It's flat and red and bare and hot and dry. We were peaking when the sun set and the stars came out BANG BANG BANG like that and I never saw till now how they leave trails slow and curved like an arc and they haven't faded yet. Scary quiet dead world wind look and it's shadows, we're shades on the Styx. Bad time now gnawing at my stomach all sick and where are the birds were always there before, swoop swoop like Morgana tossed them straight out with her hand. Those star lines, those star lines, I seen fucked up shit but that's insane what's up with that fucking christ. Stars lines they ain't no lines just the dots you know dots like always. The shade no it's her Cindy and when I looked back up it was just zap and she was right it was dots. Twinkle twinkle little dots, yeah, and that's how it was, just night like ten thousand years gone.

Listen to the mountains.

Don't know it's no god no i don't know.

Listen to the mountains did I think that or say it?

Yeah.

Red sky at dawn gypsy song's comin on (someone said that) and we were down at sunrise. Sixty-nine miles from Twentynine Palms was where we were, fifth day of a four day trip and Cindy dying to make it back and get out of the desert even though she's the reason we're not. I wanna get going you know pedal like hell for those couple hours where we're down kind of but not and energetic and we won't even be feeling that pain. But same story she says she won't go anywhere and Paul I'm TIRED and you've got a better bike that's why you always wanna go so fucking far.

Told her. One you're who snuck the other strip along that wasn't for this ride, we'd be back if it weren't for that, and two that's the lightest bike I could have stolen. She started crying.

Fine then fuck off fuck you go on just leave me here ride the damn seventy miles and leave me here to dry up and rot.

Jesus I don't need this now again now of all times (deep breath). Okay. Cindy. Honey. Cindy. Look, look at me honey, you were fine last night remember? that tree remember how it ran up to the sky and see look at it now it's normal everything's normal. You're fine and we're not going to do any more shit now but we can when we're back at the jeep and I'll take some of the water put it on my rack for you and it won't be so heavy and come on this is fun we're having FUN OKAY? Cindy goddamn it Cindy you're still crying.

She just sat there under the joshua tree, skin bright red cause she didn't bother to put on sunscreen the day before. Red like she wanted to blend in with the desert and hide. Cindy here's your helmet we've gotta go.

She threw it hard, took it from me and catapulted it twenty-five feet or maybe more. Okay then. Yeah. Let's go.

Yeah. Let's go.

Spring, it was, I think, I don't know when it changes from spring to summer, sometime in June, anyway you can't tell in the desert, it was eighty or ninety only so I guess it was spring, we saw blooming cacti. Or I saw them, Cindy might not have been looking. I took pictures of them, I took more pictures of them than I did of her, I didn't want any pictures of her like this. I've got just the one, from fall, before she really got like this. She's smiling, and drunk maybe, and it was when my being around still kept her happy some of the time. Ripping down the singletrack that's what I thought about, her, last fall. Hadn't slept since the night before last and even then only a little. Hadn't eaten much either, just a few powerbars and the pisswater carb drink in the camelbak, I wasn't really lucid enough for it to be a good ride. Don't you get bored all that time on the bike, people say. Well when it's a good ride all you think about is the ride, you just rage, you don't think about anything or what to think about or shit like that. It should have been a good ride, no ruts or bogs because it was a national park and they take your bike if they catch you and most people don't take the risk. I'd been wanting to ride it forever. But it wasn't really any good, I looked back and Cindy was way way back, probably even down in the twenty-four already.

Back in the dorm in October, rain, cold, I remember it. I walked into my room and everyone's already there and they've smoked I think and here's Cindy for the first time, she's sitting there with everyone listening and she's like So anyway and looks up and mouths hi and says So anyway there's the paper, and the son of a bitch professor has counted off for my fucking spelling. Smiling so you'd know she's not actually bitter, mayb even kind of glad she has the story to tell. So anyway I mean what the fuck, you know? Yeah let's put out the incense the smell's gone now but anyway, it's gray. That's the word the asshole bitches about is gray. I had it g-r-e-y, you talk about fucking nitpicky I mean aren't we in college? and you know that's the way the British spell it, right, so I'm like I'm British and I spell it g-r-e-y, and he looks up and goes I'm Polish I spell it g-r-e-i-g-h. She stopped for the effect and sort of half hung her mouth open with a whatthefuck look and then everyone laughed and I laughed and made it seem like it was the best story I'd heard. She said Who are you and I said this is my room. Oh. Nice room (still smiling and swirling gold colored hair in her hand, the smile kind of a half smile you could sort of tell).

It was burning hot and scorching hot and I could feel it in my head like hot flashes like a stroke, I stopped and waited for Cindy to catch up so we could smoke and then I didn't feel the stroke feeling anymore. There were a lot of joshua trees but they never gave any shade. Thin air, and dry, and dirt and dust flew up on the chain and dried it out and the air dried me out you couldn't feel sweat just a tingling where you would feel the sweat but it evaporates way way too fast, and we were riding north. Thirtyfour-nineteen on the rocky trail that was getting technical when we stopped it took four or five minutes for her to catch up. She gets bored riding and she always talks when we stop but she had no breath this time and it was hard I think.

