Ulak's Folly
I woke up yesterday morning with a splitting headache and a pile of brochures to deliver. My boys are home from school for the week, and I have thousands of words to write before the National Novel Writing Month ends in just seven days. I'm writing every breathing non-Avon moment, and I don't even have time to write my fun Avon experiences for this blog. The boys kept prodding me, pleading for another trip to the pool or the park or the movies, and by early afternoon I called my Turkish friend, Ulak, in desperation.
"Ulak, I can't do it. I'm going to quit the novel today. I'm not a writer anyway, I'm not even a good Avon Lady. All I know how to do is bake cookies and cakes and tell kids funny stories and build school projects out of dried macaroni noodles. I can't even sew patches on pants, Ulak! I'm freaking out over here! I'm serious! I'm freaking out! It's fourth fucking quarter and my Avon sales are way way down. I'm just not getting into it right now. Can you come over and entertain 7 and 9 so I can at least get my fucking brochures delivered without listening to their incessant whining? Please? Please?"
I could hear Ulak's mother in the background. She yelled something to him in Turkish and I heard him cover the phone received with his hand and answer back. She made a noise of unsatisfaction, but Ulak returned to the phone.
"Ok, I'll come over. But on one condition."
"Fuck, I'll do anything. Anything! What?"
"Stop cursing. It's unladylike."
So Ulak drove over and parked his SUV in my driveway and the boys ran out to hug him. He handed them each a Hershey's bar, and they wiggled and churned a chocolate victory dance around his car. Ulak saw me peering through a window and he waved to me, waved "come outside." I slid into my Avon NASCAR slippers and walked out front. The air felt unusual, cold and heavy and damp, the aftermath of a day of torrential winter rains, and I saw piles of empty trash cans up and down my street and realized I forgot to take out the weekly garbage. Damn.
"Birdie, good afternoon." Ulak bowed his head in greeting and pulled a newspaper clipping out of the front pocket of his jeans. "Look, it says they have a new dog park by the old volcano. Let's get your dog and go. You need a break, you don't look good."
I ran my right hand through my hair in a self-conscious gesture and tried to suck in my stomach. "Well I don't have time for the park. I have to get the Avon done. I still have fifty brochures to pass around and order day is Monday. It never ends, Ulak. But here! Take the boys and the dog, they'll love it."
Ulak shook his head No and pointed to the newsprint. His bushy eyebrows met in the center as he frowned. "It says it's a nature preserve now. You should go too. You look like you haven't had much fresh air lately. When was the last time you just did something relaxing?"
He's right, I thought. I'm spending too much time trying to control the universe and make things happen. I shoved on my sneakers, grabbed Suzie and the good blue leash and stuffed a few plastic grocery bags in my back pocket to clean up any dog doo, and jumped in Ulak's car. I grabbed a handful of my Avon business cards, too, in the event any women were wandering around the park looking like they could use some blush or hand cream.
Ulak drove us past the Skull Hill development and into the stark volcanic valley. I didn't realize my town saved 480 acres surrounding the tallest peak for recreational use. Ulak explained this as we rode, told us how the park surrounds a little mountain called San Francisco Peak and an old decaying reservoir dam from the 1940s. It's not used anymore, he said, except by fishermen avoiding their wives on Sunday afternoons. We slid into another division of similar modular homes and Ulak came to a stop along the edge of the street.
We walked on a thin cement access path between two new homes, past the tall concrete walls circling the division, into a patch of wet grassland. The mountain loomed in the distance, and I could see the ancient volcanic cone exposed along the south rim, the rest rocky and sandy, not a speck of living vegetation gracing its sides.
Ulak told me he looked the park up on the internet and found a map with hiking trails.
"We can walk around the reservoir, then climb the mountain and come down the other side. It will only take an hour. You'll feel better, Birdie."
I could see the small lake stretched out in front of us. Much of the grasslands were muddy and wet from the rainstorm. The trail up the mountain looked steep but accessible. I glanced at the jungle foliage at the foot of the hill on the return side. I didn't see any trails, only run-off water and reeds and a thicket at least a half-mile wide. The boys ran ahead, climbed rocks and sand hills and splashed in every single puddle they could find. The dog lurched on the leash, pulling me up the hill, sniffing the fragrant velvet leaves of black sage and the tiny orange blossoms of monkey flower and much sooner than I expected we stood at the top of San Francisco Peak. The ocean spread her wings before us, such a salty revolving eagle, and I tried to find my house among the square specks organized in unnatural curves and rows at our feet.
It would have been a perfect and invigorating ending to a crappy day, if only we did the smart thing and took the same path we came. But Ulak pressed on, pointed to a dirt rock trail cascading in switch-backs down the other side of the mountain, and part-way into the valley the sun fell into the mouth of the sea, leaving me, a crazy coffee salesman Turk, two young boys and a fluffy white sissy dog in utter darkness.
I don't remember much of what happened next, and what I do remember involved crying, screaming children, a mud-covered jumping dog and one supremely bitchy mother. We hiked and prayed and hiked some more, two hours more, through hidden streams and slick marsh, over canyon ledges and into jarring dangerous ravines. The whole time I cursed Ulak and his great ideas.
"Ulak, I swear, if we ever get out of this alive I am NEVER doing ANYTHING you suggest again!" I held both boys hands in mine, as tight as I could, as Ulak held onto Suzie's leash. He didn't lash back at me, didn't raise his voice, only pointed and wondered if the next eroded ridge held our salvation.
"Let's try this break in the brush, maybe the road is here."
I decided I should leave a trail in the event someone needed to trace our steps. I tore my Avon business cards into bite sized pieces and let them flutter to the ground behind us. We finally came upon a drainage ditch winding down to our feet from some height. We climbed into the ditch and trudged, aching leg past aching leg, to the top, to a small residential street I didn't recognize. I dug into my mud-splattered jeans and pulled out my cell phone and dialed "911."
Half an hour later a kind police officer with a bald head and a donut paunch pulled to the curb and let us in the back of his squad car. The four of us sat on the hard molded prisoner seats, the dog spread out on our laps, and the officer laughed at our plight. We ended up seven miles from Ulak's car, all the way to the town next door.
As we left the police car I shook hands with our kind savior. I fished in my pocket but only had half an Avon card left, the half with my telephone number.
"Officer, I know this may sound strange, and I know I sure don't look the part, but I'm an Avon Lady. Here's my number, if you have a wife or girlfriend who would like a brochure." I handed him the torn, muddy card. He nodded his head and stuck it on the dashboard, and zoomed off into the dark night.
11:49:27 AM 
|
