Short Stories

Feeling the dull bite of a heat stroke headache along with the lingering red eye, blurred vision brought on from my previously cool hair hitting me under my sunglasses the whole way down to San Luis Obispo, I suddenly become hungry for candy.

Walking down the dead-quiet halls of the hotel I can do nothing except think about the irresponsible times I pushed myself through this town. Such perfection in the art of aloofness and disregard for anything that made sense or logic was how I lived, and should have died during the six months I was down here.

Embarrassed by my past doings and dalliances, I head out into the now cold coastal night air, which is a welcome contrast from the mess I drove through today. Turning the corner and seeing nothing familiar, my foot jerks on its own and brings my uncovered jeep to a stop, helping me not kill myself again by running into the cross traffic. “CRAP!” I yell, befuddled by my thoughts and my now blaring music. I travel down the main street, trying to remember if I had ever walked these streets, or did I just spend my time at the beach and other assorted party places. No memories come and I begin to get lost. The thought that I am only getting candy eases my lost feelings and having no worry of being late I continue on my little lost adventure on streets that I don’t remember and through neighborhoods I’ve never seen. Seeing the growing look of being lost, the fog begins its favorite game with me, showing me parts of memories then quickly hiding the meaning that would tie everything together, letting me complete this part of my story. But the way the world works is tricky sometimes, especially so if you almost never live in a cognitive state. I see half buildings and half streets that make half sense to me, but the whole picture is tragically lost in the fog and the drug addled parts of my brain that still remain inaccessible. I accept that fact, like I always do, stopping at a light on a semi-familiar looking street. It’s not the street that’s familiar though, it’s the cemetery that sits on its side. “Could this be the cemetery?” I wonder out loud and look for the marker. This particular marker specified a special night, where I escaped death three different times…The Pyramid. That night was the night that I almost caught on fire, almost crashed into a cement block and almost broke my back falling off of this pyramid in the middle of a cemetery. To this day my friend Dan still argues the point that everything was my fault, but like always I disagree with him. “You fell in the fire…You drove off the road…You fell off the pyramid.” He would say. “You should have caught me, you were navigating, and you climbed up the pyramid first.” I always counter, unsuccessfully. I laugh at death with my hindsight circuit switched to idiot, then I see it…the Pyramid. I park and slowly make my way through the graves, but I’m not arriving at it yet. My memory of how big this thing is wrong as I finally reach it and look up. I remember the uncomfortable feeling of being too close to another male when we both reached the top, then the slap fight which was God’s final message to me that night. I remember the ground being very cold as I lay on it after the inevitable fall, looking up at the tip of the pyramid twenty feet up. I remember Danny’s unstifled laughter as he maneuvered down the pyramid the right way, not knowing if I had broken my back or not. I remember the concerned look on his face when he got down and I had not gotten up yet as I fully try to wrap my head around the total and complete idiocy of my night, while thanking the wine gods for making my bones bendable. I smile again remembering and waving goodbye to this monolith of a message, this marker for a lost drunken night that I still haven’t fully wrapped my head around.

My stomach reminds me of why I’m out here reliving a particular remembered night as I open the door to the jeep, but instead of being lost, the marker has cleared some of the residue away, kind of like the fall from it made me a little more sober that night. I make a U-turn and drive with purpose to the 7-11 that I, and every other student, visited for all of our shopping needs while going to school. I can see it in my mind’s eye as I turn here and there, down now remembered streets and past familiar student housing. It always glowed in those foggy nights, like a beacon of hope for the sober impaired young student or for the beginning smoker, starting his life long trek of becoming a smoker. But whatever the reason, it glowed for us and as I make the last turn, I can see that glow and it does remind me of those times. It was my personal lighthouse, lighting the way to food, booze and smokes, now it just represents an old mans want for candy. There was always a steady flow of students that kept this store, like the local taco bell, the most successful franchise in California.

I pull in and park in the front, sit for second watching all the very young nubile children walk in and out of the door, wondering if I was ever that young. My final answer being no. The call of candy is strong, it is my new addiction and a far cry from the ones I had when I went to school here, if that’s what you want to call what I was doing here. Heading inside I pause and open the door for a couple girls that could be my daughters who were walking behind me. No thank you’d, no smiles, no recognition at all. I am disgusted but don’t outwardly show it, knowing that it’s probably their parent’s faults. I slowly walk around the isles picking up a multitude of things I had forgotten I needed. Toothpaste, underarm deodorant, sunblock…and candy. My “Uno” bar and “Carmelo” bars are meant for the candy enthusiast, not for the teenager that needs to sate his stoner high, which is why there are so many of them left. Picking up a coke and a lemonade I finally make it to the back of the line. Only if they knew about the mixed concoction of coke and lemonade would they be set free of their coolness, but that lesson will not be learned by these lemmings for a decade or two and I am not the one who is going to try to teach them. I overhear a conversation by a bunch of jocks in baseball pants about a party at a house over off of a street I used to live on and wonder if it is still the same party house that everyone used to go to. I am lost in that last thought and the things I used to do at that house when I find myself outside with a plastic bag full of my needs.

Sitting in the parking lot, slowly eating my candy I am hit with a version of de je vu that is unsettling, but the reason escapes me of why it is different from my usual bouts with this time traveling agent. A couple of girls in volleyball pants walk out, I watch them move toward their car, but not for any necessary reasons, it is just where my eyes were looking, I am just enjoying my candy. One of them makes eye contact and grimaces before getting into the driver seat, a second later I hear the door locks click and a memory washes over me of a time when I walked out to get into my car so may years ago, feeling the uneasy stare of an older gentleman as he watched me get into my car. “What a fucking pedophile.” I said way back when to my semi-girlfriend as she sat next to me in my car. “I know, sick fuck, just sitting there watching us…creepy, we should call the cops or something.” She said to me, and I agreed. I am startled out of my memory by the sound of my engine starting, thanking God that my subconscious sometimes acts alone without the help of my cognizant self. I had become that weird, creepy old man, leering at all the beautiful little kids and as I slice through the fog and cold of this college town I wondered if that man that we did call the cops on was just there to get candy.

I look over at Dan and see a big fatherly smile swimming across his face, he is proud of his son for overcoming the things he’s had to overcome and end up there on the bandstand, graduating high school. I look back up and smile too, but I never had any doubt that he would turn out the way he did because he is my best friend’s son and the blood they share is of a different ilk than that of most regular folk. I was glad to be with Dan and his parents after pseudo-sitting his “brother” for most of the ceremony, giving him cigarettes and talking about our guns. In between his questions of caliber, I would look over at the bar that I had taken Dan to before his wedding, just to take the edge off. That day we stayed too long and caught a rash of crap for it, or at least I did. I smile again as I watch Austin make is final walk down the makeshift aisle, away from the church steps, and into the waiting arms of his mother and father. I feel as if he were my son graduating too because of how this family works. I am proud of him, like everyone else is, and I can feel a fatherly grin begin to form on my lips as he makes his way toward me. “Hey! Congratulation’s man! I say, as a memory of the first time I held him as a baby flashes a remembered scene in my head. He is taller than I am now, and we hug awkwardly. “Uncle Chris, you coming to the party tonight?” Just the word ‘party’ puts a smile on my face. “Of course, can’t miss a party.” I say as he is stolen away by his grandparents. I step back into my voyeuristic position, watch, and remember how confused I was when I graduated, not being able to focus on everyone there, including my girlfriend, Sue. I see that his girlfriend is on the perimeter of the family circle and the want to go over to her and tell her that she is not forgotten fills my legs, but only halfway. That is not my place in this situation, so I just sit back and watch as a new man is welcomed into society. Dan finally comes over and tells me about the party. “Do you want to go with us or drive? Never mind, here are the directions, remember the party house?” He says, knowing my answers and not letting me use them. “It’s on the street behind it…about 8pm.” He says, knowing also that I hate family functions, his ex-wife, and not being able to leave somewhere when I want.

The feeling of graduation leaves before the families and graduates themselves leave and as I make my way back through the littered ceremony area, after walking the family out to their cars, I see a forgotten cap under a chair. Sitting down, I reach below and pick it up, the fabric feels as familiar as the breeze does and I look to see if the late spring, peach colored sky will help me remember my graduation – it does. The first thought I remember is how anticlimactic the moment felt, and how that feeling slowly moved into my cheeks, lowering them, as my name was called. I hit the stage and thought that I have done nothing at this school that merits anything called graduation, my smile finally fails. I grab the diploma, shake the hand of someone I do not know, or have ever met and begin to walk off, which is when I hear my family erupt with applause and yells, reminding me of all the sacrifices, favors, embarrassments, money, and pride that caused and allowed me to experience this moment. I smile, but not for me, not because I survived the will of God at the hands of my previous high school, and not because I think the hardest part of life is over. I smile because my family can finally see me graduate. For some reason, my final gesture is a raised fist, which makes my family scream louder, now I can’t stop smiling as I jump off the stage. San Luis Obispo swirls back into my view, and I hope that Austin can somehow remember this day like I did mine. I set the cap down on the seat next to me and try to push the following memory away from its inception. I quickly stand up and walk away, trying to remember which “party house” Dan was talking about, filling my head with other, better thoughts. A quick trip back to the hotel to freshen up and to check the news to see if there is any luck of missing a repeat of the scorching drive down, but my relationship with luck is usually played out in operatic fashion, never really knowing whether the third act will end with a wedding, murder, or suicide pact. As the news played on, I was getting the feeling that luck had taken a turn towards Greek tragedy, as the news anchors relayed the dangers of everything having to do with heat. I left before the third act could end because in watching the foreshadowing of my inevitable death by heatstroke, I had become late.

I turn the jeep on to hear the melodic guitar riff of Stevie Ray Vaughn as he floated around his tune “Lenny”. The music meshed with the warm evening air, easing my worry that I would make a scene with Austin’s mother, my best friend’s ex-wife, Jenny. I back out trying to continue to mimic the cords Stevie was playing on my steering wheel, and take off in the general direction of a house behind a house that I haven’t seen in more than two decades. I find myself in a familiar setting, driving to a place that I don’t know how to get to. But I do it with such fervor that I sometimes fool myself, a left here, and a right here, turn around and do it again, I pick up my phone and begin to call Dan when the phone rings. I answer it, but it is a message from Dan instead simply saying, “Nope…turn around.” I pull over, so I can answer him, when another message comes through that says, “Why’d you pull over?” “Where are you?” I type back, trying to bypass his cuteness. “Go back the other way, and make a left, then follow it up…” I stop reading and head out according to the directions. I get to another intersection and wait for my phone to ring – it does. “T-U-R-N-L-E-F-T”, I can hear the tone in his voice through the letters. It’s a nice neighborhood with big homes, set on one of the hills that surround the city, I’m admiring the homes when the phone rings with urgency, it simply says, “STOP!” I stop and yell out the top of my uncovered Jeep, “Where Are You!?” A faint voice from above me answers, “Back up!” He is down the houses long driveway and laughing by the time I get to the entrance. “How long were you watching me?” I say, as we walk towards his ex-wife at the doorway. “Since you entered off of Figueroa.” He says, laughing again. I have to wait to scold him because we are at the door, in that moment I forget about what this woman did to my friend, and in the manner in which she did it. I force the memories of before that time, when coming down to see them was fun, and a welcome break from the monotony of work. It works and I hug her hello with a big smile. We walk into the house and in the kitchen are her mother and Brother, which is welcome scene because we hadn’t seen each other since Dan and Jen separated. An even more welcome scene awaited me on the porch, where the rest of my second family was. Dan’s parents and sister all hugged hello and it dawned on me that I hadn’t seen them since I left San Jose, since before that, since my divorce. A few moments with them made me feel as comfortable as I have ever been, and seeing them interact with Austin was how I imagined my family would, if I had a kid, and if they were different. It was good that those past times were either put on hold, or forgotten, for Austin’s sake, but as he bounced from family to family finally announcing that he was taking off, that a shared umuttered sigh was let out. We congregated in the main room to send him off which ended the interaction with everyone for me, and as I walked Austin out, I slipped him some spending money, something that my father did for me as I walked out the back of our Sutter Creek house. I waited outside for everyone else, feeling out of place all of a sudden, but that feeling melted away as the Hale family exited. There were no after parties for us, we had already had them, and so we say our weekend goodbye’s walking down the long driveway. “You know your way back, Chris?” Dan says, eliciting a family wide last chuckle. “I know these streets like the back of my hand.” I say, pointing at my head, and purposefully take off in the wrong direction. I think I hear laughter, but the music is already loud and the wind is already blowing through my open jeep. I criss cross back to the correct way home, reliving the time I spent down here, knowing that reflection will bring that unwanted memory to the front of my mind. I see Austin smiling as he left the house tonight, and like a bully, my mind pushes a scene from when I left on my graduation night, and I was not smiling when I left. I was walking out of the house, looking forward to seeing my new friends and in turn saying goodbye to them, when Dad meets me on the porch and hands me back the vile of cocaine that I had forgot in my jean pocket. I didn’t react because there was no precedent set on how to react, or how Dad was or would handle this mess of a son. It was a new field of engagement for us, and I don’t think either one of us knew how to react. “It’s all a means to an end, Chris.” He started out. I couldn’t tell if he was angry, disappointed, or a mixture of both, but he continued to give me a very important father and son speech, which was lost on me because during the whole time he was talking, I was trying to figure out when and where I got this particular vile, and how the hell I forgot it in my jeans. Reliving the disappointment continued all the way to the room, and up until I turned the news back on. The 11 o’clock news reburied that little gem of a memory with tales of possibly the hottest day on record for San Luis Obispo, Kings, Kern, Fresno, Merced, Stanislaus, and San Joaquin counties – all of which I was driving through tomorrow. My choice to not bring the Jeep roof seemed almost comical now and I thought maybe Dad would probably be more disappointed in me about my planning this trip than he was about finding a vile of cocaine in my pocket.

I am just another dog, barking at nothing, trying to communicate to the pack that I exist, always being lost in the minutia of pseudo writers that seem so tragically hip nowadays. This regurgitated hipster movement from the 60’s, that needs to “know” things first to be cool, fills the same tragically hip coffee houses with their eccentricities, progressive slang and new technology, making it hard to like coffee…or be a writer. This very nearly killed the feeling to create for me. But instead of burring me in that crook, it fuels me to do more. I still don’t give a shit whether I am published or not, but now it seems important to put something out there that balances out the universe. Regardless of how it seems, I am happy being non-descript, having lived my life already, albeit not the way I wanted. Wanted or not, I lived it with vigor and with no apologies, but now the doldrums of not needing work creep around my new house just like the mountain spiders did before I was here, not caring about the 60’s, hipsters, writers or coffee. I wait to fall into something unproductive and anti-social with the passion I had for drug use, looking for a subject, or character, I could reflect on. Typing away on a re-write of an old story I stop and listen to the incredible quietude of my house. I’ve already been outside and it is as dark as it is quiet, even the old Tiger Creek Damn is shut off for the night, making the outside air compress around you. From my dinner table I could hear the “nocturnality” of the woods shift and sway behind the blindness of this tolerable day. 

