Seattle

RedBud and I are going to Seattle this coming Tuesday, 25 October. I have a couple of Seattle stories already. Here's one.

The first time I saw Seattle was in the early 70's. I was hitch-hiking with a friend. We came in over the mountain from Idaho, having spent a night on the rez, shooting pool and drinking wine with a bunch of locals who had picked us up on the road.

Dark on the road, right after sunset, not much traffic. The wind blew at us, blew through us, if you want to know the truth. Snow lay in patches on the flats, and in bunches under the pines. I was mulling our prospects, looking around for a suitable place to bivouac. We had good gear in our rucks, and some power bars.

But a car loaded with local Nez Perce folks pulled over and we got in. I sat in the back with three huge men, Jaymi sat up front with two huge women. They were headed to a town up the road about 60 miles. One of the guys in the back reached into his jacket, pulled out a peace pipe and some buds. We smoked, and had conversation. Another of the men reached down beneath his legs and pulled a bottle of wine out of a case, unscrewed the cap. He filled the cap and held it up to toast: "To our dead brothers," he said, and tossed the cap, and the sip of wine, out the window, then he passed the bottle to me. The party was on. Whoever had the bottle when it was emptied threw it out the window, making sure the bottle held a swallow for our dead friends. Our dead friends probably were drunk by the time we got to town.

The town was houses and a few stores on a couple of paved streets, some more houses on some unpaved streets. The streets seemed to lead vaguely into the flank of a shallow, wooded hill. No streetlights were visible, except for a single bulb above the pair of gas pumps out in front of the store. The store was closed. The only place open was the bar. We played pool and talked story. Dark faces framed by long black hair, denim and parkas, sweaters and boots. People laughing back and forth. Cigarette smoke wafting around the neon signs at the bar, in the dark air above the lamps over the pool table.

Outside on the snow porch was where we went for more peace pipe. The rez police were somehow elsewhere, said one of my friends, dark eyes glinting in the yellow light above the door on the porch. Out beyond the porch dogs bark across the small town to one another. At the time I believe I understood what they were trying to say.

Sometime later, or early in the dark of the morning, we slept warm, zipped up in our bags on someone's summer porch. Sucking in the cold air through the end of my goose-down mummy bag, blowing out visible air into night. Jaymi was curled like a cat in her own bag, still, a faint haze of her warm breath rising over her. I woke several times to listen to how quiet the town became, when the dogs were sleeping. That next morning we were up and off, back on the road again. My rucksack pulled at familiar places, a comfortable weight, a sort of tangible type of freedom. Jaymi walked behind me, toting her own ruck, lost in her own thoughts. We ate breakfast at the restaurant--home style everything, from a Kountry Kitchen that knew how to make gravy--then walked a mile or so, crunching on new snow along the muddy road, to a wide spot near a small bridge, where we could hear the stream. Sun came and loosened the snow on the branches of the pines, and it fell in rhythmic rushes, a tempo all it's own. The big part of the Cascade range was before us, a huge wall of rock and trees. Time stopped for us while we waited for the car to come.

A couple of rides took us into Seattle. From the very top of the mountain, the time thing kicked back in. Houses all over the place. It was hard to make conversation with the drivers. We exited the last ride in the middle of everything. We ate at a Chinese restaurant on the waterfront, then went for a walk along the piers.

For supper we bought clam buckets, and ate while we sat on a pier and contemplated the water. At some point we saw a submarine sliding through the water toward us. I was surprised at how small it was, like a toy. Several sailors were on deck, and the skipper was in the con tower, shouting obscenities to them,as they threw ropes to folks on the dock. The skipper wore a turtleneck sweater, a billed cap. He had a hard, lined face, and his scraggly beard seemed wrongly pasted on. A few well thrown obscenities later the submarine was secured. I realized that the dozen or so onlookers on the pier were family members or friends of the sub's crew.

We picked up our rucks and walked away from them. We walked to the revolving restaurant, took the elevator to the top, admired the sunset and the panorama as we ascended. Had some rum and coffee and watched the lights go by. We went back down to the ground, and walked around the the city. After a supper, again at the Chinese food place, we found a wilderness camping opportunity near a cloverleaf interchange. The bushes were damp from rains, but we found a place near the bridge and I hid us well. Nobody would get to us unheard, and we would be dry.

Next morning we had breakfast at a franchise place, then, Jaymi and I hitched down to Anacortes Island, to wait at the ferry for our friends, who were driving up from California. It took us all day to get there, but we were in no hurry. No ferries were running, and the place was technically closed, but we got to sleep inside. My friends were from Hawaii. Bob had been to the mainland on one occasion, but Carol and her son had never been out the state. We were touring the west together that winter, and this phase of the trip was taking us to Bamff. The Bamff part didn't quite happen, but that's another story.

Next week RedBud and I will check into the apartments the VA has set aside for their patients. We plan to be there about three months. If I can manage to get back into this site I'll post from there now and then.