“My God,” he said. “It is.”
I took a walk along the rim, stopping at several overlooks, but after a while I became numb to the view. It seemed to flatten out and lose its power. I think it was just too much work for my mind to try to wrap itself around the scale of what I was seeing, and it simply gave up in exhaustion.
But there were other pleasures. The air was crisp and clean in a way that it wasn’t back home, and I felt like I was getting twice as much oxygen as usual. Perhaps it was merely the difference in the air that I was appreciating, just like Ambrose.
I’d had a chance to appreciate a lot of differences in my life, but Ambrose hadn’t. Not a lot changes when your environment is rigidly controlled and you’re the only one in it.
Writers like to say that the best drama and comedy come out of conflict. Without conflict, you have no story. The same could apply to life. Without conflict, and without the contrast and changes that it brings, life loses its energy, the spark that keeps the engine running.
I couldn’t see how Ambrose had lived without it. And maybe that was what he was beginning to see, too.
That was certainly what spurred Dub Clemens and the Weird Sisters on their journeys. They took to the road in a fervent, perhaps even desperate, belief that the constant stimulation of new experiences would keep them alive. It didn’t have to be something as monumental as seeing the Grand Canyon. It could be something as simple as tasting the froth of a creamy root beer on your lips in a place that you’ve never been before.
I was struck once again by what a wonderful idea this trip had been and marveled that it was Adrian Monk, a man who dislikes change more than anyone, who’d come up with it.
I went back to the RV and, as I neared it, I saw the Monk brothers looking out the window, Ambrose in wide-eyed wonderment and Monk squinting with disapproval.
At that moment, all the aggravation of the last two and a half days—the arguments, the crime scenes, the run-ins with the crazy trucker—seemed completely worth it.
And I realized something else.
I wasn’t afraid of motor homes or Satanists anymore.
We remained in the parking lot for several hours, until a forest ranger came along and told us that we’d overstayed our welcome.
So we left and found a KOA campground near a stretch of Highway 64 that was being widened and repaved. I would have preferred a quieter, more rustic locale closer to the canyon, but the best campsites on our budget were already full, the slots reserved months in advance.
But the place we found wasn’t so bad. It was outside of Red Lake, midway between the Grand Canyon and Williams, and had a nice-size pool, a clubhouse that looked like a log cabin, a playground for kids, and even one for dogs. I parked in front of the general store, paid for our spot, and returned to the RV.
“What does KOA stand for?” Ambrose asked as I got in.
“Kampgrounds of America,” I said and steered us to our spot, a flat concrete pad that was shaded by a couple of trees but was only fifty yards from the freeway. We had our own picnic table, a basic BBQ grill, and a hookup that included cable TV and free wireless Internet.
“
Campground
is spelled with a
C
,” Monk said.
“Maybe the founder’s name was
Kamp
with a
K
and the place is named after him,” I said.
“That’s no excuse,” Monk said.
“Maybe Mr. Kamp was trying to be humorous,” Ambrose said. “Like people who spell
easy
with just the letters
E
and
Z
or spell
right R-I-T-E
or
quick Q-W-I-K
.”
“I don’t see what’s humorous about bad spelling,” Monk said. “It encourages illiteracy and sloppiness.”
“Or they’re saying it would make much more sense to spell
right
and
quick
the way they actually sound,” I said.
“We can’t just change the spelling of things willy-nilly,” Monk said. “It’s not up to us.”
“Who is it up to, then?” I asked,
“A higher authority,” Monk said.
“Like who?”
“
Whom
,” Monk corrected. “See? That’s what happens when you start spelling
camp
with a
K
. The next thing to go is grammar.”
I went outside to hook up our lines. While I was doing that, an enormous motor home the size of a Greyhound bus pulled into the spot next to us. An epic depiction of the westward migration of settlers inching across Monument Valley, eagles soaring overhead, wrapped around the motor home. The array of satellite dishes and radio antennas on top of the RV was so elaborate it looked like the conning tower of an aircraft carrier.
