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Copper
After spending the night in a rest stop, bass drum for a
pillow, Shawn rolled into Tacoma, traffic zipping by on either side. He turned
into downtown, operating on five-year-old directionals, a high-school field trip to the State History
Museum. What he remembered most were the hulking brick buildings, past lives
painted on their foreheads: F.S. HARMON MFG. CO., ALBERS BROS. MILLING CO. He
passed the inverted copper teacup of Union Station, then took the A Street
exit.
Climbing 9th
Street, he found a five-way intersection that felt distinctly New Yorkish. It
might have been the Pantages Theater, high white walls with cornices and
ornaments, or the stone sculptures marking off a lawn-covered island. But the
center of gravity was a triangular building to his right, squeezed to a point
by the streets of St. Helens and Broadway. The ground floor hosted a
coffeehouse, the tip occupied by a single table, surrounded by glass. That was
the spot.
He parked
in front of a guitar shop, dashed around the corner and marked one of the
terrarium chairs with a windbreaker. He sat there with his coffee and surveyed
the new territory: lunching office workers, a beaten-down wanderer with a
ragged leather backpack, two old ladies with a Dalmatian. Caffeine had no
chance against rest-area sleep, however, and he soon began to doze. After three
involuntary head-jerks, he decided to take a hike.
A few
blocks uphill he found the Merolino Art Center, overlooking the Pittsburgh-like
smokestreams of a paper mill. He turned catacorner to find a square of
limestone brick, giving off alternate hues of tan brown and margarine. Nearing
the entrance he noted three flags: the Stars and Stripes, the emerald green of
Washington, and the Union Jack. The latter was quickly explained by tall
letters spelled out over the entranceway: THE CAMBRIDGE. Shawn fumbled with the
intercom until he found a button for the manager.
“Hello,
Cambridge Apartments.”
The voice
was female, friendly but direct.
“Hi, um… I
wanted to… Do you have apartments available?”
“Sure. What
are you looking for? One-bedroom? Studio?”
I got no friggin’ idea, he thought.
Hell, two days ago he was livin’ at Mom and Dad’s.
“Um…
studio’s probably fine.”
“Good.
‘Cause that’s all we got.” She let out a chirpy laugh. “I’ll be down in two
minutes.”
“Okay. I’m
on the hilly side.”
“Right.
Where the intercom is.”
“Oh. Uh,
yeah.”
Shawn was
running a hand over a ceramic-tile gryphon when a remarkably young-looking
blonde stuck her head out the doorway.
“Are you
the guy?”
“The guy? Yeah, I guess I must be.
Um, Shawn.”
She
shook his hand. She was thin and wiry, blue eyes set in a small, bird-like
face.
“Zasu. And yes, I’m old enough to
be the manager. One of these days, I’m going to stop getting that look from
people.”
“Like Zasu Pitts, the silent film
star.”
“Hey! Brownie points for the new
guy. Come on in. Let’s start with 308 – it’s my favorite.”
They stepped into an elevator, one
of those old-fashioned jobs with the accordion-style gate.
“I hate this thing,” she said.
“Gives me the creeps. I shouldn’t even show you 308, you know, because I go up
there late at night to write my poetry. But it’s really small, so I’m going to
knock the rent down from 395 to 380.
The poetry comment had Shawn pretty
primed, but he liked it even more when he saw it: hardwood floors, long
entranceway, huge old-style bathtub, and two large sash windows framing the
downtown skyline. There was just one other thing.
“Can you see the mountain?”
“Sure,” she said. “Take a look.”
Perhaps that was how you fell in
love with a mountain – a little bit at a time. Rainer was peeling a scarf of
cloud cover from her snowy northern shoulder. Shawn painted in the rest of her,
hovering just-so over his cityscape.
An hour later he sat on the sidewalk across the
street, tucking his paperwork into his windbreaker, when something occurred to
him. He found his apartment, just over the Washington flag, and started
counting. Five stories, his was the third. Thirteen sets of windows – his was
the seventh. The very center.
Photo by MJV
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