Barcelona: Little Deals with God

"Holy shit."  I know that tone.  And I know that face on Mike.  The distress and the pain.  He's scrolling feverishly through texts or BBMs or whatever on his phone.  Something's grievously wrong.  Max and Grant sense it too.  We're like girls who've lived together too long and our emotions and menstruation cycles are syncing up.

"What's up, dude," I pry, and softly, because most times I hate to pry at all.  But this shit seems serious.

"Fuck man, Drew was in a car accident."

"Drew Dellis?"

"Who's that on the phone?" asks Grant.

"It's Taylor.  Yeah, Dellis.  Two girls and a guy he was with died.  He's in critical, just hanging on, and they don't know if he's going to make it.  He's got third degree burns to pretty much his entire body," he says with no emphasis on anything.  His eyes are unfocused and way off somewhere else, not in Barcelona anymore.

That stone I sometimes feel in my gut drops hard like an upper-cut to the stomach and my breath gets stuck in the back of my throat.  "Was he with Nanaz?"

"No.  Er - I don't think so..."

"Fuck, man.  That fucking sucks."  Max has always had a way with words.  He'd always seem round up the mood of a situation so succinctly, and today was no different.  Such a sunny late morning walk to the San Cugat train station had suddenly turned somber, and his words echoed the ones sounding off in my head.  Burning through neurons.  I hadn't known Drew like Mike and Taylor had.  They'd been as thick as thieves in those first two years at UC Santa Cruz while Grant and Max and I were dicking around in community college.  The year I transferred up, he had transferred down to USD to play soccer, but he would come up all the time to visit the boys, and I'd met him just a handful of times.  That's all I'd needed though.  That guy was a class act. A gentleman.  A handsome charmer.  One of the nicest guys I'd ever met.  He was loaded, but it was impossible to hate him for it.  I'd feel like a dick if I did.  Nanaz was his girlfriend, and she was just about everything he was, except, of course, she was a girl, and instead of playing soccer, she smoked weed.  They fit together like some jigsaw puzzle of grand love.  No, he didn't deserve this.

"He's a fighter," I say.  "An athlete.  He's too good.  He'll hang on."  And in my mind I pray that it's so.  I'm not a Church going man.  Hell, I can't even remember the last time I'd been.  But me and God are like this. Like criss-crossed fingers.  My omnipotent friend, the old man upstairs.  I ask him for things, I pray, I plead, for situations, for turns of events.  "I just want to kiss her once more."  He's a listener, I think, it may take years for them to sort out, but miraculously they almost always do.  I'll find myself in front of the girl that I wanted so bad all those years ago, together and alone in the middle of an empty street, and inside I laugh at all the silly things I wanted way back when, trying so hard not to let it spill out and ruin things.  I'd see him smiling down on me in that moment when my eyes are closed, laughing with me, and I'd thank him.  And when I do I know I never thank him enough.  Not nearly.  Even though I find myself thanking him all the time.  For pretty days, for good waves, for health, for happiness, for the little things.  And it's funny because finding those little things, small nothings to be thankful for that can tip frowns upside down and bring fullness to an empty soul.  He's a G, and he's always there for me no matter how many times I fuck up or forget.

He's always ready for a little deal on the barter system.  A good challenge, I think, does him well, keeps him on his toes in the clouds.  I remember the moment back in Marseille, on the train in the station waiting to go to Nice, ready drugs and dancing and reckless abandon.  I was in a window seat, leaning against it looking out, watching the people sheep-ing by, en masse.  Except one wasn't because you can't sheep by in a wheelchair.  She was young, and her scalp was bald and she didn't have eyebrows, and that far-off look in Mike's eyes now were in hers then.  It was a look more permanent for her though, and in those moments I can't help it, especially with my own dim reflection in the window glass, ready to rage.  "C'mon, God."  I didn't talk to him out loud, obviously.  That's for crazy people or priests, and I'd like to think I'm neither.  It was an inner-dialogue.  Well, monologue really.  It's always just me talking, but he hears it when I ask.  He heard it that time, "C'mon God.  Please.  Just let her have an awesome day.  Hell, you want to make an impression?  Give her the best day, y'hear?  It probably wouldn't take much.  And you can just throw me your worst.  Throw all the wrenches you can into my plan you can man.  I dare you.  I mean, I don't know how bad you could fuck my day up, I already got tickets to this madhouse dance party, but hey, bring it.  I'm sure you've got a couple silly scenarios that might tickle your fancy.  I'm ready.  Just a good day.  A great day.  A smile and a look of wonder.  Pure joy, for however long, yeah?  But pure.  The purest."  And I watched her shrink in the distance as the train pulled out.  She didn't see me.  I was on my toes from then on though.  Alert because that wasn't the first time I'd hucked that dare at him.

He's a wiley buggar, and he always inevitably gets me, and I'd find myself in a dill pickle.  When that shit and fan meet, yeah it sucks, but I'll manage, and I can't help but smile back on our agreement. I like to think he's a man of his word.  I know he is.  And so now I find myself asking him again.  Daring.  Pleading.  Begging him not to take dear Drew from this Earth just yet.  He's too young.  Too lively.  Too kind and caring.  And Lord knows (pardon the cliche) we don't have enough of his type down here.  He's fighting, I'm sure.  Let him fight, but let him win.  If anyone deserves it, it's him.  Shit, I'm just a shadow in comparison, so give me your worst. Your worstest.  Today.  Tomorrow.  Through the week.  Fuck it, I'm down.  I'll trudge through some shit, no worries.  Get a good laugh out of it, if that helps.  Bring it, bring it, bring it, bring it.  I'm ready, and I'm willing.

