Cathy and Mike

The desert isn’t what it always seems. The everlasting heat can drive people to visions or lunacy. The eternal wind can blind or confuse the most hardened citizen of that place.

The sign at the entrance to the little town said, “Mojave, where the past meets the future.” Of course, it could have said, Mojave, nothing here, and lots of it.” It would not have been true though, even if most visitors believed it.

Mike lived in the desert, in that too small of a town, out on one of the desert’s many empty lake beds. It was all he knew, and he loved the desert. He would have told you it was a place of magic and beauty, if you ever asked him, and if he thought a bit about the reply he would give you from his heart.

It was night in the wide Searles valley. the star field overhead wheeled its silent constellations in bright witness. Young Mike Stafford traveled the road he had always traveled across this valley since he had learned to drive. It was the only highway there was, the only line between point A and point B. He knew every turnoff, every part of this, his home. His thoughts were about being home, to a good home cooked meal his mom would have waiting. He was not thinking about the road at all.

Yeah, he had wanderlust to go other places, and see other sights, what young man wouldn’t  But if he left, then his mother would be alone. He never spoke of that, nor did she, but that small thing was enough, barely enough of a reason, to keep him driving up and down this valley highway, and almost nowhere else.

He had just spent his last dime on an old Ford, a restored Mustang with new paint, trading in his faithful old truck for next to nothing. He knew it was not all that great of a car, but he liked its looks. It’s old six cylinder engine sounded trucky, in spite of fairly new glass pack mufflers. The only non-restored equipment on his shiny yellow car was a CD player built into a cheap new Kenwood radio. The previous owner had made a cut in the dash to mount the oversized unit, but it looked at home where it was, in the place of its unworking original pushbutton radio with its two large knobs. Mike was glad to have his music to listen to out here in the emptiness, after all.

“Ventura highway, in the summer sun -” he sang the words to the CD as he cruised down his highway, half dreaming of some never seen California coast, and a life he probably would never experience for himself. The sun was an hour past setting. He grinned as he thought how surprised his mom would be when she saw this car he bought.

People who live in the desert valley tended to get stuck here. The always get some working kind of a job, doing swamp coolers, roofing, construction, or transmission and engine work for their living. Those kinds of practical jobs always were needed out here. Being a writer, or an artist, – or a musician had no future at all out here in the desert.

Guess you could say that Mike’s life was already forecast for him, and he wasn’t even aware of it. All he could see was the road before him, wanting for some reason to get to the other side of the valley, just to get home for the evening, anxious to be someplace he was wanted.

His mother never questioned his desire to drive so much. She said he was like his father that way. His father. Someone he never knew. His mother was never married, and folks were polite not to talk about it. He never asked, and she never said. Yet sometimes when a song was on the radio, or some old show was on the tube, she would get a faraway look in her eyes, probably dreaming about this boy she once loved, who never came back.

“What’s this?” Mike spoke to himself, coming to his senses, and wondering where he was, all of a sudden. To his right, as he stopped his car, was a road he hadn’t remembered being there before.

There were always abandoned side roads, gone back to the desert from long lack of use. He had traveled some of those bumpy, barely passable roads turned trails, curious about the few derelict buildings and ramshackle stores that used to have some meaning decades ago, along side these abandoned roads. Mike always wondered about the stories of those places, but there was never anyone around to tell them.

The desert is full of such places, where there was once a life and a business, but only for a time. Once somebody’s monthly receipts got below a certain figure, they walked. It was easier that way. Maybe they all moved to California, skipping out on defaulted bank loans, hopeful that their creditors could sell the place.

Banks would put up For Sale signs, but no one ever bought such places. Investors, seeing the prospects there, had better sense to look elsewhere for a business investment. So those places just sort of sank into the sand as time went on in the desert, and their stories sank into a nameless history, unwanted and untold

This road beside him, however, was nearly new. Mike wondered if someone had recently made a new paved road out to the North, without his knowing about it.

The asphalt was smooth under his wheels as he turned onto it. He just couldn’t resist seeing where it went. In the starlight, he tried to figure out where this road was on the map of the valley he kept in his head. There were no road signs, of course. There never were, out here in the desert.

