That Train Set Sail Long Ago

Evidently, when you walk along the beaches in Carpinteria, you see oil on and within the sand because a fair amount of drilling is done in the area. This may or may not be true; I heard it from my mother. Anyway, because of this she, for a cheap pair of flip-flops, forced me into a Wal-Mart.

“If you take your nice sandals out there they will get ruined,” she scolded, as if she knew I had already planned on not listening to her advice. “They drill for oil out there, you know, and that oil will ruin whatever it touches. We can't just throw away money like that. This country is in a recession. Do you know that?”

I thought about suggesting a cheap HAZMAT suit but decided against it.

Later that day, I was walking through the Wal-Mart in Apple Valley with Teresa and holding a pair of bright orange sandals in my hand. By this time we were simply browsing. Why not? We were already there. I decided to check out the DVD section to see if the second season of Dexter was available at a reasonable price. It turned out that the section of television shows was no bigger than both my arms stretched out wide, and Dexter was nowhere to be found. So, I made the next logical move. I went to their bin of $5 movies to search for buried treasure.

While I was staring at yet another copy of Edward Scissorhands, Teresa excitedly called me over to her side. What she was so excited about was a box set of Alfred Hitchcock’s early work. It includes eighteen films and two episodes from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. What a find! I greedily snatched it from her hands and turned it over, searching for one film in particular.

The Thirty-Nine Steps was what I was looking for. Now, I had seen these box sets in Amoeba Records some time ago. At the time, I was there to buy Tim Burton’s Batman, which I also ended up seeing at Wal-Mart. For $7.50 (I won’t disclose what Amoeba charged me for the supposedly “Out of Print” DVD). That is the problem with Amoeba: It is a great place, has a great atmosphere, but is usually a bit pricey, and the faculty is smug and, apparently, liars. Amoeba sold the Hitchcock box sets for $40 each if I remember correctly. Wal-Mart had one of them for $5. And, lo and behold, it was the set that had The Thirty-Nine Steps. What a glorious day.

My reason for explaining all this has less to do with Hitchcock and more to do with J.D. Salinger. According to Margaret Salinger’s memoir, Dream Catcher, one of the author’s favorite films (he has his on reel to reel, not on DVD or VHS even) is The Thirty-Nine Steps. Naturally, being the Salinger extremist that I am, I have wanted to see the Hitchcock classic for a long time now. Don’t get me wrong, I love most anything he directs, but I was going into the movie with a very singular mission: to see if I could find out why Salinger loves the film so much, and possibly uncover vital clues that might lead to revelations in the ongoing mystery that is Salinger’s life and work. So, I'm going to watch the movie now...

Well, I fell asleep. I put the movie in around 12:09 am and fell asleep sometime before 1:00. When I woke up, the woman who I thought had been murdered early on in the film was alive again. Either that or all the actresses from the 30’s looked exactly alike. Also, the main character was running through some hills, or something. Because of my obvious bewilderment, I decided to just turn the television off and go to bed. When I woke up this morning I decided I no longer fancied the idea of possibly zeroing in on Salinger’s mysteries.

Of course, I could talk about the opening scene in the movie in which a man named Mr. Memory works hard to win over a crowd of rowdy Englishmen and does so only to be easily forgotten after a riot breaks out. And I could, obviously, make a connection between that scene and Salinger’s own knowledge of a fickle audience, and link his estranged relationship with the public to his knowledge of their fickleness. But I won’t because the fact of the matter is that I enjoy the mystery. Part of Salinger’s appeal (aside from his amazing writing abilities) is that he is the most sought after literary enigma of the past fifty years or so. But he will not budge. He enjoys his privacy, and who can blame him? Who among us would want, really want, the spotlight blinding our eyes every waking moment? None of us, that’s who.

Therefore, I will respectfully refrain from my attempts at understanding the man responsible for the stories and characters I obsess over. Besides, I’m sure hundreds of people have already attempted the same idea since Ms. Salinger published her memoir in 2000, reaching their own conclusions about the author and his life. In any case, however, the possible answers will never be as exciting as the riddle.

How is Life Proceeding for You, Buddy?

To anyone who gives a damn: my back hurts.

I went to Lake Arrowhead with my family today. It’s funny how a place can get lost in the recesses of memory (before we arrived my brother and I both proclaimed that we had never been to Lake Arrowhead) and then kicked to the forefront by another visit. Upon our arrival, I immediately remembered being there before; it was definitely a long time ago though. As we were walking around the shops I began to remember some sort of a learning center or kid’s museum my mom and aunt took my brother and I to the last time we were there. There were dozens (or it felt like dozens) of small rooms with different activities in each. Bright colors. Squishy foam flooring that resembled puzzle pieces. I don’t remember what I did there. I do remember having fun.

