From Eric’s downstairs to Soraya’s upstairs

I had expected the drop down into the storied haze of pollution hovering in the South Platte River Valley where Denver lies sprawled to parallel my own downward trajectory into early memories. But quite the contrary. The day was clear, the pollution having been blown eastward by the same winds I supposed were blowing the Arizona forest fire haze out of our way – and the trip to 7041 Richtofen Place was uncomplicated.

Most cities west of the Mississippi and east of Denver seem to position themselves, in one way or another, as gateways to the west. But Denver, it seems to me, should hold that claim, oriented at the westward end of the High Plains, and just east of the Front Range and Rocky Mountains. In any case, the Black Hills, containing that frisson of Lakota and Sioux mythology, are in the end what they purport to be – hills. And the Rocky Mountains, well, they’re mountains, and nice to see after a week straight of more or less flat grasslands.

I took Quebec Avenue down from the Interstate, surprised at the oaks and elms and beech trees lining the boulevard. I took a right onto Richtofen Place, and knew it to be the house as soon as I saw it. Photos of me in the yard with a picture of Philadelphia City Hall on my shirt, stories from my grandmother of picking lilies from the garden to welcome my mother home from the hospital, and my mother’s recollection of the front step where she and my father sat when they made the decision to have a child – all added up in the space of a split second. This was it.

An uncomplicated affair – a brick ranch house, with perhaps a 4-pitch roof, garage off to the side, perched on a slight hill, a curving walkway leading up. A couple trees, one looking unpruned and faintly menacing – but someone had obviously taken considerable care with flowers.

Earlier that morning I had posted on Craig’s List, saying that a guy doing an article on salsa dancing was looking for a good spot to dance – and also a place to stay for the night. Quite quickly, before I even got to Denver, a woman had responded, saying that she used to live around Philadelphia, had learned to dance in Ecuador, and her brother was away for the evening – I was welcome to use the room.

That put me in a good mood, and sent my mind on the dangerous path of considering how much more open and fearless folks were out west. I responded, saying I was looking forward to it, and anticipated trading stories about Philly and Denver.

With that in my back pocket, I pulled Mathilda up to the address. What a dry, fine heat! I parked her a bit down from the house, as I hoped to visit, and didn’t want a mutt and a beat-up Forerunner hurting my chances. The mangy goatee I could do nothing about.

Hating to leave Dog in the hot truck, I took him for a walk. I thought about my mother’s remembrances – the pattern of the wallpaper, cracked leather of the couch, the garden in the back, repainting the kitchen. Strangely enough, my father rang, and as I walked through the quiet neighborhood of Montclair, I took a trip with him down memory lane – he recalled reading Dickens in a rocking chair when he would get up in the middle of the night with me, and City Hall where he worked, and his house on Newport Street.

I got off the phone and lay in the grass across from the Elementary School, kitty-corner to Montclair Park, where surely I would have gone.

They say a newborn’s brain is about 25 percent of its approximate adult weight. By the age of three, it has grown exponentially by generating billions of cells and hundreds of trillions of connections, or synapses, between these cells. Parents always say to travel with kids when they’re young – they won’t remember a thing, so what does it matter, as long as the kid lives? Lying there in that park, and making my way up the pass later on – that dry land, the smell of spruce needless and that almost harsh sunlight – I realized this land lived inside me, even if I had no pictoral memories.

It was getting on afternoon and I hadn’t heard from my Craig’s List friend, so I emailed back to check in. Actually, her roommate didn’t want some guy she met off Craig’s List staying with them. Understandable. And so it was.

The windows were open at Richtofen Place. I knocked, but no one answered. Who knows if anyone was home. The bottom had started to drop from Denver, and I could do nothing about it.

I crossed the street and asked an older man sitting on the porch with his grandson if he knew the history of the house. He took a guarded stance, placing himself between me and the child, and said he didn’t. He relaxed a little, and came out to the sidewalk, and we chatted briefly. He did say he thought the owners were new, and he didn’t know them at all. He wished me luck on my journey.

Dog was mad thirsty, and I had had enough. Once again, salsa didn’t make the cut. We got back on Monaco, tree-lined and shaded, and stopped at a Starbucks to stock up on water and juice. I saw a sign for a fellow running for City Council – and recalled my father’s stories of going door to door in this town when he ran. Strange to think of his own signs in yards thirty-odd years previous.

We waded through Denver traffic, construction sites, on our way to the pass in the Front Range. Once again it felt good to be leaving, but I still haven’t figured out whether to embrace this sensation – whether it’s the relief of a successful escape, a movement toward the next tight situation that will require similar Houdini-esque maneuvers – or whether it’s okay. I’m no stranger to battles, and stand my ground. But that feeling of leaving when all is not sorted – well, when is all ever “sorted.”

