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Chapter 14 - The Sinclairs
Mike and Ruthie returned to his room just as it was getting dark
outside. The moment they entered the room, Ruthie stripped off the
uncomfortable dress. She was desperate to get her bra off, given that
she had not worn one of those restrictive garments since she started
college. Once she was naked, she stretched and spun around a couple of
times. She looked at the pressure marks from her bra strap in the mirror
and commented:
�I�d forgotten how uncomfortable wearing all this shit is.�
Mike stripped as well. He took Ruthie in his arms. For a long time they
stood kissing as he ran his hands over her bottom. That she enjoyed,
because she did like being hugged and she especially liked it when he
touched her bottom.
She could feel his penis stiffening. OK�might as well get that taken
care of and get it over with. She reached down and gave his organ a
squeeze before pulling away and reaching for her lubricant. She inserted
it while he put on a condom. She dabbed a bit of lubricant on the end,
then got on her elbows and knees on the bed. He ran his hands over her
bottom, gave each side a quick kiss and then stood up and entered her.
Mike thrust vigorously as he grunted and sweat trickled down his body.
For him the experience was totally great. She closed her eyes and played
along, angry at herself for not being able to enjoy that part of the
relationship, but thankful that the lubricant was making the experience
bearable.
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The students had a chance to relax once they were cleaned up. Ruthie
cuddled Mike.
�I still can�t get over how well things went today. You were great. I
mean�what you said to my mom about church and all that��
Mike kissed her forehead and ran his fingers through her hair.
�About church�you know that we made a commitment to your mom��
�How do you mean?�
�We have to go. Might as well do it tomorrow and get it over with.�
�What do you mean, we have to go? Go where? To church?�
�To church. To my church�there�s two services, and I �spose it�d make
more sense to go to the earlier one at 8:30.�
Ruthie sat up.
�Fuck that! I�m not going to your church! I�m not going to anybody�s
church! I�m done with that shit!�
�OK�so tomorrow night, your mom�s gonna call and start asking: �did you
go to Mike�s church? Well�why not? Mike told me he was gonna take you.
So he didn�t after-all? Then he was lying, wasn�t he?� Isn�t that what
she�s gonna say to you?�
�I �spose��
�So�we�re going to keep that from happening. When your mom asks about
you going to my church, you�re gonna tell her �yes� and when she asks
you to tell her about it, you�re gonna tell her what it was like, and
you won�t have any problems because you�ll be telling her the truth��
�I don�t care! I don�t want to go to your fucking church!�
�I�m not talking about you converting! I�m just talking about you going
there, once, so you can tell everyone that you did. Look. I quit going
too�several years ago��cause there�s no point in me being there�I
mean�when you go you�ll see what I�m talking about. But I do think you
need to go at least once, just to satisfy your mom and so we don�t have
to keep lying to her. Might as well do it tomorrow and get it over
with.�
Ruthie remained sitting up, not sure how to respond. Mike continued:
�How you handle your mom is your business. I�m not gonna get involved in
that. But I�m not gonna lie to her unless there�s a damn good reason.
This is not a damn good reason. The next time I see her, she�s gonna
want to talk about us going to my church, and I don�t want to have to
make up a bunch of bullshit. Besides, it�ll get you off the hook with
that Cristina who�s looking for you. If you�ve already gone to my
church, you can tell her that and it�ll get you out of having to go to
hers.�
Ruthie finally nodded, because she wasn�t able to come up with any
arguments to counter Mike�s logic. She hated to admit it, but she knew
that he was right�it was easier to put in an hour at his church than it
was to spend yet more weeks of evasive phone conversations with her
mother and dodging Cristina. Besides, from everything he had told her,
it sounded like his church was very impersonal and going there would not
be a high pressure experience.
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For the second time in less than 24 hours Ruthie put on her green dress,
while Mike put on dark pants, a tie, and a sports coat. That was the
most formally she had ever seen him dressed. They left very early,
driving through thick morning fog to make it in time for the 8:30
service. They pulled up to a large 1960�s-style modernistic church
located in a neighborhood that was built about the same time. Only about
a third of the parking spaces were taken, most of them by luxury sedans
such as Town-Cars.
