Chapter 6: An Evening in Santa Cruz

The next morning Ruthie's alarm went off at 4:30 am. She put on her usual shorts and t-shirt. She normally wore athletic shoes with her shorts, but her shoulder hurt so much that she did not want to bother with tying the laces. She settled for a pair of slip-on sandals and made her way through the darkness to the Student Center. At first she felt somewhat better than she had felt the night before, but after she had been at work for an hour her depression returned. She turned off the news, not wanting to hear anything that would depress her further. Slowly and mechanically she finished setting up. She dreaded the thought of having to deal with customers, given her down mood and painful shoulder, but she did not have the nerve to call the manager to ask for the morning off.

Although the coffee shop did not open until 7:00, Mike showed up 15 minutes early, hoping to talk to her and get beyond the unpleasant silence from the previous day's visit. He had debated to himself whether or not he should even bother to get coffee at all, given that Ruthie had brushed him off the previous day. Finally he reasoned that he could not be completely sure that was indeed what she had done, given that her behavior never was quite "normal" and there was a very good chance something was bothering her that had nothing to do with him. Anyhow, if he did not go, he would spend the rest of the day wondering. It was better that he get his answer right away, before the weekend.

The moment he saw her, he could tell that something was very wrong. He didn't bother to say good morning.

"Are you OK, Ruthie?"

"I guess."

"And I'd guess not. You don't look OK to me."

Ruthie looked away. Her eyes were full of tears, but she did not want him to see.

"I mean ... if it's not too personal, you might as well tell me what happened."

"It's nothing ... really ... an accident ... I sort of got into an accident yesterday."

"Yeah, I gathered that. That's a pretty bad scrape you've got on your knee..."

Ruthie nodded.

"You put some medicine on it?"

She nodded again.

"Actually, it's my shoulder I'm worried about. It didn't hurt too bad last night, but it's hurting now. I'm wondering if I pulled something."

"Well, you're gonna have to go to the Medical Center to find out."

Ruthie nodded again.

"OK, so you've got a banged up knee and a messed up shoulder. What'd you do, fall off a bicycle?"

"No, but it was a bicycle. This girl ran into me outside the Language Building. I wasn't paying attention and she ran into me when I crossed the bike lane."

"What was she doing, riding there?"

"What do you mean, what was she doing?"

"The area around the Language Building is a dismount zone. What the hell was she doing, riding her bicycle there anyway?"

Mike pressed Ruthie for the details of the incident. Reluctantly she told him what happened. By the time she finished, he was livid.

"OK ... we have a bicyclist who was driving recklessly and hit a pedestrian in a dismount zone. Then she assaulted you and left the scene of an accident. As far as I'm concerned, that's some pretty serious shit!"

"So, what am I supposed to do about it?"

"I'll tell you what you need to do. You need to file a report with the Campus Police Department and when they find her, you need to press charges."

"That's bullshit! What good's that gonna do?"

"To start out with, do you have insurance? If your shoulder's busted, how are you gonna pay to get it fixed?"

Ruthie shook her head. Of course she didn't have insurance.

"She's the one who hit you, so she's the one who's gotta pay. But that won't happen unless you file a report."

"I 'spose..."

The tone of Ruthie's voice told Mike that she might be willing to file the report, but only if he made it convenient for her and walked her through it. He could not expect her to go over to the Campus Police Department on her own. He pondered how to convince her to take some time off from her job so he could take her to see the police. Then, by sheer luck, he noticed a campus cop with whom he had worked during several football games walking through the main door of the Student Center. He called the officer over to the coffee shop and explained Ruthie's accident.

Ruthie expected nothing to come of the conversation, so she was surprised when the officer took out his clipboard. It turned out that Mike was right and that the officer was taking the incident seriously. He pressed Ruthie for details, especially for a physical description of the girl that hit her and the identities of possible witnesses. When Ruthie finished, the cop had another surprise for her.

"I think I know who it is ... the bicyclist, I mean. If it's who I'm thinking of, it wouldn't be the first time we've talked to her."

The officer handed Ruthie an envelope.

"Take this over to the medical center, turn it in to the receptionist, and get yourself looked at. Whatever injuries you have will have to be documented here, so don't put it off."

The coffee shop manager showed up just as the cop was about to leave, which was another piece of good luck for Ruthie. It turned out that she did not have to explain anything to her boss about needing to take time off because the cop explained for her. A few minutes later Mike and Ruthie were on their way to the Student Medical Center.

As they crossed the university, both Mike and Ruthie realized that their lives were about to change. The depression that Ruthie had sunk into had completely vanished after she had been told by the cop that she was definitely not at fault for the accident and that the bicyclist, if caught, would face criminal charges. She shyly glanced over at Mike, feeling strong and yet conflicting emotions. She was grateful for his help, but more importantly, she was grateful that he actually cared about what happened to her. However, being a person who was not used to having intimate relationships with people her own age, she found the prospect of being close to Mike frightening because she did not know what to expect from him.

