Routes

by John Okas

  This time he comes upon her with less audacity. He kneels in the aisle and takes her hand. “Pardon me, Madam, once more I beg your pardon for jostling you. The thought that I have bruised such beautiful white skin will keep me awake nights with shame.” He slavers a bit on her white hand. “Ravishing!”

  Swan is a sweet talker. Sarah, no stranger to acting, puts on the pious show she displayed for her father, cool, courteous yet overbearing. She withdraws her hand, turns toward him ever so slightly, looking over his head, giving him the underside of her chin and smiles extra politely, letting the playboy mistake it for the contemptuous sneer of well-bred artier-than-thou good taste. “Sir, if you think that giving money to the arts entitles you to behave like a primitive ape, you show poor breeding.”

  How the party beast in Harry wants to learn some respect from the the smooth, soft, polished beauty! “We just got off on the wrong foot, that’s all. Please tell me your name.” He pleads as the house lights dim for the second act, “and say you forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing forgivable, Mister Swan, about bad manners.” She preaches like a Shibbolite elder. “You must learn that it takes more than tithing to make a gentleman out of a buffoon.”

  “Let me try to make it up to you, then. Mrs Vandermoot tells me that the ballet is performing The Signet Prince next week for the new year. Let’s forget our old acquaintance, and see it in together as a pair of music lovers.” Then as an afterthought of one new to the role of humility he adds, “I mean, I would consider it a privilege to attend the ballet with you. I’m sure there’s so much you could teach me.”

  Sarah marvels at her success in fooling Swan. Actually she finds the music of the opera tedious, the singing quite annoying, and was dreaming about Corn Dog while she was pretending to study the book. Aside from what little she’s read and beyond the fact that she has sung an isolated couple of Giacomo’s arias and played a few Pynchon Etudes badly on the piano under the instruction of Jared Hubbel, she really doesn’t know much about classical music at all. She never said she did, and yet Swan buys her act and regards her as a classier type of companion than he is used to.

  The fact that she, an unwed teenage mother, a runaway with limited experience in the world, could fool him, H Thornton Swan Junior, a reputed master of stagecraft himself, fills her with a strange new confidence. Of course, she was born with the right looks, the high brow, the full lips, the smooth white gold hair, the delicate complexion, that, even if she had the personality of sewage, would have men on her list as easy as snapping her fingers. But her beauty goes further than just the physical for Swan. She has the style and moves, the ladylike pink of courtesy, that make him resolve to mend his manners. So far in his life what is inside a woman has been of little interest to him, but this one has some kind of highness that sheds light on his soul, and he is not ashamed to let her see the effect she has on him. His offer is clear and heartfelt, he hopes with all his might she will accept his offer for a date.

  Sarah pretends to vacillate about his invitation to the ballet. “Petrovitch does not happen to be one of my favorites, but then light fare is the order for the new year. You must promise me, no tango, or any other jazz dancing. Nothing vulgar or forward.”

  “Cross my heart, hope to die.”

  “When is the performance?”

  “At eight-thirty, here.”

  “Then I’ll meet you outside at eight-fifteen.”

  No Camping

  Meanwhile, where is Corn Dog during this time? Ever present, Art in Heaven can follow him and bring him up to date for us.

  Camping out since the fourth of July, Corn Dog counts the days since he was first with Sarah. Nine months to the day, November first nineteen twenty nine to be exact, the day after the actual birth of his daughter, he comes down from the mountains into the Bay Area. He is in plenty of time to prepare for Sarah’s expected spring arrival. But what exactly are those preparations? No animal can tell him that.

  The strength he found walking alone in the wilderness is quickly put to the test in the city where he doesn’t know a soul. He tries to walk the way the other people do, as if he had a purpose, as if he were going to his job, his home, out to see a friend, or to the store, but he does not fool anyone. They cross the street when they see him coming. Indeed in his buckskins, worn and dirty from the long trail, half-dejected, no money except for the few dollars Sarah gave him which he would rather keep as a reminder of her than spend, he is not the picture of an upstanding citizen. A group of five white men, riding in a car, stop, curse him, and make some threatening remarks that frighten him.

