Episode XXV - The cartography of the conversation enters uncharted waters.

“You know, you’re really acting like a ghost of yourself in this matter.” The Cook began unexpectedly.

“What’s that have to do with the plan?” I muttered.

“Some might even say that you’re a pansy, a loser, a total fraud.”

“Some people are saying that.” I growled.

“Well, they’re – or he’s kind of right, isn’t he?” He said flatly.

“How exactly does this help me?” I rasped, idly turning my potato peeler.

“Easy with that bread knife.” He noted. “This isn’t a stabbing situation, and you’re not a slasher and hacker for trivial insults. Look at it this way. On the one hand, you describe a swashbuckling life. But on the other – you refuse to take the actions that would bring the stories to life, so to speak.”

“So…?”

“Either you live up to your ego, or you let self-preservation reign. You can’t play the brash hero without living the part. It’s really quite ironic, you know, a hero who is afraid of things.”

“Not all of us are college graduates…yet.” I said. “Easy on the big words. I think I take your meaning – if I’m to tell the stories, and act in a certain manner, then I must live up to expectations.”

“Exactly.” He said, a smile dancing over his face. “You’ve had it easy up to this point, since you’re young. When you were tally-hoing down rope strands in England, you didn’t recognize the implications of your actions. You just wanted to be the cause without the effect.”

“And…this relates to the plan how?”

“This relates to the larger plan.”

“Ah.”

“You have to decide what you want to be. Do you want to be the itinerant explorer, who graduated from his apprenticeship in adventure, and now has to deal with all of the causes and effects? Or do you want to be the apprentice who went home and had a totally spectacular and yet somewhat unremarkable life?”

“I don’t think it’s that black and white.”

“No, as far as I can tell, life isn’t that black and white. But for this ship and for now it is. That’s where it gets complicated. Your fear is telling you that there are a million reasons not to continue, because implicitly, you’re already happy with who you are and what you do. Also because if you do go on, there’s always going to be one more challenge. There’s always going to be one more Bartleby. Its not going to be this Bartleby, but tougher, stronger, faster, quicker, smarter, Bartlebys. They’re going to want substantiation for your stories, facts, proof, hard evidence.

They’re going to want to show that they’re better than you, even though you don’t really want to compete. There’s always going to be one more quest, one more mast to climb, each higher than the last and each more imposing. And that’s why, when you look at it, its not fear that wants you to turn around, but common sense, because being an itinerant adventurer, is a long, cold, fruitless, silly, and undoubtedly risky path, because what adventure really is, is the effect and not the cause, and it is the consequences that hide behind the façade of life.

Those consequences are harsh, cold black letter words that don’t care if you live – or die. That, my friend who peels potatoes, is what adventure, and your choice is. It is a choice between risk, and certain reward. So with that choice, I’m going to leave you with my plan. It’s not clever, especially since I am a college graduate. I’m going to leave out these eggs. You can climb the mast, and drop them on Bartleby. Or not. I’ll leave you to make the choice on your own. But as we spoke so deeply of consequences, I will state that should you “steal” these eggs, you will be spending a lot more time with me on this cruise.”

Episode XIV –Assault with a butter knife does not rate the Bat-Signal.

Bartleby. Bartleby the Bother. Everyone – every single solitary person, each and every individual at one point in their lives knows a Bartleby. By the time I met him and his odd-shaped egg-dome, I had already known a few Bartlebys. I also bore my private shame that I had been a Bartleby to a few people. Should I describe what a Bartleby is? They come in many sizes and shapes; from large, to skinny, to stumpy, to colossal giants. Sometimes their accent and diction is thick with malice, sometimes their narrow shrill words cut easily like stilettos.

Pest. Bully. Bruiser. Thug. Annoyance. The words come flooding into the mind to describe the Bartleby's of the world. The words fail to convey the amount of time wasted in avoidance, the amount of time lost in futile plots. The words eviscerate the sleepless nights and the wasted retorts to public humiliations. If life was a comic book, the Bartleby's would always play the minor villains to one's Superhero; not quite worth the trouble to completely vanquish, but always ready to wreak mayhem on an unsuspecting metropolis.

On the small stage of the Hydra, my Bartleby had become my rival. I had started the feud innocently, with small jests, as was my way. It had progressed from snide words in the forecastle, to pranks and reprisals at nights. He had short-sheeted my bunk at inspection. I had woken him for his nightly watch with a bucket of sea-water. My treasured and well worn Padre hat was cast away and left to swim home. I calmly ran his pink bleached tight underwear up the standard on the mizzen. Other, courser methods were employed. Kidneys were bruised by mop-handles. Food was ruthlessly and barbarically over-seasoned.

Then, Bartleby marshaled his most demonic and effective weapon: rumor. My fear became common late-night watch fodder, as I was one of the last three people not to have climbed the main-mast. My artful and creative pranks were soon dragging and becoming less effective by the nanosecond. To the lay-crew members, they were beginning to look like the desperate skullduggery of a person with something to hide.

"You're going to have to climb the main-mast." The Cook noted philosophically as he watched me peel potatoes. I grunted and continued peeling. I had been spending a lot of time in the kitchen, a direct casual result of my flotilla of wrath. "And I have the plan for you, because we can't let that egg-head nob win here." Slowly, I raised my eyes and opened my ears fully.

Episode XXIII - A jellyfish has more spine than thou.

The good ship Hydra was a simple two mast affair. It didn’t carry any cannon, but if it had, I would have been ready to prove my valor manning a swivel gun, or repelling boarders. The deck ran about ten feet above the non-kraken filled depths of the straight that protected Catalina from Los Angeles. The masts were the main and the mizzen. Since I was too chicken to climb the rigging on the main-mast, I had been relegated to crew the mizzen, a slight step above those unfortunates that were on the jib or permanent deck detail.

When we had weighed anchor and left port, my trepidation about the main-mast had been palpable. I did not want to lose face among my crew-mates, least of all in front of Bartleby. Then, in a matter of minutes, the fear had slipped away with our wake. One minute, we were cruising through the ant-tidal waves of the harbor. Then the prow plunged into the ocean, and the sound oak of the hull was slammed with a host of mini-tsunamis. The ship lurched and tossed like a restless somnambulist. Immediately, my crew-mates hurtled to the rails. From their horrified mouths, a gale of undigested material fell into waters, marking our path for hungry fish and gulls.

At that moment, when I and the seasoned salts of the crew stood fast, I saw what was imposing about the Captain. His face contorted into a shark’s grin at the predicament of his minnows. He then noticed me staring, and quickly bellowed at me to make myself useful. This gesture won me more accolades than he could have imagined from the ailing lads. It was impressive as I was mopping the deck on the first day with stable legs, sans vomiting, alone while the ship cut through the massive chop of four foot swells, while the rest of them cursed their weak inner ears and bemoaned ever leaving their fair desert land.

The next day passed with much groaning and complaining. I doubted that half of them would climb the main-mast, and as such I relaxed, and enjoyed my solitude around the ship. At midday, my fair-weather thoughts clouded over, as the crew slowly began to adjust to the harmonics of the waves, and began to explore their new surroundings like curious monkeys. Steadily, my fear began to creep up inside the bilge of my mind.

The main-mast, I estimated, was at least thirty to forty feet tall from the deck. Which meant it was fifty feet or so from the cold surface of the Pacific below. It was not the height that bothered me, I mused on the second day, as I watched recently recovered mates scramble up the flexible rigging. I had climbed higher – much higher on land, and had not thought twice about it. It was more the motion – the random, bizarre, herky-jerky, involving both x and y planes in terms of physics, flat out unpredictable movements of a standard boat at sea that phased me.

The only parallel I could draw between it and my previous ascents was completely improbable. Climbing it, I guessed, would be like free climbing a face that was being shaken roughly by an unfriendly giant. This meant that as my compatriots ascended and triumphed, I watched. I stared balefully at the rigging, at its lurching and flapping.

My eyes bored into the height, as my brain mused: Verily, should ye attempt it, ye shall be flung; nay catapulted from the mast into the high seas and thereupon meet a horrible fate in the quick brine. I wasn’t sure why I was thinking in old English about this matter, but I was sure that it was further evidence of my paranoia. I couldn’t fathom the depths of my fear of the mast, as I had executed much more dangerous actions in my life, but fear has this funny way of refusing to listen to logic. The fear had turned my brain to a spineless floating jelly. More importantly, by day three, the fear had the undesirable side effect of scuttling my reputation and potential standing among the crew, thanks to the machinations of Bartleby.

Episode XXII – Just because you don’t know me, don’t call me Ishmael.

Dolphins cavorted down the frothy wake our prow cut through the azure Pacific. The pure wind ruffled my hair as I dangled fifteen-odd feet above the salty depths. Should the rigging break free from the front of the ship, I and my comrades would drop like rocks, and be keelhauled horribly like true buccaneers. It was therefore quite fortuitous that the rigging was secure. It held us fast like little spiders resting on web strands. Underneath, the dolphins were dodging death by elusively avoiding the inexorable hull, while simultaneously laughing at our plodding speed through their domain. The clouds were perfect non-squall white. The sun was a brilliant yellow. Despite all of the brilliance of my surroundings, I was silent. I was in a deep melancholy, because I was afraid.

Three days earlier, I had walked up the gangplank, stowed my gear in my bunk, and returned to the deck to hear the address of the Captain. He had told us that for the next week, I and the other Boy Scouts were going to crew the tall ship Hydra, and learn the ways of ancient mariners. Furthermore, if we were lucky, we would slip by the Coast Guard blockade and deliver our shipment of illegal Canadian prescription drugs to the Senior Citizens of Catalina. In all fairness, I fabricated the last part of his speech. But only to make up for the sad fact that the Captain had no parrot, no hook hands, no peg leg, and still had both eyes. However, being on the Hydra did dredge up memories of my conversation with Mysterious about Boy Scouting being a vehicle to train future criminal masterminds. Fortunately, the Captain also had said nothing about sixteen men on a dead man’s chest, the cat ‘o nine tails, the great whale, or walking the plank.

After his inspiring speech to us lads who had been pressed into service by our parents, I inspected my fellow sailors. I didn’t see a friendly or unfriendly face; but I did see a lot of puzzled looks in my direction. This was because I didn’t know any of them at all. Somehow, my passage had been booked with a group of Scouts from Arizona. Nonplussed, I set about making friends until our Seamanship 101 course started. Before we left the port, we were busy. We were busy learning knots; again, a good skill to have in any illegal enterprise; deck swabbing; how to stand watch; and nautical terms, such as “Poop Deck”.

At first I thought the course was for the benefit of the Arizonans as they came from a dry, desert land with no oceans or large lakes. It was inconceivable that they would use nautical lingo in everyday life. Indeed, it would seem that the very use of such terms would be clear signs of heatstroke, desert dementia or cactus fever in their jurisdiction. The slow, bored, drone of the Cook/3^rd Mate during the course, however, disabused me of such a notion. It slowly dawned on me that all potential swabbies were subjected to such a dull initiation. Just as the course was ending, as we prepared to “make way” and “un-moor”, the Cook led us around to the main-mast.

