A California Closing

by Robert Wintner

  The kid laughed again. “Watsonville bud, man. Your lucky night.” Mulroney shrugged and moved on, because frankly, the kids looked filthy. Did they fuck each other without rubbers and share needles? Who knew? Did he need to get high four minutes sooner? No. He did not. He would amble casually around the block and back to the car and attribute the delay to practical hygiene. Make that twelve minutes till he got the thing rolled, sealed, lit, inhaled and … we have ignition and …

  Mulroney lifted off, melting down. Watsonville. Farm country. What? He didn’t get burned, unless you count brain cells, which he tried to do, watching the thoughts come and go. What?

  So the old guy sat out in his car on a side street, stoned, pondering his bicycle, a man at peace at last feeling good at last, acquiring nothing at last, blessed with recollection. He didn’t get burned after all, unless you count brain cells—wait a minute; did he already think that? What extraordinary bud it seemed to be, so freely allowing life to pass smoothly with no purchase necessary, except for the bud. But then time could pass nonproductively, one hour to the next. Maybe that’s why it’s illegal.

  Before he knew it, the hours passed pleasantly through the evening and sweet slumber to a beautiful dawn and that which compels a man to movement, bowels and bicycle—and another bowl, a small one in the spirit of moderation and bringing all the best to the top o’ the mornin’. And a latte, for the spirit of the thing.

  An early ride serves two purposes: cardiovascular stimulation and mindful wakening. Mulroney rides in affirmation of self. It’s tough to get it up and get going, but then it’s easier without so much pesky awareness of aches and pains, with consciousness all comfy cozy in its goose down comforter. So he takes it easy, feeling the essence of ease on his way to the peak. The bike shop kids assured him that climbing a hill is easier the next day and more fun.

  But they’re not kids. Thirty, thirty-five years old and working in a bicycle shop seems like a kid thing. But so does huffing up a hill first thing. So an old dumpling in spandex grunts up Hazel Dell. Never touching foot to pavement, he gears down, sweating already like a split tomato in July. But it feels good—more like his money’s worth than he’s felt in a long time.

  Onto the summit for new heights in personal perspective, Mulroney knows he should not try this again tomorrow. But on a single rotation of Earth, perspective gains momentum on a climb up the backside to the same summit, a half-mile shorter to the top but steeper, grinding joints to bare metal at anaerobic levels, where an old rider can exceed recommended pressure and blow a gasket—where a weak blood vessel in the brain or the heart can pop, sending a rider over the top to seizure in a purple gasp. The great thing about a little puff or two is that these climbs become one in a process unending, as it too becomes easier by way of familiarity. Or is the old guy actually bulking up?

  Scratch that. Pain transfer is facilitated by an agile mind—make that a mind free of muscular flex, a mind that can change a wall of agony to a mere nuisance, like a gnat flitting past. Then comes mile two of the long climb to the ridge, where the mind buckles like a dam near bursting. What now Mr. Miracle Mindset, whistle Dixie?

  Oh, it’s not all hearts and flowers, this heavy dope and rocket bicycle routine. Worse yet, if a guy pulls over to rest or decompress he’ll play hell remounting on a steep slope, coasting downhill to get his feet clipped in five seconds or twenty yards, setting him up to brake at twenty mph for the turn back up to regrind what was already ground once. So what’s gained? A bummer mood is what. This shit can kill a guy.

  Better to hold ground, slow down, and distract the mind one more time. Give it something other than pain displacement to chew on. Maybe time a split from the start of mile two to the tippy top. That’s what a split is. Isn’t it? What else could be split but a segment from the whole? The speedo/odo/trip meter/cadence/split timer/elapsed timer/clock unit’s split function is a subset of the elapsed time function, accessed on the function dial between odo/trip meter and … It’s like a checkbook ledger, with numbers changing at random. Functions are reviewed in detail on pages 93-105 of the instruction manual, and Mulroney can get it. He can re-time this segment every time and shoot for personal best next time, though reaching the top with no coronary ought to count for something no matter what the time.