We're off to Tibidabo and the old amusement park and the church on the hill.  Max and Grant put their arms around Mike.  "We'll light a candle for him at the church, a'ight?" says Grant.

"Yeah... Let's do that."  Mike's still a way's away.

I give his shoulder a good firm squeeze and a shake as we enter the station, "He's gonna be fine, man."  Then we hop the turnstiles and when we get to the platform it's empty, and the train's just left, the last car making the first turn down the track.  The next one won't be here for twenty minutes.  Ha.  Thank you.  Keep it coming.

"Fuck.  Really?  What a day."  So succinct Max.

We're Your Friends Tonight: Second Day

DAY 2

My eyes opened.  Monster was to my left and Abby was to my right. We were snuggled up cozy in the back of that white Ford clubhouse, the rear window was popped and open and so were the side vanes.  It was a second before the last night came flooding back to consciousness.  Ahh, surreality.  I looked at Monster and she opened her eyes and we smiled "good morning" with squinted eyes as the sun was already lit.  But not yet the spliff.  Soon though.  "What time is it?" she asked.

I hadn't a clue and fumbled for my phone a little longer than usual.  "Holy mackerel!  It's just past 7:30." And it's already getting hot.  But there was a breeze breezing through, and we weren't sweating yet.  I closed the rear window so I could pop the trunk.  Abby was up too, and we wanted to stretch our legs.  Chloe, Callan, and the tent company were mulling about.  Callan's dreamcatchers were busy in the light wind.  Taylor was up, but Max, Grant, and BB were still lying where they'd fallen asleep late last night; on the ground on the side of the car where the shade hit.  Everyone was happy.  And looking back I can say it was such a treat it is to wake so, smiling in the early sun, and already giddy for the day.  We could not to be disappointed, and nothing even came close.  It was a perfect day.  One of the few in a young life, and something special that stands out all the more when they're so rare.

A perfect day is one filled with pleasant surprises and smiles and friends by your side.  And so it was to be, a day such as this graced me that spring Saturday in Indio.  We nibbled on muffins and bread and gulped down Gatorade by the mouthful, and then Max made an announcement.  His mother was picking us up and driving us to his aunt's house on a nearby golf course for a proper breakfast and a dip in the pool.  What a treat this was, and before I knew it we were walking to the outskirts of the campground and Max's mom and brother Adam were there to greet us in a 4Runner.  We piled in, the six of us - Grant, Max, Taylor, and myself in the back seat; Monster, BB, and Abby in the trunk - and were off.  There was a present from the family; a joint in some inconspicuous tube for pool cleaner.  We were already high, but it still warmed the heart.  We pulled into an austere-looking neighborhood, then a driveway to some Nancy Botwin abode by the ninth hole.  We walked through the house barefoot and light on our balls.  The tile floor was cool to my feet.  Max's aunt was already cooking up breakfast burritos as we passed the kitchen and she smiled and waved us through to the back patio and an infinity pool and a cooler of cold beer.

I didn't know what else to say but, "Thank you so much!"

"Don't mention it, darling," she said.  "Now there's some cold Coronas out there and some cans of coke.  I'll have some orange juice out in a bit and the burritos are almost ready.  You're gonna love 'em."

I already do.  "Thank you, thank you." A thousand times, thank you.  She hadn't stopped smiling and she was the most precious thing ever.  Max whispered something about chocolate chip cookies and that feeling of happiness was there sponging the mind like a pretty nurse.

"Oh, hush, hush.  Those are for later, Maxwell."  She was incorrigible.  "Now if you want to wait, I can heat up the pool for you guys."

"How cold is it?" asked Grant.

Adam mozied over to the pool shed and chuckles, "Seventy-five degrees," he said.  "I think it'll be okay for now."  And we all laughed like little tikes just arrived at a sand-box and jumped in.  The water was perfect.

It seemed to just float over the far edge and onto the fairway.  And I floated there myself, on my back, in the middle of it all with a deep breath in my lungs so that my chest stayed just above the surface.  And when I opened my eyes, it was all blue with cotton balls floating by and the white puffs you see when you dream in the day.  They'd change slowly to please me and drift away.  The taste of cold beer with lime was on my tongue, that blanket of Mary Jane in my mind and a room temperature water soaking into my skin.  Happiness was served up and consumed by the lot of us floating lazily in our lives and the water lapped our ankles.  Then burritos and burritos and orange juice and more beer.  We lit the joint and killed it just before Max's aunt came out with some cookies.  And not just any cookies.  Those were the best damned cookies I believe I've ever had the pleasure to chomped on.  They were miraculous.  Satiating and soft.  They bear-hugged our tired souls in that commercial bliss, the kind you see in TV ads.  The too-good-to-be-true kind.  Award-winning in my eyes.  But there was still more.  We had to see the casitas. Max's aunt insisted, we just had to.  She was very adamant.

So we saw the casitas.  It was lovely; entirely comfortable.  And we all just sort of fell to slumber on the big bed, or to shower in the bathroom of glass and fair tile flooded by skylight.  What a casitas.  Sweet dreams came and went gently, and before we left, we felt rejuvenated to a pinnacle and ready for the day.  It was the feeling only a casitas can bring, and that day it paid in full, and we loved it for that.  One more beer was to be had before driving back into the fray.  2:00 and the grounds for camping were dry grass that padded each step as we walked.  We stopped by the car for a spell to smoke another spliff. And a blunt. And suck Gatorade from the bottle and shotgun beers under the high afternoon sun.  It was not long before we were once again frolicking towards the main gates, gatorade in hand, spliffs and molly in pocket.  Silly, joy-caked faces in tank tops and shorts and sunglasses.  No shoes on; just another day in Wonderland.

