The answers trouble you. One, you might have a brother or a sister, a twin, and now that you've lost your parents, you feel an anxious need to fill the vacuum of their loss by finding an unsuspected member of your family. Two, you suffer a form of mid-life crisis, but not in the common sense of the term. To have lived these many years and possibly never have known your birth parents makes you uncertain of your identity. Yes, you loved the parents you knew, but your present limbo of insecure uncertainty makes you desperate to discover the truth, one way or the other, so you can dismiss the possibility of your having been adopted or else adjust to the fact that you were. But this way, not being certain, is maddening, given the stress of double grief. And three, the most insistent reason, an identity crisis of frantic concern, you want to learn if after a lifetime… of having been circumsized, of Hebrew lessons, of your bar mitzvah, of Friday nights at temple, of scrupulous observance of sacred holidays… of being a Jew… if after all that, you might have been born a gentile. You tell yourself that being a Jew has nothing to do with race and genes, that it's a matter of culture and religion. But deep in your heart, you've always thought of yourself proudly as being completely a Jew, and your sense of self feels threatened. Who am I? you think.
You increase speed toward your destination and brood about your irrational stubborn refusal to let Rebecca travel here with you. Why did you insist on coming alone?
Because, you decide with grim determination.
Because I don't want anybody holding me back.
The Pacific Coast Highway pivots above a rocky cliff. In crevasses, stunted misshapen fir trees cling to shallow soil and fight for survival. A weather-beaten sign abruptly says REDWOOD POINT. With equal abruptness, you see a town below you on the right, its buildings dismal even from a distance, their unpainted listing structures spread along a bay at the center of which a half-destroyed pier projects toward the ocean. The only beauty is the glint of the afternoon sun on the white-capped waves.
Your stomach sinks. Redwood Point. A resort? Or at least that's what your uncle said. Maybe in nineteen thirty-eight, you think. But not anymore. And as you steer off the highway, tapping your brakes, weaving down the bumpy narrow road past shorter, more twisted pine trees toward the dingy town where your birth certificate says you entered the world, you feel hollow. You pass a ramshackle boarded-up hotel. On a ridge that looks over the town, you notice the charred collapsed remnant of what seems to have been another hotel and decide, discouraged, that your wife and your uncle were right. This lengthy, fatiguing journey was needless. So many years. A ghost of a town that might have been famous once. You'll never find answers here.
The dusty road levels off and leads past dilapidated buildings toward the skeleton of the pier. You stop beside a shack, get out, and inhale the salty breeze from the ocean. An old man sits slumped on a chair on the few safe boards at the front of the pier. Obeying an impulse, you approach, your footsteps crunching on seashells and gravel.
"Excuse me," you say.
The old man has his back turned, staring toward the ocean.
The odor of decay – dead fish along the shore – pinches your nostrils.
"Excuse me," you repeat.
Slowly the old man turns. He cocks his shriveled head, either in curiosity or antagonism.
You ask the question that occurred to you driving down the slope. "Why is this town called Redwood Point? This far south, there aren't any redwoods."
"You're looking at it."
"I'm not sure what…"
The old man gestures toward the ruin of the pier. "The planks are made of redwood. In its hey-day" – he sips from a beer can – "used to be lovely. The way it stuck out toward the bay, so proud." He sighs, nostalgic. "Redwood Point."
"Is there a hospital?"
"You sick?"
"Just curious."
The old man squints. "The nearest hospital's forty miles up the coast."
"What about a doctor?"
"Used to be. Say, how come you ask so many questions?"
"I told you I'm just curious. Is there a courthouse?"
"Does this look like a county seat? We used to be something. Now we're…" The old man tosses his beer can toward a trash container. He misses. "Shit."
"Well, what about… Have you got a police force?"
"Sure. Chief Kitrick." The old man coughs. "For all the good he does. Not that we need him. Nothing happens here. That's why he doesn't have deputies."
"So where can I find him?"
"Easy. This time of day, the Redwood Bar."
"Can you tell me where…"
"Behind you." The old man opens another beer. "Take a left. It's the only place that looks decent."
The Redwood Bar, on a cracked concrete road above the beach, has fresh redwood siding that makes the adjacent buildings look even more dingy. You pass through a door that has an anchor painted on it and feel as if you've entered a tackle shop or have boarded a trawler. Fishing poles stand in a corner. A net rimmed with buoys hangs on one wall. Various nautical instruments, a sextant, a compass, others you can't identify, all looking ancient despite their gleaming metal, sit on a shelf beside a polished weathered navigation wheel that hangs behind the bar. The sturdy rectangular tables all have captain's chairs.
Voices in the far right corner attract your attention. Five men sit playing cards. A haze of cigarette smoke dims the light above their table. One of the men – in his fifties, large-chested, with short sandy hair and a ruddy complexion – wears a policeman's uniform. He studies his cards.
A companion calls to the bartender, "Ray, another beer, huh? How about you, Hank?"
"It's only ten to five. I'm not off-duty yet," the policeman says and sets down his cards. "Full house."
"Damn. Beats me."
"It's sure as hell better than a straight."
The men throw in their cards.
The policeman scoops up quarters. "My deal. Seven-card stud." As he shuffles the cards, he squints in your direction.
The bartender sets a beer on the table and approaches you. "What'll it be?"
"Uh, club soda," you say. "What I… Actually I want to talk to Chief Kitrick."
Overhearing, the policeman squints even harder. "Something urgent?"
"No. Not exactly." You shrug, self-conscious. "This happened many years ago. I guess it can wait a little longer."
The policeman frowns. "Then we'll finish this hand if that's okay."
"Go right ahead."
At the bar, you pay for your drink and sip it. Turning toward the wall across from you, you notice photographs, dozens of them, the images yellowed, wrinkled, and faded. But even at a distance, you know what the photographs represent, and compelled, repressing a shiver, you walk toward them.
Redwood Point. The photographs depict the resort in its prime, fifty, sixty years ago. Vintage automobiles gleam with newness on what was once a smoothly paved, busy street outside. The beach is crowded with vacationers in old-fashioned bathing suits. The impressive long pier is lined with fishermen. Boats dot the bay. Pedestrians stroll the sidewalks, glancing at shops or pointing toward the ocean. Some eat hot dogs and cotton candy. All are well-dressed, and the buildings look clean, their windows shiny. The Depression, you think. But not everyone was out of work, and here the financially advantaged sought refuge from the summer heat and the city squalor. A splendid hotel – guests holding frosted glasses or fanning themselves on the spacious porch – is unmistakably the ramshackle ruin you saw as you drove in. Another building, expansive, with peaks and gables of Victorian design, sits on a ridge above the town, presumably the charred wreckage you noticed earlier. Ghosts. You shake your head. Most of the people in these photographs have long since died, and the buildings have died as well but just haven't fallen down. What a waste, you think. What happened here? How could time have been so cruel to this place?