A Tunnel Wish

I suck a breath in and hold it, half nostalgic force of habit, half superstitious ritual, as my rental car enters the tunnel leading away from the Golden Gate bridge. The Rainbow Tunnel to me, although it has been renamed since I was last here. Now it's the Robin Williams Tunnel, an apt guardian for this place of duality, where love and tragedy are not so strange bedfellows. 

Hold your breath until you get to the end and you can make a wish. 

I can almost hear you whisper these words from the passenger seat, the way you had every time we made this drive. As I fight the instinct to take in air, my chest straining against the deprivation, I imagine Robin himself as the arbiter of these tunnel-wishes, playing the commuter genie, doling out the hearts desires of deserving passers through. You ain't never had a friend like me, indeed. 

Blood pounds in my ears as the end of the tunnel draws closer, bringing with it the promise of a pressing need met, and, just possibly, a wish fulfilled. I think of you. What was there left to wish for, that I hadn’t already? The time for wishing has passed, anyway. I hope Robin understands my ambivalence. And yet, right before I pass out of the darkness, at the precipice of that moment of blinding light, an image of your face surfaces. Your lazy smile on that perfect summer day, eyes soft and distant, lost in the preemptive nostalgia of the promise we had just sealed. 

No matter what? You’ll meet me right here in twenty years? 

The car emerges and I draw a greedy breath. As I do, something almost wish-shaped flashes through me, raw and unformed, escaping from those places in me that still cling to you in hope and despair. Sorry about that, Robin I think, and drive on towards Rt 1, and the coast.

A familiar effervescent joy bubbles up in me as the city fades away and the open spaces of the coast sprawl ahead. The rolling green hills and dramatic cliffs, emerging in and out of the fog in intervals, never fail to elicit a giddy sense of wonder. Look at all this beauty, surely better things are possible, the land seemed to be saying. It was lying, I knew, but I loved it anyway. That was a trick I learned from you. 

I’m close to my destination when I’m swallowed by a blanket of fog so thick I almost lose the road. The world disappears into dense gray mist. Disoriented I slow to a crawl, grateful that the roads have been so quiet. Then, as suddenly as it had come on, I’m free of it, and there ahead of me is the familiar gravel turnoff. I pull into the small parking area and navigate into one of the many open spaces. Only a handful of beach goers are here mid-afternoon on a weekday, and I instinctively scan the lot for your familiar maroon Civic. Before I can catch myself I see it, parked in the back corner, furthest from the entrance, the only spot that stays shady all day. 

Usually I look away quickly, before an absent bumper sticker or intact side mirror, still securely attached, gives away the fraud. There are so many maroon Civics in the world, it turns out. But my reptile brain had already done the pattern matching before my conscious mind caught up. 

There was the Grateful Dead sticker, courtesy of a previous owner, allowed to stay because you thought the teddy bears were cute. The passenger side mirror is just ringed in duct tape, not yet completely swallowed by it. Later, it will be all that holds it in place. And there, sticking out the driver's side window, is an arm encased in a black hoodie with an iron-on Less than Jake patch covering a hole I knew you had put in it skateboarding when you were 17. You would lose the hoodie on a drunken night out, and it would be the first time you would swear off drinking, the first of many precious things lost. 

I catalog this list of impossible things as I move towards the anachronism of you, here, now. A feeling like surrender washes over me. I’m being carried away by whatever strange riptide is happening, but my world has narrowed to the back of your head, bent over the book I can see resting on the steering wheel. I know innately that I will go wherever I’m being taken, if you’ll just turn around. 

Turn around. Turn around. I urge, transfixed. 

And then you do, squinting at me and waiting for your eyes to adjust. Within me, twenty years of life pulls back, not gone, but receding for now. Allowing you, I am certain, to see the version of me that belonged fully to this version of you. The one I still think of as the real you, although that is neither fair nor true.

A slow smile works across your face, three-quarters turned to look at me over your shoulder.  

“You’re late.” you say, mock scolding, as you unfold your long frame gracefully from the car and come over to wrap me in a hug. 

Unbidden, I think about the last time I saw you, your face impenetrable, words sharp and mean, hitting every soft, vulnerable place in me. You were unwilling or unable to let anyone past the walls you had built from a lifetime of hurt and disappointment turned inwards. Unwilling or unable. The difference between them was the windmill I had been tilting at for too long, your own personal Don Quixote. In the end it wouldn’t matter which it was. When you hugged me that day I knew it was an ending, and I clung to you, ignoring the noxious smell oozing from your pores, the ever-present reminder of the illness that I hated almost as much as I loved you. 

Now I inhale only the smell of your sun-warmed hair, your Herbal Essences shampoo and a mousse they stopped selling years ago. I hug you back, hard, until you squirm away, eager to start our adventure.

“Did you bring the sandwiches?” I hear myself ask.

“You doubt me? Rude,” you say, shoving my shoulder playfully. You lean back into the open car door, rummaging through your bag, and a paper wrapped missile flies at me. I just manage to catch it, and grin up at you proudly. Your grin mirrors mine, easy and carefree, and we start towards the trail that leads to the beach.

