Oasis of Hope

I ride my bike into the snowy, starry, prairie night. It’s a free feeling. No trees at all, just straight-out flatness. I think about who I want to be, which Beatle I want to be. It’s between Ringo or John. Later I would see A Hard Day’s Night and decide that I’m more a Ringo guy. I want the girls to like me, but not tear my clothes off, you know. Still, John Lennon’s voice calls out to me in a special way . . . and those harmonies? And who wouldn’t want to be Paul? Anybody can see why the girls love Paul. The other guy, the young one, he’s all right in a quiet way. He’s the friendly younger brother whom everybody likes. The Beatles are bigger than Trudeau would ever be and they’re a gathering hurricane that both my dad and I see coming.

San Diego is ahead. The driver tells us the airport is close by. We drop some passengers off in the middle of nowhere. I’m really worried about the taxis. We have to get the hell straight to the hotel. I have to get Carole into bed and cover her. We roar into the closed and empty airport, brakes screaming on the runway. There’s no taxi in sight.

“No fucking taxis at an airport? No fucking taxis anywhere? ” The woman from Chicago with the cellphone is back speaking with head office. Her voice rises another octave of contempt, but can it produce a taxi? I raise my own voice at the American Airline reps, but they couldn’t care less. A way off in the distance through the glass walls I see lights moving. Maybe it’s a cab. I run toward the lights.

The cab driver is friendly. He apologizes that they’ve only now been called. He wheels around to get my wife. I fill him in on the situation. He’s happy to help. We pick up the cellphone lady and drop her off first. Our hotel isn’t too far away, but it’s the middle of the night and I pray they know we are coming. They do, and I’m ecstatic. I talk too much. I’m giddy with delight as we sign in. I rush Carole into our room, and she slides between clean sheets. I make a special pact with God: “Heal my Carole and I will never sin again. And I will never have another ungenerous thought about America again. I mean it this time. I love California.”

Penticton was my Canadian California. The Okanagan Valley had everything except surfing. It was dry and red with mountains covered by fruit trees. The high blue Okanagan Lake was perfect for swimming. Girls and boys would gather there in large numbers in the summer. Beer was chilled in bathtubs in motels. lsd was now part of the equation. This was San Francisco without Berkeley. Guys would fight to impress the girls. The girls were starting to have sex on the pill. Everybody was having sex but us, the boys from Bible school. I was there with two preachers’ sons and two MG sports cars. We tell everybody we’re from California. It’s going to be the best of times. We have jumped the prison wall of Bible school. We’re young adults and nobody can tell us when to go home. We aren’t of legal age, but fuck that, we can still pull booze, nobody knows us here.

I see her in a parking lot in downtown Penticton. Her name is Kathy. It’s the first time I feel the power of the ass. She wears tight jeans, and her ass rounds up and is proud. She’s nice too. She’s gentle and real and she likes me. I swear I will never betray her. I ask God to punish me if I betray her. But God has to give her to me first.

God gives her to me, and I betray her the next summer in Vancouver, the day the Americans land on the moon.

Now I am lying in a dark San Diego bedroom dreading my future and hating my past. I betrayed Kathy and I never told her I was going. I never saw her again but once. She told me then I should have kicked her in the head instead. That was over thirty years ago. Will God believe anything I say to Him now?

A few hours later I can see the morning sun through a tiny crack in the curtain. Carole is still sleeping, and I’m comforted by that. If she sleeps she can’t be in pain. I peek out onto the backyard, hoping to see a magnificent view of the Pacific Ocean, but garbage is stacked around an industrial bin that sits beside a satellite dish, and above that is a freeway.

Where will I find a non-wheat breakfast for Carole? I tell myself I have to hit the ground running. Bring it on. I dress quickly and write a note and slip out the door.