Greetings from San Rafael
Friday, September 12, 2008 at 11:19PM I ride the elevator down to a lobby that was the height of style in 1987. It has koi. The helpful girl at the front desk is unsure where to send me when I ask where to eat in the area. She asks how far I am willing to walk. In perhaps the dumbest response of my adult life I reply, "I can walk a long ways." As I say it, I realize I sound like Forrest Gump. I walk out the sliding glass doors into the night.
It's that annoying almost cold that only happens in Northern California. I'm walking fast. Anyone who sees me will think that I am "walking with purpose." Nothing could be further from the truth. I am walking with the opposite of purpose. I follow a mostly dry creek bed down a hill, up another, over an overpass, and into the parking lot of the mall that front desk girl has directed me to. I enter through a Macy's.
It is a Macy's only in the loosest sense of the word. It obviously used to be something else. It's like it is doing an impression of a Macy's. I immediately believe it is some kind of front for an illegal operation. Since we are in Northern California, I assume it is drugs. I am in a mall-based bodega. I exit the oddly familiar surroundings of the Macy's to the vaguely familiar surroundings of the mall itself. It is in the transitional stage between the two types of malls Chris Rock so succinctly and eloquently describes in his Bring the Pain concert. I walk past the typical Radio Shacks, Waldenbooks and a Sunglasshut whose sign is malfunctioning and reads "asshut." I am looking for the food court.
I find it. I am immediately disappointed. This is saying a lot, because food courts are all disappointing. There is a place called Skewers that is one visit from the health inspector away from being shut down. Oedo offers a children's sushi special. I avoid the Thai place called "Thong." I shouldn't have to explain why. In an uncharacteristic display of optimism, I decide to keep walking in hopes there is another, better food court on the other end of the mall. I depart, walking past a sign that reads, "Thank you for your patronage while we transform." I briefly consider burning the building to the ground, but choose not to on the off chance it would turn into a giant robot and kill me.
At the other end of the mall there is not another, better food court. There is a movie theatre. I am ecstatic for a moment. The ecstasy ends when I see the movies that are playing. I stand completely motionless for almost two minutes as I debate myself over whether or not to see Bangkok Dangerous. Luckily, I win. After Ghost Rider and The Wicker Man, Nicolas Cage is on his own with this one. He knows what he did, and he needs to think about it.
I return to the food court of broken dreams and choose the least of eight evils, Taco Bell. The taco is completely flavorless. It is a purely textural experience. I watch the people walking by. Perhaps because I have been reading a series of books by Chuck Palahniuk and an embedded journalist's account of Iraq, I judge everyone who passes by whether or not I think can beat them up. I think I can beat them all up. This mall isn't that tough...yet.
I finish eating and enter the Waldenbooks. Two Asian girls are looking at a book which I can't see. They speak with thick, California accents. One queries, "What about this one?" The other answers, "I don't like feet." "Me neither," replies the first. I wish to God I could see what they are talking about. I decide to not look. The mystery is more entertaining than the reality. I buy two books from a woman desperate for any kind of human contact and depart.
In the mall, I pass a man dressed as a gaucho. He is shopping in Victoria's Secret.
I walk back to the Macy's. As I am passing through, and for reasons I still don't entirely understand, I buy a sport coat. I have officially destroyed the last vestiges of my childhood. Now I am a man. I remember the old adage that there is nothing more dangerous than a bored soldier. I am not a soldier, but I am bored. I can only imagine what would happen if I had a gun.
Outside it is still cold. I enter a Rite-Aid drugstore located in the parking lot. For some reason it has an extensive selection of fishing rods and bait. I forego these and instead purchase a bottle of Izze Clementine Orange Soda, because that's how I roll. An announcement I can barely understand informs me the store is closing. A woman has to unlock the door so I can exit. As I am going out the door, an older woman is trying desperately to get in. "Can I buy one thing?" I cannot hear the response. "I need my melatonin!" I still can't hear the response, but I imagine it is something akin to "None shall pass!" The doors close and lock, and the woman is turned out into the almost cold night. I walk by her car. Her husband sits in the driver's seat with the engine running. He is in his mid sixties, he is obviously at least six and a half feet tall, and he is in full combat fatigues. I pray he is not bored.
While the Rite-Aid is closing at nine, the Michael's craft store next door is still open. Apparently people in Northern California can't get their prescriptions after nine, but they can decoupage to their heart's content. As I stand at the crosswalk, a man wearing a backpack approaches. He is talking loudly to no one. He is either crazy, or he has a Bluetooth headset I cannot see. He is getting closer. Physically, I think I can take him, but he has the whole crazy thing going for him. As he approaches me, he eyes me suspiciously, speeds up, and takes an exaggeratedly wide path around me. He has no headset. He is insane. Apparently crazy people are like poisonous snakes—they are more afraid of us than we are of them.
On my way back to the hotel, I find myself in a planned community I do not remember walking through before. I have taken a wrong turn. I often do this as I have a tendency to get lost in thought and not pay attention to where I am going. As a writer, I often feel as though I am observing my life from the outside as much as I am actually participating. I have had many experiences that are dreamlike and distant in their recollection—from meeting a President to being briefed by the CIA to quelling a riot at an outdoor concert—that you would think I would have experienced more viscerally. The walk that has deposited me in the middle of this subdivision is a distant dream that I cannot remember or describe. I have lost time. The community's name is Vista Marin. I do not speak Spanish, but by looking around me I deduce that the phrase means "unoriginal architecture." I can see my hotel, but I will either have to backtrack or cut through someone's backyard in order to get there. I decide against cutting through a yard, as I would look suspicious. I can see the news story already: "A man was gunned down by a homeowner after trying to break in using an orange soda and a sport coat."
I orienteer my way back to the hotel. I ride up in the elevator with four German men. I catch and translate some basic words in their conversation. "No," "people" and (I believe) "sausage" paint a linguistic Rorschach as I watch the koi get smaller through the glass wall of the elevator. By looking at the Germans' luggage, I deduce that they are attending some kind of conference on futuristic backpacks. They bark their goodbyes and depart a floor before me. I am alone again.
I rarely remember my dreams when I awaken from a night's sleep. My wife remembers all of hers. She recounts wild tales of beating James Garner to death with a can of Nestle's Quik while I just remember blackness. For me, falling asleep at the end of each day feels a lot like waking up from a dream. All I can tell you is that I am alone again in a hotel room in Northern California, and at least two hours have just slipped by. I know it all happened, but I can't prove it.
Good night from San Rafael.
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