Of Jiffy Pop and true love
Wes and I only took one trip together alone. It was very short, only a night, and so long ago I only remember that it took place on a three-day holiday weekend, though whether it was Memorial Day or Labor Day, who knows (I think the former)? Even the year is lost, although with Wes that seems appropriate as the best memories with him are timeless. And it was the time I realized that, no matter how far apart we grew later on, Wes truly loved me.
We went in an old green Dodge van he had in L.A, when he lived in an apartment building in Westwood whose only claim to fame was that Paul Revere (of Paul Revere and the Raiders, not the other one) lived there. It was very awkward for both of us, in some ways. We had never done anything like this before, had never done a lot of things brothers in stories are supposed to do as a matter of course. But we both seemed like we wanted to, although at the time I felt that maybe he was humouring me. I think I had had some late-adolescent upset in my life around then, and maybe he was trying to help me get past it. We drove into the Palomar area in the mountains south-east of L.A., with the vague idea of hiking there and then going into the Anza-Borrego desert beyond on the next day.
We had no idea there would be so many people on the road. We drove for hours, looking for a camping place, having foolishly not believed in the necessity of reserving a spot beforehand. That was one thing that made me feel the trip was cursed. We had never (or so it seemed) needed reservations to camp when we travelled as a family - maybe with all the distance that existed between Wes and I this was a sign that we shouldn't be trying to force some togetherness. May I had pushed too hard, maybe I had guilted him into spending some time with me.
We pulled over on the side of a small highway in the hills, to eat sandwiches crouched in the back area of the van (it was regular height and not conducive to suddenly standing up) and talk about what to do. It was odd - when we hung out together normally, at his apartment or our mother's house, we talked easily and naturally. Here, in what felt like an artificial situation, I felt strained and uneasy, thinking that I was probably not much fun for him to be with.
I suggested that maybe we should go home, as all the campgrounds we passed were full to overflowing and the Park rangers had told us everything was full practically to the Mexican border. He said no, damn it (one of his favorite phrases), we had come out to camp and we were damned well going to camp.
For some reason that made things easier and happier - maybe it was a sign that he really didn't mind being out there with me, maybe it was just Wes's natural stubborness. Either way was fine with me. We went on, seeing cars and campers pulled off on the side of the road, beaten down by the fruitless search for a place to camp and make memories. We finally pulled into a day-use picnic area, clearly and thickly posted with "NO CAMPING" signs. Many people were setting up tents. Wes and I, both neurotically law abiding by virtue of our MidWestern upbringing, thought only of making dinner and then, maybe, going home having at least had a day on the road and having tried. Certainly not camping, no. The signs said so.
It was a really beautiful location. I don't know how Wes found it or how he beat others to it, as the crowd there was immense. Our spot was at the end of a little draw, with old oaks and Ponderosa pines around us except to the southeast, where the land suddenly dropped off a thousand feet to the desert at sunset. The colors, the place, the air were a perfect summer time feeling. I felt happy, then. It was an unusual enough feeling for me, just that pure feeling of pleasure at existing at that moment, in that place, with my big brother and no claims on us for anything but to just hang out.
The picnic spot had one of those old iron cooking grills on a thin metal stand, shaped like a trough and, unusually, with no opening on the side. The grate only extended half way down the trough, leaving the other half open for wood and coal to be fed into the fire. We spent a lot of time working to get a fire going. Neither of us were great at it - that was our sister Marina's forte; she always seemed able to get a fire going and keep it going. Eventually, though, it caught and held and we cooked whatever we brought for dinner. It wasn't a whole lot, and I have no idea what most of it was. Except for one thing.
During the evening things had gotten a little awkward again. Wes, in his sweet way, acted a little like he was the host and kept asking me if I wanted this, that or the other thing. His very gentle solicitousness re-opened the space between us, but not in a bad way, just a little sorrow that, as Cabell said, "no soul can travel on a bridge of words."
He was incredibly thoughtful. He knew I was addicted to iced tea and popcorn, and he had packed a large jar of Nestea instant (unsweetened, of course) and a package of Jiffy Pop. We had been drinking the tea non-stop, mixing it with the tap water that comes out of park land places, and the taste was wonderful - absolutely awful in any other circumstance but just so right, right then. We had wound our way through dinner and Wes asked if I wanted popcorn now, as he knew I couldn't get through a day without it. I didn't, really, but he had been so nice in thinking of me and getting it special for our trip that I couldn't say no.