It’s 2 o’ clock in the morning and I am dutifully working on some old stories, rewriting the language of my younger self to a more progressive, mature elicitation of facts and fundamentality’s. I bask in this fantastic setting, smiling as I write when a sound erupts from underneath my chair. At first, after I let go of the celling, I think this sound might be an alarm of some sort, something I oversaw when I was doing my walkthrough with the inspector. After the second ring I know it’s the phone. “What’s up motherfucker?” Stacy says. Still lost in this perfect night for writing I cannot figure out who it is. “Hey, what’s up?” I say, trying to figure out which girl this is. “Nothing man, just calling to say hi.” Stacy says, she is way to chipper at this time of night. “Where have you been?” I ask, still going through my mental rolodex of women, coming up with no face and no voice recognition. “Oh, you now, here and there.” How about you?" The woman says, her accent is Asian, but this doesn’t help me because of my tastes in women, but I can almost see her face. “I moved up to the mountains, Pioneer, about two years ago.” I say, and I curse the fact that I was a perfect slut in my travels. “I know, I was at the going away party, asshole.” She says. My mind switches gears and moves my thoughts to a sub folder of the main rolodex. “Shit, I forgot, sorry…well, how you are doing, what’s up…why are you…” Then, like a flashbulb I see Stacy’s face. “…calling?” I say. I haven’t heard from her since my going away party. I remember being drunk and pissing off her boyfriend because I said something about her blowjobs. “Well, I need a favor.” She says, then stops. “And that would be?” I say, hoping it’s not money. “I need a place to stay for a while…what do you think?” She says, her voice is perfect and it sends me into the last time we were “together.” Stacy was second generation Japanese-American, but she hadn’t lost her accent. I remember her saying that her family didn’t speak English around the house when she was young, and that was why. I also remember her waif like frame bouncing like a super-ball around my bedroom for a couple weeks while we “dated”. “Sure, are you still in Redding?” I ask, ready to hit the road to see what she looks like. “Nope, I moved to Sacramento last year, I really would appreciate it if you could help.” She says. The word “appreciate” resonates in my skull and makes me say, “Give me the address and I’ll pick you up.” Blinded by my libido, I answer. “Wow…Ok…about an hour or so?” She says with her perfect Japanese accent. “Yep, I will be there.” I say wondering if this will be a mistake.

Like all things Asian, her directions are perfect and I find her house in no time. On the way down I kept trying to see her, what would she look like, did she change her hair, did she get fat, and is she pregnant. I call her phone from the driveway and she is out of the front door, hidden by the backlight of the front porch. But then she is at the door…boob job and all. “What the f…” I begin. “I know…too big, but dummy in there paid for it.” She says motioning back towards the house. “Who is dummy again?” I say hoping it isn’t my buddy from the old bar, the friend that she hooked up with after we ended. “Justin, remember?” She says. “Shit, hurry up then, let’s go.” I say, remembering Justin and his lack of appreciation for acts like this. “He passed out on the toilet, probably still there.” She says, throwing her bags into the Jeep. As she hops in the front seat. I try not to look, but her boobs are monstrous, sitting on her butterfly frame. “My goodness woman, what were you thinking?” I say. “Here, touch them, they’re nice and soft, like your grandmothers’ pillow.” She says…so I do. “Grandma’s Pillow Personified.” I say as we head out of the very quiet, well-lit neighborhood.

I’ve been on this road a thousand times for a number of varied reasons, tonight is the most enjoyable. The moon is just making it over the ridge, where I live. “Here, look what I got.” She says, pulling out a baggie of white powder and interrupting me pointing out my home. “Whoa, what is that?” I say concerned remembering the terrible story about when she got arrested. “You know…come on…Crystal!” She says with a huge smile, her accent is lost on the word “crystal”. “But what about…probation?” I say, worried that I might be pulled over now. “Don’t worry about that, here.” She says and put’s a little straw in my hand. I don’t remember inhaling, but I do remember the thought of her new boobs suddenly being the only thing I can think about.

The road is lost in the drug and by the time we pull into my driveway we had sex of some sort three different times. We start round four before we get in the door and continue on through the morning. 4 pm in the afternoon is what my clock says, it takes me a minute to focus on it. “I guess my sobriety is over then.” I say to the empty space next to me in my bed. That’s when I hear it. My house is usually deathly quiet, but now it’s alive with different sounds. I get up and begin my inventory of the situation. The television is on from the porn we were watching during round 5, the radio is on in the other room from round 6, the dryer is on from the used garments, something is beeping in the kitchen and my little friend with her new chest is in the shower. “What the Fu…” The phone rings, it rings badly, I know its Justin. “Hello?” I say like a guilty sheep. “Hey Chris, its Justin…is Stacy there.” He says, and I am beside myself. He wasn’t the best or the brightest and far from being a detective but he found her in a day. “What…who is this?” I say trying to figure out what to say. “Dude, its Justin…from the bar?” He sounds calm. “Oh, hey man, what’s up?” I say, trying to draw out a bad situation. “Nothing new, is Stacy there…” He says following up with “…she left your name and number,” before I could stumble over the wrong answer. “No, man, she’s in the shower…what the fuck happened, if you don’t mind me asking.” I say trying to get a hold of my situation. “Dude, you got to watch her, she’s on a tear. Remember the story about how she got arrested? She’s worse.” He says, and I can’t imagine how worse it could get than that night. “Ok, will do…she’s in the shower right now, I’ll have her call you when she gets out, Ok?” I say, still trying to figure out what’s worse than putting a knife to a stranger’s throat and holding him hostage after a 4-day crystal meth binge. “Alright man…how you doing? “He says, I can hear his failure as a partner in his voice. “Nothing, trying to find a hobby, that’s it…you got to come up one of these days.” I say, reeling over the word “worse.” “Sounds good, alright, just have her call me, talk to you later.” He sounds horrible. “Ok, man, will do, later.” I say and hang up the phone as the water in the shower turns off.

She walks in naked, looking like a cartoon I drew when I was 9 years old. “Who was that?” She says like she was expecting a call. “You know who.” I say. “Fuck that guy…if he thinks he can cheat on me, then just apologize, he can fuck right off.” She says, getting really angry. “Ok, calm down, he’s not here and not coming for you, so…” I’m interrupted by another tirade about non-care and bad boyfriendmanship that not only lasts for 15 minutes, but also makes it through 3 rooms and 2 bathrooms in my house. I sit on the edge of my bed and hope that the drugs are almost gone. A day passes before she calms down. Between the pipe and Justin, she is slowly losing her mind. By the 3rd day I know I had made a mistake. I wake up to her tugging on my pajamas. “Chris, chris, chris, chris, chris…” I pretended to be asleep, she started over. “Chris, chris, chris, chris, chris…” I couldn’t take that anymore. “What…is…it?” I say through clinched teeth, keeping my eyes closed. “There’s someone outside…I think its Justin, I heard him talking.” She says, cowering horizontally behind me, staring, and not blinking at the patio door. “What…” I begin, but again, I am interrupted. “THAT, right there…do you hear them?” She whispers into my ear. I listen, eyes still closed. Nothing, then my neighbor’s dog barks. “What time is it?” I ask her. “Its 3:30 am, hear that?” She says. “I listen again and hear something outside, but I’ve tracked this sound to a local family of raccoon’s that raid our garbage cans. “Yes, I heard that, it’s not Justin, have you slept yet?” I ask her. “Oh, no, they’re going around to the front door.” She says and heads out of the room. She crosses into the light of the bathroom and I can see her nighty that is see through, thinking maybe that makes it all better. Then I see my gun in her hand. “Hey!” I yell. She jumps and swings the gun around in my direction. “Put that down…where’d you find that?” I demand and duck at the same time. “In the closet, where you kept it at the old house.” She says. “Give it to me and lay down in bed before you shoot somebody, most likely me.” I say forcefully enough so she does it. “What am I going to do with you?” I say as she gets into bed. “Fuck Me.” She says. And grabs me, with the gun still in my hand.

By the weekend she is back and making breakfast before I wake up. The drug had taken her away for a moment, but I know for a fact that it is gone now. Her eyes still show me flickers of crazy, but it is dull and far away. “Hey, it’s Friday, I’ll show you the local bar tonight, Ok?” I say. “Sure, sounds like fun.” She says and put’s more butter on my toast.

Like all things that have happened to me in this partial life, I have been afforded unique opportunities to see things and meet people that the rest of society doesn’t get the chance to experience. Recently I happened upon a fellow writer and published author from help from my distinct past. At the time he was releasing a new novel and I was surprised to see a response to my Facebook posts. The “affirmation” came by way of an old school mate that had become an agent for or of writers. So being a fledgling writer, I congratulated him on his book, promising to buy it as soon as it was available. His affable attitude over the internet, along with the title of his book “Junkie Love”, piqued my interest in his style. So with my want to see my old schoolmate, meet a published author and go to my first book signing, I made plans to go to Berkeley, this coming Friday to do exactly that. This was planned before my Asian water buoy invaded my house. But that wasn’t here nor there. I wanted to have this day pass and get to tonight so I could show her off.

My business went along without a hitch, being served lunch and a blowjob, life was good. By the time the sun had set, we were both ready for a drink. The old saloon type bar was called the OK Corral, it was the furthest of the three bars in the area, but still only 5 minutes away from the house. I’m ready and playing Xbox while I’m waiting for her to get out of the bathroom. Then she walks out, my guy in the game is immediately killed. “Jesus, don’t you have any shirts that fit?” I say with a smile. “So, you like then, huh?” She says, tugging on her shirt, inadvertently showing me her standard use, white bra. “Nice underwear too!” I say. “I have to wear bras now, but that’s it.” She says, giving me a coquettish schoolgirl glance. With her heals, that disappear into her jeans, she was a pillar of a woman, standing 5’ 3” tall. The white tank top didn’t fit her frame, it seemed confused to me, wondering how to cover this alien area. She let her black over shirt hang loose which matched her heals and her hair tie. She wore her hair in an elevated ponytail, it shimmered even when there was no light to catch. A simple outfit, no watches, bracelets, necklaces to get in the way when looking at her and she didn’t do it on purpose. The picture I had of her, with the gun in her hand faded slightly as I looked at her, but it was still there lurking in my memory. “You look stunning.” I say. “Well, thank you kind sir.” She says and we head out for a night of drinking, dancing and hopefully a little more than a goodnight kiss.

We walk into the “Corral” as the last two verses of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” finishes. Not being followed by another song, people awkwardly look to see who came in. The bar is full, full of people I know, as per usual, but they don’t say hello because Stacy has all their attention. This is going to be a good night. I have an old saying that I stole from somewhere, “The drinks were flying off the tables”, when a good time was had. By ten o’clock, everyone had introduced themselves to Stacy and the drinks were flying off the tables. I go to have a smoke outside, leaving Stacy with a couple friends. I smoke my last cigarette and go in to tell Stacy that I’m going to run up to the store for a second. She is gone, but Bobby says that she’s in the bathroom and he’ll watch out for her and tell her that I will be back in a minute. I trust Bobby and his son, plus his wife is there to keep an eye on him for me, so I leave.

I get back and enter the bar to the Black Eyed Peas singing “My Humps”, which is a far cry from Merle Haggard and the Oakridge Boys that usually play, then I see her. She over shirt is gone, her hair is down, her shoes are off and she is singing the song. Every head at the bar, man and woman, are turned to watch. The song ends and she sprints towards me, unnervingly fast. We almost fall over while the rest of the bar claps at the performance. I am drunk, and it looks like she is too, so we continue on through the night, watching her dance. I go out for a smoke while she works the bar, getting bought drinks and propositions…from both man and woman again. I turn to talk to Bette and Linda, two woman friends that I made soon after my arrival to this town. They ask me about Stacy and wonder how I knew such a girl. They don’t know the old me, from the other place, so I tell them a story about my past. Laughing at my stupid punch line, Stacy loudly asks from behind me. “Chris, what are you doing?” I am lost at the question. “Um…smoking?” I say wondering if that was the answer she was looking for. “With those two.” She says. “Talking?” I am either drunk, confused or both. “What’s up?” I say and turn to be slapped in the face with her hand. “What the FUCK!” I say holding my cheek. “What’d you do that for?” Bette says. “You shut the fuck up, bitch.” She says. “What’s going on Stacy?” I ask, but then it hits me. She found more meth. “Ok, come on…let’s go home.” I say hoping to corral her before there is an episode or incident. “Don’t touch me!” She screams, which catches the bars attention. A new group of young men, begin to make their way over. More attention from these guys will surely fan the flame of crazy. “Ok, let’s stop for a second and figure out why you slapped me, ok?” I say. “I watched you, I saw you. If you don’t want me here, why in the hell did you invite me to stay with you.” She says. I can see her dilated eyes, her twitchy left arm and her overall demeanor of a tweaker shadow its way to the surface. Plus she just slapped me. Nothing I could say will be right, not now. “I was just talking to them, they are my friends, now I’m going home, I would like you to go home with me, and do you want to leave now?” I make my questions short and easy so I can get a clear answer.” Linda and Bette get up and walk past Stacy, as she glares at them. “No.” She says, turns and walks through the new young group that can’t help but follow her. I stand for a second wishing the answer she gave wasn’t so clear. But I do not press the matter. I say my goodbyes and head outside while Stacy pretends to ignore me while talking to the new kids, not worried about Stacy because I know she can handle herself and I know she can find a ride home. I take a moment to relive the slap and begin to pull out. I am stopped by Stacy, who runs right out in front of the Jeep and slams her hands on the hood. “What the Fuck?” She says. “You were just going to leave me here? Fine, fuck you then, have a nice life.” She heads back inside, I can see the rest of the bar quickly turn around and act like they weren’t watching her. “Wait, honey, let me explain.” I say quietly, making myself giggle. The bar door slams shut as my left foot releases the clutch.

My drunkenness begins to overtake me as soon as I get home, so I go through my nighttime rituals, then head off to bed. “Wait honey, let me explain.” I keep saying as I try to put myself in a better mood. It works and I fall asleep. The next morning, I wake up to a phone call. “Where are you?” I answer, trying to be witty. “Chris, it’s Justin, she never called me back, but I can guess why now, what happened?” He says. “She flipped out, man. I’ve never seen her act like this, what the hell happened to her?” I say, hoping he has an answer. “Shit, you don’t know?” He says. “No I don’t.” I say, expecting bad news. “Her grandma died, and she was the only one that did anything, you know how the rest of her family is, right?” He says, and I remember the horror stories of her childhood. It didn’t seem like the kind of things an Asian family did, but their family was splintered by so many things. Divorce, assault, spousal abuse, robbery, drug use. With other things like 2nd degree kidnapping thrown in there for measure. Their grandmother was so embarrassed by everything she moved away and wrote them out of the will. “Oh, man…who’d she get the stuff from, do you know?” I ask. “No, she was gone for a couple days and she hasn’t talked to me since. She said that I was cheating on while I was at work. On top of all that, she was fired from the bar.” He says. “Oh, no, that’s all she had.” I say, now I am worried. “I know. So, keep an eye out for her and when you do see her, look for knives first. Ok? Later.” He says and hangs up. I lay back down in bed, now I can feel my hangover.