As we walk, you’re telling me about the book you’re reading, something by Anais Nin, and how she lives the way you’re supposed to, fully open to all experiences. You weave your current theory of life, drawing easily from Dolly Parton lyrics and talmudic texts to make your points, and I’m under your spell. When you get like this it feels like you are pulling the very threads of the universe, and I am always sure you are close, so close to figuring it out.

On the beach we find a bleached driftwood log and drape ourselves over it to eat the sandwiches. “Happy birthday,” you say, and you kiss my cheek. There’s a spark there that we haven’t given in to yet, although it’s not far off. For now, we talk about everything and nothing, effortlessly in sync with each other. It’s a feeling I’ll chase for years.

When we’re done eating we walk the short stretch of rocky oceanfront, bounded by cliffs on either side. You’re still going on about Anais, and I allow myself to get lost in the infinite multitude of pebbles at our feet. I pick up a smooth, gray, half moon shot through with bright white quartz. The lingering damp of seawater that has long since retreated lends it an unexpected luster.

“You’re not listening, are you,” you say accusingly, but when I look up you are wearing an expression of such adoration that it takes my breath away. I hold out the rock and you take it, turning it over in your hand. It’s rapidly going dull, drying in the cool air into an unremarkable piece of gravel. Embarrassment worms through me and I move to take it back. 

You smile at me and pop the pebble into your mouth, rolling it around on your tongue before depositing it back into your hand, newly reborn and glistening. “It’s so beautiful,” you say, and drop it into my jacket pocket, “A treasure.” You take my arm and we retreat back up the beach.

Back at our driftwood base, I’m toying with the stone in my pocket when you ask, “What do you think we’ll be like when we’re old?”

“Probably boring, with stable jobs and an appreciation for reliable appliances. You’ll get into birdwatching and I’ll say things like ‘The rain has been really hard on my garden this year.’” I speak it dishonestly, as though it wasn’t my most familiar wish, worn as smooth as this pebble from years of turning it over in my mind.

You laugh, head thrown back and the sun catches your blond hair, making you momentarily incandescent with joy. “Never!” you proclaim, “You will be a brilliant professor, dazzling the halls of academia with your genius, and I will make art that moves the world and break a million hearts.” And then, as though you can read my mind, you throw your arm around me, leaning your head on my shoulder. “Never yours, though,” you add softly.

The day you leave me for him, I think I’ve lost you forever, but that will come later. I remember  the bruises that you wave away until you can’t anymore, and how you stay anyway. How loving you becomes a battle to accept that which I cannot change.

I lean my head against yours. “Never mine.” 

I want to tell you about the woman I meet that shows me love can be a steady thing, a safe haven. But I know what you would say. Boring. And maybe you’d be right, in some ways; but there’s happiness too.

“I love it here,” you sigh, contentment etched so deeply on your face I could almost believe it would always be there. “Let’s come back when we’re old, so we can remember how we were once young and stupid. ” It’s not really a question, you already know the answer, but I nod anyway, sealing the deal.

Here it is, your lazy smile, eyes soft and distant, your mind already occupied with thoughts of that next summer day. Written and rewritten on my memory.

“No matter what? You’ll meet me right here in twenty years?” The idea tickles you, it’s already taken root. You’ll come back to it again and again. Remember, you promised to meet me at our beach on your 40th birthday, you'll say, extracting a renewal of my vow even as it shifts in meaning. 

We’ll be so different then, just wait, you’ll see.

I’ll be so different then, just wait, you’ll see. 

I’ll be better then, just wait, you’ll see.

I’ll be there, just wait, you’ll see.  

“I promise.” 

We sit like this for a long time, lit up by the brilliance of the dying summer sky, young and stupid and perfect. 

As the sun sinks into the ocean, I voice the thing I know comes next. “I have to leave.”

You look up at me with pleading eyes. “Don’t go. Stay here with me. We can spend the night under the stars. Start a whole new day together.”

I take in your face in the fading light, so full of hope, so heartbreakingly beautiful. Surely better things are possible, it says. It’s a lie, and I love you anyway.

“I’m sorry,” I force the words past the lump in my throat, and they come out harsh, a croak. I try again, softer now, “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

You look at me for a long moment, your expression inscrutable, and I hold your gaze, willing you to understand, forever willing you to understand. But you were never one to be willed into anything.  With a sad smile you turn back to the horizon. 

It’s time for me to go. I push slowly through the sand toward my car, feeling the weight of years deferred returning with every step. Back in the lot the shadows are so deep I can’t make out your car. The maroon Civic that they found at the bottom of a cliff not far from here. Whether it was accidental or intentional, the evidence was inconclusive. Unwilling or Unable. I slide into the driver's seat of my rental car and drive away. 

I don’t hold my breath as I cross back through the Rainbow Tunnel, but I do whisper a soft thank you to the guardian of duality and complicated legacies. I remember the smell of your sun-warmed hair and touch the pebble in my pocket. It’ll be dry now, dulled, but I know I can make it shine again.