It wasn’t long as he was driving before he saw an old faded truck stop with a cafe, its dim lights barely casting shadows on the empty desert round about.

“How odd!” He said that out loud, for there couldn’t be any business out here already, especially one that had been here for many years. He had to stop and see, so he pulled into an empty parking spot in front of the café. There were plenty of them to chose from.

Getting out, he noticed the creaky neon sign in the window. “Mac’s Place” is all it said. When he got home he would have to ask about all this, for he could have sworn that he knew every place there was out here in the valley, and this was no place he knew about.

He walked in and sat at the counter. “Coffee, please.”

The pretty red headed girl behind the counter turned from what she was doing, sat a cup in front of him and poured. “That’ll be a quarter.”

He grinned at her joke about the extra cheap coffee, as he pulled out the change for her., giving her the quarter and another one for a tip.

He thought she was pretty. Being seventeen, he thought all girls were pretty. Living in the empty desert, he knew they all were, at least the few he actually knew. Yeah, his supper was waiting for him at home, but his mind was not on food at the moment.

“You’re not from around here, are ya?” The girl asked, making conversation.

“Yeah. Lived here all my life. We got a place out back of Trona.”

“How come I never seen you before'” She leaned over the counter in front of him, wiping it with her rag.

Mike’s mind went into overload, for she seemed to like him just a bit. Hearts are sensitive to that sort of thing.

“Nah. She is just bored out here, nothing to do but talk to a dumb kid for a customer.” He thought to himself. He was trying to get his hormones under control here, and be a gentleman, –and especially to control his rising blush in her presence.

“-So, who’s Mac?” He lamely asked.

“He’s my uncle. But he hardly ever comes out here anymore. Pete runs the place, along with his gas station.”

“Why are you here?” Mike then almost blushed, as the overly direct questioned popped out of his mouth.

She only grinned. “My name is Cathy Ruggles, thanks for asking, by the way. I work out here ‘cause it’s a summer job, and there aren’t any in town right now.

‘Sides, I know the owner, so its not too hard of a job.”

“I’m Mike. . . Stafford” It was all he could say, as he held his cup with both hands, wishing he had more experience talking to a girl. He really felt awkward. He wanted to say more. A lot more. Yet like so many kids, he just didn’t know the words.

“That’s a really nice Mustang you got there, Mike. It’s brand new, isn’t it?”

Cathy grinned again, partly because she liked how red he was turning every time she did. They were about the same age, she figured, but she instinctively knew she was much older than he was, and she liked having some control over their little situation.

“Sure. I just bought it. You wanna see?” Mike put his cup down, forgotten. He didn’t drink coffee anyway. He began to walk to the door.

Cathy saw the old guy in the booth, reading his paper, his plates empty. He was the only other person in the café. “He wouldn’t be needing anything.” She shrugged, and took off her apron, walking around the counter to follow Mike outside.

Mike stood proudly beside his car, glad he had just waxed it and had it cleaned out inside. He tried to lean against the fender like some cool movie hero, crossing his arms, but he just felt awkward inside, and thought it showed.

He watched her as she walked around the Mustang, looking in. She cut a fine figure, he thought to himself. The only light was the bulb up on the utility pole between the café and the gas station, but it caught the reflection of the bright yellow paint of his car, and her soft red hair obtained a sweet glow from it.

“You can sit in it if you want. I got a stereo. You like the Beatles'” Mike wore a big happy grin, as he opened the passenger door for her.

Cathy smiled, but shook her head. “I got to work some more tonight. -But I get off soon. Maybe you could take me for a ride. I like new cars.” She also wore a grin. One that had Mike’s adrenalin pumping and made his throat dry.

“Sure.” That was all he could say.

Pure hearts know, don’t they. Somehow they know when they meet someone else of a pure heart. Love happens all too easy, but that is supposed to happen that way, when pure hearts meet. Nothing need to be said, and nothing said ever matters that much. The heart just knows.

He sat in his car, now parked over by the gas station, jawin’ with Pete, watching the clock tick off its eternal minutes. Pete was a guy on his last legs, but he didn’t know it, or just didn’t care. Pete was just an old guy, talking about the war. He was the sort who would never retire, but probably die on his feet, running his business, such as it was. He was another nameless denizen of the desert. There were so many like him out here.