  In general, the street and the traffic bother him. He goes to Bayside Park, the largest patch of green in the Area. It features close clipped grass meadows, flowering shrubbery and tall trees, redwoods among them. He sits on the grass and tries to catch the attention of some squirrels so he can talk it over with them, but when they see he has no food for them, they scamper away, over to a man sitting on a bench who tosses peanuts from a big brown bag, one at a time to see the squirrels squabble for it. Soon a woman comes by with a box of candy-covered popcorn in one hand and a cocker spaniel on a leash in the other. She takes a seat on one of the benches and attracts the animals by tossing the treat out by the handful, seeing just how close the squirrels are willing to get to the dog to pick it up. Corn Dog sees the way it is. Here what animals there are exist for people’s amusement, as toys, rather than as models to be followed for their natural wisdom.

  He passes the afternoon strolling along the cement paths trying to make himself feel at home, pining for the company he finds in the wide open spaces. Without a loaf of bread for bribes, he cannot even find a pigeon who will listen to him. The squirrels turn up their noses at the wild hickory nuts he picks up from the ground and snacks on. If he cannot have his animal friends he longs for solitude from other people. But the park is a busy place. People walk and run their dogs. Lovers sit on benches or picnic on blankets on the grass. Children play. Young mothers stroll with their babies in carriages. Reminded that Sarah would be giving birth around now, he looks at them closely, with heartache and interest. Concerned about his looks, they quicken their paces as they go by him.

  He comes to an open grassy sward that overlooks the Bay, and Sand River Island, where the state penitentiary is. He sees the high walls, barbed wire fences that extend them, and, at regular intervals, the guard stations, like turrets on a castle. He feels imprisoned enough here in civilization. The thought of such a place pains him, the sight of it reflects the derelict side of his soul.

  In the late afternoon, he spots an inviting tree. A tall larch, having turned autumn gold, is dropping its vivid yellow needles in the cool breeze, making a carpet on the grass. It is some consolation. But when he goes to lie down and rest he finds dog dirt all over the carpet. He sits on a bench feeling lonely and presently nods off.

  He is dreaming of ice cream when he is awakened by a sharp pain in his side. It is a tip of a baton. The man behind it, dressed in blue, with silver buttons and a badge, a big silver shield on his chest, is a policeman.

  “Can’t read, huh, you stupid redskin? The sign says No Camping. Now get your ass moving, out of this park, or I’ll run you in for vagrancy.” He gives Corn Dog a sharp blow to the shoulder.

  Corn Dog wants to say he did nothing to deserve it, but he reasons he had better not. By now night has fallen. He walks down to the wharf and winds up in the alley next to Kane’s. He is disappointed in himself that he finds he is unable to get up the courage to go in and ask for a job washing dishes in exchange for a place to stay. As it turns out he is not that brave.

  He continues to walk along the wharf. At Union Street, by the promenade, he sees a white truck marked “Fuoco’s Frozen Desserts” parked and open for business. A short, dark, and ugly man dressed in a white uniform with a ridiculous cone-shaped cap on his head is selling cones and cups out the back door to people out for an after-dinner stroll bayside. Corn Dog approaches and reads the
small print. One scoop for a nickle, two for nine cents. Cones are a dime. There are all the regular flavors and some special ones to choose from, but Corn Dog is not fussy. It is the form of the thing that matters. He hopes for a taste that will remind him of his sweet, warm love.

  “Mister, can I get a vanilla cone?” He has seven dollars in his buckskins, a five and two ones. He sees that the ice cream business is brisk.

  I might as well break this big bill and get it over with, he thinks. Singles are better luck anyway.

  He hands the man the five and in return gets the cone, three quarters, a dime and a nickle.

  “Hey, where are my four ones? I gave you a five.”

  “Shit you did! You gave me a one.”

  “I did not. It was a five.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” The man is short but powerful. He steps out of the truck, grabs Corn Dog by the lapels, and pushes him against a lamp post. “No thieving redskin calls John Fuoco a liar and lives.”