As I stood there watching, the motor home steadied itself and, once it had secure footing, began to unpack, expand, and push out like one of those huge robots in
Transformers
, changing from an RV into an entire house, including a veranda, which unfolded from the passenger side and revealed sliding glass doors. There was even a first-floor garage—a section underneath the rear stateroom opened up and a ramp slid out with a MINI Cooper convertible on it.
The front door of the RV swung open and an African-American man in his thirties hopped out in a Tommy Bahama silk shirt and cargo shorts, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. I half expected him to plant a flag and claim possession of the land in the name of his king, which was probably himself.
“God, I love camping,” he said.
At first I thought he was talking to me, and I was about to answer him, when a blond woman stepped out behind him. She had perfect cheekbones, perfect hair, perfect breasts, perfect skin, and perfect legs. I wondered whether she was real or another
Transformer
. She might have been a toaster before they parked.
“Me, too, sweetie,” she said. “I’m going to get us some T-bones.”
“You do that,” he said. “I’ll get us set up.”
She practically skipped off to the MINI Cooper.
“There’s more?” I asked.
“Excuse me?” he asked, noticing me for the first time.
“This motor home isn’t done unfolding itself into stately Wayne Manor? I mean, what’s left to do? Push out the hot tub?”
“That’s inside,” he said.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Ours, too.”
His perfect woman drove off in the convertible and the garage closed. It was amazing.
“I take it you’re unfamiliar with the Windermere Superlative 6000,” he said.
“I’ve never run across one,” I said.
“I’m not surprised. There are only a few dozen in the U.S. It’s imported from Germany. It’s got all the basic creature comforts, indoors and out.”
He took a key fob from his pocket, aimed it at the RV, and hit a button. Awnings unfurled on all sides of the vehicle and, at the same time, a cargo door opened up and a grilling island with a gas barbecue, a minirefrigerator, and granite countertops slid out. If those were his basic creature comforts, I was living like a savage.
“You’re really roughing it,” I said.
“I like to commune with nature, but that doesn’t mean I’ve got to be uncomfortable while I do it. But this RV hasn’t got it all. There’s one big thing missing.”
“The helipad,” I said.
“You’d think with all of this innovation they could come up with a way for the RV to hook itself up to the utilities and empty the toilet tanks so I don’t have to.”
“Yours doesn’t do that?” I said. “Mine does.”
He glanced at our scratched and dented rental. “How does it work?”
“I do the hookups while the guys inside laze around. What you need is a butler.”
He waved off the suggestion. “The whole point of getting this was so just the two of us could get away from it all.”
It looked to me like he’d brought it all with him, and then some.
“After we grill our T-bones, we’re going to sit outside and watch
Avatar
on the big screen,” he said. “In 3-D. You and your two friends are welcome to join us. We’ll have fresh, hot popcorn and ice-cold soft drinks.”
“You’re just inviting us so we won’t complain about the noise,” I said.
“You see right through me,” he said. “Plus it’s much more fun to watch a movie with an audience.”
“That’s very kind of you,” I said, “but we didn’t bring our 3-D glasses.”
“We’ve got plenty,” he said.
If there was one thing I’d noticed about RVers on our trip, it was that they were a very friendly bunch who liked to party. We’d yet to meet a neighbor who hadn’t invited us to socialize with them. I suppose that’s nice if you’re an outgoing sort, a people person, but it could be a real pain if you wanted some privacy. Or were someone like Monk.
I turned back to the motor home just as Monk hurried out the door.
“I saw you talking to our neighbor,” he said. “Am I too late?”
“For what?”
“To stop you from accepting another invitation to sin.”
“Sin?”
“You know what I am talking about.”
“No, I don’t,” I said.
“We can’t afford to have any more trouble, Natalie. The law is watching us now.”
“They are?”
“You have to resist temptation. So, what did he offer you? Alcohol? Drugs? Sex?”
“A movie and popcorn.”
“That’s all?”
“The movie is in 3-D,” I said.
Ambrose came to the door, eyes wide with excitement. “Really? Am I invited?”
