Central Valley and the Coast:  A Guide

Belmar.

Drive south from Tie Camp for about a half hour and you pass the sign for Belmar, population 559.  Actually now it's considerably less, since an unusually destructive winter storm obliterated the marina that was the town's largest employer and one of the few reasons for visitors.  Two local residents, Tom Madigan and John Big Snake, have since rebuilt it, but the fishermen that moved up or down the coast when they realized the marina had gone had all changed their runs and found new and better holes.  It would take some time before they came back.

Belmar used to be a mill town, before World War II, but consolidation in the timber industry shuttered the mill and the loggers and operators left behind either stayed on if they could or simply followed the mill.  The town barely survived as a bedroom community until after the war, when a few developers saw an opportunity for business in the form of beach tourists looking for relaxation on the beach or a round of golf at the new course up at Tie Camp.  The town was reborn as a modest tourist destination, a place that offered the sort of plain, clean, reasonably-priced lodging that was the reason for being for most of the old mill towns on the coast.

If you turn left just past the sign on Chinook you climb a steep hill dominated by a few old Queen Annes that look across the highway, past the marina and into the dimpled green of ocean.  In one of the Queen Annes the rooms have been cleared of all signs of the previous occupant and covered with plastic and masking film.  Two painters can be seen either crouching at the baseboards with a sash brush or looking up at the ceiling as they roll.  When one rolls the ceiling he occasionally removes his safety glasses and wipes them with a cloth sprayed with cleaner.  The one rolling is usually Don Rosner, a painter recently laid off and put back to work by his neighbor, the new owner.   The man with the brush (usually) is Bill McCord, Don's friend and coworker, who came in on Don's call.  They had jumped at the chance.  The owner was in town doing research and staying at a hotel in Tie Camp.  Meantime they could stay in a nice old house on the beach, take frequent payments in cash, and even visit a marina that rented boats which they could use on the weekends.  The owner, Gil Binder, had practically insisted they take the weekends, because he did not want them "exhausted."  Whatever they left undone, in case they were called off on another project, Gil would finish himself.  Otherwise, Bill, Don had said on his first call, it's strictly T and M.  It was the kind of job that was so ideal you would talk about pipe dreams like starting your own company, leasing a van, putting decals on, the whole bit.  It was a way of making this kind of thing seem like more than just a short break in a monotony of shopping malls and clinics in the suburbs.

It was pretty sweet, he had to admit.  Don used to like to party, but that was a long time ago and lately he didn't mind so much a quiet drink and just some time to himself.  Maybe that was why he liked Bill; Bill was fairly reserved and didn't seem to mind if you just wanted to sit there and have a smoke and not say anything.  Don used to think that was strange, but the more he realized what you talked about, and the other guys on the crew, the more it all sounded the same and the more he came around to the way of guys like Bill.  Some nights they would even sit in the empty master bedroom with the curved glass with a couple beers and watch the lights of the distant fishing boats.  Don would imagine his dad out there, out for one last haul before coming in.  The sea had taken him.  Him and a couple other guys.  Sometimes even now he would forget and wonder if the winking orange dots out there were on his boat.  

One of these nights he dreamed about the ocean, in fact.  There was this island, he told Bill, that was connected to the mainland by a kind of bridge or causeway.  And the only way you could cross it was to ride this bus that ran out there.  It was like a city bus, one line, and it just ran to the island.  And it was like one of those rock islands out there, just rocks and a couple clumps of plants and a lot of birdshit.  And I rode the bus out there and sat on the island watching the gulls.  I would watch 'em fly in the wind out there.  The wind was high, always high, and lots of crossbreezes.  And it was like the gulls were playing in it.  They would dive bomb each other and do all these tricks and stunts and it was like, what other reason could they have but the hell of it?  Then they would come back down screeching and pick in the rocks for crabs or bugs or whatever.

Well, while I was sitting there watching the birds, I see this boat about eight miles out.  I can just barely see it, but it gets bigger and bigger and I recognize it.  It's my dad's old boat.  And my dad is steering.  He comes motoring up to the island and somehow ties off.  He climbs up to where I'm sitting and says "You ready?"  and I say "Sure" and we get on the boat and cast off.
"And that's it?"  says Bill.
"That's it," says Don.

Later they drive up to Tie Camp and Don decides this is the night.  He figured if he thought about Carrie three nights in a row he would call her.  But for some reason he has to tell her about the weird dream he had.  He would call her for that alone.  He would wait til he'd had a couple drinks though.