Purissima California

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Purissima, California was a dying place. I could sense it even the first time I passed through it. It was the type of place tourists whizzed through on the way to more glamorous destinations, but never stopped and spent any length of time. Although it was in a gorgeous setting, right on the coast, with its redwood forests, rugged cliffs, and secluded beaches, the town itself was run down and forlorn. When one drives through it on the Coast Highway and sees its rows of weather-beaten, faded wood buildings and small ramshackle clapboard houses, one can immediately sense that Purissima's brightest and best days are long past.

In cliff-side beach towns like Mendocino and Bodega Bay to the north, retirees whiled away their time sipping coffee in quaint cafes, reading highbrow literature, and reflecting on the seemingly perpetual gloomy weather. Then they would go out shopping for expensive jewelry and designer sweaters at the equally quaint shops. Or, just over an hour's drive to the south was San Francisco and the rush and bustle of the Bay Area, where legions of wealthy instant billionaires pushed out the millionaires and everyone rushed around in Google busses and expensive cars. But in Purissima, all of these things had passed it by.

In the town I lived, I was starting to feel the intense and inescapable throes of urban gentrification. The tale was becoming familiar: big-chain coffee houses being pushed out by ever-more expensive designer coffee houses, local taverns being bought up and turned into exclusive micro-breweries, more and more newcomers driving cars with those big blingy-looking circle-star grilles, and half million dollar homes now selling for over one million.

I had been lucky enough to purchase my modestly sized house before all of this boom happened, however. It was a small place- just a cottage, really; but it was almost paid off- and it was now worth more than twice what I had paid for it. However I realized sadly that if I ever wanted to upgrade, I would likely never be able to afford it at these prices.

But it was nice to be able to drop into the city for entertainment and fun when I wanted, or head over to the coast on an adventure when I so felt the need. Most of my trips to the coast were solo; weekends hiking in Sonoma State Park, or finding a rugged, secluded beach to hang out and commune with nature. Although, those secluded beaches were becoming harder and harder to find, as they were becoming less and less secluded.

But it was to one of those secluded beaches I was headed to now, just a few miles north of Purissima on highway 1. Hopefully, not solo this time, but with Jennifer Tayas as a companion.

Jennifer was this dreamy girl who worked at the water company with me. She was one of those girls who seemed like one in a million to guys like me; pretty, but no overly glamorous, shallow, or high maintenance. Just really down to earth, friendly, and genuine, one of those people who you instantly felt like you could be friends with and share things with. We did have a lot in common, or at least it felt like we did. She was kind of artsy, and really physically active; she liked hiking and exploring, just like I did. But as always in a work situation, I didn't want to rush things. "You can't be too careful in this day and age," I thought to myself, remembering stories of people being summoned to the Human Resources office, just like guilty school kids being sent to the principal, for offenses as mild as smiling and chatting with a woman who they were attracted to. I had always wanted to ask Jennifer out; we did have a lot in common and I THOUGHT she was single, but all the same, I was trying to be careful. What if she said "no" or worse, reported me for sexual harassment, merely for seeming like I was interested in her? But Jennifer didn't seem like the type who would do that.

So I played it cool. Until one day, a Friday afternoon, we had been casually chatting about the places on the coast we liked to go, and I mentioned Chalcedony Cove, a small inlet just north of the old town of Purissima, which had a really nice beach that was a short, half mile hike down from the road. "I know that place! Oh my God, I LOVE that beach!" she had exclaimed.

"Yeah, it's a cool hike down through the redwoods...and there's those offshore sea arches. You ever walk through that tunnel there in the side of the cliff? That leads to a whole other beach, with more arches." I replied.

"Yeah...not many people go there. It's a cool spot though."

"Hey, I just had a thought...Want to go there this weekend?" I suddenly blurted out, almost on impulse, before I could catch myself. "I mean, uh..."

"Sure! That would be fun!"

I had tried to play it cool but could barely contain my smile. I was almost giggling inside.

"Great! So uh, I can drive... what time do you want to go?" I asked.

"Well, how about we can take separate cars... I can meet you over at the Shell Rock Café there on Main Street, over in Purissima, around noon. Then maybe we can have coffee and grab lunch, and then ride up together and hang out. I actually know where this secret cave is up there. It's where they filmed 'Lost Boys.'"

