(Rainbow Over Condo Construction)
The Stock Market seems to have caught my flu and died this week. Whether it was the fever or a sudden attack of sanity, I sold almost all of my portfolio right down to my principle so as to preserve capital - it was the principle of the thing (sorry). At least I won't lose my core investments. Around here we are all hunkering down, hauling out our grandparents' Great Depression recipes. Beans, rice, bone soup. Buddy, can ya spare a dime?
At work the cancellations are starting to roll in. Several of my clients are mid-construction on new or renovated condo complexes. Have you ever seen photos of Old West Ghost towns? You have the idea. Funding has dried up, would-be buyers are nowhere to be seen. The Tonka Toys are silent, workers gone home to their rental units.
And now today Washington Mutual has gone the way of buggy whips. So terribly sad, it's hard to find anything positive to say except that we Americans are a hardy, creative, adaptable bunch - adapt or die! We've been through worse and we will survive these tough times. Today in Writers' Workshop my 94 year old mom shared her memories of the Great Depression - of five years working seven-days a week for $1 a day, eating two small meals a day, living in a charity boarding house run by the Volunteers of America - and being thankful for such bounty!
Now this week's episode of RV-GO DOWN TO THE SEA:
Chapter 6
To say I was disappointed was an understatement. I had envisioned emerging from the museum waving a fan of incriminating photographs all the way to the local police station. Even though I knew that the photos were not likely to solve the murder for us, they would at the very least provide a motive for the murder.
Alice and I left the museum glum and hungry. The easiest solution to the later was to walk around back of the museum and across the street to the Inn of the West Wind. The special was pot roast. I dived in like a refugee.
“What do we do now?” I asked my dinner companion.
“Not too much to do, as I see it,” replied Alice, between bites of tender meat.
“There must be something. I feel so . . . I don’t know, stymied. I thought sure I was on the right track.”
“It was not a bad theory actually, Cora Jane,” she said. “The problem is that maybe there were other, better theories we just are not seeing yet.”
“You are right - even though that felt like a pat on the head. There are a million scenarios we have not even entertained. I just got stuck on this idea and could not see beyond it.”
Remains of the pot roast congealed on my plate, reflecting perfectly the mood of the moment.
“In a way I am relieved,” said Alice.
“Why is that?”
“It would have been quite a responsibility to hold such dangerous information. What use would we make of it, do you think? If we found a photograph showing . . . I do not know, people coming off a trawler at midnight for example, what would that actually prove, C. J.? A thing like that could be explained in so many ways, none of which have anything at all to do with Carl’s death.”
“True,” I said. “But if Carl had been so sure the photos showed illegal activity and acted on that belief he could have ticked someone off sufficiently to lash out.”
“Yes. He could have waved it under the wrong person’s nose. It might never have had a thing to do with extortion - only anger. Like a barroom brawl gone too far.”
“In which case we might never know what happened . . . unless forensics comes up with DNA evidence. Or an eye witness.”
The waitress tried to refill our coffee. Both of us waved her off. Though we were both so wired from disappointment neither of us were likely to get any sleep tonight, with or without coffee.
Alice shrugged. “Well, at least we tried. I keep saying that to myself as if it is going to help me feel better. It is this feeling that nothing can be done that drives me mad. I hate being powerless. How do I go on with my day to day, leaving the dead behind? It is the bain of historians not to be able to let go.”
I could have told her that historians had no patent on having trouble letting go. There were so many things I wanted desperately to leave behind me in the dust but they stuck like road tar on a hub cap.
* * *
My brand new digital camera had all the bells and whistles but not one single photo on its memory card. I took the lens cap off, turned it on, checked all the settings against what the instruction booklet recommended for interior shots, aimed it at my living room and pushed the button on top. The room lit up and the camera emitted an official sounding click. Oops, I had forgotten to check the view on the little screen. Never mind, this was practice. I checked the screen. Yes, everything looked to be in its proper place. I snapped off another then saved my itty-bitty bathroom for posterity before turning my photographic brilliance on the kitchen. By the time I got around to the bedroom I was getting the hang of it and was just about ready to take the camera on the road. Or at least outside the RV.
I ran around like a dervish snapping all angles of the RV-GO’s boxy body. Close up of weeds between the tires. Wide angles of the single wide mobiles lined up like race horses champing in the paddock. Ron, from next door was out walking his bull dog and had to submit while I tried my hand at animal portraiture. After I had maxed out the memory card I went back inside to see if I could figure out the camera to computer interface. There was a kind of cradle I nestled the camera into which connected to one of the computer’s USB ports. I managed to find iPhoto, clicked here and there until my computer was happily displaying sharp close ups of the ugliest bull dog on the coast. Satisfied that I had the gist of the process I was raring to head for the marina, camera snug in my jacket pocket.
But was I getting ahead of myself? Action for the sake of action - action to keep ahead of despair? I hauled myself up short and sorted out the tangled cords pulling me in all directions. Cords that had nothing to do with power outlets and USB ports. I was still fixated on the marina. What did I think was going to happen if I showed up with my handy camera? Were all the perps going to parade down the boardwalk for me to capture? Did I think I could camp out opposite Float 3 until I saw what Carl saw? What a fool’s paradise I was living in these days. What I needed was a big dose of nature. I shoved my camera in the olive green jacket, pulled a wool watch cap over my head, grabbed my bike and set off down the road toward Grays Harbor Lighthouse Park.
Once out on the dunes, the guttural groan of an ocean cradling me like the heart of a mother, I began to hum a nameless melody as I walked along through the pure clinging sand. The rain of yesterday was a memory. Streaks of blue teased openings in the fat clouds. But it was cold so near the water. My nose burned with the freshening wind. I changed camera settings with ridged fingers, pointed the lens down the length of the bleached beach. Everything lined up. The textures of tire tracks in wet sand, prints of racing dogs and barefoot owners, sand pipers stalking on stick legs in and out of the surf - I studied the light and how it changed in the window of my camera with every inch I moved right or left. Drank in the thin sun bouncing on the curling water and the rich shadows seeping beneath the silver logs.
I watched the slow receding of the tide toward its lowest point, without knowing when exactly that occurs or how to tell when the flow back in begins. Was this wave pulling back now from that broken rock the farthest it will come today?
My hands clenched the camera feeling resistance as the shutter sucks what it can of the scene. Before I know it the memory is full and the beach is twice as wide as it had been when I arrived. Gulls wheel in close and photogenic just as I run out of space. I retrieve the bike and turn for the path back past the lighthouse.
Plunging into a sea of night I retreat like the tide, carrying my captured moments like a smooth stone in the depths of my pocket.
Once home, I empty the tiny box of images into the safe harbor of my hard drive.
Oh my God! Looking down at my camera, the realization hit all at once. I knew where Carl’s photos were!
TO BE CONTINUED . . .
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