“Oh, so I think I may have found the van you’ve been looking for.” Piet tucks this into the end of the conversation, along with “Ciao, ciao,” and, “See you in a couple weeks,” and, “Remember, just keep pedaling tomorrow.”
I’m about to cross the bridge over Coos Bay on bicycle. When Conde McCullough designed this span in the 1930s, he didn’t consider people might want to get to the other side without a vehicle. It’s tall (280 feet). It’s long (a mile). The “walkway” is thin—not thin like, if you stick your arm out, you could touch a car but thin like, stick your arm out and lose it. And it’s known for high winds and heavy traffic. Google the bridge, and you’ll find bypass routes for people riding the Oregon Coast, and a store on the south side of the bridge sells “I survived the Coos Bay Bridge” T-shirts. Piet wants me to pick up one for him; he didn’t have cash on him when he made the crossing a few years back.
“You know how much he wants for the van?” I ask before hanging up.
Piet isn’t sure. But he doesn’t think the seller, a student of his, is in a hurry to unload it.
“Well, you can mention I might take a look,” I say. “But don’t have him hold it or anything.”
It’s not that I’m not interested. I’ve been dreaming up the perfect starter van for a while now. But I have 30 miles to pedal in the morning before I even hit the bridge and a lot more than that before heading inland to Ashland to visit Piet and his family and maybe see about a van.
My mostly solo bike ride down the Oregon coast started as a train ride. Or, as all things do, it started way before it started—as boredom, dissatisfaction, one shitty lover too many. I was pedaling in place. It was a sunny-every-day, palm-lined beaches, gorgeous-hills-to-roam-nearby place—with a network of friends and not-at-all-shitty lovers as wide as a canyon, as nourishing as a fresh-picked orange, and as thick as blood. But I don’t thrive in place for too long.
Halfway into the 36-hour ride, the train came to a halt. The Coast Starlight has many stops, and I haven’t paid attention to stops since I quit smoking years ago. So, I’m not sure what made me look up from whatever manuscript I was editing and close my laptop. Maybe we were too close to the last stop. Maybe some change in the body of the conductor walking toward the front told me something was up. Maybe a shadow passed through the car.
A disembodied voice sounded over the loudspeaker: “Please stay in your seats. No one is allowed to go outside at this time,” was part of the announcement. Later, I won’t be able to recall the exact words of the other part—or think of what words you’d use.
I looked around. A few rows ahead of me, harried parents were doling out snacks to three kids; a stuffed animal lay facedown, halfway in the aisle. Inebriated laughter burst from the seat kitty-corner to theirs. The guy across the aisle from me had disappeared into his hoodie and headphones. There was no eye to catch: You heard that too, right? Someone had stepped in front of the train.
I arrive in Coos Bay by early afternoon. The morning—coffee on a foggy beach, tent disassembled, bike tuned up—went smoothly. The miles disappeared beneath my pumping legs. The 30 pounds of gear distributed between my two panniers have become easy to carry. In the bathroom at the visitor’s center, I snap a photo of the strong woman I see in the mirror.
At the base of the bridge, my breath gets quick. There’s a button on a post you push to trigger a light that will flash for six minutes, warning drivers of a bike ahead. A short flat lead-up will allow me to pick up a little speed before the incline starts. But the climb to the top looks long. I know I should just go, but I decide to watch the traffic flow first.
The drunk couple on the train summoned the conductor minutes after the announcement, demanding to be let out for a smoke. “So?” was the man’s response to each explanation: “It’s a crime scene now, sir.” “So?” “Sir, we’re not even at a platform.”
Like a toad that had been sitting in one spot for a very long time, a sob leapt from my throat.
The conductor looked my way. She looked surprised and then tender and then, as she glanced back at the couple, relieved. She disappeared into the next car before returning with a wad of tissues.
I nodded my thanks but crumpled the tissues in my lap, letting silent tears wet my face and neck.
At the moment our trajectory had collided with a life’s end, I’d been making notes to an author, maybe about head hopping. Maybe I wrote something like, “Stay with this character for the entire scene. When you allow us to see and hear and feel only what’s in one person’s head, we feel grounded and emotionally involved. Plus, by showing us how she interprets what’s happening around her, you show us what we need to know about her, and maybe even more importantly, what she’s missing.”
What would I tell the woman who’d stepped out onto a track? (I’m not sure whether I heard she was a woman or just thought it. Statistically, a man would be more likely.) What had she, as a little girl, imagined for herself? Had she planned to be a dancer? A surgeon? A mother? What did she know that no one else knew? What was just out of her sight? When had she stopped being able to imagine something better?
It’s time, I tell myself, looking up at the bridge. I hit the button, put my face down, and pedal hard. The speed of the traffic takes my breath. Behind me, I feel drivers move out of my lane at the last second or slow, forced to wait for a space in the lane to their left to open up. They feel as close as my room for error. I don’t glance at the rearview mirror attached to my helmet, worried the movement might cause me to swerve. I will later recall it not being a particularly windy day. But on that bridge, I feel a gust or two push against my side; I think I feel the the structure sway beneath me.
Once, my cousin and I were walking home in the twilight when we came to an intersection where yellow lights were flashing, indicating a train. Two tracks came toward us. Looking at the lights coming at us, we couldn’t tell which track the train was on. We noticed simultaneously that those arms that come down to prevent cars crossing in front of the tracks hadn’t blocked our way. Disoriented, we stopped in the middle of the road.
We stayed put until the train flew by in front of us, its closeness even from yards away making me shudder. It turned out we were at the open center of a Y. Had the train been on the other track, it would have flown by at our backs. We gasped at how strange the experience had been, how stopping had been the thing to do.
When I at last reach the final decline at the south end of the Coos Bay bridge and feel my tires picking up speed and see the freedom of the “wide” shoulder below, I let out a roar and a whoop. I soar.
Some 130 miles down the road, Piet’s boss meets me in Crescent City, California. I’ve decided not to climb Grant’s Pass inland into Ashland and am glad for the ride. It’s not just the daunting elevation gain and limited water access. All those miles, I’ve also been eyeing the lure of a red van, just out ahead of me.
Piet and I go to see her right away. And even as I’m telling myself no—two of the major items on my “perfect van” checklist are missing—I know I’ll at least take her for a pre-buy inspection. I call mechanics till I settle on one who I’ll end up visiting whenever I roll through the area.
Listen woman, I say to myself. You said standing height and air-conditioning were nonnegotiable. And what about riding the California Coast? Also to consider was the mother-in-law cottage nestled in a fruit tree garden smelling distance from the sea, whose sublet would be up in a month. Was I really ready to give it up?
That day on the train, I didn’t go back to editing. I dried my face and sat for a long time with notebook in hand, but no writing came either. In the dining car, I ordered a glass of wine and a hot sandwich. The world outside my booth slid by in frames of gold and green and blue. I wanted to say something or think something or write something for the woman who would no longer see those views. But there were no words, only sorrow.
The day after I first lay eyes on that big red E150, the van’s owner takes my cash offer. I immediately make my first purchase for the home I’ll build inside her—a string of solar-powered lights.
Outside Piet’s that night, I say softly, “I’ll call you Ruby.” Then I climb into the back, sit on her bare aluminum floor, take in her empty walls, and imagine.
Thanks to
(Sarah Fay), who encouraged me to try video here; and , whose videos I aspire to; and for asking to be tagged in videos.
When Holly Met Ruby