DRIVING TOWARDS ORION
Chapter One: Thursday, October 30th (part two)
A few days earlier, der Brucer had picked up a supply of books and maps from AAA. In particular, he had ordered a special book from them, a sequence of maps spiral-bound together that they call “TripTix.” The maps themselves are generic, covering major routes, but taken in order, page to page, the entire trip from coast to coast was outlined for us. Each page was a fold-over sheet, with the suggested route for that part of the trip marked with a highlighter on the top of each page. Opening each page revealed all the alternate routes and side trips available for that particular leg of the journey, and on the back was information about the sites and towns, along with maps of some of the cities. All in all, it was a handy little gadget, well worth the extra price it cost for its assembly by the people at AAA. For this particular leg of the journey, however, der Brucer was ignoring the TripTix. He knew well enough how to get us out of Long Beach and on the road to our first stop in Needles, by way of Barstow.
Traffic on the 91 Freeway was predictably heavy. “This will all clear out before too long,” he told me. I was more concerned with how the dogs were settling down. Kelsey hadn’t budged from his pillows, and as far as I could tell he was quite content, although I couldn’t see him as he was laying right behind me. Marty, meanwhile, had declared most of the back seat behind der Brucer as his territory. There was a contented look on his face, a smile matched with half-shut eyes. Mikey had found a spot alongside Marty, and Bonnie was watching everything that was happening from a spot in the middle, half on and half off the console dividing der Brucer and myself. Buster was the problem. He either could not or would not find a spot in the back, and if I tried to push him back he would push himself forward again, either through the middle over Bonnie or going around and over the back of my seat or der Brucer’s. Having him climb over me was bad enough; climbing over der Brucer was downright dangerous, so I relented and let him settle in on my lap. I was certain that he would get tired and agree to sleep in the back eventually.
Der Brucer had the news on the radio, which was fine for the start of the trip. Think of that as one of his character traits, that he always has the news playing, be it on the television at home or on the radio in the car. I’ve mostly gotten used to it, although the repetitiveness of what the newscasters report gets on my nerves after a while. I wouldn’t mind if whoever was programming the news would broadcast more in-depth stories about interesting things, but instead they keep to the main story of the day, interrupted only by occasional bursts of traffic or weather. After ten minutes, the cycle repeats itself, over and over. I was relieved, therefore, when he agreed to my taking over the car’s sound system when we got to the San Bernardino Freeway. I’d already decided the right song to start the trip: “It’s Not Where You Start,” as sung by Barbara Cook on her Dorothy Field’s album, Close as Pages In a Book. Fields has long been a favorite lyricist of mine, with a career that literally spanned decades, from the twenties through to the seventies. How many other lyricists are there who can claim that they worked with Jimmy McHugh, Sigmund Romberg, Jerome Kern, and Cy Coleman? I’m not sure I like the use her song “The Way You Look Tonight” is getting in commercials these days, but it did earn her the first songwriting Oscar given to a woman. Der Brucer quietly sang along to “Don’t Blame Me,” something I’ve rarely caught him doing before.
By the time we got to Barstow, his tune was changing. He was getting hungry, but the signage for restaurants wasn’t too good; by the time he could figure out what places were open, he’d already driven past the off ramp. “That might have been the last In-N-Out we just passed,” he told me. I wasn’t too bothered, as I’ve never been much of a burger person, but In-N-Out is a California institution, and it was slipping away in my rear view mirror. A young co-worker who hailed from Chicago before I retired had demanded of the rest of us “What’s so great about the hamburgers at In-N-Out?” Some things either cannot or should not be explained, so we didn’t even try at the time. Part of the problem with his question was the implication that if one thing is great, other things in the same category cannot be great at the same time, or for different reasons. In-N-Out is simply what a burger should taste like…in Southern California.
I’ve been to Chicago, and I’m not sure I’d want to eat an In-N-Out burger there, because it wouldn’t taste the same. By the same token, I recall quite some time ago White Castle trying to establish themselves in SoCal, and not being able to pull it off. The statement, that “location is everything,” is true in a multitude of ways.
We were already past Barstow when der Brucer decided we really needed to add some gas to the tank. The Olds he’d been driving in SoCal was one of the things he’d chosen to discard, too tired to be able to withstand the journey. What we were driving was a rental car, a full-sized model chosen for the extra room, but this meant that der Brucer had no idea how long he could go without refueling. It also meant that the dogs could take a rest stop of their own. Somehow, I ended up walking the four, while der Brucer tried to coax Kelsey into doing his old man maneuvers. Two dogs together aren’t too much of a problem when they’re leashed together, but four dogs together is something else again, an immediate tangle that gets worse with every step. Again, when everyone was reloaded into the car, Kelsey and Marty found their places immediately, with Bonnie taking the center in case she wanted to watch. Once again, however, Buster refused to get find a spot in back; only my lap was good enough for him. This time, however, Mikey decided that he, too, deserved my lap, and the two dogs were soon fast asleep, as were my legs.
By this time, we were heading eastward on the Interstate 40, the road we would be following for most of our journey. It was pitch black outside, with very little moon to light the high desert. All that could be seen were the trucks and cars on the road ahead of us, and the stars above. “At what point do all these trucks start to clear out?” I asked. Der Brucer shook his head. Thirty years had passed since the last time he had driven cross-country, and some things, like the number of trucks we were seeing, had changed. Directly above the road we could see Orion, the most prominent constellation in the eastern sky. His head and arms lay to the north, his feet to the south, but his belt seemed to draw an extending line straight upwards from the road ahead, perpendicular to where the horizon would have been if we could have seen it. The music shifted, through Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado into Sting’s score for the IMax film The Living Sea, followed by Rebecca Luker singing Cole Porter on her solo CD, Anything Goes. Der Brucer sang along again to “True Love,” and looked at me with surprise when she started to sing “Don’t Fence Me In.” “Cole Porter wrote this?” he asked, long familiar with the song but not with it’s origins. “Ah-yup!” I replied, keeping things in the vernacular.
This was the short leg of our journey, by der Brucer’s plan and we pulled into Needles sometime after midnight. There wasn’t a problem with our motel reservations, since der Brucer had made the arrangements over the Internet and we were guaranteed a room with a late arrival. There was a problem with the number of dogs we had in tow, since the motel would only accept two per room, so we smuggled the pack in with us, and avoided the manager’s office when we took them out for walks in pairs. Sandwiches were prepared from lunchmeats I’d stowed in the big cooler. The only ruckus came when Buster discovered that there was another dog in the room, hiding in the mirror, but that interloper disappeared quickly enough when the lights were turned out.
MUSIC STACK:
Close as Pages in a Book, Barbara Cook, DRG Records Incorporated, 1993.
Topsy-Turvy, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, Sony Classical, 1999.
The Living Sea, Original Motion Picture Soundtrack featuring the music of Sting, A&M Records, 1995.
Anything Goes, Rebecca Luker sings Cole Porter, Varese Sarabande, 1996
