I got a flat just as I was leaving Duluth.
It’s five thirty, and threatening rain. 150 miles to Minneapolis, and the spare says “max 80km”. The jock at the gas station tells me I can probably get a spare at Sam’s, and where to find it, but it’s closed by the time we get there. Two Koreans at the automax next door help us patch the tire. They’re anxious but helpful. Annoyed at closing time by an embarrassed scruffmaster, in loafers and mismatched socks, eager with his parent’s visa. One asks me if I’m punk rock. No, I’m a mountain climber, but I have a Henry Rollins tape in the car.
I’m tired from a night of climbing, starting at the base of the city by the water. Downtown Duluth of late night pick-up trucks and drunken Chads. Fire escapes and spiders to a nice view and a bottle of wine. Then up and up, hotels, and ski slopes in august. The chair lifts terrify me, and I can’t help but laugh. We came to Duluth to see some friends who are due with their first child. They’re young, nervous, and beautiful.
The mother is sweetly impulsive and demanding. It seems that she is constantly brushing her hair out of her face, but she’s smiling. Tim’s going to be the father, he’s anxious, but beaming. He recently started an apprenticeship as a carpenter.
The tire is patched and filled for only ten dollars. Once again I’m leaving Duluth. I’m reviewing the past two days carefully, what I’ve accomplished, what I discovered, details that I’ll surely forget with time.
I remember how he told me three close friends had been committed to institutions in the past year. I think of the ones I know. One’s a surprise, the other a question mark. They wanted her for the army or whatever. He talked about his buddy Jay who got committed. Jay was fine when he went in, but he had to put up with a few too many seconds of pressure in there. By the time he got out, they had convinced him that he was crazy, and cured, but he insisted he had faked the last part. I wonder about real and fake. I wonder about God’s plan. It scares me in the same way as those chairlifts in the dark, crashing over dried grass and sharp rocks. I can’t help but laugh.
Before the long trek to the summit we decided to have a long joke over a few drinks. It was an American hotel on the main-strip.
Three stars masquerading as five, wait-staff in military issue tuxedos, doling out low grade dog chow garnished and prepped to the point that it almost resembles high grade dog chow. We plan the attack outside, roaring and whispering each of our brilliant ideas simultaneously so that nothing is understood by anyone except for the original conspirator. I finally trade the floor for the flask, and decide to hear Tim out,
“I’ll go in first, you follow”, he explains. “Take a seat at the bar, and just watch.”
Good enough for me.
I can see him across the room, already seated, alone at a table for two by the window. He’s pulsing, shaking, tapping his feet, raging in general. His flannel shirt is rolled way up past his elbow. I can hear him reading the menu, using an absurd fake accent that sounds like a drunk Russian imitating Rodney Dangerfield.
“I’ll half de pas-ta.” He says, and points.
Half a drink later the food arrives, he is intense, sweating, really working it. The waitress gives him an odd look and asks him if he’s allright. He shrugs her off “dah please. am fine.” As soon as she turns though, his plate is upside down, and he’s sucking down the spaghettis one by one.
The waitress spins, “What in god’s name are you doing!”
“eating”, he says confidently casual.
“like that!”, she yells.
“Am sorry, In my country. We eat with our hands.”
“You don’t have any forks? plates? Chop-sticks?”
“oh we have, we have, yes. It’s just…” he pauses, smiling. “we hate to wash dishes.”
We barely escaped.
After that kind of joke you’ve got to keep one eye open for the fuzz. We do so, climbing. The city on the hill. One block at a time, the grid here is amazing. I’m drawing in our path on a map I got from the lobby downtown. In a little over an hour we’re out of the city. At the top of a ski slope. We followed the chairs up the run and onto the little mound of earth by the control room up top. Admiring the view, we relieve ourselves. The urine makes streams in the dust, splitting up and then joining their selves again.
“You jokered the hell out of those fools back at the hotel.”
“yeah man, they didn’t know what hit em’.”
“Are you sure you’re ready?”
“Huh? Oh for the kid? — hell yeah. I’m just trying to get the last of this joker shit out of me, now”
Shake. Zip. Alright. From the summit I know everything is going to be okay. The sky is breathtaking, a dark blue, purple like a fresh black eye. Specks of distant celestial salt crystals appear to be taking turns as the brightest. The wind carries the sweet smells of soil and pine softly and with respect.
All but out of the city limits by the time I realize that I’ve forgotten my polaroid’s at their house. I think about turning around, but I just passed an exit and am questioning the patched tire’s strength. I could get Tim to send the pictures, but I know I’ll forget. Damnation.
I accelerate, up hill and out of this shit-hole. I’m pissed; I want those pictures. The windshield is fogging up and still with the rain, but for some reason the rear window is clear. I see the city again through the mirror. Duluth’s not a real shit-hole, not like Gary. At least Duluth is nice from a distance.
“Good from afar but far from good”, Tim used to say, referring to girls on the street. That was before he was married. That was how I felt about Duluth through the rear-view.
I’d finally gotten the shot though, at the end of the climb, towering over it all. The postcard shot, without the city name or border. It was the summit. It was north, heaven, not quite Canada. The significance of being high like that. Status and worth and perspective. Like that promising family behind me. It was more than all the assholes in the world shitting out missiles, and hiding bombs in their underwear. I am generally amazed by the lack of grace in this modern world, but that view was different. This picture the cure. I knew if I sent it to the hospital, she’d be out in no time. Fuck. I look in the rear view again, and it’s the perfect shot. The one that got away. All that grace, and power. I captured it again, I won, It’s a success story, I’m comfortable, tired. Ready to: close my eyes, hold on to that image, inhale, and go to sleep at 83 mph on a patched tire.
