Keep In a Cool Dry Place

Two weekends ago, I spent another few days on the coast, comprising the Guitar Shorty concert, encountering the tour bus the night before the show, time in the ocean, a new tattoo, Tsunami Nacho food, new friends, old friends, and some of the best sleep I ever get—nestled in the Redwoods, and within the smell of the ocean. 

It’s the smells that really provoke me in this life.  My eyesight, like most middle-aged humans, is waning, but smells seem to cloak me in old memories, new moments, and reminders of things that should be eternally embraced. 

My drive home along the lakes which hug Highway 20 was unremarkable on many counts.  The weather was scorching as usual for August, the traffic was doggedly slow in all the wrong places, and my patience was a little worn as I sought to break free onto I-5 and race home for a client who would be waiting for my arrival.  I felt annoyed as I pulled into a convenience store parking lot, stopping primarily because of nature’s call.

After relieving that immediate need, I gazed furtively around the store, deciding to find something cold to drink, as the beverages in my ice chest were beginning to warm in the water that had transformed from ice the day before.  I was even more compelled to purchase a cold drink when I realized that I was going to be afforded the luxury of walking into a cooler to select an item.  The mere thought of being embraced by 38-degree cool air was enough to propel me to the other side of the store and into the refrigerated haven. 

The chilled air hit me like enthusiastic embrace of a long-lost friend.  As I took in my first deep breath of the cool air, the reunion hit a horrifying snag.  The cold, musty smell took my breath away.  I knew that smell from my childhood, when my parents operated a small restaurant resort.  Something living was decaying inside that walk-in.  My in-the-moment, logical brain told me, ‘probably lettuce or a soft cheese,’ based on the fact that the store made deli sandwiches.  But that logical order of thought was completely usurped by the invasion of a dark, coarse, damp, wet memory—one I had no idea I’d been housing for over thirty years.

What overtook my road-weary, slightly hung-over, completely over-indulged-from-the-weekend body at that moment was a point in time from late 1982.  Decaying produce, the cold-yet-swampy smell of an ancient ‘beer cooler’, the dim lights of same, all swirled in my brain, along with the smell of a cigarette-stained, beer-infused, bearded, dirty man. 

Somewhere back in that place in time, this man would regularly take me into that cooler, with permission from at least one adult who should have been keeping me safe.  Inside that cooler, I smelled, felt, and tasted things no child should ever have to recollect.  I am thankful for a brain which barred the memory from me for three more decades.  I am angry for a lack of recollection which has probably subconsciously driven more than one of the many poor choices I have made in my lifetime.

As I stood in the cooler somewhere in Lake County, I was overwrought with the flood of memories rushing through me.  On the verge of totally losing my cool, I stood in a corner, pretending intently to be deciding between cranberry juice and sparkling water.  I pretended to make trivial choices while tears flowed wholesale, in cascades, down the side of my 46 year-old face.

Wiping tears and mascara on the bottom of my tank top, I finally made the decision to just leave the store, making no purchase at all.  I got back into my car, pulled out a luke-warm bottle of water from the ice chest, and started the car. 

The drive from there to Redding was a bit of a blur, but this I do know—it was a swift one.  And a teary one.  And one that had me singing to every rock song I could find on the radio—at top volume—anything to avoid getting hit by The Feels on any more intense of a level than what was already battering me. 

Most of last week was also a blur, in terms of this situation.  I didn’t sleep well.  Nightmares were in high supply.  Sleeplessness was prescient, as was anxiety, and a mess of additional memories returning for some really fucked up homecoming. 

By Tuesday, the sleepwalking, and the attendant sleep-shenanigans had manifested.  My beloved “Hugger” pillow had been ripped open as part of a dream where I was trying to claw my way out of the beer cooler. 

I finally took some control over the situation.  I met with my counselor, who has had to walk me through other similar childhood traumas.  I was super honest with him:  I don’t want to be raw through this.  No Feels.  To that end, I have nursed a $120 bottle of Gold Reserve Jameson whiskey this week.  I have had an outing with one of *those* friends.  I have gained twelve pounds in eight days in an attempt to board up the hurt, anger, disappointment, shock, and sadness.

Despite those efforts, still I’ve been overcome with the return of this situation.  By Thursday, I had replaced The Hugger—with an even better version.  And I made a phone call, one which put me in contact with the violator in this situation. 

When he returned my call, I was on the other end of the line with a gravelly-voiced, aged, ailing man who did not have any recollection of me.  The comedian in me couldn’t help but giggle.  I mean, really, I didn’t remember him until a week ago.  The little girl in me was wholly pissed off.  What happened in that beer cooler should never have occurred.  That he was claiming no recollection was an affront I didn’t quite know how to accept, or process, or understand how to redeem. 

Though he was initially reluctant, he agreed to meet me.  Sunday morning, I drove to the small town where I grew up, down a familiar dirt road, and to a place that held other more pleasant memories for me.  It was some real irony for me that he now lived in a place that I associated with good times. 

We talked.  I confronted.  He shrank.  He denied.  He wilted—sort of like lettuce sitting too long in a beer cooler.  Finally, after assuring him that I only want to make sense of something so senseless, and that I want this shit to be back in his lap where it belongs, he confessed.  His apology was weak, or at least I think it was.  There may have been a sincerity there that I overlooked, because I have honestly had it up to *here* with people from my childhood blaming their drugs and their booze for a whole lot of abuse, neglect, and general lunacy.  

Regardless of those degrees of humanity in something so messy, I feel like I have offloaded the burden.  The process in doing so may not have been as perfect, or as exacting as anyone would want, but I am at peace with that much of it.

This is the second time I have confronted someone like this.  This is the first time I am still angry after the confrontation, but for now, I am okay with that, too.  I think it will dissipate.  The anger I shared with him yesterday made an impression.  To the extent he remembers, I am sure he will not forget.  And with that, I am carrying a lighter load.