Rigging stretched from the deck up to the distant top of the tar encrusted mast. As I craned my neck to take in the massive monolith, my ears heard the Cook mention that at some point, all of us would be climbing up on the rigging, up the mast, across the spars to furl and unfurl the sails to propel the ship. As the words slipped into the crevasses of my brain, the first taste of paranoia gripped my stomach. Seconds later, my brain had assessed the words, and had processed the visual images. Its conclusion was negative. Every nerve in my body screamed: We’ve done a lot of crazy things. But we are NOT doing that!

It was at this point I was rudely elbowed. I staggered forward and righted myself. The group had moved on, except for Bartleby and I. Bartleby had noted my yokelish, gaping mouth stare of internal turmoil at the mast. This was unfortunate, because Bartleby was my new bother for the next week. Out of the nineteen Arizonans, he alone had taken a dislike to me. The others hadn’t really memorized my name yet, but they were ambivalent. I didn’t know why he didn’t like me. Maybe he was threatened by strangers who had no interest in him whatsoever. Or maybe it was because I had made a couple of fresh comments about his egg shaped head and his buzz-cut. If that was the case, he was completely grim and humorless, as those comments had garnered lots of laughter.

Whatever the totally unreasonable reason, he was out for satisfaction. He could have just challenged me to a duel; after all, there were plenty of belying pins around the ship, and we could have smacked each other silly. But that would have been too easy.

“Scared???” He leered at me as I turned toward him.

“Never.” I said with a panoply of false bravado.

“See you up there, then.” He said, moving off with his bobbing egghead tough guy walk.

And that, three days ago, was where my trouble began. I once again was faced with cashing a check my mouth had written. Only this time, the bank of my brain was refusing to tender any advances.

Episode XXI – Go to your painful place and unleash your inner barbarian.

I came to a full four-point stop. The tires were completely motionless for the requisite three alligators. The blinker clicked cautiously. Since it was midday, my alter-ego was driving like a mild mannered responsible citizen. I eased out cautiously, making sure to obey each and every vehicular law, especially all of the laws that would annoy other drivers. The toaster and I were headed over to Bismarck’s house, because just moments before he had called with what he termed the most fantastic idea ever.

“Even better than Ultimate Fighting Bodysurfing?” I had inquired laconically, only to hear the cold dial tone as his reply.

I was curious. Bismarck was the invention guru and plan formulator of the group, so I at least had to see what he had developed this week. The commute was short, and I parked behind the ugly rear end of Senor Inteligente’s prize automobile. He drove a mobile trash-heap of a car that had the fabulous sticker ‘My Other Car is a Klingon Bird of Prey’ festooned on its bumper.

Inteligente and Bismarck were out on Bismarck’s lawn, chatting amicably as I arrived.

“So, what’s the plan, bitches?” I said in greeting.

“Take a look for yourself, foolio.” Bismarck said in a casual manner, gesturing at the well-manicured grass that could never aspire to grow past two inches in height.

I looked. Arranged in a haphazard fashion off to the side was a collection of oddly arranged white plastic pipes. I was about to make some sort of spicy, off-the-cuff scathing remark when I noticed that the majority of the pipes had been ineptly wrapped in duct tape and foam. Upon closer inspection, the pipes, foam, and tape had been made into crude swords.

“They’re swords!” Inteligente announced helpfully. “We’ve been making them most of the morning.”

“Really? They’re swords?” I said acidly. The sarcasm was lost on Inteligente.

“Yeah, there’s a long sword, a short sword, a broad sword, a two handed-sword, and battle-axe of sorts.”

“And it only took two of you to make these fine implements?”

“Well, it was mostly Bismarck” Inteligente continued on, obliviously, “but I was able to assist, you know.”

“So you’d say that you’re some sort of apprentice then?” I continued, smiling, “And that some day you’ll be the master, and you’ll be able to do this all on your own? Your parents must be so proud.”

“Stop being a jackass.” Bismarck laughed.

“No, really.” I said, laughing. “I understand that the Second Amendment gives us the right to bear arms, but this is too extravagant. These will definitely come in handy for repelling – well, I dunno, repelling roving bands of similarly foam armed raiders, or maybe Martians – perhaps small ani…oof!”

The wind was abruptly driven out of me as Bismarck pounded me on the back with one of the larger swords.

“An excellent use!” Inteligente noted enthusiastically.

“Seriously.” Bismarck noted. “Do you have some sort of condition that leads you to babble on and on endlessly in a wordy mess?”

“Verbosity. That’s his problem.” Inteligente added helpfully.

“You’re going to have a condition now!” I muttered as I staggered to get up. “Ow. My spine!”

“Exactly.” Bismarck stated in a satisfied tone, brandishing the two handed sword. “Meet the ‘Widowmaker’. If it had been real, you’d be cut in half right now.”

“If it’d been real, I would have kept my mouth shut.” I grumbled. “And the only way it’s the Widowmaker is if you hit me in the balls. And then it’d really be more like the ‘Ball-Cleaver.’”

“Precisely.” He said, grinning.

“Stay away from me you maniac!” I yelled, scrambling over to the pile of weaponry.

Once I was armed, it was melee mayhem. Swords were swung like bats, curving arcs of fake destruction that bounced off backs, legs and arms like we were all individual super-men. Eventually the battle began to take on a more refined form as the three of us began to actually grasp the intricacies of sword play. Instead of hacking and waiving our implements of destruction with wild abandon, a semblance of actual fighting began to creep in. Whatever skill we had gained in the half-hour rumble was discarded quickly when one of us felt like they could land a particularly bruising blow. Approximately thirty-three minutes into the scuffle we were all seated in a circle, each eyeing the other with suspicious glances while nursing welts in inauspicious places, our naked blades kept close by to prevent any further treachery.

“This sucks.” Bismarck noted. “This isn’t like actually sword-fighting at all.”

“You’re right. Since there is no real danger of us actually killing each other, it is much less entertaining than UFB.” I ventured.

“Man, you are a killjoy.” Inteligente said, aimlessly swinging his sword.

“Wait.” Bismarck interrupted, noticing I was about to lay a handsome beat down on the unaware Inteligente. “What if we modified the rules?”

“There were rules?”

“No – that was the problem.” He began “Let’s try it again, except this time, if you get hit in the arm, you can’t use that arm, and if you get hit in the leg…”

“We get it. Why don’t we just get some food coloring packets too, for added effect?”

“And if you get hit in the vital area, you’re dead.”

“I’ve got an idea.” I muttered, heaving myself up with my sword as a crutch. “Why don’t we just use real swords?”

Cautiously, the three of us again squared off. The new rules lead to a dramatic drop off in actual action, and lots of circling. The “battle-damage” rule of Bismarck also led a comical flair to the whole proceedings, as we hopped on one leg and attempted to fence simultaneously. The whole skirmish then took on the gravitas of a bad remake of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“Feint! Thrust! Parry! Feint! Thrust! Parry!” Inteligente prattled on as he hopped around me. I was wobbling on one leg while he dithered about what to do.

“Stop being a pansy and just finish me off.” I yelled at him.

“Don’t be so demanding.” He said, pausing to glance at me. “You’re just bitter because I’ve bested you on the field of battle many times. Unfortunately, it was true. Inteligente’s superior quick reflexes had been the bane of my existence under the “Battle-Damage” era.

“Yeah. For someone that’s a macho egomaniac, you sure suck.” Bismarck chimed in.

“Now don’t go all evil triangle on me.” I said, placing my sword on the ground and giving him a glare.

“What?”

“Evil triangle.” I stated simply. “I’m sure you’ve noticed that since there are usually three of us when we hang out. This leads to a group dynamic imbalance.”

“Meaning?”

“Well, there is always an unofficial shifting alliance of two members, to bag on the third person.”

“Interesting.” He said, stroking his attempt at beard growth.

“I agree.” Inteligente began. “You guys are always…”

“Shut up!” Bismarck and I said in unison, which led to universal laughter.

“Anyway. Besides the point. In this case here, this isn’t real. If it was…you guys would be so toast.” I said.

“How so?” Bismarck asked.

“Well, for starters, I doubt I’d really be missing a whole leg from one glancing sword stroke. So I’d be wounded. But I’d also be fighting for my life, so I’d have the crazy adrenaline rush. Plus, there would be no ‘rules’, because it’s my life. So I’d do this.”

With that I leaped forward at the unprepared Inteligente, and with vicious speed, back handed the ‘guard’ of my sword toward his nose. Eyes wide in shock he stumbled backward and slipped and fell on the hill. Instantly, I had the point on his chest. Then, with a quick pivot, and a gleam of malice in my eye, I whipped my foot at Bismarck’s crotch. As he dodged, I whipped my vorpal blade at his stomach.

“Dead and deader!” I announced.

“What?!??! Bismarck complained. “R for reset!”

“More like U for Unorthodox.” Inteligente added from his butt.

“How about ‘total victory’” I crowed, “Because dead men don’t know the alphabet.”

With that, I quit the field of battle and sought forth the spoils that befit my conquering status.

Episode XX - Davy Jones sends his regards.

The blazing sapphire star of an ocean threw perfect tendrils of briny foot soldiers pitilessly forward, crumbling the resistance of the puny grains of sand that bound the pure ivory beach together. Above, fat overfed gulls barked commands at the outflanked pebbles, demanding that they hold fast against the watery onslaught. Ignorant of such conflicts, tourists and locals alike baked like ants under the magnified summer glare of the sun. Out away from the ubiquitous screams of children in the shallows, we floated like mismatched corks just inward of the last line of breakers.

The Doctor, Senor Inteligente, and I were content just to relax, occasionally stirring ourselves from our torpor to burst forth in blazes of speed to catch sets ranging from the miniscule to the slightly large, bodysurfing down the faces, and rolling loops in the few slow breaking barrels that appeared and vanished like mirages. Not so Bismarck. While he had been content to relax in our seal-like laziness for the first eleven days, his shark-like cunning had begun to thrash around as time had passed. Bismarck was like the ocean - not totally content unless he was molding and creating a new landscape.

“Hey. This is lame.” He said eloquently and succinctly, breaking in on our very important conversation about where to eat lunch.

“What?” I said, squinting at him with the salty eye of sloth.

“Bodysurfing is lame.”

“Well, what do you want to do?” I inquired. “Head in???” The very idea was heretical.

“No, no. I want to try something new. Something that’s never been done.” He said steadfastly. “I have an idea for a new sport.”

“Well, what is it?” We inquired, treading water with mild interest.

“I call it…” he paused for dramatic effect, “ ‘ULTIMATE FIGHTING BODYSURFING’.”

The waves applauded his wild notion. The rest of us merely stared in disbelief.

“You see” He explained “Instead of just merely riding the wave in, two people will go in on the same set – but instead of merely doing tricks, they’d battle it out. You know, punching, kicking, grabbing – nothing below the waist of course.”

“Of course.” I noted dryly “Some of us have girlfriends, and might want to have kids someday.”

“Anyhow, whoever manages to stay on the set on the way in, despite the other’s actions, gets a point.”

“And these points are good for…” I mused, avoiding a large swath of kelp.

“Well, nothing really. Just you know, to rank us, see who is the best, or can win the most matches.” He replied.

“So let me get this straight” Senor Inteligente mused “You want us to try and drown another person while we surf in, and whoever doesn’t end up at the bottom, gets a point.”

“Right.” Bismarck said enthusiastically.

“What a great idea.” I said sarcastically. “Who wouldn’t want to play a meaningless game for points that could almost kill you easily.”

