A volunteer picked me up at my hotel and drove me to the Sacramento airport. She was plump and gray-haired, in her sixties, I guessed, and she smelled of shampoo. Her husband had died a few years ago and she moved to town to be closer to her daughter, who is adopted and in a wheelchair. The woman started telling me about the disease her daughter has when we came upon tens of thousands of tomatoes scattered across the road. “Farm-truck accident,” she said, then got back to her earlier topic. The woman enjoyed talking, and I enjoyed listening to her. Everything was great until we reached the airport, which had recently been remodeled. After circling twice, she stopped in front of terminal A. There were signs out front for American and United but not for Alaska Air, which is what I was scheduled to fly on. “I’m not sure we’re in the right place,” I told her.
At this she sighed and popped the trunk. “Listen,” she said, sounding suddenly weary. “Lots of airlines go to Seattle. I’m sure you’ll find something.”
She said it as if I go from city to city and just buy my tickets at the counter.
Here I’d listened to all these stories, and this was how she was leaving me? After she drove off, I asked a skycap where I might find Alaska Air. “See that flag?” he asked, pointing off into the distance.
I did. It was the same size it is on a stamp. That’s how far away it was.
“Alaska Air is two buildings beyond it,” the skycap said.
I cursed the woman as I walked to the distant terminal with my heavy suitcase, and I cursed her again in the long, unmoving line I joined upon my arrival. For good measure, I even cursed her adopted daughter, the one in the wheelchair with an incurable disease.
October 26, 1999
Ashland, Oregon
In Seattle I moved the sofa in my room in order to unplug a floor lamp and found half a joint lying on the carpet. A year ago I would have smoked it. Pot is still incredibly tempting to me, but I quit it when I quit drinking. Otherwise what’s the point? I smelled the joint I found beneath the sofa. I examined it, and then I put it back for someone else to find.
November 6, 1999
San Diego, California
You can walk across the border from the United States into Mexico, but coming back you have to state your citizenship and show papers if you’re not an American. Abe and I parked in San Diego and the moment we crossed into Tijuana we were swarmed by children holding cups. They didn’t hold them the way most beggars do, as if they were full. Rather they held them sideways, as if they were pouring something out. As we walked down the street everyone called out to us. “You want titty? You want pussy?” “I got pussy, eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. Tell me what you want.” “Taxi?” “Hey, dog, check it out.” “You want to party?” “Hey, guys, before you get drunk, check this out!”
Lining the sidewalks were countless prostitutes, young women, mainly, wearing cheap, unflattering miniskirts. All of them had the same mid-1980s hairstyle, the bangs trained in an arc over their foreheads while the backs and sides fell to their shoulders. Their tops had shoulder pads and their shoes broke my heart. They smiled as we passed, but the men did all the talking. “You want pussy?” I guess you’d go to a hotel or something.
On our way to dinner, Abe stopped at a fruit and vegetable stand for a snack. Everything on offer was rotten. It stank, but the guy behind the counter was very friendly. We went into a cathedral that was lit with fluorescent tubes. The floor was covered in linoleum and in one of the little alcoves I could feel the heat from a hundred burning candles. I’d never noticed that candles give off heat, perhaps because I’m not a Catholic.
November 17, 1999
Paris
I went to get my trousers hemmed by the Turkish woman on the rue Monge.
Me: Hello. I bought two pairs of pants and they are too long.
Her: You need to grow.
Me: Ha-ha. It is too late for that.
Her: Do you want to try them on?
Me: Yes, please. Why not!
I went into the changing nook and took my pants off. The woman was using a steamer and every time she turned it on, a gust of hot air parted the curtains, exposing me in my underwear.
Me: Oops. Oops. Oops.
November 24, 1999
Paris
You never know when someone might tell you he believes in angels. “Oh, they do too exist,” he’ll say. “I’ve seen them!”
People might be more sensible in France, but back in the States I hear it all the time. Someone will claim to live with angels. They swear there’s one in the backseat of their car. If you see devils, they lock you up, but in America, if you see angels, they put you on morning TV.
2000
January 8, 2000
Paris
In the mail came two issues of a gay-lifestyle magazine its founder is hoping I might contribute to. It’s not my kind of thing, but I got a kick out of the letters to the editor, which are startling when you substitute the word white for gay.
Dear Hero,
I am a white man living in Kansas and your hot magazine came as such a relief. Finally a publication for people who are proud to be white, and want to know what other white people are up to. It’s nice to know that I am not alone. White people have come a long way, but we’ve got a lot farther to go. There’s no white pride parade in my town, but in the meantime I’ll keep my fingers crossed, and continue reading your great white magazine!
February 22, 2000
Paris
Last night I watched a bleak Luis Bu?uel documentary called Land Without Bread. Made in 1932, it focused on a remote Spanish village somewhere in the mountains. They showed a traditional wedding where the groom rode a horse and was instructed to snatch the head off a live rooster that hung upside down suspended by a rope. Most everyone in the movie was barefoot and slept in their clothes. Families lived in one room and earned what little money they had by selling honey made by hateful bees that stung a donkey to death. It showed a mountain goat losing its footing and fatally tumbling down a cliff.
I wished I could go back in time and give these people shoes and beds and sackfuls of rice.
February 23, 2000
Paris
Last night for the first time in three or four years, I opened my mouth in front of the mirror. The advantage of keeping it shut was that my teeth looked however I wanted them to. I knew they were messed up. I just wasn’t prepared for all the gaps. According to my new French dentist, my bottom teeth have shifted and pushed the ones on top out of alignment. When I opened my mouth in front of the mirror, I discovered that I look like a donkey. I look like a jack-o’-lantern, like a poster child for orthodontia. Color-wise they’re not as dingy as I expected, so that’s some consolation.
If I look out the window near the dining-room table I can see a wheelchair chained to the fence that separates the courtyard from the neighboring building.
February 24, 2000
Paris
Last night the BBC aired a program on a proposed bill that would end sexual discrimination. I came in as the reporter was interviewing a member of an exclusive men’s club where the sign on the front door read NO DOGS OR WOMEN.
“Well,” the man said. “It’s inconvenient, but these things happen. For example, I just came from a restaurant that had a ban on cellular phones!”
March 9, 2000