Back to Chapter 17
Chapter 18 - Christmas Vacation
Mike had expected to pursue �pay-dirt�, as he always put it, by
ticketing students who felt that finals week provided a justification to
violate parking regulations around campus. However, he had forgotten
that his boss wanted to assign him as an alternate for maintaining and
collecting money from parking meters, which was a promotion from being a
student ticket officer. During the final week of the semester, Mike�s
intended victims got a break and his ticketing machine sat unused in the
dispatcher�s office while he went out with the department�s oldest
employee, Sam Rayburn. Mike knew enough of US history to know there was
a famous Speaker of the House of Representatives with that name during
World War II and the 1950�s. His co-worker admitted that yes�he was
named after �that� Sam Rayburn. He congratulated Mike on his knowledge,
telling him that he was only the second student he had ever met who knew
about House Speaker Sam Rayburn.
Sam had the outward appearance of a southern redneck, but his
personality was totally the opposite. He was a hippie at heart, who
lived in a small house up in the mountains that overlooked Davenport. He
had a degree in philosophy, wrote poetry, and had lived with the same
woman for 35 years without ever getting married. He was a strange guy
with a dreamy personality and one of the few people Mike ever met who
was totally satisfied with his place in life. He had no desire to move
on: he was content to spend his existence fiddling with parking meters.
A few weeks later Mike would figure out why Sam had no intention of ever
giving up his meter job, and why he had refused several offers of
promotion.
Sam and Mike went out in Sam�s pickup truck. There was a large steel box
mounted on the back. The box had a lock and a circular opening in the
top that was about the width of a liter soda bottle. Sam handed Mike a
key and told him to open up the back of a meter. Sam extracted a metal
cylinder the size of a soda can and handed it to Mike, and instructed
him to put it into the opening of the box and turn it. As soon as Mike
twisted the can, he heard the coins clattering into the bottom of the
steel box. Sam told him that typically a canister held around $ 50 worth
of coins. That surprised Mike, because he had not realized how much
money each meter was making for the university. When he returned the
cylinder to its place in the meter casing, Sam commented:
�We get to do the same thing 492 times today, and 483 times tomorrow.
That�s how many meters we have on campus.�
Sam taught Mike a few tricks about twisting canisters and meter keys to
avoid repetitive motion injury, such as switching hands after servicing
25 meters. Every so often the two parking officers came across a meter
that was jammed, where the coins had not fallen into the canister but
instead were piled on top. Sam dumped the loose coins into a separate
box that was stored in the truck�s tool-box.
Sam spent the next several days showing the student other
responsibilities of the job, such as checking for low batteries and
examining and replacing defective meters. Mike learned that the meter
device could easily be taken out of the casing and the working part
actually was very small. The devices had warning signals to let the
parking officer know if the battery was low and on a typical day about
20 batteries had to be replaced. If a meter was not working for any
reason other than an expired battery, Sam took out the device and
replaced it. He explained that upon getting back to the parking office
they would ship the defective meters to a contractor that would repair
them.
Once the day�s round of collecting coins and servicing meters was
finished, Sam and Mike unloaded the heavy change box from the pickup and
rolled it into the main office. They unlocked the top and poured the
contents into a change counting machine. The take for Mike�s first day
was over $ 6,500. Mike was surprised at the amount. $ 6,500 in just one
day?
�It�s more during the semester. Of course, when you started ticketing
Econ-A it became a lot more�400 meters-worth more.�
�So what are they doing with all the money?�
�Ain�t giving it to us, that�s for sure. I �spose maybe some of it�s
going to buy new office equipment�paint for the parking garage�shit like
that. The rest�?� Sam shrugged he shoulders: ��your guess is as good as
mine.�
As Mike�s training period continued, he got to know Sam and his many
quirks a lot better. One thing Sam always did was collect soda cans. If
he saw a discarded soda can from across a parking lot, he�d drive over
to pick it up. A quick stomp of his boot flattened the can and then he�d
toss it into a huge smelly trash bag filled with other cans. If Sam
thought Mike wasn�t looking, he�d even go through trash containers
looking for soda cans. On days after football games Sam spent as much
time cruising the stadium area in search of cans as he did attending to
meters.
Another thing Mike noticed was that Sam was very generous with small
things. Every time they stopped for a break Sam bought him something to
drink: coffee or Coke, or whatever else his trainee wanted. It wasn�t
just with Mike that Sam was so generous. During football games he always
passed out Coke and donuts to anyone working a shift under him. Whenever
he trained a new student ticketing officer he always offered free
drinks, which was one reason he was popular within the department.