“Don’t be a sissy.” He snapped back at me. “Are you guys in?”

Since there was still an hour to lunch, it seemed like the best idea on the table. We nodded our assent, and the challenge began. As the sets rolled in, the blows fell between contestants. Ribs were gouged. Air was expelled and sea-water rushed into empty lungs. Heads were smacked into the seafloor. Kicks and elbows ricocheted off cartilage and bone. Underwater oaths popped like angry bubbles. Style points were awarded by spectators who watched the commotion with quizzical expressions. Strange, unorthodox and complex holds flourished and disappeared with the current.

The Doctor’s suit was stripped off in a fierce tussle, and made a wild break for deep-sea freedom while the rest of us cackled with wild abandon as he frantically searched for it. Impromptu rules were set up. The original bracket of four was expanded to six, and then eight as our other friends showed up and joined in the recklessness. Praise was heaped on Bismarck for inventing a totally new way to uselessly risk one’s life before lunch, and for choosing such an innovative and creative name for the sport.

It was the last set before lunch. Bismarck and I stood tied in points, or rather bobbed tied in points. Each of us wanted to win the first Ultimate Fighting Bodysurfing Pre-Lunch Half-Cracked Shell of Victory. We waited. Each of us smelled blood in the water. I looked over. He grinned evilly at me.

“Hey – warm....” I muttered. Then I heard his chuckle and realization hit me. “Nooooooooo! Disgusting! Automatic half point disqualification at the very least!” I then jumped my legs into high gear to escape into clean water. Behind me, the wave started to crest and break. I accelerated and braced myself for the assault that was coming. In the second before battle was joined, my hypoxic brain heard the fish and crustaceans singing in tinny voices: Don’t go where the humans go…

Episode XIX – Built to Last

Rust has a distinctive odor. There is a slight bouquet of decay, a dash of iron, and the unmistakable smell of metal. I knew the scent, because rust essence was oozing out of my protesting pores. It was charming. It was the perfect aroma to go with my grease stained shirt. The rust had come off the bike in defiant layers as I had scrubbed furiously with the steel wool. The motion had been a repetitive “Up/Down” pattern, much like “Paint the Fence” in the Karate Kid. Unfortunately, unlike the movie, I had not gained any super-ninja skills. I sighed, and transferred the steel wool back into my stripping hand, feeling the individual steel bristles bite my flesh as the last spot of rust crumbled off. I stepped back and viewed my handiwork.

It had been worth it. All of the chrome on and around my wheels shone with the burnished brightness of two used nickels. The soft glowing chrome even obscured the scratched and faded blue paint. It even distracted the eye from the dents on the frame. All of my afternoon’s work of tuning, adjusting, and stripping had made the bike look almost like a 1970’s racing Schwinn, rather than its original vintage, which was a 1969 model, or at the oldest a 1968 model.

I didn’t mind that the bike was used, although I was curious about the relic’s history. There was nothing stylish about it. It handled poorly. The handlebars were slightly askew. At high speeds, a menacing rattle came from the gears and chain, and it had been missing a pedal. It did have positive aspects. Because of the bike, I learned the art of maintaining a 1960’s piece of machinery. This skill would come in handy if I invented a time machine, or if the apocalypse occurred. No one would ever steal it, as it was a step away from being a collection of parts in a junkyard.

Most importantly, it was heavy. The frame was pure steel. Or something equally weighty – like lead. I didn’t take an assay of its parts, so even I was unsure of its exact composition; but it wasn’t a light-weight composite that would blow away in a breeze. Its frame was so heavy it would take gale-force winds to blow it away, assuming that mere wind could lift it. Its weight was an asset because it was a great workout. If my legs could get the colossus moving up a hill, it was a victory that Sisyphus himself would have been proud of. Since my area was chock full of hills, it was a borderline torturous activity.

Minor torments were far from my mind as the clunking chain shifted under me as I cruised down my favorite route, Del Dios Highway. Del Dios is a winding, curving, narrow road with no bike lane. My bike was ideal to preserve my existence on Del Dios. Since it was a tank, its leviathan frame made drivers think twice about running me off of the road without sustaining serious structural damage to their expensive foreign cars. I could rumble along at my own pace, knowing that on the narrow stretches, cars would have to draft behind me, fuming and impotent, rather than attempting to crush me against the guardrail.

I shot out of the mottled eucalyptus branches that covered the early stretches of road, and was accelerating with slow haste down the long slope before the dam that appeared out of the dusty hills. My wheels were spinning in a pinwheel blur, and the wind was pushing me along with the striped clouds that interrupted the clear blue sky.

A cacophony of pain erupted from my right side as I lay splayed out on the narrow shoulder of the road. Mercilessly, the sedan that had shadowed my last several turns blared its horn at my prostrate form. Quickly, I scrambled off the road, shaking my fist and shouting several vulgar comments at its speeding tailpipe.

“Damn me!” Were the next words out of my mouth, as I surveyed my gory arm, which was covered in road fill, broken glass, and small rocks that were embedded in my perforated flesh. I took stock. Everything still moved, and I didn’t seem to have broken anything. My leg had the same classic road rash as my arm. Calmly, I picked out the largest offending objects from my wounds. I attempted to wipe sweat from the side of my face, only to find that it was mildly mauled. Everything was a real grisly mess. Blood was dripping off odd places, mixing with sweat, rust and grease and dirt. I peeled off my helmet. Broken like an egg.
“Better it than my head.” I mumbled to myself. I continued over to my bike. The back tire was shredded, flayed out like my right side. I remembered. I had been bent over the handlebars, as aerodynamic as I could hope to be, legs churning to pick up maximum velocity to escape Mad Max behind me, when there had been a catastrophic bang from the rear, where, due to my displaced center of gravity, it had lifted, and the bike had begun to spin in a decidedly unfriendly end-over-end motion, I had then bailed out, only to be caught decisively by the cold ground after a short flight, and arrived at this moment, staring at the shredded back tire while my shirt soaked up blood like a ugly sponge.

I was well prepared for this disaster. I had a half-empty water bottle. I had a dime. I had no identification. My clothes were smelly and now severely stained. There was no one at my house. I had a spare tube, but no pump, and no tools to change the tire with me. What had been a minor inconvenience with just a series of piddling scratches was quickly turning into a major debacle. With nothing but desperation left, I stuck out my thumb. After five minutes and eleven cars had passed, I realized that I would have a better chance at being helped if cars saw my healthy, non-mangled side. I then tried again with similar dismal results.

I then had a quandary. I could walk the five miles home, and later come back for my bike. The walk would be uncomfortable enough with all of the new ventilation holes I had in my skin. I hesitated to do this, because I didn’t want to leave my bike. It was like not leaving a fallen comrade behind. I knew it was an inanimate object that was now closer to being a pile of junk; but it still felt wrong to leave it there, especially after all the futile work I had put into it. I also realized that it was a possibility that I had a head injury, as I was anthropomorphizing my bike.

With all of that in mind, I made the expected rational decision. I hefted its weight onto my back, winced, and began to limp home, one slow step after another. Surprisingly, no one stopped to help a lurching bleeding young man carrying what appeared to be a pile of trash with wheels. When I made it home, one thing was clear: should the bike be handed down again, this story was coming with it.

Episode XVIII – If a tree should fall…

I then decided that if I was going to be evil, I might as well enjoy it. With that in mind, I swung around the spinning links of destruction into the vulnerable bark. Sawdust spurted out of the jagged incision. Sap ran down the length of my arm and clotted into a sticky gooey mass. Bits of tree clung in my hair and off my clothes. I would have brushed off the organic material, but it was a lost cause. I was going to be forever stained and unclean with tiny bits of tree corpse just like Lady Macbeth and her perpetually bloody hands. Time passed as I concentrated on the gory business I was involved in. Finally, my Grandfather broke the relentless sawing with our prearranged hand signal. I choked off the engine and was deafened by the unnatural, fearful silence.

“Looks good.” He said nonchalantly. “I think we should move away after we give it a good shove so it doesn’t fall on us.”

We moved into position by the fatal wound, and with all of our might, pushed like mismatched bookends until we heard the last tell-tale sound of death from the tree. Loud, painful breaking cracks reverberated across our bones as the stump separated from the remainder of its body. At this point, gravity decided to join our conspiracy against the forest, and with its firm invisible hand, relentlessly yanked at the tottering bole, branches, and everything else that was airborne.

It was at that point when the tree was headed irrevocably to the ground that its fellow plants decided to stage a post-mortem intervention. With dashing un-plant-like swiftness, the surrounding trees caught their comrade in their boughs, and bore him upright, preventing us pesky mammals from desecrating his corpse by chopping it up into log sized bits and burning it. My mouth dropped open in shock. Not only had we killed a tree, it was totally un-useable to us. If we moved it, it would definitely crush us. Collectively, the forest had stymied our conscious brains, or so it seemed.

“I hate it when that happens.” My Grandfather noted in the silence.

“What?”

“When they do that.” He said, turning, and then looking back at me. “What – you didn’t think we were just going to just give up and walk away, did you?”

“No.” I mumbled, feeling very foolish with the lie.

“Here’s what we’re going to do.” He said as I caught up with him. “We’re going to get that old Buick I have in the garage. Then we’re going to tie a rope around the base, and the other end to the towing hitch on the car. Then you’re going to get in the car, drop it into first, floor it, and then well pull that sucker down, and I’ll signal you from the road when it falls.”

“What?” I said, stunned.

He sighed. “What don’t you understand?” He then laid out the plan again definitively. That he had such a detailed idea of what to do indicated to me that this was not the first time that the Buick had been utilized in such a manner.

Since all of the day’s actions were flashing before my eyes as the rest of the forest waited for me to carom off the road and perish, I could only assume that the whole experience was just another time warping near death phenomenon. As I fought with the wheel, the steering and engine of the car fought with me, the rope yanked at the three trees holding their dead brother, my eyes took in the signal they had longed to see after the eternity of minutes that had passed. I cut the engine, and shot out of the car.

The power of countless horses had defeated mere greenery. The ground shook as the tree was surrendered by its family. A cloud of furious chattering birds flew off into the air from the surrounding trees at the immense concussion. I attempted to saunter around to the back of the car, hiding the trembling of my legs, hands and other disturbed appendages. There were several parallel deep holes by the rear wheels. They were not ruts. Ruts were an inch, two inches deep. The holes were about four to five inches in depth, at a minimum. I let out a relieved gasp of air.

I bent to untie the rope from the hitch, when I noticed something odd. The hitch seemed to be hanging off the car. I looked under the carriage. The hitch was affixed firmly to the bumper. Puzzled, I circled around to the side of the car and my heart rate skyrocketed to maximum velocity. The bumper had been almost completely pulled off. Many inches of exposed metal glistened in the mid-morning sun where it was supposed to rest. Disturbed, my legs gave way on the now wobbly part.

“Hey – what are you doing? Resting? We’ve got a tree to chop up and move! Get a move on!” Wearily, I got up to finish the job, and tried not to think about how the heroic broken bumper had preserved the multitude of seconds I had in my life because of its death grip on the chassis.

Episode XVII – Mr. Tree, meet Mr. Saw - Mr. Chain Saw.

