I had thought about it. The American Photography exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. Then my phone via Facebook or Instagram or Osmosis-Goo suggested that I seriously consider buying a ticket, like right now, click the link and chakka-gotcha! The Rijksmuseum sits just around the corner from my apartment, a five minute walk. Motivated, I took the bait.

Walking through the exhibit at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, I thought about my age. From my memory bank I can understand the subject matter in the photographs, either because I was already born or my grandparents were alive during the early to mid 20th century era or because the historical photographs of locations were still somewhat recognizable to what I recall seeing when I lived in the states.

I stood for a while in front of Schutmaat’s photograph of Tonopah, Nevada.  To my eyes, the photo of Tonopah Nevada was extraordinarily beautiful. Soothing in a way. I examined the old bed frame leaning against the back of a house. The bed frame dated from the early 20th century and it was ending its functional existence behind the house. The mining frenzy brought people seeking riches and good fortune then left them, much like the bed frame, stranded up in the high desert landscape. Dreams diminished, their momentum exhausted by dry winds and blue skies. Every object in the photo of Tonopah Nevada presented itself as a carefully chosen and stategically placed detail in a picturesque junkyard, even the houses loosely spread over the hills. Chakka-gotcha!

My father was a poet in residence in Nevada in the late 1970’s. He once took me with him on the road to keep him company. He drove the vinyl roofed Ford Maverick over the Donner Pass one spring day and we listened to Ry Cooder on an 8-track tape. I spent a week with him and I can’t remember which exact town he was teaching in or what school we visited that particular week, but the students were in middle school. I was eleven and still attending elementary school and I have no idea why I was not in school myself, but it was logical to me that spending time with Keith was more important than attending elementary school. That was the way things rolled back then, school break or no school break.

My father had a fascination with Nevada. Many of his stories touch on the subject matter. He didn’t want to end up in Nevada, though. I recall him nudging me away from a plate of saltines spread with honey and peanut butter, the local special treat whipped up as part of the going away party for the exotic poet-in-residence, and throwing his briefcase into the trunk. “Let’s go!” he said silently with a jerk of his head. Then he drove with determination, both meaty fists on the steering wheel of the Ford Maverick back over the Donner Pass. We listened to Ry Cooder on the 8-track tape deck, looping around and around, snaking down out of the Sierra Nevadas, shifting gears and gliding back into the foothills of California. 

*

Paradise, Nevada a short story by Keith Kumasen Abbott

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Why, you come all the way out here to see me, Flipper Dipper? Well, I appreciate it, and it sure gives me a chance to thank you for something. Hey, you remember when I came by your shack in Monterey? When was that? About 1971? Flipper took your advice. Got myself an old Chevy truck. 

That’s what you said to do. You said that guy can always get parts for an old Chevy truck.You were right. Look over there. That’s the truck I got. 

You remember Shalon, that red headed girl? She was with me when I stopped by your shack and you told me to get a truck. She was something. Shalon was. See that plastic bubble on my camper? She stole that. Picked it up and walked right out of the junk yard with it. 

Shalon, she was something. 

I rebuilt this truck and that camper with her help. Stole everything I needed. She was eighteen. Eighteen! And brave? Once she picked up two truck tires that were on display at Sears and took a hike with them. There wasn’t nothing she wouldn’t do. 

We had a time. Drove up and down the coast. We didn’t miss much. Never had any trouble with food, not with Shalon along. Had a poncho with slits on the side, her hands could snake out of there and zap! Sirloin on the barbeque tonight! 

You know the NCOs used to talk about Korea, talking about some peasant walking off the Aray base with a jeep engine on his back. That was Shalon. She would have done it for me. Always had an eye out. Hardly a day went by when she didn’t come in with something.  

Right before she left me, she was getting so good at head that I gave up giving her any instructions, and just let her tend to her own inventions. Damn near drained the color out of my hair. 

You know……before we drove this truck to Nebraska in 1974 and harvested a whole load of marijuana. It was growing on the back acres of an uncle of hers. Couldn’t even sleep in the camper, had so much reefer in there. We bunked on the ground beside of the truck coming back to the coast. 

That truckload of boo floated us along there for over a year. Up and down the coast, rock festival to art festival to god knows what.  Man, those were the years!

Funny you showing up here. Gar gave you the Flipper’s PO Box? Yeah, that’s what I thought. Gar gave me some help with upping my vet disability. Shrapnel kept showing up. In my chest. I came out to the desert ‘cause it dries me up. My skin. And the stuff works out easier, somehow. Still picking metal out of my tits. 

I get along. Didn’t mean to end up here but the truck broke down and this was the end of the road anyway. Look down to the end of that street. Boom town. Old bakery, those brick walls the saloon, that’s the bank building and then nothing. Now that’s the real end of the road. Nothing but desert and jeep trails beyond that. That’s Paradise’s city limits, where the street just stops. 

Forestee service trails and that’s who I work for now and again. Forest-tee service, I can’t stop calling it that. No forests in this part of Nevada, dinky scrub trees, not real forests. Toy forests. Still have half my head on the coast, I guess. 

Paradise here has a post office, that’s all I need or want. Get my checks, stay put. You ever get back up to Washington, I heard Shalon is there now. Outside Seattle, Issaquah or Stillaguamish. You see her, tell her old Flipper Dipper’s here. I bet she’ll laugh when she hears that. 

Flipper’s between McDermitt and Winnemucca, that’s all you have to say.  Don’t say more than that. I don’t suppose she knows where Paradise is. Just say between McDermitt and Winnemucca – she if she don’t laugh.