FLASHBACK

I wake up knowing I have to move my car today. I never know what to expect these days. Yesterday I had no car. I want to stay in bed, but this sudden need is too strong. I toss aside the comforter and stand up, wearing Jockey shorts that I did not have on when I went to bed. I am slipping into a pair of Levis and a t-shirt. I don't see my shoes, so I walk out barefoot.

There's a few clouds on the horizon, but that's the only thing normal about the weather today. It's the middle of winter, but the sun is shining and it must be eighty. Margaret, across the street, is feeding the peacocks and turkeys high on her grassy hill. Needs mowing.

The car is in front of the house. It's a Volkswagen Kaarman Ghia. Powder blue. Has seen better days. I am wondering why I need to move it, but the instinct is too strong to challenge.

Perhaps this is only a process of familiarization. Perhaps it is not the car that needs moving but I who need to move it; to get the feel of the car I did not have yesterday and may not have tomorrow.

I get in and I start the engine.

The car wants to be in the middle of the road. Its claws dig into the gravel, pull to the left. I'm turning the wheel to the right but the gravel slips away. I'm trying not to panic. There's a car coming up the street. A dark green Eldorado driven by an elderly woman. I pull harder on the wheel. I back up. With a great deal of effort I manage to get my car out of the road and the woman drives past.

When I slam the car door, peacocks and grassy cages are gone and replaced by yellow stucco and Indian tobacco. My white picket fence gives way to red cedar and black wrought iron. Port Townsend has become Los Angeles.

I ' m finally home.

This is not my thought. Like the need to move the car, it is unfamiliar, unbidden. Where have I been if not home? I'm pulled out of my reverie by a face and a voice from another place, another time. It's Darci, walking up the alley. Last I knew, she belonged to Port Townsend, but I am thinking that perhaps it is more appropriate to find her here, in this city of one-night stands and empty smiles. I invite her in, and she accepts. I lead her in the gate and up to my back door. The paint is old and peeling, the window dirty. I take out my key, silhouette it against the sky. I'm apprehensive about the lock. It must be rusty, I've been gone so long. Why am I so afraid the lock will be rusty? The key turns effortlessly, the door swings open.

I'm not troubled by Darci's disappearance. It's the sort of thing I've come to expect from her.

My room looks just as it's ever looked. Unfinished cedar. Woven rugs. Watercolors. Natural browns and oranges. The single room is mostly kitchen. Tiled counters along the edges. There's a cooking island on the open end, backing the living room sofa. No bathrooms - I use Mother's. This apartment is a renovated garage on her property.

Mother has evidently been feeding the pets in my kitchen while I've been gone. Lightning, my dog, and Thunder, the cat, are waiting for me in the kitchen. There's also a new cat I've never seen before. Grey and fluffy.

Cooked chicken sitting on the counter. Half-wrapped in aluminum foil, the poor beasts were to fend for themselves. Chicken breast on the floor by Lightning, untouched. "What's the matter?" I ask. "I think the new cat should have it," he replies. I figure he must know best, so I put the chicken breast on the cooking island and the new cat leaps over to eat.

Egg and oil have slopped over the side of the cat dish and now liberally streak the tiled counter, so I take a few paper towels to wipe it up. The new oat isn't eating the chicken. It sniffs at the breast hungrily, circles it, rubs against it, and salivates. In fact, not only is it salivating out its mouth; it seems to be salivating directly out the side of its neck. Must be hungry, I think. It's not eating, though. I get the impression it can't. Doesn't seem to be able to open its mouth. I give Lightning a questioning look. He just shrugs. I'll have to bring it up with Mother.

To get to Mother's house requires a certain amount of will. In one sense it is just across the backyard. In another sense, it is a universe away, today I find it easy to cross that gap.

I enter her house without knocking, the walls are white plaster, the carpet a yellow ochre. All lit from above by stained-glass panels yellow in the wall overhead. Mother is in bed, writing. I sit on the bed. She reads me her latest poem. We talk about the animals, particularly the new cat.

Suddenly, she is animated. "Ooh look!" she cries. She is pointing at a small mouse that has somehow climbed the wall behind me. "What a wonderful treat for the eat!" Apparently she doesn't yet know that the cat can't eat. "There's something I should tell you," I begin.

She screams, a hideous look on her face. At first I think it's what I've said, but she catches my arm and spins me around, and I see that the mouse is not alone on the wall, Two enormous spiders are moving in for the kill. Hideous spiders, black striped with yellow. One is huge, female, the other smaller, male. I am repulsed. I jump onto the bed, crouching, arms held before me as if in self-defense. I yell at the spiders. Adrenaline scream. The sound I make frightens me. The spiders fall to the ground, scramble under the bed.

