A sandwich in time

The cold, hard slap of pavement against the bare soles of my feet.  The crisp, winter desert air biting through the sweat caking my face, neck, arms, playing with the salty-coated curls of my hairy legs, whipping up garbage to dance around me like evil fairies.

Stepping into an underpass, buried beneath the earth for a moment, staring into the black liquid, oil and water coalescing in a pool of perfect darkness, promising the fingers and nails of the living dead to crawl out if I only waited long enough.  But my mind was elsewhere, up the mountain, climbing into the sunrise that I knew was not long in coming.  I had to make it there, had to make it in time to fly my own personal flag of freedom from the highest point I could reach.

I’m already there.  It doesn’t get much higher than this.

I giggle, then catch myself in a passing couple’s eyes.  They are steel and lace, his and hers, holding each other tight against the fears of the night, giving wide berth to crazies, like me.  I scratch my beard and cough at them, laughing to myself as they jump sideways as they pass too close for their own liking.  I growl, and they double-step it away, his muscly arm around her waste, her momentary glance over her shoulder giving away her titillation, her interest piqued.  What would it be like to strip me naked?  Would I taste as salty as I looked?  What would I do to her if I had her alone?

I could see that she was hooked, all in that tiny movement and those glinting eyes, before the wind whipped and her head turned back to the road she was on.  I only waited a moment before carrying on.  I had to let her go.  The mountain was calling me.

“Do you think we should head back now?”

I had forgotten he was there.  My dear friend, And babysitter.  Out to keep me safe from harm, safe from myself.  Inside I glow with love for him, willing to put himself out on a limb, wandering the streets with me, the tripping hobo nut.

I wasn’t homeless.  I had a room to go back to.  But I may as well have been.  I looked like I needed shelter, a good wash, and possibly some psychiatric help.  And, probably, it was all true.  But for now, I didn’t care, because the world was open around me, the small, pathetic city bursting metal and glass from the concrete basin, set into this never ending expanse of desert and brush, with the mountains standing sentry all round.  I look at the lego buildings and laugh out loud, catching my friend off guard, but not concerned.  He laughs with me.  I run.  He runs with me.

We’re dancing and spinning down the middle of an empty four lane blacktop, the sad realisation that all of humankind’s ventures are as empty as it fears.  And on it goes.

An on ramp, up to the overpass, and a mile long freight train thunders underneath.  We consider jumping onto it, like old west gunslingers on the run.  I even measure the distance and figure a few steps and a wide leap will do it, but my friend is too slow catching up with me, and even though he’s game, the train’s gone before we can prepare for the leap together.

My mind follows the train honking into the distance.  Long after it’s red tail lights have disappeared into the black, empty night, my mind has taken me on that journey.  We would land on the roof, and roll.  The pain of impact would take over our minds, before we realised we had actually made it.  Then the gymnastics in trying to board the train without falling onto the tracks to certain death.  Once on board, we would revel in the excitement, the thrill of traveling into the great unknown, until we leap off at the destination, and try to find our way back.  Or maybe it would stop at a weigh station, and the guards would chase us off.  For us, then it would be the long, lonely trek back across the desert, over the mountains, until we fell aching and filthy into our own crusty beds.  What an adventure, if only in my mind.

We are now in a seedier part of town, if that’s at all possible.  The tall black and glass buildings have given way to run-down, two-story, wood-framed houses that could have used a lick of paint twenty years ago.  My friend is nervous.  This is not the safest part of town in the middle of the day, let alone at the witching hour.  I don’t check my watch, because I don’t carry one.  I can’t stand having anything around my wrists or neck, never could.  Feels too much like confinement, like choking, being held prisoner.  Dying.

I don’t ask my friend what time it is.  He is frightened enough as it is, twitching, looking over his shoulder, subconsciously huddling up to me.  But I feel no fear.  Because I’m the baddest motherfucker in the valley.  I laugh, catching him off guard.