We didn’t revisit that particular place today. Instead, after a long drive of winding roads and complaints from my mother concerning an oncoming fit of vertigo brought on by my father’s erratic driving, we leisurely made our way through the shops that caught our fancies. Somehow we ended up in the Coach store. My brother and I were interested in new wallets. One was black leather on the outside and cream colored on the inside. It was very nice. It was also $119.99. Meanwhile, my mother was eyeing a $798.00 lime-colored purse that had been generously marked down to $699.99 in green pencil. Eventually, after having been made well aware of our own poverty and despite the woman in Coach who was sure that each item in her store was well worth the second mortgage, we exited and decided to try our luck in the Bass Outlet Store.

I found a pair of deck shoes I liked that were $89.00 but 60% off. Later, I found a pair of kids’ shoes that were regularly $50.00 with a 90% off sticker nearby. Suddenly realizing that the store would still make a sizable profit on a five or ten dollar purchase I had to laugh at the “good deals” we all thought we were so special to receive; I also wondered how long those “One Day Only” sale signs had been sitting patiently on the shelves.

My dad walked out of the Bass Outlet with $194 dollars missing from his debit card. I blame this on my mom and the overly excited salesgirl who displayed the kind of bubbly personality that left me frustratingly conflicted between genuine love and pure hatred. She was very good at what she did though, complimenting my mother on every possible buy and treating her like she was the Queen of England.

ME: Mom, c’mon! She already rang us up for the shoes and suitcase.

BUBBLY SALESGIRL: Oh, don’t worry. I’m the sheriff around here (pointing to her scan gun and a plastic badge pinned to her shirt) and I say she can take as much time as she wants. A woman needs quality time to look around…

Meanwhile a line began to grow behind us.

It was my job to drag the new suitcase, which happens to be bright orange and has wheels that squeak as they roll across the ground, back to our truck while my mom continued to shop. Even with my best efforts implemented, I ended up looking like someone who was backpacking through the vast array of “specialty” stores. A hardcore shopper. Serious about my consumer needs. My mother on the other hand, still in the Bass store, looked like a pirate ready to dash through the doors with her booty if anyone tried to take what would soon be rightfully hers. She held the two hats, beach bag (“I can fit a really big towel in here”), blue sun dress, and sandals so close to her chest that she appeared to be the only person around who knew something very important about the pricelessness of the merchandise. Once again I had to make a trip to the truck.

Later, we stopped in an ice cream shop and a very attractive girl behind the counter was going on about some customer who had tried to enter through a door aggressively marked “KEEP OUT. EMPLOYEES ONLY.” According the girl, the customer thought it read, “CUSTOMERS ONLY.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yeah,” she continued, “I was like here’s your ice cream. Now, if you just go through that door you will find our top-secret customer eating facility that has been made especially for you.”

I laughed as I waited for my double scoop of Rocky Road. When we left she said, “I like you guys. You’re nice. You don’t try to open doors that aren’t yours to open. Have a nice day.”

Naturally, I spilled the Rocky Road on my shirt and shorts. Luckily, my mom had one of those Tide-to-Go pens. It was a rip-off version but it still worked like magic and I stared at the end of the pen wondering what its juicy, stain-removing secret was. Before too long, I came to the conclusion that it was probably some kind of bleach. We walked and ate and watched boats exiting the docks. Every so often I would swipe a bite of my dad’s refreshing Black Cherry ice cream (regretting my own decision of Rocky Road with each stolen morsel). In the water below, the place was lousy with ducks and carp. Outside the water, just beyond the railing, was a little girl who was through duck food into the water. This was a fortunate turn of events for the carp because the duck food sank like rocks the second it hit the water. This made me feel sorry for all the ducks who had waddled over to where their food had been thrown only to get there with just enough time to watch it sink from the reach of their beaks.

We decided to leave after we saw a turtle swimming among the ducks and fish. For my brother it was the highlight of the trip. He loves all kinds of turtles, especially sea turtles. He even has a very proud looking sea turtle painted on one side of his motorcycle helmet. After seeing all the trash and “food” people had thrown into the lake, however, as well as the unidentified brown sludge caked on the turtle’s shell, all I could think about was salmonella and how I probably would not let the turtle, the ducks and fish, or another salesgirl come near me for quite a long time – or at least until they had bathed with a fair amount of antibacterial hand soap.