In spite of their difference of ages and Sam�s strange character, he and
Mike quickly established rapport with each other. Sam talked a lot about
his days as a hippie, enough to make Mike somewhat envious that he was
not a college student in 1968. Sam�s stories made Mike more sympathetic
to the hippie movement, but at the same time Mike could see how many of
the factors that led to the current decline of the US, such as drug use
and instant gratification, got started during the 1960�s. Mike pointed
that out to Sam, who shrugged his shoulders and responded: �Yeah, I can
see that.�
Through Sam, Mike learned a lot about Davenport State University in
general and the history of the Parking Department in particular. He
talked about different directors, how much money the department took in,
and how parking had become more restricted for students over the years.
He talked about regional conventions held for parking lot owners and how
lucrative parking and its byproduct, towing, were for those who owned or
managed lots.
�It�s �money for nothin� and your chicks for free.� You don�t have to
build anything, make anything, feed anyone, do nothing useful�just pave
over some Mother Nature and start taking money.�
Money for nothing�a good way to describe owning a parking lot. As though
it was responding to Mike�s thought and Sam�s comment, the campus radio
station played the old Dire Straits hit. The two employees started
singing along:
Now look at them yo-yo's, that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the M.T.V.
That ain't working, that's the way you do it
Money for nothing and your chicks for free�
Now that ain't working, that's the way you do it
Let me tell you them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Baby get a blister on your thumb�
We got to install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We got to move these refrigerators
We got to move these color T.V.'s�
In spite of the fun banter, Sam�s conversations planted a seed of doubt
in Mike�s thoughts. Up until his promotion, he had been content with his
job. However, now that he knew how much money the administrators of the
Parking Department were making and how little of that money the
employees were receiving, resentment started building up in his mind.
Sam sensed his changing view of their employer, shrugged his shoulders,
and pointed out:
�This job�s what you make out of it. Just like any other job. It�s what
you make out of it.�
Mike wondered if his co-worker was hinting at anything with that
comment.
----------
Finals came and went uneventfully. Mike and Ruthie both got straight
�A�s� for the semester and in doing so made the Dean�s list. In that
past that would have helped their financial situation, but during these
indifferent times of globalization, good grades no longer mattered.
Still, it was a point of personal pride to have good grades because Mike
and Ruthie had high academic expectations of each other.
During the days leading up to Christmas, Mike dedicated as much time as
he could to his relationship with Ruthie. He took her hiking and for
drives towards Big Sur. They stopped to look at cliffs and beaches, and
also to look for fossils in areas where Ruthie knew there were deposits.
One day they had a real treat: they noticed that a group of elephant
seals had lumbered onto a small beach near the coastal road. Ruthie was
absorbed looking at and photographing the animals, because she had never
seen them in real life before.
Ruthie�s desire to ride around nude intensified during the December
outings, now that she knew Mike approved of that part of her
personality. She loved to sit naked in the passenger seat and challenge
herself to see how long she could go without putting on her dress.
Sometimes she liked to make him nervous by taking risks, such as jumping
out of the car near a park or street corner, even if there were other
people around, wearing nothing but her shoes. Very early on the Sunday
morning before Christmas, she actually walked a block in the nude
through the deserted downtown in one of the small towns they were
passing through.
He learned to have spare batteries ready for his camera, because his
girlfriend continuously jumped out of the car and wanted to have her
picture taken in every imaginable setting possible. Ruthie wanted to
collect pictures of herself standing naked along the entire coastline of
California. Every time the couple came across a lookout where no one
else was parked, she asked Mike to stop. If she already was naked, she�d
run out to where she wanted to pose, strike her pose, and waited for
Mike to get the picture. Mike learned to be quick, but also to be
careful to get a good image because Ruthie was very picky about the
quality of her pictures. After he took the shot she always checked it,
and if a picture did not meet her satisfaction, she insisted it be
re-taken.
If she was wearing a dress, Mike usually took two pictures; one with her
dress on, and one without. After the first photo, she looked both ways
and if there were not cops in sight and no one nearby, pulled the dress
over her head, handed it to Mike, and resumed her posing position. She
wanted to make sure her clothes were completely out of the picture. If
an article of dropped or bunched up clothing appeared in a photo, the
image was not acceptable.
On any day they were going to be in an area they thought would be
tolerant of a person in daring clothing, Ruthie wore her infamous dress.
