Waking Anastasia (6 page)

In addition to his camera gear and computer bag, he grabbed one box from the back of the Jeep, to keep safe in the motel room with him and Sushi. The further he travelled from home, away from his family, the more Jerry thought about the odd little treasures left to him by his great-grandfather, and the more he felt the need to protect them. They were pieces of his own history, far more than silly knick-knacks, and definitely worthy of care.

He fed Sushi, drank a glass of cold South Dakota tap water, and climbed between the crisp, starched motel sheets. Sleep caught up with him almost as soon as he clicked off the mock-brass bedside lamp.

SOMETHING WAS CHANGED
. She sensed warmth that had been missing. She stretched and moved out of the darkness, and found herself in a simple room. She couldn’t see clearly, but it seemed to have basic, blocky furniture devoid of any adornments, including a desk on which a small fish bowl sat. She watched the beautiful red and purple beauty swim back and forth as if it could see her. Eventually it settled down and relaxed just above the gravel on the bottom of the simple bowl. She found it peaceful to just watch the fins and gills move. Did it sleep? She had no idea. Drifting around the hazy room, she wandered through the bed and inadvertently passed through its occupant. She got a sense of a young man and backed away quickly, embarrassed to have invaded his privacy even in the dream. Her dark cocoon soon beckoned to her so she willingly returned to its familiarity.

EXCITEMENT WOKE HIM
earlier the next morning than he’d planned, and an odd dream he’d had about a pretty girl watching over him in silence stuck with him as he fixed himself a cup of decaf, had a quick shower, packed everything up, and loaded it all into the Jeep. Eventually thoughts of seeing Rushmore pushed the dream girl into the background.

Despite a light dusting of snow, man and fish were off before sunrise in an attempt to make it across the state to the Black Hills to see Mount Rushmore by lunch. He knew Sushi didn’t give a damn about where they had lunch, but Jerry felt that if they could get there by mid-day, he could take some time to see one of the great man-made wonders of the modern world. For him, Rushmore was to be the highlight of the whole road trip. As he’d told Isis when they’d gone over his itinerary the night before he left, there were two reasons he was driving through the U.S.—to avoid much of the Canadian prairie winter weather, and to see Mount Rushmore. They’d spent an hour on her laptop looking up the mountain-carved monument on Wikipedia, and before they were done, Isis was so excited that she wanted to go with him just so she could see the faces of the four presidents carved into the side of a mountain.

“That is too cool, Jerry! Take lots of pictures and email them to me. Promise?”

“I promise, Kiddo.”

WITHIN THE INKY
blackness enveloping and winding through her, she could sense motion again, as if the darkness was on the move. She lacked the energy to stretch beyond her prison again, and she wanted to cry out, for anyone, friend of foe, but she still couldn’t find her voice. Exhausted, she was isolated, suspended . . . lost.

@TheTaoOfJerr: “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.”

~Plato

JERRY DIDN’T ARRIVE
in Custer, South Dakota until after lunch, but that was only because he’d spent an hour wandering around Wall Drugs—“America’s Biggest Roadside Attraction”. He bought a carved, lifelike, two-inch tall rattlesnake for Isis, and got the requisite free bumper sticker from the bin at the exit from one of the shops, but in his excitement to reach Rushmore, he was disappointed in the massive Wild West tourist trap in the simply-named town of Wall. Under different circumstances, he thought he probably could have appreciated the shops, galleries, and museums more, but the Jeep’s tires spit gravel and snow as he fled the parking lot and made his way back to I-90 and west to the turnoff south to the town of Custer and Mount Rushmore.

HE COULD HAVE
spent years researching the mountain-tall memorial and still not been prepared for the thrill of seeing it in person, towering above him, beyond the Avenue of the Flags, the Grand View Terrace, and the amphitheatre. Someone back east had once told him that they were disappointed with how small the memorial was, but standing there, looking up at its immensity, Jerry had to wonder what the hell they were expecting if they considered this small. He was blown away.