Whatever the case, we had no gas. We stopped in Tiny Town, outside Denver, but their pumps were empty – the hi-jinks game of advertising gas, having the station be a couple miles off the road, and having none. I mean, I’m not in favor of capital punishment, but…

We soldiered on, throwing M into neutral on the slight downhills, gassed up, and directed ourselves with renewed vigor toward the ski town of Crested Butte, home of Chris and Soraya.

The trip, and Mathilda refusing to do more than 30 up the passes, afforded ample time for reflection. I mean we were getting passed by an ancient F150 flatbed hauling bags of concrete, semis with their blinkers on. Mathilda ticked I guess, feeling she had been promised a night off in Denver, only to be pushed another five hours up some of the toughest passes in the country.

I thought about the Denver situation, the irony framed neatly by my destination. Soraya and I had met through circumstances hairier and stranger than I would have met Miss G-.

This was back in 2003. My buddy growing up Truth Eye had balled it out with his brother in a 240DL Volvo to Breckenridge CO for a 15-minute interview to be a lift attendant. Afterward he followed the burgundy red awning down the stairs off Main Street to partake in the god-awful pizza at Downstairs at Erics. His waitress was an ebullient blond, gorgeous, blue-eyed, open and kind. When he mentioned he would be moving to Breckenridge that winter, she invited him to stay at her apartment – to crash for a couple nights while he got his act together.

I was in New York at the time, waiting tables and working at Barnes and Noble. T described the situation, and his meeting with so-said blond, and I decided it didn’t sound like a bad deal.

So west we went, in the month of December, and alligator-wrestled that car out there, dealing with the air/gas mix, having to replace the spark plugs, keep our foot on the accelerator to give her some gas before starting – then flooding the engine and having to pop off the plugs to let the points dry out. Late one night, drunk on trance music and Red Bulls, we pulled in to Breckenridge, made our way up Boreas Pass, and I met for the first time Soraya.

Waking up that next morning in Breckenridge to that sun-drenched day, the mountain almost touchable out our window, ski boots and skis and winter clothing strewn about the door, going down the snow-covered path through the woods into town with that one crazy golden retriever tied to a clothesline – too much. Of course we ended up spending the season in that one-bedroom. We had as many as eleven people living there on Boreas Pass, above a sad older woman who my heart goes out to. Kay if you’re reading this – I’m sorry! For a short period I slept in the hall, my clothes in Girl Scout cookie cardboard boxes, until Kay came up the stairs and inquired as to what in god’s name might be going on.

We surely didn’t know. But I swear that winter was the first time I truly laughed since the age of say seven. Complete reversion. I met my girlfriend Jen who I would spend my next three years with, in that one-bedroom. Of course we all ended up getting kicked out, of course T sustained an injury at A-Basin too horrible to describe, and of course Soraya became one of my closest and loveliest friends.

Which is where I was headed now – if Mathilda would only make it up Monarch Pass. The stripped mountain to the east made me want to avert my eyes – the earth almost embarassed at the indecency of what had been done to it, like a dog having issues with his bowels, that hunched-squinched furrowed-brow look that says please just go about your business, you don’t really need to look.

But make it she did – to see the spread of yet another valley beneath us. True God’s country. And the silence in those valleys, the cool of the shadows thrown by the mountains to the west, over which the sun set – I pulled over to sleep, Margaret Atwood and the ranches and mineral-laden silence all making an odd, dreamlike sort of sense that contributed to a deep but short slumber on the side of the road, as dusk set in.

I reached Gunnison around ten, the valley growing hilly, constricting. Once again that wide thoroughfare through town. My phone recharger wasn’t working in the truck, nor did it work on my computer – so I had no GPS. Lost!

Pulling up at the base of Crested Butte Town, there in the darkness, I found an Inn and poached a signal with the last 5% of the computer battery power, found their address, drew a map on paper and cruised on up. The air felt cool and almost chewable, fairly falling into the open hole of the sunroof. I imagined us from above, Dog and I, his head on my lap, the crash zone of the front seat. I really needed sleep.

But that twinkly nature of ski towns – as if Christmas lasted forever – lay everywhere, and I half-expected to see elves crossing the street. I found their spot, and gave Mathilda a pat on the roof, and the rest she had been desiring – and deserving. I looked in the window and saw a blond on the couch watching TV. That’s strange, I thought. Soraya watching TV. I knocked on the door, and as I did she turned her head. Whoops. Not Soraya. Her landlord. Chris and Soraya lived above. They were very nice for having a strange guy knock on their door near midnight.

Dog had already figured it out – mounting the stairs by twos. Soraya came out onto the porch, and I met Chris. We went inside and Cal struggled to find purchase on the snap-together slick kitchen floor – like a yearling on ice.

Jeezum crow, it felt good to be among friends.