Bermuda Shorts - James Patterson [15]
Winston Churchill once said that “A success is someone who can go from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.”
Long after I turned the key on Huidekoper, I remain its devotee.
That Was Then,
This Is The Pheromones
“There is no use knowing what is to be; for it is wretched to be tormented to no purpose.” —Montaigne quoting Cicero, c. 1588
“Look at it this way, if we don’t go, we’ll never regret not staying home.” —Alvis Pheromone, c. 1988
This is exactly the type of remark for which my partner is nearly famous. I am about to tell him so. Angrily. He is three hours late and I could tell by the sound of the van as it chugged down the street that it hasn’t been fixed. Because he’s so late, we’ll now have to hump it down the highway late into the night in order to make it to the upper Midwest all the way from Washington, D.C., in time to make our sound check tomorrow night. He’s been gulping down coffee, which means he’ll take the first shift and drive until it wears off and he gets sleepy. Then he’ll give me the wheel. There will be no coffee available then, it will be dark, and, as soon as he hits the passenger seat, he’ll go right to sleep. He’ll feel safe, oddly enough, because he knows I’ve been in eight major car accidents and survived each one relatively unharmed. Consequently, whatever the hazard or circumstances, I don’t fall asleep at the wheel. I’m good in a crisis. I look at him with genuine disgust verging on loathing.
His face is haggard and there are scary-looking bags under his eyes. His newborn has colic. He works like a slave at home, logs hours by the dozen in our office booking gigs, and is a relentless picture of stamina and stick-to-it-iveness on the road. He’s broke again. I tell myself, Leave him alone.
I trudge back into the house for some goodbyes. Three days before a road trip such as this, my wife stops talking to me altogether. She barely acknowledges my presence. I know I’m being punished in advance for leaving her alone to take care of our child. She can’t be blamed for sulking. She has never seen, or smelled, the inside of a Motel 6 or a Super 8. She would never voluntarily put herself in a situation where a nuked steak-and-cheese sub and burned four-hour-old coffee were her only available forms of sustenance.
She thinks college kids still read good books.
“Hey Dad?” my four-year-old calls me back after refusing a goodbye kiss, “don’t forget to take this with ya!” and then punches me as hard as he can, right in the balls.
The bridge from Superior, Wisconsin, to Duluth, Minnesota, opens a tall and strange vista. It reaches high above the Port of Duluth with only highway construction blocks, Jersey barriers, guarding the edge. At dusk, deep blues and grays mingle in air so cold that it cannot hold a mist. Steam rises from the ice below and dissipates swiftly, blown to nothingness by huge random winds that roll unimpeded over the frozen plains of Lake Superior. I want to stop here, hundreds of feet above the ice, and listen. I want to hear the ice bend and groan. I want to hear the quiet echo of it on the hill across the water where eerie lights glimmer. I want the wind to slap my face and freeze the tears that smear my temples. But there is no time for spontaneous mystical delights.
The van is garish and loud. The engine screams. The heater is on full blast and we are still freezing. The equipment in the back rattles. The mike stands clang when we go over a bump. The fact that we could hit the brakes and both be harpooned is the least of our worries. Our stage clothes are hung neatly down each wall, and the hangers clatter against double-plated steel as the van sways from side to side. Curtain rods squeak. I swear sometimes it all sounds like a group of old men wheezing and laughing at us through spent