"Oh wow, you know where the actual "Lost Boys" cave is? I knew it was a real place; but I thought they filmed most of that down towards Monterey somewhere. I didn't know that cave was clear up here!"

I remembered that film. It was a great, summer fun kind of movie; a rather harmless teen thriller about vampires in some funky beach town. And Jennifer obviously liked it too, so that made it even better.

"Yeah, the cave is just a couple miles up the road from Purissima; just about a mile down from Chalcedony Cove. We can stop on the way, and I'll show you where it is!" she replied.

"That sounds great!" My head was spinning. I couldn't believe this was actually happening. Jenny was a pretty awesome woman, and this date sounded fun already. "It should be sunny tomorrow. Great weather. Are you sure you don't want to ride up there from here? Save money on gas and stuff?"

"Well, actually... the thing is, my aunt lives in Purissima. I often go up there on weekends anyway and so I was planning on being up there anyway. Plus, my Prius gets pretty good mileage, so that's not really an issue."

"Oh, that's a trip. I never met anyone who actually lived in that place. It is a pretty dreary town, no offense, I mean..." I said, suddenly hoping I hadn't put my foot in my mouth.

"No, don't worry about it. There are a lot of old buildings and stuff, which is why I like it. The history, you know. There are even old smuggler's tunnels under some of the buildings. If we have time, I can show you some trippy spots up there."

"Yeah wow, that sounds great! Yeah, it would be cool to check some of that stuff out, over there. Old tunnels, like pirate's gold. Plus, the frickin' Lost Boys cave! Man, that's awesome! Sounds like that town has all kinds of secrets."

"Yeah. You'd be amazed at the secrets in that town. Dark secrets..." she had said, suddenly sounding ominous.

"What do you mean, dark secrets?

"Well, you know... They had the tunnels for booze and opium and stuff, I think. My aunt knows about it. I'll show you."

"So... you wanna meet up there about noon then? That's the little cafe right on the main street there, right? I've never been in there. It never looked like it was open."

"It will be open, don't worry." She smiled.

"That's cool. It's supposed to be pretty good weather tomorrow, too." I replied.

"Great! See you in Purissima tomorrow at noon then! Shell Rock Café."

"Awesome!" I replied, giddily.

This date was sounding cooler and cooler all the time! I must admit, Purissima had always fascinated me in a weird way, with its sense of arrested decay, but of course I had never thought about actually exploring the old buildings- often times, even if they are clearly abandoned, you never know who might actually be living there, or try to stop you. As a kid, I was fearless about stuff like that, always looking to have adventures in both abandoned ruins and new construction sites. This was before I was old enough to learn the hard way that "Trespassing" could apply to uninhabited buildings as well as inhabited ones. But to have this woman as a sort of tour guide to some of the trippy historical spots- well that would be cool. And the fact that she was interested in doing stuff like this was also really appealing to the adventuresome kid in me.

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The next morning, I grabbed a quick snack and sent Jennifer a quick message saying I was on my way. I could barely contain my excitement. I hopped into the Toyota Rav4, and within a few minutes I was cruising on state route 12 just west of town. At Sebastopol, I turned north at the stoplight onto Healdsburg Avenue, which crawled through downtown's mess of stop and go traffic. Bright shiny SUV's, a disproportionate number of which had those gaudy large circle star badges on them, clogged the streets, while well-heeled techies, recent refugees from the city, rapidly paced the sidewalks, noses in their phones, heading on to whatever client or business meetings they had scheduled for this Saturday morning. I could only imagine what it must be like in this town on a weekday. When I was a kid, this place was still just a quaint little small town. Now, much like my own town a few miles away0, it almost felt like an anonymous outlying extension of the city. However, once Healdsburg Avenue reached the northern edge of the business district, thereby changing its name to Gravenstein Highway route 116, the traffic and throngs of techies thinned out, and nature closed in. Commercial buildings gave way to vineyards and large acreage estates behind tall, brush covered fences. This was the wine country, after all.

