Ch 1:my father, the carpenter

AGE 26

I'm not usually like this; I don't usually do things like this. The beat up 1971 Rand McNally road atlas is spread open in front of me, steaming mug of coffee next to it.[1]  I'm lost in the lines, navigating my life to some hidden meaning that has yet to be found. My eyes trace the penciled routes, my fingers trace the hand written notes below cities and towns.  Pictures and little scraps of paper lay folded and wrinkled between the pages, held in place with ancient, yellowing scotch tape and staples.  A long list of events have brought me to this point, to this little street-corner diner, which with the exception of myself, stands empty.  White painted walls, dark blue vinyl upholstered booths line the walls with tables set between.[2] I don't even notice the waitress, apron around her waist, standing there, coffee carafe in hand.  For some reason I’m thinking about my tenth birthday and the socket set my father gave me.  I still have it, three eighths, in a small red metal case sitting behind the driver’s side seat of the truck parked on the street just outside the window.  The waitress’s voice brings me back to the present.

“Hm?” I look up, slightly startled.

“I said would you like some more coffee?”
 
I look at my mug for a moment before replying “Yes please”, scooting it to the edge of the table before taking my glasses off and setting them on the map, flexing my neck, left to right. I yawn into the back of my hand, the waitress is still standing there. I take a moment to notice[3] her, average height, slim, brown eyes, light brown hair pulled up, held together with what appears to be two black and white bic pens, a few loose strands falling to either side of her face. Beautiful in a quiet sense, someone who may, just look average from a glance but upon a closer look you notice the warmth in her eyes. She smiles.  My eyes lock with hers.  I must have overlooked her when I was seated, or maybe her shift just started.  I begin to smile the first real smile I’ve had in months, I stop myself, mid grin.  My face goes blank, and there is a slight panicked feeling in the back of my throat, I realize I’ve been staring at her.  How long have I been blankly looking at her, with my creepy half smile?
I clear my throat and look down at my coffee, sliding my fingers through the handle, my left palm taking in the warmth of the mug.

“Thank you” I say, nodding at the mug before taking a sip of coffee, awkwardly attempting to make a socially acceptable amount of eye contact.  (I find this to be quite difficult at times, I don’t want to seems dismissive or rude, on the other hand I don’t want to be creepy)

“Where are you traveling?” she motions to road atlas, taking a quick look around the dinner before sitting down across from me.  Setting the insulated coffee carafe on the table between us.
For the moment we are alone.

“I… uh….I'm not really sure.” I stutter, looking out the window.  Honestly don’t know if I’m just starting, coming or going.  I’ve been on the road three days and I’m already second guessing my motivation.  For the first time in years I’m not leaving to escape, I’m leaving to reconnect.

“Well where are you from?” she asks with a smile, a kind of joyous, wide eyed look of wonderment on her face.

“Wisconsin” I reply, taking another sip of coffee, my eyes dart to the map, to the window before coming back to hers.  My father’s truck, my truck[4] sits silently on the street, just outside the window where I parked it.  The 18 foot, bumper pull, enclosed trailer hooked behind it, with “Matthews Remodeling” printed in large letters on the side of it.  I begin to get a tense feeling in my shoulders.  This begins to have all the nervous feeling of a blind date.

“and what are you doing in Colorado?” she asks. I look at her, take a sip of my coffee and say “I, uh…” I try to think of something besides the truth to tell her.  Thirty seconds of silence seem like hours, I look outside at the truck again.  I sense that she feels uncomfortable now; she assumes I don't want to talk, the question is whether that’s true or not, she shifts uncomfortably, the smile begins to retreat. 
“What’s your name?” I ask in an attempt to change the subject.  Retrieving my rectangle lens, black plastic framed glasses from the table, sliding them on my nose, over ears. With my glasses on I can now read her name tag.
“Amy”
“Nice to meet you, I'm Edwin.” extending my hand across the table, she smiles, a quiet smile at the edge of her lips and takes my hand, and returns the firm squeeze and slight shake.
“How long are you in town for?” she asks, holding my hand there, I hardly notice, all my attention is on her eyes, hers on mine.  I can feel a warm smile coming to my lips, the kind of closed mouth dopey grin I’m known for.  This time I don’t worry about staring.
“Well...” and before I can finish the large, round faced man who I assume is the cook comes out of the kitchen.
“Amy! get back to work!” She jumps out of her seat, her hand darts out of mine to the coffee carafe on the table.  She starts to go then turns back, blushing, she scribbles something down and hands me my check before retreating to the kitchen. I read it as she disappears through the kitchen doors.