I peeled off the strange spiral cardboard top and put the thin aluminum pan on the grill, letting it sit for a bit until it started to sizzle. Grabbing the little wire handle I shook and swirled for a long time. A very long time. Nothing much happened. A lot of sizzle, a couple of tiny pops. Frustrated after a while and many false starts, I finally stopped hunching over the grill and put the pan aside. Wes, who had been making his usual happily sarcastic comments while I had been working away, said I was just incompetent and to step aside and let a master work. I said no, it was OK, and he said he knew I liked popcorn and that I would have it.
Wes was a very fastidious person in many ways. His towel had to be perfect each morning, his clothes clean, and any trace of dirt on his hands or face was removed forthwith. He bent carefully over the grill, gripping the pan's handle between thumb and forefinger, and gently rotated. We could hear the corn inside, swirling in the oil. It sounded contented, happy to be where it was and with no interest in popping for the likes of us.
He worked away for a few minutes, slipping slowly from his aloof and patrician posture to one of intense concentration, ending up only inches from the pan and holding his glasses up on his nose with his other hand (his right, as he was left handed). This is not good, he said, holding the pan up to his ear and shaking it. It should be working. It's all right, Wowie, I said. It's just not going to happen. I don't know how many Jiffy Pops have failed me in the past.
No, no, he said. You want popcorn and you shall have it. He worked on it for an incredibly long time, as the sunlight finally gave way to the night. I remember so well seeing him bent over the grill, Wes tall and lordly (he really was, he wouldn't have been out of place in castle on the Rhine) in blue shadows while the land beyond was still lit by the saffron and carnelian of a desert sunset. It was like looking at a painting with the foreground by Rackham and the background by Parrish.
Finally he said, I know, it's not hot enough. The grate is too high above the coals. The grate was fixed and couldn't be moved, so he took the pan, lowered it through the open area and held it an inch or so over the coals. He had to stand hunched at a very unnatural angle, and hold his arm almost entirely inside the trough, with his elbow bent at 90 degrees to get the pan over the coals that were under the grill. He worked that pan, swirling, flipping, shaking. The sizzle became very pronounced after a while. Wes' face was red in the firelight, his black hair hanging down, his glasses sliding almost off his nose, coal smudges on his face and all over his hands, and his clothes and self wreathed in choking smoke. I said again, Wes, it's OK, please don't bother, but he was intent and hardly knew anything else was there but the fire, the pan and his hand.
Pops started up, slowly, but building. The top's stuck! He said. (Jiffy Pop had an aluminum foil top that is supposed to expand from the hot gases and make room for the popped corn). He pulled out the pan, and worked carefully at the top, not puncturing it but loosening it. He put the pan back in, but had all the work to do over again, heating and swirling with his arm stuck into the heated trough, switching hands whenever it got too hot. Again, the pops, slow but building. Suddenly, a storm of sound and the top grew like crazy, ballooning up so high it hit the grill and tore. Wes pulled out the pan, but ripped the top more as he did and corn shot up into the night, like little soft hail scattering around the site. Chagrined at the loss, he looked as if he felt he failed. I had a paper plate over the top as quickly as I could, holding down the corn while it still popped. We poured it onto other plates, what we could of it. Some of the bottom was burned, some of the top was lying all around waiting for the squirrels and jays. We ate the rest. It tasted burned, and oily and smokey. I will never remember or relish the memory of popcorn more than that night. Wes seemed depressed that it wasn't perfect for me. It was, but I didn't know how to tell him without sounding corny.
We sat there a long time, drinking tea, eating popcorn, and cheese and whatever else we had left, looking at the stars and talking about all the things we always talked about.
Later on, in the van before we fell asleep, I saw his hands. They were both bright red. Parts were shiny and puffy with burns, and each hand had white lines where the stupid wire handle had heated to the point of searing his skin. I couldn't believe it. Wes, my god, your hands are burned. It's not so bad, he said. Besides I wasn't going to let a stupid Jiffy Pop keep you from your popcorn on our trip.
