“I’m anxious about leaving you here with the sky gray like that. You know I am. Do you want a sweater or something?” and she shakes her head.
“They’re all packed up. Don’t need you messing in my suitcase.” I go back to the trunk and rummage in my duffel and pull out the “I Climbed the Great Wall” sweatshirt and I run it back over to the stump. Back at the Buick I’m out of breath.
“I put my sweatshirt there, just in case.” Honey is crying in the back seat and my shoulders start climbing up to my ears like they have done since I first heard her first tiny infant cries. I take my phone out of my back pocket and look at its barless screen. I hop in and start the car and drive slowly over to the most official-looking structure.
“I’m pretty sure they are all locked up, and some of them are in real bad shape,” I report. “Please don’t try to walk up into one and find yourself falling through a rotting floorboard.”
“I won’t,” she says. I fish her maps out of the center console and figure if I go back east on a different state road I’ll eventually come to the interstate and all the motels that cluster around it. I look at the clock on the dash. “It’s ten forty-eight right now,” I say. “I think it will take me around an hour to get to a motel at the outside. If it gets to be noon and I haven’t found one I’m just going to turn back around. So either way I’m going to be back here at one-thirty. That seems like an awfully long time for you to be by yourself here.”
“I’ve been ‘by myself’ for longer than you’ve been alive,” she snaps.
“Yes, I understand that, but you weren’t living outside for twenty years.” I am feeling and sounding shirty. Honey is shrieking. I point up at the amassing gray. “And it looks like rain.”
“One-thirty,” she says. “That’s fine.”
“You have your purse?”
“Yes.”
“Did you take your pills?”
“Yes.”
“Is your cell phone in your purse?”
“Yes.” She digs for a long while and pulls it out. “I don’t get any reception, though.”
“You can still dial 911, I read somewhere. So if something happens, you get out the phone and dial even if it says you don’t have service.” I get out of the car and circle around and get her umbrella out of the trunk and open her door and offer a hand, which she takes imperiously. She stands and I give her the umbrella which is the right height for her to lean on and she taps on the glass of the back seat. “Bye-bye, little Honey,” she croons at the screaming Honey. Alice reaches out a hand and I open the door for her and they briefly link fingers. “Take care of your mama.”
I take Alice’s shoulders in my hands. “Please, please be careful. Walk slow.”
“That’s the only way I can walk,” she says, and pats my hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be fine. We’ll be just fine.”
I get back in the car and drive slowly back to the road, praying that the weather holds, the center holds. I reach a hand back and touch Honey’s foot. “Hi sweet baby,” I say, and she kicks at me with her little shoe and yells “NYO” and I say “Why don’t you take your shoes off” because that could be a fun project for her and I wonder again why I never have any legitimate activities for her in the car but then again I think entertaining yourself is important. As is always the case on the way back the road feels shorter and slightly less treacherous than the way there when we didn’t know what was coming and soon we are back up at the shack and the washed-out sign. I stop the car and crane my neck to look out the passenger side window to see if I can get a glimpse of the clearing below but it’s all trees, trees, trees. I sigh and consult Alice’s printout maps to reassure myself on the direction of the interstate. We turn onto the county road from whence we came and head east. Once the car has picked up real speed Honey settles and I settle and we zip along and I think Alice is fine, she made it all the way out to California by herself which is an incredible feat given the state of her.
The road is windy and the sky is gray but holding steady, no drops, and around the time I think we ought to be nearing the interstate we start seeing signs for something called Wildlife Safari Experience and I think Jesus Christ, but then I think that actually might be a fun thing for Honey to do other than sit in the damn car for hours and hours and the mobile home for days and days with her neurotic mother. What’s more it appears to be enough of an attraction that there are motels clustered in proximity to it so we roll into one that proudly advertises a $49.99/night room. I am yearning for a cigarette when I pull in and Honey is asleep and I am conscious of the fact that I could maybe sneak one in standing by the car and this is exactly what I do, bending my knees so I can look at her through the window and throwing the butt down when her body eventually senses the cessation of motion and she twitches herself awake. I feel high and I think I can’t wait to have Alice back safe so I can relax and then I have the small rogue thought that it will be good to get her off my hands wherever we work it out with Yarrow and then I banish that and imagine the tumbleweeds rolling down the road in Altavista and know that more than anything else we’ve got to be rid of the town.