“Call me tonight”
-Amy
Below she lists her phone number. 

This kind of thing never happens to me.

***

Thirty minutes and a stop at the gas station I’m checking into a room at the Econo Lodge on the edge of town, just off Interstate 76, little over an hour east of Denver.   I left shortly after Amy gave me the bill, leaving the money on the table.  It had snowed just enough in the short while I was at the café that I needed to brush my windows off.  I saw her through the window just as I started the truck, she smiled and waved as she cleared the table.

Standing in front of room 214, key in hand[5].  I open the heavy door and toss my military-issued duffle on the bed, the stenciled name on the side reads “ALLAN MATHEWS” in big capital letters.  I fall face first into the bed and am almost instantaneously out.

A noise in the distance grabs my attention for a millisecond, a constant rumbling a brief, instantly passing thought flashes across my consciousness and then it’s gone and I return to the present reality before me the cool vinyl seats of my father’s pristine, aging pickup truck against my hands is so real He sits, driver seat, driving, smoothly shifting the four-speed manual, his left foot never reaching for the clutch.  I always meant to ask him to teach me that, how to shift sans-clutch. I ask him now, and all he can say is he’s sorry. My brow knits in confusion, and as I open my mouth to ask why, a random thought crosses before me, a warm feeling of contentment, of happiness.  

Closing my mouth I sit silent, soaking up the warmth, smiling. I couldn’t tell you what time of the year it is, it seems to change between the season, winter to spring, spring to summer and so on.  The occasional bump on the two lane country road rattles the loose change in the ash tray.  I think of the trips to the family farm outside small-town Iowa when I was younger.  My mouth firing away a million questions about every piece of farm equipment we passed and my father smiling and answering each one.  It was the same truck, built in a time when trucks were for work.  The kind that had the little rotating pocket windows and the larger golf-tee shaped locks perfectly made to be opened with a bent wire clothes hanger…

The rumbling comes closer and I awake to the sound of someone vacuuming the hall, groggily I roll over on my back, and raise my left arm up, holding the inexpensive battery-powered analog watch to my face, then glance at the alarm clock sitting on the bed stand.  “Time zones” I mutter to myself aloud and adjust my watch to match the bedside clock.  After doing so I lay there a moment, replaying the dream in my head.  I’m filled with a mix of warmth and sadness.   

Moments later, in the bathroom, the hot water of the white tiled bathtub shower melts the tension from my shoulders.  The showerhead is one of those with different settings, I turn it to the massage setting but it lacks the required water pressure to work correctly.

As I dress, I transfer the contents of my pants pockets to the clean pair I’m wearing.  In the back left pocket I find the receipt from the dinner with the note from the waitress.  I consider the phone number for a second before stuffing it into the back left pocket of my jeans.  With my shoes tied, I lay out the road atlas on the room’s desk, under the brass colored lamp.  My beat up composition book opened to a page somewhere in the front third, marked with a paperclip.  Turning to Colorado in the atlas I, as I always do, lightly run my fingers over the pages, feeling the creases, the folds.  I read the hand written notes again, reading them with the same attention I did the first time.  Taking in each word, picturing my father writing them, atlas laying on the hood of his truck, pulled off the road somewhere in the Rockies.  From the box of postcards my mother saved I know that he took this trip alone.  I know that he was driving to California to sell a car, pulling a 20 foot, double axel gooseneck trailer through mountains in his 1983 C20 three-quarter ton pickup, the truck I drove here today in.