They visited several beach communities where her dress was allowed and
she was able to enjoy the feeling of the cool air on her exposed back
and hips. An obvious place for her to wear the dress would be San
Francisco, but a trip there promised to be more complicated due to the
drive and parking. That would have to wait until the spring semester.
Also, San Francisco had become too cold to run around in skimpy
clothing, too cold even for Ruthie.
----------
Ruthie and Mike spent Christmas apart. The holiday meant more to their
respective families than it did to the couple, so for both students the
vacation was nothing more than �putting in time� with their relatives.
On the day before Christmas Eve they ate a last lunch together and gave
each other simple gifts. Mike gave Ruthie a dress that was just like the
red one he bought for her in October, except that the new one was green.
Ruthie spent the tiny amount of money remaining from her salary to print
several large pictures from the collection of figure studies Mike had
taken of her and have them framed. They laughed about how fortunate it
was that they had the foresight to open their gifts ahead of time and
not put them under their families� trees, because neither wanted to
imagine the reaction of their relatives had they seen what Mike and
Ruthie gave each other.
Christmas was a day of apprehension for Ruthie, because the two events
that she was dreading would happen the following day. On the 26th Rosa
would travel to San Jose and from there leave for Boot Camp. She would
be gone from Ruthie�s life, the one member of her family Ruthie could
talk to and who seemed to her at least somewhat sane. Ruthie knew that
she would miss Rosa tremendously and badly wanted to hug her. That was
not to be, however, because Rosa was keeping her impending military
service a secret. Essentially, by joining the Army she was running away
from home. She would leave, and she would not be coming back. The last
time Ruthie saw Rosa was in the evening after Christmas dinner. Rosa was
drinking tequila, trying to build up the nerve to tell her parents what
she was planning to do the next morning. When she left with her mother,
she cast one last look at her cousin, convinced they would never see
each other again.
Rosa would have been reason enough for Ruthie to be distressed over
Christmas, but the much bigger worry of having to travel to Nebraska to
meet her father loomed over her. She desperately hoped that a snow-storm
would delay or cancel flights, or that some other problem would arise
that would prevent her from traveling. Had she still been religious she
would have prayed to Jesus to mess up the weather, but she knew from
experience God had given Ruthie Burns a rock-solid guarantee that any
prayers from her would go unanswered.
She also knew that her mother would be totally stressed about her and
would be praying non-stop. There would be justification for concern,
given how badly Jake had treated Lisette 15 years before, and how badly
he had treated Ruthie nine years later. However, in Ruthie�s situation
money spoke louder than anything else. Jake knew that. Regardless how
his daughter felt about him or what he had done to her, he could
purchase some of her time by paying her tuition.
Mike took Ruthie to the airport and went with her as far as the security
checkpoint. From there she was on her own. She was totally stressed. Not
only was she worried about what awaited her at the end of her journey,
but also she was nervous about flying. The last time she had been in an
airplane was six years ago, when that Meg-Air jet took her away from
Nebraska and from everything that she had ever known. Now she would be
making the same trip in reverse.
Several hours later Ruthie looked over the snowy drylands of her former
home state as her plane began its descent. She marveled at how flat that
land was; how from the air it looked like a vast brown and white ocean.
She knew from her geology major that�s exactly what Nebraska was; part
of a dried up inlet of the Gulf of Mexico. She thought about all of the
strange creatures that had once lived there: toothed birds and giant
sea-lizards, pterodactyls and sea turtles far bigger than anything on
the planet today. Her imagination wandered through the fossil record and
her mind filled with regret that all those fascinating creatures had
long since vanished, replaced by boring things such as prairie dogs and
coyotes. As her mind filled with visions of huge pterosaurs gracefully
circling over the calm Cretaceous waters, she thought about the futility
of life on the planet. All the effort those animals went though to pick
up fish for their young�but in the end they shouldn�t have bothered.
They went extinct anyway. Ruthie�s mind drifted to the present and to
the near future, when humans would join pterosaurs in the realm of
oblivion. She vaguely wondered if she would live to see the end.
The plane shook as it was buffeted by cross-winds. She panicked and
grabbed the handles of her seat as the aircraft shook from turbulence. A
few minutes later the shaking stopped, giving her a chance to calm down.
As the plane got closer to the ground she noticed dust rising from the
fields below, swirls of old sediments laid down during a bygone era. All
those fantastic creatures�now just a bunch of farmers� dust.