Ruthie noticed that everyone attending church was well-dressed. She also
noticed that almost everyone around her were older white people. She
looked to see if there were any young people at all, but she only saw a
few couples in their 30�s and 40�s. She did not see anyone college-aged.
Nor did she see any children because, as Mike would later explain to
her, during the service children attended separate Sunday school.
The inside of the chapel reflected a by-gone era when there were more
people attending and Mike�s church had a lot more money. The ceiling was
inlaid with expensive wood and the windows were modernistic stained
glass. The d�cor was totally different from her mother�s church, which
had no d�cor at all apart from a cross and some posters with biblical
passages. As the older people entered, they sat down quietly. In the
background there was soft organ music.
Ruthie looked around at her bizarre surroundings. The cavernous
chapel�the organ music coming from somewhere in the background�and all
those old white people just sitting quietly�sort of gave her the creeps.
Mike handed her a church program and in a hushed voice explained to her
how the service worked, that it would last exactly 55 minutes, it would
have three hymns, the reciting of the Lord�s Prayer, and the sermon.
Ruthie looked at the strange document in her hands, bewildered that a
church service could be so carefully preplanned. She vaguely wondered if
the service really would follow the program minute-by-minute�but as she
looked around at all those old white folks, she figured that none of
them was the sort to step out of line and disrupt a schedule.
Sure enough�minute by minute the service followed the program to the
letter. Mike was familiar with the hymns and the Lord�s Prayer. He sang
and recited from memory, but there was no life or spontaneity in what he
was doing. There�s no life in this place at all, thought Ruthie to
herself. This is totally dead�like�really dead�
On their way out Mike briefly talked to one of the assistant pastors,
explaining that he had not attended services for so long because he had
been in Chicago. He introduced Ruthie as his girlfriend. The pastor was
friendly enough, but she could tell that he had no real interest in her.
And that was it. As they returned to his car, Mike did not bother to ask
her what she thought of his church. He knew that she could not have a
positive opinion.
Instead he explained his own experiences with the faith his parents
attempted to give him when they were more optimistic and Mega-Mart had
not yet ruined their lives. For him there had been no sudden break in
his faith, no moment of revelation like the moment Ruthie had
experienced. During his last couple of years in high school he simple
drifted out of the church, especially after his father lost his
business. When he was a senior in high school, he still believed in God,
but that belief became vaguer and more ill-defined as the year went by.
Of course it did not help that God was of no assistance whatsoever as
the Sinclairs were losing their pharmacy. Nor was it any help that as
Mr. Sinclair�s standing among the local businessmen declined, so did his
standing in the church.
Mike commented about the horrible job his church had done attempting to
retain younger people like himself. The church did OK keeping young
people involved and motivated up through the end of high school, but
young singles tended to drop out once they started college and very few
ever returned. Younger people either ended up changing over to an
evangelical mega-church or, like Mike, they simply drifted away from
religion altogether.
�You have to understand something about my church. It�s like my dad�s
business, and like a lot of other things in this country. It�s a part of
our society that is getting old and dying out. All those old people�once
they�re gone, the church will be gone too. It�ll die with them. My
generation got pushed out, �cause those old people were too worried
about themselves to worry about us. I have no reason to go back.
And�when we were there today I didn�t see anyone from my high school
group. I don�t know�maybe there�s a few left that�ll be going to the
later service�but I�ve lost touch so I wouldn�t know.�
As they discussed their respective religious experiences, Mike and
Ruthie were able to understand each other on the issue of religion. Mike
did not have the explosive hatred towards organized religion that Ruthie
had because his church was not such a domineering presence in his life
as he was growing up. No one sought to control him or his mind, but when
he and his family drifted away, no one made any real effort to prevent
them from leaving.
