we ended up in El Paso?” Papa asked.
Normally he was a man of few words and even fewer vacations. But now he was taking me on one and struggling awkwardly to make conversation. Papa’s words were forced. His behavior was out of the ordinary. It made me uncomfortable, as if his attempts to talk to me added to the heaviness I already felt in my chest. Strangely, I started to feel angry. I imagined myself pushing his words back at him so hard that they would fly past his face and out of the car window. Then they’d bounce along the highway until they finally rolled to stop by some Okie’s worn-out mattress, abandoned by the side of the road. Papa continued to speak.
“Yes, Papa,” I finally answered, looking out my window, not knowing what else to say. “But tell me again,” I said, reflexively polite.
Although I’ve always loved and respected my father, would not have hurt him for the world, and valued honesty, I was lying to him. I had about as much interest in listening to that misa (story) as I had in taking that damned trip to California. When I was younger, I loved his stories. It never bothered me that I’d heard them all before. I was just grateful to spend time with him and to connect any way I could. Although I never had any children of my own, I now realize how important it is for a father to connect with his son. It was particularly important at that time of painful transition in my life.
By the time he had finished his story, we had driven into Lordsburg and needed to stop for gas, a toilet break, and a soda pop.
Back then, the culinary options for Jews who kept kosher, like us, were limited. Sure, there were lots of choices in New York or Chicago but not where we were. There wasn’t even a deli in El Paso, let alone food for us in the badlands of New Mexico; so Mama had packed sandwiches of leftover brisket on challah, purple plums, and some of her pecan cookies.
We ate our supper without speaking, sitting on the charred stumps of two oak trees by the side of the road. Papa seemed to be wary of our surroundings. He kept glancing from the road to where our Ford was parked, as if expecting someone. I was just beginning to understand why people constantly need to be looking over their shoulders.
“I’m going to get some sleep,” I said as we pulled out of the filling station. I was determined to avoid any further conversation.
I looked away from him and out my window. My attention was drawn to the Big Dipper and then to the North Star. They were so clear in the dark desert sky. By the time we hit the Arizona state line it was past midnight. Despite the darkness, the nighttime temperature still hovered at an uncomfortable one hundred degrees.
My clothes clung to my sweaty body. I reached my right arm out the open window to try to escape the claustrophobic heat in that confining car. Even though I knew what to expect, I was surprised by the temperature of the sirocco. It scorched me. The burning wind divided around my arm, a colossal peninsula of flesh and bone; my outstretched fingers, fiords.
Just outside of Phoenix, I woke with a start as our car skidded off the road. It was lucky for us my father hadn’t been driving very fast.
“I’m sorry, Jakey. I must have dozed off,” Papa said.
A few minutes later he pulled the Model T to the side of the road to get some rest. He parked under a stand of saguaro cactus silhouetted by the light from a late-rising sickle moon. Papa immediately began to snore.
I was restless and couldn’t sleep. I looked over at him and wondered what would become of me. I still didn’t understand why we had come on that trip. Money was tight and vacations were rare. Why did he take me and not Mama and my brothers? Why had he chosen that time for our road trip? After a while, the questions and concerns that were filling my head were drowned out by a symphony of palo verde beetles, cicadas, and crickets. I drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
If it hadn’t been for a flat tire just outside of Indio where boards, not asphalt, served as the road, we would have made it to Santa Monica—or as some of my parents’ friends called it, the Coney Island of the West—by morning. Instead we arrived at noon.
I would learn that my father was a practical man. He had a clearly defined agenda for our trip. I had no idea that fishing wasn’t the primary purpose of our holiday.
As soon as we checked in to the beachfront hotel where we were to stay, Papa suggested we take a walk on Santa Monica’s bustling streets. We were supposed to be looking for a fishing store to buy gear for our excursion the next day. I was tired, but Papa insisted.
We walked up Ocean Avenue towards Wilshire Boulevard. People constantly stared at me. Papa seemed oblivious; he just ignored all the attention. I wished I could have. He stopped and spoke in English and Yiddish with passersby on almost every block. At first I just stood by in silence, clenching my jaw and gritting my teeth, wishing I’d never come on that trip. I hated all the attention. When people stared at me like they did that afternoon in Santa Monica, I wished to be invisible; that I would actually disappear. But after two hours of trudging all over Santa Monica and encountering an infinite number of gaping strangers, I’d had enough. I couldn’t take it anymore. My head throbbed with one of my all-too-frequent headaches.
We were walking away from a small grocery store. He had spent ten minutes chatting with the business’s apron-clad owner who had been sweeping the sidewalk. I stopped abruptly, spun around, and looked down at Papa.
“We’ve been walking for two hours. You’ve stopped and talked to more people than a Tammany Hall politician: Polacks, Hungarians, Galizianas, even Litvaks. Here’s a bait and tackle shop we’ve already passed three times,” I snarled, pointing to a sign above a store. “Papa, what in the Sam Hill is going on?”
He smiled sheepishly.
“Jakey, do you still mind the people?” Papa’s question took the wind out of my sails long enough for me to think about what had been happening on our walk.
“Do you mean to tell me that all this searching for fishing gear was just to get me out with the crowd?” Even though I glared down at him, my father, like little David sizing up Goliath, stood his ground.
“Just answer my question,” he said firmly.
“I can’t believe . . . !” Exasperated, I took a deep breath, inflating my cheeks like a blowfish. I sighed, hesitated, then closed my eyes and shook my head in frustration. Finally, sensing what Papa needed to hear, I tried to placate him. “Well I . . . I . . . I guess I don’t mind them. Well anyway, not as much as I did before.” I struggled to hide my sarcasm, sure I didn’t sound convincing.
Papa looked up at me and unloaded both barrels of what he’d been thinking.
“You’ve got to toughen up, kid. Just because they are looking doesn’t mean that they are laughing at you or that they know anything about you.”
Without uttering another word, Papa spun around on his heels and entered the fishing store. For about a minute I remained frozen, staring in disbelief at the empty space where he had stood an instant before. Back then my father knew just what to say to exasperate me, particularly when he said something I really needed to hear.
XXXX
That night, after a dinner of herring, corn beef, and cabbage stuffed with rice and raisins at a nearby kosher restaurant, Papa and I returned to the boardwalk. Then we stepped onto the beach, took off our shoes and socks, and rolled up our trousers. The tide was out. I ran a zigzag pattern out to where tiny waves lapped up on the beach and back to Papa. He strolled in the hard-packed sand closer to the shore. After two days of driving through the
