{Magical Realism} The Dream Vacation of Mr. & Mrs. Schwartz {3139}
JPD
Subject: {Magical Realism} The Dream Vacation of Mr. & Mrs. Schwartz {3139}
Date: Wednesday, March 31, 2004 2:49 AM
Here they were, cruising down the road in a dreamy 27 foot motorhome, their
trendy state of the art model with expansion modules at the sides. The
self-contained generator was humming back in the stern while it powered the
two roof-borne air conditioners, and for Melvin Schwartz who sat proudly
behind the wheel, things could not have been more perfect: this was the
dream vacation he'd been waiting so long to take, and now it was finally
happening.
With fists twisting in her lap on the passenger side, for Caroline
Brathwaite Schwartz, things could not have been more aggravating: her latest
lover, Wade who she would not see again for at least two entire weeks was
back in Minneapolis, and here she was stuck with her husband, who aside from
being his same old boring self seemed to be compensating for that, as he
tried to make things more interesting by risking their lives on a mountain
road that struck her as being far too steeply winding and narrow for a
vehicle so monstrous as theirs.
"God, Melvin!" She was nearly screaming as she pulled against the momentum
pressing her once again to the door. "You can at least slow down, can't
you?"
Caroline's husband was so used to being screamed at by her that after five
years of it, he'd come to take it for the normal tone of her conversation.
He smiled as he turned to her and asked, "Have you ever seen such beautiful
country in your life, baby?"
"Goddam, Melvin! Don't look at me, look at the road!" Lifting them from her
lap, she waved the backs of her hands at him to chase his attention back to
where it belonged. She hissed her contempt: "I don't know how I could have
been so stupid as to have agreed to this. I can't imagine." A car appeared
from around the bend ahead. "Oh, Christ. What now? Melvin, slow down!"
Somehow, the oncoming car, a BMW, managed to get by without the mishap which
would have seemed inevitable. "See?" Melvin's smile could not have seemed to
her to be more smug. "You just haven't developed a sense for the actual
width we have with this rig, doll; you're not used to it yet, so it seems to
you as though we take up more space than we really do."
"How much longer, Melvin? How many miles is it now to this place you want to
go?"
"Caroline, it's only a few more miles, five at the most."
She boosted herself up from the seat to look down into the canyon on his
side of the road. "You must be nuts! Look how far down it is yet. You can't
even see any water from here. It's just all trees and sky over there."
"Five miles more at the most."
It turned out to be about seven, and worse than that, it was a treacherous
place to try and turn with such an enormous vehicle, what with that blind
bend just down the road from this gravel intersection at the gate to the
lodge. Caroline had to get out and take a hike about two hundred feet down
the way so she could give him an 'all clear' signal when it was okay to take
the left turn.
When Mel had the vehicle pulled entirely off the main road, Caroline climbed
back up into her seat and made ready for yet another horrendously bumpy,
rutted descent the remaining way down toward the Pine Haven Lodge, which
remained as yet out of sight. Caroline was shouting again: "Melvin! Do you
hear that?" A sound on the roof had the shapely thirty-something woman
jerking around in her seat as her eyes followed its progress toward the back
of the coach. "The branches are going to rip off the air conditioners,
Melvin. What are you doing?"
"Don't worry, I'm watching."
"You better be. Migod. We've got nearly two hundred thousand dollars sunk
into this thing, don't forget"
"It's just a few light boughs of pine brushing by, Caroline. Relax." As the
first view of the large, log-built lodge came into sight, a crunching sound
soon followed by a loud snap preceded the scraping noise of a fan rubbing
against metal. This was nothing compared to a wonderfully voluble stream of
sound not unlike a siren's wail from the area of the passenger seat:
"Ooooooh noooo! Oh, my God! There you did it. What did I say?"
Mel braked to a stop. "Now, settle down, Caroline, we don't know yet what's
. . ." He saw her turned all the way around in her seat and staring. "Is
that smoke?"
"Jesus," said Mel. "Oh, Jesus." It was smoke, and whether it came from the
air conditioner nearest them or from the fire in Caroline's eyes was a
question up for grabs. "Well don't just sit there, you twit! Get up and shut
the damn thing off before the whole coach catches fire. Move!"
Melvin extricated himself from the belts over his chest and lap, and not
bothering to pull the lever that allows the seat to swivel, he went by hands
and knees over the powder blue carpeted engine cover. By the time he'd come
to a stand, smoke was flowing all along the ceiling toward the back of the
coach toward the other roof-mounted unit. "Shut it off, Melvin, just shut it
off!" His hand was already at the switch which alas twisted off uselessly
into his hand.
Having stripped herself out of the belts, Caroline had her door open. "I'm
getting out of here before the whole thing blows up!" Melvin stared,
watching blankly as she climbed down out of the cab, then he snapped his
fingers and turned toward the dashboard where he found the switch for the
generator which he flipped and held till the humming from the rear was fully
quieted.
Caroline had gone around the front to stand some 15 feet ahead of the coach.
She was pointing toward the roof. "Melvin! It's all off kilter, and it's
smoking like crazy up there. Come out and see!"