The rear axle smoked. The rear tires howled and chewed through the soil like furious demons. The whole body of the car trembled and rattled in fear. Nervously, the engine shrieked as its cylinders pumped and fired. White knuckled, I grasped the steering wheel and wrenched it back and forth maniacally as the ruts behind us grew into chasms. Against all probability, the taught line from the towing hitch held fast, anchoring the car and I on the precipice of physical existence. It also threatened to snap and send us flying into a horrendous flaming wreck. The engine was red-lining. Ten feet in front of us, several large non-old-growth white birches waited patiently to smack us with their branches and cast us into oblivion in fair revenge for my actions.

It had all began earlier that morning at six, with this simple phrase:

“You’ve used a chainsaw before, right?” My Grandfather asked.

He was a grizzled old man of some seventy years, tough as nails, and missing the hair to prove it. I considered telling him snappishly, “Only in Doom.”. But that would have been a bad idea. Grandpa was the type of man to take that kind of flippancy seriously, throw down the gauntlet and challenge me to a fist-fight, and probably win it, because even though he was much older than me, he had roamed the continent hunting all creatures that walked on the surface and swam in the oceans and lakes, fought in the war, and done several other million things that I had not, and did not take sass from anyone, not even his favorite Grandson. So I kept my mouth shut and shook my head negatively.

This had led to a half-hour crash course in chainsaw operation and mechanics. After that, there had been no exam. In his opinion, I was ready to use it, and even if I mutilated myself horribly using it, I would have good form in doing so. This was Day Three of my vacation up on the thumb of Wisconsin with my family at my Grandfather’s pride and joy, his summer residence. Day One of the trip had been spent attempting to capture all of the adult fish in Lake Michigan. Day Two had been an introductory lesson in how to properly clean and load a rifle so that I too might someday stalk wild game on any of the seven continents, or at the very least, take down some very dangerous paper targets.

When the knock came at 5:45 on the morning of Day Three, I was already half awake, suspecting that something was going to happen, even though I would have preferred to be sleeping like the rest of the family. Once dressed, I met him out by the garage as he had directed.

“We need more wood.” He said simply, and then with the same matter of fact tone, “So we’re going to cut down a tree.”

It wasn’t as bad as it sounded. The multi-acre plot of land was full of trees. After all, it was a forest. Even better, he had been reseeding acres of land with saplings to compensate for the ones that had already been slaughtered. I didn’t ask what we needed the wood for. We wouldn’t be doing arts and crafts that morning, nor the next day. The wood was going into the hungry maw of the massive stone monolith that pillared through the center of the house, and roared with furious flame each summer night. The fireplace.

Since I warmed myself in front of that monster fire each night, I had no grounds to complain. I mused that since there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of other trees on the property, it wasn’t a commercial logging operation, and as we weren’t engaged in massive environmental degradation, it was probably not an ethical issue. With these thoughts in mind, I steadied my hands for war crimes against the vegetative community. As I picked up the chainsaw, noting its hefty weight and notched blade stained with the blood of many a branch, trunk, or other plant appendage, I heard a collective rustling of fear run through the myriad bright green shoots and leaves in the forest.

“So – what are we going to cut down?” I asked, surveying the area. I pictured a small sapling, ten, maybe fifteen feet tall succumbing to our mechanical might.

“I’ve had my eye on one for quite some time.” He responded pithily. “This one over here.” He then pointed to one a little up the dirt track that ran into the property. It was easily a good forty feet tall, with a massive trunk.

“That one?” I asked incredulously. Its very size seemed daunting.

“Yep.” He said as we strode to it. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I felt like I should say a word, or at least show a moment of respect for the massive monolith that we presumed to destroy, since I came from the “Take only memories, leave only footprints” school of thought. All that came to mind was the thought: I hope it doesn’t fall on me and squish me like a bug. After all, it was waiving its branches rather forebodingly in the mild breeze. I then noticed I was getting the fisheye from my Grandfather. Without further ado, I yanked the chain on the contraption’s engine.

Bzzzzzzzzaw! The distinctive sound of the chainsaw firing up and running slashed through the early morning silence. Instinctively, I looked behind me to make sure that I wasn’t being chased by a maniac waiving one at my arm like any cheesy B-rated horror movie from my youth. There was no one there. I quickly realized that the only villain – to the trees, at least, was me. I was their worst nightmare. If trees watched movies, the title would be something like: Sapling Chainsaw Massacre IV or Deforested IX. I made my last minute checks of the instrument, and took a minute to think about what I was about to do.

Episode XVI - Where art thou, Romeo?

“Hey Romeo.” I heard momentarily. I opened one eye cautiously and saw nothing but the blank concrete wall next to my bed. Sleep beckoned, until I heard the voice again. “Hey, you guys. Can I borrow Bob for a second?”

“Sure. We’ve got a harness for him now...” I heard as sheets fell off my body in all directions while I pivoted frantically towards the door.

“Keep that oversized rat away from my bed.” I snapped, rubbing my eyes.

“Bob is not a rat.” My neighbor stated indignantly. “He’s a squirrel.” My eyes were now fully open, viewing the disheveled state of the room, lit from the open door, where my roommate, the neighbor, and now affixed to a lead, the furry mammal stood.

“Aren’t squirrels members of the family rodentia?” I mused, yawning. “If so, Bob is about two cousins removed from avoiding sticky traps?”

“I dunno.” The squirrel keeper said, stroking Bob’s fur.

“Aren’t you worried about plague? Hantavirus?” I asked incredulously as the squirrel scampered onto his shoulder.

“Nah, Bob’s clean.”

“Did he tell you this?”

“No.”

“Do you wash him? Are you on a first name basis with his fleas?”

“No.”

“Then keep that rat out of my room.”

“Hey. Romeo – are you fearless?” Henry asked. Henry was the fifth year senior I was rooming with. Everyone called him Henry because it was his last name. No one had any idea what his first name was. I even had doubts whether Henry remembered it, or if he even possessed one. Knowing Henry, it was possible that he had lost it in some liver-killing drinking contest.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Get loose. No need to be so touchy. It’s the weekend.” He smiled. “Anyhow, did you want to use that climbing harness you brought here, or see if you could finagle another date?”

“Get bent!” I snapped. Unperturbed, Henry kept talking.

“Anyhow, I’ve got some slightly old climbing rope that I picked up used, and I thought we could head over to the North Face route on the South Flatiron, and see how we do.”

“Old climbing rope. Used climbing rope.” I muttered. “Why can’t it ever be ‘new climbing rope’ or ‘unused climbing rope?’”

“Hey Romeo. That’s why your date fizzled.” He laughed. “Girls don’t like guys who talk to themselves. So are you in or not?”

“I’m in.” I snarled. “Now get that rat out of the room. And stop calling me Romeo.”

Several hours later, we were crashing through the wilderness on a not so well beaten path.

“Are we close?” I asked.

“Close.” He said, patting the rock face next to us affectionately. “This is the Matron. Maybe she’d date you. Why – you tired?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? You looked winded coming back up to the second floor.” He jested. This was a not-so-oblique reference to his insistence on a demonstration of my climbing abilities before we left. Since I had rated myself as an “Advanced Beginner” when asked about my skill level, I had been prevailed upon to show my skills. The test that Henry had devised was not devilishly clever or intricately complicated.

His test was to have me to climb up to our room. After I had finished laughing, he had indicated that he was serious. Or ‘deadly-serious’ as he had put it. After lodging all sorts of pertinent protests about the police, campus police, and the simple foolishness of his idea, I walked down the stairs, and around the dorm. It had been constructed with some sort of stone façade, with outcroppings of rock indented and outdented up the walls. The architect who had designed the building had been going for the-large-rectangular- three-story-chimney look. Climbing it was like ascending a ladder. The only challenge was avoiding Bob’s family who were looking frantically for him, questing for nuts, and seeking revenge for my defamatory comments about their species. I made it up easily.

“Yeah, that was a tough ‘climb’.” I noted sarcastically. “I’m surprised it’s not rated.”

“Never mind that.” He said. “We’re here.”

Technically, Henry hadn’t needed to say anything about our arrival. Out of quiet emptiness, we now were surrounded by a large, disorganized crowd of fellow climbers, festooned with liberal amounts of chalk that covered their hands like bat guano in various states of roping up or down. Conversation between us stopped, as we strapped on our gear, and squeezed up a chimney. The air was crisp and dry, and off in the distance, I could see the wisps of clouds trying to form into bone crushing afternoon storms. Past the chimney, we stretched out the kinks, and then headed up the first pitch. A weathered crack where the forces of erosion had gained a foothold in the solid rock guided us across the face as the motionless air captured the echoes of each movement I made.

The rays from the sun flew across the cosmos and pounded each and every surface of my body, attempting to drag me off the rock. Sweat pooled in inauspicious places and evaporated off to the heavens, or tore off my skin, screaming downward to the planet’s surface below. Every single aspect of my essence focused into the rock clenching grips that my fingers traversed. My shoulders strained and extended, my legs twitched, and seem to lengthen, passing from outcropping to outcropping. Old, rusty pieces of unused protection suddenly protruded from the rock like discolored trash on a pristine beach. The first pitch was over. I hauled my gasping body onto a packed ledge with Henry, a small vibrant tree, and several other climbers and took in the view.

Below, the town seemed to diminish in size, shrinking to minor insignificance. Cars shrunk to beetles. Individuals vanished into motes of dust. Above us, the rock soared and spiraled to the cerulean blue sky. Past the blue was a darker black, and past the black, distant unseen points of light and infinite endless gaps of space. I quickly shelved my thousand yard stare and philosophic musings to my pack, and returned my efforts to ascending what was at best half a grain of sand in a cosmic sense. Flecks of rock flew off and beat against our outreached arms. Time passed in a clinging, cloying, series of elaborate motions. Then, with a fleet quick scramble, we were at the top. Hands slapped each other in celebration, as we grinned with tired sunburned faces at cheating death for the last several hours. We drank in the wind for the obligatory five minutes, before fixing lines and bounding down in two easy rappels in a good form that would impress any tree-dwelling mammal.

Episode XV – Miss Manners would be most displeased.

Life is nothing more than a series of social snap judgments. We start making them as children and gently refine them through the rest of our lives. As much as we would like to attribute a crisp and refreshing rationale to them, they remain as fickle as a snowflake judging contest. In this vein, the gentle readers of this column have no doubt formed opinions on the author; whether he is savory, or more likely an uncouth and smelly dirtbag. Regardless of such well founded skepticism about my character, I will reveal a not-so-shocking tidbit about myself this week. To attain what limited charm I have now, I was forced to attend etiquette school as a young man.

This decision was made for me by my mother, who rightly sensed that I was quickly becoming quite abhorrent as I aged, much like fine cheese. It also is possible that I was abhorrent to her because I was deliberately trying to be abominable. I was placed in an etiquette school run by an expatriate dowager from England who loved to tell me my many levels of badness. She and my mother got along famously. To her gang of female prize students, she was a messiah who would lead them to the promised land where forks were never misplaced, burping and farting occurred in private dark rooms or not at all, linens were always sharply pressed, and all men were charming movie stars. To me, she was my Virgil with an upper crust accent, leading me through the many layers of etiquette hell and purgatory. Eventually, I managed to escape the cloying vices of banality enough to graduate and escape her watchful eye.

