A SAPLING DIES IN ST PETE

 Hello Fellow Time Travelers,

I think it’s been a cruel & unusually long time since I last said hello. I had to go underground after my exhaustive expose on transness. Then the world fully erupted in an imperilaistic shitstorm & I just couldn’t. Even.

 

Here in Jasper it has been a wonderful couple of winter months. I’ve spent them like a hermit in the attic writing, arting and watching snowflakes from a safe distance.

I hope you e-joy the new art, inspired by frozen water & the Olympics. And I hope you n-joy the short story, not quite an Adventure in Reality but a fictionalized dreamscape.

A SAPLING DIES IN ST PETE

I was traveling with Pixel—my 10-toed, 11-lived cat—down the shady charcoal streets of the subconscious. Our ambiguous vehicle had run out of fuel or otherwise left us inconvenienced and we were walking.

I was walking. Pixel was being carried, and talked to, by me.

I was telling Pixel about Alice, and her disconcerting adventure in a land much more colorful than this one.

So imagine how disconcerted I am by all this neutral, Pixel seemed to be saying with his tail swishes & kitten-chirps.

I remembered calling some relatives & acquaintances when our vehicle first bit the dust. No one could help us out. Everyone’s life was in absolute shambles, with no extra wiggle-time for a friend’s emergency. I was okay with walking though. That is, until all the grey. It made me feel tired. It had the same effect as the scent of poppies in another little girl’s adventure.

I told Pixel the most surreal thing in this whole story — “I think I’ll try calling my dad.”

Pixel laughed but said go ahead. Beware your expectations.

Olympic speed skaters

I called my dad on some unfamiliar device & moments later he drove up beside us in his smoky van. Always a van! Standard vans, maxi vans, vans in polite neutral tans & neighborly grey-greens, but also neon red & keylime vans, and once the most perverse color van — pure white.

Omg, I texted breathlessly with my oral device as I ran alongside the van & managed to vault my worldly hoard of possessions & pets into the front seat Thank you for showing up for me at this, of all times!

No problem, my dad seemed to say, though I don’t think he really said it. Instead, he was talking about his bridge game from the year I turned eleven. Right where we left off.

And so I threw two aces on the table and this idiot bids a four no trump! Can you believe that? Some people just aren’t willing to risk anything…

Yeah, I said, people suck. So you probably want directions to my —

Oh I thought you could come to my place! See where I’m living now. It’s new, I think you’ll really like it.

Oh I’d rather just get h—

Nonsense. You’re coming to my place. You’ll love it.

Okay. Where’s your place?

St Pete.

Florida?

Florida-ish.

Do you mean Russia??

Well…kind of.

Oh boy, I snighed sighily. Buckle in, I told Pixel, we’re in for a long ride.

And it was a long ride. Luckily my dad talked the whole way. Especially about bridge, especially when we went over the Atlantic Ocean on the Skyway Bridge.

I don’t know how many days we drove, but it could’ve been weeks. Pixel was good — he didn’t meow a lot or poo on the floorboards, though I knew he wanted to. Hell, I wanted to. I was disarmed by the militant grey landscape. The unglinting knives of the coldest oceans & seas known to man. The moldy-toned atmosphere. The eons of concrete pouring itself under our wheels as the smoky van rolled ever closer to its destination.

Finally we were in Russia. A grey & foreboding place. We parked behind a cheap motel. Here we are! my dad declared proudly.

This? I thought, We drove all those weeks for this?

Erin Jackson — Olympic speed skater

Let me show you around! my dad led me & Pixel to the back entrance of the motel. We were immediately treated to torn velvet wallpaper, worn sooty carpeting, a flickering fire hazard of a light fixture. My dad opened a door with an old-school key and gestured us in. 

Well, this is my home! What do you think?

I glanced around the bland room and wondered how my dad got here. Last I remembered, he was a born again Chrixtian living with his big-haired, rouge-encrusted wife in a 5 million sq ft lovenest. He had a few grandchildren of whom he was sinfully proud. He was a repentant sinner though, having relinquished porn and vans altogether at one point. But we had arrived here in a van…and this room smelled unmistakably of smutty VHS tapes. When did my dad make this Albuquerquean dovetail back into his old self?  Just when I wondered if I was taking too long to answer, or worse, saying any of this out loud, my dad asked — 

Hey, do you want to get high?