Ruthie realized that Mike was right about having her see his church,
because now she honestly could say that she did go, she could talk about
the sermon and the music, and give a physical description of the
place. She was oddly depressed by the experience, nevertheless. There
was nothing really offensive about Mike�s church�there was no
exhortation that the world was about to come to an end, no screaming, no
talking in tongues, no interruptions from the audience, no mind-control,
no megalomania from the preacher. But still, the place totally creeped-her
out. It was just so�dead�just a bunch of old people reciting stuff for
no reason other than it was what had been recited for the last 400
years. When she talked to her mother about her experience, she�d have to
skip the detail about being surrounded by a bunch of rich
white half-dead senior citizens.
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The visit to the church put Mike in a melancholy mood and made Ruthie
more reflective. Mike offered to show her the two locations where
Sinclair Pharmacy used to be, which she accepted. He first took her to a
dilapidated downtown area that appeared to have been built between the
1920�s and 1950�s. The buildings were mostly abandoned except for a few
breakfast places and some �boutiques� that Mike suspected actually were
money laundering fronts. He pointed to a corner building and commented
that was the first location of Sinclair Pharmacy, where his
great-grandfather and grandfather ran the business from the 1930�s until
the late 1970�s.
They drove to a shopping center that had been built in the 1960�s but
had been remodeled several times since then. Mike explained that the
shopping center replaced the traditional downtown area and that the
majority of the local businesses had moved there by 1975. Sinclair
Pharmacy was one of the last holdouts to leave downtown: Mike�s
grandfather moved the business to the shopping center in 1979.
Like the downtown area it replaced, it was clear the shopping center had
seen better days. Only about half of the storefronts were still
occupied: there were two pawn-shops, a cigarette discounter, a
second-hand clothing store, a pay-day lender, a liquor store, a store
that sold surplus packaged food items, and a clothing donation center.
Mike pointed out the spot where Sinclair Pharmacy had occupied one of
the larger spaces, which now was occupied by the outpatient services for
a drug rehab clinic. Mike observed:
�Still a drug business in this spot�but I guess this is where the growth
market is and my dad just got it wrong.�
To Ruthie there was nothing unusual about what she was looking at,
because there were several similar shopping centers scattered around
Salinas, including the one where her mother�s church was set up.
However, Mike was able to give her a different perspective because he
was old enough to remember what the area was like before it lost its
businesses. He explained that before Mega-Mart cleaned out all the local
retailers, the shopping center was a very different place, with
businesses that actually served the needs of the public. There had been
a major grocery store where the clothing donation center was located, a
hardware store, a toy store, a gardening store, a book store, a store
for school supplies, a pet store, several restaurants, and a mortgage &
loan where the payday lender currently was operating.
Thanks to Mega-Mart, the shopping center�s original retailers were gone
and the blight coming from their successors was spreading throughout the
neighborhood. For example, the pawn shops sold items stolen out of
nearby residences by the bums hanging out at the rehab clinic, the
liquor store, and the smoke shop.
�The best thing we could do at this point would be just get rid of the
shopping center and put in a city park. Even some condos would be better
than what�s here now, �cause at least people would live there and have
to maintain �em.�
Ruthie suspected she knew what was coming next. They had seen Mike�s
church and they had seen the two places where Mike�s family had their
pharmacy. It would be logical that�
Sure enough, Mike suggested going over to his house for lunch. Ruthie
was not thrilled at the prospect of meeting his parents, but given
everything he had done to calm the problems she was having with her
mother, she knew that the least she could do would be reciprocate. She
would try to get along with Mike�s relatives as best she could. Besides,
she was wearing her best dress�just as good a time as any�
When they got to his house, Mike was surprised that no one was there. He
told his girlfriend that they�d wait an hour or so before returning to
Santa Cruz. Ruthie was relieved. Mike showed her around the house, which
like everything else he showed her was dated to the 1970�s and had seen
better days. It was a split-level tract-home sheltered in the front by a
couple of large trees. The interior was kept up, but the only thing Mr.