Such fabulousness would appear to be useless to me in the dorm in Boulder several weeks after my great vehicular escape. I was rooming with a fifth year senior, who had told me proudly that he was avoiding graduation intentionally. He also regarded snoring and drooling on the top bunk as high art. Across the hall from me were two other latent geniuses busy domesticating a squirrel whom they had named Bob with a jar of peanut butter. Since I didn’t need any witticisms other than grunting and the occasional shower among my peer group, I was saving all of my spirit for one of the two classes I was attending.

Luckily, my threadbare polished personality was winning me points in my second class. I liked to call the class ‘Spurious Sophistry for Sycophants’. but it was really just ‘Speech and Debate’. In theory, we were supposed to learn the distinction between ‘ad hoc’ and ‘circular’ arguments. What we did learn was the style of not-so-subtle persuasion in the genre of ‘I’m right/You’re wrong’. Daily debates soon bordered on dramatic performances, and weekly speeches took the form of blistering diatribes devoid of scholarship. In this environment, individual debate teams became fast friends, ready to lampoon and belittle any opponents.

Several weeks had gone by in gusts of hot air and afternoon thunderstorms, when I realized with my not-so-keen eye that I had an admirer in my group. It was fortunate she was in my group because the class was intensely polarized. If she had been in another faction, the whole room could have exploded in open conflict. She was a cute brunette with a penchant for undercutting the most frivolous argument with hard facts, which piqued my interest. Since I had dated about five people before her, she would always be known in my mind as No. 5 ½. It was difficult to ask her out, as I hadn’t developed a good repertoire of pick-up lines. This deficiency was a plus because pick-up lines apparently were frowned upon in upper crust circles.

Instead I settled for a formal, blunt request for a date after I had waited an acceptable amount of time by dithering about whether she really liked me or not. The only way the request could have been more proper was if I had written it out in sonnet form. As I had behaved as a perfect gentleman, she had no choice but to blushingly accept. The prearranged day, Friday, rolled around like a flash of lightning. Suddenly, I was on the date with No. 5 ½ at dinner, trying to be spectacularly dashing. It was fantastically awkward. I did remember not to heed any of the advice of the Squirrel feeders, and as a result, everything seemed to be going well.

Since I managed to escape dinner without breaking any social taboos, we headed to the movie theater. Even though I let her pick the movie, we ended up in some big summer blockbuster, full of car chases, explosions, and fist-fights. It was real romantic. Somewhere in between a convincing beat down and half of the world needing to be saved, I put my arm over her shoulders. Whack! Her flat palm ricocheted off my jaw much more effectively than any stunt. In shock, some drool tendrils almost escaped out of my gaping mouth.

“What was that for?!??!?!” I whispered unnecessarily. Everyone in front of us, behind us, and in our row was now watching us, recognizing that we were much better entertainment than the movie.

“I’m not that kind of girl.” She said indignantly, her facing blazing scarlet and well lit from the on-screen pyrotechnics. “I can’t believe I went out with you.” With that, she stomped towards the aisle.

“Hey – wait…” I managed in the appalled fake silence.

“And you can forget about a second date!” She shot at me. “And don’t even think about apologizing, because you’re just like all other men – you have your mind on one thing only!” And with that, No. 5 ½ was gone with a toss of her hair, leaving me to field the disparaging stares from the audience.

“Hey man – what did you do?” The guy next to me asked.

“Nothing…really…I mean, all…” I managed to get out some words.

“Whatever, man. I’m trying to watch the movie here.” He said, blatantly lying.

I sunk down in my chair. I hadn’t done anything inappropriate that would make anyone but a Nun uncomfortable. In mortified silence, I tried to watch the movie. I hoped that the catastrophes that menaced the characters would enter my reality, so that I could escape the utter humiliation that had set in. It was a complete debacle. As the credits rolled, I slunk out under cover of darkness to end the disgraceful situation. My secret agent antics worked, and once free from the opinions of total strangers, I began to relax and laugh at the chain of disaster. Next date, I would just stick to a bouquet of flowers, opening doors, and a chaperoned waltz – or at least learn to duck or block any right hooks.

Episode XIV - E is for Evasion

It was just another quiet spring night. Another night where the stars sparkled and beckoned summer along. Another night where the crickets chirped furiously and happily as they hopped about in the gaps of suburban hours. Just a normal, perfectly average night that was representative of a good portion of the forgettable segments of life. On this utterly unremarkable night that followed a nondescript day I was driving home. Scratch that. On that silent boring night, I was speeding along with the roof of my tired battered and dented Toyota van wide open, watching the branches rush by overhead as if they never connected to tree trunks with one eye, while watching the road with the other.

More of my concentration was directed on the separating stripes of pavement than the trees, lest one think that I was in a mindset to cause general mayhem with my vehicle. My driving ability was no more abstracted or distracted than most other commuters should they have existed at that point. As for the speeding, the van did not really speed per se, but rather gathered all of its hamster-generated momentum with plenty of wind resistance and lumbered along despite how far the acceleration pedal was depressed.

Technically, I was barely speeding, rumbling over the surface street at a measly fifty miles per hour in a marked forty-five mile per hour zone. And to be accurate, I had only obtained such fantastical swiftness because I was going downhill. Another mitigating factor was that I had traveled much faster and in greater violation of the law on eight wheels than on the four I was using at the moment.

I hit the dip in the hill, and momentarily lost sight of the other side of the two lane road as I rolled through the bowl shaped depression as the shocks of the van groaned out dust from the compression that simultaneously shook my brain. I crested the rise of the bowl in grand silver shooting star fashion at a roaring forty nine miles an hour. At this point, I happened to gyrate right past a shape that was imprinted on my memory like skid marks on the road. It was a police cruiser. I looked back as he entered the now abandoned depression. The tell-tale lights came on immediately, filling the bowl with a refracted red soup. I swore.

My foot slammed the pedal to the floorboard. Inside the engine, the rodents felt the electric cattle prod shock to run and chose to blatantly ignore any commands, as it was their union-mandated break from running the wheel which powered the three and one half cylinders that ran the engine. Nonplussed at my lack of escape velocity, my arms immediately moved into Plan B, pulling at the wheel in true emergency evasion mode. Jerkily, my ship of a car slowly swung starboard as my arms moved in frantic circular patterns, pulling it into the imminent and immediate safe harbor of a parking lot and away from the pursuing black and white torpedo. Mental alarms and claxons sounded loudly in my thoughts at the last several seconds of action.

It was just a night. Just a completely abnormal night where, once again, for inexplicable reasons, I had to make the wrong decision and take an unneeded risk. The mistakes were beginning to pile up like leaves. I would have kicked myself savagely at the idiocy I was displaying, but I needed my both legs to depress the brakes fully as I zoomed across the half full lot into a dry dock of even lines and cracked pavement. The keys hung in the ignition as I yanked at them. With an audible clang, the door slammed shut, illuminating my shifty presence like a floodlight. I swore again.

My heart was pounding a relentless and remorseless series of signals against my chest, which vibrated across all sectors of my body, and even registered in my brain. Stupid stupid stupid stupid it stated flatly. Its beat was so loud that I almost told it to shut up as I was crashing through knee high bushes toward the Super Amazing 24 Hour Convenience store. I then realized that should it decide to take such a request literally I would be in a worse way than my current predicament. I decided to deal with its relentless nagging in silence. Clunk. The sound of metal pipe embedding itself in my knee reached my ears just as the palpable waves of pain dropped me in agony on the mildly littered ground.

From my supine position in mid-range dusty bushes, collapsed on what was unmistakably a half-filled extra large super soda container from the aforesaid bastion of commerce, my eyes widened and took in the cruiser now passing through the lot, no doubt looking at the parked cars methodically. I waited until it passed out and back onto the road, before pushing myself up to a standing position, and hobbling to the Super Amazing Convenience Store. My entry to the store was viewed with some amazement by the clerk. I couldn’t see his expression of disgust at first, because my pupils didn’t adjust from darkness to unnatural florescent brightness quick enough. Fortunately, his slack jawed expression was still there when my eyes adjusted.

After my eyes saw the clerk, they caught my reflection in a glass doored refrigerator. My shoes were coated in sandy dirt. A trickle of blood seeped from where the unseen pipe had impacted my leg. A weed was caught in my hair. And I had acquired a great smell that most definitely was not stale soda. I stumped around the store for a half hour under the clerk’s suspicious gaze, just to make sure I had thrown off all pursuit. In my opinion, the clerk didn’t really have the right to be giving me any sort of gaze at all, as I was a paying customer. Or maybe it was because he had a portable phone rubber banded to his head which he jabbered in as he manned the register. But since I didn’t want to disappoint him, I paid for a bottle of aspirin with a handful of change, mostly pennies, in true deadbeat style.

All that was left to do once the transaction was completed was weave back to my abandoned car, and drive home. At the door of my car, I had to remove my shirt and leave it there as an incriminating piece of evidence. If the authorities wanted to catch me that bad, they could deal with the increasingly heinous smell coming from it. It was just a night. Just a night with another pricelessly crazy escape.

Episode XIIIA - Standstill

Immobile, we waited. The planet turned around us, but we were at rest. One red eye stared at Mysterious and I as we sat. Blankly we watched the eye. Quick motion caught our corneas coming down the opposite hill. Absolutely flaming red flying toward our stationary point. Through the four-square intersection dodging traffic with pure energetic speed. Rending ripping gnashing sounds as the hood liquefied and rippled back. Silence. Two feet of hood re-shaped holding the racer in its metal jaw. Stunned. I pick glass like grains of sand from my lap and hair. I check my body for injuries that fail to exist. I blink. We get out of the car and walk over to the curb. Sirens break the stillness. I look up. The green eye winks at us and returns to red while motion floods the area.

Episode XIII – Potentially Disastrous at any Speed

Bits of carbon monoxide splashed off my nostrils and into my brain. If I could get a little closer, perhaps the vapors would numb my frantic neurons. Then again, I was fine where I was with the taught rope. Sparks cavorted and flashed off the neat parallel lines beneath me and rapidly snuffed out. The rope was fixed and tight. I could taste gasoline and engine oil in my throat. My teeth were bared in a parched expanse of weathered white. The wind surged through the crevasses and gullies of my grimace and over-inflated my lungs with an abundance of oxygen. Against my momentum, carbon dioxide trickled from my nose and was cast aside into the cold night.

No sound entered my ears. At the beginning, the constant calm clicking had collected images in my mind of crowds clapping in a colossal fashion of enthusiasm. As the bearings rotated furiously and blindingly, the acclaim vanished. Odd, disjointed broken mutterings whipped by my eardrums like cold static on a broken television. The rope was loose. I pulled in. My eyes focused on the Cadillac in front of me. From the rear windows, faces turned toward me and uttered words which only had meaning as expressions.

Streetlights flew by with pale yellow eyes. The sky overhead was overcast with low clouds and glowed unnaturally orange. The wind which had thrashed at my baggy shorts and shirt like a tired prize-fighter had almost dissipated. In the small vacuum that I existed in behind the car, it contented itself with clenching my clothes with separate tight grips, bunching the material. It was as if wraiths were leeching onto my body to pry at my soul. My legs were locked. They were not tucked. I had started tucked, but had shifted to adjust my center of gravity over the passing lines underneath my boots. The surging, straining motion of the rope took the place of the fierce growling and roaring of the Cadillac's aged engine. The silver ball towing hitch caught random flashes of white light, casting them off into my eyes in endless tunnels that I blinked fiercely to see around.