A sports car flies past, top down, dual blond heads bobbing to the music.  Money dances in the dirt raised in its wake, burning enough fuel to feed any one of the families living in the half-boarded up houses lining the street as it accelerates away from the danger zone with a loud whoop! and a cat call from the heedless empty-heads driving inside.

As I swear at them inside my mind, a man joins us.  He has no shirt, and his trousers are torn and filthy.  He looks hungry.  He walks alongside me, close enough for familiarity, far enough to be a stranger.

I start to talk, as my friend huddles up even closer on the far side, half protective, half looking for protection.  We don’t know this stranger, and my mind bends with the possibilities.

Our new friend seems calm, talkative even.  He’s eager to find out where we are coming from, where we are going, whether we go to college.  I answer his questions, then ask him if he’s hungry.  He says yes.  I reach into my back pocket, pull out the sandwich I had been saving for my mountain-top, sunrise breakfast, and hand it to him.  He thanks me and eats it down in three bites.  He was hungry.  I smile at him.  He smiles back.

A police car jack-knifes to a stop in front of us, blocking our way.  We turn as another police car screeches to a halt behind us, boxing us in.  All three of us are handcuffed and slammed onto the hood of the police car.  My friend and I stare at each other in surprise over the cold smooth metal hood.  My friend looks close to tears.  I am calm.  I can dig it.  This is part of the adventure.

Our hungry new friend has been pushed into the back of a police cruiser, and is being whisked away, while the police man interrogates us, slowly relaxing as he realises that we are new to our hungry friend, that he is not ‘one of us,’ but rather that we are two students who have gone out for a midnight stroll.

He admonishes us that this is an unsafe part of town.  My self-righteous anger gets the best of me, asking him if he was arresting our new hungry friend because of the difference of his skin.

“Your hungry friend just stabbed his wife 17 times with a kitchen knife.  We just took it off him.  It was streaked with blood.  He hadn’t even bothered to wipe it off.  He just tucked it into the back of his pants.”

“I gave him a sandwich.  He looked hungry.”

“That might have just saved your life.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.  So, why don’t you guys head back to campus.  You shouldn’t be out here at night.  This is a bad part of town.”

“Yeah, sure.  Thank you, officer.”

He looks as if he doesn’t believe me, reminding us to head back to the campus as he gets into his cruiser.  We smile and nod.  I can smell the fear steaming off of my friend.  I feel guilty for a moment, then realise the mountain is only a mile or two away, and sunrise is not much further.

“Come on, we can still catch the dawn.”

“Are you sure?  You heard the man.  It’s dangerous.”

“This way is the quicker way back to campus.  Trust me.”  I’m already walking.  He has no choice but to follow.

I can feel the earth breathing beneath my feet, the mountains pulsing with the life blood of Gaia.   This is what it’s all about.

I smile and pick up my pace, just short of running.  My friend has short, stubby legs.  I don’t want to tire him out before the climb.

The street ends and we are facing the brush at the base of the mountain.  It looks a lot more formidable from this side, but that doesn’t stop me.  I run at it, accelerating up the hill, ignoring cacti spines piercing my arms and legs, dodging anything slithering or buzzing, lunging, grabbing, pulling, jumping.  I only look back when I hear my friend call out.  He is stuck below a ledge.  I hop back to the edge, reach over, and pull him back up.  There it is, the guilt again.  He looks tired, fed up, ready for bed.  But it doesn’t last.  I turn again, this time keeping him in sight, watching for the easier path, not the quicker one.  We make it to the top and see our prize, a hundred yards up ahead; a flat patch of grass tops the mountain.  A stone bench rests in the middle, as if awaiting a virgin sacrifice.  My friend and I sit, panting, absorbing the perfect beauty of the birth of light.

I reach for my sandwich, when I remember I gave it to my hungry friend the wife-killer, back in town, and I thank Tyche for letting me see another new day dawn.