Reading Steinbeck in Japan, Part II

She sets the alarm for 4:30 am but wakes a half hour early. It is the fourth day of 5:30 am football practice and her body has adjusted to the new schedule. She polishes off a chapter in a Denise Mina mystery waiting for the teakettle to whistle.

The sky lightens from dark grey to pearl over weather mountain as she sips her refreshingly bitter French-pressed coffee on the patio, pondering the new growth on the photinia hedge and wondering who decided to switch from cedars to photinia in mid-hedge. Perhaps the nursery ran out of cedars, or maybe the spot where the two shrub varieties meet marks the point where the yard ended years or decades ago. She tries in vain to shake off the cynical thought that a Master CFAY Landscaper - assuming the position ever existed - switched to maintenance-intense greenery to create jobs for his children and cousins.

The prospective defensive end pokes his head through the patio door at ten minutes past five. "Ready?" he questions in a remarkably pert and friendly tone of voice. In the week since Dad deployed and Mom took up the mantle of Responsible Parent, PDE has come to realize a friendly tone is essential if he wants a ride to the locker room. He is starting to develop the mom awareness his sister mastered at the age of five or six.

The football field is half a mile from the house at most but she doesn't mind giving him a lift. There are no other cars on the road at 5:15 am. Dawn is good for practicing driving on the left side of the road, flicking the turn signal instead of the windshield wiper to indicate a change in direction, and reversing into parking spaces (see right). When practice ends at 2:00 pm she'll have to play chicken and bumper cars with newcomers who unconsciously swing into the wrong lane when turning.

PDE has four, and maybe five, uncles who will roll their eyes when someone tells them she is driving him that short distance to football practice but she knows exactly what she is doing and why. PDE has required minimal transportation in his teenage years. His siblings were a captive audience for 8-10 hours a week at this age and had the good fortune to absorb all the random drops of wisdom she simultaneously free associates and spews when she's behind the wheel of a motor vehicle. The engine's power thrums up the drive shaft, the steering wheel vibrates slightly as the power transfers to her body, her mind goes from zero to 95mph faster than the Indy 500 pole car.

Have pedestrianism and mass transit caused him to miss out on some crucial information, perhaps the keys to a happy and productive life? Does he know to glance at his feet occasionally to avoid stepping in dog poop? Will he remember that the last movement in Tchaikovsky's War of 1812 Overture is the tune to the St. John's High School Alma Mater? Has she emphasized that his family will always be there for him and so will the Church and that more times than not they are both the same thing and that if he turns his back on either he will not be the first but he can always come back and he will not be the first to do that either? Or that he shouldn't worry too much if he doesn't like the writing style of a famous author since it's probably just genetic?

Reading Steinbeck in Japan, Part I

The late afternoon clouds drift lazily over weather hill as a family of hawks circle the summit, stretching majestic wings to catch a ride on an elusive breeze. Scrub trees and an occasional towering larch (author is guessing) obscure the patches of cement bolstering the west slope. The hawks' wingspan is easily five feet, probably closer to six. They continue to circle taunted by thousands of hiding cicadas raising a joyful chorus. Small black spiders spy the cicadas and flirt with them, step-hop, step-hop.

The clouds melt into twilight. A light appears in a rectangular window in a two-story concrete structure on the flat land 50 yards north of the hill. The hawks continue to circle and swoop as the silhouette of a woman appears in the window. One brave spider step-hops to the sill and watches the woman slice strawberries with an old wooden-handled knife. The blade of the knife is too long for pithing strawberries and too dull for cutting anything other than soft fruit but it belonged to her husband's father and the woman can't bear to part with it. There are shiny patches on the blade that make the woman think of knife-sharpeners pushing carts and dodging tumbleweed on Arizona streets in the middle of the previous century.

The woman slides a tray of biscuits into the oven then squints at the directions on an aerosol can of Cool Whip. A tall, slim boy leans into the window frame, nostrils twitching like a jackrabbit's. "Curry and shortcake," she announces with a thin-lipped smile. "You've cooked six suppers in seven days," the boy remarks in a tone bordering on amazement. "A personal best, at least since your grandfather passed away," she notes. The boy tucks into his supper.

The black spider sits patiently in a shadow on the left corner of the windowsill until the light is extinguished then creeps through a tiny crevice in the wall to nibble on crumbs.