Knowing that he couldn’t leave Sushi in the Jeep for too long without heat, he snapped pictures from every angle imaginable, walked the short Presidential Trail, ducked into the Lincoln Borglum Museum, and scooted through the gift shop in record time. He hated to leave the magnificence of Gutzon Borglum’s masterpiece of engineering, but the mountain temperatures were dropping quickly, the forecast was for wet snow out of nearby Wyoming, and Sushi, patient and sturdy though he was, deserved to spend the night in a warm hotel room.

He promised himself that someday soon he’d return to fully appreciate the human and natural history of the Black Hills, then Jerry reluctantly drove back north to I-90 and west into Wyoming. A roast beef sandwich and an orange Gatorade grabbed in Rapid City kept his stomach from growling too much, but just south of Sheridan, Wyoming, at almost 4000 feet above sea level, a headache hit like a bullet to the brain.

With one hand pressed against his temple to feebly try and suppress the chainsaw in his head, and one eye barely open, Jerry swerved off the highway and into a closed truck weigh scale. As soon as the Jeep skidded to a stop, he slammed it into PARK, staggered out into the snow, and collapsed, vomiting up the orange mess that had once been the sandwich and the sports drink. Gentle flakes of loving snow drifted calmly down to blanket him in a thin layer of cooling, crisp white, but it took plunging his head face-first into a snow drift to push the pain back.

The sword of agony was eventually supplanted by the spear of cold, so Jerry hauled himself to his feet and stumbled to the still-running Jeep. A quick look at his watch said that he’d only been there for ten minutes, but he felt like it had been years. He rinsed his mouth out with warm water from the bottle in the console, popped in some gum, and pulled back out onto the quiet interstate. Twenty minutes later he and Sushi were in a beige room in a beige motel somewhere just off the interstate. Sushi gobbled up the food flakes Jerry dropped in his bowl while Jerry nibbled a Subway tuna wrap and sipped Coke in a feeble attempt to resurrect his blood sugar. He fell asleep with Garth Brooks’ “The Beaches of Cheyenne” whispering out of the tinny clock radio, courtesy of Sheridan’s own KYTI 93.7, and slept until nine the next morning.

SHE SENSED A
great deal of pain nearby and so stayed in her darkness. Although she was curious about the young man she had bumped into in that stark dream room, the great pain frightened her and hinted that something may have happened to herself recently that involved more pain than she could ever imagine. She curled around herself and pushed all thoughts of agony away.

THE HEADACHE STAYED
close to the surface this time, so the next day and a half were a bit of a blur for Jerry as he continued west until he could drive no more. He reached Missoula, Montana and found a clean bed and a hot bath, having driven like an automaton, not fully appreciating the stunning snow-dressed scenery as he’d passed through it. His reflexes kept him safe on the road and his body told him when to eat, so it was just miles of asphalt, gas stations, and roadside eateries, which continued the next mentally hazy day all the way to Seattle and up to Port Angeles. He missed the last ferry of the day across to Vancouver Island by a couple hours, so he once again fed Sushi, fed himself, and hit the sack in a convenient motel.

THE PAIN SHE
sensed subsided eventually, and beneath the sense of movement within the darkness, there was now an ancient, ceaseless rhythm, a deep pulse like the sea she had once dipped her toes in. She had toes? Maybe not now, but she was certain that she once had, and they had felt the rhythm of waves and the pull of a tide. Serenity enveloped her, and she drifted into something more like a sleep than the usual limbo.

A DENNY’S BREAKFAST
of raspberry pancakes and scrambled eggs all smothered in maple syrup fuelled him up for the day, but it took a conversation with ferry-ticket-seller Rachelle—a cute, pierced, and tattooed platinum blonde—to finally drag him away from the world of the living dead and into the light.

