Carpet Rash and White Trashed Page 3
9/7/2002

Trailer Parking for Blue Sparking

While Diane's stuff was parked back at the Christian Coral awaiting the opening of the Carmichael apartment, Diane herself was going to be parked at her sister Dianna's (Don't ask. But no, they aren't twins. Diane is three years older than Dianna. Parents just ran out of imagination I guess.) in a Trailer Park called the Vista Linda (yeah, ambitious to say the least) at the three corners where Rio Linda, El Verde, and North Highlands meet, an unholy trinity of white trashdom.

We pulled into the Trailer Park off of Roseville Road. Though there were several streets, they were all called Vista Linda Lane. The trailers were numbered, 1 through 402. About 50 feet inside the entrance, we came to a dead stop and face to face with a corpulent kid in the middle of the road who had a belly the size of a medicine ball, wearing a white "FREE STONE COLD" t-shirt that Diane at 5'10" could've worn as a very comfortable dress. He just sort of stared at us as if he were a cow.

"What the..." Diane muttered.

The kid finally scooted out of the way with leaden feet after a few seconds. He followed us with wide zombie eyes as we passed. Nothing registered on the blank face.

"Geesh," went Diane.

Dianna lived in trailer 187. "That's the police code for murder," Diane pointed out.

"Bodes well for you," I said.

Diane just gave me the "you're a freak" look.

The double-damn-wide was filled with stuffed animals, not unusual for young women in their early twenties who still retained a clitoral-centric sexuality and had not yet reached a vaginal-centric one as a Freudian might say. Geez, can't the vagina and clitoris live together as one big happy fun zone? I hadn't even met the two occupants of the trailer and I was already damning them through the lens of a somewhat twisted, often disproved German shrink whose fame had done nothing for the world but make it overanalyze the most simple human instincts and given us a name for certain slips of the tongue.

The other occupant of the trailer was Diane and Dianna's cousin, Faith Hope. Yes, everyone called her by those two names- her first and middle. To make matters worse, her last name was Gleason. Such a name made me wonder about the parents of this 20-year-old young woman who was spending her last weekend in Sacto before heading back for year two at Chico State. They were either very poetic, very optimistic, or really, really desperate. From the pictures of Faith Hope's parents, I think they were the latter.

Despite the fact that Faith Hope was going back to Chico for the semester, she was going to keep the room in Sacto. Diane was going to get the couch, at least on weekends when Faith Hope was back.

We dumped a few boxes of clothes in the living room floor and headed back out the door, and toward the car. We were ready to attack the last loads of boxes and furniture. We still didn't have a truck to move the furniture in.

Just as we stepped out the door, a green Mazda Truck pulled in the driveway. Dianna and Faith Hope jumped out. Dianna looked like Diane, only a wee bit shorter and with strawberry blonde hair rather than straight blonde.

Faith Hope was maybe 5'4". She had a small upturned nose like Bob Hope's and shoulder length black hair pulled back into a ponytail. Her skin was brown. Most striking were her magnetic brown eyes. They pierced you, then sucked you in.

"What the hell is this doing in the middle of the floor?" screamed Dianna from inside the trailer.

"I'll move it when I get back," Diane yelled back from the driveway as we walked back to the street and her car.

"Move it now!" came the response.

We went back in.

I laid on the carpet floor sprawled like a cowboy crucifix in my steel toes, shades, and Kings hat while Diane moved her stuff and argued with her sister. Faith Hope sat on the couch and we laughed at the them.

I was already beat. I wanted to go to sleep right there, but Faith Hope jolted me. I turned on some charm, made some jokes, made her laugh.

Diane got her stuff squared away and the sister act died down.

Faith Hope said she'd cook us dinner when we were done.

I was glad. Diane and I headed back out to finish off the furniture. While driving back to the old North Sac apartment, I kept thinking, "I'm gonna sleep with Faith Hope."

