Estacada Part 4
continued from Part 3
They don’t sell pens, it turns out, but the clerk gives me one. When I first walk in she’s talking to another customer about puppies. Seems
the customer has a pregnant dog and the clerk is interested in one of the litter. When I ask for a pen she squints a little.
“Like for a horse?”
I laugh, “No, like an ink pen”
She holds up the one in her hand. I nod. She holds it out to me.
“Can I give you fifty cents?” I ask. She shakes her head. I take the pen.
“What you need a pen for anyways?” she asks. I almost laugh again.
“Writing.” I say, “I’m going to the river to write.”
“Writing what?” she asks, apparently rhetorically, because before I can answer she piles on another question, “You from Estacada?”
I look at her again. She’s got a square but pretty face, a casual mouth that she talks out of one side of. She’s short.
“Portland,” I say, “Just took the bus down for the day.”
“To . . .” she pauses.
“To write, I guess.” I answer her implied question, “or just to get out.”
And all of a sudden I’m actually trying to explain.
“I guess the city is just too comfortable sometimes. Or not comfortable, but it holds you anyways. I mean, the noise. You don’t notice the noise until it’s not there.
“Sometimes I take the train up to the zoo and walk up into the woods of Forest Park. As you make your way up these gullies, the sound of the city retreats, becomes two dimensional. You can hear where it comes from, a direction. You go further and further into the woods and pretty soon it’s just a point. You can point to the spot where the city noise is, that noise that surrounds you all the time.
“I guess that’s what I’m looking for — just to get the noise outside of me.”
She is looking at me, nodding a little. “The city scares me.”
I shrug. We talk a little while longer, about the city, about where to eat in Estacada, about all the great spots she knows about on the river, none of them within walking distance, about the legendary Safari Room. It’s clear she’d be happy to talk all day.
“Better get going,” I manage to squeeze in at some point, “gotta get down to the river.”
I push open the glass door, bells clatter together, and step down the thick wood steps. My feet make great satisfying deep clomping sounds. I am wearing a flannel. I have a bandana tied around the handle of my backpack. My pants are dusty. I can, if I want, strike them with the palms of my hands to loosen and brush the dust off them. I do it. I feel pretty country. And now I have a pen.
It’s just a quarter mile more to the park, I cover it in just a few minutes. The sign says $3.00 per vehicle, but I don’t think my feet count. As I’m strolling in, past the tollbooth for cars, a park ranger is leaving. He nods at me knowingly. He understands the illicit thrill I’m about to get, traipsing in, beating the system. It feels good. Especially watching two cars pull up, their drivers get out and stuff worn bills into envelopes. Not me, man. I am free. Ha.
I grab two maps from the toll booth and saunter past.
more tomorrow