  Corn Dog, a warrior trained exclusively in non-violence, does not know what to do. Certainly if there is a thief, John Fuoco is he. “Maybe I was wrong,” Corn Dog offers. “Count the money in the till, and if you’re four dollars over—”

  But the matter does not seem open to discussion. Fuoco hits Corn Dog’s elbow, and the cone the buck just bought flies up and hits him flat in the face. “There’s your four bucks, now get lost before I lose my temper.”

  It is neither the money nor the harsh treatment in themselves that make Corn Dog cry. It is that from now on he will associate ice cream with this incident, this horrible man, rather than his beautiful love.

  He spends the night walking, with tears in his eyes. Every time he comes to a place that seems pleasant, some park or mall, a policeman appears, like a guardian angel in reverse, and tells him to move along. He finds himself, finally, in an area near some warehouses and the train station. Here men, deeply depressed, warm themselves by burning garbage in metal barrels, and pass bottles back and forth until they are so drunk they can barely see. Corn Dog is shy and would rather not get too close; he winds up catching an hour’s sleep in an unoccupied doorway, still cursing himself for being too cowardly to go into Kane’s and ask for work.

  Waking up after one has spent the night on the sidewalk is a demoralizing experience. The tall brave, beautiful, buck boy, feels like a stray underdog, too disheartened to even suffer his heartache, the full, sweet, noble, irresistible pain of missing Sarah. He was born for the free life, wasn’t he? He would not be here were it not for her. He calls to the Hot Springs in his mind. But for the first time he doesn’t get an answer. He calls again and again. Nothing but nothing.

  There are some things that a man has to do himself, eh Pop?

  The lonely boy sees his mind going in downward spirals. Separated from his love, as well as the unspoiled land that awes him and makes his heart glad, humiliated, robbed, having to sleep on skid row, and now finding no Hot Springs within for guidance, he begins to think he is in the wrong place. He is not too proud to admit he needs some help getting a grip on himself before the desperation that plagues the men waking up in the street around him sets in on him too. Where can he find a friend? He thinks of going physically to Pop and Whitman in paradise, but the journey across the water is no doubt an expensive one. And he is a pedestrian. He doesn’t expect he would like boats any more than trains and automobiles. Besides, he’s seen maps, the trip is a long one. He might not be back in time to meet Sarah.

  Ah! There is his Uncle Virgil! Corn Dog remembers that when Whitman sold the Old Trading Post, Virgil Villon took his share and went off up the coast and settled somewhere north, in a place called—what was it? Cape Delfino! Where could that be? Blessing Hot Springs for putting the paleface reconnoitering skills in his bag of survival tricks, Corn Dog goes into a branch of the local public library where, his teacher taught him, if you show some respect for books and don’t talk above a whisper, white people will be civil to you. Just as Hot Springs said, there is a woman behind the desk who, when he asks politely to see the book of maps from the reference section, hands it over with a smile. He finds the Golden State on the map of the Land of the Free. It is a big banana-shaped parcel on the Deep Blue Sea. He runs his finger up the coast to a tiny bottlenose spit marked Cape Delfino, a point of land he calculates, using the legend on the map and the joints on his fingers, to be about one hundred and fifty miles north, ten days journey or less, he figures, if he really stretches his legs. Fearing what spending another night by the train station would do to him, he sets out immediately.

  However, without the Pop within to fall back on, he is unsure of himself. His estimation of the hike upstate falls short. Where he can he walks along the beach, talking to the seagulls. But in many places there are cuts, or the surf pounds the rocks dangerously. Many times he must go down and up in order to go forward. Nor is it easy going along the rocky cliffs of the coastline either. In addition the weather in the northern part of the state is not so golden; for most of his trek the sky is grey and the air is chilly and damp. It rains heavily several times. There is not much to eat. By the time he sees Delfino jutting out into the Deep Blue Sea, it is December and he is sick, bloodshot, feverish. Near home, he slides down a winding dirt road. He doesn’t remember exactly how but, following his native intuition and the sympathy he has for his Uncle, his initiator into the Mystic Knights, he finds Virgil’s place. It is out at the end of the point, on the south side, greener pastures than his red eyes have seen in a month. The sun shines. Sheep graze, dotting the meadow like low lying wooly clouds, and on the rocks below, where the sea crashes and swirls at the nose of the cape, seals lounge and play, in and out of the water. And way out, there they blow! Whales, big and blue, splash their way south.