  Fifty yards to go … Mulroney counts, projecting revs to the summit, ignoring the quadriceps clench and sides cramping, focusing on reassurance of self. Surely a man huffing up Hazel Dell is better off than puffing and guzzling on a sofa watching Breaking News of mayhem around the world and box office gross from Hollywood. Hurt gets magnified on a stronger pulse. Hurt lets a rider know where he’s weak. Then it’s life at the top—the real top, the not-for-sale top, which is not a house, but a hill. Then again, he did buy in. You can’t get away from it, really.

  A rider streams tears on the descent, outracing joy and sorrow into the stretch. Mulroney of America—no, Mulroney of Ireland riding point for the Guinness Team—wait, make that the Bass Ale team. Guinness is too dark and strong at this speed. A Guinness might be good later, but for now Bass Ale makes more sense into the curves and straightaways, letting the graphite go, easing the brakes and watching the little speedo climb to thirty-two, thirty-five, thirty-seven, eight, eight and a half—now pump the fucker! Suck it up! Go low—to forty-three and win by a nose!

  Riding Hazel Dell the front way the next day is a push but the approach is through Watsonville, heading out San Andreas Road past strawberry fields forever, cutting up Beach Road to the bridge and across to more fields and under the freeway to a highway through town and out to 129 and Lakeview. The idyllic route may turn a page on Panchito’s walk from rags to riches, or his hirsute father whose truck cost more than his kid’s house or Rosa’s struggle to provide.

  Or Rosa’s pooper. What harm in a look? Besides, a bicycle ride-by is random, infusing potential with karmic beauty, like drawing an ace to a royal spread if you’re lucky, or a five if you’re not. It was a good pooper, honest and true, perhaps a low-mileage pooper. But who is Mulroney to ponder mileage and gravity vis à vis poopers? And who cares? Stoned stupid under azure skies to outer fucking space, where the fucking planets and asteroids are, flying around and back, over billions of miles for light years. Oh, bicycling is better than ever—and she’s not there.

  Then it’s day three in a row. Ignoring sore muscles is easy with puffy clouds overhead and a cardio chest strap signaling pay dirt at eighty-five beats per minute standing still. That’s up from the usual seventy-two—but the usual seventy-two is rare, because it only comes down from the overbearing ninety if nobody’s on the phone trying to fuck Mulroney from the hindside and asking him to bend a little farther and back up just a tad—please; don’t get him started, and don’t sweat eighty-five up from seventy-two; it’s the reefer. The rig and the brisk aspect of nature at this time of year will absorb aberration and then some, to target HR optimal range at one twenty-eight to one thirty-eight, with one forty-five to one fifty okay in spurts, like the last mile up the Dell. Meanwhile, it’s miles of golden afternoon and country road out front, room to move, to pump and feel good. So it’s a leg over, down the drive, look left and right for the rubberneckers, drunks, and crazies and out.

  It’s sixty-nine degrees at a hundred ten ppi front and rear with two water bottles of electrolyte juice, the tropical fruit yellow kind, not that nasty pink shit, a peanut butter and honey energy bar and a feel for thirty-five miles of it, so let’s get it on. Throw in a good ass shot on the clubhouse turn, and it’s like it used to be. Who’s complaining?

  Or would it be ppcm? Tire size is in cm. How many cubic cm in a cubic inch? If it’s two point five centimeters to the inch, it would be two and a half times two and a half, which is five plus one and a quarter. Six and a quarter times two and a half is twelve and a half times … three and an eighth?

  Complaining? What a way to spend a day. What a way to meet the world, with a smile and a wave instead of a slosh and a slur, with some exercise
instead of reaching for the sauce, like another slug o’ sloppy joy could make you want to remember instead of forget. This is high. The buds are good too, and Mulroney makes a mental note to get more, lest he run out.

  He pedals happily into the distance and feels happily distant from whence he came. Thirty-five miles is a step up from thirty, a leap from twenty, and a different level from twelve. Thirty-five miles is the longest route to date, taking in strawberries, cauliflower, chard, cukes, and berries to many horizons. It’s a heads-up jaunt through Watsonville and out the backside, but people give an old guy more leeway, then it’s a cakewalk up 129, two miles downwind with cars and semis speeding past at seventy-five with only mild buffeting in the wide bike lane.