That�ll be us in a few years. Dust in the wind�thought Ruthie�all we are
is dust in the wind�
----------
Jake had previously instructed Ruthie to call him upon getting off the
plane so he could be watching for her when she left the secure area of
the terminal. That phone call was the first time she heard her father�s
voice in six years. The call was to-the-point, just an exchange of
information of what each was wearing.
It turned out to be fortunate that Jake had made that suggestion,
because otherwise she would not have recognized him. The first detail
about her father�s appearance that she had not expected was how much
smaller he was than she remembered him. She thought he had shrunk, but
in reality what had changed was Ruthie�s perspective: instead of seeing
him from the perspective of a young adolescent she was seeing him as an
adult. Instead of a hulking figure, in front of her was a man who was
not much taller than she was. Apart from his size was his over-all
appearance. He had put on weight, grown a beard, and was starting to go
bald. Not much was left of the handsome blond sailor that had captivated
Lisette nineteen years before. Not that the years had been any kinder to
Lisette than they had been to Jake: both of Ruthie�s parents had aged
badly.
Ruthie was fidgeting and looking down when her father hugged her. She
found it very difficult to look him in the eye. She was extremely
uncomfortable; it was only through exerting all of her self-control that
she forced herself not to run away. She did not have a clue what she
should say or how she react to what was going on. Jake asked her a bunch
of questions about her life in college, to which she responded with nods
and one-syllable answers.
Jake was irritated by his daughter�s uncommunicative behavior, but he
did not say anything that would spoil what he was trying to do: make up
with her. Unfortunately that part of her personality: her sideways
glances, fidgeting, and short answers grated on his patience every bit
as much as they had six years before. Neither Jake nor Ruthie realized
it at the time, but her difficulty communicating with people not
familiar to her was the main reason Debra disliked her so much. Jake�s
fianc�e had interpreted her behavior as rudeness. She was rude back,
which made Ruthie even less willing to talk to her. The situation
quickly deteriorated into mutual hatred.
When they left the terminal building to find Jake�s pickup truck, Ruthie
was shocked by the vicious cold in the parking garage. She was wearing
the warmest clothing she had, but during her six years in California she
had not once been in a place where the temperature was below freezing.
She was tremendously relieved to get out of the cold and into her
father�s pickup truck. The cold gave her and her father a chance to talk
about something neutral, the Nebraska weather, the climate in
California, and how Ruthie had forgotten all about the winters in
Lincoln. Jake commented:
�We need to get you a coat. What you have on ain�t gonna cut it around
here.�
So, the very first thing they did was go to a mall so Ruthie could get a
coat. After the mall they stopped at a kindergarten. There was a
tremendous surprise waiting there: it turned out Ruthie had a
half-brother called Jake Junior. Jake explained that the boy was from
his relationship with Debra. When they split up they got joint custody
of him, but now that Debra was going out with another guy, Jake Junior
was spending most of his time living with his father. Ruthie had no idea
what to say. More than anything else she was stressed that Debra was not
completely out of her father�s life after-all, although it was nice to
know she was with another guy. The shock of having a half-brother
registered slowly: a relative that she hadn�t known about at all.
However, like the weather, Jake Junior offered a welcome distraction
from the tense silence between Jake and Ruthie. Jake Sr., happy that his
two kids were together for the first time, took them out for pizza. From
the pizza place they went home. It was dark, but Ruthie could see
that on the outside the house had not changed, that detail for detail it
was as she remembered it. Her old room was still there as well, although
over the years the furniture had been moved around and the nightstand
had been replaced. Jake mentioned that he had kept most of Ruthie�s
stuff from when she was a kid, but it was boxed up in the attic and that
if she wanted to go through any of the boxes, she�d have to wait until
it was light outside.
Jake asked Ruthie to help put her brother to bed. She still could not
believe that the kid in front of her was her relative. Subconsciously
she had expected that nothing in Nebraska had changed apart from
everyone getting a bit older. She also felt some unexpected sympathy for
Jake Jr., thinking how much it would suck to be Debra�s kid. The very
fact that she was putting the boy to bed instead of Debra said a lot
about Debra as a person.
----------
Jake had to go to work most of the days Ruthie was staying at his house,
which left her alone with her thoughts during the days. She spent the
next week wandering about Lincoln and walking around her old
neighborhood in the bitter cold. She wanted to see all of the places
familiar to her six years before and try to come to terms with her
memories. She visited her grade school and her middle school; both of
which had let out for Christmas. She wandered the empty hallways and
went into the classrooms where she had been assigned. She knew that some
of her old teachers were still working at the schools she had attended,
but she had no desire whatsoever to run into them or let any of them
know what had become of her. She had returned to the school to renew her
own memories, not to share herself with anyone else. Nor was she
interested in tracking down any of her friends from middle school,
because she felt they had betrayed her by not writing.