It was a warm, sunny April morning. The road gently wound its way through hilly vineyards and farms, then got windier and narrower as it climbed up into the hills, before dropping into the Russian River valley and the small, rustic town of Guerneville. I was in no hurry, but nonetheless I was nervous for some reason. I chalked it up to the usual first-date jitters- Obviously I liked this girl and was totally at ease around her at work, but that was just friendly, no pressure chit chat. Would I make a good impression on the date? I really liked this girl and was secretly hoping this could lead somewhere. It was almost like a schoolboy crush.

Jenny was one of those pretty dark haired girls with a sexy athletic body, who obviously took care of herself. But it was more than her looks that attracted me, though for many guys, that was seemingly all they saw. I loved that she was into hiking, and exploring, and I was having all these thoughts of us breaking into old buildings and crawling around, hiking around and discovering cool secret spots, or finding cool things that washed up on the beach- fun adventurous stuff I had enjoyed doing as a kid, and I guess, never really grew out of. Or, maybe, even getting lucky and making out with her in the Lost Boys cave. How cool would THAT be?

But for some reason, it almost seemed like it was more than just first date jitters. There was this dark sense of foreboding that I had started feeling, almost as soon as I had passed through Guerneville but yet before I consciously realized it. The grey skies above and somber weather certainly didn't help things. I turned on the RAV4's heater, suddenly glad I had brought a sweater. The road wound its way toward the coast, following the downhill winding course of the river. It occurred to me that there had been hardly a cloud in the sky when I left home; now suddenly it seemed like it was about to rain. Well, so much for good weather. But sometimes, walking in the foggy, somber coast redwoods was the most fun. It made the forest seem more alive yet more mysterious at the same time. There was a patch of dense, dark redwood forest on the edge of Purissima; in fact I was passing through it even now, and near the beach of course we had a bit of a hike through the woods. This would all work out, especially with the coolest girl in the... okay, hold on, I suddenly told myself. Let's not get carried away here. (I don't want to scare her off, it's only a first date, I thought to myself.)

On the northern edge of town, I reached the junction of highway 116 and the coast highway. Turning south, Route 1 crossed a bridge over the mouth of the Russian River, than ran along a short elevated course near the crumbling waterfront district below, before leveling out and becoming the main street in what was left of Purissima, California. Which appeared as it always did- rows of derelict houses, boarded up shops, signs faded with peeling paint, and a few buildings in various stages of collapse. At one point this town had had over two thousand residents, mostly fishermen and loggers. With the collapse of the logging and fishing industry, the town had dried up and unlike, for example, towns like Mendocino or Point Reyes, there was not enough effort by the remaining residents to market the town to a new generation of wealthy hipsters, wine-country tourists, and yuppie beach bums. So as time passed it by, it had slowly faded, like the perpetual foggy gloomy weather which now seemed to wash everything out to shades of pale greenish-grey. As I crossed the bridge, I passed the sign that welcomed me to the city limits, population 200. Although I highly doubted it was even that high anymore.

As I cruised the main drag, the town was shrouded in gloom. The fog had rolled in, casting a grey mist like pall over the buildings and trees in the hills beyond. There were no people about, not a single car on the road, save for one old Dodge Pickup speeding by going northbound in the opposite direction, headlights on and exceedingly bright in the foggy mist. There were a couple cars parked on the street, but very few. An ancient, rusty seventies vintage land yacht of a Buick, seemingly twice as long as my Rav4 from hood to trunk, was parked in front of a bank. And here was a non-descript looking compact, a Chevette or Mazda 323 or Toyota Tercel- I couldn't tell the difference; in any case it was some bland little subcompact car from the early 80's that would have been bland even back in the day. Certainly a far cry from the luxury SUV-clogged streets of my home town, I thought. I realized that car companies today simply don't build very many vehicles like those anymore. But by all appearances, it looked like neither of those cars was even capable of running; almost like they had been sitting out there, rusting away in the fog, since the day they had left the dealer's lot.