Full moon, she said.

Yeah I saw it, I've seen it every day we've been out.

Well today it's full.

Full. So.

Oh fuck you. So it must be Thursday that's what's so.

Sunday.

Yeah. I wish it was out last night.

It wasn't up yet.

It was cloudy.

No the stars remember it wasn't cloudy there were stars.

Oh yes stars, hmmm.

I lubed my chain, she sat over there and rolled it she always did that not me, it was always her thing all that was all her thing. She asked how far we'd come and I said not far at all and she said how far just fucking tell me and I said seven miles. There was a vulture overhead and I heard it caw caw at least I think I did, I think Cindy did too and she didn't like it much, she kept watching it the whole time we smoked like it was a spy. The flat, endless flat, the souls and the big open sky you know it plays with your mind like a drug of its very own right sometimes. Sometimes you look around and there's no exit and the sun just cuts across the land and you're there deeper into the desert than you wanna be, deeper into the red and the blue, and vultures circling. You like it or you hate it, the desert. The vultures circled flat and the smoke circled up, one plane against the other, and the vultures kept crossing my view of the moon.

It's depressing here.

It's beautiful here.

How can you say it's beautiful. How can you say that when I'm so unhappy.

With my mouth.

Don't make fun of me Paul.

Don't make fun of me Paul. Huh.

I want out of the desert.

Well it's sixty-two more miles.

Sixty-two.

Huh.

Sixty-two, that's neat, that's the one that-

Don't even start-

Shove it up your ass Paul, you don't even know what the fuck I was going to say.

Let me guess, you're unhappy.

Don't make fun of me Paul. We're going. Let's get going. We're going.

We were on a plateau, we were going down so the trail turned all technical, just dropped off like whoosh two and even three foot dropoffs, I was ripped and just ripping right down and I couldn't see how in hell you'd ride back up if you had to. Big rocks, jut jut, straight up near stabbed my tire, would've cratered like a sonofabitch. So I was high and all and it was a mad run but all I could think of was Luke how he would've shot right down right around me on some switchback probably, he was the most insane gearhead you'd ever see and I still can't do half the shit he did, probably never will. Still scares me when I think about that one hill the Punch Bowl, makes me clinch my eyes shut still. You couldn't even see the bottom from the top cause it went down real real steep for a long ways then got even steeper real sharp like a drop off and you couldn't see past it, the whole thing must've been seventy or eighty feet high. I inched up and looked down and damn near passed out thinking about riding off God I can't go down that and here comes Luke behind me just slows down so he can wait till he's level with the grade and then he's gone. Like a roller coaster, coasted to kingdom come and back after he went down. Rode up up the side trail and did it again. I never did do it. I said to him I said Mom would have my ass if she knew I let you do that. He said she'll never know and I said she sure would if you killed yourself look you're not even wearing your damn helmet. He said, I'm immortal. I thought about seeing him going down the punch bowl while I rode and it just about knocked me off balance, I slowed down for the real technical part and thought about him ripping past me and I got all sad, made me lose my high way too quick. I started to think riding's just not any fun anymore now that Luke's gone. When I got to a smooth part I got up in the forty-six and just took off flying, still on the kind of steep part but I couldn't feel the rush at all, there wasn't one. Sharp switchbacks all the way down and I cornered them like clockwork, and sure it was good and precise and all like clockwork is but what I meant is just it was dull and old and just a what's the point general kind of feeling. I thought maybe it was just being around Cindy too long, Yeah that's all this is, but it wasn't I don't think, no I don't think so really.

Way back when things started out one time she said to me You need to pull the pole out of your ass.

Pull the pole out of my ass.

Yeah just quit caring about all the useless shit you're obsessed with.

The useless shit I'm obsessed with.

You should trip tonight Paul Paul trip tonight come on Paul. You'd have fun in an hour you won't be caring about that final tomorrow cmon.

Yes I will be.

See that's what I mean You shouldn't be.

That's just the way she was, nothing to do about it so I said No I should be, maybe one day I'll quit caring enough to do this shit every night like you, quit caring about shit anything whatever but I'm not there yet, you've changed me sure but you haven't brought me down that far yet and if I were there I don't think I'd be able to have any fun.

I don't know if she even heard me, I think she was too strung out at the time to care. Flat again, forever ahead. Little buttes stuck up on the horizon stuck up way off distant like twenty miles distant, and I must've just been zapped from that night cause they were waving right and left real slow, yeah I'd hardly slept in forever.

Those damn vultures were still in the sky.

It was hot, dry burning hot, I remember thinking It's hot as a cottonpicker. Course I wouldn't know, I never picked cotton like dad did and even mom sometimes, they'd sold the farm and moved out of Oklahoma the winter of the year he was gonna make me start, wasn't no cotton to pick in North Carolina, wasn't nothing, I mean anything, to pick, just that damn trailer, that skanky trailer park where the kudzu crept closer every night and you never knew if it would have you by the neck or not when you woke up. Never going back there, never. I would've gone back for Luke, that's about it. Piece of shit trailer's probably six feet under the vine by now and the kudzu can crush it out of existence for what I give a shit about it. But I never picked cotton. Cindy thought it was pretty damn hilarious how I lived on a cotton farm, she was a real bitch about it, actually she was a real bitch about a lot of shit but she knew she always could be. It wasn't till Joshua Tree that I just couldn't take it anymore. I remember back in the dorm after we'd been together a month or so, lying in the bed with her before class one morning, she was a bitch about it even then.