She realized that the passing of time gave her anonymity. It was
probable that people she had known years before passed her in their cars
or even on the sidewalk, but no one ever recognized her. On the final
day of the year, she walked right by a middle-aged couple that she
recognized as the parents of one of her friends. They did not know who
she was and she did not try to draw their attention, so one chance for
renewing contact with her former life came and went.
She visited her grandmother�s grave twice during her trip. For a long
time she stared at the tombstone and momentarily regretted being an
atheist. She wished that she could imagine feeling her grandmother�s
presence; that she could talk to the tombstone with the conviction that
the woman who raised her was listening to her from �the other side�. It would
have been comforting to think that she could have told her grandmother
that she was doing OK and that she still remembered her and loved her.
However, such comfort was a luxury that Ruthie would never have. She did
not believe in Life after Death. Her grandmother was gone and nothing
remained of her except some decaying bones under a carved piece of
granite and the details of the conversations stored in Ruthie�s
memories. Ruthie had no means of communicating with her, because, like
the pterosaurs, her grandmother had vanished into oblivion and no longer
existed. It would have been nice to believe otherwise.
Ruthie went to her father�s attic and rummaged through the boxes,
looking at her old toys and books as part of her effort to reconnect
with her past. There were a lot of things in the attic she wished she
could have taken with her when her father kicked her out, that she
deeply regretted not having when she moved to California. And yet,
perhaps it was better that she did not take what was precious to her in
Nebraska, because those things would have tied her even more to her past
and make the transition to her new life in Salinas even more difficult.
Her things sat in the attic for six years, ignored and undisturbed, but
also momentarily protected from the ravages of time. She thought about
taking some of her old items with her, but figured that no, if her
father was willing to keep them it would be better to leave them where
they would be safe instead of bringing them into her uncertain life in
California. There was no guarantee that she would not end up committing
suicide after-all and she did not want to think that as a result her
stuff would end up in a dumpster somewhere in Santa Cruz. Ruthie closed
the boxes and left the attic.
----------
It was fortunate that Jake Burns was not the type of person who felt
that every problem and personal conflict had to be straightened out
immediately. His daughter spent her entire time in Nebraska dreading
being forced into a serious conversation about her relationship with her
father, but that never came. Instead, Jake was content to let things
happen naturally. If Ruthie wanted to talk, that was fine; if not, then
that was fine too. Ruthie�s father figured that if she had a reasonably
good time in his house and there were no unpleasant incidents; she�d be
willing to come back in the future and over time he could fix his
relationship with her.
Little by little Ruthie felt more at ease when around her father. She
knew that he was neither intellectual nor introspective, so there were a
lot of conversations she never could have with him. Nor was Jake Burns
the type of person who easily showed emotion or affection. That detail
was fortunate for the relationship with his daughter because she was not
in the mood to deal with or respond to affection and love from her
estranged relative. The best Jake could hope for would be to
re-establish contact with his daughter and get her to be willing to come
back periodically. He knew that. Anyhow, Ruthie was only a small part of
Jake�s life. He had his son to worry about, along his newest girlfriend,
his job, and his group of friends.
He wasn�t sure what to do about her tuition for the following year. He
had been taken aback when he found out how much Ruthie had to pay each
semester. Although he did not have any debts, he certainly did not have
enough money to keep up those tuition payments. He figured that
California was just too expensive: at some point he would have to �have
a talk� with his daughter and convince her that the only logical option
would be for her to study in Nebraska. The best time for �the talk�
would be sometime over the summer.
----------
Besides worrying about avoiding a serious conversation about their
relationship, there were various other topics Ruthie avoided during her
week in Nebraska. A major item she needed to stay away from was
politics. Her father was a militant Republican, the sort that voted on
�God, Guns, and Gays� issues. He was into conspiracy theories,
sympathetic to property rights and militia movements, and supported
abolishing most of the Federal Government.
There were plenty of contradictions in his political positions. One of
the biggest was his stand on religion. He fully supported the Republican
vision of mixing religion and politics, of having mega-churches and
Christian front organizations set social policy for the country. And
yet, Jake very rarely went to church, had gone out with various women
with no intention whatsoever of getting married, and spent his life
going to strip bars and drinking with his friends. Most definitely he
did not lead a �Godly life�. It was ironic that a lot of what he enjoyed
doing would be prohibited by the very people he was supporting with his
bumper stickers and at the voting booth.