Sinclair was doing on the outside was mowing the lawn. The paint was
peeling and the roof�s shingles needed to be replaced. There was a much
more serious maintenance problem: a tree root had worked its way towards
a rain gutter outlet and was pushing into the foundation of the house.
Already there was a serious crack in the cement. When Ruthie commented
about the damage Mike answered:
�The house isn�t gonna be ours all that much longer. Dad doesn�t give a
shit about it, �cause any money he spends on repairs would just be money
thrown at the lenders. By the time they get their hands on this place,
it�s gonna be worthless, and that�s what he�s planning on.�
There was a pool in the back yard, which was being kept up because
Mike�s parents still used it. The yard was surrounded by a wooden fence
and tall bushes, so it was completely private and hidden from the
neighbors. It was already sunny and starting to get hot. Mike took off
his sports jacket. The couple looked at the pool and then at each other.
When Mike suggested going for a swim, Ruthie eagerly accepted. They went
into the pool house and took off their Sunday clothing.
Ruthie tread water in the deep end as she watched her naked boyfriend go
inside to get them something to drink and eat. As soon as he came back,
they set up in lawn chairs enjoying the sun and eating. A few minutes
later they were back in the water.
They spent a very long time swimming and relaxing in the pool. Mike
pulled a plastic raft into the water. When Ruthie climbed on top, he
pushed her from one end of the pool to the other and then spun her
around. Finally he left her alone to relax and enjoy the sun and breeze
on her bare backside. He floated on his back as she dozed on her raft.
Clearly they had lost all track of time. Mike figured that his parents
must have gone to the later church service (which they still attended
every so often) and would be back around noon. It already was 1:00 when
Mr. Sinclair�s voice called out the back door:
�Mike? Mike? Are you out here?�
�Dad! Hold on! Wait a second!�
Ruthie woke up, rolled off her raft with a loud splash, and pulled it in
front of her, but it was too late. Mike�s parents already had seen her.
They quickly retreated into the house to give their son and his friend a
chance to get dressed. Mike and Ruthie scrambled out of the water,
showered off, and put on their clothes. Ruthie was blushing and very
nervous. The last thing she wanted to do at that point was face the
Sinclairs, but Mike managed to convince her that what had just happened
was not the scandal of the century. He reassured her that his parents
themselves rarely wore swimsuits when using the pool and that was not
the first time that they had stumbled into Mike or his sister swimming
naked with friends. Still, it is not every day that the very first time
a young woman sees her boyfriend�s parents, she is lying naked in their
pool.
Now properly dressed, Mike led Ruthie around the pool and into the
living room. She shyly shook the hands of the elder Sinclairs. She was
blushing and totally nervous, as she always was when meeting new people
she was worried about impressing. Actually the pool incident was
something that worked out in her favor. Mike�s parents did not realize
that her nervous behavior was normal for her: they assumed that she was
mortified over them having seen her in the pool. Because of their mutual
embarrassment, Mike�s parents went out of their way to be polite to
their guest and make her feel welcome. Under normal circumstances they
might not have been so patient with her fidgeting and sideways glances.
Mr. Sinclair did the same thing with Ruthie that Mike had done with Do�a
Lisette: get her to talk about neutral topics that interested her. In
Ruthie�s case it was geology. Ruthie chatted about her major. Mr.
Sinclair did not know much about geology, but both of their fields
required knowledge of chemistry, which was something in common they
could discuss. Mr. Sinclair talked about chemistry classes he had taken
in college and asked Ruthie about hers.
From that topic the Sinclairs were able to get Ruthie to tell them about
her background. She talked about Nebraska and to a lesser extent about
Salinas. She mentioned some of the grants she had received to attend
classes. Mr. Sinclair commented:
�You know that some of that�s going away next year�with the state as
messed up as it is�I hate to say it, but scholarships are gonna take a
big hit.�
Ruthie nodded. That wasn�t something she wanted to think about, but
losing her funding was a reality she was very likely to face within a
few months.