Slidell Oklahoma, she said.

Yep.

I guess that sucks when you're from someplace like that where you can't really be proud of it.

Huh?

I mean you know everyone likes where they're from even when it's a shithole. I mean even people from Staten Island act like it's worth a shit. Or Delaware. Greatest state in the union they say. But a damn cotton farm in Oklahoma. I mean really.

Whatever.

And then the fucking mountains and hollers or whatever of North Carolina (saying it all fake like a fake southern drawl).

Whatever.

You disagree.

You sure think you're the shit don't you.

Just drop it Paul.

New York City.

Just-

You're from New York City and then you say that shit. Whatever.

I'll have you know my father worked in a coal mine.

He didn't work in no damn coal mine. (She laughed.) It ain't funny.

Well if it makes you happy living in some hick backwater place like that then fine. I guess whatever makes you happy. I never have really been happy.

(I'd just met her a month before and already there was all this trash about how she wasn't happy and she was never happy.)

You really think you're the shit. All shit and no piss. Just go to your class, I'll drop it (Drop it Paul Drop it Paul), just go on, I may be a goddamn hick but I'll take my town over your ten million man cesspool anyday.

Ooh, cesspool, big word, the hick's exposing himself to some culture. She was smiling to try to show she was just teasing like being friendly but I didn't give a shit. I'd just talked to Luke on the phone the night before and he'd been crying about mom and dad and how he hated it there with them and without me there he said he'd run away. I told him not to run away but I don't know why. I left, I left him there, I would've wanted to get my ass away as fast as possible if I'd been him, and I told him to stay. Why'd I tell him to stay. You're fourteen I said it's just three more years I said, I don't know. I was a little drunk too, more than a little really, and I told him and it made him cry more. You're just like dad he said you don't care you don't give a fuck about me. I'd never heard him say fuck before. I'm sorry I said you know that's not true, I'm sorry, and it made me feel like complete shit not to be there for him, but I didn't do anything. Fuck me. What the fuck was I doing there anyhow.

So anyway I didn't feel like dealing with Cindy and I just said Shut up.

Paul-

Just shut up.

Paul-

Just shut up. I'm thinking it over and over like shutupshutupshutup-shutupshutupihateyourinsipidfuckingvoicejustshutUP. Just shut up.

I could throw you out of this bed this room right now.

But you ain't gonna.

Don't tempt me I'm on the verge as we speak.

Just shut up, you're too goddamned horny to make me leave now, you'd have to go out in the snow and the cold to find someone else to sleep with tonight, you would probably do it too. I don't wanna hear it unless you mean it which you don't. You're gonna be late for your class. Go on. Go on.

Don't start thinking-

Just shut up.

No you shut up motherfucker. Let me fucking talk. Don't start thinking you control me, I don't care how many fingers you think you've got me wrapped around I've got you the same way. You love having me around walking at your side all the time or whatever, you like the way people look at you when you've got me with you no I'm not being vain but I know what I look like. You really get off on having everyone jealous having me be your spoil of war, however you think of me. I guess you weren't as lucky down in Bryson City, I guess people didn't think as much of you there, I'm part of your new image, aren't I. I said I'm not being vain, I'm just telling it the way it is and that's how it is. Isn't it. You don't like me anymore but you'd rather have me around and feel good about yourself for getting to have me around. She stood there like she'd found a passage to Valhalla or some shit.

Please. Just shut up.

She left, and I just lay there awake. I had classes, fuck classes, I just laid there awake. You know I used to write back then I never wrote like this, yeah I know its all fucked up but I wrote and it just doesn't look right anymore the way I used to do it, I'm trying to show you how I think what I feel. But maybe you don't want to know how I feel, I wouldn't I know if I were you. You're thinking can't he even write a damn sentence well maybe I can't or maybe I just don't care I don't know. I don't know. But I've gotta do something you know, I'm wide awake and I've gotta do something.

It was hot in the desert and the sun rose awful fast faster than you'd think it would. Cindy got hot fast and she'd always stop and wipe the sweat off her face so I didn't bother trying to go the same pace she didn't like it when I did anyway cause it made her nervous. I just kept going flying over the whooptedos and trying to have fun so I'd forget about what was gonna happen whenever we got back. What was gotten happen when we got back, yeah, that was the thing. I was so tired god I was tired the acid last night was not a good idea, god I'm tired. The trail was rocky, there was a hill, and it was tricky going up. You've gotta get way down in the granny gear and pedal fast real fast like one-ten rpms fast, you've gotta stay in the saddle if you can, cause if you're standing the front wheel just comes right up off the ground, better traction in the saddle. But if you've gotta stand up for the power you've gotta stand way forward leaning forward over the stem. I was so tired I couldn't even pay attention, it was so hot and I couldn't get the traction, I had to walk it up a ways and I looked back to make sure Cindy didn't see, couldn't ever let Cindy show me up.