Mother doesn't want me to leave the bed. She thinks they'll bite me as soon as my feet hit the floor. I leap for the door. Mother screams. I'm sure I see a flash of yellow at my heels as I bound through the open door, but I am safe.

Out in the hall, I feel somewhat calmer. I start to yell "Where do you keep the liquor?" but I'm sure I remember. I will use the alcohol to kill the spiders.

I am looking around the living roomy trying to remember which of the dark wood cabinets that line the walls holds the liquor. I check several. Finally, I find a few bottles in the long low Hi-Fi cabinet against the window. They are housed with the records. Interesting statement about music. I check the labels, the strongest thing here says six proof. That seems awfully low. Obviously she keeps the hard stuff somewhere else, but I can't seem to find it. I know that I've got rubbing alcohol at my house, but I'm afraid that it will take too long to get to my house and return; that the spiders will have found a hiding place by then, or will have escaped.

I rush back to the bedroom, determined to kill the spiders any way I can. Even if it means crushing them with my bare feet. Mother is still cowering in the bed, but the spiders are nowhere to be seen. We search the room carefully. There seems to be no place they could have gone. Mother promises to call me if they appear again, and I leave.

Coming home, the first thing I do is check for the bottle of rubbing alcohol I'm sure I have under the kitchen sink. It's not there. I must have used it up. I'm feeling rather leery of spiders at the moment, so I run outside and down the street to the market. The road is hard on my feet. I should have put on my shoes when I got up this morning. I slow to a walk coming into the parking lot. A woman walks by and I turn and stare, wondering what it is that attracts me to her.

I hear my name, and turn to face the market. A young blonde woman leans out of an upstairs window, waving. She calls my name again. It is too far to discern her voice. I usually wear glasses, but I don't have them on now. I need them. I am unable to tell who this woman is. Seeing the blonde hair, I suspect it to be Sandy, my first lover. I smile, yell back - "I can't see you without my glasses." Her head ducks back into the window, and I break into a trot towards the market.

The upper floor of the market is a coffee shop. At the top of the stairs I am met by Eve; not an old friend, but a close one. It was she who waved. It's been awhile. I embrace her. Her hair is longer, straighter than I've seen it. She's bleached it blonde, but it's starting to grow out - I can see the mouse-brown creeping back into it from the top of her head. Her dress is casual, just this side of punk. Understated, and yet still somewhat shocking. Something only she could pull off. This is the woman who pierced my ear, who helped me bleach my hair when I was that way.

We've both changed.

She's dropped out of school, she says. After she drove me to the ferry at the end of my last visit, she decided there was no reason to go back. On a whim, she drove straight across the country nonstop to Goldwater. Someplace back east; I don't recognize the name. Didn't tell her parents. What a coincidence that she should run into both me and Therese just at the moment she returns.

I hadn't noticed, but Therese is also here. She is fading into the background. It is unclear whether she is here physically or only as a memory. there was a time when the three of us were inseparable. I would hitch a ride to Bellingham to spend the weekend with them, the parties would never end.

It almost feels like old times. Yet underneath the sense of relaxation lies the truth that the time of wildness we shared is done. I am part of a different world now, am on a diverging path.

The waitress is leaning over our table. We order our usual brinks. Eve has black coffee, I have tea. Therese comes out of the shadows long enough to order a coffee, then fades away again.

The waitress seems convinced that we're hungry. We're very close to the kitchen, she insists. It would be no trouble to get us some sandwiches. We are assuring her that we really only want coffee. She is leaving reluctantly. She doesn't understand. The drinks are not for thirst, the drinks are for tradition.

As we talk, I realize more and more that I am no longer the same person to Eve. She likes to pigeonhole her friends, for them to be predictable; I know the newness will disturb her. "What's the matter?" she asks. I've been quiet, don't respond to her taunts. "Nothing," I say. "I just feel quiet some times, this is one of them." She seems upset. When we part, we are both disappointed.

It has gotten dark. I walk home by streets that were not there when I came. I am back in Port Townsend. Somehow, talking to Eve has brought me back here. The wind buffets my face. Stars gleam overhead, diamonds on velvet. It's not a cliche here.

Gravel underfoot as I turn onto my street. Peacocks stir in their cages, mute for the winter. It is starting to snow. My head is ringing several pitches at once. I am tired. My feet are cold. I write a letter to Eve before I turn in. Things I didn't know I needed to say until I got home.

When I get into bed, my head is clear.