This he did, once he had a large pan full of water to take out there with
him. And when he'd climbed back down from the roof after pouring water over
the smoldering ruins of the front air conditioner, he got back into the cab
to continue driving the remaining distance to the lodge as Caroline walked
on ahead in order to warn of any further such obstructions to their
progress. But as only stood to reason, now that they were finally taking the
proper sort of precaution, there was no further threat to be avoided by it.
Further down the road from the main lodge and office was the RV park on a
large flat that lay alongside a beach bounding a large aqua-marine hued pool
of the river. They had driven in upon following the instructions given on a
large sign directing them to find a suitable space and then return on foot
to the lodge to take care of the registration. There was no difficulty in
finding the one site most suitable of all since there was only one other RV
in the camp, an old cab-over class "C" Ford of mid-seventies vintage parked
at the down-stream end nearest the river.
As Mel pulled into the spot nearest the river on the up-stream end, he
applied the emergency brake and switched off the key. Caroline had been
waiting to pounce: "Of all the ridiculous places you pick, it has to be
this?"
This time using the lever to swivel his seat, he turned to face her: "What?"
"I mean it's always such extremes with you. We could have bought a less
expensive coach, even a used one--but no. Here we are . . ."
"I thought you . . ."
"I did like this one, yes! The money was no object to me. That's not the
point."
"Which is what?"
"Which is that you go hog-wild at two extremes. First you buy the most
expensive coach on the market, and then you look for the cheapest goddam RV
lodge in the book to drive it to."
"Well . . ."
"It makes no sense!" She motioned toward the air conditioner, no longer
smoking but still dripping with the water. "This is what happens. Look
around you. Look what's here! Do you see any other huge Class A rigs like
this one parked in this God forsaken place?"
Mel knew he was cornered, as once again she had him dead to rights. What
could he say? "Well, don't you have anything to say for yourself, Mel?" He
shrugged. She stared at him, and threw back a handful of the long, straight
blonde hair that had come over her shoulder; she wrinkled her nose. "You
don't really think that I'm going to stay in this stink, do you?" Her mind
was already, happily working on the idea of somehow getting down to
Sacramento to the airport.
"Oh, come on now baby--it isn't that bad is it?" He stood up and started
sniffing his way toward the ruined unit.
"I will not have that awful smell getting into my hair, my clothes." She
pointed toward the lodge. "I'm going in there to get a room for tonight and
see what arrangements can be made for getting out of here, first thing in
the morning."
"Oh, no!" He let himself fall to a sitting position on the so prettily
patterned sofa located behind the driver's seat. He shook his head. "I can't
believe you're saying that." She said nothing as he searched her coldly
impassive face. "Isn't this the vacation we've been dreaming of, darling,
all these past three years?"
"No, Melvin, it's not. And to be perfectly frank, the vacation that I'm
dreaming of just now, is a vacation away from this coach you just wrecked,
this lousy dump of a lodge you picked, and best of all, away from you!" With
this, she grabbed her purse, squeezed around him, and stalked down the
center aisle.
"Caroline, wait!" She had already descended the step to go out by the side
door and had it slammed shut behind her by the time he got there.
The closer Caroline came to the front door leading into the main office of
the Pine Haven Lodge, the sweeter and larger loomed in mind the seductive
image of Wade Farnsworth greeting her at the airport in Minneapolis. As she
went through the entrance to hear the screen door slam shut behind her, that
romantic picture was soon replaced by another.
Framed by a pinewood structure providing a business window toward the right
end of the desk, a gray-haired man of late-fifties in rather a soiled
looking old felt fedora was looking back at her as she approached, now
somewhat the more hesitantly as her eyes began to take note of the dust mice
in the corners, the aged appearance of magazines scattered about the tables,
the undusted condition of the mounted fish and antlered heads on the walls
and while one wouldn't suggest that the place was altogether unkempt or
downright dirty, it was showing the sort of benign neglect that could in no
way form an appeal to the sensibilities of a woman, let alone such an
upscale sort as Caroline Brathwaite Schwartz.
As she arrived at the desk before the face of the man, she hoped to be
mistaken about the cause of the wry look in his eye as he regarded her--it
seemed he had quite blatantly been reading her mind as to her opinion of
what she was seeing, if not in himself, then his lodge. Anger or a pain of
hurt feelings she was always equipped to deal with, but such bemusement as
this man was showing was something rare for which she had little or no
emotional preparation, and how strange that she, for the first time in
recent memory, was feeling self-conscious under pressure of this man's
steady gaze.
"Mr. and Mrs. Melvin Schwartz, I presume?" He moved a registration book into
place under her gaze. She looked up at him, into his eyes over the
spectacles balanced toward the tip of his nose. "No," she said, "Mr. Melvin
Schwartz is out there, I'm not Mrs. Melvin Schwartz, I'm Caroline Brathwaite
. . ." He was waving a pen at her, saying, with a wink, as he leaned forward
to present it to her:
"Your secret's safe with me, lady." The shock on Caroline's face only
inspired him to wink twice more with an even wider smile: "If you'd care to
just sign for Mr. Schwartz, that'll be fine."