“So, dude, we were house-boating up off the Sunshine Coast when Shade, like, was hanging a chummed line off the stern and smoking a home-rolled, when the rod was near yanked from his hand. He stuffed the rolly between his lips and started the fight of his life. He was no rookie, though, dude. He let the line out and let whatever it was run. It didn’t go far, though. Once it thought the threat was gone, it chilled. Shade passed the smoke and started a slow reel in. He’d reel for a minute, feel the resistance build, and let it out. Then he’d reel a bit more, and then let it out. All the time, man, he was pulling it in, closer and closer, tiring it out, wearing it down. Judging by the bend on that deep-sea rod, we figured he had a salmon-and-a-half on the line.

“He danced with this baby for an hour before he finally got it up to the port side where we rushed with the net. We nearly crapped ourselves when we saw it. Man, it was a beauty.”

“What was it? A Coho? Sockeye?”

“
Shark
, dude.”

“Shark? No way!”

“Way. It was just a little thing, a meter, meter-and-a-half, but it was big enough to snap the line when we tried to get a net under it.”

“Cool.”

“Beyond cool. But that’s life on the Strait, dude.”

The morning was slow, and Rachelle was hopped up on Red Bull and happy to chat chat chat about the Port, and her many visits north to The Island to party with her cousin Rod in Nanaimo. By the time the
M.V. Coho
ferry pulled out of port with Jerry on the outside deck, he’d rediscovered his smile.

Exhausted, but relaxed, Jerry sat by himself on the deck, in the wan, early morning sun. The light snowfall stopped and the clouds parted, just for his departure, it seemed to him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, taking in the sea air, purging the road grime and exhaust fumes of the last five days. Seagulls screeched and wheeled in the sky above the ferry, begging for handouts from the few passengers brave enough to face the near-freezing, moist, winter air of the strait, but Jerry paid no attention to either them nor to the less-than-perfect weather. The thick, tangy, sea breeze intoxicated him, drawing out his exhaustion and scattering it far and wide. With his camera tucked inside his heavy red jacket, and a steaming, hot decaf in his gloved hand, he was at peace.
I could get used to being near the ocean
, he thought. He took a couple snap shots with his iPhone and emailed them to Isis before sitting back, closing his eyes, and surrendering to the moment completely.

SHORTLY AFTER NINE
, Jerry called Manny from the ship.

“Tell me you’re here, Jerry! Tell me my new star station manager is in town!”

“About half-an-hour out, or so one of the regular passengers just told me.”

“The ferry from Tsawassan?”

“From where? I’m coming over from Port Angeles. I drove through the States the whole way.”

“Right-oh, mate. You’re on the
Coho
, then. Good ship and true and all that. Your flat is all ready for you. You want the address and I’ll meet you there, or do you want to come to the station and pick up the keys?”

“Do you mind meeting me at the apartment? I have it programmed into Maggie-Sue, my GPS. It’s been a long trip and I’d like to clean up before meeting the team at the station. Or are they expecting me today?”

“Tomorrow’s soon enough, young fella. That’s one helluva long drive to do alone, so you take the night. Your stuff has been arriving all week, and the boxes are all sitting in the middle of the flat waiting for you to turn it into a home. I left the furniture like you saw in the photos I emailed over, and we found a couple beauty chairs on the weekend that I’ve tossed in, but don’t feel obligated to take ’em. I’ve got two other rental properties I can use ’em in.”

“Sounds great, Manny. I really do appreciate everything you’ve done.”

“You’re one of the family now, Jerry, and family takes care of each other. Besides, I’m going to get my time and money’s worth out of you—there’s a lot of work to be done to get us through this downturn. But all that can wait another day or two, mate. Give me a call when you’re about to dock and I’ll make my way over to the flat.”

“Will do. I’ll let you get back to work.”

“Yeah, must do—year end and all. Finally see you in an hour or so, Jerr.”

“Yeah, I guess you will, Manny. I’m looking forward to it.”

Jerry disconnected, dropped the phone back into his pocket, and relaxed. He was tempted to put the headphones on and listen to some soul-fixing jazz, but the hum of the ship’s engine, the cry of the gulls, and the rhythm of the sea were all the music he needed, so far from where he’d started only days before.