to my quarters, put my camera bag over my head and one shoulder, pick up my duffel bag, and walk off the boat.
I stop by the company office and find the mailbox with our boat’s name on it. I sort through it all, looking for anything for me. Aside from a couple of credit card offers, I find no evidence that the outside world has missed me at all, and then I get to an envelope from Three Hills, Oregon. Grandma. I stick it in my pocket, rip up the rest of my junk mail, and go back outside to sit on a bench and read what she has written.
It’s a birthday card with a fish on it. “Today’s a day that’s just for you, to do the things you love to do! Happy Birthday!” Underneath the printed message, Grandma wrote, “Happy 29th, Daniel. We love you! Grandma and Grandpa.”
My birthday was nine days ago. I didn’t tell the guys. I didn’t want anyone to contemplate whether they were glad I was born. I look at Grandma’s writing. She’s glad. I don’t know whether anyone else is, but she is.
I take out my wallet and pull out two pictures. The top one is of me between my grandparents after I qualified for regional finals in bull riding. In the picture, taken just after I rode a huge Brahman named Tornado Joe, Grandpa looks proud while Grandma looks scared. I never noticed her fear before. The other picture, the one I keep tucked under the first, is of me sitting in my father’s lap and driving the green Ford pickup around the circular driveway near my grandparents’ barn. Mom and Dad are laughing.
Later, in the same truck with the same people, I would be crushed by silence. The silence would be more crushing than the countless rolls that left us upside down.
Like I did then, I shut my eyes tightly to try to block out what I wish I had never seen. I put the pictures back in my wallet and get up.
I cross the street that runs along the water and walk up another street to where a wooden sidewalk traverses a hill. Near the top I see my house, the ugliest house on the street, and hear my housemates’ music. As I approach the door, I see Minda and Rob through the window, dancing wildly. I can smell the stink of our house even before I open the door.
“Hey, Daniel! It’s Devo Night!” Minda shouts and hugs me as I walk through the door. Although Minda is like a sister to me, she’s also the first woman I’ve seen in a month. She’s a sight for sore eyes—even in her waffle long underwear and cutoff army pants. As she hugs me, I realize it is the first time anyone has touched me since the last time she hugged me. I smell her slightly magenta hair. The softness of her polar fleece vest reminds me of little chicks about a week after they hatch.
“We’re serving baked potatoes and have several Mr. Potato Heads for your entertainment if you don’t feel like dancing with us!” adds Rob. He holds up a piece of brown plastic shaped like a potato. Then he reaches down to the pile of small plastic parts on the table and selects the eyes with the big black glasses, a Roman nose, and big red lips. Finally, he tops the potato with the yellow Cuban-style hat. I think I may have gotten a Mr. Potato Head for my sixth birthday.
“Hey, bro,” Paul shouts as he reaches for the sliding glass door in the back of the house. Through the ends of his long nasty dreadlocks I can see he’s holding a bong and a Mr. Potato Head. “They’ve finally progressed beyond disco and into New Wave.” He rolls his eyes through his large Coke-bottle glasses. “I’ll just be out here.” He walks out onto the back porch in his clashing plaid flannel shirt and boxers, rag wool socks, and sheepskin slippers.
Rob is wearing a silky polyester shirt with a seventies psychedelic print of topless women all over it. It shines like his freshly shaven head.
“Nice shirt. Is that new?” I ask.
“Minda bought it for me at the Salvation Army. Other gay guys dig it.”
Minda dances past the pile of home brew equipment and into the kitchen while