That's how Wes showed me true love. No matter what came before or after, from that point on I knew Wes loved me. It's carried me through a lot.
We went in an old green Dodge van he had in L.A, when he lived in an apartment building in Westwood whose only claim to fame was that Paul Revere (of Paul Revere and the Raiders, not the other one) lived there. It was very awkward for both of us, in some ways. We had never done anything like this before, had never done a lot of things brothers in stories are supposed to do as a matter of course. But we both seemed like we wanted to, although at the time I felt that maybe he was humouring me. I think I had had some late-adolescent upset in my life around then, and maybe he was trying to help me get past it. We drove into the Palomar area in the mountains south-east of L.A., with the vague idea of hiking there and then going into the Anza-Borrego desert beyond on the next day.
We had no idea there would be so many people on the road. We drove for hours, looking for a camping place, having foolishly not believed in the necessity of reserving a spot beforehand. That was one thing that made me feel the trip was cursed. We had never (or so it seemed) needed reservations to camp when we travelled as a family - maybe with all the distance that existed between Wes and I this was a sign that we shouldn't be trying to force some togetherness. May I had pushed too hard, maybe I had guilted him into spending some time with me.
We pulled over on the side of a small highway in the hills, to eat sandwiches crouched in the back area of the van (it was regular height and not conducive to suddenly standing up) and talk about what to do. It was odd - when we hung out together normally, at his apartment or our mother's house, we talked easily and naturally. Here, in what felt like an artificial situation, I felt strained and uneasy, thinking that I was probably not much fun for him to be with.
I suggested that maybe we should go home, as all the campgrounds we passed were full to overflowing and the Park rangers had told us everything was full practically to the Mexican border. He said no, damn it (one of his favorite phrases), we had come out to camp and we were damned well going to camp.
For some reason that made things easier and happier - maybe it was a sign that he really didn't mind being out there with me, maybe it was just Wes's natural stubborness. Either way was fine with me. We went on, seeing cars and campers pulled off on the side of the road, beaten down by the fruitless search for a place to camp and make memories. We finally pulled into a day-use picnic area, clearly and thickly posted with "NO CAMPING" signs. Many people were setting up tents. Wes and I, both neurotically law abiding by virtue of our MidWestern upbringing, thought only of making dinner and then, maybe, going home having at least had a day on the road and having tried. Certainly not camping, no. The signs said so.
It was a really beautiful location. I don't know how Wes found it or how he beat others to it, as the crowd there was immense. Our spot was at the end of a little draw, with old oaks and Ponderosa pines around us except to the southeast, where the land suddenly dropped off a thousand feet to the desert at sunset. The colors, the place, the air were a perfect summer time feeling. I felt happy, then. It was an unusual enough feeling for me, just that pure feeling of pleasure at existing at that moment, in that place, with my big brother and no claims on us for anything but to just hang out.
The picnic spot had one of those old iron cooking grills on a thin metal stand, shaped like a trough and, unusually, with no opening on the side. The grate only extended half way down the trough, leaving the other half open for wood and coal to be fed into the fire. We spent a lot of time working to get a fire going. Neither of us were great at it - that was our sister Marina's forte; she always seemed able to get a fire going and keep it going. Eventually, though, it caught and held and we cooked whatever we brought for dinner. It wasn't a whole lot, and I have no idea what most of it was. Except for one thing.
During the evening things had gotten a little awkward again. Wes, in his sweet way, acted a little like he was the host and kept asking me if I wanted this, that or the other thing. His very gentle solicitousness re-opened the space between us, but not in a bad way, just a little sorrow that, as Cabell said, "no soul can travel on a bridge of words."
He was incredibly thoughtful. He knew I was addicted to iced tea and popcorn, and he had packed a large jar of Nestea instant (unsweetened, of course) and a package of Jiffy Pop. We had been drinking the tea non-stop, mixing it with the tap water that comes out of park land places, and the taste was wonderful - absolutely awful in any other circumstance but just so right, right then. We had wound our way through dinner and Wes asked if I wanted popcorn now, as he knew I couldn't get through a day without it. I didn't, really, but he had been so nice in thinking of me and getting it special for our trip that I couldn't say no.
