Paullina Simons - Road To Paradise

For myhusbandsmother, Elaine Ryan, from
the time she was twenty, a mother first

Earths crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes

E LIZABETH B ARRETT B ROWNING

And all my former life is seen
A crazy drowsy beautiful and utterly
appalling dream

A LEXANDER B LOK

Do what you like, Shelby Sloane, the bartered bride had said to me, smiling like an enigma, just remember: all roads lead to where you stand.

Back then I said, what does that mean?

This morning I knew. It was the morning of the third day I had been trapped in a room, two miles from the main drag of the Reno strip in a place called Motel.

I stood alone, broke, and in Reno.

There is one road that leads to Reno from the eastInterstate 80, and in Salt Lake City, Utah, 569 miles away, there is a bellman at a four-star hotel who, when asked if there is perhaps a more scenic route than the mind-numbing Interstate, blinks at me his contempt in the sunshine before slowly saying, In Nevada?

But there is another road in Nevada that takes you almost there: U.S. 50, the loneliest road in America.

Reno is in the high desert valley, 4500 feet above sea level, but the highway climbs into the mountains before twisting down the black unlit slopes to the washbasin where the lights are. The town itself is one street, Virginia, running in a straight line between the mountain passes.

On Virginia stands the Eldorado and the Circus Circus; the Romantic Sensations Club; Horseshoe, the 24-hr pawn shop (nothing refused!); the Wild Orchid Club (Hustlers All-new Girls!); Heidis Family Restaurant; Adult Bookstore (Under New Management: More Variety!); Limericks Pub&Grill (Once a younglass from Mamaroneck/Decided to go on a trek ); Arch Discount Liquors; Adults Only Cabaret (Filipino waitresses in Island outfits); St. Francis Hotel; Ho-Hum Motel; Pioneer and Premier Jewelry&Loan; Thunderbolt: Buy Here! Pay Here! We buy Clean Cars and Trucks!; Adventure Inn: Exotic Theme Rooms and Wedding Chapel; a billboard asking, Is Purity and Truth of Devotion to Jesus Central to your Life? and Motel.

Thats where I am.

Motel is a beige, drab two-story structure with rusted landings built around a cement square courtyard that serves both as a parking lot and a deck for the swimming pool. The cars are parked in stalls around the pool right behind the lounge chairs. Not my car, because thats vanished, but other peoples cars, sure.

I was waiting for the girl in the mini-skirt to come back. She wasnt supposed to have left in the first place, so waiting for her was rather like waiting for the unscheduled train to run over the car stalled on the tracks. I came back for her, and she had disappeared. Along with my car. The note she left me could have been written in hieroglyphs. Shel, where are you? I thought you were coming back. Guess not. Ive gone to look for you. Heres hoping I find you. Two kisses followed by two hugs, as if we were sophomores in junior high passing notes back and forth. She had taken her things.

I was half-hoping the Motel manager would throw me out, seeing that I had no money and couldnt pay for the room, but he said with a smile and a wink, Rooms bought and paid for till the twentieth, dahrlin. As I walked away I was tempted to ask the twentieth of what, but didnt.

The first day I didnt get that upset. I felt it was penance. I hadnt done what I was supposed to; it was only right she didnt do what she was supposed to.

The second day I spent foaming in righteous, purifying fury. I was eighteen, stopping for a day in Reno, on my way even farther west, to help out a fellow pilgrim I met along the way, and look what I got for my troubles. I whiled away the hours compulsively shredding into tinier and tinier strips fashion magazines, an old newspaper, informational brochures on Reno, and gambling tips, then strewing them all over the room. T OURIST ATTRACTIONS ! P LACES TO E AT ! T HINGS TO DO ! all sawdust on the floor.

Paradise, California, Butte County, Sierra Nevada Mountains, Tall Pines, Blue Skies, Paradise Pines, Lovelock and Golden Nugget days. Paradise Ridge was inhabited by the Maidu Indians who lived there ten thousand years before white man came. In Magalia, near Paradise, gold was found in 1859. The Magalia Nugget is world renowned, weighing fifty-four pounds, of which forty-nine ounces is pure gold. And my stagecoach of life had stopped in Paradise, near Magalia, on its way out west. It was summer of 1981.

Days in an empty room while outside was full of rain.

Rain, in Reno, in August!

The first day I ate the musty, half-eaten candy bars the girl had kindly left behind and an open bag of potato chips. The second day I finished a bag of peanuts and tortilla chips so stale they tasted like shoe laces, but I ate them anyway and was grateful. I drank water from the tap.

Inside me was detritus from weeks on the open road. The stop sign near Valparaiso, Indiana. The Sand Hills of Nebraska. The Great Divide in Wyoming that, I thought then, split my life into the before and after. Silly me. Yesterday Paradise. Today Reno. Like still frames. Here is Shelby driving her Shelbythe car dreams are made of. I have a picture; it must have happened. Here is the flat road before me. Here are the Pomeranians. Here is the sunset in St. Louis. Heres the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Black Hills, the Yellow Dunes, the casinos and the slot machines, and Interior, South Dakota, with Floyd, that sad, tattooed boy.

Do what you like.

Indeed.

When we spotted her a second time, we couldnt believe it was the same gal. I slowed down, we looked. Can it be? we said. It is. Should we stop? No, no. No hitchhikers. But she waved to us; recognized us. Look, its fate, I said. What are the chances of running into the same girl in different states, hundreds of miles apart. I dont believe in fate, said my friend Gina. Come on, I said. You gotta believe in something. What do you believe in?

Not fate, said Gina, pointing. And not her.

I cajoled. Well give her a lift down the road. When it stops being convenient, well let her off. I saw her in the rearview mirror running toward us. Running and waving. That frame is on every page in my helpless head. Seeing her get closer and closer. This is what I keep coming back to: I should have kept going.

If only I hadnt gotten that damn, cursed, awful, hateful, hated car. How I loved that car. Where was it?

At night I paced like a caged tiger, growling under my breath, choking on my frustration. I couldnt sleep, couldnt lie down, couldnt watch TV, couldnt sit still, couldnt think, couldnt breathe. Night was senseless; day was worse.

During the day, I prayed for night to come. But at night I barricaded the front door with two chairs and a dresser; I chained and locked it, and locked the window looking out onto the open landing. I didnt turn on the TV because I wanted to hear every footstep coming close, but every footstep coming close made my heart rip out of my chest. Now that the others were gone, I thought at any moment theyd be coming for me; a few days ago there were three of us and today only I was left. Otherwise how to explain my cars vanishing, my friends vanishing?

On the third day of rain, I thought I was losing my mind. I couldnt recall the farms of Iowa anymore, or when we crossed the Mississippi. I couldnt remember if Id graduated, the last name of my good friend Marc, my home phone number. I didnt know what to do. The girls were gone, my car was gone, my money was gone, phone numbers had left my head, and a man at the reception desk was smiling at me with his filthy grin saying, Stay as long as you like, dahrlin.