One day passes and with every car that comes down my road, I find a window to look out of, but no Stacy. I fill this calm before and inevitable storm by reading the book I bought for Friday. Immediately I connect with it, not only because we both used drugs, but because we did it in almost the same place. He paints his picture with words and I already know what’s around the corner. I don’t doubt that we have crossed each other in the street a time or two. But our drugs were different so our drugging was different. I sit and read and wait, wondering what she’ll say when or if she comes back. By Wednesday my worry seems to leave, because on Friday I get to go on a little adventure, something far better than babysitting a potentially dangerous meth addict. Wednesday comes and goes and I lay back down to sleep in my empty bed, and close my eyes. Two dreams into the night I hear a crash, like broken glass, I know it’s her. She is at the sliding glass doors and it is broken. I turn on the lights, flick the lock button on the door, and slide it open and motion for her to come in. She looks tired, more tired than I’ve ever seen anyone. Not talking, she walks past me and into the bedroom, slamming the door. “Wait honey, let me explain.” I say out loud. A couple beats later she rushes out of the bedroom like a gust of mean air, I know now that my joke had backfired on me. “What did you say, you think this is funny shit?!” She says. That begun what I call the “3rd end of the world tirade” and it covered all her actions with well thought out excuses but only if I was high too. I was not. She continued into the morning as I lay back down in bed. She was bouncing around my bedroom again, just not as pleasantly as before. But she was my friend, first and foremost and in the wake of her lambasting men, grabbing her boobs saying “See what you made me do,” and just plain straight being crazy, I would try every trick in the book to calm her down, or make her see what was happening, but the paranoiac persecution complex was seeded way too deep. My advice was looked on poorly and after a while, she forgot about Justin completely, turning all her anger towards me. She petered out and fell asleep after her voice got horse. She was calm again, I had survived the war and in the moments before sleep found me she asks if I knew of anybody that had some shit. “Nope, not up here.” I tell the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

Thursday at noon is when she wakes up and walks into the kitchen. The same gun toting nighty is still see through. “I’m sorry.” She says it without looking at me and the tone reminds me of when she says “fuck you”, then she sits at the counter and asks me to cook breakfast. Are you sure you don’t need more sleep?” I ask. “Just breakfast.” She says flatly. “Ok.” I don’t ask and she doesn’t tell. The day is spent watching television, she heads back to the bathroom while I’m lost in a show, surfacing an hour later, all dolled up in a different but similar get up. “Can I borrow your Jeep?” She asks. “Yea, but before you go, you have to be back tonight. I have something I’m going to tomorrow. It’s important to me, so if you value my friendship, you won’t fuck me over on this one. Understand?” I feel like I’m talking to a child. “Yea, I’m not going anywhere, I just need some stuff from the store, shampoo and girl stuff, good enough?” She says, hating the fact that I’m talking to her like a child. “Ok, here you go.” I throw her the keys and she is out the door. I sit and listen to my Jeep pull out of my driveway and down the road, she doesn’t miss-shift or anything. Thursday grinds through like a cog is missing somewhere, and while my glass door is being repaired, I take care of my daily lists. Joking with my classmate and author friends that I may get lost on the way, since I haven’t been to a big city like that in quite some time. Getting the joke, they quip back saying that if I can’t find Berkeley, I may have bigger problems than just getting lost, like the actual operation of the vehicle. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Night shows up on time, but Stacy doesn’t so I go to a back-up plan and start calling friends, asking if I can borrow their car for the day. My fist “go to” guy says sure and we make plans for tomorrow to pick up his car. Once again I head off to my empty bed, wondering if she would try to sell my Jeep or not. Morning shows up on time, but Stacy doesn’t, but that is of no matter to me, I will file a police report when I get home tonight. A couple hours until I wanted to leave I hear my Jeep or I hear my stereo in my Jeep pull into my driveway. She knocks on the door this time, I take a moment and look at her through the glass, and she looks back and raises both of her hands like she was saying “What?” I let her in, again we don’t talk, but I know she’s been up since she left. I call my friend and cancel, heading back to the bathroom I lean in to say goodnight. “Alright, I’m taking off now.” I say. She bends over and sniffs something with a dollar bill, tilting her head back and then holding her nose. “Ok, I’ll be ready in a little bit.” She says, confusing me to the beginning of time. “What?” I say. “I said I’ll be ready in a little bit, Ok?” She says, I can see the drug work on her. “Um, you’re going?” I say. “Yea, you invited me…we had this big long discussion about it last night, remember?” She says, her sentences are getting quicker. “You weren’t here last night so no, I don’t remember.” I say. “You know what I mean.” She says and bends down again. “No, I don’t. What exactly did I say in this conversation?” I say, my blood is boiling. “Jesus, that you needed me back so we could go to this movie thing tonight.” She say to me, I can see the rage behind her eyes. “Book Singing?” I say, seeing if that registers. “Book Signing, movie premier, frog jumping contest, whatever, I made it back, I’m getting ready, and then we can go.” She says. My heart drops. She has it in her head that she is going, so she is going. This is going to be my first impression with this group, the guy that brought the girl that killed half of us because there was a lemon in her drink and not a lime. “Great.” I say and smile. Turning to walk out, my brain begins to weigh the pros and cons of this inevitable disaster.

All of a sudden, I’m in the Jeep with tweak trying to figure out my radio. I have not figured out what I want to do. We make it down off the mountain, my brain is working overtime with no results because the songs keep changing. I haven’t heard a full song since I got in the Jeep as a matter of fact. We hit hwy 16 and I bite the bullet, deciding that I do not want to take her to the Book Signing. Now all I have to do is figure out how so she doesn’t freak out on me and run off into the countryside. I continue driving. We reach Rancho Murrieta with no solution in mind. “I’m out of cigarettes, stop here!” She screams and almost grabs the wheel, I smack her hand away like I would an obstinate child. “I can’t believe you just hit me? Who do you think you are?” She says, she’s serious. “I’m driving this vehicle, you are not, do not grab the wheel.” I say, pulling into the gas station. I sit and don’t move because, unlike her, I have cigarettes. She is almost in the door when she stops and looks back at me. “What are you doing?” Again, raising her arms in the “question” position. “What, what? I have everything I need.” I say. “Well, I need money.” She says. “Where did your money go?” I say, obviously knowing the answer. She looks like she is about to explode, so I get out and get her cigarettes, still trying to come up with a reason not to go.

Time-shifting again, I find myself back on the road while she lights her cigarette. I remember her getting mad about something and telling the Indian merchant to go fuck himself for some reason. It’ll surface in therapy, I think. “Damnit! I hate these cigarettes!” That fucking asshole had some more of my kind, he just didn’t want to get his lazy ass off his chair to go get them…fucker!” She yells through my front windshield. “Therapy averted.” I say over the changing music selection, she just looks at me. My brain is mush and it doesn’t matter because she won’t understand any lie I tell her anyway so I decide to just tell her that I don’t want to take her in the state she’s in. I play out the varying conversations in my head with no good endings. But it has to be done. Two cars ahead of us, the slow one turns off, and the other takes off like a rocket. I speed up to 65 and begin to push out my damning sentence. “Hey, I really don’t…” I stop because I see that my hands are shaking. Not from fear, withdrawals, or anger but from my tires, my worn-out tires. The voice in my head screams for joy. “What?” She says. “I really don’t think it’s safe to drive anymore, see.” I show her the wobble of the steering wheel and remember that she had been in a blow-out accident before…it scared the shit out of her, she had told me once. “I don’t want to be responsible for hurting you, I think we should turn around. I’ll get new tires put on tomorrow, Ok?” I say. “Oh my God, did that just start happening?” True concern filled her face and I knew this trip was over.

We stop at a couple bars on the way home, get kicked out of one and got close to a fight in the other, which would have been the scene at the Book Signing. I write to the people involved when I get home, promising to make the next one. I feel bad missing it, but it was the greater good to just simply not go. My wheels were worn, worn enough to save me some embarrassment and possible kidnapping.

The song “Angel in Blue” by J. Giles Band in the early 80’s somehow always sits in the back of my head when I am around her. It’s a tragic song but it fits her almost perfectly. Her name is Judy and she is a lesbian. We met in a bar, but it was far from Chesapeake Bay as the song goes, it was a small mountain town called Banyan Hill, high in the Mountains and she was one of the first people I met as an actual resident of the town. The nights I spent lying next to her as she flittered and fluttered around, trying to maintain her gayness, was a beautiful test for both of us, especially when we were both on Methamphetamine. The quiet war raged every time we “slept” together. Was it going to happen tonight? Was it going to happen at all? Time after time we either both lost the war or won the war, but neither of us moved. Hanging out together, became a chore, fighting each rumor as it arose, keeping Judy from fighting with other women…and other men, and bartenders, and police, and strangers. I felt like it was my duty to her because we hadn't slept together yet. It connected us in a way I have never been connected to another woman before, platonically. A year of this weird non-sexual relationship began to wear on me and I found I was becoming more paranoid mostly due to the number of drugs we were doing. I started to believe the stories that she came up with, which were getting progressively worse by the week. But then they accepted the offer I made on the house I wanted. A newer home further up the road, 20 minutes away, but whether it was 20 seconds, 20 minutes or 20 years, I had lost contact with her. Old phone number had been disconnected and she moved from her little apartment of Main Street to places unknown. I felt loss, like when a sibling goes to college loss.

My new place sat in a meadow and worked as an eraser, neatly changing my past to fit whatever I wanted it to. Leaving her behind to fend for herself among the wolves of society didn't make me feel bad, it relieved me because, at the end of our prepubescent courtship, I began to think that maybe I was enabling her, always supporting our habit and never telling her no, always hoping for that fateful ride back into the war-zone so we could test our wills again. During this time, while I pieced together the broken parts of my psyche which had taken a major beating the last couple of years, I also worked on my plumbing, electrical and septic for my new residence to make it livable. Every so often I would hear stories about the paranoid, delusional behavior she was exhibiting. Each story that made it up the hill was progressively worse than the last. She was falling deep into the bosom of the drug with no fight, no worry about what it would do to her, no care about what people thought of her, no mind to care at all. With open arms she embraced this decent into what she considered logical thinking, forever challenging people to show her the real truth, I had no time and no tools to help or even worry about her, I was still broken myself.

Four months into my house, I was done with the basics and soon after that, it became my New Haven. I was happy and content, first to have a toilet that worked, but the overall feeling of leaving badness behind kind of content. Even the immediate past of my exodus from the nearby city, the feelings of betrayal and the newly found bar of friends seemed to fall away like dead skin, until it came rolling up my driveway in the form of Judy and two of her friends.

Always interested to see which way our encounters would end up, I invited them in. A day later, we were watching a movie and had not gone to sleep yet. Her friends and I were hitting it off which is when I saw the turn, when I saw what the stories that I had heard were about. “I know what you did.” She says matter of factly, interrupting the most important part of “What Dreams May Come”. “When did you two meets…actually meet?” She looked over at Laurie and I with eyes that were only slits now as she tried to figure out which one of us was going to lie first. “Um, yesterday.” Laurie says. “You were here, remember?” I say always being a smart-ass. “No! When did you two first meet?!” She screams. “Whoa, slow down there Tex, what are you aiming at?” I say, almost happy to finally see this side. “Are you implying that Laurie and I know each other, or knew each other before yesterday?” I said in a nice low, calm manner. “Je-sus! What’d you think I am, stupid?” She says. “Well, if you think that, then yes.” I say. “Judy, you've know me for 14 years, you’ve known Chris for what almost 2 years. Have we ever menti…” “You guys think you’re so smart, but I know, right Debbie?” She says smiling and looking over at her other friend. “Yea, that’s right, you guys should have told her.” She says playing, but Judy ignores the sarcasm in Debbie’s eye roll and continues. “What was the plan, huh? Get my stash, get my money, and get my pills? What exactly did you have planned?” She finishes, gets up and begins to pace, checking under pillows and behind furniture. “Hey tweak, you have lost it. Do you hear me? Can you hear me? You are gonzo sister.” I say in a semi-serious tone. “Ah, man, don’t try to change the subject, I’m onto you and your girlfriend…I’m out of here.” She says and quickly leaves the house beginning her walk down the street, cursing at nothing like people do in the city. “And there you have it, I wanted to show you what was happening so you could maybe help her someway.” Laurie says. “Like what?!” I say dumbfounded. “I don’t know, I can’t handle her anymore, she thinks I’m behind it all.” She says, her face showing me that she really can’t deal with it anymore. “Behind what all?” I say, as I begin to get pissed off. “I don’t know! She thinks everyone is trying to do something to her, whole towns, people she doesn't even know.” Laurie begins to cry. “OK, god Dammit!” I get out of my easy chair, knowing that Judy has ruined any chance of me having sex today, and begin the chase.

I look out my front door, the sun is just barely making through the tops of the Pines behind my house, giving the street a weird zebra-like look to it, but I don’t see her. “She’s gone commando.” I say to the girls before I begin my hunt. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck ring in my ear as I walk down my driveway. Rabbit Season, Duck Season, Rabbit Season, Duck Season, Loony Season…I smile knowing that I will always have my internal voice saying stupid things to make situations like this enjoyable. A hundred yards down the road, I turn to see the girls at the door and wonder why they aren't helping me look, when a twig snaps on the north side of the road. “I hear you wabbit.” I say in my best Elmer Fudd voice, following it with his trademark laugh, realizing a second after that it probably wasn't smart to do that. “Dammit, she can’t hear inside your head idiot.” I mumble to myself. I peer through the thicket of brush into the woods 30 yards beyond and catch a splinter of movement. “Come on Judy, get a grip.” I say loud enough to not sound hostel. I traverse the brush, sounding like a drunk bear and hear a little scamper, she is close. “What can I say to make you believe me that we haven’t met?” I use my needy boyfriend voice. “Why didn't you invite me up, was she always here?” A voice from the shadows interrupts my next question. “Because you’re not a bear?” I say, again cursing the way my brain works. “What?!” She IS close. You wouldn't feel comfortable shitting in the woods, right…I had to redo my pluming…and my electrical, and I just finished it a couple days ago…you guys are the first ones up here.” I say, this time I wait for an answer. “How do you know so much about each other then?” She says, I can hear her voice calming down. “Well, because we've been talking for the past 24 hours or so, remember?” I say. “Well…then why did you say…that…you’d…we’d…” I can hear her brain trying to piece together different subjects that created the problem. “Listen, I just met her and Debbie, what good would come to me lying to you, what would I gain that I don’t have already…or could get?” I say, trying to instill some logic into the woman. “But you guys talked so much, you had to be planning something.” She says dejected. I remember that tone from elementary school and the answer pops into my head. She has a crush on Laurie. “Look, I’m not going to try anything with Laurie or Debbie, I was just trying to be a good host…you’re the first person I met up here, I trust you and have stuck up for you…and I really don’t want to chase you down and tackle you, but if you want I will do that…if you’re bored.” I say. Her little rabbit head pops around a tree 40 yards further into the woods. “You couldn't catch me in a million years.” She says smiling slowly coming out from hiding. “I’ll race you back to the house, then, wabbit.” I say, but it is still lost on her. “No, I’m tired, I ran a long way.” She says and we begin our walk back to my house.

