CA Cemetery

I'm waiting for my big chance to man the emergency exit, but as many times as I've read the pamphlets and eyed the overhead roof where the oxygen mask pops down, I'm glad it won't be today. In my head I picture myself with a whistle, commanding women to cast off their heels (who wears heels to the airport anyway?) and reprimanding anyone trying to salvage overhead luggage. My inflatable vest's blinking light beams hope for the needy and underaged flyers, though our feet are secured on dry land, probably somewhere in Oregon's Willamette Valley. I'm sure the dream is better than reality. I'm sure my own oncoming emergencies aren't nearly as planned-for or well-executed. 

The plane touches down and I gear up, ready to fight my way through LAX to meet the Queen B curbside. Fighting, it turns out, isn't required. So I wait my place in line politely, containing myself until I'm safe inside the Queen B's hive of a car. Hugs, then driving, and finally, when reality sinks in and we can't contain our excitement, screaming and an impromptu stop at a Cuban restaurant for mojitos. Back at her place, B and I quickly fall into our old routine: horror movies, frozen yogurt, reading side by side with noses buried in books, talking excitedly over drinks, and more horror movies. 

Letting the hours drip slowly into languid days, we bask on the beach, getting sand between the pages of our paperback books. The late afternoon wind chills our arms and whips our hair, so we keep our bathing suits on and head back to her apartment for a soak in the jacuzzi. This is vacation. After 5 days, we drive south to Orange County.

Entering Irvine, I lose myself in the wasteland. I know these roads and stout 1-story businesses are some one's neighborhood spots, some one's salary, but it's someone else, and I can't see any beauty in this washed out, hazy concrete town. This is the real return, and always bittersweet. Years ago I used to fly in to John Wayne airport with my backpack, looking for my dad in the crowd, back when he was allowed past security. Mildly depressed, missing Seattle, but relieved to be away from school, I approached these trips tentatively. Yet here I am again, backpack in tow. 

"It's someone else's cemetery now," I think, driving down Beach Blvd. The said cemetery sits across the street from a Wienerschnitzel and a Walmart, and I remember wandering through its white stones and manicured grass when I was 16. I would actually prefer walking through it to driving past it, but the Queen B and I zoom toward PCH on a hunt for In-N-Out. Animal-style really is what a hamburger's all about, but that's not my cemetery either. 

In Seattle I can at least limit myself to eating Dicks only a few times a year, but I doubt I would have the same willpower if I lived walking distance from an In-N-Out. Wait, what am I talking about? Nothing in Southern California appears to be walking distance from anything else. Except the cemetery, from which the dead can cross the street to purchase 99¢ corn dogs and rolls of toilet paper. 

Saying good-bye to B is hard. 

I spend the next 3 nights on my brother's couch, the faux suede surprisingly comfortable. The birthday card I sent him hangs on his refrigerator, the door's single decoration held in place by its single magnet. I read my inscription several times before opening the fridge to look for salvageable food. Joy of Cooking sits open on his kitchen counter. He brags about owning an older edition, one with descriptions and drawings on how to skin and cook a squirrel. Don't ask me what a lawyer needs with a recipe for squirrel. His car is broken and we walk to the grocery store, over overpasses, under underpasses. I admire that he's the only person in Orange County who walks. But I'm still confused. 

"Why do you still live here?" 

"I doubt I'd find another place that has all the elements I'm looking for." It sounds too thought out, like something our father would say. 

"What elements?" I wonder, noting the lack of earth, wind, fire or water on the freeway. 

I don't get a response. 

I'm lost in Super Irvine, the over crowded but amazingly stocked Persian grocery store. Todd waits at the meat counter, a number in his hand and his eye on today's low low price of beef tongue. The lamb shanks and shoulders look good, I say. I have a great lamb recipe, I say. It may take four hours, but we can wait, eat late, pass the time. Todd nods, doesn't hear, orders the beef tongue. I've had beef tongue twice, both times at Quinn's, and had since sworn it off. The dry, frail, falling-apart meat required heaps of mustard, and I relished my side of cornichon pickles more than the main dish itself. 

Back home we unburden our backpacks of their low-cost bounty. Todd boils the tongue with halved lemons and onions, allowing the meat to tenderize and soak up some flavor and acidity. After an hour and a half he removes the skin (remind me to buy that boy a good paring knife) and chops it into manageable chunks.

Meanwhile, I caramelize two onions in a large skillet and we set up a board for a game of Stratego. Todd has a tendency to cry out "You've sunk my battleship!" whenever I successfully kill one of his army. Don't be fooled, but the box boldly states that Stratego is not a war game. The bombs, marshals, lieutenants and spies suggest otherwise. 

The onions salted and sweated, I remove the cover and up the heat, browning them with a little sugar. We add the beef, browning the tender meat before adding bell pepper and squash. In retrospect, I would have cooked the bell pepper with the onions, caramelizing them from the beginning. We worried that there wouldn't have been enough room in the pan to properly brown the meat, but we should have just removed the veggies when sweet and slightly burnt and then incorporated them again at the end. Ah well, the roughly chopped tomatoes hit the pan last and we use their acidic juices to scrape up the frond on the bottom of the pan. We scoop the hash into Todd's familiar, glazed ceramic bowls and eat while blowing up each other's scouts, detonating each other's bombs and capturing each other's flags. Actually, Todd captures my flag. Five times. 

The beef tongue exceeds all my expectations. The meat is tender and tastes of lemony-oniony brightness, the vegetables are soft and sweet, but the blackened bits, my favorite part, crackle with flavor. We settle into the couch, the generous guest bed, and watch TV with our feet on the coffee table, chatting through commercials and sometimes during shows. Our distant and recent pasts hang in the empty space between us, ominous, waiting to be spoken about in fits and starts. We begin in small, carefully spaced intervals. This is why I'm here, in my hometown. Otherwise the distance between our voices, far-reaching tentacles they may be, is never fully traveled.