgia and Theo in my mind. Rats. Spotty reception. Poverty and MS, blue collar and oceanfront property, grandeur and clearcut, patronizing young waiters and the absence of native people. I ask Georgia, "do you ever see Native American Indians"? "No," she says, and we go back to our separate meals. Georgia has gone inside, into her own world.

I look for a bathroom, and Georgia and I laugh at the sexy poster of a young shirtless Brad Pitt facing us from the wall inside. Alone in the stall I pull up my pants and suddenly panic, hovering in that place between hope and despair when I realize my pocket is empty. "My cell phone must have dropped into the booth." Georgia looks at me as I race out of the bathroom through the bar and back into the restaurant to run my hands over the plastic seats and the dirty floor. I am thinking that I need a flashlight! I need more light, but already I can feel that the phone is gone. I head out into the night, toward the car, but no friendly phone waits for me in the seat, on the floor, wedged by the door, as in earlier times. I go back into the restaurant toward the bathroom and as I pass the bar I say to the bartender, "I lost my cell phone, I think maybe in the booth." She reaches into the shelves above her head and brings down my phone. "Somebody found it in the parking lot. I sent you a message," she smiles.

Back in the car, heading down the road toward Newport, I check my e-mail.

Thu, 22 Jul 2004 01:11:11 EDT

Hi Theo. AJ just called from NYC saying she just received a call from a woman who was using MJ's cell phone. This woman was going through MJ's list of phone numbers with hopes of getting the message to her that her phone was at Pier 101 in Lincoln City. AJ thinks Georgia has a cell but I don't have her number. MJ must be freaking--she's lost without that thing.

Anyway, thanks. I hope you can get the message to her. Sorry to miss you during your last visit to Michigan. Let's kill the fatted calf next time you come through.

Steven

The next day, when we reach Bandon, I head down to the beach and walk far far down, looking at the huge rocks that rest on the beach and out in the ocean. They are covered with bird shit. I tell Georgia that birds flying from the mouth of face rock look like an outpouring of words. Georgia says it is always too cold to swim here, but it doesn't feel too cold to me. I am thankful for the evening alone and I pick up stones and remnants of shells and sand dollars. I put them in my jacket pockets, and I am happy that sand is everywhere, in my pockets, on my feet, on the floor of our room. The beach is full with sargasso, tunneling into the sand like big snakes. I walk up to a transparent jelly fish with the most beautiful violet circles delicately bordering its center. I sit on the beach, lie down, sleep and wake again. Twenty horses trot down the shoreline close to the water.

Tomorrow we would drive all the way to Seaside, a town whose strange mix of American Graffiti, carnival, juvenile delinquency and tourism was to bring a close to my time with Georgia. We grew irritated with one another. "It is late. We can't keep looking for the "right" motel room." I was getting on Georgia's nerves, and later we tried to enjoy our burgers in the restaurant across the street from the carousel, but the mood was dour. Georgia had Theo and her job to think about, and I was escaping early. Georgia would take me to the Portland airport in the morning and she would go home to her little house, her dog and cat, her landscaped front yard, and Theo.

I was irritated. "Don't take any abuse," I said as Georgia dropped me off at the airport. She had begun easing into her world, and made mention of the new car that Theo would buy for her. I wanted to scream and yell at her, but tried to remind myself that we all have our own level of tolerance and she needed to find hers. I hoped she didn't withdraw and ignore the bullshit. Like AJ says, she deserves better than that. "Will he be contrite or angry?" I asked? "We'll see," she said.

My phone rang as I handed my boarding pass to the woman at the gate. "Contrite," said Georgia. My phone broke up as I walked into the tunnel leading to the plane.

Later, back in Michigan, my cell phone trilled and I looked to find an e-mail from Georgia!

Tue, 27 Jul 2004 18:31:22 -0700

It doesn't feel like World War III; so I guess it isn't. 

Work has just CONSUMED me in the last few days.  I have been working non-stop since I got home and need to finish about three more major projects.  I have to somehow find time to look at the house with Theo in it and decide some things.  Right now it doesn't feel like an emergency and I will find a counselor although I don't know how I'll do going to anyone regularly.  Sometimes I worry that I can't do anything over time. 

I miss you tons and wish we lived closer together.  I love you

Georgia