We quip and joke as we slowly meander our way back. She is older than I am by 3 years, but still looks like a young Jennifer Aniston…kind of, that’s been up for a while…and hasn't eaten. If she asked, I would take her right now, on the street, or in the woods, but somehow, I know she won’t. “I’ll fix us some dinner, what’ll you like cereal, toast…or I could make some tuna fish sandwiches with some soup…I am a gourmet cook you know.” I say, still trying to put her at ease. “I've seen you cook, let Laurie and Deb do that.” She says and slugs me in the arm. “You’re pretty stealthy…for a human, but you are no wabbit.” I say. “What in the fuck does that mean?” She says, exasperated. “Elmer Fudd, Bugs Bunny, Loony Tunes…remember?!” I say just as exasperated. “Oh yea…Jesus, I thought you had lost it.” She says. “You thought I lost it, listen lady, you did lose it and you need to apologize to your friends because you did.” I say. “Fuck those two, all they want is free drugs and some sex.” She says. That’s when I realize that something had permanently snapped inside her somewhere.”

The other two bi-sexual females cook for us even though the term Bi-sexual never seems to leave the room. Judy’s head is still vaguely clear while it continues to move into a permanent meth cloud noticing the drug induced interest that the three of us hold. But with the watchful eye of Judy, nothing happens after we continue through another day of semi-lucid, sexually sprinkled conversations. It almost seems like my girlfriend is a prude, but I've heard the stories and seen the knowing looks that the three have given each other while they were being told. I take a break and meander back to the front of the house. My legs barely work as I shuffle into the kitchen. It’s black outside, not dark but black. I get another glass of water and wonder if this battle is over yet, only to be answered by the sound of the three lovers making their way towards the front of the house. “We got to get going, but we’ll be back later.” Judy says, not letting the other two talk. “Alright, then…you know its 3:45 am, you sure you want to try that trek down the hill. “Yea, shift change, we’ll be home before anyone knows.” She says and ushers the other two out the door. I remember her saying, in one of our day long conversations, that she had gotten the sheriffs and CHP schedule from somebody once. “Well, ok, be safe.” I say and look at the other two as they leave for some kind of sign, but there is none. I watch from my front porch as the car slices through the night and into it. For the next 3 hours I go over my relationship with Judy, coming up with nothing that logically resembles anything healthy. I always liked the chase better than the catch anyway summarizing this last encounter as the morning begins. “I wonder when I’ll see her again.” I say sitting in my easy chair and closing my eyes. Weeks went by and I lose touch again. I become settled into my house, tweaking the furniture and closet space forgetting about my private wars with a lesbian and losing the want to try to turn her.

I get back from my vacation, from nothing, on a crisp, late January evening. I begin to unpack when I realize that I can see my breath, so I stop and light a fire in the main hearth. This is my first winter and I reflect on having to light a fire as I walk back to the bedroom to continue unpacking, then the phone rings. The quietly frantic voice on the other end finished three sentences before I recognized the voice. “Dude, you got to get me out of here, bad shit is happening.” She finishes in an even quieter tone. I can tell she’d been up for a while, again. “Ok, ok, calm down, what exactly is happening?” I say and I can hear her take a breath. “It’s the people from Clayton, there’s something big going down and I have to get out of here, can you help me?” She says, and once again I am caught up in the tailwind of possibilities, wondering what, if anything, is going on. But my curiosity is greater than I thought, so I trek down the hill, leaving my house to be warmed for no one.

When I arrive at her house there is already a moving van with people that I haven’t seen before moving furniture out. “Judy!” I scream through the garage, not knowing what exactly is going on yet. “Yo, Chris, come up here to the bedroom.” She screams from the second story window. “Great.” I say and head upstairs, saying hello to a couple guys and a girl, who are dutifully moving things out of her house into the van. The stairs are a mess and I can detect a faint smell of pot as I climb up. Her bedroom is empty already and she is taking the last things out of her closet. “I need you to drive the van.” She says so fast it almost sounds like a different language. “Whoa, hold on sister, how about a, who, what and where or at least a hello?” I say on the verge of being pissed off. “What?” She says as she continues to pack and unpack a pile of nick-knacks. “Oh, hello…how was your trip?” She asks. “How did you…” I begin, but she cuts me off. “I know things, dude, and now grab that bag and…” She is wasted, and I am done so I cut her off. “What the fuck is going on!” I sound crazy, but it works and she stops for a second to do a double-take. “Why are you mad at me?” She says. “Number one, you have help…number two, you have a van…number three, what the fuck is going on!” I am already tired of this conversation. “It’s the people from my hometown, they went by my mom’s house yesterday looking for me.” She says continuing to find stuff to pack that I hadn’t seen. “And?!” I ask. “And what? They want to get rid of me, I know things.” She says, she is beyond wasted, she has gone away again. “Why do I need to drive then?” I am calm, realizing the situation is hopeless and meaningless. “Didn't you rent the truck?” She says, completely believing that I did. “Where did you call me…where have I been? Was it at the rental place or was…it…at…my…” I don’t finish the sentence because she isn’t paying any attention to me. “I found a place, its right up by you, I got to be out of here in 2o minutes before the landlady comes and sees stuff missing, and you know where it is don’t you?” The drug that is at work on her brain buries the fact that I did not rent the truck. This is too much for me, so I turn around and walk out of the bedroom. Hitting the stairs, I wait for her voice to ask me where I was going, but it remains silent until I leave, putting that chaos in my rear view mirror…literally.

The road home I try to think of things that I could do for her, but there is nothing, it is too late for her and the only thing that is going to save her is death or arrest. The tension begins to leave my back and head the further I get while I look around at the scenery on my new road home. I hope that she was lying about a place up by me, but in her state, I would be surprised if there even was a place at all, my time is over and I am no longer intrigued to see what kind of war awaits us, because I know it will be fractured at best. She is out of my life for good and it is finally by my hand.

Judy’s name slowly begins to fade as I drive. Then one of the unforeseen pleasantries that had been lost on me when I moved up here pops into my head and begins to work on my psyche. The cell reception in our part of the mountains is, on its best day, spotty and completely inert at my house, so whenever I leave somewhere, if I can get to a certain point on the highway before anyone calls, I’m free of the guilt that I get when ignoring calls. That mental marker is still too far away, but it revives Judy face in my head. I can see her stumbling downstairs, looking for me and calling my name, followed by a bevy of curses. I can see her go to where the phone used to be and then cursing again. Running outside to the garage she stops because she’s out of breath from her ruined lungs, diving into the moving van and throwing boxes around as her “helpers” stop and look at her in awe.

Trees begin to move by me faster as my foot presses down on the accelerator a little harder. I wait and wait for the mental marker to come into view, but it seems like it keeps moving away. “Any second now.” I say, expecting the phone to ring. I can see her stop and use her brain for more than just a delusional instrument, digging in the right place and finding her prize. She picks up the cordless phone and runs back inside for some reason to make the call. I know where the marker is, I know that I've received calls here at the first meadow before, always losing them at the marker. “Where is IT?” I scream, like I’m looking for lost shortcut in my escape from my childhood monster. I see Judy realize her mistake of forgetting the base unit, running back outside, tripping over small boxes and other assorted crap. A moment later she has it and holds it up like an Olympian with a torch, missing the boxes she tripped over on the way out, she is a moment away.

Around the next corner is a beautiful wooded scene with a meadow, inhabited by an old broken-down barn, back lit by the familiar, majestic pines of Northern California. The barn is weathered and always seems like the wind could blow it over, yet it stands there timelessly laughing at Mother Nature…this is the marker and the part of my uphill journey that I always relish. Today it’s lost on my need to make it to the safe zone before Judy can call me and use her siren-like song to get me to turn around. 100 yards, 70 yards, 50 yards…time stands still and I can hear the phone ring in my head, I can hear her cooing something insanely enticing at me then using my want to right my course. I finish that thought and notice that I’ve made it. I breathe a sigh of rel…bbbbbbring…bbbbbbbring…bbbbbbring. My head drops in defeat, I have to answer so I hit send on my phone. I can hear what sounds like a question, but the magnetic fields, or sunspots, or possibly god intervenes and cuts her off in mid question. Feeling safe and saved I turn on the radio that had been turned off so I could concentrate. My shoulders lower and I sit back in my driver’s seat. Her face fades with every turn I make.

My lazy-boy chair is extra comfortable today, finishing my unpacking and mail and message reading not expecting any more intrusions from...her. I turn on the television, crash into my chair and begin to catch up on all my recorded shows. But either the chair is too comfortable, or too many days on the road or just being in a working house that I own comforts me to the point of sleep. I close my eyes and can only see the roads from my vacation, I smile and then doze off into a beautiful dream that unfolds slowly and simply. I decide to stay a while and let the world move on without me.

With my memory erased of temporary shortcomings, I move about my usual doings starting the last lap of my insane life and loving my own little “private Idaho.” Weeks’s pass and I am beginning to be a part of my new community. The mundanities of life after work start their assault in little doses so they don’t register as anything that I should be worried about. I stop drinking at the local bar, not because of any trouble, just because my schedule of watching television, reading books and writing my memories filled my very boring dance card. I continued with a smile for a while, but then a little tinct of remembrance that called itself “want” crept into my head one night as I watched the movie “Blow” with Johnny Depp. Faded atrocities of social debauchery became crystal clear and I wanted again. With my fear of groups and no sponsor to talk me down, having substituted the 12-step program for the 1 step program, I longed hard for my favorite vice killer in Judy and now I could see her face as if she was looking in through the window.

I survived that night by taking some “night time acetaminophen”. I woke up the next morning with the want so thick on my chest I could feel its fingers wrapping around my rib cage. I was about to get up and take some more over the counter sleeping pills so I could grog my way through the day, when a weird memory flashed across my eyes. It was the memory of her smile when we left the woods, almost like she liked me that way. I was going to need divine intervention to sate my awful want, but somehow, I got the prayer wrong and Judy called instead. “Hey Douche, what are you doing?” She sounded chipper and not delusional. “Nothing, where have you been?” I ask, hoping for an answer that put her far away, around the corner. “Dude, I’m 1.34 miles up the hill from you, I rented this little cabin from the bar owner.” She says and a shiver runs down my back. “Johnny rented you his cabin?” I say, bewildered, letting the exact mileage from my house to hers float underneath the bridge of warning.

I had met John a year before when I was house hunting and then, of course, ran into him at the bar. Since then we had become pretty good friends. “Yea, he asked if you were ok. What’s up, you quit drinking?” She says and I know now how she got the place. But before I can scold her on the use of my name, she says something horrible. “You want to come up, Laurie and Deb are here and we have a big care package for you. Care package was code for drugs, I am up before I decide to go and I have to make myself stop in front of the mirror. Standing in the bathroom, looking in the mirror I look for some sort of sign that I know how this is going to end, but there is only the want, the need for another battle…outcome be damned.

I check the mileage at the turn off to see if she was fucking around with me, she was. The steep hill down to her place I remember, wondering if I could get out with a fresh coating of snow on it, which facilitated me getting my Jeep. Pulling up to her drop off, I get out and can see the over the valley that the Renton Pass River calls home. I very much wanted that picture for my own, it outweighed the troubles of getting up my driveway. The two girls are already outside and heading towards me. I begin to shut the door then stop and check the speedometer. It reads 1.34 miles and a part of me wants to get back in the Jeep, but the girls are beautiful and happy, so I don’t.

The mountain theme is thick inside this place, it matches the outside perfectly. The large open “main room” has a 4-piece sectional couch that takes up most of the room. The television is placed over the fireplace and all that with the girls on my side make me want to stay forever. Judy comes walking out of the room with a plate that has white lines on it. My will is weak, if you can call it a will, but even the staunches proponent of the “just say no” movement would not be able to say no to this scene. So, I partake and begin yet another battle. With the first line gone, that feeling erupts inside of me and all useful thought is pigeonholed in the place in my brain that I reserve for such an event. With it logic, safety and well-being neatly stored away, I roll down the path of wanton desire wondering which way to turn. We talk and talk for hours, watching the sun set and rise over the valley. Laurie is a vision, and Debbie is hilarious but Judy is slowly becoming Judy. We listen to her conspiracy theories about the people in Clayton, along with other outlying cities from here to there. She’s getting worked up and we are getting bored and frustrated. “So, do you want to screw?” Debbie asks me with no care or thought of what the other two might say or do. “Well, ok…just us two?” I say fishing for the answer every man wants. “What?! No way, man.” Judy stands up starting her rant. “I fucking knew it! It was you two, I saw it before, but I thought Laurie was the mole.” Judy’s face tightens and starts to say something else. “Yea, I’m in.” Laurie say matter of factly. “It’ll be fun.” She finishes, which is the breaking point for Judy. Her voice hits an octave that I hadn't heard before and it doesn't get lost in the echo of the woods as she continues her rant standing up and walking outside. “I was right, you two are dead to me, no more drugs, and no more anything…I swear I should have never showed you where I live…” Her voice finally begins to lose volume as she disappears into the woods below her house. “I wasn't serious, well I was, but I was just saying it then because she thinks she owns me…I didn't think she would blow up like that.” Laurie says, trying to figure out who to look at. “Well, I think she is “in love?” with you.” I say, throwing it out there. “That’s not it, she’s likes you, Chris.” Debbie says. We all just sit there and try to make our brains work. In the distance you can faintly hear Judy’s final sentence. “AND YOU CAN SUCK MY DICK!” We’d better go get her before something happens.” Debbie says. “My turn last time, one or both of you are on this one.” I say and lay down on the couch and close my eyes, the last thing I hear is the door close and a muffled conversation that trails off like smoke.

I wake up on the floor next to the couch, the lights are on and I can see, upside down, that it is dark outside. The courting portion of my stay here is most definitely over. But my nap was too long and sleep finally found me. I listen for a second, not moving. Then a beat later, the 3 start up their conversation where it had left off when they heard me stir. “We just didn't want to hear about them anymore, that’s why I said it.” A voice says, but I can’t tell which one of the bi-sexual women said it. “Yea, we would never sleep with him, just trying to get a rise out of you, I’m sorry.” I recognize Laurie’s voice. “I don’t care, it’s just that fucking Johnny is giving the key to downstairs to everyone, shit’s missing all over the place and I’m going to have to pay for it.” Judy finishes. “That fucking wife of his is trying to set me up…Jesus, she thinks I’m so stupid…but I know, I know what she does when Johnny’s working and I know what they’re both trying to do to me here.” Judy says, followed by the sound of a lighter and an over-exaggerated exhale, which is followed by a big long sniff. Since Johnny and I had become friends, I've met his wife and been to a couple parties at his house and there is no way that Lydia would try to set anyone up, let alone sleep around…even if she was smart enough too. This thought is interrupted by another bit of news. “And that fucking Ted too.” Judy never stops. “I called him to fix the water heater, then the next day, my fishing poles were missing, how do you like that? I give him a job and he rips me off.” Judy is full blown gacked-out, and I’d have to say by just listening to her, worse than the last time I saw her. Ted had helped me with some of the more intricate plumbing in my house, being sent by Johnny, and we had become friends too. He’s been this area’s handyman for the past 15 years…with no complaints, so I know that is a lie.