Moved

Everything was suddenly soft, warm and dreamlike. The pink, purple, and burnt-orange sunset was a saturated tableau that absorbed every molecule of body and soul. I was transformed into the universal baby of Kubrick 2001 floating over the much-maligned Valley, this city of Sacramental, Sacratomato, Sackatomatoes. Suddenly, I understood the place and why I was here as a faint tinge of poetry resonated right through me and pulsed through my veins like so much Morphine, rendering contentment and welcomed relief from the pain. It all came together at that moment and life seemed to make sense again. If for no other reason, despite the debacles and the heartaches, the crushes and the abandonment, I came to the Northern Valley for this moment. No matter if I never saw Faith Hope again or was killed the next moment in a fiery car crash, I'd connected with someone on such a subliminal, dare I say, subatomic, level that it didn't even hit me until she was out of sight. It was one of the purest, most primeval things I'd ever felt, and damn it felt good to be human and alive again. Six years of toil and labor and acting the stern part of the working professional flushed away in minutes. Pinnochio was a boy again.

Diane yammered on about mainly how pissed she was at Craig and Ruth. I feigned interest the best I could as my mind drifted further and further away, Faith Hope's eyes still piercing me. I imagined them floating out in the space in the sky above the strip centers and shopping malls along Watt Avenue.

We borrowed preacher dad's van that he used for his side vending machine gig. It was huge. We got all the furniture in two loads. We left all of it on the back deck at the parsonage, so all of Diane's furniture is going to be outdoors for two weeks. I sleepwalked through the whole thing. Diane said things, lots of things, as did preacher dad and her brother, Bob, who was a big redneck kind of guy. I didn't hear any of it. I only remember snatches of images, like Bob getting onto a riding lawn mower, and trying for about ten minutes to start it, and thinking that he was just way too big to be on the thing, and that it would probably topple over if he took a corner too sharply. It was like a Shriner parade, Bob on that mower. I could see the blades whirring as Bob and mower laid on their sides. It got funnier the more I imagined it. I laughed out loud at the image, and didn't realize it until Diane went, "What?"

"What's so funny?"

"Huh.." I said.

"You were laughing."

"Oh, I was?"

I got yet another "you're a freak" look.

I started to calculate. This was something that I had not done in years. How was I gonna hook-up with Faith Hope?

The odds were against me. The plan was this: 1) get all furniture moved to Pa's; 2) Go to Wally World to get Fred and Fanny supplies; 3) dinner at Vista Linda Trailer 187; 4) take Joe and his love seat home. Oh yeah, I was getting a love seat out of the deal, too. It was the only thing that would fit in my apartment. I was offered a couch, but it was about 20 feet long, and there's no way I could've gotten it into my apartment and maintained even the merest shred of feng shui. The damn thing would've taken over, and I would've spent more time going around the thing than actually sitting on it. Besides, when I did use it, I probably just would've have fallen asleep on it, and that's hardly productive. No. Thanks for the offer on the couch, but no thanks. I'll take the Love Seat for free, Phil. It fits nicely in my little kitchen nook right under a big light so I can sit and read Pauline Kael, Siggie Freud, Jung, Octavio Paz, Gabe Garcia-Marquez, Salinger, and other malfeasant malingerers to my heart's content with a cushy booty to boot. Besides, I liked the way it sounded. Free Love Seat. A seat for free love. Bade (bodes? whatever, as you can tell oh gentle and generous reader, your hackmeister tries not to be too tense about his tenses) well, methinks.

So the best tactic was going to be a delay tactic, sort of like Italian soccer's catanaccio or padlock. Score a goal, and then hold on to that one-nil lead with all you've got. But instead of holding on to a one goal lead, I wanted to hold on to my place on the floor, couch, bed, or whatever next to Faith Hope. But knocking that goal home was far from a lock. But the opportunity certainly felt like it was presenting itself. Moreover, while traipsing through the Wally World pet aisles, it was plain to see that Diane was clearly exhausted. Dinner would most likely do her in. I was betting on it. Perhaps we could put off step 4 until tomorrow.

I was wide awake again, despite the fact that every muscle I had hurt like hell. My calves were mincemeat from walking up and down stairways again and again with an armload of boxes, or the front or back end of a piece of furniture. My knees felt like giant hands were squeezing them to the point of pain. They were stiff and inflexible. It was like walking on stilts. I could feel this walking through Wally World, but it didn't bother me too much. My brain was somewhat on the juiced side.

"Gosh, I can't believe I'm spending $40 on the cats," Diane muttered.

A young couple passed by, and hearing Diane, the woman commented, "It's always that way."

I turned to them, sneaking my arm around Diane's shoulders, "And she only spent five bucks on me!"

The couple burst out laughing.

"I know where her priorities are," I said.

The remark only coaxed a very droopy "you are weird" smirk from an about-to-drop Diane.

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