We pulled into Portland town, we been on the road.
This lyric, from a decades-old song by New Riders of the Purple Sage, played over and over again in my head as our train lumbered into a city known to be the greenest in all the United States.
Mularski snapped to from a snooze, having spent most of the night mesmerized by TV computer games.
“We’ve left Seattle and you’re still eight years-old,” I said. All three of us were. Inexplicably.
He shrugged, as if resigned to it.
We gathered our belongings and trudged through the station to a taxi rank.
“The Benson,” I told the driver.
Like Seattle, Portland seemed like just another tired American city, if less sophisticated and more beat-up. Gone, the computer nerds in black, replaced by artsy hipsters and planet-savers trolling the cityscape.
A surprisingly short ride to our hotel, an old-world number with an expansive walnut paneled lobby.
I’d booked two rooms far in advance; Nebraska had winged it, probably unsure whether she’d journey onward with two guys, only one of which—me—she’d met a few times.
“Maybe it’s better if we switch to a suite,” I told the receptionist. To her, of course, we looked like adults. “Something that can accommodate the three of us.”
She tapped her keyboard and came up with corner digs on a high-up floor—a junior suite with a sofa bed and a rollaway if we needed one.
After sitting on a train for hours, we needed fresh air and a stretch. A concierge pointed the way toward Powell’s City of Books and off we went.
Inside Powell’s we split up, with a plan to meet at the front entrance 30 minutes later.
I followed the signs to children’s books, where I picked up three books I had in mind and paid with a credit card. But as I attempted to find my way back to the store entrance, I got lost, and the more I tried to correct my bearings, the more deeply disoriented I became. Then I started to panic. I’m not prone to anxiety attacks, and I’m not even exactly sure what they are. Yet, very confused and distraught, I sat down and started to cry.
Most everyone nearby tiptoed around me, doubtless believing I was mentally disturbed or schizophrenic.
Finally, a shop assistant bent down and asked me what was wrong.
I sniffled. “I’m lost.”
“Who are you looking for?”
“My friends.”
“Where are they?”
“Front entrance,” I sniffled.
“Follow me.”
I followed the assistant.
Mularski and Nebraska were perusing the magazine stand, wondering where I was. I gaily joined them.
Nebraska could see my eyes were red from crying. “What happened?”
“I got lost. And I lost it.”
“What the hell?” Mularski turned on Nebraska. “It must be that drug you gave him.”
“No,” I said. “When I was eight I had a fear of being lost, stemming from a nightmare I had when I was six.”
“What happened in your nightmare?” asked Nebraska.
“I was at a place I recognized, about a dozen blocks from my house. But I was there all alone. And I didn’t know how to get home.”
“Ya gotta face your fears,” said Mularski.
“Really?” Nebraska turned on him. “What are yours?”
Mularski considered this. “Not telling.”
Said Nebraska, “Maybe we’ve reverted to eight years old to face our fears—and vanquish them.”
“Ha!” Mularski pointed at me. “He didn’t vanquish anything—he got rescued.”
“Just saying,” said Nebraska. “There’s got to be a reason for our situation.”
“There’s no reason for anything in this world,” said Mularski. “Things just happen. Through history, lessons never get learned, except in the movies, and we hold onto what we’ve learned from them for about seven minutes flat.”
“Interesting you say that,” I said, coming round from my shock encounter with irrational fear. “Did you know that when a movie ends and you walk out of the theater, you’re in a trance for a short spell?’
“What?” said Nebraska.
“You get hypnotized by the big screen in the dark, and for a short time afterwards you’re open you suggestion, as if you were hypnotized.”
“Really?” said Nebraska.
“I haven’t heard of that,” said Mularski.
“Have you heard of Bishkek?” I asked.
Mularski shook his head.
“It’s the capital of Kyrgyzstan,” I said. “I hate to break it to you, but just because you haven’t heard of something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
Nebraska giggled.
“Bishkek.” Mularski pointed to a female with red hair. “Whoever says Bishkek first when a redhead is around gets a point. But if it’s not a real redhead and you call it, you lose a point.” Mularski motioned at my plastic carrier bag. “What did you buy?”
“A few books.”
“What books?
“I’ll show you later.”
We set off into the Pearl District, inspecting the shop fronts of several art galleries before making our way down to Nob Hill and 23rd Avenue, a funky boulevard of hip boutiques, arts & crafts, and the Moonstruck Chocolate Company, into which we dived for cups of rich dark hot chocolate.
