Gravel crunches beneath my tires as I roll out of the VA’s machine shop onto Roosevelt Avenue. I just surrendered my office keys, the last in a sixteen-stop bureaucratic separation tour from the feds. A row of ochre buildings, roofs edged with parapets, block the sun as I drive past them. There’s Mr. B’s nursing home window. I hope the staff keeps his one-way speaking valve clean. Did in-services. One for both shifts. It’s no longer my business. At 5:42 PM, August 28, 2020, I pass through the VA gates for the last time as GS-12/8-O4-0665.
A swath of pink sky looms above the Sepulveda Pass. The cragged hills have been blackened by wildfires twice in the past three years. Knobs of stubborn brush dot the scorched earth shored up by massive, engineered escarpments on both sides of the 405 freeway. More scrub will sprout in the coming months. I won’t be here to see it.
Traffic has thickened as stay-at-home orders lift. Not quite to pre-pandemic levels, but close. I hit a blistering 15 MPH on my swan song drive. Brake lights flash less peevishly. Fewer nerves are gnawed by missed meetings and skipped dinners. For almost 20 years I’ve cursed the roads that brought me to and from work; the circuitous routes my travel apps set me upon, the new no-thru-way signals hanging from gallows that foiled my carefully-charted paths. That ends today as the VA shrinks to a speck in my rear view mirror. Then, it’s gone.
Someone stops in front of me. I slam the brakes, tipping one of my two office boxes off the edge of the passenger seat onto the floor. The cornmeal mask made by a patient tumbles out. One of its black bean eyes and a few kernel corn teeth are missing. Martha’s inflatable stress bat rattles the dash. I upright the box and replace my work trophies. Soon, my wife, Susan, will kiss me as I walk through the door. She might hug me a little tighter than usual, knowing I’d just set my longest career run adrift. She’ll lavish me with a celebratory meal I’ll savor more now that I won’t be second-guessing the day’s clinical decisions.
Next Monday, I’ll know the desolation of a silent cell phone. No more vibes and pings spinning threads about shifting schedules or emergency coverage. No more staff meetings heralding victories or mourning setbacks. No more cross-pollination of ideas and hypotheses between team members. No more baby ultrasounds or videoclips of my colleagues’ children uttering their first words and taking their first steps. Cell service will continue. One data flow will have ceased.
Turning onto Haskell Avenue, I slow to a crawl. Amber light bathes new home builds rambling to their property lines. One of them is owned by an NBA player married to a Kardashian, another by a coveted college football coach piloting a lackluster season. Historical homes once stood where these garish structures now steal shadows from the trees. Enchanted sunsets can’t redeem them.
The iron gate to our condo complex rolls open. I park to the wistful flute of California Dreaming. I’d composed my own lyrics to this classic. Ours tells the dream in reverse.
Lilly, our Boston terrier, yelps and barks soon as the elevator doors part. “Release the Kraken!,” I shout, kneeling at the far end of the hallway. Susan opens our front door. Lilly tears around a corner and barrels straight at me; tongue lapping the air in abandon, flews pulled back exposing her endearingly crooked teeth, eyes wild as my first memory of sunlight.
Homecoming is what I’ve lived for most.