I get Honey out of the car seat and now she is cheerful enough but her diaper is a big sodden mass and before I do anything I think we ought to change that and I make some space to lay her down in the trunk and instead of lying calmly she rolls and twists while I’m trying to get the new one on her, undoubtedly due to being so cooped up for two days, and I have to hold her tighter than I want and I think Oh god I’m the woman smoking in the parking lot being forceful with her child and I finally get the damn diaper fastened and I lift her up and cuddle her but she wants to be down down down and all I can do is direct her forward and I say “This way, Honey, this way!” and run alongside her toward the door like a sheepdog.
I get us two rooms with my credit card which makes me pause to think about the damn pending reimbursements and I take a moment to confer with the attendant about whether there is a more direct route back to the camp and he says yes we could take the interstate for a stretch if I go left out of the parking lot instead of right and straight and it is 11:51 which is perfect according to the timeline we have established with Alice. I take ten minutes to feed Honey the remaining cold cuts and a piece of bread and a banana and then three minutes to get her thrashing and yelling into the car and then one minute to put my forehead against the wheel and it’s 12:06 when we are pulling out of the parking lot.
We’ve been driving about five minutes when the sky opens up and I say “FUCK” and Honey says “UCK” and then I say “SHIT” and she says “IIII” and I say “Sorry Honey, we don’t say words like that, we say SHOOT” and she says “Ool” and I press the gas and we are flying faster but then I think about hydroplaning and take my foot off the gas and my heart is pounding thinking about Alice in the soaking rain trying to make her way to shelter and I have to say “She has the umbrella, we are almost there, we are all going to be fine” and it’s only going to take us thirty minutes now by the safari motel attendant’s reckoning and then I think about the dirt road turning to mud and the Buick sliding down it and I feel my heart start to speed up again and I just keep saying “We’ll be there soon, we’ll be there soon,” and I see Honey looking quizzical in the rearview and I try to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth to still my pounding heart.
I’ve just slowed the car to round a bend in the road and when we clear it and are on to a long straightaway I have the rapid impression of something bad in the nearish distance—an accident, lights flashing big cars a group of people and I slam on the brakes and feel us juddering forward on the pavement, the wheels no longer turning like they should. I make a yipping sound into the car and I hear Honey make an echo of concern in the back and my heart is bursting in my chest but then we are slowing slowing slowing and I feel the brakes working and something floods my body leaving me exhausted and damp and cold and I say “It’s okay it’s okay” and I see now through the rain that it’s four pic
kup trucks and a giant green banner strung across their beds and a bunch of people in camouflage slickers and are they holding yes they are holding rifles and I think it’s a hunting thing a rural thing some kind of jamboree or something until I see the yellow on the green banner and it’s a flag and it’s the State of Jefferson flag with its two X’s and I say “Jesus fucking Christ.” The Buick is at a stop now and there are three cars on the road between us and the blockade, each one with a camouflaged figure leaning into the driver’s side window. I look in the rearview and there are no cars behind me and I’m not sure what to do so I start up the car and roll slowly toward the red SUV that’s last in line and when I’m about ten yards from the blockade I see it’s about ten or fifteen people and a few of them reach their hands in front of them to gesture slow and stop and one of them starts striding toward me with his gun. I pause for a moment to think Should I be afraid and though I don’t have that feeling, my body in flight as it felt in the Buick hurtling down the road, I know this feeling of surreality is a kind of fear as I watch this man approach the window with a rifle over his shoulder and a sheaf of papers in one hand and I roll the window down unthinkingly and the rain is sluicing into the car and now he’s at the window I give him a smile and hope for the best which I know is my dubious birthright as a representative of youngish reasonably attractive white American motherhood. It’s a tall, stringy white guy with a weathered face a mustache and a high forehead visible under the hood of his slicker.
