THE DESERT AND THE DEEP BLUE TREES
THE DEEP BLUE TREES
The morning sun and the morning breeze blew the evergreens
this way and that and round about crashing the needles of the pines and cedars
against themselves and onto the windows of the cabin that sat on the top of a
hill, at the top of the gravel road in the early summer of 1960.
The winter before the child and her mother had spent in Scottsdale,
Arizona a new town at the time with dirt roads and undeveloped
subdivisions. The hospital and the
schools were in place but the roads were still dirt and the town was very ugly
and poor and when the family had arrived from Pasadena, California their things
had been shipped and trucked over the desert in a moving van. Until the van arrived the mother set the suit
cases about the living room for tables and chairs. Plastic curtains hung at the windows and the
yard was dirt or sand, it was hard to tell unless a wind storm came up and the
dust and sand would blow in the air separating itself.
Her father had bought her a bowl of water and rocks with
four turtles to make her happy. They
were the smallest kind and she could not touch them for fear of salmonella and
watched them, not taking her eyes off of them for one second, she feared one
would turn on its back and die. But that
was that year. Every year from now on
there would be a change, a move, a change of people or economic status. But for her father, who had taken an early
retirement and was in the process of achieving his dream, they were in the
warmth of Arizona and he would not have to suffer the cold anymore. For her mother it was the beginning of a
nightmare. The year-1959 would be spent in this lonely cowboy town.
But she and her mother were home again in the mountain cabin
that had been purchased when she was six and where she attended school in the
second grade. Her mother, calm away from
her father, no more screaming unhappiness and no more throwing up on her part
from listening to the fighting and no more watching her father cry.
She sat close to her mother on the living room love seat
with the sun heating the couch, the intense morning sun piercing through the
window from the south East, its light made them a yellow light, her mother,
herself and the story book resting on her mother’s lap. The bright page showed a huge hairy giant
with jagged teeth and a small boy, a small slingshot in one hand, ready to
release a stone. This was the David with
the Giant story, her favorite story, the one that she had her mother read to
her, over and over from the old book with edges worn and pages torn from her
brothers and sisters little fingers, all older than herself.
After her mother was done reading, she said, “Shall I make
breakfast now honey?” The girl always
ate hot oatmeal with a huge clump of brown sugar on top, which would begin to
melt before she could pour cold milk around the sides, cooling the oatmeal so
that she could slowly spoon it to her mouth.
It would be too hot to eat but cool soon enough. Her mother, on the other hand, would always
eat toast with jelly in place of butter.
For lunch she would hope for a hamburger and she knew that in the
afternoon both of them would find something sweet, a candy bar or cookies to
tie them over til’ dinner. She didn’t
know what her mother would eat for lunch but she knew for sure about the sweets
during the day. At night they would eat
eggs and toast together, her mom would drink coffee and she would drink milk.
After breakfast her mother would wash the dishes and then
visit a neighbors or go to work at the mountain club, checking in tourists or
making a room ready for occupancy making sure a girl cleaned it and that the
repair man did his job before the next guest.
The mountain club was a short walk from the cabin. It was a big building with a restaurant and a
recreation room. On Saturday evenings
dances were held, polkas. They were
always there, dancing and enjoying the music and the people.
After breakfasts she would leave the cabin, follow the
gravel road and cut through properties to another road that would bring her to
Rosie’s horse stable where about twelve horses were corralled to be used for
trail rides She loved the smell of the
stables and the sight of the horses in the heat of the morning when the flies
would land on the noses and the eyes of the horses and their flanks, the tails
swishing one side and then the other.
She stood by the corral of one horse for a long time. The horse was tall and red, about seventeen
hands and they called that horse, Diablo, and she would ride it. Rosie told her not to ride the horse, but she
did and she considered the horse hers. I
am going to tell my son not to let you ride him; he is too strong and
wild. Rosie worked the restaurant down
at the club. “O.K. Rosie,” she would
tell the woman, but she knew that Rick, Rosie’s son wouldn’t remember and that
she would ride the horse.
The sun was getting hot but near the trees there was
coolness. The girl stopped watching the horses and touching their smelly hides
and soft noses. She wandered toward the
mountain club after stopping home and changing into her swim suit. Her mother was at the gate and waved at her
as she walked by. Her mother looked
pretty all fixed up in a cotton dress that gathered at the waist and had a full
skirt. Her hair was curled and she wore
earrings and lipstick. She slashed a
wide smile and warmed her entire face.
“Are you swimming honey?” The
voice was a beautiful soprano and so familiar and lovely.”Do you have money,
came her mother’s voice again. “The girl nodded yes and walked through the main
gate. She walked past the picnic area
and the shuffleboard courts and to the pool, she laid down her towel and slowly
lowered herself into what felt like cold water but would feel warm later. The pool was full of kids mostly; she loved
to swim, swimming for over an hour. She
missed swimming with her father and brother.
They always had swum together, her mother lounging by the side of the
pool only taking a dip to cool down.
They played their games, each taking turns diving down under the water
and swimming through the others spread legs.
Then they would hold to the side of the pool, holding their noses and
going under to stay as long as they could to see who would win, the winner
coming up, lungs bursting and eyes bugging like frogs.
She got out of the pool to lie on the towel to dry off in
the hot summer sun, listened to the screaming and yelling of the swimmers and
began to feel her hunger, it was 2 p.m.
She got up, went to the little snack store and bought a candy bar-that
was enough, she skipped the hamburger.
After her suit dried she slipped her clothing over it and walked out the
front gate of the mountain club, her mother wasn’t there and she imagined that
she was checking a new vacationer into one of the little cabins very close to
the lodge.
Both her mother and father valued life by how much fun there
was to be had. There was the mountain
cabin with the activities at the mountain club.
There was ice skating, her dad was the president of an ice skating
club. They were a musical family and
their home was filled with music and singing and her father was an artist and
taught the children to sketch and paint and to appreciate the fine arts. The parents were older, her mother’s second
family and her father’s first, although he was forty-five when she was born. But they were not college educated although
his brother was and also her sister.
College was not held out to them but show business was and they both
thought about their children getting into the business.
The little girl walked home and when she came into the
cabin’s living room there were a large pair of boots neatly placed by the side
of the rocking chair with a sock in each one.
She became very still and tried to feel if anyone was in the cabin. It was very quiet and still. She didn’t call out for her mother or ask if
anyone was home. She quietly left the
room and leaving through the kitchen, she went outside.
On another day when she came home, it was late afternoon and
she entered the living room and a strange man was prostrate on the couch with
his head on her mother’s lap, her hand stroking his hair. She came around to the side and stared at
each of them. “This is completely
wrong,” she thought to herself. She just
simply looked at the two of them in disbelief.
He never returned to the cabin. The girl caught sight of him from the kitchen
window driving a city truck, he was with another man. He looked at her that was all.
A bit later, in a conversation with her brother, he
mentioned something about her father.
“He is dating now. A woman gave
him a beautiful big ring and he is wearing it.”
She thought of the boots and the man lying on her mother’s lap and said
absolutely nothing.
As an adult she had asked her mother about the man. “Who was the man you were with that afternoon
when I was a little girl?” “There was no
man,” Her mother replied.