  There is a small cottage, some pens and a carriage house on the property. On his last legs, he goes to the door and knocks. Virgil, who lives alone there, could not be happier to see his unexpected visitor. He goes to receive Corn Dog with a great hug, and the buck crashes into him, collapsing in his arms. Virgil drags him in, sits him down in front of a warm fire, makes him a cup of herb tea, and helps him get it down, holding the cup to Corn Dog’s lips and tipping it. A sorry tasting medicinal brew of stink weeds and whatnot roots, the concoction strengthens Corn Dog from the first sip. Almost instantly his head clears and life returns to his arms and lips and he is able to hold the cup himself. He starts to become aware of how hungry he is. On the trail for so many months, he gives literal meaning to the term “starving artist.” After a second cup of the tea the patient is impatient, up at the table waiting for Virgil to dish out some home-made bread and mutton with peas and potatoes. Over a slab of hot apple pie, sweetened with cinnamon and sugar, the revived Corn Dog tells his old teacher all that has happened to him, how he fell in love, how he went to the City by the Bay alone to wait for Sarah and without someone from the Lodge there to protect him, how he was mistreated, wound up just like some homeless tramp, and started to see himself as just that.

  As much as he has already discussed it with every little chipmunk, sparrow and rabbit along the way, he feels what a far better thing it is getting it off his chest to a fellow human being.

  “I’m afraid city life is not every artist’s cup of tea, Son,” says Virgil. “Maybe when spring comes and this Sarah is there it will be more bearable. Nice country up here, don’t you think? I’d be delighted to have you stay with me. You never know, shepherd life may appeal to you, and you may want to bring your girl up here.”

  Corn Dog thinks that it is too gentle an existence for a warrior such as himself, and he imagines it too rough a one for Sarah in whose eyes he’s seen lights, big city bright, and rooms richly appointed. He thanks Virgil, accepts his invitation for the time being and spends the winter of Sarah’s discontent in her father’s house watching Virgil’s flock get fat and fleecy. He grows to love the animals, sweet and domestic, as much as his Uncle. But while Virgil will go in and lie with the lambs, Corn Do
g would rather climb down the cliff to the ocean and stroll along the pebbly beach. He finds the seals on the big jutting rocks friendly. He walks out there on the jetty among them and they bark and clap and make his heartaches feel better. Sometimes the whales come in close and put a dent in the sky and the ocean with their bigness.

  Not a day goes by when he doesn’t call on Hot Springs. Not once does he get an answer. He discusses his concerns with Virgil, that perhaps something has happened to the actual flesh and blood sorcerers, but Virgil says, “The Hot Springs in your mind will die with you, Son, not him. If he won’t come when you call the answer is in you.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  Virgil evades the question, “I happen to know he’s alive and well in paradise, doing some serious, lighthearted contemplation on the beach with Whitman.” He adds, “Simply have some faith.”

  But Corn Dog is not the simple boy he once was, who might have travelled far afield but always stayed close to his roots inside. Now that his life has been complicated by love and he must think about facing the problems of civilization, he needs more reassurance, not less.

  Just to set his mind at ease Virgil has Corn Dog write a letter to Hot Springs and Whitman Post, General Delivery, Aloha Islands. “Hi, Pop, Whitman, I am visiting Uncle Virgil, I sure do miss you both. Love, Corn Dog.” The strong silent brave is still a man of few words. He has a perfectly normal vocabulary, there are other reasons he does not detail his list of woes. From what he understands about life in paradise, he does not think Whitman and Hot Springs will be checking much at the post office. He does not really expect the letter will get to them. Or if it does, the thoughful buck doesn’t want to interfere with his guardians’ enjoyment of their happy shell hunting grounds by telling them a lot of troubles they are powerless to help him with. He is quite surprised that in three weeks Virgil comes back from the local post office with a postcard that shows a white sand beach, with blue sky, blue water and palm trees. “Good to hear from you, Kid. Whitman and I are fine, living on pineapples, conch and mushrooms. Visit anytime. Drop us a line more often, why don’t you? Our best to Virgil. Love, Pop.”