After the wreck it had been different for awhile, she went out of her way to be nice. I wasn't even paying attention then but now I guess I can tell how she was different. She felt real bad for me, I could tell she felt sorry for me, but I think somewhere deep deep down she was maybe a little happy cause she knew it meant I'd quit caring like her, quit caring about life, and I pretty much did. One night Tuesday night Luke always called Tuesday nights I just stared at the phone all evening till Cindy got home from work at one. I didn't even realize any time had really passed till she got in. That was the moment. Cindy, I said, she said Yeah? She saw me and she got into her feel-sorry mode. Oh honey. Oh Paul-

No it's alright just-

Oh Paul-

Yeah I think it's time, you told me I should quit caring-

Oh Paul-

You told me that's where to be (Paul I feel so bad for you) well I think I'm there. Oh good, she was thinking, oh good now he can be as miserable as I like to think I am. Actually she wasn't insightful enough to think that probably but that was how it really was whether she would ever admit it or not.

About half past noon I rode past some hikers Oh shit I hope it's not a ranger, but it was just hikers and there wasn't a ranger so I figured I guessed it was okay. Cindy was still back there Have some sense Cindy just ride past them and don't talk. The hikers might report it but we'd be long gone before they were back and I didn't care. I'd read about those Sedona bastards where they rode down the grand canyon from the south rim back during the government shutdown, stupid bastards were about two thirds of the way down when a helicopter saw them, the morons didn't stop to think that a shutdown wouldn't mean they wouldn't patrol for fires. Got their bikes impounded and then the cops found weed and shrooms on them so they pretty much got impounded themselves for awhile too. I hadn't seen any helicopter yet so I figured we were fine.

At one I waited for Cindy to catch up, waited half an hour till she did. She didn't have much to say, I might as well not have waited, but I guessed I had to for her, she was pretty much helpless, walking up all the hills. She made some shit excuse of course. Paul my wheel's fucked up.

Spin it.

She did. See how it wobbles, is it broken?

That was amusing. I got out my spoke tool and her whining Is it broken Is it broken? I fixed it real quick and turned the wheel and spun it and she said Oh look it quit wobbling! Yeah imagine that.

She said Damn what I'd do for a drink right now.

A drink, yeah that's smart, we're in the desert with limited water let's dehydrate ourselves, that's brilliant.

Oh fuck you, it's not like the weed doesn't do the same thing-

It's not the same thing.

Paul it was just a theoretical thing anyway, I was saying I wish we were able to have a drink, just have a six pack or whatever and not have it dry us out, you have to attack me for everything.

That would be a pretty fucking pointless addition to the load we're carrying too, to have to tote along beer-

Jesus Paul I KNOW. Fuck.

I was just being like that to amuse myself, just to piss her off I guess, I could've used a drink too but I felt like making fun of her for it. I said You drink like a girl anyway, I really was being an asshole and she quit talking after that, that's how our conversations tended to run those days, they never did seem to end up being very long.

There weren't too many joshua trees around anymore just empty desert, the sun made it a different shade a different color for the dirt. It was fucking hot but the wind blew a little bit enough where it didn't suck too hard to have to ride into it but it still cooled you off when you stopped. Cindy picked up a handful of dust and threw it into the wind. Paul don't wait for me anymore okay? Just go on, go on and take the jeep, it's yours anyway.

What the fuck, Cindy.

Just go on. I'll ride out on my own, I'll be okay, I'll call someone when I get out, I'll be fine.

First off you'd probably get lost and die, you can't even true a wheel how are you gonna ride out so much farther and then ride all the way to Twentynine Palms and not run out of water or get tired or no you'll probably stay the night in the desert and trip again and wander off into the mountains and disappear like that guy in the movie.

He came back.

That's not the point. First off there's that, and second what the hell are you gonna do then, what the hell are you thinking, what about us, what about you? How are you gonna get back to wherever you're going? Not that either of us know where where going when we get back but still at least this way you've got a way there when we figure it out.

I don't wanna talk about it.

Answer the fucking question.

I'll have dad wire me some money, or I'll call a friend maybe, I've got friends at USC you know, one at Stanford.

Cindy you don't have any friends anymore, you haven't talked to anyone in six months, you sent them all that stupid fucking letter I told you not to send.

My father-

You told your father to fuck off, you told him you never wanted to talk to him again and you weren't ever going to tell him where you were.

He-

You told him maybe if he starts dealing drugs you'll meet up with him again on some street corner sometime and otherwise to fuck off and die.

He didn't believe any of that.

You sounded pretty damn serious to me when you said it, you cried afterwards.

Paul don't argue with me on this, just let me live my life the way I want.

Live your life the way you want? Live your fucking life the way you want? You don't know what the fuck you want, I don't know, I know that, but I bet you sure as hell don't know either, and what the hell does that mean LIVE your LIFE? Pardon me for asking but isn't that a little strong a term for what you're doing with your existence?

Fuck you.