Mike was glad the night had cooled off a bit, weary of the oppressive day’s heat.

When Cathy came out, it was plain she wanted to take a ride. She had a buttoned up blue sweater over her dress, and her purse in her hand. Without a word, Mike opened the door for her and off they went.

“Anywhere you want to go in particular?” Mike put in a CD for them to listen to. His car naturally went North on the strange old road.

“What are those'” Cathy asked, pointing to his little case of CDs.

“Just stuff I collected since the Spring. I just got to buying these a few months ago.”

Cathy took one in her hand and looked it over. “They are beautiful! Its like a rainbow inside them or something.”

Mike turned up the radio. It was playing the Beatles, “Long and Winding Road.”
“Do you like the Beatles'”

“I never heard them before. Are they new'”

Mike laughed at her joke. Everyone knew the Beatles. She just got silent at his laugh, and didn’t say anymore.

Mike broke the silence as he drove. “We been going on this road a bit, but it looks like it might end soon. I better turn around.”

Cathy put her hand on his arm. “This far North, the road ends up ahead. You can just stop there for a while, if you want.”

Mike didn’t say anything, but he pulled a bit off the road, cut the motor and the lights, but letting the music softly play. He rolled the window down, because he was suddenly hot, and his mouth was dry. The Beatles crooned their “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

Cathy sat there silently for a while, waiting for Mike to come closer. When he didn’t, she moved next to him. Suddenly they were kissing. This was the first time for them both, and somehow they knew it too, but neither of them said anything about it. They both had the same idea about this moment, and this time in their young lives, and they both knew where it would lead, but it was what they both wanted.

Pure hearts are just that way. Nothing need to be said between them. Being pure and innocent, love just makes its home there.

Light was growing a pale blue across the Eastern sky. Mike roused himself. His arm was asleep, holding Cathy close to him. She stirred, yawned and stretched, smiling up at Mike.

“Do you believe in love at first sight?” Mike asked her shyly.

Cathy smiled. “I sure do now!” She leaned up to him and kissed him again. “But I got to get home and change. I got to open the café this morning.”

Mike started the car and set off back down the road, holding her close to him. Cathy’s place was an old trailer out behind the gas station. There was another older trailer next to it. Mike figured that was where Pete stayed.

“Cathy, I want you to come meet my mom. Can you come home with me today'”

“Nah. I have to run this place by myself until my uncle comes back. I couldn’t leave for a day or two.”

“Come with me Cathy. I have a great place to stay, and you would love my mom. This isn’t the kind of life for you all alone out here.”

Cathy reached over and kissed him again. “Wait out here while I change. I will make you breakfast.”

Mike complied, but he was torn. He had promised his mom to be home last night, and she would be worried over his not being there. It was not like him to make her worry. Yet he was not too much concerned at the moment. He was intoxicated with Cathy! His young heart was almost bursting over this girl. He never knew he could feel so good about someone, and feel so much joy just thinking about her.

Before Mike left, Cathy got out an old Kodak camera, and took Mike’s picture next to his car. “I got to have something to remember you by, don’t I'” Cathy grinned.

“Let me take your picture now.” Mike reached for the camera.

“No, silly. That was the last one. You bring back a camera and you can have all the pictures you want.”

It was nearly noon before he left her. She had fixed him a big breakfast, and then a bigger lunch. They were alone in the café. He couldn’t keep his hands off her, and she gently kept him at bay lest someone drive up, or Pete come in for coffee. So Mike was a gentleman, barely.

Before he left, he gave her a heart shaped silver locket. It was all he had. It once belonged to his mother, and she had given it to him one Christmas when there wasn’t much else to get. It had an old picture of him from his first year at high school.

Cathy held it close to her, and put in around her neck, sweetly kissing her new lover. Mike’s eyes lingered over her as he reluctantly drove off. He would come back that afternoon to pick her up. He couldn’t wait, and he was counting the hours already, as he drove off furiously toward the highway and home.