[stop]

We were washed, and the grass felt greener and my lungs sucked in the sweet surrender.  It was already four in the afternoon so we decided to go to the Outside Stage and take in the Temper Trap.  And when I say we decided, I mean of course, that we floated over to it, through Spring Break 2010 and past the giant origami swan in a spliffy haze that felt so alive.  At the Do Lab, I flexed my toes and they sank into the swampy marsh of grass in front of the stage.  We breathed in the spring desert air and the sun was shining and there was water falling from above.  The water on the ground danced with the bass, and it wasn't long at all before my shirt soaked through so i took it off.  When I closed my eyes, thoughts flashed to those days in the summer in the front yard when Dad would hose down the grass and make an arch with the water.  My sister and I would always try and run through it and Dad would always bring the hose down at the last minute and spray us.  The feeling warmed me more than the Indio sun.  And the smile on my face widened. It brought everything together into a swirly amalgam as BB and Erica grabbed my hands in the air, and we spun and twirled and jumped, high as we could because nothing was sore from the night before.  The feeling was something incredible and the soul at my core was full of light that shone through to the skin and made it tingle.

Eyes open again and we were laying in the grass and the mind erupted at the overwhelming perfection of it all.  To every sense.  The frontman for Temper Trap had the voice of a whining angel, so much so that we'd sit up straight and crane to see him far-off on the distant stage.  We weren't close.  But we moved up for Edward Sharpe as Temper Trap closed out and people began to disperse.  We got close.  Really close, and just hung out until Sharpe and the Zeros came out to set up. It was time to stand, but there was room around us and we weren't sardine-packed.  It wasn't Jay-Z.  The crowd wasn't so thick at that hour, which was nice because another spliff was gone and the breathing room was nice.  Alex Ebert was already fucked up, something pronounced by his scraggly beard and hair tied in a the dirty knot of long hair on his head.  He dressed in dirty off-white from head to bare toe, save for the thin, weathered scarf of red mahogany loose around his neck.  Before the first song, he fell into the crowd and elbowed some guy in the face, so he threw him his sweaty white shirt. I couldn't help but laugh because I imagine it stunk like booze and cigarettes and BO.

Then they broke into "40 Day Dream" - the whistling came first and sent a shiver down my back -  and all was forgotten and forgiven because I wanted so badly for each precious moment to last forever; presently in that short breath between just then and what comes next.  They oozed dreary and excitable love, and all that happened just before was in that fog of the distant past that one did not care for.  All that mattered was striving to feel as they all felt onstage.  That carefree living to the fullest.  We wanted to feel the look in their eyes , the love, the crisp laughing chorus, the way Alex and Jane sang to each other.  Maybe I was too high because I wanted to sing along, but my lips moved without the noise as the words got caught in my throat.  I was so in shock at how beautiful it was, I just stood there and breathed in deep.  All those little hairs on my arms and the back of my neck stood at attention.  So in love with the other they were, those two.  We were just their fuzzy background with the aperture wide, wide open.

[stop]

That's what happens when you're in love.  Everything else fades to fuzzy backdrops with that true and only in focus, center stage.  All starry-faced and smiling, eyes whispering that sweet secret back and forth so that everybody who cares to notice sees it like a flare going off, but no one else knows what they're saying except you.  It's precious. It's treasured.  Guarded.  Intrigued upon and held close.  And it's not meticulous, and they had it in spades, shoveling it out over the crowd so that when their set was over, we didn't want to leave.

We stayed at the Outdoor stage and let the XX croon us and sink us in the grass where we lay.  Max simply had to see Coheed and Cambria's set.  He ambled off to our left towards where the Main Stage was literally burning  down during Coheed.  They both played into the sunset, but I didn't see it.  T'was like a hole in a redwood forest. I was laying on my back next to Monster and the sky framed itself within the people standing around us and shot bright orange before getting darker.

[stop]

Hot Chip took the Outside Stage next, so we all took our shirts off and took molly by the hand.  With some Emergen-C and a water bottle.  Then we waited.  The stage lights were up now.  In a few minutes the high changed and it was a thing like laying on a cloud, and we floated up to our feet and started dancing.  The come-up was beautiful.  It was soft.  And color-full.  And it was warm and cozy and sweet.  Skin breathed and everything was more real.  Real to the touch.  Real to the ears.  Real to the eyes.  Real to the heart and to the soul.  Love swelled like a river through, and it shared with everyone close.  There was a certain magic in it.

A guide to goodness, it was and shortly pulled us away towards the Sahara Tent and Kaskade and David Guetta.  There was a pause between songs and we pranced off through the crowd.  Monster on my back for a piggyback ride.  But the next song was too good, and we were dancing again in the open grass.  Over and over again.  Every body part moved to the beat and flexed in the desert heat.  We couldn't stop because we never wanted to not feel this euphoric.  It was a triple negative maybe, but still oh, so positive.  Love.  The feeling of it became a reason for living.  A bookmark for saving every minute of it.  Because it was all so crystal clear.  Living with purpose, the dreamer, walking through it with eyes closed and a hand outstretched wanting that dream to be real and tangible.  Eyelids fluttering, waiting to take grasp.  Keep on dreaming.

