Animal Tales

Several years ago during a lunchtime walk at work I came within one step of a large rattlesnake that was polite enough to rattle and hiss to let me know I was too close. The path I'd been walking was covered with instep-high wildflowers that were both nice scenery for me and nice cover for the snake. The rattle and hiss were nearly simultaneous, and before I could think about what the sound was, I knew--propelled upward by some deeply rooted genetic sense of danger that I much appreciated. A couple of men were driving by in a pickup and they stopped first to laugh at my contortions, second to see if they could find the snake that one of them wanted to take home for his small collection. Together we watched the think slither calmly into deeper grass, and I estimated it at about 3 feet long and as thick of my forearm. Then the snake was gone, the men were gone, and I went back to my cubicle where I sat down and thought, That was fun.

At work this morning we received an email letting us know that the security people had noticed a mountain lion and its cub wandering not far from where I'd seen the rattler, and we are advised to not walk or jog or ride our mountain bikes in that area. We were told that Fish and Game was notified. In all my hiking through valleys and foothills and mountains, that was my first snake-encounter, and I have yet to see a mountain lion though I concede that one may have seen me. I'd love to see one, preferably one that is not hungry and not after it has latched onto my neck. Indeed, my encounters with large creatures in the wild outdoors have been few: seen only one bear, that in Kings Canyon in Southern California as my friends and I were, perhaps ironically, returning to camp from hanging our foodbags in trees so bears would not get our victuals. One of my companions had left a loaf of french bread in his backpack, and perhaps there is more irony in that he was the most experienced of us and knew well enough that he'd messed up.

Riding my bike today along the American River, I startled a coyote off the path and watched it trot away. I slowed my bike and looked at it looking back at me before I put my head down, shifted gears, and continued on my way. This last summer I startled another coyote in the same area as it stalked a squirrel. When I got close the squirrel scampered up a tree, depriving the coyote of its immediate meal. Sometimes the coyotes along the river are considered "nuisances" and must be killed because they harass hikers or hikers' dogs. I often see large, wild turkeys on my rides, and the other day I saw a deer.

And this afternoon a little mouse got squished in our dishwasher, this after we trapped 2 yesterday and another a couple days ago. I saw 2 others today, a grown-up and a baby, so I figure our traps will be active the next few days, though maybe some of the critters will linger until after our Thanksgiving feast. I find mice harmless and less annoying than the ants that sometimes invade the house at different times of the year. If I were a coyote (and maybe a mountain lion) I would find mice perfectly fine fodder for an evening's ingestion. The dogs that wander freely throughout my house seemed mildly interested after I got them to sniff around the dishwasher. The older dog has some experience with rodents: many years ago a family of rats found shelter in our garage, and would actually carry dog food into the engine compartment of my car, where they also chewed through some things that I assume were there so the car could keep running. We also had another dog then, and the 2 of them got lucky a couple of times and took care of the rats.

I spent many summer days as a kid chasing gophers, creatures more photogenic than rats though often just as bothersome. In the schoolyard near our house, a schoolyard that then was surrounded by cornfields, my friends and I would go to the nearby creek, fill up buckets with water, and pour water into a gopher hole. My childhood dog greatly enjoyed this, and she would paw at the water and when a gopher stuck its head up for a breath of air, the dog would grab hold and shake. I'm not sure if this was cruel on our part, but I think we thought we were doing the school a service by ridding the playground of gophers. If we'd had snake (gopher snake, of course), we could have simply fed one to another.

In a different school a few years later, I was sitting in Mrs. Barrett's seventh-grade class, looking out the window when I should have been paying attention. (This continues to be a habit, and if I am in a meeting in a conference room that happens to have windows, I am lost.) The school itself was bi-level, and our class room was on the second floor from where we could look out over a wooded portion of the schoolyard. From my seat near the window I watched a raptor of some type dive into the trees, its wings back like an angry dog's ears. I had never seen anything like it, and all these years later I remember (or think I remember) that bird. The event itself would eventually work its way into an essay in graduate school, oddly enough.

And, though I cannot see exactly how, these events are somehow connected today, perhaps only as tidbits of memory that have congealed into something that must congeal.

Prodigal Sons

Three months after graduating from high school I was marching around navy boot camp in San Diego as PSA airplanes flew overhead. Two nights before heading to the recruiter's office and the van that would take me to the Oakland airport for the late flight to San Diego, my girlfriend, my then-best friend and his girlfriend, and I drank too much but nevertheless survived. I had told my parents that my girlfriend would be taking me to the recruiter's office, and when she showed up to do so I hugged my parents as we congregated in the kitchen, probably said goodbye to whichever sisters were there, then got into my girlfriend's car for the short ride to the awaiting van. We sat in the car for many minutes before I got out, and that was the first time I had a woman cry on my shoulder. Christ, that was painful, and all I could think of as I walked up the sidewalk away from the car was her sitting there crying.