It made me remember a story Ted had told to the bar on one of my last day’s there about this crazy tweaked out woman that tried to sell him some fishing poles she found. I remember Johnny, who was bar-tending that day, stop making a drink as he listened to the story. “Those were mine, I wondered if I had put them somewhere else or if they had gotten stolen…now I know I guess.” He says and laughs it off. “I should have bought them, but she wanted $500 for them, then I could have sold them back to you…at a discounted price of course.” Ted finishes and laughs. “This is your drink right?” Johnny says as he stops pouring alcohol into it. The bar laughs and I remember a quick thought that it might be Judy. “Is everyone up here a thief?” Debbie asks. “God…a thief, a druggie, a whore, they all live up here. And then her voice gets lower. “Even that one over there, he keeps trying to fuck me…even after I told him I was gay…he always makes passes at me, when you guys aren't around.” She says. Sounds of shock reverberate off the high celling’s in the cabin. When we were first curtailing rumors about us, she used to boast that I was the only guy that didn't make a pass at her, but the best part was that she had said it to these two the first night I met them. There are no sounds of shock, because Laurie and Debbie, if they didn't know already, know now that everything she says is a conspiratorial lie. “In fact, he’s probably the one that set me up at the last place, and his cousin lives in Clayton…holy shit, I forgot about that. That motherfucker…he’s the one.” I can hear her lips thin with the last couple of words.

Another couple of slights against me being spoiled and stupid was all I could take, but I took a moment to think about my attack so instead of standing up I remained on the floor behind the couch. “I’m the one what, exactly?” I say in a low mellow voice. “What…oh, nothing, you've been asleep for a while, you want a line?” She says, thinking that I just got up. “I don’t want to make you mad, but I've been listening to your insane blathering for a while now…and I’d like to know exactly what I am the one of.” I say, keeping her arraignment civil. “You can’t make me mad.” She says either forgetting about the second half of the question or trying to handle an embarrassing situation. “We will shelve that statement for later, what I want to know, and I will ask you for the 3rd time now, what am I the one of, or to quote you, “That…Mother…Fucker…Pause…He’s…The…One, end quote.” I say, still calm. “What?” She says, trying to buy time to figure out the mess in her head. So I begin to straighten it out for her. “Let’s address, what I've heard, ok?” I begin my closing argument not letting her answer before I start up again, even if she could. “Ok, number one, there is no key to downstairs, there is a pull string that you probably pulled off in the dark, so Johnny didn't give the key to anyone, nor is there anything missing that he cares about because it is a place for unwanted garbage.” I say, always calm. “Number two, Johnny and Lydia are not trying to pull anything on you, it is your fucked up m…” I am interrupted by Judy. “Oh, yea, how do you know Johnny, how do I know you don’t let him know what I’m doing?” She says getting me mixed up with someone else. The “not being seen” strategy just got its first outcome. “Nor does Lydia screw around on him, Johnny is her life, she loves him and unfortunately I must say that she is not smart enough to do the things you are accusing her of. And to answer your last question, I met Johnny when I was house hunting, I was going to buy this place, but he wanted too much money and we have become friends.” I finish. “I knew it!” She screams. “What, that we’re friends? What exactly does that prove? Wait, before you answer I’d like to finish.” I say from my safe place. “To address Ted, he would not steal from Johnny basically because they are related to each other and I have it on good authority that it was you that tried to sell the poles to him that day.” In that little pause, I remember a story from the bar further up the hill about a tweaked-out old lady that sold some fishing poles to the local whore, but not for 500 dollars, for a “40” of meth. “I also know the girl who bought the poles…and for what?” I say, letting her think about all this new information. “I bet you fucked her, didn't you.” She says. “Yes, but that does not change the fact that I know where she lives and I know that she still has the poles.” I lie a little bit for a second. “And, I’m imagining that person is you, because the young girl, whose name is Celia, said that the woman couldn't stop saying she was new in the area and that she really needed what she traded for.” I say. “What did she trade it for?” Both Laurie and Debbie say. “None of your business.” I say curtly. “You don’t know anything, man…you just want to fuck these two whores.” She says. I can feel her getting angrier. “Yes, that’s true.” I say. “Man, I wish I had your life, fuck everyone you meet while getting enough money from your daddy not to care about your house or your friends. You’re just a spoiled little man-child, that’s so bored with life that you have to try to fuck a lesbian…you never had a chance by the way.” Her final argument complete, I can hear her breathe, she is almost frothing mad. I begin my final argument, which will either end up in a triple murder-suicide or a quick trip to the hospital with a young lady that had a coronary. Judy, I earned my place in this community, “daddy”, didn't give me anything, in fact, I left the family business because of people that lied almost as much as you do. The only evidence of me “not caring” about my house, or my friends, is you saying that I don’t. How you attack me personally, who I might add is the only person from up here that has stuck by you, and made it able for you to get housed is beyond anything, anyone has ever done to me. I continue my attack from the floor. “Now the fact that you treat these two like slaves and wonder why, when someone like me comes along and that they might have an interest in, to be an affront to you is, well, “tweaker logic” and just plain selfish.

You accuse good people who have done nothing except help and house you’re tweaked out melon…” She tries to interrupt, but I quickly stand, meet her glare and continue over her. “…to the point where they are asking me if they did anything wrong. I tell them no, they didn't, giving them the excuse that you’re dying of something, to make up for all the hair brained things that you try. If you think your idiocy up here goes unchecked and your lies are believed, I challenge you to go to any of the 3 bars up here and find someone that trusts you. Wait, no, any business.

This whole time using a non-threatening voice, very calm, very collected, I can see it working on her like it used to with my ex-wife. The calmer I was, the crazier she would get. By this time, both girls’ mouths were open and Judy was a bright red. I lay back down on the floor, because it was comfortable. She doesn't try to interrupt this time. So I continue. You think that we are all thieves, you think that we are all druggies, you think that we are all whores. All I've seen, all anyone has seen is you, being a thief, you, being a tweaker, you, being a whore. That is what is seen, that is what we as a community believe. So basically, you are right. Everyone is against you, you are being watched, but there is no malice there, we just want to stay away from you and your FUCKING TWEAKER SHIT!” I raise my voice at the end only because I think she had turned off her brain and was now just coasting. But with my grandiose finish, she just sat there, trying to take everything in. “Are you ok?” Laurie asks. “out.” Judy is so quiet I thought she just mouthed the words. “What?” Debbie asks. “OUT, EVERYONE OUT, GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE!” She erupts. From behind the couch I smile, collect my things and leave her to do whatever she wants to do. I can hear her scream all the obscenities I know as I begin to walk up the outside stairs to the cars.

I am up at the Jeep, ready to get in when the girls catch me. “Chris, she’s crying in her room.” Laurie says, hoping to trick me back into that mess. “I don’t care.” I say and get hop into the driver’s seat. “That’s cold.” Debbie says from the top of the stairs. “She called you two hooker slaves and could care less about you. But I will not tell you what to do, if you want to stay, then stay. If you want to come back to my place you’re welcome there. I start the Jeep when I see Judy through the windshield, redder than a lobster, tears rolling down her face, but still yelling something about me being spoiled or something. I reverse and go to wave goodbye. “Well?” She says. Not hearing her and not knowing what to say is leave with, “I thought I couldn't make you mad?” I say with a smile, then slowly climb the driveway that was almost mine. I don’t look in the mirror because I’m afraid I’ll see her sprinting up the hill for the kill.

The sun, was setting behind the foothills, but on this side of the mountain it was already dusk, I flip my lights on just to be responsible. How could a person like that survive in the city, let alone up here? Paranoia in the woods is dangerous, especially if you’re from the city and in my travels I have seen the errant meth-head skedaddling across the dark wood lined roads at night like the animal that they are, that I am. I can only imagine what kinds of things are chasing them. They chased Judy all the way to the top of the mountains. I begin to feel bad about laying that all on her. I realize that even when I can’t hear it, her siren voice works at me, trying to make me forgive her. Even before I get home, I want her as much as the first time I saw her.

A year had passed since Auburn and like always the memory of going away hung in the back of my head like some unknown piece of brain, reminding me of all the past trips and helping me hide my failing life. But this year was different. No drinking at “Courts” bar the night before, so I have no hangover. No friends waiting for me at the airport, calling me and telling me to get my ass out of the bar, so there is no rush. And this year I have no family or loved ones telling me to be careful, and don’t drink too much, waving goodbye with worried, woeful looks on their faces, so there is no unneeded feeling of guilt that I must fight with. The only goodbye I receive is from my cat Floyd with the only way she can…with a blank cat stare. I lock the front door and try to feel something. Regret, excitement, horror…but nothing comes to me. I blink twice to wake myself from this self-imposed mental prison, turn and walk to my car like a zombie would.

The time I spent drinking at my usual bar, slowly chipping away at her impossible-to-have-me-but-you-can-still-dream persona, had finally paid off. She has been my personal favorite bartender through my last two failed relationships, knowing me more intimately that either of the women I was with. Since the first time I saw her, I fantasized about breaking this non-dateable bartender, listening to all the fuck stories she would freely tell only her most prized patrons. Those stories all ended with her breaking the poor soul, then ceremoniously kicking him to the curb. I would analyze the missteps the other suiters had taken, then smile or sometimes laugh mid-story at the obvious way to deal with a woman like Wendy, noting to myself that I would never have handled said situation the way they had. The rain had stopped around 2am, Wendy had asked me to wait for her to get off work, and she wanted to talk. We stand next to my car in the puddled parking lot, her car is next to mine, and the smell of the wet asphalt is overwhelmingly sexy. She said she wanted to talk but we don’t talk. The way she kisses me reminds me of how it was being kissed the first time. Our hands are on each other like we’ve known each other for years, touching places that wanted to be touched…it is ecstasy. “Whollyshitfuck!” I say as I cross the warning ridges this time. Once again, I’ve sacrificed a good night’s rest for a woman, but this felt different, it felt like it might be worth the bags under my eyes and the short attention span. For the next hour I relived every kiss, every caress, and every public indecency that occurred the night before with sheer animalistic delight. But with every ebb of pain making my head split, there was a flow of Wendy reducing the pain to an itch.

I arrive at the Carmel County Inn at 6pm, dinner is at 7pm so I unpack, click on the fireplace and grab my phone as the next storm begins to assault the coast. The bed is plush…too plush for me but I don’t care. Wendy’s texts are so wanton, so deliberate, so sexually fearless that I had to take a break a couple time…least I go to hell. Texting is new to me and although it seems impersonal, it is practical. I can work out what I want to say without stumbling over words, but there is no problem with words tonight. My fingers flow with poetry and pornography feeling around in the electronic dark for the boundary that I shouldn’t cross, not finding one. I end our lovemaking and tell her I will call her in the morning, throw the phone on the bed and walk into the storm without an umbrella, not caring how wet I got.

The rain is coming down again now, following me and laughing with its droll wetness about my past adventure, but I am not listening…Wendy is waiting. I get my phone and see that Wendy has sent me some messages already. I answer and we continue back and forth with astounding frivolity for the next hour. The laughing rain, the fire swept shadows on the wall, the too plush bed, they all tell me it’s time to go to sleep, so I do… with my phone in my hand and Wendy in my head.

I’ve been down this road a hundred times and like the comfortable feel of a band aid over a cut or a blanket over you when your cold or like the beginning of a much-anticipated movie, eventually the band aid falls off, the blanket needs to be put away and the movie ends. Right now, my relationship with Wendy had a comfortable feeling to it. We had been dating for a year or so and I still couldn’t get her to go on vacation with me, but because we were in such a good place there were no ill feelings and no guilt when I took off on my own.

Camping at Kirk Creek was such a special event I counted the days to revisit the Oceanside campground Dan had introduced to me on the 4th of July a year earlier. Hwy 1 from Big Sur south is a gift as always, the dark blue-green ocean feels deep from my truck window while the creamy turquoise of the shallows crashes against the rocky shore 200’ below. The colors and the smells lull me into a driving trance, the curt curves of Hwy 1 are nothing but a trigger in the back of my mind and my eyes gloss over. Wendy is always there floating in the base of my consciousness, ready to be accessed at any moment, but now with the road, the ocean and now a large storm on the horizon, she takes a back seat. Kirk Creek is set on a knoll about 30 miles south of Big Sur, its open camp sites, separated by chinquapin lets the wind from the shore rip through the knoll only to be stopped by its lone tree, but by then it’s too late. The drop off is covered by the same bush and if you aren’t careful, the old phrase ‘the first step is a doozy’, becomes a whole lot less funny. With my tent set up, my fire started and my old tapes playing, it is time to start drinking, the other campers are in the same mode as I try to listen to their conversations. An hour into my vacation I sit and watch the storm scrape along the coast north of me, it looks like some ancient leviathan attacking the coast trying to ruin my first night of camping, but it doesn’t know me and it will soon be disappointed. Steak, potato and corn on the cob are all on the barbeque. I sit and taunt this sheep of a storm from my folding chair, hoping it will bite back, but it doesn’t. The food smells wonderful and I begin to eat, the storm sits just offshore showing me it’s middle finger, so I finish my food, fix another drink and wrangle my old scribbling.

With drink in hand, dishes washed and a beautiful grey-black storm staring me in the face I jump into my old stories, but I am distracted. Although Wendy took a back seat on the way down here, she keeps popping her head into the forefront of my mind now confusing me. I try to remember the past, but her face is sending me to other places, and while my old favorite music in the whole world plays, I can hear her music instead, and see her face as she tries to sing it. I fight thinking about her because I am in the perfect setting to write, but after a drink I relent and put away my yellow pad, thinking freely of Wendy and cursing the stalling storm.

The light from the sun is failing and I guiltily remember passing a 20 something hitchhiker just out of Big Sur, her sign said “Moro Bay”. Her smooth face half covered by her long dirty blonde hair, her robust body and the longing look in her eyes said ‘please stop’ and as I passed and looked away, I felt a little ‘pang’ in my stomach. “That could have been something to write about.” I say to myself, but I am in love with Wendy. The night jumps me with visions of Wendy in my head and I realize that the fire is just coals, so I retire to the tent that my ex-wife bought me, not even thinking about her. I lay down and I can hear the squirrels talking to each other, mocking me, sending squirrel coded messages about me and my campsite but other than that the night is calm and the storm stays away. I sleep like a drunken pirate, my snoring had to keep the animals away but as I exit my tent in the morning, I can see rabbit and quail run away. I laugh until I see the paw prints on the back of my truck. “Fucking rodents! I scream at the bushes. Although the storm stayed in the Pacific, it was still freezing and I vaguely remember what sounded like a deer almost run over my tent in the night. I snack and weigh my vacation options, choosing Wendy over camping. I am packed inside of 10 minutes and back on the road, but the storm I had taunted last night was gone and in the grey mist of the morning overcasts all I can think about is Wendy.