So simply, it never ended.  And the we found ourselves dancing towards the farthest tent.  Hot Chip's bass slowly faded and as we walked past the Gobi and Mojave, a new bass grabbed us in the loins, and the Sahara drew ever closer.  It opened in sections on the side and was all pulsing pink and white light.  The entire thing appeared to be moving, breathing, and alive with all tenacity, but it was just the crowd inside.  So we refilled our water bottles, dance-pranced in one side, and soon we were in the thick of it.  And it was absolutely, incontrovertibly amazing.  It was bright and wild, even with our sunglasses on.  There were lights before me and above me.  It was hot, even with our shirts off.  But not too hot.  The place was embalming.  A slight breeze coming in through the sides was felt, but just barely though.  Like the heat, we rose.  And soon everything was lighter and loftier and we floated in the air as we danced to Move For Me and held each other.  There was that Imogen song and I Remember.  Then David Guetta, and I danced and danced and half the time it was just by myself.  But I've never noticed until now, or thought to think if I cared really.  Probably because I didn't.

Salivating and ears in orgasm.  The music took over and was felt in every inch of being.  Now and again we'd grab everyone in a group hug and take off our sunglasses and look at how high we all were.  And we smiled because we'd never been so happy before.  Still, it wasn't over.

That night I wanted so badly to meet the inventor of the glow stick and shake his hand.  We wrapped those twisty little light rods around our heads and wrist and ankles, and when we left the Sahara Tent for the rest of Muse's set and Tiesto at the Main Stage, we were a glowing snake in the crowd outside.  The polo fields were now dark and thick with people.  But nobody got lost, not once.  Thanks to our trusty glows sticks, the tribe never separated, and it was only too easy to find each other after using the restrooms (which some will tell you, truthfully, isn't so easy, especially when you're really high).  Muse was a wholly different experience.  Their performance was beautiful like a herd of wild horses is beautiful.  It was wild and fast and went everywhere with no inhibition.  And the drums stampeded and the guitar riffs cut to the core, but not one horse would ever fall or falter and it was all spot-on.  Every key.  Every note.  Matthew Bellamy was one of those beings from another place.  The kind of thing one stands in awe of.  It was overwhelming to say the least.

Muse finished in a flash of white light, and we cheered, stupified.  We yelled at the top of our lungs, then it all went dark.  Tiesto.  People-training, we went to the center of it all in a glowie-stick dream.  The crowd closed in around us until it could close no further, and we just had enough room to dance.  And Max and I looked at one another and grabbed molly once more.  When I sat down to rest my legs, it was once again a people forest, but it was different this time.  It was darker, and at knee level in a mass that thick the middle music was muffled and above me.  Thick darkness by the ground was punctuated with glow-stick blues and greens and pinks and yellows and the bass vibrated through the grass.  The cool of the night wasn't felt down there.  It was all body heat and a phantom breeze.  Then it stopped.  There was a cheer.  A wild ecstatic howl, and it grew louder and louder until it was all I heard in that forest of feet.  It was pulsing in my ears, so I stood and just then the stage exploded into light and lasers whizzing overhead, and it started.  It was everything.  Perfect.

Lost Angeles: In the dark, I'm dreaming

Through the dark, I'm flying.  The wings stroke slow.  And that cool breeze never cools because the air's still hot from the day.  I see, and it's something to note because it never gets too dark.  The city's glow hangs on the haze, caught in that dreary mist blanket that rolls out from the ocean.  The tall, thin alleys are still lit and it's not that black pitch like Santa Cruz.  It's a night light.  It's a full moon that never wanes.  So bright it still leaves shadows in midnight hours.  I'm not high so much anymore as I had been, and the dreams come flooding back, and I walk through the day wondering what memories are real now.  Is this real?  Am I watching these people finish their meal?  Talk politenesses to each other as my mind races at what the future holds.  Paris.  Barcelona.  The Old World.  A break from this LA daydream.  I want to feel alive again.  To breath in the air and know it's real, without second-guessing.  I want to sleep sound in that welcome dark.  To feel the contrast.  The differences shouldn't be muddled like this.  It's not right.  Those gray areas in between.  Where the sun hits the horizon and you can't see the line anymore.  The shadows in the night.  The star-less skies.  I've had enough, I think.  The hiccup's due.  That two week candle burns too slow.  It seems so far and yet, all that I've passed by to now is a blur of speed.  And the present just never ends.  It's all I see.  Because I'm twenty-three and nobody knows me, really.  Not my parents.  My friends, maybe.  And the girls haven't a clue.  You'd think one ought to by now.  I will say this, so that somebody may piece it all together; I can't wait for my skin to once again tingle with adventure; with prospect of paths unknown.  To death with this California routine.  It's going to taste like cheap port.

Occupy Wallstreet

Why are we so pathetic?  You can't simply march back and forth and sit around "in protest".  That won't enact change, you idiots.  Especially in this day and age.  It's a spectacle, nothing more.  Someone needs to speak out, strong-voiced and sincere.  Someone needs to rise above the clamor and raise an impassioned call to action.  That's why I've always seen protesters as a bunch of fuckin' idiots. And I've come to love the word idiot as well, mostly due in part I believe to my dear friend Boom, that idiot.  It's blunt and to the point and kind of just rolls off the tongue to aptly describe such denizens.  Those human road blocks, chanting their pithy slogans, and holding their signs with quotes from some old movement on them.  But to what avail?  To incite anger?  Check.  Cause a bother?  Check again.  Annoying?  Definitely.  But if that's all you've accomplished, you haven't really accomplished anything now have you.  Is there no one in that crowd to speak out?  (I guess there is, but still.)