Ruthie realized that her father was not exactly a hypocrite. He simply
could not make the connection between his own behavior and the
politicians he was supporting. He did not have the education to reflect,
nor did he try to really comprehend what was going on around him. He was
content to have his politics dictated to him by talk radio, just as
Ruthie�s mother was content to have her perspective on life dictated to
her by a preacher. Jake was totally the opposite of Mike, who analyzed
everything in detail in his effort to understand what had happened to
his father�s business, and expand that understanding to figuring out why
the United States was in the condition it was in.
----------
When Ruthie was not wandering her neighborhood or looking at the
contents of the boxes stored in her father�s attic, she rode around
Lincoln with Jake and Jake Jr. She listened to her father�s talk-radio
programs babbling about �traditional American values� and the marvels of
selfish individualism and unrestricted capitalism. She looked around at
all the SUV�s and oversized pick-up trucks, and at the multitude of
evangelical churches that surrounded her. Physically she was miserable
because the bitter cold tore into her whenever she went outside.
Ruthie spent New Year�s Eve alone in the house, taking care of Jake Jr.
Her father and his girlfriend celebrated with some friends at a bar,
taking advantage of having Ruthie in the house to baby-sit. She put her
half-brother to bed at 9:00. Once the boy was asleep she relieved her
tension by masturbating. She was in bed by 10:30, not bothering to stay
up until midnight.
The day after New Year�s Ruthie�s father took her to the airport. Jake
was in an upbeat mood, thinking that he had repaired the relationship
with his daughter. He still did not realize how traumatized she was from
what he had done to her six years before. The trip to the airport was
the hardest part of the entire week for Ruthie, because she started
having flashbacks of the previous time she had made the journey, six
years before. Jake, blinded by love for a woman, had taken his daughter
to the airport and tossed her into the void, not really caring what
happened to her upon her arrival in California. Had he known about the
difficult transition that awaited her in Salinas, he would have been
glad, figuring it would be good punishment for �giving him shit�.
After forcing herself to hug her father goodbye, Ruthie found the flight
that would take her to California. The flashbacks intensified once she
took her seat. She imagined that she could see herself as a terrified
12-year-old, hugging her backpack as the plane carried her away from her
former life and trying to comprehend what her father had just done to
her.
She had hugged her father goodbye. She would hug Mike in San Jose when
he picked her up. She would hug her mother upon returning to Salinas.
She wished she didn�t have to touch any of them. The person she wanted
to hug was not her boyfriend or any of her relatives, but herself. She
imagined sitting next to herself six years ago�and trying to�to do what?
Tell her 12-year-old self that everything was going to be OK? Well, that
would have been a lie. When she got to Salinas nothing was OK. Her life
sucked�but then it would have sucked had she stayed behind in Nebraska,
dealing with Debra and her kid.
No matter where I would�ve gone, my life would�ve sucked.
Home�she had always thought of Jake�s house as home�just as she had
always said that Nebraska was home to her. �I�m not from Salinas�I just
live there right now. Actually I�m from Nebraska.� Much of Lincoln was
as she remembered it in its physical detail, but she knew that didn�t
matter. The Lincoln of her memories, the place that she had idealized,
had been nothing more than an illusion. The house and the neighborhood
were still there, right in front of her, and detail for detail the way
she remembered. But now, after finally returning, the place of her
childhood had a hostile and alien feel for her. It turned out Ruthie
Burns wasn�t from Nebraska at all. She no more belonged in Lincoln than
she belonged in Salinas, or Davenport, or Culiacan.
So, she truly was an outsider, a homeless soul destined to spend her
existence looking through the windows of life into places she could
never settle.
----------
Mike picked up his girlfriend in San Jose, just as he promised. The trip
to Salinas was very difficult, because she was unable to put into words
what had happened to her in Lincoln. She was silent and moody.
Mike became nervous and started up with a lecture about how glad he was
that the Christmas season was over and that the annual orgy of
materialism had finally come to an end. He gloated that national sales
figures looked bad, even for Mega-Mart, but then Ruthie cut him short.
�Mike�I�uh�I�m really not interested in hearing about that right now.�
Mike was deeply hurt and chastened by her rebuke. She did not seem happy
to see him. However, he knew Ruthie well enough to understand she was
�in one of her moods�. Hopefully whatever was bothering her had nothing
to do with him.
He said nothing more and the couple spent the rest of their trip to
Salinas in tense silence.