At fifty-five miles per hour, I was balanced on a rope and eight wheels between life and a closed casket funeral. The stress that my velocity carried with me was causing constant certain death time warping and slowing moments. The rope that connected me to my momentum maker, the Cadillac was no life-line. I wanted it to be a brick wall, constantly firm and impermeable.

The rope didn't want to be a wall. It wanted to cast me aside as it unraveled since it was an already frayed climbing rope. Its fibers wanted to split. Its fibers wanted to sag, or stretch. It only was only holding me in place because it had not yet decided how it would fail. If it came apart, it was as good as a dead-line. Mr. Mysterious, who was driving, would slam on his brakes, and the wheels would consume me in one carnivorous gulp. Splitting could send me spinning into any of the reflectors that lined the road like land mines. The rope could never be expected to surpass all expectations and preserve my existence. So I gripped it – no, clenched it with all of my force and concentrated – no, fixated on following the car in a straight line down the freeway in the empty third lane of traffic at two in the morning.

I can summarize how I ended up behind the Cadillac easily. It was the work of the Devil. It is simple enough to prove this: a common phrase tells us that idle hands are the Devil's work. I can attest that Mysterious and I, as well as his friends yelling at me from the backseat were very idle that evening before the idea was floated. Ipso facto, our actions were the result of some sort of demonic possession. However, there may be a more worldly explanation. We could have all had testosterone poisoning. The theory of testosterone poisoning is simple. Young males have an abundance of testosterone, and therefore get themselves into all types of dangerous situations as the hormone wreaks havoc on their rational brain.

Exhibit A for turning the Theory of Testosterone Poisoning into a scientific law would have been my flesh and bones connected to a rope tied to a towing hitch on a car. No rational person would tie a used climbing rope to a car. No sane person would place gloves on their hands to grip the rope better, and check their wheels on their rollerblades before giving a thumbs-up to the driver to start accelerating. No one with common sense of any sort would even allow the idea to get past the point of mere talk. But we did. It didn't matter who had the idea. It didn't matter who had the rope, who tied the knot. It didn't matter that I volunteered to be pulled. I could tell you that I volunteered to be pulled because I knew that I had the best rollerblading skills and the greatest chance to survive. But my real reason was nowhere near that noble. I had T.P. It cascaded through my veins, blocking any genetic screams for self preservation.

The plot brought us to the Interstate 56, a freshly paved three mile freeway that went nowhere and connected to nothing. We chose the 56 because it was a logical certainty that at two in the morning, the freeway would have no cars on it, because it never had cars on it. Over the freshly poured concrete my feet soared, skimming the surface of the earth. My legs ached. My arms refused to unclench. ‘Freeway ends in one mile’ registered in my brain from the green flyswatter that had just passed by. The taillights flashed red as Mysterious tried not to stomp on the brakes too severely. I forced myself to part with the rope. The Cadillac and its twitchy tail drifted into the left lane. Serenely, my speed fell off, time began to follow its normal pace, the frantic beat of my heart assailed my ears with its quickstep, and I tried to gauge how much of my essence would always be trapped on those three miles of inanimate concrete.

Episode XII - Don't Look Back

Rain fell across the heavens and streaked down to bang on the roof. It reflected off tiles and cascaded down in a torrent right outside my window. The roar of falling water blinded my other senses as I lay in bed. The sound seeped into my brain, telling my vision that the shadows cast in the night ran and poured down the walls. Hesitantly, I clutched my bear tighter and gingerly opened my eyes, willing the night to be too dark; my vision too blurry or anything else that would change what I knew lurked above me. Seconds passed and my eyes saw the spot. Directly above me, scarred into the soft popcorn texture of the ceiling, they were there. They stared malevolently, unblinking and uncaring, exuding a silent horror and anger. In reality, they were just two ruts, knocked out carelessly and left un-repaired.

To my five year old brain they looked evil, even during the day. They never blinked. They never moved. They always watched. They always stared. At night, they wanted to place their dark sunlight machinations into action. Silently, they urged on what would come next. I could already hear the soft sliding of the closet, opening just a crack. Just a slight inch. Just a centimeter. A completely unsecure black sliver that light disappeared in. A sliver that had been occluded by door a minute before.

Just as I thought I would scream for my parents, the feeling would grip my body with the desperation of a drowning man. It would roughly cast my muscles into a dead cold vice. It would claw and wrench my voice from my throat, throwing it uncaringly to a silent, deep void. Then, the cold would ooze from that gap, rushing over my rigored and vulnerable body. I would stop my breathing so that it couldn’t hear me and take me where it had come from. With my last effort, I would force my eyes shut so as to ignore the vague whisperings that followed. Somewhere, in this state of white knuckled bear grabbing abject terror, I would pray for sleep before anything else happened.

This memory rose unbidden in my head as I strode down the abandoned main hall of my house late one Saturday, some eleven odd years later. As I paused for a second, mid-step, the darkened living room behind me seemed very far away. Unbidden, hairs across my arms and legs shot upward. Spooked, I took a large step into the back foyer and whipped my head around at a perceived noise. The fierce grip of death struck my eyes and shot into my legs, rooting me fast.

Two feet behind me, suddenly stock still as myself it stood. To call it a shadow would be to mock its substantiality. It was corporeal. It was just shorter than me. And its form was human. It rested just a foot shy of the dark hallway I had come from. The dirty opaqueness of its outline blurred and blasphemed in the light it had stepped into. I could see through it, vaguely making out the wall through it. There were no eyes. I began to wonder if it was looking at me. Or if it was facing the wall, pondering eternal questions, and would turn to face me unleashing some horrible Medusa’s stare.

With molars grinding with such force as to crack teeth, I forced myself to blink, willing it all just to be a trick of the light. With eyes shut, then open, it was still there. Motionless. With force to make congealed bones rip, I thrust my legs back a step. With the absolute inevitability of a second hand measuring time it slipped forward a step easily toward me. It paused. I fancied that eyes or no, it was looking, no staring, no, boring through me with sight as if my body was the ephemeral one and I would be blown away like a decayed branch.

Uneasiness mounted inside me. The thing that had been rattling, no banging away inside of my head pounded harder in utter fanatical frustration. The terror cracked through the bounds of restraint and welled in my throat to scream and scream and wail and pour forth such irrationality until the end of time. Just as the intake of breath to fuel such a release was being collected by my lungs, it leapt, cavorting wildly into the room behind it. Its faded presence evaporated into the unlit space easily, expelling any grains of light trapped inside.

All lights blazed forth obliterating any shadows that lurked in any space in the room. My eyes did not blink. They stared numbly at the doorframe. Not a sound was heard. After the flight into my room, my limbs were refusing to move. Like a countervailing balance, my brain’s neurons moved faster than a comet across empty space. It was logically incomprehensible. It was scientifically unsound. It was ridiculously impossible. My memories defied all explanations. Either I was crazy, or I had seen something. I didn’t feel crazy. My paranoia refused to release my eyes from the door. The sarcastic section of my brain laughed at the fundamental impossibility of a substantial item blocking something insubstantial. Eventually, like the five year old, I fell asleep, exhausted, watched by the hum of all of the lit bulbs in my room, and hopefully, nothing else.

Episode XI - Bribery 101

The room was dirty concrete. The floor was crooked. The only light came from a fluorescent bulb in the ceiling. There were also dark stains around that caught the eye; and a stench that reeked of urine.

“What’s going on?” Basealicious whispered from the back left corner, rocking back and forth.

“We’ve been arrested.” Mr. Mysterious said.

“For what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s call our lawyer.” He said firmly.

“This is Mexico.” I said. “They don’t have the Miranda rights.”

“Well, what are we going to do?” He said to me, as the other four eyes came to rest with mine.

“Damned if I know.” I said, meeting their stares. “What – you think just because I was arrested once, I know how to handle these things?”

Hot Chops spoke first.

“Well – you have been arrested before. Don’t you…”

He was cut off by the door flying off the hinges and into the wall, raising a cloud of broken concrete. The first cop sauntered in and sat in the only chair backwards, further creasing his already dirty uniform. His presumed partner lurked over his shoulder.

“Why are you dressed like that?”

After a hefty pause, I realized the others were too frightened to speak.

“We’re in a band.” I volunteered.

“And what are you doing here?”

“We had a performance.”

“What’s in the cases?”

“Instruments. We’re in a band.” I said slowly. “Did we break any laws?”

“Do you recognize this?” He said, holding up the envelope full of cash, ignoring my question.

“Yes. That’s our fee. Are we being charged with a crime?”

“Fee?” He said coolly, looking at his partner.

“For playing.” I said lamely. “We received the money for performing at a wedding. Can you tell me…”

“Ustedes gusta coca?” He asked next, switching to Spanish, “Ustedes gusta marijuana?” and then loudly, “Ustedes te quieren chupar hombres en sus ropas identical?” He said the last gutturally, spitting on the floor for added effect at the end.

Behind me, I heard Basealicious breathing quickly and beginning to rock faster, as well as a sudden intake of fetid air from Hot Chops and Mr. Mysterious. All of us spoke Spanish, so there was no need for me to translate. And even if Basealicious hadn’t understood the last part, it wasn’t going to be a good idea for me to mention it at that moment.

“What – you think we’re drug dealers? Or users? Because we don’t do those things – any – of those things.” I spat back fiercely.

“Your mouth – do you like your teeth?” He said leeringly. “Because in prison, they don’t like teeth.”

“We don’t have any drugs.” I said firmly, trying not to let him rattle me. Internally, I was screaming.

“No, we don’t see any drugs. We didn’t find any drugs in your car. But you have this money. Drug money. And who knows – maybe you have the drugs somewhere else. Somewhere – internal. Maybe we have to let our friends look you over. And who knows – after that, they’ll be your friends too.” Again, with the leer. “But who knows. Maybe they won’t find drugs either. A pity. Then some might…” and with a swift motion he waived his hand. “Poof – appear!” I looked him in the eye, watching the cold black iris. My jaw clenched and twitched as the terror of what was occurring surged through my veins. “Or maybe, this isn’t your money either. Maybe we found it while we were looking for drugs. Sometimes it can be so confusing. I tell you what. We’ll leave, and when we come back, if it’s not your money, you can go home and piss yourselves there, you miserable whoreson America sons of bitches. If not…” He shrugged and leered again. The door rasped shut and locked again.

“We’re screwed.” Hot Chops said bleakly as the echoing of the door died. “But this is what I’m talking about. I’m glad someone with experience is talking to him.”

“I’m doing a real good job.” I said quietly. Inwardly, I was seething with rage and blind terror. I looked back at Hot Chops. He was staring at his shoes. Basealicious was rocking feverishly in the corner, with that zombie look in his eyes. Mr. Mysterious was staring at the wall. As Basealicious was already in a state of blind desperation, and the others were panicking, I saw that if we were going to get out of the room, it was going to be on my shoulders, or not at all. With this in mind, emotions seemed like a needless luxury. I took a deep breath. “I think we should let them have the money.”

“What?!?” Hot Chops exclaimed fearfully. “You’re talking about bribing a police officer. They’re going to totally take us to jail then.”

“This isn’t America.” stated Mr. Mysterious, “These are the Federales. I’ve heard stories about them. Bad stories. Like this. I think we should let them have the money.”