Mike’s mom was on the steps of their covered porch, which ran the length of their little trailer. She suddenly sat down on the steps as Mike pulled up, skidding the last few feet, sending gravel flying. He as concerned, because somehow she didn’t look well.

“Mom! Are you OK?” Mike ran to her side and sat down beside her.

She ran her hand through her graying hair, clutching the top of her blouse. Her face was ashen. “Mike, where did you get that car'”

Mike grinned. “I bought it in Bishop. Do you like it’ Come take a look!”

“No! I just want to go inside, son. Help me up.”

Mike was attentive to her as he helped he inside. What was wrong’ She sat in her favorite chair in their little living room. The TV had some soap opera on, but neither of them paid any attention to it. Mike sat on the couch next to her, and watched her watching him.

“Mike, where were you yesterday?”

Mike grinned real big. “I met this girl, mom. You got to meet her. She is wonderful! You will really like her. I want to bring her here. We want to get married.” Pure hearts just speak their mind, not noticing any problems at all.

The woman was silent for a long time, as if seeing something far away. She could only stare at her son, sitting there so grown up all of a sudden. He was just seventeen, after all.

“Mom’ Didn’t you hear what I said’ I met a girl, and I love her. She loves me. I got to go back and get her and bring her here. I want you to meet her. We got room here, and she can stay with me. I know you will love her, mom!”

The woman bowed her head with a sigh, bending down so her head lay across her knees, her arms clutching them. Mike had never seen her do this, and he was concerned.

“Mom! You want me to call the doctor’ You ain’t well!”

“No Mike. I’ll be fine. Just stay her with me for a while, please.” She raised up, reached out to hold his arm as he knelt beside her.

“Sure, mom. I will. Are you upset about me finding a girl’ I never thought such a thing would bother you.” “No. no. That doesn’t bother me, son. I am very happy for you. You go and bring her here. I want to meet her. I am sorry, it is just how you drove up and that car you got, it just kind of shocked me, that’s all.”

“Well, why?” Mike was perplexed.

“Oh, it’s a long story son. I will tell you about it someday. Don’t pay no attention to it.”

“It’s a good old car mom. Its like new. I even got a CD player in there, so I can listen to all my CDs.”

The woman said nothing, but simply stared out the window at the vehicle.

“When are you going back there, Mike?”

“I want to go now, mom. I wish I had a ring for her.”

“We can get you one at the jewelers. You both can pick it out together.”

“That’s swell, mom. I gave her your locket. It was all I had to give. I love her mom! I am gonna change, and then I will go get her. Can you loan me some gas money'”

“There’s some in my purse. Take what you need.”

Mike went to his room to change and take a shower. The woman stood at the window and looked out at the car for the whole time. When Mike came out, he got some cash from her purse and hugged her goodbye like he always did.

“Mike’ You are coming back, aren’t you? You are going to bring that girl home to me today, right'” The woman clutched at him again, holding his arms.

Mike looked surprised, gently slipping from her grip on him. “Sure mom. I said I would, and I will. Why do you ask?”

“No reason. Its all right. You go now and do it. I will wait here for you, son. You go bring her here and I will meet her.”

Mike flipped his keys in the air, catching them, grinning like he always did, as he ran out the door.

The woman sat down in her chair after Mike drove off. After a while, she reached down into her bag beside her chair and pulled out an old photo album.

Mike went back up the highway, looking for the turn off. He must have missed it, because he was almost back to the 395. He turned around and drove back again, looking for the new road. Soon he was seeing the turn off for Trona.

Frustration! After doing this for a few times, he stopped and got out of his car, pacing back and forth along the road.

“It has to be here. This is where I remember it being. How could I miss it?” Mike groused to himself, aloud, banging his fist on the hood of his car. He got back in and drove slowly along the highway, almost off the pavement, looking for anything that would help him find his way back to Cathy.

“The sand couldn’t have blown over it since this morning. The day is clear and there is no wind. Where is it?”

After driving this way for a while, he again turned his car around, pulling onto the pavement and cutting across to the other side. He never looked to see if there were cars coming. Who ever drove this road in the heat of the day’ Mike turned up his radio, the Eagles blaring out, helping him force his mind off the bright desert heat.