“You both are,” I said.
Monk narrowed his eyes with suspicion. “What’s it rated?”
“Triple X. Did I say 3-D? I meant 36-D.”
“Aha,” he said.
“I was teasing. It’s PG-13. We can watch it if we’re accompanied by an adult.” I turned to Ambrose. “So I hope you will accompany us.”
“I’ve never seen a 3-D movie before,” Ambrose said. “Do you think I’ll be able to see it from the window?”
“Sure you can. It’s the best way to do it. It will be like going to a drive-in movie.”
“I’ve never been to a drive-in,” Ambrose said.
“When I was growing up, I went to a lot of drive-ins with my parents and my friends. That was in the dark ages before HBO, DVRs, DVDs, and digital downloads, when going to the movies was like a party, especially at a drive-in on a warm summer night, when everyone waited outside their cars and milled around, waiting for the sun to go down, the smell of hot dogs and mustard and fresh buttered popcorn in the air. God, I miss that smell.”
What I remembered most about the drive-in, besides the time that I got terrified by
Race with the Devil
, was the excitement and novelty of seeing movies in our pajamas and sleeping bags in the way-back of our station wagon.
I also remembered a different kind of excitement and novelty that I experienced at the drive-in when I was a teenager. That was fun, too, but it was definitely a sin, and not one any of us, with the possible exception of our hosts, would be experiencing tonight.
“You’re going to love it, Ambrose,” I said.
“I can’t wait,” he said.
Neither could I.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mr. Monk at the Drive-in
I
couldn’t resist changing into my sweats and T-shirt and bringing my sleeping bag outside with me to see the movie. Monk was adamantly against it and stopped me at the door.
“Are you insane?” he asked.
“There’s nothing dangerous or immoral about what I’m doing.”
“It’s both,” he said.
“I don’t see how.”
“You’re going outside half naked and bringing your bed with you.”
“I’m not half naked. I’m fully dressed.”
“In your pajamas. That’s half the clothes you should be wearing, so you are halfway to naked.”
“That’s not the same as half naked.”
“It has two meanings,” he said.
“No, it doesn’t. Besides, I’ll be covered up in my sleeping bag, so that kills your immoral objection. What’s the dangerous part?”
“There’s no way you can sit outside in a sleeping bag and not get dirt on it.”
“So?”
“Where are you going to sleep tonight?”
“In our motor home in my sleeping bag.”
“But your sleeping bag will be dirty.”
“There might be some dirt on the outside,” I said. “But not the inside.”
“Dirty is dirty, inside or out. It’s unsanitary. I don’t see the point of all this, anyway. You’re not planning on sleeping outside, are you?”
“No,” I said.
“Then why are you bringing your sleeping bag outside with you?”
“It’s for sentimental reasons, Mr. Monk. This is how I watched drive-in movies when I was a child.”
“But you aren’t a child anymore. You grew out of it.”
“Sometimes I wish I didn’t,” I said, and went outside. He followed me.
Our neighbors were waiting, and we formally introduced ourselves. They were Rodney and Kim Newton from Kentucky. He was in the advertising business. She was a professional hand model.
The Newtons had arranged a bunch of high-end outdoor furniture in a semicircle in front of a huge flat screen mounted on the side of their RV. They had movie theater-style bags of fresh popcorn waiting and even bottles of ice-cold root beer. They handed us each a pair of 3-D glasses in sealed plastic bags and told us to make ourselves at home.
Monk took that as an invitation to rearrange the seats in a straight line while I passed along a bag of popcorn, a bottle of root beer, and a set of 3-D glasses to Ambrose, who’d followed my lead and was in his pajamas and bathrobe.
We settled in for the movie, which was in full surround sound, thanks to strategically placed speakers and subwoofers in and around the RV. It was the best-looking and sounding drive-in movie I’d ever seen.
I curled up in my sleeping bag with my popcorn and root beer, and I was in heaven, all snuggly and warm and content, wowed by the movie, the communal experience, and a sense of excitement and novelty that I hadn’t felt in thirty years.