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence, which was interrupted when
Mrs. Sinclair suggested �getting a bite�. Mike later explained that was
how his mother handled any uncomfortable moment, by running out and
�getting a bite�. Mr. Sinclair obligingly grabbed his car keys and they
left the house. Ruthie was immensely relieved to get out of the living
room.
�Getting a bite� usually entailed driving around instead of just
stopping in one place. Mike�s father drove all around the neighborhood
to show Ruthie various places that were of interest to him and his
family�s past. He showed Ruthie the schools where Mike and his sister
had gone, the church that Mike and Ruthie had attended in the morning,
and a house that once had been owned by Mike�s grandfather. They drove a
few miles out of town to see a WPA project where Mike�s
great-grandfather had worked shortly after arriving in California during
the Depression. A major omission from Mr. Sinclair�s history lesson were
the two locations once occupied by Sinclair Pharmacy. As much as he
liked chatting about the family�s history, Mr. Sinclair never once
mentioned the defunct family business.
Ruthie noticed that Mr. Sinclair always talked about things that were in
the past. She fully understood that he was a man with no future, just
one person out of hundreds of millions who had been pushed aside by
globalization and �progress�. The world had changed around Mr. Sinclair
and the future would have no place for people like him. And since�the
world had no place for Mr. Sinclair, since he was part of a United
States that already had passed into memory�was there any point for him
to continue with his life? Yes, for the time being there was, because he
was holding out until Mike and his sister could get through college. But
then�after they graduated and the family lost the house, why would he
want to deal with staying alive? For what? Everything that he had known
and the society that had created him were gone�leaving him as nothing
but a ghost living among the ruins of what had been, but was no more.
As she looked at Mr. Sinclair and perceived the true defeat in his
expression, she thought to herself: this guy knows�he understands. At
that moment, she felt a secret connection with Mike�s father. It was a
connection she probably could never voice or express, but still it was
there.
Ruthie felt that Mr. Sinclair already was more dead than alive. The
passing of that man�s world was only a tiny manifestation of the
impending death of a society, of a nation, and ultimately of a species.
She suspected that Mike could not fully perceive that reality because he
was too close to his father to view him objectively. Mike also was too
much of an optimist, thought Ruthie to herself, still too na�ve to
understand how truly hopeless the condition of humanity really was. Like
his fucking politics was gonna fix anything�
Finally they stopped at �family dining� restaurant. After they sat down,
Ruthie�s normal shyness was not a problem when she talked to Mike�s
father. Mrs. Sinclair may have had very reserved feelings about Ruthie,
but his father really started to like her. She talked naturally to him,
which surprised Mike as much as Mike�s handling of Do�a Lisette had
surprised Ruthie. The difference was that Mike had �performed� for Do�a
Lisette, but he did not feel any connection with her. With Ruthie and
Mr. Sinclair it was different: a real connection that neither could
define nor articulate.
When they left the restaurant and were driving back to the house, she
reached over and took Mike�s hand. She felt the need to comfort him, but
she also felt that she needed reassurance from him as well. And yet,
subconsciously what she really wanted was be alone with Mr. Sinclair. He
was the one looking into the abyss and who clearly understood that.
Ruthie wanted to stand next to him, because she also knew�
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By the time they returned to the Sinclair house, it was getting late.
Mike hugged his parents and left with his girlfriend, to return to a
place where supposedly they were preparing for their future.
There was one more stop to make, one more thing that Mike needed to show
Ruthie. He proceeded to the infamous Mega-Mart that had finished off his
family�s business. The building stood abandoned and boarded up. Already
the parking lot was cracked and full of grass. The company had put up a
chain-link fence around the entire area topped with razor wire. Mike
knew from his readings that Mega-Mart had no intention of ever selling
the land, because the holding company wanted to make sure no one else
could utilize it. The United States was full of similar abandoned
Mega-Marts, strategic parcels of land that would permanently remain
off-limits for anyone�s use, even though the stores themselves were
closed and the buildings reduced to decaying ruins. Mega-Town
Associates� official policy was never to sell assets once they were
acquired, because the company�s long-term goal was to establish
exclusive ownership of the world�s resources. Anyhow, the land itself
was a tax write-off, so to leave it unused made perfect economic sense.