He stopped again along the side of the highway. Across from him, going off to the North, was a newly paved road. The road which led to Cathy!

He was so intent at finding his missing road, he did neither see or hear the large truck coming swiftly toward him, as he turned to drive across the highway in a U-turn, and onto the road he was looking for.

The old trucker was shocked to see the little yellow Mustang suddenly pull in front of him. He never had time to break before he smashed into the driver’s side of it, carrying it a long distance down the highway before he could bring his rig to a stop.

The old man got out and hobbled around to the wrecked car, cursing and crying. He could see there was only a young kid behind the wheel of the demolished car, and he was plainly dead. Stumbling back into his cab, crying, he got on the radio and called the highway patrol.

It was later that evening, a highway patrol officer pulled into the driveway at Mike’s home. His mother greeted him, standing silently in the doorway as she heard the news about her son. The officer was perplexed at her lack of reaction.

He had done this unpleasant duty before, but he never saw someone act like this. The woman had no expression at all, nor would she say much of anything to him.

After trying unsuccessfully to see if she had a neighbor or a relative who could come spend time with her, he reluctantly left her alone, as she requested.

She simply went back to her chair, and brought the old photo album up to her lap once more. There were pictures of Mike as a toddler, and a few of his high school pictures, but she didn’t look at these.

She simply held an old Kodak print, now faded with age, of a young man she once loved. He never came back to her after her brief and sweet encounter with him. She had looked for him in the places where he said he had lived, but she never found him. She carried his child, however, and named the little boy who was born, after his father. She even took the young man’s last name as her own.

She shed silent tears over that photograph. Tears of joy and grief. Pure hearts know such things. She finally understood why her young man never came back. She knew he had really tried to find her. She knew now that he really had loved her. That knowledge made her heart glad. She had not been mistaken about him, she knew that at last. Pure hearts never are mistaken.

She also understood now why it was he never found that old highway again.

Knowing why he never returned to her, broke her pure heart all over again.

Clutching the picture, she looked out the window, into the darkness. Through her tears, Catherine at last cried out into the empty desert night, “Mike! I lost you again, my young man!”

REWIND
10.9.8.7.6.5.4.3.2.1. *

Mike was startled to see a shadow fall across his face! Someone was standing next to his car. He had just spotted the road to Cathy and was about to turn, when this person appeared next to him.

“Who are you?” This was all he could get out of his mouth, in the sudden apprehension of the moment.

“You going to Mac’s Café? I need a lift.”

A semi sailed by at that moment. Its wind swirled the dust around the car. Mike caught a bit of it in his eye.

The stranger was around the car and in the passenger seat while Mike was still rubbing his eyes. “Thanks for the ride.”

Mike didn’t get a good look at him, but what he saw made him think it was alright. The man looked normal enough.

Mike looked carefully both ways, before going across the highway and onto the newly paved road, leading to Mac’s.

“What’s your name?” Asked Mike.

“My name’s not important. You won’t even remember me later today.”

Mike and the stranger drove on in silence. Soon they were at the café.

“Here you are. Hope you can get where your goin’” Mike said as he got out of the car and ran into the café without another word.

The man got out and looked around. There were cars parked up in front of the café, and several over at the garage, but there was no one at all outside. This was as it should be, for time had literally stopped. The man aimed a device at Mike’s car, and it suddenly was not there anymore. He aimed at the spot again, and a new yellow Mustang appeared in its place. This one was indeed new, since it was the year for it, with a real license and registration in Mike’s name, but without the second-hand digital radio and CDs from the future.

The man did something to the device, and time began to flow forward again. People began to appear around the premises, and the man walked off into the desert.

He was speaking into the device he carried. “Mike is stuck here now, and he will lead the life he would have led with Catherine, had he not died back on that highway in his own time. He will have some disorientation not being able to bring her home to mom, as he planned, but he will be alright. Catherine will believe his story, but no one else will. Soon, he will settle in, and the child that she carries will take up enough of their time so that this analmaly will be forgotten. The timeline has been restored. (They write him out; we write him back in.) If we can find out what causes these desert portals to be so unstable, perhaps we can prevent any more of these crises from happening, and my job here will be at an end. Signing off.”

.