“Is everything okay?” I say and then I say “I’m just here with my baby” and he looks toward the back of the car where Honey is very quiet, sensing unprecedented currents in the air and he hands me a piece of paper and says “Ma’am, we’ve occupied this land for the State of Jefferson, the fifty-first state of the United States of America to be governed by the Constitution drawn up by the founders of the Republic” and I look slack-jawed down at the paper and read “PROCLAMATION OF INDEPENDENCE” and say, “Oh. Okay, well I’m just trying to get back to Camp Cooville, we’re meeting a friend there” and he says “Well ma’am I’m afraid right now we’re in Phase One which is securing our borders, so I’m going to have to ask you to turn back until that Phase is completed” and I say “Well how long is that going to be because our friend is ninety-two years old and she’s alone and it’s pouring rain” and I can tell he hasn’t prepared for this particular very specific contingency and he looks somewhat apologetic and the first car in the line ahead of me is turning around and driving slowly past and I see a resigned-looking elderly man at the wheel and then the next car after him drives off the road and turns around to line itself up with the fucking blockade and the man leaning into the window of the car in front of ours appears to be having a lengthy conversation and I’m looking around through the rain to see are there any police officers here any firemen what is the fucking deal and I look at the group huddled behind him and I see, can it be, yes, it is Cindy fucking Cooper and I crane my neck out the window and stare. “Excuse me sir.” I look back at him. “I actually see my neighbor Cindy there” feeling like maybe I can get on top of this situation and he looks behind him in surprise and I say “Cindy Cooper. From Altavista. Do you think I could talk to her?” and while he’s still looking behind I yell “Cindy. Cindy Cooper” and she peers out from under her hood and makes her way over to the car. “I know her, Jeff,” she says. Behind her I see what looks like Ed van Voorhees detach himself from the group and follow.
“Cindy, what is going on?” And she says “He told you, didn’t he” and gestures at the paper. “Phase One.” She has a determined look and an honest-to-god smile on her face. I know it’s a kind of worldwide luxury to find this situation maddening and ludicrous rather than truly terrifying but seeing Cindy’s familiar face I can’t fully believe that it is real. “But what about the vote you were so happy about, um, two days ago? I thought now the Board submits the petition or whatever, to the state” and she says “Some of us decided we’re sick of waiting, we’re sick of hearing what we owe the BLM to graze on our lands” and I hear the phrase “our lands” come out of Cindy from San Bernardino’s mouth and I start to feel afraid. I say, “Well okay, but I have to get through. That old lady? The one from Altavista?” and then I realize Cindy’s never seen her, has no idea who I’m talking about and I start over and say “There’s a very old woman I dropped off at the Cooville Camp this morning and I’m supposed to pick her up at one-thirty at the latest, and it’s pouring rain and there’s no shelter there or anything for her” and Cindy pauses the wheels turning in her brain and I say “Please, please just let me through so I can get her” and then she looks behind her at the men and shrugs and says “Like he said, got to secure the borders before we can do anything else” and I feel my heart racing again and I say “Are you saying I couldn’t get in to go back to Altavista to my own property?” and she says “Well we’re letting residents in but you’d have to go east and enter down closer to the state line. I mean the California one. We don’t want a lot of unnecessary people inside the borders right now unless you’re ready to join up with us.” I think this is so stupid and I am suddenly beside myself and I yell “CINDY SHE’S NINETY-TWO YEARS OLD SHE COULD DIE OUT THERE” and I have never yelled at anyone in my adult life other than Honey sort of and Honey starts crying in the back and I say “I don’t know what to do” and Cindy says “I don’t know what to tell you” and I think I have to try harder.
