Palo Alto Stories

Later, on a large, flat oval rock we had our lunch. The hotel had packed us sandwiches and Cokes. I had turkey on wheat with sprouts and cranberries. It was the best sandwich I’d ever eaten. The Coke washed it down and the sugar stuck to my teeth.

* * *

To get to Yosemite Falls we walked through a very green and wet part of the park. The ground was full of mud and damp needles. All the rocks were wet and had a blue gloss. Soon the noise of the falls started growing, and after a while the sound was all around us. A steady rush of horror saying, “You are small and insignificant,” and getting so loud that you just wanted to see to get it over with and get out of there. Some people were walking back from the falls toward us. A couple with dark hair and dark clothes. They said nothing as they passed.

The three of us, we three Petersons, walked in a line toward the noise, my father in the center. We had our puffy jackets back on and there was a mist around us. The mist wet our faces as we continued toward the center of the roar. It felt like something was pushing us back but my father kept pulling us forward. The trees were green and black over us, like the arched ceiling of a church.

Then we came out from under the trees and there was a huge rock face and in the center, a cataract, white and gushing, implacable and steady in its furious rush over the side. It was a violent slice of movement in the stolid graphite-colored rock front, and the scene was all glazed over by the shifting atmosphere of mist. The waterfall was farther than I imagined, but the sound roared in a chorus that echoed and reechoed without end. It felt like there were speakers just below us projecting the rushing noise, so loud and close when the waterfall was so far.

We stood for a minute and then made our way up the damp path to a wooden bridge that spa

An old man walked over the bridge. He had on a translucent blue raincoat with the hood up and pulled tight around his face so that only his eyes and nose were showing through the opening. We asked him to take a picture of us and he did, with our backs to the railing of the bridge and the waterfall behind us. Alex was in my father’s arms.

The way back felt too far. I knew my father had kept us out too long. We had to walk back past El Capitan. The sun was going down behind the tall, square mountain and there was an orange glow bending around one edge. My dad had my brother on his shoulders and I was dragging my feet. After a while, we left the footpath and walked along a larger dirt road. My father said we were almost back to the hotel, but he had been saying that for a long time. A little off the road there were the remains of the wall of an old stone house. Next to the wall was the wasted foundation. Behind this was another foundation with brick remains ringing its sides. The sun was almost gone.

We walked more. I didn’t want to go any farther. Yosemite was hell. Then, ahead, we saw some burning. As we got closer we saw that there were large burning piles of leaves just off the road. I walked ahead of my father and brother to look at the piles. They were on a stretch of dirt so that the fire wouldn’t spread, but the flames went really high. There were five piles about twenty-five feet wide, all taller than I was and the flames leaped taller than my dad. Many of the leaves and branches and sticks had thorns on them and I thought that they might have been poison ivy or poison oak. When I was across from the second burning pile I saw something large and white through the smoke. I walked to the edge of the road and saw that it was a human rib cage. I didn’t see a head, but the ribs were very clear, like a corset. I ran back.

“Dad, there’s a skeleton over there.” My dad put my brother on the ground and told us to wait. He walked to the piles and stood over where the skeleton was. He stood there for a while and then came back to us and put my brother back on his shoulders. “Let’s go. A mountain climber must have fallen off the mountain. The animals got to him. It’s okay, come on, let’s go.” We quickly walked past the piles. “Don’t look,” my dad said, but I did. The pointed ends of the white ribs in the orange light of the fire.

On the way back my father hummed the meditation songs. My brother cried quietly and my father bounced him gently and said it was okay, it was just a hiker that had an accident. He hummed again, and I walked by his side and held his hand. The fire was far behind us, but it still felt close. My footsteps crunched and I didn’t want to be on the ground. It was hard to see and for ten minutes in the dark he hummed to us.

Then we were back at the hotel. We took our jackets off and my dad said, “We’re stinky boys. We’re all going to take showers. Then we’ll order room service, okay? Who’s first shower?” Nobody spoke. My brother and I sat on the bed. Alex said, “Can we call Mom?”

“No, it’s too late to bother Mom.”

I said, “Dad, call the police.”

My dad picked up the phone.

“Can I have the ranger service, please? Thanks …” He waited a bit and we watched. “Hello, I was out walking with my boys near El Capitan and we came across some burning piles. Next to the piles there was a skeleton, I think it must have been a climber that fell off the mountain… . No, the animals got to him… . Yeah, they even went through the sheathing on the bones… . No, no head. No arms either. But there were feet… . Yes, they looked human to me … sure …” Then he waited with the phone to his ear. I was glad we were together because it felt like the world outside was full of murder. Then he was talking again. “I see… . Oh, really. Um, hmmm … interesting, okay, thank you very much. Yes, the Ahwahnee, room 213, Peterson. Yes, okay, thank you very much.” He hung up the phone. “It sounds like it was a bear.”

“I saw, it was human,” I said. “It was real, I saw.”

“I know, but the rangers said it was a bear. It was getting too friendly with the people because people were feeding it, so they had to shoot it.”

“It was a bear,” Alex said.

“Shut up, you didn’t even look,” I said.

“Don’t worry, Chris, I thought it was a person too.”

“But why would they shoot the bear if it was being friendly?”

“Because a bear’s idea of friendly is different from ours. Bears just want food, so they’ll kill you if you have it.”

My brother took the first shower and then my dad. He came out with a towel around his waist. He was pale and thin. Before I went in I told my dad I wanted a cheeseburger for di

After I dried off I put on my sweatpants and T-shirt in the bathroom and went into the main room. The food was there and we sat on the two beds and ate from the table on wheels. We all had burgers and Cokes. The cheeseburger was thick and the cheese was salty and good. The burger was so thick I could hardly fit the first bites in my mouth, and the tomatoes and onions squeezed out the back. My brother had a regular hamburger. He put tons of ketchup on all his hamburgers; I used mustard only because I was more mature. My dad put mustard on his, but spicy mustard made with white wine. He said all the alcohol was cooked out so it was okay for him to eat it.