The Volvo rolled\nover the majestic McCullough Bridge into North Bend, into Coos Bay,\npast the Steve Prefontaine mural with his immortal words, \u201cTo give\nanything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daisy hadn’t ever\nbothered to read Pre’s words. She read them now. Everybody should. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She saw the\nentrance to the hospital parking lot and the familiar neon sign\nslicked in mold and crusted in gull guano. She thought about what\nmight unfold on her shift. She thought about the doctor who would\ngive her a wink and pinch on the bottom. She imagined scavenging a\npill to put the fuzz for breakfast. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There the entrance\nwas,,,,and there is wasn’t. Daisy drove right by it. She never once\nslowed down. In fact, sped up. She removed the lanyard ID from around\nher neck and slid it out the gap in the window. She lit another\ncigarette and kept going south,south, south, right out of town, past\na logging yard, past a junkyard, past a sex shop, past four pot\nshops, past the sign for the Coos Bay Speedway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daisy texted her\nsupervisor: not coming in today, family emergency<\/em>\u2014the trusty\nold dodge no one in authority ever questioned. Daisy thought about\nher family. She didn’t really have one. What is a family anyway?\nMerely blood relations? Something on paper? Or is there something\nelse to the definition? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n A loaded log truck\nslowed traffic on Highway 101. Daisy didn’t know where she going or\nwhere she might stop. She turned on the radio and tuned to a station\nbroadcasting out of Coquille. An ancient voice, a craggy voice, a\nreal person, a real DJ in a studio in Coquille (!) was analyzing the\nnuances of obscure psychedelic tracks he’d just played and the tracks\nhe was about to play\u2014a Christmas show, a curated ultra-depressing\nChristmas show chosen by a stoned rock and roller working the knobs,\nnot an algorithm computed in a cloud. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daisy largely hated\nChristmas music but she suddenly got giddy about the prospect of a\nshow that featured depressing holiday music. Oh joy! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBrothers and\nsisters,\u201d the DJ intoned, \u201cwherever you are listening to this\nstation, just know, you can’t be depressed as the people in these\nupcoming tracks, so be well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first song:\n\u201cPlease Daddy Don’t Get Drunk This Christmas\u201d by John Denver. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh hell yeah<\/em>\nscreamed Daisy. She’d never heard it before! \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then came,\n\u201cChristmas in Prison,\u201d by John Prine. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daisy\nlistened to, It\nwas Christmas in prison and the food was real good \/ <\/em>We\nhas turkey and pistols carved out of wood, <\/em>and\nlaughed aloud. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next was, Merle\nHaggard’s \u201cIf We Make it Through December.\u201d \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not we<\/em>\nthought Daisy. I<\/em>. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bandon. Langlois.\nSixes. Port Orford. In Port Orford Daisy stopped for gas, cigarettes\nand a maple bar. She kept driving south. Ophir. Gold Beach. She lost\nthe Coquille station near Humbug Mountain but found some commie\nstation broadcasting jazz from Humboldt County and another real DJ\nplaying Christmas bebop instrumentals from Miles Davis, Thelonious\nMonk and Dave Brubeck. Daisy didn’t know who any of the musicians\nwere, but liked the music. It was sort of formless, improvisational,\nbut touched something deep and muted inside Daisy that shellacked\ncrooning by Bing Crosby or Doris Day could never hope to reach. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rain kept falling\nand traffic dwindled the farther south she drove. She was driving\ninto what seemed like a Secret Coast, a place the rich Portlandians\nand Californians hadn’t ruined yet. Daisy passed the mysterious,\nmeandering Pistol River and noticed a dozen or so seals hauled out\nnext to a dozen driftwood forts erected near the river’s mouth. She\npassed a half dozen transients on bicycles or on foot, or pulling\nwagons, some with dogs or ferrets, carrying everything they owned.\nWhere were they going? Where would they sleep this rainy night? How\nhad they ended up like this on Highway 101? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daisy lit another\ncigarette, puffed away, and tapped out drum solos on the steering\nwheel with her fingers. Everything around her was gray and getting\ngrayer. It was like she had entered a country where the official\ncolor was gray and its citizens loved living in the gray areas of\nlife, because black and white is so boring, and utterly dangerous. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Daisy edged\naround a graveled turn where the road had washed out the previous\nspring, she saw a large wooden sign nailed to slanting shore pine\nwith a groovy rainbow logo right out a Fillmore East concert poster.\nDaisy nearly came to a halt and read: Rainbow Rock RV Park, 20\nmiles. We Welcome RVers, hikers, bicyclists, tent campers. Laundry\nRoom. Store. Lending Library. Hot Showers. Fire Pit. Horseshoes.\nTetherball. Pets welcome. Beach access. Quiet. Calm. Daily, weekly or\nmonthly rates.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Tetherball!<\/em>\nthought Daisy. She hadn’t played since she was a kid. She loved the\ngame and always kicked ass because she was the tallest girl in\nschool. Oh to kick ass one of the doctors at a hosipital picnic at a\nlakeside campground with a tetherball pole! She’d fist the ball right\ninto his flaccid face and his wife would see the whole thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rainbow\nRock<\/em>…it sounded almost exotic to Daisy and she loved rainbows.\nShe loved their science but knew nothing of their folklore, not even\nthe leprechaun and pot of gold hokum. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daisy had never\nstayed in an RV Park. Indeed, she’d never stepped inside one. What\nthe hell went on there? She had a sleeping bag, most of her clothes\nand toiletries stashed in the Volvo. She could sleep in the rig and\nfigure it out later, whatever there was to figure out. The store was\nsure to have wine and a can of spaghetti and meatballs. She’d open it\nwith her Leatherman and eat it cold. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rainbow Rock RV\nPark it was. She floored it. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Volvo rolled over the majestic McCullough Bridge into North Bend, into Coos Bay, past the Steve Prefontaine mural with his immortal words, \u201cTo give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.\u201d Daisy hadn’t ever bothered to read Pre’s words. She read them now. Everybody should. She saw the entrance to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5618"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5621,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5618\/revisions\/5621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}