Then, like a kid in a candy store, I went nuts pulling together an assortment of chocolate truffles. “Can you imagine when we were eight if we had credit cards?”
This clicked Mularski’s his brain into gear. “Where’s a toy store around here?” he demanded of the chocolate server.
“Near here?” she answered. “You’ve got Child’s Play, about six blocks north, on Kearney Street.”
“Let’s go!” said Mularski.
He charged ahead of us on 23rd, and soon we stood before a colorful shop with windows full of childhood delight.
Mularski lost himself inside, while I, conscious of not wanting to be lost, clung to Nebraska, as she had clung to me earlier in our strange odyssey.
We found Mularski in the model section, ooh-ing and ah-ing over boxes of airplane models.
“Wow, they didn’t have this when I was a kid!” he enthused.
I was never into models; didn’t have the patience to fit or glue anything together, possibly my Nebraska-diagnosed A-D-D to blame. Or more likely, my older brother did not impression me with toy models as he had with baseball cards.
That’s the direction I roamed toward: sports equipment. And I suddenly realized what I wanted most in the whole world when I was eight, and never got, was a Los Angeles Dodgers windbreaker. It was only five bucks at Rexall drugstore, but my father insisted I earn it by reading a book, Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain. And I could not bring myself to do that, then or ever since.
So while Mularski loaded up on a half-dozen models he wanted to build, I connected by cell phone to the American Express concierge service and told them what I wanted to buy and have delivered to me at The Benson as fast as possible but no later than tomorrow.
I didn’t let Nebraska out of my sight for a second, and when I disconnected Amex, I turned to her. “What did you want, and never had, when you were eight?”
Nebraska thought about this for only a second. “A hug.”
I moved to Nebraska and put my arms around her, held her close against me in a bear hug. Then I released her and stepped back. “Happy now?”
She nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“No one ever hugged you like that?”
Nebraska shook her head. “I did all the hugging. My objects of affection were farm animals. And then they’d be slaughtered for food.”
“No wonder you left Nebraska. But why LA?”
Nebraska chuckled, a glint in her eye. “You won’t believe me, it’s so random.”
“I’d never have believed I’d be eight again.”
“You’re right. Okay, I used to love watching TV cartoon shows on Saturday mornings. They were my escape from a quiet, rural existence in Nebraska. At the end of every show there was an address where all the cartoons were made. Burbank. So I began to fantasize that Burbank was this magical place where dreams and fantasy exist. And I decided that when I was old enough to leave home, that’s where I’d go, to a magical place called Burbank, where dreams are born and thrive.”
I laughed. “I guess you must have been disappointed when you got there?”
“I was. But I stayed. Not that I like LA. But people get stuck in wherever they stick around.”
“And since you’ve got farming in your blood, you found a way to farm in the big city?”
Nebraska tilted her head, looked at me quizzically.
“Weed,” I explained.
“Oh.” She laughed. “You’re right—I never thought of it like that!”
“You must be a good farmer if you’ve saved enough for a house in Malibu.”
“It’s actually hard work. A lot to keep track of. And a lot of strange personalities to deal with. And there’s always the possibility of getting caught.” She paused. “You know, there is something I’d like. A Ouija board. I always wanted to play Ouija, but my parents wouldn’t let me.”
I took her hand in mine and walked her to the games aisle, found the occult game. When we reached the checkout counter, Mularski was already paying for his models, which filled two large bags.
“Now are you happy to be eight?” I asked.
He beamed.
We grabbed a taxi back to The Benson and raided the mini-bar of its Cheese-its and Fritos and candy bars.
“It’s funny how kids instinctively know how to keep their energy level high,” I commented.
“Yeah, but they can metabolize this stuff better,” said Mularski. “We’re building omentum.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Nebraska. “We’ve been running around like crazy since we got off that damned plane.”
I flipped through Frommer’s Portable Portland. “It says the best restaurants are Higgins and The Heathman.”
“Why does it always have to be the best with you?” snapped Mularski, weary of putting out big bucks for cuisine.
“Maybe because I like good food?”
“I’d settle for a Big Mac,” said Mularski.
“Yecch,” said Nebraska.
“I’m thinking that I want a good Oregon pinot noir,” I said. “And I think my eight year old taste buds can handle it because pinot noir is sweet and fruity.”
“Me too,” said Nebraska.