Furry February and the Party for Molly

As all budding gentlemen know, a man's true worth is symbolically (if not economically) defined by his ability to grow a beard and subsequently groom it into and maintain a mustache during the month of March.  Being in our final year of undergraduate education, we wanted to do it right.  So we started a month before with the lesser known tradition of Furry February.  All of the men at King Street and I had our last shave the week before February 1st, each trying to get the biggest head start he could.  It was to be one of those wild, crazy months, defining in nature.

The month started off manly enough.  Grant, Taylor, Mike, and I had convinced ourselves that we were going to bike from Santa Cruz to Los Angeles for spring break.  So of course we had to get in shape.  That first Thursday in February, Grant and Taylor weren't working so we decided to bike to Davenport that afternoon for our first day of training.  Now, I never worked.  It was because I was in school I told myself.  So I do believe i may have smoked a spliff with Boom that morning before he biked up to campus for his drawing class.  Still, I wasn't so high when we left King Street, but I was bringing up the rear.  We all had light road bikes so we hustled through town, and before long we found ourselves pedaling up Highway 1 with green hills and growing harvests on either side.  Davenport was ten miles away, a stone's throw on these thin-tired, carbon-framed rockets.  But a hilly stone's throw.  It just so happens that one of those meandering uphill grades got the best of me. 

The moments before are always so clear in hindsight.  It was about 4 miles outside town, a soft grade, and the 1 yawned to the right.  As is so often done though, the curve was banked higher on the outside than on the inside.  So there was a side grade as well.  Daunting, I know.  To be sure, I was zoned out.  Short-sighted.  Ever so focused on following Taylor's back tire, and trying not to be so aware of the highway traffic zooming by on the other side of the white shoulder-line.  I didn't see obstacles before us until Taylor passed them.  And I dodged most of them,  but I couldn't be so fast every time could I?  Oh, no.

I didn't remember seeing anything peculiar.  I just remembered a sharp wobble and a catch of the breath that jolted me, and down I went, face first into the asphalt.  I don't think my hands ever let go of the handlebars, just trying to compensate until it was too late.  It was one of those hits that you feel through your skull, that only stop after you've slid three feet.  Lovely.  I rolled over and just laid there, breathing dazed chuckles.  It would definitely have been funnier if it didn't hurt so much.  Grant and Taylor had stopped and came pedaling back with inquisical looks and stifled laughter on their faces.  I smiled.  I'd posted a strong opening performance on our first day of training.  When they got closer, the looks were more concerned, but still comical.  "What the hell happened?!" they inquired.

Taylor took a picture of my face, looked at it, laughed, and showed me. "Dude you're missing some tooth!"  Then I laughed and instinctively tongued my two front teeth.  The right one was fine, but there was something terribly wrong with the other; a corner of it wasn't there.  It had chipped off at a small angle, not exposing the root, but still tender.  My lip was also cut and bleeding, as were other spots on the left side of my face where my chin and my cheekbone had made contact and torn the skin clean off.  To put it quaintly, my face felt fucked.  And it looked fucked, especially with a week's worth of facial hair.  Grant called Matty to come pick me up.  I don't know how long it took for him to get there.  Everything was a little fuzzy for a while, but I was slowly regaining my bearings.  I looked over at my bike, my baby.  She was fine.

Then I see it.  A flattened, plastic fountain drink cup, you know, the kind you get for $1.29 at Valero.  It's about ten feet away, right where I began to speed wobble.  I laugh, ha.  Oh, man.  Fuck that cup.

Before I knew it, Matty arrived, Minh with him, and I piled into his old rugged Ford Ranger.  Matty gunned it back to Western, and Minh dressed my wounds, and BB whipped up a batch of special tea for the pain.  It was supposed to be morphine I think, but whatever it was, it didn't work and my head was splitting when I fell asleep.   Grant and Taylor had continued on to Davenport and back, but that was to be the last training day.  The first and only.

[stop]

It was to be an unseemly month for me.  The scars and the beard and the chipped tooth meshed well though.  Well enough, I suppose, as Taylor's sister showed to be quite the flirtatious young flower when she came up to visit.  She was still in high school, a senior and graduating soon.  Young, I know, but that didn't stop her from whispering sparky dark and dirty secrets in my ear after a few beers.  She was a telling one, and she wasn't the only.  The female flock laid it on heavy that month, and one of them ran away with my heart.

She was the blonde pixie Indian from Halloween.  Someone out of my league.  She had thin princess hands and long skinny fingers and sharp come-hither sapphire eyes and a cute, turned up button nose and lips that went thin when she smiled.  When she smiled there was never anything so pretty, and out of the blue mid-February she started texting me and wanting to hang out with marked regularity.  I intrigued her, I suppose.  And she... well, I thought she had a boyfriend.  She'd always had one.  So I was just her friend.  She'd come over with pot brownies, and she smiled when I smiled.  Some nights she'd roll us spliffs and we'd drive to Marianne's for ice cream, heaven flavored (because that's actually one of the flavors).  Waiting in line, we'd whisper it to each other with sunken stoned eyes, "Heaven," and we'd try not to laugh out loud before we ordered.

"Stop it."  She said it sultrily, the way you say it when you really mean the opposite, with her chin down and her thin lips curled, and her sharp blues burned holes in my retinas that went right through.  She had me and she knew it, before I did even.

"You know she's single, right?" BB asked me one day.

"Umm, what?  Since when?  What happened to that other guy?"  That other guy was her boyfriend, or had been anyways, but he went to Berkeley.  He was friends with our friends and handsome and wealthy and worked out all the time, and tried to fight mother fuckers on occasion.  And all that can be intimidating to a chipped-tooth idiot like me.

"They're done.  They've been done," she said.  "For a while now."