What the hell do you SEE? When you look out your eyes what the hell do you see that makes you feel like this? When you're on acid you don't want to die, when you're fucked up you never go through this bullshit so what the hell kind of drug are you on now what are you seeing? What the hell Cindy? See that tree? What the hell does it look like when you look at it? Huh? Does it look like a goddamn tree, or not?

Don't do this again Paul.

Just tell me. Fucking tell me.

It doesn't matter.

Tell me. Goddamn it.

No. I'm telling you. That's what I see, I see something that doesn't matter and I don't care and yeah I guess if I look it's another goddamn joshua tree.

Cindy-

If I gave a shit I'd bring a chainsaw and cut down every fucking joshua tree in the whole cocksucking joshua tree national fucking park.

Cindy-

Okay? Okay? Okay? And fine I'll just come with you, what the hell does it matter anyway, let's go. But we just sat there.

We didn't talk much after that, didn't go for a long time but just sat there, we fixed lunch separately, powerbars, freezedried shit, that kind of stuff. We must've sat there a long time, I though about how when I first met her she was beautiful was all I cared about and I didn't see what else, that's all I wanted was something beautiful. Whatever. Luke was gone I didn't care anymore about whether she was beautiful or not beautiful, it didn't matter.

Maybe a month ago, it was a month ago I guess when it all just collapsed, school ended and I didn't have anywhere to go home to and Cindy was busy burning all her bridges behind her as she blew off everyone she knew pretty much, I still don't know why. It makes me shudder to think about that voice whining I'm depressed I'm so unhappy. I don't know how I lived with it then. I don't know how I ever lived with her then. I don't know how I did anything I guess. I had the jeep, that was it, and I don't even remember deciding but we just sort of got in and drove, two suitcases for each of us and my bike on the rack. The first night we drove all night, stayed awake on speed, drove all day. What about your family I said.

Fuck the family.

You know just cause I don't have anywhere to go anymore doesn't mean you've gotta go nowhere with me, don't do this just for me.

I don't have any more to go home for than you do.

She liked to think that and it kind of pissed me off but it still lent that feeling like we were free or we were refugees fleeing from something or we were outlaws just driving for the sake of not being where we are now. Got really into it. Cindy wanted a bike too so I drove up to a bike shop in some bumfuck town in Iowa or Indiana and asked her what color she liked best and she said blue. I went in and asked to testride this killer Litespeed with titanium bolts and titanium skewers and titanium everything and the stupid fucks are from Indiana so they don't ask me to leave a drivers license or deposit or anything and I just take it out and load it on the jeep next to my super-V and drive off. She looked and said It's not blue. I said it's titanium. Titanium's not blue.

Once we got out west we'd just camp any old place where it was empty, we tripped every night cause it kept me happy then, I don't know why Cindy did it but it kept me from having to really think or feel anything real. It kept me awake. I was only into it that much after the wreck, before, it was just something to do to fill a boring night, now this shit didn't matter I could do it all I wanted cause what was to lose anymore and yeah I think sometimes What if they could see me now, what if everyone could see me now, that golden boy's not so golden anymore, but I never really think about it for long.

Don't ever think about it for long.

Luke and I back then we'd ride up all the way out to Fourmile Lookout, that was my favorite ride. He always said it was too flat or too easy and I guess maybe for him it was. He could ride uphill all day and never stop. I don't know how but he could and he did. It was so green there, dark green and lush like a rain forest and you could see the mist pass right through the mountaintops and out the other side, it's been a long time since I've seen that, it's so fucking dead and dry out here. We'd sit there on the rocks and unpack the sandwiches and the breeze was cold and misty and it cooled you off before you could even remember you were hot. You'd always see so many birds, blue ones and black ones and yellow and red and it wasn't like here where the only time you see birds is when something's dead. Those birds would land on the rock beside you and eat corn chips that you threw over to them, they weren't ever on the lookout for dead things, think about what it tells you about a place like this where the only birds you see are vultures, I mean goddamn. Five thousand feet above the world we'd sit there and watch

the buntings and the towhees and the waxwings and the ravens, they drank water from the rock.We'd lie there for a whole afternoon, watch all the birds, talk back and forth for awhile.

He'd say Coach Porter paddled Trey yesterday in school. Got caught pissin out the second floor window. Ten licks.

That kid you go play ball with.

Yeah.

He's queer as a two dollar bill.

No he ain't.

He'd say Paul go to Chapel Hill so you can come home weekends.

I don't know.

Please. It's just as good as any of those schools up north. Cmon.

I don't know.

He was worried pretty bad about me leaving, he always seemed like he was trying to make me feel guilty but I guess I never stopped to think maybe he was just being sincere and nothing else. Even before I was with Cindy I had a hard time believing any kind of shit was sincere and nothing else.

The last good night with Cindy was in Nevada, maybe it wasn't Nevada, I don't know. I don't remember half the driving, the sun rose or set somewhere in there, one of the two, I don't remember. Seventy-five steady through the whole damn state and it must have taken ten hours at least. There's a lot of useless shit packed into Nevada, a lot of useless shit, it was all pretty much a blur. Psilocybe pantomine, it was a good clear night, it was stormy, it was the last night when Cindy and I really loved each other if we ever did at all. Strong visuals, a storm in her eyes, we huddled in my sleeping bag and counted all the stars that didn't twinkle, talked about everything and nothing. About language. She was talking slowly, long pause after each word, she said was language the vision you felt?