I peeled off the strange spiral cardboard top and put the thin aluminum pan on the grill, letting it sit for a bit until it started to sizzle. Grabbing the little wire handle I shook and swirled for a long time. A very long time. Nothing much happened. A lot of sizzle, a couple of tiny pops. Frustrated after a while and many false starts, I finally stopped hunching over the grill and put the pan aside. Wes, who had been making his usual happily sarcastic comments while I had been working away, said I was just incompetent and to step aside and let a master work. I said no, it was OK, and he said he knew I liked popcorn and that I would have it.
Wes was a very fastidious person in many ways. His towel had to be perfect each morning, his clothes clean, and any trace of dirt on his hands or face was removed forthwith. He bent carefully over the grill, gripping the pan's handle between thumb and forefinger, and gently rotated. We could hear the corn inside, swirling in the oil. It sounded contented, happy to be where it was and with no interest in popping for the likes of us.
He worked away for a few minutes, slipping slowly from his aloof and patrician posture to one of intense concentration, ending up only inches from the pan and holding his glasses up on his nose with his other hand (his right, as he was left handed). This is not good, he said, holding the pan up to his ear and shaking it. It should be working. It's all right, Wowie, I said. It's just not going to happen. I don't know how many Jiffy Pops have failed me in the past.
No, no, he said. You want popcorn and you shall have it. He worked on it for an incredibly long time, as the sunlight finally gave way to the night. I remember so well seeing him bent over the grill, Wes tall and lordly (he really was, he wouldn't have been out of place in castle on the Rhine) in blue shadows while the land beyond was still lit by the saffron and carnelian of a desert sunset. It was like looking at a painting with the foreground by Rackham and the background by Parrish.
Finally he said, I know, it's not hot enough. The grate is too high above the coals. The grate was fixed and couldn't be moved, so he took the pan, lowered it through the open area and held it an inch or so over the coals. He had to stand hunched at a very unnatural angle, and hold his arm almost entirely inside the trough, with his elbow bent at 90 degrees to get the pan over the coals that were under the grill. He worked that pan, swirling, flipping, shaking. The sizzle became very pronounced after a while. Wes' face was red in the firelight, his black hair hanging down, his glasses sliding almost off his nose, coal smudges on his face and all over his hands, and his clothes and self wreathed in choking smoke. I said again, Wes, it's OK, please don't bother, but he was intent and hardly knew anything else was there but the fire, the pan and his hand.
Pops started up, slowly, but building. The top's stuck! He said. (Jiffy Pop had an aluminum foil top that is supposed to expand from the hot gases and make room for the popped corn). He pulled out the pan, and worked carefully at the top, not puncturing it but loosening it. He put the pan back in, but had all the work to do over again, heating and swirling with his arm stuck into the heated trough, switching hands whenever it got too hot. Again, the pops, slow but building. Suddenly, a storm of sound and the top grew like crazy, ballooning up so high it hit the grill and tore. Wes pulled out the pan, but ripped the top more as he did and corn shot up into the night, like little soft hail scattering around the site. Chagrined at the loss, he looked as if he felt he failed. I had a paper plate over the top as quickly as I could, holding down the corn while it still popped. We poured it onto other plates, what we could of it. Some of the bottom was burned, some of the top was lying all around waiting for the squirrels and jays. We ate the rest. It tasted burned, and oily and smokey. I will never remember or relish the memory of popcorn more than that night. Wes seemed depressed that it wasn't perfect for me. It was, but I didn't know how to tell him without sounding corny.
We sat there a long time, drinking tea, eating popcorn, and cheese and whatever else we had left, looking at the stars and talking about all the things we always talked about.
Later on, in the van before we fell asleep, I saw his hands. They were both bright red. Parts were shiny and puffy with burns, and each hand had white lines where the stupid wire handle had heated to the point of searing his skin. I couldn't believe it. Wes, my god, your hands are burned. It's not so bad, he said. Besides I wasn't going to let a stupid Jiffy Pop keep you from your popcorn on our trip.
That's how Wes showed me true love. No matter what came before or after, from that point on I knew Wes loved me. It's carried me through a lot.
posted by Rowan | 11:43 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home