"Hmm.  Really?  Well, that's interesting," I said stroking my young beard.  I squinted my eyes sarcastically,  "That's very interesting indeed."  My lip had healed, and so had my chin, but the spot below the corner of my left eye was still shiny where my cheekbone had slid across the asphalt, and there were two streaking scars where a pair of tiny rocks had cut deep.

[stop]

I met her for hot coco at Lulu's downtown that night.  Maybe I had her notebook that she needed back, or maybe it was only a bit chilly outside, I forget.  We just flirted with each other over a small table for much too much time to just finish a cup of of hot coco.  It was piping hot to begin with, and she was easily the most pretty and alluring girl I'd met in Santa Cruz.  She lit a fire inside me that I was certain wasn't from the steamed milk and chocolate.  Something kindled from her thin-lipped, devilish smile and her dainty princess hands and her talk of kittens and charcoal drawings and volunteering in Africa.  When I walked her to her car I didn't kiss her though.  I've always been to shy and nervous with pretty girls for anything like that.  Besides, I'd see her again.  And a little dark part of me was afraid of falling for her and what that might entail.  But whatever.  "Oh, and Molly party this weekend, tehe," I told her.

Excitement flushed her face, "I can't wait."

It was Western's turn.  The King Street kids had thrown a wild one, and it was our turn now, so on Saturday we pushed all the couches up against the walls for some dancing space, and cleared all the shit off the living room table for beer pong, and we even had tinsel, though not a lot.  Just enough to string a line of it through the middle of everything, and that sufficed.  D-buns had our Molly and we split it up in the master bedroom upstairs, and Team Western took to dabbling in it around ten Saturday night.  By eleven the place was packed, brimming with the dozens of faces that had become familiar in this small-town college party scene.  All the houses, all the friends, and if we didn't know someone, someone we knew did so it was chill.  And yeah, not everyone was rolling, but everyone was definitely raging and most of us were dancing, and that old Western house kept the sound in like a padded, rotting insane asylum in the woods.

She came a little after eleven with our friend Jessica, but when she finally did, there wasn't wasting any time.  She'd already slipped herself some, and the moment she walked in she pressed a full capsule softly to my lips, and I took it in and swallowed it.  "Hi."

"Hey... sorry I'm late. We were at some other party for a little bit.  It was eh, but we're here meow!"  She was wearing a tiny tee and a long-haired fur vest with a hood.

"Oh, reary meow?" I retorted with pondering sarcasm, petting her fur.

She smiled, "Yes, reary.  And maybe we're already caught up."

"Ha! You think so?  How do you feel?"

"Mmm, I feel light as a feather."  As she said it, she stepped closer and closer, and I stepped back and back until my back was against my bedroom door, and she turned the handle and closed the door behind her.  "It's going to be a good night."

The lights were off in my room, but the window shades were pulled up so it wasn't pitch black.  Just dark enough to to barely see one another so I pulled her in close and her hands slipped underneath my shirt.  Our lips kissed quick and my skin tingled with the ecstatic pleasure of her cold fingers skipping up my torso until I fell back into my bed, and she had me.  We took turns trying to steal each other's breath in a fit of passion that stopped suddenly.  She was over me and on me and she pulled her head back, "Hi."

"Hi."  We were both breathing deeply.  The night was still young though.

"Let's go dance."

Oh, I liked the sound of that, "Mmm, yes, let's."  That's Molly for you.  Everything always sounds so good, especially raging.

[stop]

The cops came around one in the morning and we booted everyone out.  Well, not everyone.  Of course she stayed, and so did Jessica and some girls from the Harbor Cafe.

"All right, kids.  Who wants one last dip?"  Dylan was holding up the remnants of our MDMA havoc in a tiny palm-sized baggie, and grinning like an idiot.  But then again, so were we.  Boom scoffed at the idea and went to bed.

So did BB and Monster.  "You guys are retarded."

"You're retarded."  The rest of us put our sneaky faces on and tip-toed into Dylan's room with Lizzie and shut the door.  We dipped and licked that baggie clean and laid down on the carpet floor with some blankets as Dylan serenaded us sweetly on the guitar.  A little Rocket Man in slow time, and I whispered along.  And then another song.  And another.  She put her hand in mine while we laid there next to each other, looking up at the line of light-up petri dishes that barely illuminated the room in the early morning.  For hours, it seemed.  For it was hours before our eye-lids finally took weight.  One of the Harbor girls stayed with Dylan, and one with Cam, and one on the couch.  And Jessica passed out in my bed.

"Ruh, roh."

"It's ok, let her sleep," I said.  "I don't think anyone's sleeping in the closet upstairs."

"Ooo, the closet?" she laughed and squeezed my hand.

"Oh, you'll love it.  It's cozy."  So we flew up the stairs and into the master bedroom to the closet with bed that Matt the Richard usually slept in.  Except Matt was at his girlfriend's in Santa Barbara, and we were alone now.  I fell for her in a skinny walk-in closet in the early morning.  What it was was beautiful in the state we were in, and we took our time finding sleep.  She slept in nothing but my flannel, and we woke up all dreamy-eyed and smoked spliffs on her porch swing, and laid on each other because we were just so comfortable.

It didn't last though.

I'll Believe in Anything: Napa

Seattle beacons as the taste for long distance driving sours.  A premonition; Taylor has obligations to the real world, and like that, visions of Interstate, Vodoo Donuts, the Needle... They become nothing more than hopeless pipe dreams, slipping through our hands like Spring sand through a sieve.

Two days left.  The constraints of academia and the weight on the mind are brooding, a storm cloud's looming overhead.  Let's get out of here.