Uh-huh.

The sun, twilight, it spoke, it spoke, it spoke breathlesslytoyoubut-neverforamomenttome, not a whisper for me.

It was fucked up, she was talking all slowly and it didn't sound like anything anyone would ever say, that's what it did was make you talk like words pushed together on one of those magnetic poetry things. I said Uh-huh.

New dreams.

---

New dreams tonight.

Cindy.

Dreams.

We were by a lake, not a lake lake but just a reservoir in the desert where it's blue against that deep earth red and nothing growing by the water like there should be, that's why it looked fake I guess. That was back before the full of the moon but it was out anyway and bright and the water was just reflections, it was like sheer glass. I could see mountains in the water pointed straight down at me, they didn't move and the water didn't ripple there wasn't wind so it was just real real still. Nothing was moving but I just sat there still you know and I could see really SEE where all the movement used to be. I could see the wind it blew everything away already, nothing left to blow away doesn't matter anyway, it already swept through a billion years ago and cleared out the desert and I saw it. Saw the wind blow and blow till it was all bare and then after awhile it gave up and now there wouldn't be any wind here anymore. So there's nothing that moves and the air doesn't move and Cindy's wandered off I guess, and you start drifting when it's like that, it'll just make you start drifting. It felt light, my shoulders, my shoulders and arms and neck going pulse pulse pulse you couldn't hear it but it was. I walked to the water and looked and I'd forgotten what the shit does to your face. You look at your face and you can't see the lines, it just all blends together, shadows where the lines should be, it looks fucked up. I knew it just looked that way for me cause I'd asked other times what was up with that but I still kind of turned away a little when Cindy came over, so she wouldn't see. Come to think of it she looked a little demonic herself right then.

She sat down and we just kind of sat there like yeah that's what it's time to do is just sit there by the lake. Both of us must of got thirsty right together cause we both started just scooping up water in our palms and drinking it right at the same time, taking it in from our palms like air, it was cold. It looked so much like warm water but it make me shiver, her too. I reached in the water right at the part where that mountaintop reflection came to a point and held up what was cupped in my hands and I remember I couldn't figure out why it was clear if it was so blue in the lake. I just held it there like some idiot till it all dripped out between my fingers plop back into the reflection and the ripples were small, you couldn't notice them very much cause without the wind you weren't looking for them ever very much. I was shivering, it got chilly at night even here where that day it had felt hotter than twice whatever Death Valley could possibly ever feel like, so I leaned back into Cindy's lap and her hand on my forehead made me feel like I was warm again. It's really just you rolling along with the drug but it feels like hot and cold and hot and cold like mad over and over again. Hot again. I was looking up and I saw a falling star but I didn't say so, that's a long story I guess. It was an accident, me seeing it, I always just figured whenever you look up for falling stars you look up forever and kill your neck and you never see one and eventually your neck hurts too much to keep looking, and you think why can't I ever see a fucking falling star when I look up like this but I mean what if you do see one? It's so fast like lightning, you barely even see it and what then, your neck still hurts anyway and you'd do just as well to stare at the ground and watch for fault lines to open up between your feet at least you'd still be able to see that after it happened. That's what I don't get is people who give half a shit about a falling star. Cindy used to pull that shit, oh it's the Perseids or whatever the fuck they're called and let's go out and look, and I told her what I thought and it pissed her off. She went out and looked for the damn meteors anyway but that's not what she was thinking about while she did it I know cause I could see her talking to herself. Whatever. Another one of her fucking bubbles that I burst. She's got plenty more.

So anyway I'm lying there in her lap and I'm thinking this is stupid cause I don't even know anymore if I'm supposed to enjoy it, it makes me think of that line from the radio in Salt Lake, what was it oh yeah I love you cause I need to not because I need you. But that wasn't even the way it was, no I don't think it was either one of those. I don't know what the fuck it was, but I was lying there and thinking that I just didn't even know if it made me feel good or not, it just felt sort of fucked up in a general sort of way. So I just started babbling, I said Cindy, I said Let's go out in the desert for a few days, we've got the bikes and the gear, we'll just find some hiking trail when we get to Joshua Tree and ride out for a few days, you're all I've got, we've gotta get back on track, we've gotta do something.

Yeah.

We've gotta learn to be together, be together like this like now.

Okay.

You want to.

Yeah.

I thought I saw falling stars again, a lot of them this time, but it was probably just the drug, it probably wasn't the stars that were falling. God that feels like so long past.

The rest of the ride wasn't much to speak of. I'm trying to remember what happened, if anything happened, if anything important ever came about, I can't remember. Have you heard the one about the guy who was reading a book, it goes like What's that book? It's a novel a whole novel that doesn't have the letter E in it a single time. So then it goes, Why the hell are you reading a book that doesn't have the letter E and he says, he says I'm translating it into Chinese.

