Port-a-let (Part 6)

They packed up their things and started up the gravel path to a clearing. They came to a sign and Michael read something about a memorial not far up a trail that led up a steep incline and into a phalanx of glistening shrubs.

“Let’s go check it out,” said Michael. “We’re teachers, right?”

“You lead the way.”

Ten minutes later they leaned against a wooden fence that overlooked the beach and out to Cape Falcon. Behind them was a bronze plaque cemented into a two-foot high base of river rock. Jones swept away some conifer needles and lichen and read aloud: “The people of Oregon hereby express their gratitude to Matt Kramer of the Associated Press, whose clear and incisive newspaper articles were instrumental in gaining public support for passing of the 1967 Beach Bill. This landmark legislation guarantees forever the public’s right to the free and uninterrupted use of one of Oregon’s most popular recreation attractions, its ocean beaches.”

“I don’t really know anything about my state, except the Oregon Trail and Lewis and Clark,” said Michael. “Is any other history really taught in schools?”

Jones didn’t respond. He waited and traced the grooves of the text. “I wish I had been a reporter,” he said..

It was a classic non sequitur that only an unfulfilled teacher would construct but never recognize as constructing.

They hardly talked on the hike up Mount Neahkahnie, that is, when they hiked together at all. Jones was surprised when at the halfway point Michael picked up her pace and moved ten, then 20, then 50 yards ahead of him. He watched her, not the horizon, and made no attempt to catch up. When he reached the summit, she was writing in her journal. She looked up at him and said they were notes for a lesson plan. On the hike back down, Michael forged ahead again, and when Jones reached the parking lot, she lay flat on her back on the Subaru’s hood, her t-shirt pulled up to reveal a tattoo of a wavy orange sun around her navel, which at the very moment Jones noticed, was lit up by a sunbeam. He wanted to say something, wanted to go write a haiku on her stomach, but he refrained. Instead, he rapped lightly on the hood of the car, Michael came to life and smiled at him. They got into the Subaru, she turned on Christian radio, and they were off.

Not far from Mount Neahkahnie, Jones stopped in a state park wayside so he could use the restroom. The facility was closed for remodeling but Jones saw a Port-a-let erected 30 yards away near the edge of a cliff. He exited the Subaru and started walking toward the Port-a-let. Michael got out and wandered around.

Jones opened the door with his right hand, clutched his keys in his left, and then held his breath before entering. He eased inside and quickly noticed the toilet was pitched forward a few degrees and it made standing upright difficult. He had no intention of soiling his hand or jeans so he decided to support himself by placing his left hand on the wall over the pit opening. Finally inside, with the increased pitch accelerating the motion, the door swung shut with such force that it shook the car keys from Jones’s grip and they dropped directly into the opening, splashing into the waste.

“Fuck!” said Jones in such a way that he didn’t inhale. He wasn’t the type of man to have another set of keys hidden under the bumper or have any tools in the trunk. In fact he didn’t even have a jack to change flat tires. And he had left his phone back at the apartment on purpose.

A few minutes remained for Jones to devise and commit to a course of action, an action he knew would probably reveal to Michael his authentic self, whatever that was. All he knew was that his keys were buried in feces, he was on a fantastic date with an artist, a teacher, and she was most likely walking toward the Port-a-let at this very moment. It immediately occurred to Jones that all of his old ways of presenting himself to women were useless.

He had been holding his breath since entering the Port-a-let and now felt heat and pressure overtaking his head and ribs. He exhaled forcefully and then sucked in with his mouth as much fetid air as his lungs could hold. He had as much time as he could hold his breath to make a decision.

Jones heard a sound on the roof of the Port-a-let. Something had landed; it could only be a gull. He took another peek through a slit in the Port-a-let and saw a sky one shade of gray, and the ocean tumbling hard in gray scale with tints of forest green. It was the perfect duo-tone image of the Oregon Coast.

“Fuck!” he said again. He felt ready to pass out and couldn’t hold his breath any longer. He moved his face as close to the slit as he could without touching the wall. He exhaled and then smelled fresh sea air. He inhaled deeply and then charged out of the Port-a-let. He saw Michael edge closer, now 20 yards away, walking near the cliff lazily his direction, staring right to the ocean. She tossed a rock. Her coat was gone, her cords were slung so low on her hips he could see her black underwear. He watched her watch the ocean and thought of the Grateful Dead’s song “Sugar Magnolia” and noticed for the first time she wore a diver’s watch. She kept coming straight at him, leisurely in trippy right angles, but still hadn’t turned her head away from the sea. He felt a draft into his groin and realized he had forgotten to zip up his pants and buckle his belt.

Jones fastened himself, moved forward to Michael, and saw her flash him another James Cain smile. The first thing he would do was ask her a question: did she have a phone? He didn’t know because he hadn’t seen her use one all day.

His education had begun. It would involve a type of collaboration heretofore unknown to him, but that everyone unknowingly desires.