Nine weeks later I was home again, my hair shorter and my posture straighter, where I would stay for 2 weeks before saying goodbye to everyone again and heading to Pensacola, Florida, for my technical school. The plane was full, but as we lifted and into the darkness, I felt more alone than I ever had. I remember writing lyrics to a Rod Stewart tune as I sat there, lyrics that I hoped someday to give to my girlfriend but never did. Then, somewhere in those 4 months in Pensacola, I found reason to believe that my girlfriend and I should break up, so I took the coward's way out and said as much in a letter. She called at some point and I stood in the phonebooth on our barracks and listened callously as she cried. I was heartless but it took me many years to know it.

After another short visit home that included a visit to a party that did not end well, I was off to Japan where I would stay for over 2 years. When my tour was over, I returned home to a minimum-wage job delivering furniture that I quit when I started college. I was glad to be home, glad to not have someone telling me what to do all the time, where to stand, when to eat, what to where--that necessary stuff that goes along with the military. I bought a car with money I'd saved, and I reaquainted myself with my neighborhood, the city, and old friends, some of whom behaved as though they were still in high school but nevertheless were good to be around. Only after graduating from college and finally getting a "real" job in San Francisco did I move away again, this time with a wife and son. Always, though, even for brief visits, I was glad to step back into my parents' house; I sometimes felt that I'd never really been gone.

All of this comes to mind because my sons are coming home for Thanksgiving, though for how long we don't know. One says things will be temporary, another will be returning to college, and yet another is noncommital. None of them has been gone either as long or as far as I was, but they have nonetheless been away on their own, each finding his own true path or at least an indication of one. I never asked my parents how they felt about my leaving, for neither was prone to self-disclosure or outward expression of emotion. That day I left them in the kitchen and walked out the door with my girlfriend, what did they think? Were they glad for me and sad for themselves? Did they know (as I have learned) that one way or another sons come home?

The Words We Write When We Can't Write Anything Else

Writing--like smoking, drinking, and wild sex--is habitual. Or, at least, it should be habitual where perhaps the other 3 should not be. Sometimes, though, you reach into the bag and wrestle with whichever you grab first. And, since I don't smoke, seldom drink, and am not exactly sure what wild sex should be, I'm left with writing...something. Though the 3 novels I've written have been written slowly, each was finished only when it was habit--maybe like flossing rather than smoking, drinking, and wild sex. Habit as in if not actually sitting my ample rear-end down in a chair and typing something, but at least thinking of something: what a character might do; how the plot might unfold; whether the setting is just right.

Distractions--the true, the invented, the imagined--are everywhere, and I am so easily distracted. Teaching as seldom as I do these days is even a distraction, and I find the characters I think about are my students, the plot is my lesson plan, and the setting is always the classroom. I wish I could add watching television to this list of distractions, but I watch only a few hours a week. I also have exercised much less than I did over the summer, but I do not seem to have gained any free time. Work, certainly, gets in the way of anything else I'd rather be doing, but it takes up only about 10 hours a day counting my commute and if I actually take a lunch break. Where do the other hours go?

Shawn, I think, is still working on a manuscript in his cabin hideaway, which is a good gig if you can get it. There are certainly dangers in isolation, but in the days I have spent at my friend's house on the North Coast, I've found that in such isolation the brain tends to work through things--the characters, the plot, the setting. In that house I have sat in a chair and stared out a window for an hour straight, something that has made me even more firmly believe the axiom that a writer sometimes does his or her best work while looking out a window. Visiting my friend Kominski's apartment several months ago, I voted to put his writing desk in front of a window not because it would be best for him and his writing, but because that's where I'd work best. I'm not sure where that desk ended up, just as I don't know if Shawn even has a writing desk in his cabin. These guys, though, can write anywhere, and I don't think either needs the same type of mental and physical setup that I do.

My view now is this: my laptop screen on my kitchen table, my hands resting on the keyboard as I type; my feet up on the chair across from me; my lifeless stereo system across the room; a bit of dark creeping in through the patio door; family photos on the bookshelf to my right; a glass of pinot grigio just to the left of my laptop. You would think that there would be stories and poems in these artifacts, and perhaps there are....

For the last week or so, I have revisited my novel This Far West and my story "The Map-Reader," revisiting the characters to see if there is any life left in either them or their lives. Ruby, one of the characters from This Far West, has remained surprisingly strong, and the more I think about this book, the more I'm convinced that the entire story should be Ruby's, that Jerry, the other main character, doesn't deserve the space he takes up. This is something I'll have to ponder. In "The Map-Reader," I've discovered a couple of flaws that weaken the entire work, so I'm going to see if I can fix things there. In fact, for This Far West, I'd like to find an impartial reader who would say, if it is true, "This is a piece of crap." That would be fine, for then I could go about fixing the damned thing. Or, maybe, put it to rest once and for all. I'd also like to revisit my latest novel, The Golfer's Wife, because it was a lot of fun to write and because I'd like to reacquaint myself with a couple of charcters who are loosely based on actual people (though I would deny such a thing were I taken to court).