“Are you telling me that you’ve sealed every road between here and Sierra County? There aren’t even that many people in your whole goddamn movement!” and she looks a little beleaguered and says “We’re targeting key roads around the border counties” and I think okay so I can probably get there another route and the fact that they are doing this for what amounts to a pointless symbolic gesture makes me so furious I wish I knew how to punch someone because I would reach out of this window and clock Cindy except her friends would probably shoot me. I feel something rise in my throat something I know is bad and I say “I don’t know where the fuck you came from but my family has lived up here for five generations and a bunch of fucking rednecks aren’t going to break up the goddamn state of California” and god help me it feels just like the feeling of squeezing a tantruming baby’s arms too hard, something horrible horrible but almost delicious and she says “Bitch you don’t live here and you need to go back where you came from” and moves toward the car and my violent urge deflates and I think I’ve made a mistake and I put the car in reverse zip backward do an ugly humiliating three-point turn and think Please don’t shoot us through this car window and I speed away in the rain with my shoulders up to my ears but there is no bullet no sound of Honey screaming and then I think what if Engin was here and thank god thank god thank god he isn’t here and then I think Alice Alice Alice oh my god and once I’ve raced around the turn and find a shoulder pull over and I look at my signalless phone and try to call 911 just like I’ve read you should and nothing happens so I turn the wheel to get back on the road crying and hyperventilating along with Honey. I have a deep horror of being unpunctual under the best circumstances but this is real, this is so much worse, and I feel pinpricks all over my skin thinking about what is happening to Alice in this downpour but I also know that if I drive in this state in this rain I am going to get in a car accident and Honey is facing frontward and so will be more likely to be killed or maimed and I have to calm down and I try to take deep breaths, try to say soothing things to Honey “It’s okay sweet pea, everything is okay, everything is going to be fine. It’s okay, it’s okay” and breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth which is a tactic I have developed from my hours on the phone with the National Visa Center and I turn around to face Honey who is sniffling and I hold her moist small hand in mine and give her a big smile and she looks at me so reproachfully and says “Wah” and I put my hand on her cheek and wipe tears and then I make my hand into a little pincer with two ears and dart it toward her like a puppet and first I think she is going
to cry more but then she laughs and I think Okay. I look at the soggy paper in my lap and read aloud to her and after “PROCLAMATION OF INDEPENDENCE” it says “The citizens of the State of Jefferson hereby state their intention to secure the borders of the 51st State of Jefferson which will be governed according to the United States Constitution” and farther down there are a list of things and one of them is “You are driving parallel to one of the greatest areas for copper and other mineral mining in the western United States which the citizens of Jefferson have been systematically denied access to through unwarranted federal and state regulations” and Honey is looking at me curiously and I say “This is nonsense” and I thrust the paper onto the passenger seat and feel my breathing slow to normal and give Honey a squeeze and pull back onto the road driving the Buick as fast as I can and feel like the brakes will still work and trying to think positive thoughts about Alice.
Finally we skid into the motel parking lot and I leave the heat on and the blinkers and debate whether or not to get Honey out of the car and say a prayer and risk it since I’m just running in the front door, which I do, leaving her in a car for the only time in her life and contravening every horror article I’ve ever read and I feel sick as I tell the attendant who is white and scrawny and freckled and named Ivan what’s going on over on the interstate and I crane my neck to check the car is still there outside the door and he raises an eyebrow and as he starts to lift the phone from its cradle I put a hand on his arm and say “And the older lady I was with—she’s in Camp Cooville right now, I’m supposed to get her at one-thirty and I’m gonna try the other road but I’m already going to be half an hour late and she’s ninety-two and out there with no shelter” and he says “Uh, do you want me to tell the police that too” and I hesitate and first I say no then I do the math and think if I get there at 2:00 and I can’t find her or she’s hurt it’s another forty-five minutes before I’m back here so I say “Yes, please tell them, she’s ninety-two, we might need an ambulance, I’m going to go now.”
The Golden State: A Novel Page 25