That doesn't have anything to do with anything but it's the way I feel, I'm telling a story that's not a story any more now that I'm trying to make it like reality, my life never seemed like reality while it was still happening.I'm trying to remember about Cindy and I feel like that I feel like I'm leaving something out, maybe something that wasn't really there to begin with.

The rest of the ride was midday to sunset and I don't remember a damn thing about it. I rode, I waited for Cindy, et cetera. Etceteraetcet-eraetceteraetcetera. Fuck. There's nothing to say about any of it now. Luke always liked every minute on the bike, but for me I guess it just gets old or I get bored, I guess I've got an easily bored mind.

Well Cindy was acting fucked up the whole day but I wasn't really ready for her parking lot stunt. I was real happy to see the parking lot, we'd been out four days and 200 miles that's a lot off-road, and I just stopped and walked the last few feet. I wasn't paying attention to her.

Almost sunset. The sky a sweet melange of scattered cinder. We were back. There were people, tourists, lots of people, people with kids people with Kodaks people staring at us, the Jeep's there in the lot covered with dirt and mud, and yeah way too many people. We got off the bikes so tired and I said Cmon Cindy we made it we're here and she just stood there. Cmon Cindy. She just stood there in the dirt at the end of the pavement. Her eyes were so empty, so glazed, so gone. I mean yeah the drugs and all but my god they were so empty. She threw the bike down BAM it fell over and the panniers spilled out and all the water. She threw down the bike, she stared, she turned around to face back out at the desert.

The sign said Warning Cryptobiotic Soil Do not step on the Cryptobiotic Soil This soil has Microorganisms it is a living colony with a very fragile ecology Do not step on the Cryptobiotic Soil if you crush the soil it will take a thousand years to grow back.

She started walking one step, another, toward the sunrise desert mountains, another, the soil went crunch under her feet. Crunch crunch crunch. This woman was standing near, blabbering to some tourist about something I couldn't hear, water conservation maybe, or not. I couldn't tell at first she was a ranger. The guy sort of gestured up towards Cindy, the ranger looked and just shrieked like Armageddon coming and shrieked Stop that's Cryptobiotic Soil. Step back I mean it step back now get off the cryptobiotic soil.

Cindy stopped, the ranger bitch was still yelling about her soil, and Cindy walked back, back onto the pavement, up to the ranger and just spit right in her face. Started screaming, screaming louder even than when the bitch was screaming about the soil. I couldn't even tell what Cindy was trying to say, half of what came out was spit anyway, she must have been delirious or practically sleep-walking or I don't know. I heard Fuck you fuck your soil I'll shove the soil right up your ass, then just babble then Fuck you all your national park with its one hundred and fucking thirty degree heat and I hope someone shoves the cryptofucking soil right up your cunt.

Jesus. I was just watching thinking Jesus Christ, what do I do now, what does anybody do now. I pulled her back, I talked to the ranger woman while she wiped off the spit, I held onto Cindy, she didn't have any energy left anyway and she just stood staring like the waking dead. What does anybody do.

The bitch let us leave without an ordeal. We loaded up and left and I was looking for the first rest stop where I could just pass the fuck out for a day or a year or forever. I said to Cindy That soil stunt was pretty fucking dumb, she could have seen us riding up from that trail and just taken the bikes just like that, and if they've got the bikes they've got the drugs and then they turn us over to the cops and we're really fucked. That was pretty fucking stupid. Hey give me one of the joints we left in the glove box. Hey. Hey. But she was already long gone. I pulled over at the rest stop and slept.

I had a dream that I couldn't remember when I woke up but I knew it had been important, it was dark in it, and something happened that I really wanted to remember, oh well. It was night in it, that's all I know. What if that was the whole dream just it being night and me there and nothing else and when we can't remember a dream we think we had it's cause nothing was ever really there. Look up night in the thesaurus, try it, mine said NIGHT, nocturnal midnight nightly noctambulant noctambulous noctivagant noctivagous noctiflorous noctilucous noctipotent overtaken by night, benighted. All that to describe a nothing. That's what I thought it was. I guess I was benighted, overtaken by night.

When I woke up for good the sun shone in, the sun was beating down through the open windows, and shit it was the next morning. I started driving. I was thinking I don't know where the hell I'm going I don't know if I wanna spend another day of my life with Cindy, but I drove. I got on I-40. East, east to Arizona. East to more desert. East to who knows and who gives a fuck. I drove. I looked at Cindy's beautiful gold hair blowing out the window and her starting to wake up and I thought goddamn, I said Damn you're beautiful. I hadn't thought about it in awhile and for a minute there it made me feel good. She smiled, she opened up here eyes, she looked so beautiful right then and I said I love you Cindy. The sun went behind a cloud. The smile faded, the eyes faded, the earth faded.

I want to die.

What?

I-

What? What? Jesus Christ Cindy don't do this-

I just want to die.

Jesus Christ Cindy.

I'm sorry, I just do. I-

Jesus Christ.

I-

Don't you (I knew the answer, I always knew the answer, I wasn't delusional, I wouldn't have even asked, but she was just so beautiful, suddenly beautiful), Don't you love me enough even to want to stay alive for me?

Paul, don't do this. She was crying.

