11—Quest-ionable Zip Code

Making my way through the clang and jingle of slot machines back in the Las Vegas airport, I rejected the idea of returning to the ocean. The terror, I concluded, was just a temporary insanity brought on by stress. My final blissful moment with the sea was a release of that stress. I was now ready to write the book that would inspire Americans to demand better schools for our children. But after several dismal days at the computer, I couldn't sleep at night without waking up from the same nightmare to the sound of my own scream—I was standing alone in a large white room, looking out through a wall of windows at the wide blue sea, in no danger, but paralyzed with terror. Even after I woke up, several moments would pass before I could move.

“What’s happening to me?” I asked my therapist.

“What do you think is happening?” she asked.

I wanted to rip her office apart.

Outside, I sat in my car, staring at the cement block wall at the end of the parking lot.
I’d sworn to never touch my emergency fund but my mind was deteriorating rapidly into a state of emergency.  
Back home, I phoned the two rental agents in Oregon. 

The first property manager sent a lovely colored brochure with pictures of an apartment in Oceanside. The apartment featured a tiled bath, wood floors, and a recently remodeled kitchen. Phone and utilities were included. 

The second option was a house in Netarts. There were no pictures, just the verbal promise of a wood stove and a view of the ocean. The place had a phone jack, but I’d have to bring a phone and arrange for the connection. I would also pay the electric and be responsible for the final cleaning.

Since I planned to stay a month, I’d have to take the cats so contacted both property managers with the hope they didn’t accept animals, thus putting an end to the idea. Both, however, welcomed pets.

The monthly cost would be roughly the same, less actually for the apartment if I factored in the work involved in renting the house. But I’d always wanted to live in a house with a view and a wood stove. And confronting primal terror would probably be best accomplished in an independent dwelling. Then, of course, I remembered the magic of that strange little town with the cat as its mayor. So on Halloween, I mailed off my $200 deposit. I would leave Las Vegas on Christmas Day, arrive two days later, and stay for a month. 

The day before Thanksgiving it dawned on me that I’d received no confirmation so called Barbara, the rental agent, who assured me all was well then launched into a story about a freak accident in the woods that had killed a man who went to her church. Feeling petty for being annoyed that this tragic but highly detailed narrative was on my dime, I let her talk for seventeen minutes before asking, “So you’re sure now that the house won’t be like camp?”

Barbara laughed and said I’d love it. So I sent her the remaining $600 then called Sprint to arrange for a phone connection. Janine in Las Vegas couldn’t find a zip code for Netarts so said she’d research it and get back to me. The following day, she still had no zip code so with me on the line got in touch with Lois in Hood River, Oregon who assured us that, yes, Netarts had a zip code and was definitely wired. Lois then set up an appointment for a lineman to hook me up the morning after my arrival.

With everything in place, optimism for my trip blossomed into eagerness until several days later when a letter arrived from Barbara. There was no receipt, just a map to the house that appeared to have been drawn by Long John Silver. A black dot marked the location of my house that lay between Third Street and Second. Beyond Second Street, the cartographer had drawn little scallops representing water. So where the hell was First Street? 

I suggested to my therapist that I was making an expensive mistake. I mean, there I was in the middle of winter, a certified clinical depressive with acute anxiety, about to haul across three states in a thirteen-year-old pickup with two high-strung cats to spend a month confronting primal terror in a rain-soaked cabin that I’d rented sight unseen in a mildewed dot of a town with a questionable zip code.

“Go!” she exclaimed, more animated than I’d ever seen her. “Have fun. Think of the trip as a quest.”

“A quest?” I shot back. “For what?”

“If you knew,” she replied, “it wouldn’t be a quest.”

Well, she definitely had me there. 

Leaving the office in a spirit of high purpose tempered with an air of martyrdom, I stopped at Safeway to begin stocking up for the grand adventure.

Next: “Old Cats and New Tricks”