Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

In the centre of the store, Peruvian and Guatemalan picnic baskets of different shapes and sizes were on display. Blankets and tablecloths hung from hooks down the sides. Retro board games of all kinds — Sorry! Scrabble, checkers, and more — were set out to play; new ones were available to buy. There were four half aisles between the eating area and the deli counter, stocked with wines, crackers, and speciality food items. Behind those were the glass-doored refrigerator cases, stocked with beer, soft drinks, juices, and twelve different kinds of water. Bottled Cokes cooled on ice in the newly restored old-fashioned Coke machine, which I’d unburied from a corner of Marcella and Joe Sr’s barn. Joe had always intended to restore it and use it at the market but hadn’t got around to it. With my new appreciation for not putting things off until ‘someday’, I’d called a place in Santa Rosa called Retro Refresh.

We’d painted the walls a pale goldenrod that took three tries to get right, but as I stood in the middle of the store the day before we opened, the sun-washed plaster was warm and cheerful and actually made me smile. I stood in the middle of it all, aware that the corners of my mouth both turned up; there I was, a smiling fool of a woman about to open a store called Life’s a Picnic only a few months after her husband had died. Life’s a trip was more like it.

We’d sent out press releases to every publication and radio and even TV station within California. Just in case, David had said, it was the slowest news day in history and someone wanted to do a story on us.

The only thing missing was the map of the picnic sites. Clem Silver, who was a nationally recognized illustrator and painter, had said he’d have it ready, but we were opening in less than twenty-four hours, and no one had heard from Clem. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that Clem never answered his phone. When I’d questioned him on that one, he’d said, ‘What kind of town recluse answers his phone?’ He had a point. Clem was known to keep to himself. He lived up in the forest, in the dark shade of the redwoods. He had long white hair he wore in a ponytail, he had long fingernails stained with paint, and he smoked long ladies’ cigarettes — Virginia Slims menthol. Apparently, he also took a long time getting his work done.

The door chimed and David and Gil came in carrying boxes and bags with Annie and Zach dragging in metal buckets of kindling to set by the woodstove. Marcella followed with armfuls of hydrangeas. Lucy brought more wine.

I said, ‘Lucy, I’ve got to track down Clem Silver. I know he lives up in the shadies, but I don’t know where exactly.’

‘Just follow Spiral Road all the way, past the sign that says beware of artist. It’s the last house, about a quarter mile past what you’ll think is the last house.’ She pointed to the door. ‘You’re doing great. I’ve got the kids and everything here covered. Go.’

‘Are you sure? You’re dealing with harvest.’

‘Crush will go on without me. And I needed a break from jeans and boots and purple stains. Go. And, El? Take your time. Take a break. Please.’

Lucy straightened her cream velvet hat, turned around with a swirl of her long paisley skirt, and called Annie and Zach to help with the tablecloths.

I ducked out the front door, glad to get away for a walk. I headed up the street, passed the tiny postage stamp-size post office and the two restaurants and the Elbow Inn, passed the Nardinis’ house and the Longobardis’ and the McCants’, then crossed the busier road that divided the town of Elbow from the forest.

I walked the steep single-lane Spiral Road, which did, indeed, spiral the hill. The founders of this town had certainly been literal with some of their names. But it was the Southern Pomo Indians who had first referred to this area as the Shady Place. They would set up only temporary camps in the dark redwoods; they preferred to live in the sun-drenched oak-studded hills. The Kashaya Pomo even called themselves ‘the People from the Top of the Land’, as if to boast, ‘We live in the nice, sunny neighbourhood.’

Then the whites started moving in to lumber. After they built the railroad, San Franciscans began taking the train up to fish and play along the river. Some of them built summer homes in the forest, but few lived there yearlong, and that was still true. A lot of people who had houses in the shadies fled to places like Palm Springs for the winter.

I kept walking, taking the hairpin turns and pausing now and then to catch my breath. The houses sat farther and farther apart, the higher I went.

Finally, ahead, a sign that said, sure enough, beware of artist. Farther up I could see a house, but it was not the house I’d expected, not that of a man who rarely cut his hair or his fingernails.

This was a house that had been built with care and concern for every planed piece of wood, for every river rock fitted perfectly in the massive chimney and foundation. It was positioned so that it was never going anywhere. The hill could slide in an avalanche of mud and trunks, but the destruction would likely divide into two forks to go around this house, leaving it untouched. The front door held panes of stained glass and greened copper detailing and was flanked with pots of tiny white flowers trimmed in red, called lipstick salvia. A row of different sized and shaped chimes seemed to stir in their sleep, then settled back into the quiet. I knocked and set off waves of barking from somewhere deep inside.

A raspy voice said, ‘Petunia! Pipe down, girl. No need to get your britches in a bunch, Jerry.’ He opened the door and took a long look at me. He had on an old Cal sweatshirt, covered in paint stains, a pair of grey baggy sweats. His ponytail was draped over his shoulder and lay like a skinny mink stole down his chest. ‘Oh! Ella Beene! Come in, come in.’ He turned and scuffed down the hallway in lambskin slippers. The dogs, who had stopped barking, took an inventory of me too, then, seemingly unimpressed, turned to follow Clem. I stepped inside.

It was warm and golden with lamplight. ‘Wow,’ I said. ‘I love your place.’

He turned, pleased. ‘Why, thank you. I like it too.’

‘It’s beautiful here in the forest.’

He nodded, kept nodding. ‘Yes, yes! Makes you understand how this was all under the sea three hundred million years ago.’ He smiled. ‘Wait, I should offer you tea. Or coffee?’

I opted for tea, and while he fixed it, he talked. ‘People think I live up here to get away from the river, because of the flooding and what I went through as a child.’

‘What was that?’ I asked.

‘Oh… I forget you’re not from around here… It’s an old story. Old, old story. But actually’ — he pulled down a box of tea bags — ‘because of what happened to Joe Jr…’ He looked at me, nodding. ‘Yes, I think you might like this story.’

So Clem Silver told me about the flood of ’37, back when he was a toddler. His family had lived on the river, three houses down from where Marcella and Joe Sr lived, where the Palomarinos lived now. Clem wandered off and no one could find him. Everyone evacuated except for his mother and father, who were frantically looking for him. The river rose, and just as his mother picked him up from his study of a spiderweb behind the woodpile, a surge of water broke through and tore him from her arms, passed him downriver, out of her reach, then out of her sight.

‘I remember hearing my mother’s screams and being afraid, and then my ears and eyes and mouth filled with churning, followed by a beautiful quiet, like I’d never heard before. And up above me, this beautiful beam of light.

‘Now, you hear people talk about their near-death experiences, about going towards “the light” and all that. But in my case, being down in that dark river water, the light was all I saw, all I needed to see, and it led me to the surface, to air, to more years of life — not some heavenly encounter — which suits me just fine.