This Heart Is A Stone, No One Will Ever Break It, This Heart Is A Stone, Close To You It Breaks Easily

--"This Heart Is A Stone", Acid House Kings

When I was first considering moving down to the South Bay I was visiting various cities to ascertain which ones I liked the best. For having lived practically all my life in Southern California my knowledge of this particular collective of cities was woefully stunted.

That much was proven when my friend Kerri Ray and I tried to find an old pizza place my parents used to take my brother and I to when we were kids. For the life of me, I just couldn't figure out how to exit from the freeway to get us to the correct place. Hell, I couldn't even remember what the name of the place nor the shopping center was called to even ask for directions. Kerri Ray, being the great sport that she is, cursed me for my stupidity and questioned aloud why she had ever agreed to join me on the expedition in the first place.

"It's not like I didn't have prior engagements," she shouted hastily in the midst of my driving.

"And it isn't like I forced you to come in the first place," I answered back.

Even while I was working with her at Sears, back when I was afraid to talk to her, the deal with Kerri has always been that she has never been one to be afraid to speak her mind. It makes for a very effective collection agent as I never once heard her bow down to a customer. In fact, more often than not, she got comments that perhaps she was being a bit too harsh with customers with obvious legitimate gripes. I always admired that aspect about her even while it may have been the very aspect that spurned any thought of ever actually acting on my silly infatuation for her. Even when I found her, through Myspace of all places, she wasn't in the least bit mellowed. That's when I found out that what makes for a superb collector doesn't always make for a good friend, at first. She was gruff, at first, questioning my wanting to chat with her after two years of quitting that job. She even stooped to calling me not-so-very-nice names, but I wouldn't budge. The aspect of Kerri Ray that's always been there is that she's never been on to suffer fools gladly, but, as soon as you can prove yourself of hearty character, principles, and intelligence, she tends to ease up a bit and another side emerges. That's the side that keeps me interested in her.

She started to sulk in the passenger seat. Not only had I spent the last hour driving around, only seemingly to get us more lost in the process, I had blown way past lunchtime which I had enticed her with to come out.

"Why do we have to go out to this particular place? I don't comprehend its meaning for you," she said.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Then explain it to me."

By that point I'd had enough of the constant complaining, something that tends to happen at least once or twice a month whenever I talk to her. She's a sweet girl most of the time and I admire her to pieces, but there are some times where I seriously think she's evil. I was one more comment away from turning my car around. I didn't want to sound silly so I didn't bother asking the traditional, "do you want me to turn this car around? Because I'll do it. I will." Instead, I cut right to the heart of my frustration.

"Look, woman," I said, placing special emphasis on the second word since that has always been useful in annoying her, "your bitching at me about what a bad driver is not getting us there faster. Either help out by looking around for some signs or please don't talk to me if you're not."

"You didn't answer the question."

"I don't want to answer the question."

My reticence at her inquiry seems to have quieted her criticism as she spent the next few minutes staring blankly forward out the windshield. I knew she was still mad, but another quest had replaced her earlier one of trying to apparently voice her lack of trust in my navigational abilities at every possible opportunity. Instead, my lack of offering of any sort of explanation for the trip had intrigued her. Soon, she turned her head slightly back to me.

"I'll proffer you this deal for your consideration. You tell me why the sudden urge to find this pizza place has replaced any amount of sanity we two have left and, in exchange, I shall not utter another word about what an utter and complete simpleton I think you're being. Deal?"

"God knows I love it when you say proffer, Miss Kerri Ray."

"Deal or no deal?"

"Well, if you put it like that, I guess I have no choice to accept your conditions."

For her part, she didn't rush me into starting out immediately. She didn't announce her impatience or disapproval of my wanting to prepare myself first. She understood that a deal had been struck and, while I'm not exactly good to my word in every instance, she knew I would be good to it in this situation.

It wasn't that it was a difficult story to tell, full of misery and heartache. And, no, it didn't involve some sappy plot about my falling over my head for some gal at the harbor. But it was kind of sappy, nonetheless.

"The thing is that when we were kids," I began, "my dad used to take my brother and I down to this place all the time. I don't even remember when we started going there. I just remember going there often up until I was thirteen. In fact, I remember one of my last trips to this place was to buy my Wizard poster. There the three of us would just wander around, only for an hour or so, but inevitably we would always stop at this same pizza place for a bite to eat before we would head back home. Truth be told, I think my dad and even my mom whenever she came did it just to escape the heat of the valley, but to me it was always a great time. I don't even remember if the pizza was even all that good, but I always looked forward to it.