Now, I always remember my dad with a drink in his hand. Even after his rebirth. He liked things on the rocks. He liked ice. But I never remember him inhaling the vapors of the merciful angels. I definitely didn’t want to take too long to answer —

Yes please, I said

He pulled from his Russian motel armoire a package of pre-rolled St Petersburg Beige. Whole stalks of mediocre marijuana rolled in soviet-era papers. More sapling than spliff.

How do I light this? I asked, laughing good-naturedly so I didn’t seem ungrateful.

You just light it, my dad answered like some cryptic Matthew McConnaughey zenmaster.

I lit the sapling joint. It sizzled & snapped & sparks rained on my ankles & wrists. I sat on one of the ash-colored bedspreads & puffed away, never sure if I was inhaling anything but stale St Petersburg air. I didn’t want to seem greedy so I passed the smoldering bundle of vegetation to my dad. 

He declined You go ahead. I’m going to jump in the shower. I’ve invited some of your relatives over.

Suddenly there was a clamoring of voices and metal outside.

Oh it’s the train! my dad fanboyed, Come on, you’ve gotta see the train! He yanked us outside, Pixel too, and we stood before the most rickety railway tracks I’d ever witnessed. The tracks ran parallel to the back of the motel, and I was frightened to see there was indeed a train perched precariously & lumbering at moderate speeds our way.

As I looked in either direction, I could see that other people had emerged from their homes or offices to greet the train. They leapt into the air and waved. The engineers & conductors & porters waved and hollered back at the humble citizenry of St Pete. I could see they were tossing candy into the crowd and then I saw what everyone was waiting for — the keg cars. Train cars mounted by enormous kegs, and as the cars chugged past, some roughskinned conductors would open the taps and let the barley flow. The eager folks below squawked like baby birds and once their human beaks were filled with the spirit of the train, they did little circular victory dances around each other.

As the keg cars neared my dad and me, I decided I would drink from them. It had been 15 years since I’d had a drop of alcohol, but if ever there was an occasion to jump from the wagon, it was when the beer flowed from a train, right? I opened wide and received the elixir, which I estimated to be a full-bodied ale, bitter and hoppy and a little bit sockish.

I told Pixel no alcohol and he scowl-growled, but obeyed.

Nathan Chen — Olympic figure skater

We stayed until the train disappeared into the graphite night, then hurried back to my dad’s motel room. Our company will be here soon and I still haven’t showered! As he pulled the bathroom door shut, he asked me to please entertain the guests if they arrived before he finished.

And they did. As I sat on one of the ashy beds trying to decide if I felt the least bit drunk or stoned, there was a boisterous knock at the door. I brushed away my insecurities and looked through the peephole at the gaggle of relatives waiting to be admitted into my dad’s tiny motel home. I didn’t recognize any of them, so I flung the door open and peered into each of their faces.

I recognized my Aunt Trudy. Trudy!

Well, hey there, doll-baby. Long time no see. Where’s your dad?

He’s in the shower, but please come in. Make yourselves comfortable. Does anyone get high?

The other relatives — the ones I didn’t recognize — started asking if I was my dad’s daughter,

or if I was his other daughter,

or if I was his son, the one who had the sex change?

I said yes to all their questions, even if I didn’t know, or if one yes contradicted another. Just yes! Yes! yes! Everything affirmative for my mysterious relatives. Most of them seemed to like me, though I saw a couple of stand-offish scowling faces at the back of the room. I attributed those scowls to nerves, to introversion forced out into the cold Russian night for a meeting with a distant, forgotten relative of dubious gender.

My dad was taking awhile in the shower and I’d run out of things to say to these people. So Pixel entertained them by running around the room & hiding behind the curtains.

Such a funny cat! they said

Such a handsome cat!

Such a pussyish cat!

Yes! I said

Finally one of the scowly-faced relatives stepped forward and told me she was my dad’s only daughter. I could be a son, or I could get lost, she told me, brushing her taupe dress of my offensive, germy presence.

Does she always speak in riddles? I asked, looking at these strange relatives, wondering if I had ever known them, or if they were just more of my dad’s empty promises.

Only truths, said the relatives. 

I was suddenly very uncomfortable and wanted to be alone, at home, with my cat and some real smokable weed.

Well, I smiled weakly at them, I really have to get home. Pixel and I have a long walk. It was so good seeing you all again. Tell my dad I said good bye.

I brushed past them, scooping Pixel up on my way out. I grabbed my worldly goods from the van, then trundled off under the carbon skies in search of the Skyway Bridge.

3-20-22