I started looking for the little café, wondering if it was even open. I remembered that Jennifer drove a Prius, but I didn't see her car- other than the two old rusted derelicts, most of the parking spaces in front of the crumbling commercial strip that was Main Street were empty. Here was "Rod's Appliances" its sign faded and barely legible, the windows boarded up. Next door, "Point Linden Bookstore," which by the looks of it had not sold a single twenty five cent paperback in decades, sat forlorn and empty. Here was a liquor store, long closed down. There was a tavern, called "Forty Niner Club" with a sign over its door that had once been lit by a hundred Christmas light bulbs, all of which were broken. The faded Budweiser and Coors signs in the broken windows were dusty and unlit. "Millie's Closet" which presumably had been some kind of clothing shop; was boarded up and closed as well. Then, a hardware store, the pavement in front of it cracked and crumbling, empty windows staring back at the street. And here was the café. "Shell Rock Cafe," the sign read, in black script painted above the entrance. I pulled in front of it and got out of the car.

Wait a sec- this HAD to be the place, right? How many other cafés and restaurants were there in town? And she did say the one on Main Street, right? I was almost sure of it, now that I thought about it.

Only problem was, the Shell Rock Café, like virtually everything else I had seen in this town, was closed. And, by all appearances, had been closed for quite a long time. Jenny surely must have realized that, or did she, for some reason, think it was still in business because she hadn't been here for a while? But wait a minute; I thought she said she visits her aunt in this town regularly, so she MUST have known the place was shut down, right? This didn't make any sense. What was going on?

Maybe I'll send her a message or something, just to make sure. She wasn't here, obviously; there was no sign of her or her red Prius. I glanced at my watch. I was about ten minutes early; it was 11:50 AM and we had decided on noon. Maybe she was still dinking around with her aunt, or something. So, no problem I guess, we'll just make other plans when she gets here, I thought. Maybe we'll head up the coast for lunch, or grab something back up the road at Guerneville. I figured that I should probably send her a message, though.

I got out of the car. Immediately I felt the damp chill settle into my bones. Almost instinctively, I grabbed my warm sweater from the passenger seat and put it on. I grabbed my phone and tried messaging her, but to my dismay, there was no cell phone signal. I could not believe that a town like this, even one as dilapidated and forlorn as Purissima, did not have one single cell tower. What did the 200 people who lived here do for cell service? I thought to myself. This was ridiculous!

Just for fun, I peered inside of the closed cafeteria. The glass in the door frame was shattered, and the door was unlocked. Ignoring a faded "No Trespassing" sign nailed to the wooden door frame, I pushed the door open and walked inside.

The place had clearly been shuttered for years, perhaps even decades. From inside, the stench of mildew and decay immediately assaulted my nose. There was no furniture; all the tables, booths and chairs had been ripped out or removed, and the paint was peeling off the ceiling in sheets. The only thing remaining was the old bar counter. It looked like the place had been looted long ago, stripped of everything that might be of value even as scrap. I thought I could even see rodent droppings on the dingy and filthy wood floor. The floorboards creaked as I walked across them towards the back. But then I heard a noise, like a strange echo, coming from beneath my feet. Almost like running footsteps coming from below me, only faint, like I was imagining it. I suddenly remembered Jen's stories of old smuggler's tunnels. At the back was a hall that presumably led to what had been the restrooms. As I gingerly made my way across the room, wary of dry rot in the spongy wooden floor boards, I noticed at the end of the hall was what looked like a narrow flight of stairs leading down. Well, I was certainly not that interested in finding out what was down there, certainly not without a flashlight. I had one in the car, but why poke around now? I don't want to spoil it without Jen, I thought. Wherever she was; obviously our lunch plans had been derailed.

But there was another reason for my sudden timidity. Coming from the bottom of the stairs, I suddenly heard a distinct noise. Like a strange groan. So, there WAS someone down there, then. I quickly backed out and hastily exited the door.

Maybe it is just a raccoon, or a coyote, or something, I thought. Or some old bum crashed out down there, who I had accidently woke up. Who or what else would be down there? But I didn't want to have to explain myself; somehow I wasn't really in the mood for any confrontation. I could almost picture some psycho redneck charging up the stairs, waving a gun and screaming "Yer a Trespassin'! Ahm gonna git ya boy!" And in any case, I still needed to get in touch with Jen. Maybe there was better cell reception near the highway overpass, I thought. I may as well head down that way and try.