The World Played Chess (90)

“Seems logical,” Beau said.

“It does,” I said, “but I wasn’t thinking logically. I just wanted to get home and see my girlfriend.”

“This the girlfriend you broke up with the next year?” Beau asked, smiling.

“Same one,” I said. “The next morning Thomas called and told me to turn on the news. The tule fog had caused a fifty-car crash that night and, by what we could judge, it happened just ten to fifteen minutes behind us. Twelve people lost their lives. Thirty people were hospitalized.”

“Shit,” Beau said again.

“Do you know why those people died and we lived?”

“Luck,” Beau said, shrugging.

I nodded and thought of that line from the Harry Chapin song, but my boy was not just like me. I had no doubt he would have stayed in a hotel. I’d like to believe I had something to do with that, but I think Chris’s death had more to do with it.

“But here’s the thing. We had the chance to make our own luck. We had the chance to pull over and get a hotel or, at worst, to sleep in our cars until morning—so did all those other people who didn’t and lost their lives. Don’t forget that. Sometimes bad luck is really dumb actions or inaction. You can make your own luck by making smart decisions.”

Beau looked out the window. “I could have been better at that this year,” he said.

There had been the phone call home after Beau’s first-quarter finals when he learned he had earned two Cs and a B-minus. There had been the poor girlfriend choice that had also ended badly, and a fight at a UCLA football game that resulted in a black eye and a trip to the hospital.

“It’s part of growing up,” I said. “Hopefully, you learned from the experiences, so you won’t go through them again.”

His spring quarter, Beau pulled two As and a B-plus.

I almost said, At least you had the chance to make your mistakes and live to talk about them, but I realized I wasn’t the best person to tell Beau how lucky he had been. The best person was a guy just about the same age as Beau, who had flown across the country to Los Angeles chasing a girl, and decided to stay for the sunshine, with no humidity. A guy who appreciated those small blessings.

“I have something for you to read,” I said to Beau, and I handed him William’s journal.

“What is it?”

I gave his question a moment of thought. “It’s a book about life as an eighteen-year-old young man, about growing up and growing old.”

“Sounds interesting.”

You have no idea, I thought.

Neither, it turns out, did I. Not fully.





Epilogue


August 26, 2017

It is prophetic, I suppose, my landing at the Seattle-Tacoma airport fifty years to the day after William wrote his first journal entry. Despite having traveled all over the world, I have never been to the Pacific Northwest. I’ve never seen the reason, though my good friend Thomas now resides in the Emerald City.

I get my rental car. I figure this is one of those glorious mornings I’ve heard about in the Pacific Northwest. At ten in the morning the temperature is comfortable. Not a cloud in the sky. I lower the window. The chill feels invigorating.

My destination is a place called Issaquah, which I’m told is twenty-two miles northeast of the airport and it should, according to the GPS on my phone, take me roughly half an hour to get there, though I have arrived smack dab in the middle of traffic.

I plug in and find a second route; this one avoids Seattle and weaves its way south around the southern tip of Lake Washington, but I soon find the 405 freeway a rolling parking lot. I sit back and relax. I’m not in any rush. I do not have an appointment. Some things are better discussed in person than over the phone.

I make my way east on the I-90 freeway. Traffic lightens. I will arrive before noon. Before, I hope, William has started his day, whatever that entails. I know little about him, which sounds odd to admit. An internet search revealed that he worked as a drug and alcohol rehabilitation counselor at a VA hospital in Seattle, which means he worked with veterans. He gave back. A property records search revealed he owns a home in Issaquah with a woman I assume was the wife he mentioned in the letter that accompanied his journal. An obituary in the Seattle Times indicated his wife died of cancer, as he wrote, and was survived by a daughter from a prior marriage. William’s LinkedIn profile provided that he retired not long after his wife’s death.

I could not find a phone number, neither a landline nor a cell phone. I’m uncertain whether I would have called. Even now, I’m not quite sure what I will say to William. I can’t very well say I was in the neighborhood and thought I would stop by. But I don’t think I will have to say much. I suspect he will know why I have come. I hope he understands.

The woman’s voice on my GPS instructs me to take the Front Street exit and proceed south through a quaint commercial district of one-story brick and wood-slat buildings. It looks like an old mining town, but with modern amenities. I stop at the only stoplight in town, which gives me the chance to look around. A theater. A Subway sandwich shop. A hardware store beside a cannabis store. A pharmacy and a grocery. I can see William walking these streets, far from his memories, happy. At least I hope he’s found happiness.

I proceed out of town and pass one-story houses that have become home to dental practices, an architectural firm, a State Farm Insurance office. Farther out I pass apartments, a Lutheran church. I wonder if William ever found God again. Front Street becomes Issaquah-Hobart Road and the density of houses declines and the space opens to trees and lush green lawns. Another mile and the GPS voice tells me to turn right. I proceed down a gravel road with white fencing and drive to a one-story clapboard home. A car sits idle in the carport. The home is a sky-blue color with a white porch railing. A porch swing hangs motionless from two metal chains. The front door is white with two asymmetric colored-glass windows in the corners. I am struck by the quaint and peaceful setting.