All I need to do is eliminate a few more distractions.

History Lessons

The day started well, got bad quickly, turned interesting, and then got better.

Though I would rather have slept, I nonethless dragged my soft belly and large behind out of bed, loaded my bike into my car, and headed out for a ride in the cool, overcast morning. Five miles into the ride, however, first the bike's front wheel and then the rear wheel hit something on the trail, and within minutes I feel that the back tire is going flat. Not wanting to change to my spare tube, I pump up the tire as best as I can, then pedal quickly hoping to get to back to my car. I have tried this same tactic before, and it has never worked well. Same luck today. So, I drag my bike to the side of the trail and start to change the tire, when an older gentleman on an old bike stops. "Flat tire?" he asks. "Yep," I say. "You ride off the trail, or something?" I tell him that, no, I had not, that I had just hit something. As I work, he tells me stories of seeing and hearing coyotes along the trail, how they sometimes catch pet cats from their yards and drag them into the bushes. Once, he watched a coyote eat half a cat in just seconds, then bury the other half. He tells me of the various fires along the trail this previous summer, how most of them are started by the homeless who camp along the river and who seem to enjoy fire. He tells me of what he

Something, though, doesn't work right: I either pinch the new tube, or there is something sharp inside the tire itself, for when I try to pump it up, little happens. Wonderful. I put the wheel back in place anyway, figure that I'll keep adding air whenever I need to rather than walk to the car, and the man then seems to lose interest in me and rides away, saying something about "Checking the job site." So, every 100 yards or so I stop pedaling, put air into the tube, and repeat.

This, of course, means that I must venture into the retail world to purchase some new tubes, and I tell my wife that as long as I am out, I will visit my grandmother, which is something I had planned to do tomorrow.

Always at least outwardly pleased to have someone drop in on her in the modest mobile home she has lived in since my grandfather died and she moved from Illinois to California, she did not mind that I interrupted her progress on the day's crossword puzzle (though she says she can no longer do the NYT puzzle). For several hours I sat in a soft chair across from her and, for the most part, let her talk. At 95 she looks quite well, with the only obvious weakness being her lower back, something a doctor tried to fix several years ago but who apparently only made things worse. She doesn't ask about my back and I don't bring it up, and I lie outright when she asks about what looks like a scratch on the side of my face.

I am amazed at her lucidity, her still-strong ability to analyze the world as it is today and compare it to the various worlds she has experienced in her near-century of existence. Most of her monologues seemed to be stream-of-consciousness data dumps, and she ranged from the state of politics to the Chicago Cubs to our shared familial experiences to what happened before I arrived in her life, then what she thought when I did arrive: "I mostly remember you because you were my first grandson," she said. "And you were so darned cute!" (Gotta love Grandma!) We talked about my mother, my aunts, my grandfather, my cousins and their families; we discussed the Depression and the economic situation today; we ventured into politics. We talked about gardening--how my tomatoes did okay this year, and how she grew tomatoes in a Victory Garden. She and my grandfather spent years fishing in Ontario, Canada, and they once took me with them, so we talked about fishing and the wonderful taste of fresh walleye. My grandfather was a man's man, something you might understand if you are a man: no bullshit, smart, strong, gifted with his hands, intuitive about other people and their assorted motivations--fill in the blanks with some of your own ideas and you'll know what I mean. He was strictly blue collar (as was my father and his father), and perhaps that is why I often feel out of place in a white-collar occupation: there is an earthy, even coarse honesty in blue-collared worlds. A guy doesn't like you, you know about it. (I suggest many of Phil Levine's poetry for ideas about work and the people who do it.)

At a couple points during the visit I was distracted by hunger, impatient because of errands to accomplish. But, the longer I sat and the longer we talked, both hunger and impatience faded, and I was quite glad to be there soaking in what I could. Finally, when I saw how uncomfortable she was getting in her chair, I said I had to leave, and I did. Driving home, I took the long way home through parts of the neighborhood where I grew up and where my grandparents would park their Volkswagon bus on the side of our house and spend time with us after my grandfather retired. I kept thinking about one question my grandmother asked during our visit: "Do you have any good friends?" I tell her I have a few what I consider to be good friends, though I cannot speak for them. "That's good," she says. And on the drive home, I pass by the neighborhood where Kominski spent some time (merely miles from where I lived, we would learn a decade later when we finally met). And at one point I considered stopping by where one of my best friends from high school grew up, for I have heard that he still lives there with his mother and sister. We played football together, worked together after my stint in the navy, and even lived in the same house for a couple of months before I learned that after sharing a room with 40 men on a ship I did not want to live with anyone for awhile. I was also at least partially to blame for his getting kicked off the high school baseball team, and some day I will have to own up to that and offer him my apologies.

But I do not stop at his house, though I think I should have. Perhaps the problem with having new friends is that it is often hard to speak to old ones. Instead, I continue driving home, where I tell my family of the visit and feel that I have just enjoyed 3 of the most wonderful hours a person could have on what has been a very nice day.