Santa Catalina

I drove around with my dad’s ashes under the front seat of my car for six months.  It took me that long to drum up the courage to carry out his wish to have his ashes dumped in the Pacific Ocean.  My parents regarded funerals as pagan rituals but at some point they evidently walked down to where Norwalk Avenue meets Eagle Rock Blvd and made arrangements for cremation.  

A week or so after my dad passed away I was summoned by the mortuary to drop by and pick up his ashes.  When I walked through the front door I was engulfed by the morose and ominous environment typical of mortuaries.  All of the windows had been rendered useless by impenetrable layers of drapery left over from Gone With The Wind.     I presumed the somber, poorly-lit interior was intended to promote gloom and discourage conversation. Should anyone ever have the balls to actually speak, such as "I'm having a heart attack", you can be well assured it would be in a low whisper. 

I was greeted by a lady dressed in black who handed me a small wooden box inside of which was a plastic bag that contained a handful of ashes that supposedly were what was left of my father's body.  It was one of those situations where either you raise questions that create a very awkward experience for everyone, or you do as I did, you shut up and move past it.  I thought it interesting that ten years after my dad died the very same Cresse Mortuary was among 37 others sited by a Funeral Consumer Alliance audit for having reserves insufficient to cover the services they had agreed to provide.  

Before I was permitted to leave the mortuary with the ashes, I was required to sign and acknowledge having been advised of the applicable laws and penalties if ever the ashes were misplaced, lost, or God forbid, released back from whence they had come.  The lady also handed me an official looking one-page document that appeared to (1) release the mortuary from all responsibility; and (2), gave me decision making authority as to the final disposition of the ashes just as long as it complied with the laws of the State of California.  The lady sensed I was annoyed by all of this, looked straight at me, and winked.  I interpreted this to mean she was either coming on to me, or letting me know in the only way she could without implicating herself in the conspiracy, that chances were I could do what I wanted with the ashes and no one would be the wiser.  For the second time in a matter of a few minutes I was faced once again with a situation where either you raise questions that create a very awkward experience for everyone, or you do as I did, you shut up and get back in the car.

I put the box under the front seat of my car and drove home.  It never occurred to me to bring the ashes into the house.  It made more sense to have the ashes handy in the car with me for the next time I found myself near the ocean.  Several years earlier Michael had disposed of my mother's ashes off Catalina Island so I asked him how to go about it. Michael said once I got to Catalina I'd need to rent a boat, putter out on the ocean and put the ashes in the sea.  This presented a problem.  I am adverse to boats of any kind because they require an amount of water in which creatures of various sizes are likely be present. 

During the months I was working up my nerve to go to sea, I fully enjoyed riding around with what was left of my dad.  I had a great time imagining that it might just be possible for him to somehow hear me screaming at other drivers and calling them a BOARHEAD just as he did when he was alive.  When anyone rode with me during that time, I can’t recall ever mentioning to them what was sitting under the front seat.  I wasn't trying to hide anything and had the topic of cremation come up I'm sure I would have said something.  

I eventually made my way from Simi Valley to Long Beach where I boarded a hydrofoil craft that travels between the mainland and Catalina.  I was surprised to find that according to the company operating the ferry, the distance from the mainland to the island was only 22 miles rather than the 26 claimed by the Four Preps. Santa Catalina Island was named after Saint Catherine of Alexandria by a Spanish explorer in 1602.  Catherine is the patron saint of a long list of guilds and vocations not the least of which are knife sharpeners.  I presume the protection she provides these groups has been effective as there isn't a single knife sharpener listed among the multitude of people suing the church for sexual abuse.  At the age of 18 Catherine rubbed an Egyptian Emperor the wrong way and efforts to torture and kill her failed when the "spiked wheel" she had been mounted on evidently fell apart.  After which the Emperor thankfully saw fit to simply have her beheaded.

I remained fairly calm during the hydrofoil ride out to the island.  The interior designer for the passenger area of the hydrofoil must have once worked for a mortuary.  There were a variety of colors on the chairs and the carpeting but it was all done in the darkest of hues. With the small windows being the only source of light and the muddy mauves, cadmiums and burnt siennas; it was anything but cheery.  

This prompted me to sit by a window and take a glance out over the water, and as I did so, the inevitable happened.  A large marine something broke the surface about fifty yards away from the hydrofoil and then sank back out of sight.  No one else saw it, just me.  I didn't say a word to anyone.  Who would have believed me?  I know what I saw and I know what it meant.  It was just the way the universe likes to screw with you and present you with reminders to stay the hell away from places where you don't belong.  I turned back from the window and stared straight ahead until we made it to Catalina.  What are the odds that during a forty minute trip I would look out the window once, for all of three seconds, and be the only person on the boat to catch sight of such a horror?  I wasn't the least bit surprised, deep water and I completely understand each other.  Offered a choice between the spiked wheel and walking the plank, I'd go with the wheel every time.

There is a small harbor where the hydrofoil docks and you can walk into the town that lines the beachfront with bars, restaurants, umbrella rentals and such.  The business establishments are separated from the beach by a single main drag on which is seldom seen vehicles of any sort.  The beach area is a narrow strip of ugly sand that stretches along the inside of the bay.  The sand, being on the leeward side of the island, receives no surf or on-shore breakers to help cleanse, aerate and rejuvenate it.  As such, the sand is hard packed and disturbingly dark having spent the last 80 years soaking up oils and grease excreted by bodies baking in the sun and being saturated with chemicals from tanning products.  The disgusting condition of the beach makes walking on the pier seem ultra hygenic by comparison.  

The pier is where anyone needing to deposit ashes into the sea can find a boat to rent.  From the two places I found on the pier I chose Joe's Rent-A-Boat.  I had the plastic bag of ashes in a backpack having rid myself of the box prior to boarding the hydrofoil.  I imagine the waste basket in the restroom of the Long Beach ferry terminal has seen its fair share of black wooden boxes over the years.

I walked up to the counter and came face to face with a fellow whom I presumed was Joe.  Joe said, "Rates are by the hour, half day or full day,  what can I do for ya?"  I took the plastic bag out of the backpack and held it up for Joe to see, and said, "What ever it takes to go right out and get this over with."  It was obvious that this was fairly common and before he led me down to the boats he told me there was a little hut further out on the pier where I could buy flowers.  I told him thanks but we weren't much for frills so I'd pass on the flowers.  Joe led me down a ramp to the water level where a half dozen dinghies with outboard motors were tied up.  By the looks of them they had surely been there since Natalie Wood drowned in the same harbor twenty years earlier.

Joe put me in a boat, muttered a few instructions and demonstrated how to start the motor. I thought it odd that he watched me from the ramp as I maneuvered my way out of the harbor and headed away from the island.  I could feel his eyes on the back of my head until I was well clear of the harbor.  It occurred to me then that Joe had misinterpreted my fear of open water as something quite different.  The relief on Joe's face when I returned made it clear he figured I wasn't planning on coming back.

It was fairly easy to avoid looking at the water after I left the harbor.  Evidently my genetic material has within it some sea-going navigational pointers.  I knew immediately that it was essential for me to venture straight out from the harbor to ensure that I could find my way back.  While motoring out to sea I spent the majority of the time looking back over my shoulder at the harbor.  When the harbor grew too small I used the island as my reference point.  The spot where I decided to put the ashes into the ocean was as far away from land as I could deal with.  Maybe ten minutes out, maybe much less, I'm not sure.  I just kept thinking I liked it a hell of lot better when the ashes were in my car.