The Pilgrimage

Dearest Rachel –

The plane trip was uneventful, which is just the way it’s supposed to be. After touching down at LAX and collecting my bags (they showed up one right after the other, so that was convenient), I concluded that I’d need to summon an Uber to get me to the hotel. It’s a little pricy – about as much as we paid to rent a car for the day in San Antonio four years ago (gosh, it’s been that long?) – but considering that he’s the one driving through eighteen miles of seven lane, bumper-to-bumper traffic, it’s probably worth it. Especially since I’d expect things to be more expensive in California, and with the inflation we’ve been dealing with since then, that much more so, really.

Rinat’s GPS was displaying Cyrillic characters; suggesting that he’s either Russian or Ukrainian. Given the situation over there between the two countries, asking which he was might be a touchy subject, so I just stayed quiet. He didn’t have a lot to say, either; clearly, he’s not proficient in English to the extent of holding a conversation (“You have…” making steering wheel motions, “…car? Drive?” When I told him I did, he said “In America, many old people driving.” I don’t know how to take that; sure, there are a lot of old drivers – I actually joked that we Americans, if polled, might claim we have a constitutional right to be able to drive – but where did that statement came from? I don’t think I look that old) and driving at the same time. He asked a few questions as we pulled out of the airport, but once on the real road, it was time for him to concentrate on the road.

Which was fine with me; I was busy gawking out the window at everything, even the mundane stuff. Look, there’s no point in pretending I’m not a tourist – especially not to the guy who’s driving me from the airport to a hotel because I don’t have a car in the area. It’s not that things look so different here, exactly – although there are a preponderance of local donut shops; hope the opening of Dunkin’s here doesn’t ruin that bit of local flavor – but even the slight differences make you sit up and take notice. 

Anyway, we made it safely, and Rinat ultimately earned his $1.50 per minute to get here – and I tipped him in cash, because that’s what you do when you’re on vacation, right? – and I got myself signed and settled in.

At this point, there’s a sort of sense that I ought to do some sightseeing around Los Angeles – or at least, Long Beach. After all, I haven’t been to southern California in almost two decades – again, has it really been that long? – and while I was here in L.A., unlike you and Daniel, that was another nearly two decades. I can’t be expected to remember too much of that. Besides, what I do remember either had to do with marching band (which is what I was there for, after all) and the breakup between me and Chris.

By the way, I managed to find her, honey. She’s got her doctorate, and is working as a therapist in New Mexico, of all places. No, I’m not about to pursue her; we both have had far too much happen to us since those days for either of us to bother connecting in any meaningful way at this point.

But I digress.

The thing is, Los Angeles doesn’t hold the kind of meaning to me that it might for others out there. While some might make a pilgrimage here to visit where some movie way made or where some movie star lives (or lived), I can’t really say that appeals to me. Even such things as the Hollywood sign seem a bit out of the way for me to bother hunting down – and in a place as spread out as Los Angeles County (think about it, honey – by definition, the TMZ, the “thirty-mile zone” that makes up what we think of as classic Hollywood covers some 2,500 square miles, or 30²π, less a certain part of that circle that’s part of the ocean), that’s quite the wild goose chase, especially for someone like me who, as Rinat well knows, is without a car.

No, I decided on a different sort of pilgrimage this afternoon.

As I mentioned, honey, fast food was a part of our lives; we’d pick up breakfast from some place either on the way to church (or you and Daniel would grab something after dropping me off in the booth, and you’d come back with something for me to enjoy), we’d grab something on the way back from Sparks, I’d grab something on Saturday morning, either after putting in hours at the office or after we’d had our morning fun – and those are just the weekly habits. There were plenty of other otherwise unscheduled times we’d visit one restaurant or another.

Honestly, it’s no wonder I was approaching two-eighty by the end, honey. Maybe the real miracle is that you never got past half that – although maybe you took measures I didn’t (and wouldn’t want to) know about. But for all that we knew it to be less than healthy, we enjoyed it, and that’s what really mattered, wasn’t it?

And the draw of In-N-Out Burger isn’t that it’s especially good – as I walked up Atlantic Avenue, I saw a bunch of decidedly local (i.e., non-chain, individual, standalone places) burger joints – including one called Poly Burger, because it was across the street from Long Beach Polytechnic High School. It literally couldn’t be anywhere else.

These individual mom-and-pop shops – perhaps the equivalent to the Greek diners that Chris lamented not existing in SoCal when she first moved here to attend university – might possibly offer a better dining experience that In-N-Out, for all I know. Indeed, I still can’t bring myself to have a double-double done “animal style” – heck, I can’t even countenance my burger served with lettuce and tomato.

No, the appeal of In-N-Out is simply due to our own (albeit limited, which may have been that much a part of what made it special – in wonder if, once it comes to our neck of the woods, it won’t lose a certain measure of that cachet, that mystique) experience with it, as well as the fact that we got Daniel to eat and enjoy a hamburger, like the two of us would. Look, I’ve given up stuff for relationships – I stopped watching sports, for the most part, because you weren’t interested in them – giving up on burger joints because Daniel didn’t care to eat beef wasn’t going to break me. Not to mention, in places that served both beef and chicken sandwiches, that could get around the impasse. But In-N-Out didn’t do that. They only do one thing – hamburgers – and by doing so, they were claiming that they did them well enough to not need to have anything more on their menu. So Daniel had to have one – and he liked it. Not well enough to go back – especially since doing so would require a ridiculous amount of travel – but enough to enjoy the moment. And that’s all either of us could ask for, as parents.

So maybe this is more special because of Daniel than yourself, honey. But if I’m going to leave a little bit of you behind in every place I travel to going forward, I don’t see a better place for a little resting place than under the palm trees that mark where you can find one of the best burgers in southern California. I’ll let them keep an eye on you, while you keep an eye on me. Oh, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.