  The cut onto Lakeview turns the corner where Rosa and Panchito live, but she’s at work and he’s at school. Where else? Never mind. With pace and surge into more fields of greens, brussels sprouts and squash, past the vast nurseries, into the hills, up Hazel Dell and down, time doesn’t matter. The world turns with life. Only the top two percentile of chunky white businessmen past the middle of middle age will feel this moment. Victory? Ring the bell! This is attitude and fortitude coming and going.

  So a day resolves on fulfilling fatigue, another hit of Watsonville bud, two beers, a two-star movie, and deep sleep to sunrise. Hardly a balance of your seven basic food groups, it feels full and rich, which seems beneficial to the life issue. Why wouldn’t it? Mulroney went overboard on a bicycle but already senses return on investment. Hazel Dell four times in four days? Get out.

  Get on. Get going.

  What?

  But then why? The fuck? Not?

  A couple three ibuprofen ease things into a familiar pace, with enough juice saved for the climb—like life, kind of. Franco advised seventy pedal turns to the minute, because the seasoned rider learns his best cadence and shifts up or down to maintain it. But labored breathing uphill warrants lower cadence, maybe, in the elderly.

  Seventy cadence is an imprint, a muscle memory in which the legs take over. Pushing ninety downhill or fifty uphill, or coasting at zero to ease the muscles and memories or to stabilize on a steep descent with a cliff nearby is one and the same, kinda sorta, factoring frictional resistance. It’s nine miles of flats to Beach Road, past the end of San Andreas, toward the first bridge, and another seven to Lakeview, also flat, with a light breeze and all pressures manageable. So the cardio holds admirably at one twenty-seven bpm over twenty-two mph.

  Average speed is only twelve point eight, but fuck; one little hill cuts you back to eight or ten mph for a quarter mile or a half, and it’s time to tip the first bottle. Who’d a thunk fat ass Mulroney would become a precision racing machine? Well, a machine anyway, one that still runs all the way to home.

  A cadence check shows seventy, right on the money. Just for fun, a check on maximum cadence shows a hundred seven—where the hell? Oh, the long descent to Beach Road at thirty-three mph sustained. So why the average cadence of only sixty-three?

  Mulroney knows why: because those superior macho nimrods at the shop held him back on seventy. Fuck seventy. Lance averaged ninety-five most of the time—about five gears up. He was on drugs and hot blood, but fuck those guys. Mulroney has borrowing power and will push seventy-five, when he can.

  Okay, heads up; loose slag in the bike lane can take a wheel out from under in a blink. Then it’s a pile up like road kill and road rash, pumping one sixty-five into thrombosis and going nowhere. You got to slow down anyway to make the turn. Asshole kids in the truck coming up from behind way too close—just for fun, give it a goose and … bingo, safe on the side road heading for the first bridge. Look at this: a hundred acres of strawberries on the right, a hundred acres of cauliflower on the left—and look at those guys with the machetes, top dogs for sure, cutting a head with one little push of the blade at the base of the neck, flipping the head up like magic and getting a hand under it and keeping it airborne like it’s hot, so the machete can trim the leafy stalk from the sides and bottom in mid-air. It’s a thing of beauty and skill, maybe the lowest-paid example in the world. Those guys make what, seven bucks an hour? Eight?

  Then comes the beautiful curvature, rich on the senses all the way to the freeway and under the commuters speeding urgently to nowhere overhead. Finishing the first bottle at the Lakeview turnoff will avoid dehydration and cramping.

  And there she is, carrying things in from the car—but not furniture. It looks like paintings and sculpture. Or chachkas. She looks tired or maybe tired of it. But fifty-plus is okay if she hangs on to that smile, so the unlikely bicyclist approaches.

  She stops, her breath short on vigorous activity interrupted. With a large painting in hand she waits impatiently to see what he wants. Mulroney calls. “Hi. How’s it going? Can you believe this weather? Hey, what happened to the kid?”

  “What happened? What do you mean what happened? Nothing happened. Did something happen?”

  “I guess he’s in school.” She waits for meaning. “I guess you’re busy, still moving in.”

  “Yes. I’m busy. Still moving in.” She nods abruptly. “My old place was too big. What does anybody need with so much room? I reached the point, you know, where I realized just how many things in my life were weighing me down. You know? Like baggage. And I don’t mean the kind with those little wheels on the bottom. Ha! You know? I’m downsizing, and it feels fabulous. And I can use the extra money, you know?”