Spring break was almost over and we hadn't done diddly-squat except surf and romp around Santa Cruz all week.  Not a total waste, but something of a hoe-hum time when everyone else was getting trashed and naked in Cancun or sacrificing body and soul to South Beach.  We had to do something.

Alone in the upstairs room, spliff in hand, BB and I devised with devilish smiles and maniacal laughter a solution to these spring break blues.  Earlier in the week we talked of driving to Eureka to proclaim, "Eureka!"  But the more we thought about it, the more it sounded stupid, and Eureka was way too far away, way up on the northern coast.  And then it dawned on us.  There was a valley.  A magical valley of slow living and healthy drinking where the wine sprung from the ground like oil in Texas and the sun set over rolling golden hills to the west.  It was less than a three hour drive away.  Napa.

And we did Napa right.

The first step is always the most important.  We step with class.  With tucked in button-downs and shoes that speak leather sophistication.  This isn't Santa Cruz anymore, Dorthy.  

Even Bernice was in a dress, and I can't say I remember any day since that I've seen her so, but by God, it happened.  All squished in that little pig-bull of an Explorer Sport, pressed tight with three in the back seat and some old familiar mix CD blowing tunes.

Driving east with the sun already sinking low behind us.  The city turns to country, sharp grey skyscrapers give way to warm rolling hills as traffic fades.  We leave any predispositions and concerns at the county line.

We passed the warm Welcome To Napa sign around six in the afternoon and found a cozy little ditch to park in over the bridge, on the outskirts of downtown.  Half the wine-tasting spots were closed or hosting some private party, and the rest were open until eight.  So we went down to a fun lookin' red brick bar called the Bounty Hunter on the other side of the bridge that we'd seen coming in.  Fun lookin' in the sense that there was a couple seated outside enjoying a whole grilled chicken with a beer can up its ass.  It garnered our interest, to say the very least. As we took it all in, we seemed to be missing something.  A familiar element whose particular absence was seeming to linger.

There's a curious lacking in our demographic, and like a social exhibit, we walk by child-filled moonbounces.  By private wine tasting parties.  By early evening dinners.  There's no one else our age. No one.  No twenty-year-olds.  No teenagers.  Just little kids, and old grown-ups, which is odd to me.  But what are you going to do, right?  Either got to dummy down, or live it up.  A moment's pause at a cigar shop then to purchase a few stogies.  

Sophistication?  Sophistication to a tee, mon frère. Ten bottles to go.

Walking over the bridge, it was discussed and agreed upon that we would each buy two bottles of wine tonight.  Why?  Why, because "It's fuckin' Napa," that's why.  It the catch-line of the evening.  Mike and Grant each bought bottles at the Bounty Hunter, a classy joint with an old stained-wood bar that wasn't so smooth, and when you put your hand to it you felt all the grooves and age and beer-spilled, fist-pounding moons it'd seen.  Bottles of wine adorned the walls like trophies in some Ivy League hall.

Bottle 1 is a voluptuous Cab purchased at our new favorite bar, where the chickens have beer cans shoved up their asses.   A Mexican beer of course, only the finest.  A brew worthy of a chickens rear end; Tecate.  Delectable.

Bottle 2 is a tart white purchased and consumed at that same Bounty Hunting bar.  We leave aglow with the inklings of intoxication.  The sun's long gone now as we navigate the embalming Napa night by clear star and street light.  

Next stop,

Bottle 3 is a bottle with Jenifree.  Wineologist by day, her tasting gallery typifies class.  She gives a Merlot, obviously, if only for diversification's sake.  Paul Giamatti's Sideways criticisms flash at the purchase, but by now we're past that.

Bottle 4 is greeted with a cordial invitation to all present company, Jenifree included.  We wait for her to close the shop, and she brings a few gems out from behind the bar.  I can now say with questioned certainty that the drink of the gods tastes better behind locked doors.  Thank you, Jenifree.

Doors still locked,

Bottle 5 is enjoyed with new friends.  Any hint of social discomfort is assuaged by the volume of fermented grapes in our system.  Life stories come pouring out as we discuss our options for the remainder of the night across the stained wood dining table now littered with bottles and gradually emptier glasses.  Jenifree tells us of a place that would be perfect for dinner, where the wine flows like the Euphrates, and good times and good food are sure to be had.

And back into the night.

Bottle 6 is purchased at El Rose, the restaurant of Jenifree's choosing.  She does not disappoint.  Never mind chickens with cans shoved up their behinds.  This was real food, so of course I get the ribs sandwich and another bottle.  

Bottle 7 is a nice white wine, I believe.  Or a red.  I don't know.  What I do know is that the taste is appetizing and the memory is continually growing fuzzy.  But spirits remain high and the laughter and conversation is at a fever pitch, so much so that the purchase of the next bottles slides by and into awaiting glasses.  

Bottle 8 is... ah yes, another dessert wine.  A rosé at El Rose as it were, and we stumble back onto Main Street, positively glowing from the night's events.  

We went back to the Bounty Hunter, but by that time they'd all but closed.  They did, however, sell us two bottles of wine for our efforts, and tell us that Joe's was still open around the corner.  We could drink our wine there.  But Jenifree was tired, and that was where she took her leave and smiled, "Goodnight!"

Bottle 9 is at Joe's with a pitcher of beer for good measure.  Everyone's already super drunk there anyways.  It's just about last call.  We flirt with the older ladies on the prowl, just for a spell before they're closing.  Maybe we're too drunk...

