history museum, where my father took me to view it as a teenager, explaining that it was important for young men to see through the saintly posturings of their leaders.
“Wise parent,” Alex says.
“I miss him badly.”
“When did he pass away?”
“Six years ago.”
I feel the syrup well up and stop myself. My memories of my happy youth confuse people—they can’t tell if I’m bragging, kidding, or crazy. It’s a problem for me, a curious burden: my golden Mark Twain boyhood of State Fair corn dogs and station wagon vacations to Yellowstone. So few shadows, so much, such varied, light. The autumn radiance of sunset boxcars bearing away the grain of Lewis County; the midsummer glare off the fenders of my Schwinn. And my father, the seeming source of all this light, dressed in Red Wing boots and Carhartt coveralls as he strode out at dawn to his truck, a yellow supercab, and woke the town to another day of work. His deliveries fueled the county’s furnaces and heated its morning showers. He warmed the world.
But who wants to hear this? No one. I used to try. I tried in the creative writing seminar. A girl half my age said “Show, don’t tell.” It’s pointless.
Alex peels the turkey from her bagel, folds the slice in half, in half again, wraps the whole package in lettuce, and bites down. I admire her willingness to take what’s given and improve on it. It’s a traveler’s trait, and I ask her how much she flies. Her numbers are medium: sixty thousand miles in twelve months, all domestic, on Delta and United. Her preferred lodgings are Courtyard Marriotts, although she agrees that Homestead Suites offers an equal value and better food. She opens her wallet and out falls an accordion of clear vinyl pockets holding her VIP cards.
“You’re satisifed with Avis?”
“I am,” she says.
“They’re stingy with the miles. I like Maestro.”
“Maestro keeps its vehicles too long. If a car’s over twenty-thousand, I get nervous.”
“That new outfit, Colonial, isn’t bad.”
“No instant checkout. I like to park and go. A question,” she says. “Have you ever flown with pets?”
“I don’t keep pets, but I wouldn’t fly with them. The climate controls in the holds are always wacky.”
Alex’s face sags. “My new cat’s along. I couldn’t bear to leave him. An Abyssinian.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. Is he tranquilized?”
“One pill. It’s a human prescription. Are animal doses different?”
We descend into Elko through layered sheets of smoke. The Sierras are burning this summer, from Tahoe south, and the sun, which has just ticked over into the west, glows hot pink in my window. Bad news for Alex. Reno is even closer to the fires, though she tells me that smoke doesn’t bother her, just chemicals. She used to think her allergies were emotional, a product of childhood tension, she says, but now she blames them on solvents, glues, and dyes. She’d like to remain inside to get her breath back, so she asks if I’ll check on her kitten with the ground crew.
“Want anything from the terminal? Milky Way?”
“Have to trim down. Can’t risk it.”
“Understood.”
“I try to go light on the carbs when I’m out traveling.”
“It affects the digestion, no doubt about it. Smart. With me it’s fats and oils. My scalp breaks out.”
“Take chromium tablets.”
“I have. I’ve tried them all.”
A ground worker, sportily dressed in shorts and cap and looking content, for once, with his union contract, pushes a wheeled staircase against the exit. Stopping off in transit beats arriving. There’s the feeling of visiting an island, of stepping, briefly and sweetly, out of time into a scene you’ve had absolutely no hand in and have no designs on, no intentions toward. A truly neutral charge is tough to find in life, and that’s how Elko feels as I deplane: irrelevant and tranquil. A mirage.
On the tarmac I notice a pet crate being unloaded—to give its occupant water, I assume. I approach, but the baggage handler waves me off. Restricted zone. “The cat okay?” I yell. The handler doesn’t answer, too much engine noise, but something in his face concerns me as I watch him crouch, unlatch the crate, and reach one arm inside. He flags down a coworker driving a cart and together they peer through the grating at the kitten.
The second man stands and comes over to me. “Yours?”
“A friend’s. Is it okay?”
“Has it been tranquilized?”
“Just one pill.”
“It’s acting awfully sluggish. Make sure it gets more water first thing in Reno.”
I pass through the cinder-block terminal, acknowledging one or two Great West employees whose faces I remember from other trips. By rotating its personnel, who pop up again and again in different cities, the airline creates a sense in flyers like me of running in place. I find this reassuring.
I head for the gift shop. According to my HandStar, Art Krusk has two young daughters, five and nine. I scan the shelves for souvenirs and pick out two figurines of rearing mustangs. Don’t all girls love horses? Sure they do. My sisters were horse-obsessed well into their teens, when my mother cut back on their riding as a way to stimulate interest in boys. They hated her for it. My mother was a scientific parent; she’d taught third grade before