  “Yes. I’ve heard that.” Mulroney smiles as well, and the scene shapes up as friendly. With his water bottle poised for the quench, he says, “It’s none of my business, but how much money can you save, living like this? Seems to me that the down payment on that Gonzales you’re holding there would damn near cover the down payment and first six months on a farm around here. I mean unless it’s a print.” He shrugs. “It doesn’t look like a print.”

  “It’s not a print!” she barks, checking herself and turning to Camera 3, as it were, to a different angle on the countryside, where spaces are calmer, generally speaking, then turning back to this … this … man, who might be nosey but who knows art, who knows Gonzales—who knows real estate and comparative value. “I know. He’s expensive. But I got it from the artist—uh … a long time ago. You know. Down in … uh … Oaxaca, where he lives. I went there. And got it. I’ve always loved him. I mean his work. I went there for the art. And I found his house. Can you believe it? He’s such a doll, and I honestly think he gave me a great deal because I speak Spanish so well. You know, it just shows them that you care, and you’re not just another tourist looking for a steal.”

  Such a doll? How Spanish could she sound with a nasal Noo Yawk overlay? But look at this stuff: it’s a post-Neolithic modern fucking Aztec art museum. Oh, she’s got the dough. Or …

  Wait a minute …

  Mulroney falters in mid-inventory as Juan Valdez pulls in too fast, hits the skids and steps boldly into his own dust cloud. He reaches the woman in two strides, turns his back to her so he faces Mulroney and stops as if to defend her from attack, or defend her honor, or attack Mulroney—or make Mulroney’s eyes water.

  “Whatchou want?”

  Some clean air to breathe might be nice.

  “Juan Valdez!” she chides, intervening awkwardly, handing him the painting and inhaling deeply as if gathering her wits or straining for more of that incredible man smell that can drive a woman nuts. Some women anyway, or at least one we know of. She offers her hand to Mulroney. “I’m Rosa, by the way.”

  He shakes it. “Good to know you. I’m Michael.”

  “And this is Juan Valdez.”

  “What he want?”

  “His name is Juan Valdez?”

  “That’s what I said. What of it?”

  “Nothing. Lucky guess.”

  “Guess what?”

  “Nothing. I guessed his name was Juan Valdez.”

  “You guessed his name was Juan Valdez?”

  “That’s what I said. It’s not a big deal
, is it?”

  “It might not be a big deal to you. To me it’s stereotypical and racist.”

  “You mean because it’s Mexican.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, actually. I know what I mean. I mean Juan Valdez isn’t Mexican. It’s Bolivian. Everyone knows that—except you.”

  “Except you—it’s not Bolivian. It’s Columbian.”

  “Columbian, Peruvian, Whateverthefuckuvian; who cares? Juan Valdez is the coffee bean guy, a Mexican with a Colombian name. Besides that, his name is what I guessed it was. What’s racist? I wouldn’t ever have guessed your name was Heather or Ashley—or Rosa. Does that make me an ageist?”

  “No. It doesn’t. I’m sorry. I’m from the city.”

  “Not to worry,” Mulroney assures. “By the way, if it’s not a print, it’s obscenely valuable.”

  “I know,” she blushes. “I love it. I got a terrific deal.”

  “Did the Cisco Kid here deliver it for you?”

  She blushes. “He was in on the—he knows the artist. You’d be amazed how many people here have family in Oaxaca.”

  “Yes, it’s amazing. Hey, Rosa. I don’t want to cool off, okay. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

  “Thanks. I think I’m going to love it here. See you.” So she turns away but turns back. “Do you live nearby?”

  “Closer to Canna Screws.” She looks puzzled. “Santa Cruz.”

  “Oh, yeah,” she laughs. “Perfect. Say hello next time.”

  “I will. See you.”

  He rolls out, his eyes seeking focus ahead, his cleats seeking clips on pedals.

  Juan Valdez asks again, “What he want?”

  “Do you mind?” she slogs the artwork toward the house.

  On the roll again, Mulroney checks the rearview to assess the situation, but it wobbles. He stretches his neck, but with a produce semi coming on, the situation seems adequately assessed. Once through the wobble and recovery, he checks the rearview again to see if she saw his bonehead play.