Mike commented: �You know�there used to be a pond here�when I was a
little kid I�d come here to go fishing with my grandfather�ducks came
through here in the fall�it was a nice place. It was county-owned land,
but Mega-Town won a lawsuit and that�s how they got to build on it.�
From the Mega-Mart they drove past blocks of 1960�s houses. Many of them
were for sale. Most of the others were occupied by older people, people
who had bought into the real estate market back in the days when houses
were still affordable in California. All from a bygone era�
Mike turned onto the highway and drove his girlfriend back to Davenport.
She turned on a radio station that featured music from the 1980's. After
a couple of songs they heard the voice of the famous singer Bruce
Springsteen singing �My Hometown�
Now main streets whitewashed windows and vacant stores
Seems like there ain�t nobody wants to come down here no more
They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks
Foreman says these jobs are going boys, and they ain�t coming back to�
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Your hometown
Last night me and Kate�we laid in bed talking about getting out
Packing up our bags maybe heading south
I�m thirty-five we got a boy of our own now
Last night I sat him up behind the wheel and said:
Son, take a good look around
This is your hometown
Mike said nothing, but Ruthie noticed him tightening his lips and
holding back tears. She had nothing to say either, but she put her hand
on his arm to try to comfort him.
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After Mike and Ruthie left, the Sinclairs briefly discussed the day and
what they thought of their son�s new girlfriend from Salinas. Mrs.
Sinclair was not impressed with her.
�She�s cute, which I suppose is what he sees in her. But there�s
something about her that�s not right. I can�t put my finger on it, but
to be honest, I think she�s kinda creepy.�
Mr. Sinclair didn�t answer right away. Mike�s mother added:
�I just wish he�d get back together with Lisa. The Campbell girl was so
perfect for him��
�And I say screw Lisa Campbell. I�m glad he�s rid of her. She was a
phony. I like Ruthie a lot better. She�s not �normal�, but so what? At
least that girl�s got a brain and you can have a conversation with her.�
�Well�I guess. But I�m still not thrilled about her.�
Mrs. Sinclair decided to go for a swim. She took off her clothes in the
bedroom and wrapped a towel around herself. She went out to the pool for
an evening swim, tossed the towel in a lounge chair, and dove in. She
would do her laps�work off her stress, of which she had plenty.
As soon as he heard his wife splashing in the water, Mr. Sinclair went
into the garage and pulled up a small door that led into the crawlspace
under the house. He took a flashlight and fumbled around in the dark
moldy area. He shined his light at several wooden studs, noticing to his
satisfaction that the damage by the termites that had invaded their
house had progressed.
Yes, my little white ladies, eat. Eat to your hearts� content. Eat up
all those profits they think they�re gonna get when they foreclose.
Mr. Sinclair knew that the termites had been destroying the house for
several months. Most homeowners would have been horrified upon seeing
the damage, but Mr. Sinclair was elated. The termites were destroying a
house that within a short time would no longer be his. The lenders would
snatch their prize, only to discover it was worthless.
Yes, my pretty little white ladies�enjoy your meal�I�m not gonna bother
you.
Mike�s father shined a flashlight towards a metal gray box that he had
screwed into a support beam. He opened it up to make sure its contents
were clean and in good condition. He pulled out a .38 mm pistol and made
sure that it was dry. He checked the bullets. They still looked good and
showed no signs of oxidation. Excellent. He pushed a small cleaning rag
through the barrel of the pistol and checked the trigger. He put the
weapon to his temple and dry-fired. It clicked just fine. Satisfied, he
locked the pistol and ammunition back in the box and crawled out towards
the garage.
Mr. Sinclair went through the same routine every Sunday afternoon. He
wanted to make sure everything was ready when the time came.
