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The day we awoke in Portland it was raining. We could not ride downtown on the vintage Schwinns picked up in Raymond. It was unsure if we could play bocce downtown at all. We first drove down to East Burnside to see a friend of Tristan's with whom he had worked on the boat. He made us an unrivaled cup of coffee. He dampened the grounds in the french press with lukewarm water first, an idea that never occurred to me. I don't follow the logic, but I do it all the time now. They chatted about the boat. Then we left and parked by the mall and road the train downtown across the Steel Bridge. We got a snack and went to Everyday Music to find two records Tristan decided we needed for the trip where we met Emily. We walked to the Ace Hotel where her sister made us incredible cups of coffee. There was a chocolate element to it. Tristan went into American Apparel to get a free magazine on the way. And then we battled through the rain for a rushed, first-to-three, wet and muddy game in the park blocks, which Tristan won, and decided that a bar by Emily's house with shuffleboard made more sense.
Kimberly was going to come as well after she finished giving a piano lesson in Salem and we ultimately met her there.
Though the physics seem analogous shuffleboard is a whole nother game. For the first few rounds we improvised rules based on logic, memories, and the layout of the board. It made a certain sense but didn't hold up once Sam showed up—making another appearance in Bocce Balling on the West Coast—and showed us what rules in fact composed the game. Emily and I competed against Sam and his love interest. They had not known each other long, we learned, but had developed a quick bond due to a dramatic automobile accident on their first date. Her car flipped over on the way to Bagby hot springs. Much has happened in the world since we left Sam in San Francisco! Also Ben Ali was ousted in Tunisia, Egypt was on its way to democracy, and an assassination attempt was made in Arizona. What insignificance resides in bocce!
Emily and I proved to be gifted and formidable shuffleboard players once we learned the rules. We even managed to compete against two regulars who told us so. Our victory would have been quite an upset. Really it was like the microcosmic model scale of bocce: we tower over this miniature universe and guide the disks with a light touch, waltzing alongside to monitor their progress. We are apart from the world, immune to its physics, in the shadows of the bar, casually commenting among the others zeroed in on the lit waist-high plane.
Tristan played the jukebox and much was learned and experienced during our sojourn inside, away from bocce ball.
Emily and I were roommates four years before in the same neighborhood, four blocks from the bar, and six from where Emily lives now. I was ecstatic to again romp around the neighborhood, this time in the spirit of diversion. My previous writing project when I lived here was a collaboration with a homeless man named Ed on his autobiography. The research was a descent into the sadness of alcoholism and loneliness. It was about being stuck, not being able to move. Now it was movement. It was community. It was the thing that forces you into a healthy cycle. Instead of going to Colonel Summers Park to conduct another interview, I was going there with my friends, feeling nostalgia for pleasant moments. Tristan, who had never been there, showed Kimberly, Emily and me, who had been there dozens of times, a two dimensional painted-on maze that we got quietly lost in for five minutes. I always just thought it was a symbolic image, not a game. We swung in the same swings, went to the same convenience stores, walked by the same houses, including the one we shared, and we went to Chopsticks II, the karaoke bar that we occupied for many an evening.
The same people were not there, but rather a new group of recently 21 kids passed the microphone off to each other, the new crop of stars. And we sat back waiting our turn. The waitress recognized me. She would always sing jazz standards and showtunes. I told her where I had been and that I missed it here. I wished we had got there earlier and I was less drunk to show my old stomping grounds more respect. It was, after all, mostly unchanged. Though smoking inside has since been banned.
Finally Tristan and I were called up for our duet. And all ill-feeling, misunderstanding and travel tension dissipated through the speakers and rung out to the tune of "Goodnight, Saigon," a song that enlivened the truck cab days before in the moments of our arrival in Seattle with "Bocce or Bust" etched in dust on the back window of the camper. We traded verses
We had no cameras to shoot the landscape
We passed the hash pipe and played our doors tapes
and then came together vocally, and then literally hugging at the pre-chorus, triumphantly declaring:
And it was dark, so dark at night
And we held on to each other
Like brother to brother
We promised our mothers we'd write
And we would all go down together
We said we'd all go down together
Yes we would all go down together.
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