DAY THREE
I was still eight years old when I awakened in Portland. And I had the orneries again. It did not help that I’d woken due to the loud ravings of a homeless schizophrenic pacing the street opposite.
I crept out of bed and descended to the breakfast room for hot cocoa. Looking around, I noticed for the first time how sharp my eyes were, such clarity, and it dawned on me how age had weakened them so slowly that I’d never even noticed—aside from the need for reading glasses.
Hot chocolate had the desired effect, sweetening me up. Now I could talk to people.
The person I sought first was the concierge. Saturday morning in Portland was simple, he explained: Saturday Morning Market. And we were in luck as this would be the first market day since winter hiatus cut in right after Christmas. “Oh,” he added. “Someone delivered a package for you.”
“A package?”
The concierge disappeared into a back room and returned with a FedEx cardboard box. I studied it, bewildered, and aimed for the elevator.
Nebraska was already up when I keyed into the room. Mularski was more difficult to rouse. He’d been building models till three a.m. and his sofa bed was littered with paper instructions, unfitted parts and glue.
“Aren’t you a little old to be sucking your thumb?”
Mularski pulled it from his mouth, astonished.
“We’re going to Saturday Market,” I said. “Meet us there.”
“No, I’m coming.” Mularski scrambled, got dressed in seconds. He grabbed his backpack with painting gear.
“Aren’t you even gonna brush your hair?” I razzed him.
Mularski glanced in a mirror at his mop, sticking out in all directions. “Yikes! I’m not used to having much.”
I returned to the cardboard box the concierge had given me.
“What’s that?” Mularski demanded.
“Don’t know. I need something sharp.”
Mularski found a Stanley knife in his backpack.
I shook my head. “They let you on the plane with that?”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but they took my nail clipper.”
I sliced through tape and opened the box. Inside was an LA Dodgers windbreaker. “Wow, I forgot I ordered that!” I put it on, a perfect fit, and we set off on foot. stopping for hot sweet drinks along the way.
“You know,” said Nebraska, “I think Alice in Wonderland was about magic mushrooms.”
“Do you have any left?” asked Mularski.
Nebraska nodded.
“And you haven’t offered to share with your playmates?”
“You didn’t show any interest.”
“Well, the way I see it, how much weirder can this get?”
Nebraska considered this, a smirk growing from the dimpled side of her mouth. “Umm… shrooms can probably make it weirder.”
Mularski shrugged. “Hit me.”
Nebraska reached into her woolen bag and found a small plastic baggie containing what looked to be small bits of dried vegetation. “If you do this, it’s important you stay close to us, don’t wander off.”
“Whattaya think—I’m a child?”
Nebraska placed a tiny bit on Mularski’s outstretched palm.
He slapped it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. Then he looked at me. “You?”
“Maybe later.”
“I dare you,” said Mularski.
I ignored him.
“Another Adderall?” asked Nebraska.
I shook my head no. I’d decided I probably do have ADD. But I was comfortable with it.
Saturday Market, along the Willamette River, is a magnificent carnival of color and crafts. All of Portland’s artisans come out to peddle their wares: Candles and silk scarves and pottery and paintings and tie-dyed shirts…
Feeling motherly, Nebraska hung with Mularski while I wandered the aisles scavenging.
For fifteen bucks I purchased a small oil-on-board called Dreamwheel. At another stall I bought a colorful vase. At a third I paid ten bucks for a wooden paddle mirror. And then I bought a mug, for cocoa—or coffee, if I ever returned to my true age.
I suddenly looked around in horror, thinking I’d lost my friends. And then I realized I had lost my friends.
Trying my best to remain calm, I strolled a row of vendors dispensing hot food and sat at a picnic table, took a few deep breaths and felt the freshness of the river in my soul. To my surprise, I did not get panicky or anxious but actually felt serene, basking in sunshine. I pulled from my front pocket an envelope containing my new collection of Duke Snider baseball cards and happily studied them, feeling good they were mine.
After a short while I got up to look at the Willamette—and quickly came upon Mularski and Nebraska.
Mularski had found inspiration in an old steamboat, The Belle of Oregon City, and now was painting it, using bolder and brighter colors than usual, as if to match his un-matching socks. “I feel a sense of freedom in my brushstroke I didn’t feel before,” said Mularski. “Most eight year olds are pretty good artists until art teachers at school get involved.”
“You sure it’s eight,” I said. “Or the other ate?”
“Eighty-eight?’
“The mushrooms.”
“Oh. Forgot about them. Now that you mention it, I was wondering why the sky is pink.”
“I’m going to buy this one,” said Nebraska, no doubt appreciating the influence behind it. “But only if you take cash.”
“You kidding?” Mularski hooted. “Cash is my favorite money!” He dabbed twice more and stepped back to inspect his masterpiece from a distance. “Sold!”
Mularski packed his gear and we strolled merrily back to The Benson, with Mularski believing that I had become Hugo the Shoe.
We had a train to catch.
But first we hired a taxi driver to tour us around neighborhoods we’d not yet seen, including Hawthorne, said to be Portland’s hippest, where we dipped into an Italian deli called Martinotti’s.
On the basis that we’d be confined to a train for thirty hours without knowing what their food and beverage service would be like, I launched into a buying binge: peppered salami, American cheese, Fritos, Cheetos, crispini—and a large dill pickle.
And we’d need a bottle of wine to wash it all down. What they had was mostly Italian. Mindful that we’d need something sweet and fruity for our eight year-old palettes, I remembered my favorite Zinfandel. A sales assistant whose name was Matthew helped me locate a bottle of Ridge Geyserville.
We drove back to the city center through a hippie neighborhood called Belmont.
And then we readied ourselves for the next phase of this strange odd-yssey.