My relationship with Wendy was a rollercoaster of ups and downs, but this time was different, I wasn’t going to give up, I was going to fight this time. There were times when we were happy and downright domesticated and every time, I looked at her I thought to myself that I was the one that tamed the shrew, I was the lion tamer, I was the drag racer that escaped the horrible crash and there were times that marriage popped into my head. I wasn’t fighting or forcing my ideals on my partner, I was just rolling down the green grassy knoll, smelling the grass and picking the roses. It didn’t even bother me when she said I couldn’t grow my hair or drink bourbon and I barely bit my lip when she said I couldn’t drink anywhere except where she worked and only after she was off. I was playing the supporting role and to tell the truth I didn’t mind the sobriety, the short hair or the ‘Chris has changed’ looks my family and friends gave me. I was on my way to my future with this woman and it felt good.

But fire needs fire to survive and I was acting more like ice. She began to resent my nonchalant attitude towards our relationship not realizing that I was just trying not to sabotage it in my usual way. In our “discussions” about how and why I had changed I began to realize that I wasn’t the one that tamed anything, she had broken me like an Indian would a wild mustang and now she was bored with and pissed at her new creation. The fights got more frequent and pettier, I spent my time apologizing for making her angry or waiting for her to cool down to see what I did or didn’t do. Then the special dates with her ex-boyfriends and the ‘friendly’ kisses she gave them which were more than friendly. My domestication had become complete. I was now the little bitch that had to wait for her to get home before I did anything.

One night I was in trouble again for something I didn’t understand and I couldn’t go to her bar for either the drunk, an explanation or to even apologize so I made the only choice she left me. It snapped in me like a bull whip, woke me up, electrocuted the base of my spine and as I drove down to Branham Lounge my back straightened up, my eyes got clearer and I began to smile knowing that the old Chris was about to make an appearance. There were more smiles and laughs than drinks that night. Ignoring my phone made me feel good and not feeling guilty about flirting made me feel even better. I fell hard off the wagon that night finding myself at a friend’s house with a straw in my hand. As the sun rose, I knew I had ended it with Wendy. She was already mad at me and now with me not being home, the unanswered phone calls and the mirror in front of me I knew it was over.

By the time I got home she was there with two of her friends moving her stuff out, as I expected. I didn’t say a word to her but just walked by her into my room and closed the door. But fire needs fire so she walked into my room without knocking. “I don’t want to do this.” She said, finally seeing my old fire she had put out. “You’ve made your choice.” Is all I said, remembering how good freedom tasted? She continued her fight to keep us together, but all I heard was her telling me to change then asking me where did the man I fell in love with go? I was done with this madness. “You’ve made your choice.” I say after she finishes and pull the covers over my head. The last thing I hear is the very soft click of my bedroom door closing…she was gone, and I was too worn out to care.

The ocean is supposed to be liberating, filling our ears with the soothing sounds of chaos, which is conveniently bottled up, and sold to those businessmen that have let their lives slip dangerously close to the edge. It is supposed to fill the empty spaces in our heads, helping us solve all of life’s little problems. For me, it is just another noise. It’s a pet rock for your head, a placebo saline tablet for your soul, or a security blanket that you can wrap around your head to help deafen life’s personality. Without booze, it is simply just another thing you have to wade through to get to a thought, but so far, I haven’t been privy to the ‘without’ experience. But that if you add booze and a best friend to the equation, there is nothing that cannot be defined, explained, rationalized, or forgotten on a beach, in front of an ocean, and I think I needed a little bit of everything today. On the drive over to my best friend Dan’s house, I mull over the recent events that have begun to build an incredibly strong sense of distrust with the public entities who, I thought, were here to serve and protect, absolve and forgive their communities. Instead, I happened upon a very dangerous battle, with the formidable foes who call themselves the Police, and the Catholic Church. Five years ago, I was a quiet boy, with good grades, but as I lick my wounds from this last expulsion from school, making me a nineteen-year-old three-time expellee, I realize that this last loss is a devastating, life changing loss, dealt by unusually personal attackers. Three different Catholic schools saw fit to take away my learning, while at the same time killing my God, leaving two-thirds of me not just missing, but mutilated. During this assault on my soul, three different Police agencies changed their policy in regards to me, doing away with warnings for the small infractions and forgoing the need for just cause, innocents, and in one case even proof that I had done what they said I did. This realization finished as I pulled up into Danny’s driveway. “This is just the beginning…it’s going to get worse.” I say, as Dan opens the door. “Welcome back…man, you look like you could use a drink.” He says. “Let’s go to Santa Cruz.” I say, trying not to speed off. 

The soothing sounds of chaos. They can call it whatever they want, I’ll take the pet rock, placebo, and security blanket, I’ll even take the fake noise of chaos, I just need that chaos to be the kind I can trust, and the kind I can control, the kind that will help me formulate my next battle plan, or justify the actions of the warring parties.

The overcast, late April rainstorm catches to top of the Santa Cruz Mountains, stalling the storm and giving me my first bit of good luck. “This will clear the beaches.” I say to Dan, he nods in agreement trying to gage how desperate or deep of a mood I am in today. Danny and I were in my 1984 gray and black, Turbo Mustang, cruising through the rain-laden road that cut through the mountain pass on a drunken meandering kind of pace. We weren’t in any particular hurry because, due to the rain, we knew nobody was at the beach. We awkwardly drifted through the mountains like drunken teenage ghosts haunting the early Saturday morning mists, inching our way to what I hoped was a spiritual quick fix. Charlie Sexton’s song, “Beat’s so lonely”, is on the radio and for the first time I listen to his lyrics, and for the first time I get that it’s supposed to be a sad song.

We stop at the mom-and-pop store on 21st avenue to pick up Mickey’s Big Mouth beers and some Jakarta cloves, or whatever the ones in the orange pack were called, to help celebrate my dubious homecoming. The Twin Lakes beach is deserted, as we expected, so we set camp at the first available dune. Sitting in our dugout sand chairs, which partially block the wind from the storm, we sit and reminisce about the parties and girlfriends from high school. The sand and ocean help me recall the time from my senior trip in Hawaii, and the three-girl fiasco I had gotten myself into. Two of them are my girlfriends, one from each school I attended senior year, both had been accepted to out of state colleges and with every conversation I could feel them trying to somehow wedge the break up speech into it. But after three days of waiting, while trying to split my time evenly between them, I got tired of the situation, and cheated on both of them. I didn’t do this on purpose, but the right girl, at the right time fell right into my lap. Kim was a girl who didn’t want a boyfriend, and either she or her friends would talk about the hook up, and jumpstart my single life. “Why didn’t you just give them the long-distance excuse?” Dan said, being the voice of reason. “Well first, I missed my window with all of the moving I was doing, and second, that would have ruined my trip, dummy.” I say being my usual jackass self. “Yea, well Karen told me that they found out about each other at your graduation, and you didn’t need to rely on circulating the event, because everyone was watching you while you did it. Do you think the party stopped, and everyone went home just because you and Kim went out on the balcony?” Dan said, giving me some new information. “They…what?” I said, taking a long toke on my clove. “You idiot, of course they knew, I think some of the girls even caught Sue walking in, and turned her around. Dan said. “Graduation? Well, I guess they didn’t want to ruin their vacations either.” I say. “You’re an idiot.” Dan says after a long pause. “Well, shit. I wish I could do that over then.” I say, thinking about how poorly I played that hand. I look over at Dan and his eyes get wide. “We can!” He says. I am stumped for a moment trying to think how I would go about patching things up with both girls…and why? “Let’s go to Hawaii.” Dan says almost screaming. “Oh”, I reply, squashing my first idea, while beginning the plan for the correct one. Another brief front washes across the shoreline as Dan and I figure the particulars, both monetarily, and scheduling.

We stumble to my car and weave down the street to the nearest travel agent we could find. We catch the lady just as she is closing early for the day, and persuade her to hear our idea. Sitting at her desk, all I see are posters of Hawaii, adding to my excitement. Dan offers her a beer, because that is how he is, using all of his faculties to better the deal. She refuses, and counters with a bottle of scotch out of her bottom drawer. By the time the scotch was gone, we had our trip planned, and all of us agreed that the deal she gave us was a once in a lifetime type of deal. Four months later we are checked into our room on the 44th floor of the Ohama Maile Sky Court in Honolulu, flicking bottle caps out the window and betting how many times the wind will help it to circle the building.

Hawaii 1986, almost two years after being expelled from high school, ten months after being expelled from the first college, four months after being expelled from the last college, and two months since my driver’s license was taken away…for the third time. But the short time here has already melted away those events into a dull personality trait that I wear like a badge. Our first night, as we ride down in the elevator, an idea keeps trying to push its way through to my conscious, but it isn’t until we hit the open lobby of our hotel with the thick, sweet aroma of the island, and the telltale neon sign glow of various bars that the idea coalesces into explainable terms. I go to tell Danny, but he beats me to the punch. “A test of wills, my friend…we go down Kalakaua Avenue, and at every bar I will buy you a drink and you will buy me a drink.” “…And the one still standing at the end is the winner? You’re on.” I say, finishing the idea, and knowing that nothing good will come of this.

Of course we were going to try to make each other sick, just to have bragging rights for the rest of the trip, so instead of beers, we buy long island iced teas, mixed island drinks, and when out of ideas, double bourbon neat. Bar after bar and drink after drink, the night moved along very slowly. The rules followed the mood of our inebriation as “Bars”, slowly turned into “Bars and Restaurants”, which then turned into “Bars, Restaurants, and Grocery Stores.” We’d run into other sober impaired people and explain to them our endeavor. Bald Bob at the restaurant looked at us blankly for a long moment with his head tittering uneasily on his shoulders, slowly back and forth like a grandfather clocks pendulum, finally saying, “What are you doing?” Jill, who was “working”, told us that she was waiting for the police to leave the area so she could get back to it. She offered to come with us if we paid her a night’s wages, which Dan and I both thought was a good idea, right up until she told us how much that would be. “We’ll let you know when the coast is clear.” I say as we moved on to the next bar. All the other vacationers, and local drunks, could figure out why we were doing what we were doing. I try to explain our reasoning, but I get lost in the backstory of it, not realizing that a stranger really doesn’t want to hear how my life was changing. It was beyond me, so I simplified it. “We are doing this to do this, that’s it.” I say to someone who isn’t there anymore. In-between bars I look up and see the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center which marks the end of the street, so with one eye closed I tell Dan that I cannot see any more bars in front of us. Dan looks at me and slurs. “You had enough.” Trying to sneak in the win. I swivel my head behind us, my body follows a second later. “There’s still another side of the street…you prick.” I say, sounding like Dudley Moore in Arthur. I would not go gently into that goodnight, much to Danny’s chagrin. Dan awkwardly lifts his hand and wipes his face, trying to wipe away those last two iced teas. “Ok…let’s go.”

It is a mistake to continue down other side of the street, but the reason why hasn’t shown up yet. The night turns blurry, the people, the conversations, and the drinks. I wake up in the middle of falling down the stairs at the Red Lion, landing like mannequin would, if you threw it down those stairs. “Pizza?” I say, as Dan helps me up.” “Yea, and a beer.” A large peperoni, and a pitcher takes us forty-five minutes to finish, but the foggy finish of our bet takes a back seat for the moment as we look at the desecration, or ruination, or alienation of our table. “Why did we have silverware?” I ask Dan. “I don’t know, you borrowed it from the couple next to us.” He says, stumping me on the purpose, and the end result. It is too confusing so I quickly turn and follow Dan out. We are both ready to go back to the hotel and get some sleep, and as we walk up the devil stairs I realize that the Red Lion is the last stop on this gauntlet, I can even see our open air lobby lighting up the surrounding streets. The moment of caring about the bet is over, so I shrug and start towards the hotel. We get about a block away when something burns in my eye. It’s a red neon sign too cruel for the establishment it hangs on, it pulls my attention from the soft tan light of our lobby, making me notice another sign on a black-lit neon note board, which simply stated “Mai-tai’s – 2 for $2.50.” So simple, so perfect, such a sharp, cruel sign, I look at Danny, his eyes are tired and he starts shaking his head ‘no’. All I can muster for an explanation is the word, “Sign.” “No, I’m done.” Danny says. I don’t hear him because I am already leaning forward, trying to make my feet follow my upper torso. All he can do now is follow me and mutter, “…he fell”. Danny catches up to me as we pass the open windowed bar/patio, not noticing anything accept the entrance sign on the side of the bar. The red neon name on the bar was so red against the pitch black inside of the bar I couldn’t make it out. We walk in, out of the darkness of the night, into something that is physically darker. We belly up to the bar with big stupid smiles on our faces and order drinks. “He’ll have the special.” I can barely speak. “Yes, and he’ll have the special too.” Danny says.

We sit and drink our drinks, trying to acclimate to the new decorum. I don’t notice many girls in the joint accept for the two sitting in the corner and the bartender. The rest of the patrons are men, talking in low guarded tones, which is something men don’t do…especially when drinking. Something is going on here, paranoia slices through my sated belly and head. I do another scan of the place and see the two girls necking, “That’s hot.” I say matter of factly, looking around for some recognition of statement. But I am the only one watching them. Why am I the only one watching them? I scan the bar a third time and notice that every table only has two guys at it. ‘That’s not how we drink.’ I think, forgetting about Dan and I doing it all night. Things begin to click when from out of the shadows, a huge Samoan house of a man sits next to Dan and says “Hi, I’m Tiny”, with a voice as sweet as cherry vanilla ice cream. “Shit…” finishing the rest of my thought in my head ‘…were in a gay bar’. Danny and I got it at the same time, but it was too late, Tiny was already sitting down. “I’m sorry, are you a couple?” Tiny asks me, in response to me saying ‘shit’. “No, we’re just friends.” I tell the truth, not realizing that I’ve just damned Danny. I feel almost jealous of Dan, being picked before me. Almost pouting, as Tiny introduces himself to Dan, I rationalized that he picked Danny because he’s bigger, has a stronger jaw line, isn’t as drunk, and is dressed in his black “track shorts” and personalized white tank top. But his tank top isn’t just white, it is filled with pieces of the gauntlets evening with; fruit pins, straws, phone numbers, signatures, mementoes, and the words, “I’m not a hard body, but I’m a hell of a lot more fun!” Something I had written on him sometime during the evening. All in all, he looked pretty inviting, like a walking gay parade. We keep our hetero-secret secret, playing along so as to not to enrage a four hundred pound gay Samoan. We sit and talk to Tiny for about five minutes, casually, but quickly, drinking our drinks. He seems nice and is genuinely interested in our night, commenting on Danny’s shirt, while picking and touching its accoutrements. I begin to think that there will be no embarrassment taken from this situation I drunkenly stumbled upon, but the rules of engagement are different between gay and straight people, and neither Danny, nor I are expecting a full frontal assault. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tiny’s monstrous hand slip into Danny’s shirt giving him a little tummy rub. It is so shocking, I jump when I see it. Danny either has ice in his veins, or is scared to the point of immobilization because he doesn’t flinch. “I have to go to the bathroom.” Danny says, trying to make his escape. “Oh, here, I’ll show you.” Tiny says. Danny unknowingly gestures through a coded sentence that he’s ready. I cringe. “No, I’ll be right back.” Danny says with so much conviction and honesty that I actually believe him, and then prances around the corner, I can feel Tiny eyeing the black, tight, track shorts. Tiny buys us two more Mai Tai’s, but he doesn’t even talk to me, I feel like the ugly girlfriend that is ignored, or simply missed by the dominant male bar goer. Dejected, I look up to see if the two women are making out again, and see Danny at the side of the door trying desperately to get my attention. From my vantage point I can see the exit, but Tiny, who is sitting further in can’t. Danny does his best to “mime” to me that he’s leaving, and I did my best to play stupid, he finally does the ‘running fingers’ mime and flips me off. I nonchalantly point down at the drinks Tiny bought “us”, he rolls his eyes, shakes his head quickly disappears.