“But – but – this is crazy! They’re going to charge us with bribery – or something else and still throw us in jail! Then we’ll be in jail for something we did do rather than something we didn’t! And all the money will be gone!”

“Well, they were pretty much asking for a bribe.” Mysterious said in a detached voice, “And I don’t think there’s really a situation in which we walk out of here with the money. I don’t think it matters if we did anything or not. They already want to throw us in jail, and we didn’t do anything.”

“But – but – well – what does he think.” The ‘he’ was Basealicious, still rocking.

“Did he already pee himself?”

“No.” I said, moving over and waiving my hand in front of his face. “But he isn’t good. I think our best chance is to give them the money.”

“But why?” Hot Chops demanded. “They can just take it.”

“I don’t know. But it’s our only chance. Just be ready to help him out of here if the opportunity comes.”

Before I could decide what to say next, the door opened.

“Well, is this yours?” The first cop sauntered up to me, close enough that I could smell his sweat, and dangled a small bag of powder in front of my face.

“No.”

“And this?” He said, waiving the envelope so that the cash peeked out.

“No.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“So, you are saying that it belongs to no one.”

“Yes. You should take it.”

“I will. I will look for ah – its ‘rightful owner’. But don’t worry – it will be safe with me. Well, gringos, if neither of these things are yours – then go. Get out of our sight. But hurry!”

I kept my eyes downcast, so that the rage burning in them would not char his soul to a pile of ash on the floor. In two steps, I was out the door, turning toward the exit. I hoped that the shuffling I heard behind me was Basealicious being helped along. Back in the room, I could hear chuckles and laughter. Outside, the car mercifully started, and we were soon across the border. Once in America, muted congratulations were stated. Basealicious started to cry a little, and we attempted to console him as we fled back to our respective houses. The only casualty of the incident was the Dead Souls. Ms. Skins and Mr. Trombone could never bring themselves to believe our version of events completely, that we had spent all of the money on the bribe. They chose to believe that we had at least haggled somewhat, no matter all of our assurances that it was not a haggling situation. As it turned out, the only person that made any money that day was yours truly, for drinking the salsa. Mysterious didn’t want to pay at first, but I emphasized that while I had not only won the bet, I had saved his butt as well. Faced with such eloquent arguments, he eventually paid me, meaning that the whole experience was not a complete disaster.

Episode X – The Devil went down to Tijuana

Unapologetically my fingers flayed and flew in complex gyrations as my brain shot furious commands to overworked neurons which quailed from the lack of oxygen as a seemingly infinite series of waves poured forth from the bell of my trumpet in uniquely perfect notes that flitted around the revelers ears before passing out into the infinite afternoon sky. As I paused to draw breath, the wheels clicked in my brain of the clear truth. The Dead Souls would never sound better than we did at that moment. Immediately, there was a tiny devil in me that wanted to cast aside my trumpet and yell to stop the performance so that we could record the day our souls had been truly bought. That idea was quickly quashed, as it would ruin the moment. Eventually, the metronome of life cast the infinite notes aside, and our performance was over. We stood around gaping as the guests slipped off, and stared in disbelief at each other.

“Ay, chicos, muy caliente! That was some hot swing.” Broke the silence from the Best Man. “But now we need you to do Mariachi! The happy couple is leaving – quickly – rapido!”

Before we could object, he was gone. There was nothing to do but shrug and strike up an impromptu melody. But in Africa, someone killed a beetle. Somewhere in Asia, a door slammed shut. And with plummeting finality, the happy couple’s “Mariachi” departure sounded vehemently awful. On the plus side, we had our souls back. On the downside, we now had to worry about our lives, as the guests now were giving us the evil eye. The last song had been so foul, it had completely obliterated the three hours and fifty six minutes of good music in their brains. There was nothing we could say as we packed up our gear quietly. If someone had asked me what had happened, I would have told them that it was simple: swing and jazz bands just don’t do Mariachi. Finally, the Best Man came by with an envelope, and with a dirty look, handed it to Mr. Mysterious. It was our $2500 in cash. Nice, crisp, one hundred dollar bills.

The money was enough to make up for any vendettas we had started. Mr. Trombone and Ms. Skins immediately started their car and drove off. Several minutes later, we too were driving back to the Estados Unidos in the exhausted Datsun. A kilometer from the border (Mr. Basealicious had been reading the signs in his second year high school gringo Spanish to us despite our entireties to stop), Hot Chops looked back at Basealicious and I with more concern than he usually exhibited.

“What?” I inquired.

“That.” He said gesturing. I looked back, as did everyone else. If our Datsun was a rolling junk pile, the car that followed us was lucky to be rolling. Mud caked the wheels and obscured the grill. The windshield had a large crack through it, and we could hear its engine growling fiercely. It also had the infamous and universal roll bar of police lights on its roof.

“So?”

“They’ve been following us for five minutes.”

“Did you break any laws?”

“Are there laws in Tijuana?” Mr. Mysterious said facetiously.

“Mexico operates under the civil law, not the common law…”

“Shut up!” All of us said to Basealicious instantly.

“No.” Hot Chops said, eyes darting back to the road.

“Well, don’t then.” Mr. Mysterious suggested easily. “We’re almost at the border crossing, and therefore almost home. Nothing to worry about.”

“Right.” He said uncertainly.

A moment passed, and the line of cars entering America appeared. The overhanging approaching border barrier was a tantalizing finish line that was waiting for our final sprint. The brakes were just beginning to make their ugly grinding noise when the police siren sounded behind us, causing all of our heads to pivot simultaneously, and our ears to wince at the horrible syllables they were hearing that were unmistakably directed towards our car.

“They want us to pull over.” Hot Chops noted in a stunned tone, “At that building.” He waived at the concrete fixture just before the official border.

“Well, I think you’d better do it.” I said regretfully after no one else said anything.

We watched the building come closer with the grim anticipation of a paralyzed fly looking for spiders. Once stopped, I looked over at the mud-streaked police car now next to us, and noted that half the logo said “Federal”. My heart sank.

“What’s going on?” Basealicious asked frantically, as the police officers had left their car and were shouting orders at us.

“I think we’re under arrest.” I said grimly. “And they want us to get out of the car.”

I opened my door slowly, as directed. I took two steps to the front, hands raised. Then I had a good look at the squashed and dismembered bugs as my face was scorched against the hood of the Datsun as I was cuffed and searched. The others received similar treatment before we were directed inside, the metal door slamming coldly behind us as we were placed in a windowless room with one chair. The pockmarked concrete wall shaved off another layer of my burnt cheek as the cuffs were removed. With another clang, the cops were gone.

Episode IX – A nice, refreshing interlude.

It was a slightly smoggy day, one of those fall days where the sun idles down and glides off the paint of the car as you cruise across the freeways under the endless blue sky above. We were on our way to Mexico for the big performance, and we were feeling quite copasetic. In the lead car were Mr. Trombone and Ms. Skins, and all of the drums. Hot Chops drove the rest of us in his battered blue Datsun station wagon. We crossed into Mexico with no problems. As far as I could tell, it never was a problem to get into Mexico. We let the lead car head down to the site to begin setting up, as the two of them were the responsible band members. The rest of us were lazy gringos with time to spare. We pulled over just off Avenida Revolucion in Tijuana, the main drag for fun in the city, and decided to stretch our legs a little from the brutal forty five minutes or so we had been in the car.

Since Hot Chops’ Datsun was a supreme piece of junk, we were worried about it being stolen. This was not a concern specific to being in Mexico. It was a constant concern because it looked like you could jam a flat screwdriver in the starter and get the engine to catch by turning it. To allay our fears, we gave some guy twenty bucks to watch the car. This gesture upped our collective ante; now the car could be stolen and we would be out twenty bucks. With our vehicle secured, we set out to find a good bar to eat some lunch in. No one paid any attention to our attire because there were much more interesting things going on. There was that drunken guy that had just wandered into the street and had been bumped by a car that didn’t stop, despite him staggering after it cursing in both English and Spanish. Then there was another guy waiving a condom and gesticulating wildly at a woman who was most likely not his wife or girlfriend. This was not to speak of the booming loud music coming from all the bars, the myriad of street merchants, as well as the crush of people coming and going. Our matching all black outfits in this context was beyond passé.

Nevertheless, Baselicious’ eyes looked as though they would spontaneously combust if we went much further. Calmly, we steered him into the closest dive and pulled up mostly clean stools to a table. On the table was a tepid bowl of salsa surrounded by a couple of lazy flies. Mr. Mysterious glanced at it as we waited, and then that crazy grin appeared. “I’ll pay anyone that drinks that bowl of salsa fifty dollars.” He proclaimed. Hot Chops and I looked at each other, and then stopped Basealicious from harassing the waitress in broken bad Spanish. We told him just to order in English, because at least then he would make a bit of sense. Once she had gone, I looked at the table and contemplated my options.

“What the hell.” I said as suavely as I could manage. “I’ll do it.” Without further thought, I lifted the sticky bowl to my mouth. A putrid odor caught my nostrils cloyingly as the substance rushed into my mouth. I exhaled and counted as the air rushed out of my lungs. By the time I had reached seventeen alligators, the bowl was empty.

“Want some water to wash that down?” Mysterious questioned me with an evil grin.

“Do I look that stupid?” I spat back, trying to ignore any tastes that crept into my brain.

“Definitely.” Hot Chops said, smiling. “You are going to be so sick.”

“Hey guys…” Basealicious began.

“Seen it.” The rest of us responded in unison in bored tones.

I hoped that whatever had been in that bowl was entirely edible and, hopefully would not impose any harmful effects on my long term life expectancy. A look to my left confirmed that Basealicious was watching the events transpiring in the bar and on the street with a slack jaw. All of the rest of us could do was laugh at his naiveté, and hope that the flies from the salsa didn’t take up residence in his mouth. The rest of lunch was as uneventful as lunch in a dive bar on Avenida Revolucion could be. On the way back to the car, we had to get Basealicious away from the clutches of a seedy gentleman advertising what he termed euphemistically, “Donkey Show”. The downside of rescuing him was that we then had to explain what exactly was going to transpire in the show. In the midst of our innuendoes and half-muttered comments, we arrived to find the car intact and in the same spot. In order to keep our good karma going, we tipped our watcher another five bucks and headed down to our performance.

Episode VIII - Absorbent like a Radiator

“Black covers all mistakes. If one of us hits a wrong note, it will just absorb into our clothes, leaving our sound smooth and wrinkle-free.”

That was Mr. Mysterious with that crazy grin again, as if it was a perfectly common sense idea he had just stated. Mr. Mysterious and I had become fast friends on a trip with the Boy Scouts. We had met on the first day of planning. Our provisional Scout troop was headed to the National Jamboree in god-knows-where Virginia. Mr. Mysterious was slightly shorter than me with a lanky build and in ready possession of that crazy grin. He was a month younger than me and lived close to me, but not close enough to be in same school district.

Mr. Mysterious could talk about anything. Mid-way through our trip, a ferocious storm trapped us in our tent. The excellent sealing job we had done could not keep the inch of water oozing from the saturated ground from under our cots. Despite the fact that all of our possessions were struggling to stay afloat, Mr. Mysterious’ wit was quite dry as he posited a sacrilegious theory about Scouting. His theory was simple: Eagle Scouts would make excellent criminals. His logic on this matter was impeccable. His reasoning went as follows: 1. Scouts received training in a variety of useful activities that would be beneficial in a criminal enterprise. For example, they received physical conditioning by receiving badges in swimming, running, and other dexterous activities.

