Boyle’s wife is calling in ten minute intervals, like markers on a highway. Click… Click… Like those afternoons when I was unemployed and used to bar hop through Kaiser Town with Kari’s dad, with his small hands and beady eyes and con-man smile hiding secret after secret, as his ringing phone interrupted with an offensive shrug and would always come when I finally got a chance to tell a story. He proudly held his importance over me. I was secretly embarrassed. He was full of surprises and petty scorn. He was an egomaniac. I had no idea who I was.
Boyle is leaving to spend the last night of the year with his wife and child. I decide to stay because I have no where to go and no one to see. Besides, the alcohol is giving me what I need (energized numbness and delirious hope built on unfounded declarations). I give in to the universe of possibility. Boyle buys me a shot, we shake, and his large frame with the baby face is gone.
In the restroom I stare into the mural-size mirror. I move my face in a way to present/exhibit all angels and perspectives. I look so different with every turn, not even the same person. There are some universal truths. My nose is bigger than I care to notice. The scar under my left eye is worn and sad instead of rigid and tough. The skin above my right eye is saggy and invades my ocular cavity in a way that mocks the color of my blue eyes.
My hands are beginning to sting. I flex them in rapid succession. The moon is still big behind me and watches me as I watch my shadow in front. I can’t tell if my shoes are covered with dirt. When I look down I get dizzy. I stare ahead into the blackness, out towards the hidden blank landscape rugged but flat, vast and barren. Where are the curbs and corner stores? Where are the people and their history embedded in stacks of photographs? Where is my sick lake and rust colored fumes? Where are the ashes of generations sleeping in the cracks of the sidewalks? Where are the shamrocks?
“Meditation is pretty cool.”
“I meditate. TM. It’s pretty powerful.” I chime in.
“TM?”
“Transcendental Meditation. It’s pretty fucking awesome.”
“I’ve heard about that. What’s it like? I just do regular mediation, where you clear your mind and shit.”
“You just repeat your mantra. You’re supposed to get your mantra from a teacher, but I just read book. I say ‘Ram’ (rhymes with ‘bomb’). You say it over and over. It’s crazy. Your mind starts to drift to thoughts and smells and feelings you haven’t ever thought of but experienced. It’s more powerful than drugs.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And you are so rested and focused after. You do it for twenty minutes two times a day. And the twenty minutes flies by.”
The path I am taking is straight. I forgo the navigational awareness of dirt roads for straight line efficiency, no matter the terrain. I surmise the walk from the bar to be over two miles. I do not pass a house. There are no telephone poles, no trees. I am surrounded my mountains on all sides in a valley (whose name means ‘water rock’) with an area of 364 square miles and sits 2695 feet above sea level.
My gait is shortening and my chest is leading the way. The wind (a mild gust) is unrelenting and makes me frustrated. It is stubborn and beyond my control. My mind is electric. Thoughts are moving in and out like people to a revolving door in a skyscraper stabbing the clouds. I’m the door man, but everyone is passing by too quickly. Everyone is in a hurry and can’t be bothered. They are faceless and I am not noticed. I speak in half-starts and double-takes.
“You want to go out and smoke?”
“Serious?” I ask. My mind is instantly racing, weighing the consequences, sizing my acquaintances up.
“Yeah. Come on.”
We walk out into the brisk night.
“I’m over there.”
The pickup is a faded orange with a thick dirty white horizontal stripe in the middle from headlight to taillight. As we approach, I notice there is no hood. The engine sits exposed reminding me of a plastic medical model of the human body. We get in, three to front seat. I’m in the passenger’s seat next to the window. The short guy is in the middle and the lanky long haired one, the owner of the truck, is behind the wheel. The driver pulls out a huge joint. The one next to me draws from his pocket a one-hitter. We start passing the dope around.
“This shit is good, powerful California weed.”
“Cool.” I say.
“What do you do, man.”
“I’m a teacher. What do you do?”
“Unemployed. Stay at home dad.”
“Cool. I would totally be a stay at home dad.”
“It’s alright. I get to play video games when the kid takes a nap.”
The pot is moving from hand to hand quickly. I am never without some in my hand. The cab is full of smoke. The typical stoned awareness of your body, your hands, the back of your neck, begins to hit me. My mind fogs up. Trails and vapors form.
“Oh shit, people!”
“We gotta go.”
I look to see a group of well-dressed thirty-something couples getting out of a sedan. My two companions are quickly exiting the cab. I reach for the door handle. It’s missing the knob.
“That’s a rape door.” The driver yells back to me from outside the truck.
“A rape door?” I ask and giggle.
“Yeah, you can only get in, you can’t get out. Only the handle outside works. If you want to get out that way, you hafta roll down the window.”
We walk back to the bar. The pavement seems a long way down but the pebbles lounging before me seem huge. I tell myself to keep it together, repeating it like a mantra. My chest is tight. The bar inside is packed. My head is continually down as I walk back to my place at the bar. I bump into people and excuse myself. My half pint of beer welcomes me. I drink it with a thirst. My money is still in the machine, waiting, but I can’t make out the numbers. How much do I have left? I begin to hallucinate.
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