“Well.” I say, not knowing what to say…or do. I desperately want to be outside, although my mind can’t quit saying, “Dan’s gone, he’s all yours now.” I squint my eyes, and furrow my brow trying to figure out what that means. Finally, I finish my drink, Tiny bought for me, and quickly and quietly leave my seat. I pass the two lesbians, who are still going at it, when I hear the sound of a chair sliding on a floor, more distinctively, the sound a chair makes when someone is getting out of it. I know it’s Tiny, either getting up to ask me where my friend is, or possibly try his luck with me. I do not want to be in either of those conversations. I turn the corner at the exit slowly and then like horizontal lighting, I am gone. I pass the open side of the bar and can hear a voice as smooth as honey talking, but I only catch “…cute ones get away.” I breathe a sigh of relief when I cross the open threshold of our hotel. “Did you get his number?” Danny says from a cream colored couch, behind a large Hawaiian plant. “Ha, ha…I gave him yours.” I say, continuing towards the elevator. The place was called Hamburger Mary's which is a chain of gay bars and all their signs are in bright red neon. Sometimes some things are worth doing just to tell people that you did them, and sometimes the accidents that happen to you are all your own fault.

The next morning I can taste the sheets, and they tasted bad. “Did you see that guy last night?” I ask Dan, noticing that he is up and showered already. “Which one?” He answers surprised, wondering if he missed anything from Hamburger Mary’s. “That guy that came in last night and took a crap in my mouth.” I say, repeating yet another old drinking joke. “Hurry up and get in the shower, I’ve got a surprise for you.” He says with a big Danny grin. I try to stand up, but it is hard to do, I succeed on the third try and head into the shower. The shower is warm and the soap is tropical so I shove my arm into the handicapped bar and let the water try to wash away the night. I hear noises outside after a couple of minutes and my mind clicks. “Aww, what the fuck is the surprise, Dan?” I say in a betrayed voice, forgetting about all the bathroom pranks he could have been brewing up. The door begins to open, so I prepare for an assault…the shower curtains begin to pull back as I ready the shower head… “Surprise!” I yell, ripping the curtains from Danny’s hands. “Gotcha!” I say, getting the “cha” part caught in my larynx. I clear my throat to apologize to the wonderfully naked girl standing where Danny should be. “I…uh…mm…”, “Do you mind if I join you?” She says in a sweet baby girl accent, wiping water away from her perfect face. “Sure?” I say, again not knowing what to say. She doesn’t need a shower, her light perfume masked some sort of oatmeal soap smell and right before I dowsed her I could see that her hair was already made up. Her body reminded me of Sophia Loren, zaftig, voluptuous, and hour-glassy, just like old school sexy is meant to be. Her tan lines were barely visible. What was visible was a beautiful coco color that you saw on all the suntan commercials. I stood and stared for a while, not showering, taking in her lines, her curves, her… but suddenly it felt wrong so I opted to finish my shower without touching her, even though my body was saying yes. I grab a towel, cover myself and walk outside. “Alright, what’s going on?” I say to Dan, covering myself up. “Surprise” he says laughing. You were in there for an hour, so I sent her in…hope you don’t mind. “An Hour?” I say. “Yea, I was going to have her surprise you in bed, but you took too long.” He says, still laughing.

My prize for “winning” the Gauntlet, which I would have won if I lost, is this little Swiss Opare his family knew named Sondra. She looked like a photograph in magazine. Deep blue eyes, perfectly airbrushed breasts, coco-butter skin, all topped off with a beautiful Swiss accent. Dan had kept her a secret from me just to see if he could play out some weird introduction he had planned, to break me out of my expellee funk. We spend the rest of our vacation laughing, and learning curse words in each other’s languages. I follow her back to the mainland, forgetting about everything else, but there is an awkwardness now that wasn’t there before, as awkward as our shower, as awkward as the gay bar. Our situation fit perfectly in Hawaii, but what was once normal, now seems clingy. Her hanging onto and around me gets to be very annoying and the more I push her away, the more she comes around, she is like a piece of Swiss clothing that fit before I washed it. She is by far, the finest specimen of woman I have ever been able to commandeer. But I can’t make her fit into a non-Hawaiian life. She begins saying, “Do you want to continue?” I regards to me dating her, her once sweet broken English, has transformed into and almost Russian sounding dialect. Her asinine accent asks, “Do you want to continue?” building on volume and tempo with each drink she drinks. Then, like that, she is gone. No phone call, no letter, no final “Do you want to continue?” She is simply not here anymore. I don’t think I miss her, but the feeling sure feels like I do. I fear that I will never be able to purge her voice from my memory, forever lying in the back of my head reminding me that it is possible to get too much of a good thing, and even if it’s bad, when it’s gone, I’ll miss it. Just like the realization I had in the car when I was picking up Danny to go to the beach, which started this whole weird fiasco, I have another epiphany. I realized that I am young, and if Sondra didn’t prove it, I’m sure there will be one, if not many, women waiting to prove to the world how broken I am.

I am on the train again, this maddening train. Forever, it seems, I ride this figment to a destination that I can only fathom. I close my eyes to try to shorten the ride, but that never works, so I begin the arduous trek down the hall again. Finally, I am in front of him, a wrinkle of a man, he is sitting up in bed with his favorite blue blanket wrapped around his shoulders, making him look like forgotten royalty. His unusually long thick hair drapes over the blanket, keeping it from slipping off. On his nightstand lay a clean empty ashtray. Alongside it, a glass with the remanence of a mysterious brown liquid that he never lets anyone near, lest they want his cane across the back of their hand. His ridiculously large television on the wall opposite him magically changes channels as I approach. "Who do you think you're fooling?" I say. He looks up at me and I can see his jaw tighten. "Oh, it's you...thought you'd be here earlier." He says. "Yea...me too." I say, and tighten my jaw. I try to hide it, but he sees everything, so before the terrible feeling catches me again, exposing my weak spots for him to pick at, I walk over to the bed and hit the covers next to his leg which changes the channel back to the porn, or hoarders, or whatever equally embarrassing show he is watching. With one smooth motion, I grab the bottle from behind his pillow, unscrew it, and begin to fill his glass. After his initial flinch of fear, he grabs the the glass just before I finish pouring it and takes a drink, his eyes never leaving the television. "I used to be that smooth, and faster." He says trying hard not to admire anything I do. “Wasted a lot of time honing skills only drunks, idiots, and children find impressive.” I say. “YOU SHUT UP...take pride in the things you do well, even if they are frivolous." He says clearing his throat trying to hide his cough. He takes another sip from his glass and as I watch him, a cigarette magically appears in the same hand that he just lowered from his lips. "What does that make me, a drunk, idiot, or child?” I say, walking around to the other side of the bed, snatching the idiocy from his lips. “You’re all three. Hey! Ok, ok...let me have a puff and I'll let you ask." He says, already knowing...always knowing why I show up. I hand him back the cigarette and I watch as he slides over, away from me, quickly lighting it and then manically taking puff after puff. "Really! Come on man, who’s the child now?” I say. But instead of us playing the game of “keep away”, which began our usual parlay, or whatever you call our little jousting matches, he stops and puts the cigarette in the ashtray. Shocked at this new change, I search my short-term memory for a trigger, always studying the psychology behind his actions, but I can’t remember anything out of the norm, in fact, I don’t remember my walk down the hall that connects his room to everything else. “Well?” He says, without his usual exasperation. “Well, what?” I say, as my brain continues to travel down the other path, trying to remember the details of my trip today. “Listen, man, you fall apart now and you’re fucked.” He says, making the sentence seem more mean than helpful. “What?” I say, now stuck somewhere between two thoughts. I move my confused view of the floor to his face, hoping that he can clarify, sarcastically or not, the present situation. But I don’t see him, someone else is there wearing a mask of the old man. I know this because his features are the same, but like every mask, you need to cut out the eyes to be able to see, and this strangers’ eyes are showing me concern, empathy, forgiveness, love. Things that left the old man long ago, I doubt if he even remembers the definitions to those words. “You came here to ask to have some of my writing.” He says, with someone else’s voice. "Ok...ask." He sounds defeated, snapping me out of whatever fugue I had wandered into. "I want all your writings...everything this time...even the unfinished stuff." I say trying to keep my boot-heal on the neck of his weakness. "What!?" He says, hitting an octave I’ve never heard before, which triggers a coughing episode. "Not the unfinished stuff. That would be monumentally irresponsible." I see fear or sadness...maybe both in his eyes. He takes a drink, looks at me for a brief second longer, then aims his gaze back toward the television. I know I will not be getting anything today. "Not today Chris." He says. My head swirls dizzyingly, like it always does when I’m on the losing side of an argument, and I have been on the losing side too many times, had countless arguments with the old man and it always bore the same fruit. I look around the room at the piles of work he has done, while waiting for the dizziness to stop. A lifetime of expression that he has lived through, evolved around, and into what he is. A work in words that has become his only tether to the world beyond the hall. It is how he recognizes, and is recognized by the people he has influenced. The fear of letting it go must be too much for him to bear. I turn and leave the room without starting our usual fights filled with “why’s”, why not’s”, and time. "You're not ready yet!" He yells as I close the door, cutting his sentence in half. I take two steps down the long white hallway when I hear a shatter of glass against the other side of the door. "Maybe I'm not ready. “I say to myself. "Man, I hate this place."

I wake up from the reoccurring dream that I’ve had since I was fourteen, and quickly try to think of something else to push this shit fatal foretelling of my future out of my head. Like always it doesn’t go away and the word...my word, “Broken” flashes once…twice…then is blinked on, reminding me of my past, the old man, and apparently my future. Then, like always, the memories come, letting me relive the mistakes I’ve made.

I reach the end of the hall, passing the threshold, and into darkness. The only light source is floating numbers, glowing a green/blue light that fills the immediate area. Somewhere in my head a quietly screaming voice tells me it’s not the right time yet, so I turn around. The almost inaudible sound of a light switch that has just been turned on lingers while I try to get my bearings. “Aw, shit.” I say as the train of procrastination rails on down the track. Looking out the window at the countryside I wonder if this is the last time, I will be riding this train. “One of these times I’m going to be right when I wonder that.” I say, tilting my head up, to help get the point across. Then I wonder if I can fool myself into believing it’s too late, snapping the tracks, breaking this horrid lifetime of a loop I am on. I try this new idea, but all I get is the hallway. The hallway is long today, or does it just seem long? It takes an unusual amount of time to get to his room and I wonder if he changed that or I did, I can never tell whose work are the subtleties. The well-worn carpet shows my usage by darkening at the middle, reminding me that this is the only hall I walk. Its white has turned to a cream color over the years which now match more to the walls than a sheet of paper like when I walked it the first time. On the north side wall there are old style silver and gold frames spaced perfectly from top to bottom and side to side and I bet if I dared to look closer, hold the architect to his word, they would be exactly the same distance away from each other as they would be perfectly in the middle of the wall to the millimeter. This hallway was constructed for a reason that I can only guess at, and with every walk I take it changes as much as it stays the same. Inside these beautiful frames are pictures of the years that have passed. But not just that…there’s always more. A feeling for every one rides along, waiting for me to look and experience it again. The feeling of the terror of kindergarten or the confused euphoria of a first kiss. I have dwelt in these pictures for hours at a time, trying to change how it happened, but they are way too deep to change, far too far into my broken psyche to revive and relive. That kind of change is impossible, but sometimes I still try, never giving up on my momentum towards the old man’s room. I am better at this game now, more than I used to be at least, changing rules, breaking rules lying to the old man and myself sometimes to get what I want for the moment. The latest discovery of mine is to turn away from these confusing pictures and not try to change them but ignore the past like it was a dead ant under my shoe, but I can still feel the pull of the moment, it works like a magnet on my will to want, my want to see those old places and things. I want to see that time fitting perfectly in a frame, I want to try to change the outcome, and I want to play the game. Instead, today, my sight hides on the other side of this white hall. Windows with glass as clean as diamonds shimmer in an unseen sunlight shadowing the floor in four square shapes. The drapes are as worn as the carpet, but not from my treading on them. Its stains are from the death I exhale from my lungs. The smoky residue is almost sticky to the touch and I am disgusted by them every time I decide to venture down this side with my eyes. Over the years the disgust has subsided, but only because it is not new to me anymore. The thought of ruination doesn’t consume me as much as it did or as it should, so now instead of the scenes through the windows being tragically draped with my addiction, they are now just a bit dulled as is my childlike want of candy and cake on my birthday. The windows show me the life I ignored. The colleges I didn’t attend, the wife I didn’t marry, the kids I didn’t have and the life time of accolades I didn’t receive. These windows to what could have been show me happy, and I can see the face of this doppelganger doing things I thought of doing once. In the old days it made me sad to look at these, seeing the easy choices I passed up to steal me away from this kind of all-encompassing joy. But this side failed first. I would sit for hours looking at these foreign scenes taking in all the success and love, but after I while I looked at me in the scene, watching my movement, looking for a flaw. Then for a long time I would just concentrate on my facial expressions trying to find the lie in them that would set me free. Finally, I just looked at my eyes during the episodes, deep into them when the moment of the feeling was at hand and there in the finite spaces between my eyelashes, I saw what I was looking for. With the overall disheartening feeling these scenes were giving me, I look down the hall the old man’s door and know that I'm not going to get what I want today. A quick glance out through the windows to say my goodbye then...then I saw it. It had shown dull like a glimmer of a splinter from a quickly fading memory, but I saw it. A slight variation of focus on one of the happy doppelganger’s pupils, A degree of difference on his eyebrows, a shimmer of color in one of his irises that marks the hiding of something. But what are they hiding? I focus and study, trying to remember all of the things I've learned over the years, all of the things I've learned here. Another half degree of rise, a fateful shimmer back and its hit's me..."Despair!" I yell out to nobody except me and the old man. "Despair, you fucking old man!" I continue my epiphany vocally, and begin to sprint down the white hallway, cursing but keeping my violence inside for when the old man and I meet. I can picture the awkward confrontation, banging around his self-made cell, like a couple of elementary school boys, because that was the limit of our fighting prowess, evolving past it during those formative years. I near his door and lower my shoulder, close my eyes and brace for impact. The impact I receive is from the floor in the middle of his room. More hurt than confused, having landed on my bad shoulder, I stand up swearing at the old man. Finally, I squeeze the pain from my eyes and am immediately more confused than hurt. My eyes try to focus, but can't find anything white. I look down at the floor to make sure I wasn't still down there, but the floor is gone, replace by a barroom red, and patterned carpet. The forest green patterned wallpaper should clash with carpet, but between them an old polished black oak wainscoting helps to keep them from fighting. My spirits momentarily lift and this marks the first time anything has changed, ever. I begin to think that today may be the day I get what I want. "I like what you've done to the place." I say, noticing that both the gigantic bed and gigantic television are gone, along with my want to squint at everything. Gone also is the ocean/beach scene that never changed, yet every time I was in here, I would look at it expecting it to have. Replacing that picture was a place I know, there

So, there we were, and when I say we, I mean my roommate and her friend, wringing out wet clothes from the washer at midnight on Tuesday. I watched through my sliding door windows successfully not laughing because I had laundry to do. The washer had given up its fight against our mountain dirt and grime…and food, and oil, and transmission fluid, and blood, and pollen, and some other things that we have yet to define. It was a valiant fight, nearly making its decade birthday, but I understood its plight and silently sang an old English war hymn of God’s influence of glorious death. In the middle I realize that I too will be dying a little bit with the passing of this unheralded soldier because no longer will my house guests hear a maniacally screamed “SHE’S GONNA BLOW!” every time the spin cycle would hit its apex…what a loss, missing the confused and dread filled eyes of those who didn’t know. I squint with disapproval at whatever dutifully quiet drone I will be replacing him with.

