Joe’s Reviews > A Thousand Steps > Status Update
Joe
is on page 75 of 358
The beach is still crowded, the tide low. He walks into the suntanning bodies and their bright swimsuits, sees the skimboarders and surfers out in the crashing white-foam waves. Hippie girls in cutoffs and genie pants play hacky sack. Acres of sunbathers recline on their colorful rectangles, radios play, a biplane pulls a banner for Tab across the sky and the sexy aroma of suntan lotion hovers over it all.
— Jun 22, 2022 08:16AM
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Joe’s Previous Updates
Joe
is on page 251 of 358
Sara the Evolver, thinks Matt. He had no idea when he saw her at Thousand Steps beach that day, with her pink skateboard with the white daisies, that he could possibly be sitting with her in one of the great restaurants of the world a few short weeks later. He feels like he's been beamed from Earth to another planet to confront an alien being so intense and smart and simply beautiful that she takes his words away.
— Jun 28, 2022 08:28AM
Joe
is on page 190 of 358
He thinks of what Bette Page--his sophomore mythology and folklore teacher--said about the delusional Don Quixote, who imagined himself to be a knight and attacked windmills he thought were ferocious giants with a flimsy wooden sword. She said the story was intended to be funny. Matt wonders if he's like that guy. Delusional. Funny.
No, he thinks: Jazz's monsters are real.
— Jun 24, 2022 09:22AM
No, he thinks: Jazz's monsters are real.
Joe
is on page 142 of 358
He half watches The Flying Nun with the sound off. So stupid a show, with all the bad things in the world, he thinks. Then stares at the street outside where they'd bagged his sister. He wonders what she's doing right now. Are they feeding her? Is she being tortured or raped? He feels like hitting someone, maybe the damned nun. Or how about the men who took Jazz? Or whoever sells that shit to his mom?
— Jun 23, 2022 08:23AM
Joe
is on page 123 of 358
Five minutes later he's parked across from Patricia Trinkle's home on Diamond. He looks out at the wall of bougainvillea. Only the pitched roof of the Craftsman and its chimney show above the flowery walls. A hidden porch light sends up a glow in the damp night, as if something bright and valuable was waiting in that hidden front yard, an open chest of gold coins maybe, or bars of sterling silver.
— Jun 22, 2022 09:54AM
Joe
is on page 93 of 358
Matt's heart seems to expand again. He's had this feeling before, in connection with Laurel Kalina. And sometimes in connection with other people, or animals. Daisy, the family puppy. Calypso, a fluffy calico kitten he found downtown on Forest Ave. one rainy Sunday. Jazz, playing her ukulele at the beach that night. He's pretty sure this feeling is love. It's much stronger now, the older he gets.
— Jun 22, 2022 08:53AM
Joe
is on page 41 of 358
Matt feels good but hungry. His current paper route earns him twenty-five dollars a month. But he knows that if he learns to drive better, gets his license and uses his mother's van, he can get a much larger route, make more money and buy more food and art supplies. However, gas just hit thirty-four cents a gallon, so he'd have to factor that against his weekly take-home.
— Jun 21, 2022 07:23AM
Joe
is on page 33 of 358
With a jump of heart, Matt recognizes the Kalina sisters, Laurel and Rose. Laurel is his age and he's had a crush on her since fourth grade. Rose goes to college but Matt doesn't know where. Laurel told him once that they are part Hawaiian and part German-English. They're olive-skinned and dark-haired and to Matt, thrilling. One of this first cursive sentences on the lined training paper was She's beautiful!
— Jun 20, 2022 08:45AM
Joe
is on page 21 of 358
Thus for Matt: fishing the rocks for the plentiful bass, halibut and perch; occasional handouts from a friend who washes dishes at the swank Hotel Laguna restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway; stolen neighborhood oranges and occasional avocados; and embarrassing runs to the Assistance League Food Exchange. He's never full for long. He's skinny. Jazz told him he probably has tapeworm.
— Jun 20, 2022 08:17AM
Joe
is on page 15 of 358
Matt thinks it's funny how quickly the under-thirty Lagunatics blame the cops, the government, and the very right-wing John Birch Society for whatever goes wrong in their town. And how the cops, the government, and the John Birch Society think the young are all drug addicts, draft dodgers, sex fiends, and communists. Matt wants to side with the young and free, of course, but he's not sure how. Smoke pot?
— Jun 16, 2022 08:14AM
Joe
is on page 3 of 358
Dodge City being a nickname for a few narrow streets out in Laguna Canyon where the rents are low and the hippies and artists and surfers and young freaks have taken root. At school, Matt hears of drugs being smuggled in and out, and of cops and the FBI staging stings and raids, making arrests, shooting at smugglers running into the canyon brush.
So naturally, Matt wonders what his mom was doing out there.
— Jun 16, 2022 07:49AM
So naturally, Matt wonders what his mom was doing out there.