"What I remember the most, though, and the reason I didn't want to get into all this explanation, was the fact that it was something that my brother and I used to enjoy together. Back when we were kids, I guess you could say we used to hang out a lot--a lot more than I can even remember now. We all shared the same friends on the same block so it was easy for him to just tag along whenever I went over to my friends' house. But somewhere along the way we just grew more distant. We developed different sets of friends, different interests. Then, when I went away for college and he did too, we just never reconnected in the way that I think brothers are supposed to. It wasn't that I didn't want to. It was just easier to think of him as being to far to keep up with. He fell into the old trap of being out of sight and out of mind."

"I see," I heard her say.

"It's really about something my cousin Vincent told me a few years ago, about how I acted more like a brother to him than his real brother. That got me to thinking about how he was more like my brother than my own real brother. I certainly saw him more.

"Right now it's really to the point where I momentarily forget that I even have one. He's off doing his own thing, which is good, but it's always something I have to hear about from somebody else. I'm no better, though. It's not like I pick up a phone to call him. I'm so bad that I don't even know his current number or address. I'm just a horrible brother, that's all."

That's when I saw Kerri Ray smile.

"Awwww. And you thought, by going back to this locale where you had so many great memories with your brother, it would recapture some of that bliss you felt."

"Pretty stupid, huh? Just like The Wizard. I might as well have said, 'Francis,' when I got there."

"No, I think it's understandable. Commendable even. Every one of us have places that bring back the flood of memories. I completely relate."

"That's why I think it's important that I find this place, if only to prove to myself that it is real. It's like if I can see for myself that it is real then I'll know my memories of those good times were real too."

I heard my companion chuckle, her decidely green eyes sparkling in that unique manner which only shows itself when she's in the rarest of moods, which is to say a good one.

"I always knew you were an idealist, but that's downright corny."

"Hey, it is what it is."

This time it was my turn to remain taciturn as I waited for her to fill in the conversation. She's always been reluctant, as long as I've known her, to reveal terribly intimate things about herself. I always had the sense that she was raised rather strictly and that she was always a far stricter arbiter of her own behavior as a result. The reason she didn't abide sloppiness or incompetence, I think, was that it wasn't tolerated in her own house. Therefore, she grew up always on the lookout for it in others, lest she fall into a lackadaisical work ethic herself. This included whimsical reminescing which she had always derided as being foolhardy and best left to those of us who had nothing better to do than laziness.

"I don't think wanting to reconnect with your family, even if only through a metaphorical context, is entirely nonsensical. I didn't mean to give that impression. Some of us, myself included, have always wondered about what it would be like to have a closer-knit family. However, I don't have a San Pedro to swap tales with you about. I was never that fortunate."

"Not one place?"

"Our sojourns with my parents and my two brothers were always directed towards education and self-improvement. Very rare was the time we just went to a place just to relax. I didn't exactly go on very many vacations that were solely amusing."

"I feel sad for you, then."

"It wasn't all bad. I had my fun in bits and pieces, but it was always in the context of having to keep it hidden for fear of my parents telling me to cease it immediately."

I don't know what's worse, having all these great memories of one's family that one has to look back upon with fondness since no time presently or in the future will ever measure up? Or to grow up with your fond memories being those times spent in secret from one's loved ones? At one time or another, we both have been accused of having stilted senses of humor, like the joy has been drained from our souls except, whereas mine comes from having to watch that ship sail away from me, hers has always been of that of an individual whose ship never arrived.

"There was one place, though, not that I really ponder it, that I remember enjoying myself at. We had gone to the Huntington Library for some art exhibition my mother had wanted us to see. I remember having just finished the tour and walking out into this breathtaking garden that literally was the most beautiful garden I'd ever seen in my life. I remember looking down upon that and just feeling the need to smile. Never before have I witnessed something that so had an immediate effect upon me.

"And instead of telling me to hurry back to the car so we could drive home, my mom told me we could stay a couple of minutes just to walk through it. I don't know--maybe she was merely attempting to expose me to horticulture, but I just recall it being a moment of temporary joy."

"That you could share with your mom, right?"

"Exactly. Wow, I've never shared that story with anyone outside of my family."

Looking at my friend's face, it was a moment that I could see she had truly let her guard down and experienced something to the core of her being. Soon after, the wall of her own rigid behavior came down once again and she was back to worrying about when and if she'd ever get to San Pedro, but for a moment I had the thought that, for a couple of people who are always being chastised for being far too downtrodden and rigid, we had managed a genuine moment of shared delight.

Who knows, it may even be a story I recount to her again or others many years from now as being an example of a fond memory.

Yours Swimmingly,
mojo shivers