She cleared her throat. "Had you let me finish what I was saying, then you'd
have learned that there is no reason for me to sign for anyone here but
myself since, as I started to say, I *am* Caroline Brathwaite Schwartz, the
legal wife of Mr. Schwartz, thank you."
He set the pen down on the book since she hadn't taken it and said, "De
nada."
The man was still inwardly laughing at her! She watched as he turned to take
up from the office desk behind him a steaming cup. He eyed her as he sipped,
not in a sensual way, but somehow critically. She would put a stop to that
soon enough! "Mr Schwartz will be in momentarily to take care of
registration for the coach. I am here to take a cabin, if there are any
available?"
The man gave that due consideration as he set the cup down beside the
register. "This will be a cabin for the two of you, or . . ."
"Well--yes, whatever. But it must be a non-smoking cabin."
"Ah. Well, sorry but there are none available, just now."
"Did I hear you say none?"
"Not a one."
"But how many are vacant in all?"
"They are all vacant, and they all smoke."
"What do you mean, they all smoke? Are you . . ."
"Chimneys. They all have a woodstove and a chimney. They all smoke."
"I don't find it very amusing that you should be making light of this."
"Oh? Well, perhaps I misunderstood your meaning."
"I don't really think so." His growing amusement only stood to inflame her.
"I don't think matters of human health are appropriately made light of Mr.
uh . . ."
"Marquand. Quincy X., at your service, Madame."
"Do you have a non-smoking cabin or not, Mr. Marquand? I am fast losing
patience with this farce you seem to be interested in acting." At the sound
of the slamming screen-door, she turned to see Melvin coming in.
"Ah," said Marquand, "Mr. Melvin Schwartz?"
"Yes, said Mel, and you are the proprietor of Pine Haven Lodge I take it?"
"Melvin," said Caroline turning to him. "This man apparently has no
non-smoking cabins available to his clientele--quite in violation of the
law? I'm afraid it is impossible for us to stay here." This caused Mel's
face to go red. At last, finding the courage for it, he turned to Marquand:
"Is this so?"
"Didn't say it is or isn't. I was under the impression she wanted a cabin
with no chimney. A non-smoking cabin, in other words. I told her they all
have chimneys."
"Well, you're a strange one, Marquand."
"As you say," he smiled.
"Melvin, I intend to report this man no sooner than we arrive in
Sacramento!"
"Well," said Melvin, "that will be a pack of trouble for him."
Marquand closed the register. "I try to do my best for our patrons here, but
you can't please everybody, and that's a fact." His hands rose to give a tug
to his bowtie, as then, from the inside pocket of a long unpressed,
pin-striped and double-breasted suit coat, he produced a cigar which was
immediately planted in his mouth. As the Schwartz couple looked on in shock,
he lit it. Having savored a good puff of smoke, his eyes returned to them.
"In point of fact, our cabins have been officially closed for over ten years
ever since we made space for the RV park. That way, whether there is smoking
or not in somebody's personal RV, it's just none of my concern, nor any of
the State, the United States, or the United Nations, either."
He turned to walk to his left and came out into the lobby through a swinging
hinged panel. He began to approach the Schwartz couple, but as they soon
started to back away, as if from a plague carrying rat, he stopped, to say,
"Now if, on occasion, someone should come by who wants to take a cabin and
has no druthers as to whether it smokes or not, then that patron who has no
government sponsored superstition about it, I'll generally let them stay in
one, smoke or no smoke, gratis of the establishment and if he wants to pay
for the privilege of fishing the river off our bank, or for the sport of
doing some gold panning, if they want to take advantage of the beach or the
bar and lounge then they can do that, for a fee, and this is exactly as I've
explained it to the judge and the deputy sheriff up there in Lost Corners
any time it's come up, as per such a report as you have threatened."
Melvin and Caroline had heard enough and they went out of the door of that
lodge still threatening in a big huff, the process of the law against that
madman who hadn't the sanity to pay a proper respect to the CBS Nightly
News, the New York Times, the label printed by the Surgeon General on every
package of tobacco, let alone the sacred and inerrant, not to mention
*infallible*, authority of the Environmental Protection Agency. If there was
one thing of which the Schwartz familty was certain it was that if
fanaticism and idolatry were warranted nowhere, not even in religion,
nevertheless, this was to take nothing away from medical science.
They had driven that big coach of theirs about halfway up the steep dirt
road before the rear wheels, all eight of them in tandem had stalled and
begun to spin, digging themselves down into the slick clay in such a way
that they could get up no further. By studying the difficulty per the
reverse gear, however, they soon found that plain gravity was in their
favor, so far as a downhill direction went, all the way back down to the
grounds of Pine Haven Lodge, on to the property of this fellow Marquand
whose livelihood and peace of mind, whose very liberty they had so merrily
threatened just minutes ago.
--
JPDavid http://www.virtualtourist.com/m/520b8/
John's Joint:: http://jpdavid.freewebspace.com/
"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a
chasm in two small jumps.--David Lloyd George