The thoughts going on in Mike's mind were even more complicated than those of Ruthie. Whatever his faults, he was a natural "Good Samaritan" who wanted to help those around him, especially people he knew. His obsession with "fairness" also entered into his efforts, because he felt that his classmate had been the victim of a huge injustice. He hated that arrogant bicyclist who had treated her so atrociously and wanted to do what he could to ensure that she would be prosecuted.

As important as Mike's over-all attitude about helping others might have been, what really mattered to him was the fact he was attracted to Ruthie. Her weirdness fascinated him. She was not a girl who played by the rules of modern society, as was made clear by her unkempt appearance and scanty clothing. That unwillingness to try to please others by conforming to fashion expectations might have been one factor our of many that caused others to reject Ruthie Burns, but it was a huge point in her favor according to Mike's values and criteria for choosing a potential partner. Already he was starting to feel protective of her, so much so that he missed a class to stay with her at the Student Medical Center.

It turned out that Ruthie had just pulled a couple of muscles in her shoulder and that she would just need to avoid straining the joint and take some Motrin to calm the pain. The intern was more concerned about her knee, which was just starting to show signs of infection. The scrape would require some antibiotics. The most important task however, was to verify that Ruthie's bruises were consistent with having been hit by a bicyclist going at a high rate of speed. The intern filled out the form, which he would turn over to the campus police later that day to add to the incident report. Ruthie still was surprised at the thought that the police really were planning to investigate the collision.

It was close to lunchtime when the two students left the clinic. There was just enough time for them to eat together. Not knowing what else to talk about, Ruthie complained about her ruined books. Mike sympathized, realizing that she must have been dirt-poor to be so stressed out over some books. Finally he decided to change the subject, working up the nerve to ask her out.

"A quick question ... have you started getting tired of dorm food?"

"I 'spose..."

"I was asking, because I was wondering if you'd like to go down to Santa Cruz with me ... you know, to have dinner ... walk around ... just to get out of Davenport for a bit."

Ruthie started to fidget. She gave him a quick glance.

"I ... I guess that'd be OK."

"There's a lot of places downtown. I'll let you pick."

Ruthie nodded.

"I'm off work at 5:00. Will that be OK for you?"

Ruthie nodded again.

Mike could tell that she was nervous. What he did not realize was that she was totally terrified, because he would be the first guy she had gone out with in over a year.

Santa Cruz is one of a string of affluent towns that lie along the central coast of California, which also include Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur. As a result of the local wealth, the process of big-box homogenization that has overrun the US has been slower to affect the Pacific towns and there still are interesting and unique things to see there. Santa Cruz also is a place where there are still some remnants of 1960's hippie culture and the New Age movement of the 1980's, both of which have totally vanished in the rest of the US. In the downtown area of Santa Cruz there are plenty of local restaurants, book stores, and stores that sell totally useless "artistic" decorations. There are clothing stores that cater to the marijuana crowd and of course, stores that cater to the surfing crowd.

Mike had plenty of opinions about Santa Cruz. He held the artistic crowd in disdain and was even more cynical about the hippies.

"What a bunch of losers, those hippies. They were so big about changing the world, and the only thing they accomplished was sticking society with a drug problem. So idealistic, but they made sure they sucked up all the decent jobs and didn't leave us shit, and now they're whining about how we're gonna pay for their retirement."

Ruthie said nothing, because there was no trace of hippie culture in Salinas and had nothing from her own experience to judge Mike's comment. As for the groups of oddly-dressed teenagers roaming about, he commented:

"They're just a bunch of spoiled brats trying to piss off their parents."

She responded, "It's better than what they're doing down in Salinas."

"How's that?"

"Where I'm from, if you try acting weird the gang-bangers are gonna beat you up."

Even though in high school she had lived barely 40 minutes to the south, Ruthie had never been to the downtown area of Santa Cruz. She found the place extremely interesting and totally alien to what she was used to seeing. Prior to graduating from high school, her world had consisted of the fast-food restaurants and big-box stores that her mother and cousins frequented in Salinas. Even going to the local mall was a big deal for her, since there wasn't much in the mall that her mother wanted or needed. Her cousins went to the mall more frequently, but Ruthie's mother was leery of having her accompany them and falling under their "ungodly influence".

Mike was much more familiar with Santa Cruz than was Ruthie, since he had grown up in a suburb that was just a few miles to the south. He commented that he liked the bookstores more than anything else. As wide-eyed as she was with all the shops full of strange stuff, like her classmate she gravitated towards the bookstores and the used music stores. A lot of the books she had read as a teenager were present on the shelves, tempting her to spend the tiny amount of money in her pocket. The bookstores proved vital to the growing friendship between Mike and Ruthie, because they were able to talk about books they had both read and avoid a lot of uncomfortable silence. They laughed when they came across a collection of stories by Somerset Maugham and saw that "Mr. Know-it-all" was included. Ruthie then picked up an English translation of "Pedro Paramo" and held it up.