My roommate tries to open the sliding door being stopped by the lock, I look up with my eyebrows raised as if to say “Yes, can I help you.” She is not amused. “Open the door.” She says unamusedly. I pause my Xbox at, of course, the most important part of the game I’m playing, and open my door. “Yeeeeesssss.” I say. “I heard there is a front-loading washing machine for sale at one of the yard sales up the street, we should go look at it tomorrow.” I black out suddenly seeing the top of my house and the cement porch that lies outside my sliding door. I move in closer to hear her sentence repeated, then I see my face contort into some unknown gargoyle that prides itself on his look of disgust. “Or maybe not?” She says, and I am shot down, back into my body. During that half second of time after her psudo-question ended, I relived a life time of practiced hatred of everything that was different from the things that I was used to, one of them being a front-loading washer, and then I hear myself say, “Frontloading is for drying, I’m going to fix the washer tomorrow.” Shocked at what I just said, and even more so at her saying ‘OK’, I retreat back into my room, my Xbox, and the game, completely forgetting about the washer. 

The night is filled with dreams of washers on battle fields, some torn to shreds with all sorts of weapons in them, some are more carefully taken apart with different versions of me standing over them yet all the washers have the same aura of chaos looming around them, as if death himself had come to take them to the ferryman’s dock. I wake up wondering if God has made me Death for washers, which I conclude is not a good start to this project. “Why waste time.” I say, getting up and turning on the Xbox. “I’m coming for you.” I say to the washer in the next room, so as to give it some time to hopefully fix itself out of fear of the upcoming surgery…or autopsy. Three hours later I decide that I had given it enough time and that this fiasco should begin. I switch over from my game to the computer to quickly study up on the intricacies of washer repair with help from YouTube and all the lonely DIY’ers that have finally found a place in the world. I cross my fingers hoping to find someone that knows at least half their shit and figuring positively that anyone I watch are already smart enough to be able to attempt repair while filming it, which is one step above me from the get-go. I type in “Washer making ‘Fzzzzzzzzsssssss’ noise, hoping to strike gold on my first search. Thrown back at me from the ether is “Washer Agitator Repair” “I don’t know.” I answer and go to take my first look at it, to see if the agitator is…well, agitating, right? I get up and go check to see if I rolled with the lucky dice today, as my roommate, whos agitator is working, catches me at the door. “Is it fixed already?” She says mistaking the non-worked on area as simply another part of my anal retentiveness/ ocdidness. “Nope, haven’t even started yet.” I say with a smile. “What? Why not?” She says expecting an assured answer. “Research.” I say, opening the top of the washer and grabbing the agitator, which moves in a way that my research has told me is the cause of dull agitator teeth…or in my case no agitator teeth. “See.” I say. “See what?” She is already tired of this conversation. “We need agitator teeth, or something.” I say in a very professional voice. “So, what, an hour, a day, week maybe, or will it be longer.” She says with her last bit of strength, “Let’s say a day. I will go get the parts now.” I say, pushing past her, then turning around and pushing past her again to get my car keys, she is gone when I come back through. 

It had been sometime since Nikki left and with my divorce in full swing I was drinking more and more. From $ 40 that used to be enough to get me drunk, my disease slowly progressed to where I needed $100 to get me loaded. But as 2004 came to an end, not even $ 100 would suffice. I gained 20 pounds, grew my hair out and stopped shaving. The first traces of grey showed up in my beard making me want to escape even further, and escape I did.

The first time I saw Ronald, I was at the bar deep into what would soon turn into another blackout. The jukebox finished its songs which gave the bar a quiet mood of drunken failure. The light mostly came from the beer signs and the bottle light from the bar, everywhere else was dark. My ship of fools contained four other sailors and our bartender Mia. The four of us sat at four different sections of the bar, challenging Mia to pick between us who she would rather talk to. “You want to buy some crystal meth?” Ronald asked me in a hushed tone. I had heard him, but for some hidden reason I didn’t answer right away. “Yo, Chris, you want to buy…” “How do you know my name?” I say cutting him off. “Dude, we met the other night, you were pretty fucked up.” He says. “Sorry man, I didn’t recognize you.” I lie, hoping Ron doesn’t realize he’s the only black, bald guy with a slight Jamaican accent that comes in this joint. “It’s alright…so, do you?” He says. At that moment I became the edge, the hammer, the man mysterious, and the junkie incarnate. “Yes.” I say with no emotion. Magically a bindle appears in my hand and I am off to the bathroom.

The bathroom is dirty, but I don’t care, I open the bindle and see the white crystal-like powder. Through the wall I can hear AC/DC, “Back in Black” start up as I take my first hit…I am nauseous. Pain…I hold my nose. Clarity…I open my eyes. Elation…everything is brighter. I leave the now clean bathroom to an alive bar, I start to sing along to the song as I reach my seat. “You ok Chris?” Mia asks worriedly. “Yea, I’m fine, I’ll have another bourbon and coke though.” I say looking around for Ron to say thank you, but he is gone. Mia serves me with a look of concern because she’s seen my dive into oblivion ever since she met my ex, but now she looks at me with a different look. Her beautiful almond shaped eyes sparkle without her smile, telling me something is wrong. She turns and walks down to the next patron and I realize she has a perfect body, suddenly I am overwhelmingly enamored by her Asian, waiflike features. I am crisp and witty every time she decides to talk to me, but there is something wrong and bedding her tonight is an impossibility, so I go home. I take Friday off and spend it watching the homemade porno’s I made with my ex, but I wasn’t sad, I was happy that I had something to remember her by.

My next transaction with Ron was Friday night and four times more than the previous night because I didn’t want to run out over the weekend. Mia isn’t working so my time at the bar is marked by one drink. The next twelve hours is spent cleaning my house, doing my laundry, doing my dishes, writing and watching me and my ex on the television. I had been up three days now, but I still felt vaguely normal and as I sit in bed and watch television, I can hear things in my backyard. I turn off my television, which makes my room dark…the whole house is dark. I peek out the window and see a tree in my neighbor’s yard with some kids in it. “What the hell are kids doing in the tree at 10pm at night?” I wonder to myself. I sit and watch them for what seems like a lifetime, then one bolts off and in between my house and theirs. “Where the hell is he going?” I say to myself. So I jump out of bed and go to the front and carefully peek out the kitchen window just to see the same kid bolt back in between the houses. “Well, no harm, no foul.” I say, but get my video camera out just in case there is harm so I can show their parents the evidence. The next 8 hours is spent videotaping these kids and their antics, but as the sun comes up they quiet down.

I do another line and hear shuffling in the backyard followed by a distinct ‘chirp’ which was obviously human. They must have seen me videotaping them last night and want to get the evidence before their parents see it. They’re ‘chirp’ signals to each other are loud enough that I can tell what they are thinking. I hide my camera so they can’t get it and chase them from front to back all day long.

Saturday night I am fed up chasing them, they are quick, so I lay in bed and watch pt. About 11pm I hear whispering in the front room. My hand is on my gun in a millisecond. The whispering is accompanied by a whirring sound that can only be a video camera, “What’s going on out there?” I yell from my bedroom. I wait but no reply. With my gun pointed at the door to my room, safety off, finger on the trigger I ask again. But I already know what they’re doing. They are taking inventory of what they can take to barter or trade with me for the evidence. More whispers and more whirring. “Ok, I’ll give you five minutes, then I’m calling the police. Whispers, whirring, my eyes are peeled, my gun is ready and the five minutes runs out. “Ok, that’s it.” But the whispers and the whirring continue. My hand finds the phone and dials 911. “Hello, yea, I have some people in my house that won’t leave, I’ve asked them twice and they refuse to go.” I say in a voice loud enough to carry into the next room. “Ok, sir, I have officers on route to you now, can you get to the front door?” The dispatcher says and with that I hear a noise upstairs. “Yea, I hear them upstairs now.” I say.

Ok, go to the front door and open it for the officers.” She says. I jump out of bed, gun in one hand, phone in the other and open the front door. Kids scatter as I do and I think that it’ll be good for them to get caught if they like doing this kind of shit. I wedge myself under the stairs in a way that I block the upstairs, but can’t be seen from the front door, covering all my intruders. I sit and wait for 5 minutes. “Mr. Aparicio?” A voice from outside calls in. “Yea, I’m here.” I say. “Can you come outside?” He says. “Uh…sure.” I say, forgetting about the phone…and gun in my hands. I emerge from the shadows to see two police officers dive for cover. “Shit! Dispatch, he has a gun.” One of the officers screams into his radio. Then I feel my left hand vibrate from the dispatchers screams to put the gun down. “What? What gun?” I say dazed by everything all of a sudden. “Mr. Aparicio, put the gun down, we are here to help you.” The officer says in a strong but calm voice from the cover of my garage. “Ok.” I say and put the gun down. “Please walk outside with your hands on your head.” He says. I think uh oh, I’ve heard those words before, “Am I in trouble?” I say “No, it’s for your own safety.” He says in his best cop reassuring voice. I do what he says and two steps out of the door I am tackled, cuffed and put in the back of the squad car. From here I can see the officers sweep the downstairs, then the upstairs. Somewhere in the back of my mind I know they aren’t going to find anybody.

The come out, flash the light in my eyes and shake their heads. “How long you been up for, son.” The cop says, even though we’re about the same age. “Since Thursday.” I answer, not thinking that was bad. “You know it’s Monday night, right?” He says. “No, it’s Sunday morning, I just…” and my voice trails off not being able to designate time or days. He shakes his head again and closes the door. Those kids must have told them about the drugs I think to myself and all I can see are how those fucking kids are ransacking my house with big smiles on their faces.

I’m in and out of consciousness and every time I open my eyes I see the city in flashes, the cop must be going over 100 mph. I close my eyes again and relive the past 10 minutes. After they tackled me I was immediately shoved into the cramped back seat of the squad car, it smells funny in here. After the initial sweep of my house they asked me if I had any more meth inside and like a zombie incapable of formulating a lie I say ‘yes’ and tell them where my stash is. They come back 5 minutes later and ask me again because they can’t find it. Another 5 minutes the first officer comes back frustrated and pulls me out of the car. “Show me.” He says. So I walk in the house and show him, damning myself to a larger charge. But that’s all in the past as we jet down why 87 at a million miles an hour.

In processing I am handcuffed to a set of chairs, I close my eyes and try to understand what is happening. I slowly become aware of my voice coming from the other side of the room. With my eyes closed I listen and test, the voice is repeating what I am thinking. I open my eyes and try to find the source, looking to my right I see three police officers huddled around a computer. I squint and try to make sure what’s happening is happening and test again. “Can you guys hear me over there?” I think, and from the computer I can hear my voice emulate from its internal speaker. “Shit, he knows.” I hear a whisper from one of them, then they disperse.

I close my eyes again, trying not to think of anything that might get me in trouble. “Why did you call the police?” A voice in front of me asks. I open my eyes and everything has a blue tint to it. “What?” I say…or think. “Not you…You.” He points to a long hair, feminine looking guy sitting 2 seats over from me. “When did you get here?” I ask him. “I was here before you.” He says. “No you weren’t.” I say. “Ok, quiet.” The cop says to me and repeats the question to my neighbor. “I had nothing better to do.” The kid says. “How ‘bout blowing a chimp?” I think to myself, and the same 3 cops at the computer laugh then look at me and disperse again. They know that I know that they can hear my thoughts…that’s cool. I am processed and say something to the 3 cops as I pass them, they just stare at me.

From process to holding, from holding to the main jail, 5th floor mental ward. I have no idea what time or even what day it is because I am occupied trying to get Ice Cube’s song ‘Fuck the Police’ out of my head, I know they’re listening.

My jail time is a blur, the only thing I do is lay on my bunk and watch the circus. The hookers, the spider webs, the wall of water that has naked girls swimming around and the cops always watching us from behind the walls, taking notes like we’re some kind of ant farm.

Time slides by like a lug nut on a magnet and I am called up to be released, I am ready to go. All of a sudden I am outside looking at a cab and I wonder how he knew I was going to be there. It’s night time and the world is asleep, I get into the cab and head home. I think thank the cops for being so nice to me because I know they’re still listening, all of a sudden the cab drivers phone rings but he doesn’t give me the phone, I know they’re checking in on me.

I am home, upstairs, it’s raining outside and as I look out the window I can see kids scatter and hide, the doors are locked and I can hear nobody downstairs. So I sit and watch the rain and the kids playing hide and seek outside for an hour or two, it is entertaining.

My body becomes loose, my eyes are closing and suddenly I feel like something horrible has happened. I look outside, but the kids have gone and I wonder if there were ever any kids. Then like an avalanche my mind snaps back and I realize what kind of trouble I’m in.

I sit with my mouth agape, I can smell my mind being burnt. “What the fuck.” I whisper to myself, realizing what I had been doing. I turn on the T.V. to see what day and time it is. 4am, Thursday is what the screen tells me. “What the fuck.” I whisper again. Everything I’ve seen I hadn’t, everything I’ve said I didn’t, everything I was I wasn’t. Where had I been really, what did I do…really. There is an emptiness in my stomach, but it’s not from lack of eating, although I don’t remember eating. It’s from being lost, mentally lost, somewhere between here and sanity.

I close my mouth, close my eyes and pull the blanket up to my eyes. I can hear the rain on the roof now, and I feel myself slowly reconnecting. I sleep and dream about the things I haven’t seen, reliving my lost week as penance for breaking human law.

The dance I danced was beyond dangerous, it was the impossibility of seeing and interacting with my subconscious…in real time, there is no word strong enough to describe the feeling of being allowed to come back from that nowhere. I reached the limit.