It was time to light those stogies. I'd never smoked cigars before, and no one told me not to inhale.  Suffice to say I was wrecked, so much more so than everybody else.  We were all lit, and stumbling back over the bridge and to the car.  Everybody leaned hard on the Explorer as I fumbled with the keys.

"No one's driving tonight," said Grant, and I agreed.  It was cold.  And we were tired. So I laid down over the center console in front, and the other four piled into the back and pulled the door down.  Five sweet, smiling sardines cradled away to a sway and a laugh that reeked red wine and still didn't feel the bite of spring nights in the North. We had one bottle left.

Bottle 10 is who the hell knows what. Who cares really?  It was enjoyed amongst old friends in close quarters.  The bottle's passing hands slower and slower, and some slow-tune mash of a mix CD rocked us soft to sleep.  We drift through the millions of far-off stars out the window in that the warm blackout.  

The morning wasn't so poetic.  The sun crept over the low hills early.  Sharp and straight into the car, and it was freezing.  My eyes opened and it wasn't even 7:00 yet.  The first thought to my mind wasn't a pretty one.  It was a head-splitting agony of one, and I opened the driver-side door to vom.  Blood red wine vomit with what looked familiarly like last night's dinner.  And if that one didn't, the second one sure as hell did.  What a waste.  Then I was so hungry, and it was driving time.  As in, we had to start driving pronto; but could we?  No one in the back was going to do it, so it was up to me.  


My legs were stiff.  My whole body, really.  And if it wasn't stiff, it hurt something god-awful, and my head still split like someone'd put an ax to it.  But hey, I was fresh off the vom, so we got some gas, I got a Gatorade, and we hit the road.  It wasn't ten minutes until everyone passed out again, and driving west towards the ocean had never been so rough.  Or so early or so hungover either.  In shotgun, BB would slip back into consciousness every now and again and keep me company for a few minutes before she dozed off once more.  We were in Santa Cruz at 10:00, dropping off the King Street kids first before sprinting home, so ready to fall asleep.  I made it to the living room where the sun hits the soft carpet, and you can smell the yard from the open back doors.  Lizzie pranced up through the long grass for a kiss before my eyes closed.

Halloween and Eggy-wegs

It was the end of October.  That time when the sun starts setting sooner and the days slip away much earlier than they should.  The trees sense this change more than most and utterly give up on life, and there's an abundance of leaves once green, now littering the ground and cracked and brown and dry like old paper snow in autumn.  To the old Christians, it was a day before a celebration of saints, a hallowed eve, a somber night when ghosts and spirits and demons flew free.

But now, presently, to us collegiate folk of the coastal woods, it was to be a day and night of make-up and costumes and debauchery.

[stop]

The day was tinted with a mild, sleepy excitement that grew through the morning.  After a Team Western breakfast of toasty-toast and scrambled eggy-wegs, we mixed up a batch of mimosas.  And then it was time to get into that ole' ultra-violence.  We threw a Clockwork Orange DVD in and were all smiles and English croons and champagne flutes up and down through the house finding our white pants and white shirts and suspenders and top hats and bowler hats.  And chains and canes and butt-beads and BB was doing the make-up.  She did us up proper.

To the bicycles then, and we flew in V-formation down Western hill; canes raised, laughing Kubrick laughs, all with our droog-ish attire clapping in the wind.  And licking my sides.  The sun hit just so that the skin wasn't cold and the air, crisp in the lungs.  Autumn are perfect there.  It was a wonderful feeling,  that perfect autumn day by bicycle, poised for all the mayhem and n'ere do-ery to be offered by such a hallowed eve.

They were ready for us at King St.  Our arrival was met with the house spewing out Pan and Hook and Tink and Wendy and Rufio and a band of Lost Boys.  Conor was already there as curious bottle of Siracha.  They were ready for us and the clash was epic and riotous and beautiful, full of pirate 'yarr's and droog terror.  Then those wicked, lost boys got to brewwin'.  The concoction was deplorable and altogether brilliant.  Pink Panty Droppers they were called, and they consisted of (by the tub-full): a 30-pack of beer (cheap beer), a liter of vodka (Vodka Of The Gods), a cyclinder full of Welch's Pink Lemonade concentrate, and three pink Crystal Lite packets.  That was it, but it was candy to the lips.  Sweet and tangy and like drinking long island iced teas by the red college-party-cupful.  The sun hadn't even peaked in the sky yet.  Grant Hook and Matty Pan were sword-fighting in the backyard as Cricket looked on, and Minh Tink fluttered about telling them to stop.  Mike as Rufio and Lost Boy Max were playing PPD-pong in the garage with two droogs as the rest of our lash-eyed deviant ensemble cheered and boozed and cried curses in English accents.

There was pizza in the fridge from Pizza My Heart (Matt delievered pizzas for them).  There was a tub of pink drunk liquid in the living room, and there were cases of beer scattered throughout the property.  With our two houses and company, we were thirty people, maybe more, and sunset snuck up on our booze-faced eyes of laughter.  It was the best of times.  And in the night the girls' house came, then everyone came. And that house at 310 King Street turned into a right-wretched vessel of depravity as the PPD tub was filled for a fourth time, and every nature of villain and hero and contemporary misfit flowed in and out of those doors.  The tub was filled a fifth time before I lost count and the memory went hazy.  I do remember this; there was an Indian squaw with red lipstick, and a colored leather band with a feather held down her soft blonde hair. But what boded most clearly in that mist for me were her eyes.  Pretty eyes that she closed slowly when she blinked to make them look prettier as she smiled at me.  The rest was a dream.  The kind of dream that's slipped away, but one never stops trying to remember.