Scouts also received training in such mental activities as wilderness survival, orienteering, a variety of sciences, and an extensive background in the federal laws. Last, Scouts had the opportunity to learn specialized skills, such as piloting motorboats, firearm training, and nuclear physics, as the merit badge in Atomic Energy demonstrated. It followed that Eagle Scouts could become expert criminals, as they would possess a totality of the requisite knowledge needed for any illegal enterprise as they had completed all of the requirements to become an Eagle Scout.

Such ideas were met by a flat silence by the rest of the tent. I laughed. To mollify the others present we quickly agreed never to turn our Scoutly powers to evil, as that would be utterly reprehensible. Aside from our affinity for a good rambunctious conversation, Mr. Mysterious and I had other common interests. Both of us were musicians. Both of us were also the Drum Major’s of our respective High School bands. Mysterious played the sax which was the natural musical enemy of my chosen instrument, the trumpet. Once we realized that we were rivals, the nerdly boasts and taunts slowly ramped up to a cacophony of unreasonableness. The situation was exacerbated when we learned that our other friend, Hot Chops, was an avid musician in his band. Somehow, the three of us managed to get past all of the posturing, and actually come up with a good idea. When we got back home, the three of us, along with some other friends would try to form a band of our own.

At our first meeting, Hot Chops brought his clarinet, and a friend who played the trombone, “Mr. Trombone”. Mr. Mysterious brought his sax, and a drummer, “Ms. Skins”, and I brought my trumpet, and my friend, “Mr. Basealicious”, who, unfortunately, actually referred to himself by that moniker. In the garage of Hot Chops, we developed a good sound, a real good smooth, swinging sound. After we had played for a while it was resolved that, despite some people’s inability to drive themselves places on their own, and despite curfews, and the fact that we could never play in any clubs, or for that matter, probably anywhere awesome, we would form a band.

At this point the discussion about attire came up, and Mr. Mysterious placed his idea in front of the group. The obvious rejoinder from Hot Chops, who fancied himself a physics expert, was that we should be wearing all white, because white reflected all items, thus expelling any wrong notes quickly away from us. It was Hot Chops’ contention that the black would draw the bad notes back in towards us, as a radiator painted all black trapped all of the heat in a building. I wanted nothing to do with such oddball comments, so I kept quiet. In the end, all black attire was chosen for two simple reasons: it didn’t show stains and it didn’t show stains. After attire, the debate then began about whether we would call the band “the Dead Souls” as per Hot Chops suggestion, or “Ring of Fire”, as suggested by Mr. Mysterious. Hot Chops based his name off of some sort of philosophic scientific book he had just read, and Mr. Mysterious based his name off of a potential inside joke among the band members, as we would be wearing complete black, and “Ring of Fire” was a famous song by Johnny Cash.

I was overly apathetic about both choices as I was in a serious food coma at that point from having eaten too much pizza. In the end, the band was named “the Dead Souls” and we would wear all black. That was all I needed to know. That and when we would practice. As it turned out at the beginning, we had more gigs booked than practices. We had such glorious gigs as mall openings, birthday parties, coffee shops, and a performance at a picnic for Mr. Basealicious’ fathers company who never paid us anything, unless you count the couple of cans of soda we finagled from the tight fisted catering company that served the guests.

After practicing for eleven years, my participation in the “Dead Souls” was clearly my musical high point, as I was an integral role in a swing-jazz cover band. It was even better than nearly beaning innocent bystanders with my Drum Major’s mace in parades. As far as I could tell, being in any sort of cover band carried with it a certain amount of notoriety, but not the kind that gave me a lot of cash. Although Hot Chops did make an extra twenty-five cents the hard way one mall opening when a quarter smacked off his forehead. We were living the musicians dream, poor, struggling, and living with our parents. It was all about the music. We had also made a pact as artists, that we would sell out if we were ever discovered, and that we would never tell our non-band friends about our group because then they might actually want to see us play sometime, and that would be uncool.

Finally, after paying our dues with such small time performances, we had hit the big time with our first international performance. Mr. Mysterious’ Uncle was getting married at his home just South of Tijuana, Mexico, and after having heard us perform somewhere, was very interested in us playing his wedding. Usually people were very interested in us performing when they hadn’t heard us before, so the fact that we had at least one fan was refreshing. Even better, he was going to pay us $2,500.00 for four hours, which amounted to just over four hundred dollars a person, or a hundred dollars or so an hour. It wasn’t a multi-million dollar recording contract and a sold out tour schedule, but it was still better than working at a bagel store. We took the deal easily. On the designated date, we donned our respective all black outfits and got into two cars to drive down to Mexico.

Episode VII - Tuck!!!

Cigarette Butt. It could lodge in my rear brake. Loose gravel. It could get caught in between my wheels. It could shift as I passed over it, pitching me over the white line. Bottlecap. It could carom off my left wheel assembly and into my eye. Broken bottle. That could jam my front wheels, throwing me into the air. Patch of unidentifiable wetness. That could cause my boots to slip sideways, placing me on the ground.

My legs ached from crouching at four feet. My knees winced at every impact between foreign objects and the wheels. Creases that had not graced the corners of my eyes five minutes before appeared and wrote themselves into my face. Faster than the velocity that propelled me down the hill my brain’s relays jerked my eyes over the upcoming road bed like a furious puppeteer. The mild grunt of escaping air from my lungs as my knees were driven into my spine by a dip in the road went unnoticed by the roar of white noise that filled my ears and quickly moved on.

The bottom of the hill approached, and my leg automatically formed the right angle that would hopefully cut my momentum at the stoplight. The harsh scraping of rubber being left on the pavement indicated to my body that it was safe to straighten, relax, and unclench muscles that I had involuntarily flexed. I waited for the light to change and adjusted the dented pads that covered my key joints.

Somewhere between Europe and North America, I had decided that I wanted to learn to rollerblade. There had been no peer pressure, no un-subtle advertising, and no real reason for the idea. I just wanted to do it, as silly as it sounded. Despite the admonitions of my parents, who were convinced that I was going to die, I had gone out and purchased the whole package – rollerblades, clunky looking plastic boots with ski type bindings and wheels on the bottom, a helmet, and protective pads. The helmet I festooned with a sticker I had received at school. The sticker originally read “Wanted by the FBI – a Drug Free America”. After my alteration, the sticker that ran across the back of my helmet read simply “Wanted by the FBI”.

Learning to blade was more difficult than I had imagined. The area of San Diego that I lived in was the opposite of flat. While the blades did have a tiny, installed brake that worked with an increase of pressure on the right foot, it was not made for rapid descents, merely flat gentle cruising. The technical way to stop was to form a “T” with one foot out and the other straight. While as effective as forming the “pizza” when skiing, it had a steep learning curve that first placed all sorts of abrasions on my body. Weeks passed, and after a lot of practice, I had mastered the odd gliding motion that one uses to propel themselves on blades. I also had decided what I liked best about my new sport – the downhill. I had been to the skate parks, and hopped on rails and jumps and I had lackadaisically toured around lakefront paths, but none of them could hold my interest.

The steep contours of my hometown that had first caused me no amount of anguish were now the core component of my addiction to speed. Once I could stop, I found no greater thrill than they quick exhilaration of skimming the surface of the uneven road, looking frantically for traps that would signal injury or death to my fragile body. Where I had at first avoided hills like the plague, I now purposely went out of my way to find them. My hands were black from the constant obsessive cleaning of the ball bearings in my wheels. At night, when I slept, I could hear the downhill wind cascading in my dreams.

I would start slowly in my best spot, wheels clanking against the road as I slogged up a winding two to three mile hill. At the top, the area leveled, and I would swing around in lazy circles to make sure my ankles, knees, bindings, and overall balance was ready. My legs would then push against the ground, wheels grinding, each step placing the items in my peripheral vision in a greater blur. Then I would cut right, down the hill with no recourse but to stop at the bottom. On the hill, I would gradually yet inevitably lower my height. My legs would bend at the knees so that my fingertips could brush the ground whipping by. I would lower my torso flat on the knees; head slightly out, so that my body was as aerodynamic as it ever could be. I had originally kept my arms behind my back, hands clasped. On one descent, however, I realized that my preternaturally fast reactions would have no chance whatsoever if I fell to protect my body with my arms behind me. From then on, they gripped my legs tightly.

Such was my pose one day skating as I dived down a perilous, narrow, and gravel filled bike lane. My feet pressed relentlessly against the curvature of the earth so that a misstep would not cast me off into space. The point of the wind’s spear didn’t even affect me as my swiftness cast it through me as if I was a mere wraith. I moved with my reflexes and quieted my thoughts. It was at this second of abandon that my eyes noted a hubcap blocking my meteoric descent. It was up on the corner; it was feet away, I shifted my weight to bypass it, forgetting that this corner had a thick layer of road sand; gravel, glass, and other small mysteries. I caromed into it and felt it catch one foot in its horrid grasp. I was free of the restraints of gravity, cast into the sky, soaring, caught in the caressing currents. I was on the ground. Blood seeped from half a dozen points on my right side and arm.

My eyes blinked. Liquid seeped from the right orb; I wiped unconsciously, cursing as grit clung at my cornea. My mind restarted. Fingers wiggled. Toes wagged. Legs twitched. Arms pushed against the ground. The assessment: surface damage. I was fine. Red fluid leaked from the wounds. Grimacing, I pushed small rocks out of the torn tiger rips that streaked my right bicep. There was nothing to do but to finish the run and lick my new wounds at home. Once out of the fiendish unnatural quicksand that had tasted my blood eagerly my wheels began to sing with speed again.

Preoccupied with paying extra attention to any old sudden hazards, and slightly diverted by the wind flaying my loose DNA to the ends of the earth, I hadn’t noticed the car next to me now keeping pace. I shifted over to the right, closer to the hungry concrete curb. Sometimes I would chase cars down the hill, cackling mercilessly at their slow emissions as I zoomed past them and rattled their windows. This one kept pace at my rear heel, just out of my vision. I refused to look, wary about the buried treachery of the road.

The familiar whine of the siren almost startled me over the curb and into the brush. I ignored it. Then the voice cut in. It informed me that I was going forty miles an hour in a thirty five and I needed to pull over. Gingerly, I moved my battered muscles and stopped on a rise. Behind me, the metal grill of the cruiser grinned at me sardonically as its lights watched my every move as its driver approached. After a fifteen minute lecture about how I was “speeding” from the cop, I finally asked him how he had clocked me as radar worked on metal; not people. This not-so-innocent comment led to another ten minute lecture about being “disrespectful” to authority figures before I had my answer: he had been tailing me and watching his speedometer to see when, if ever, I would inch over the limit. I then refrained from stating some choice mental comments about how his actions were such a good use of police resources. For my restraint, I was rewarded, not with medical attention of any sort, but with him, “cutting me a break and letting me off with a warning”. Once back in his car, the cop pulled across the double yellow line, making an illegal turn to patrol back in the opposite direction. I waited until he had crested the rise, and then converted as much energy into personal momentum as possible, cascading fast enough down the remaining hill to melt any wings I might have ever possessed.