Answer the goddamn question. I sounded like some primal beast.

No. No. I'm sorry Paul I can't help it no no no No. I just want to die.

It kills me. It just kills me. I can't take it, I think about it and my eyes just flash back like NO! and it hurts, hurts now even, even now. That's why I did it I guess, not to be mean, just wrathful, angry, maybe a little to be mean but it was just rage. You wanna die? Die? (Luke didn't wanna die, he wasn't the happiest little blond haired blue eyed boy in America but die no he sure didn't want to die.) Press on the gas (the man starts the old Ford down the mountain), needle shoots up to seventy (the man makes the first turn, skids but makes it, says Woman hold my drink, the boy slumbers stretched across the rear bench seat), eighty (the man chews on tobacco), ninety (the woman argues with the man), then a hundred there on I-40 towards the sun (the man and the woman argue around the next turn) and even one-ten like it's the fucking autobahn or something (he curses the rain and her and then the rain). You wanna die huh you wanna die? (the man reaches out to slap the woman), she pushes hard on an imaginary brake (the car no longer obeying the man who no longer gives a command, the car not turning) and crying (the car ignoring the suddenly screaming woman and the man), and I say you wanna die? This what you want? This what you want?

No. She was real scared.

No.

They coasted off the mountain and they yelled to heaven and hell and the drink spilled and they descended in a hyperbola toward the Anakeesta slate. They thought about god knows what they ever thought about, ever thought all their wasted lives, god knows I never knew. They fell straight down now closer and closer and there it was. The boy slept and died (you wanna die, you wanna die?), but maybe not, maybe that's not how it was; maybe he woke up.

I slowed down to seventy-five, cruise control. She was too scared for tears. That's enough about dying, I said. We drove through the red and brown and emptiness in total silence and we drove like a bullet shot to the east to a better place or worse or no place at all. Like the first time I learned to drive, no one else in the car finally after so many years and I went as fast as I wanted and rode to roads I wanted and found what I wanted for a moment, and that's what it was like now. No one else around. Because that's what it was like with Cindy now, like no one else was there, just the empty bucket seat. The bikes rattled for the high speed. I threw my roach out the window and that was the last one, last one for a very long time.

When I first heard about Luke, about my parents and Luke, it was a bad time. Baer's house, the whole crowd, it was Cindy's idea, I didn't want or ever want to be there, all those people, all that noise. He was loaded and we got real fucked real fast and it was back when that kind of thing was fun. Place got busted, me and Cindy snuck out the back and a bunch of people behind us and we all packed into someone's van and went back to Cindy's room. Three hits that time I remember. Her room was all colors layers and layers of them, so many layers I remember that too. I saw the music, that was one of the layers. I sat and watched it and the other voices numb and nine or ten at least and Cindy played with my hair that was long then and there was lots of energy. When the phone rang I didn't think it was the phone it was an alarm why an alarm now? but it didn't stop and the sound trailed back to the phone. I don't know who answered it or when or how it got to me but there it was in my hand Hello and that was it. ______________. I can't tell that part. When I hung the phone up I thought Did that just happen but I knew it did and it had and my heart was racing beatbeatbeatbeatbeat so fast I wanted to rip it out and almost did and it beat faster. I thought I was dying, I thought I had died. I was scared shitless and my heart beating faster and faster and how I made it through the night I don't know, it was like that a long long time. All the colors. I don't know whether I told Cindy or maybe she'd been the one to answer the phone and WHAT IS GOING ON but she made everyone leave and my heart wouldn't slow down. Help maybe it wouldn't ever slow down, maybe never. Never is how it felt. I didn't know I was alive for forever it felt like years.

I drove eight hours to the funeral and back alone. Then I couldn't feel my heart at all. Now that didn't seem like very long ago.

It was a long quiet drive through Arizona.

Santa Fe. That big terraced adobe hotel at the corner of the square. The square. Adobe. Indians sitting on the street selling turquoise and sterling silver, sitting on the benches feeding the pigeons. They always look so sad. Whenever we passed them I wanted to go up to them and say Why do you always look so sad. But maybe they thought the same thing about us.

I'll drive you back now. I'll drive you to New York.

Just let me out.

Cindy are you sure about this?

Just stop and let me out.

You don't have money.

I'll have someone wire me some money.

You haven't seen your family in a year.

Just let me out.

I'll drive you to New York.

I'm not going to New York.

That was all, no byes or hugs or kisses or tears, just me staring up at the concierge waving cars into spaces, she got out, got her bag, that was it.

The bars closed at twelve that night in Santa Fe.

That was the thing, telling myself I hated her. I never really realized it till now. I'm smarter than her or I've always thought so at least and I'm wittier than her I'm not burnt for good like her, and she said the most annoying shit I could imagine sometimes, and I thought about all this all at once in a rush and it felt good. It felt good, and I was back on the interstate, and I yelled I hate you! out the window at the dark dark desert. Six months ago she was beautiful and the best thing ever to happen to me as far as I could figure and now I laughed. I hate you, I yelled. Not scornful, really, not scornful, just excited. Bitch! I kept laughing, laughing out into the black. The rain drove nails into the desert floor.