Together We Will Go

by J. Michael Straczynski

  The night air had that quality you only find in the middle of the country, brisk and cool but dry and so clear that it makes you feel like you can see farther than normal. Even the stars seemed unusually close and friendly. It reminded me of that night in Oregon when we hiked as far up Mount Hood as our tired legs could take us, and when we turned around, you gasped and said it was like looking all the way to the end of the world.

  I hadn’t meant to go very far, but once I hit my stride I kept walking for almost a mile. I was about to head back when I saw a little trailer park down a dirt road. Most of the lights were still on, and I had the strangest urge to see what was going on inside them. I think I wanted to take a mental picture of the people who were there, living their lives, oblivious to our passing (and, I suppose, our Passing)… a moment to experience all the little unimportant moments we were leaving behind.

  I tiptoed through the trailer park and glanced in where I could, not to be voyeuristic, just to see if I could tell what was going on. The door to the first trailer was open, and a large, heavyset man inside was watching a reality show about a chef who tries to teach high school kids how to become cooks. Here was this man in his late fifties or early sixties, built like a football player or a professional wrestler, rooting for the kids to choose the right ingredients. “Not the saffron, not the saffron,” he kept yelling as the audience cheered. “Nobody uses saffron in that.” I found it oddly enchanting.

  The next trailer was dark, so either no one was home or they’d already gone to bed. In the third, I saw a red-haired young woman, probably in her twenties, doing dishes and singing “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me” a cappella from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She was singing the hell out of it, so she’d either had a really good day, or was planning to have a really good night.

  I started to approach the fourth trailer when I heard someone say, “Want to come sit?”

  I turned to see a woman in her fifties sitting on some concrete steps that led up to one of the other trailers. I don’t know if she’d settled in without my noticing, or if she’d been there the whole time, but from the Buddha-like way she had parked herself, a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other, you might’ve thought she’d been sitting there without moving for at least a year.

  I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to trespass.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You’re the most interesting thing to happen here all day. Have a seat.”

  She scooted over and I sat on the step next to her. “I’m Cathy,” she said. “You want a drink—?”

  “Theo, and no, thank you. I hope you don’t think I was being a creeper or something.”

  “Nope. Well, at first, maybe a little, but once I got a good look at you, I knew exactly what you were doing.”

  I smiled, wondering what conclusions she’d reached. “And what’s that?”

  She let the cigarette smoke out in a long, slow breath, then glanced back as if seeing straight through me. “Last looks.”

  It wasn’t the answer I was expecting, and I guess she saw the surprise on my face because she said, “It was in your eyes, love. You were saying goodbye. I’ve seen it before. Saw it in my mom before she died, and with a couple of friends who went away. Even saw it in my own eyes a few times, though I never had the guts to follow through on it. But you? You’re already gone, darling. It’s all right there, plain as day. Might as well be on a billboard.

  “When people get old,” she said, “they get this hunger for travel. See the world! That’s what all the brochures say, right? So they go, even though traveling means picking up your bags when you’ve got arthritis, then sitting in little airplane seats and train seats and God forbid bus seats for hours and hours when your hips are on fire, all to spend days with people you don’t know and don’t like, taking one last look around the property and collecting all the memories they can before they get evicted. Gives ’em something to hold on to when old age starts to yank out all the wiring in their brains. Nobody really knows where we go when the end comes, but we can at least take the time to see where we’ve been, so we go around memorizing as much of it as we can.

  “That’s what I saw you doing, and how I know what you’re gonna do.”

  “You going to try and talk me out of it?”

  She laughed up smoke. “Shit, no, darling. Like I said, you’re already gone. It’s like when you’re watching the sun go down over the ocean, except the sun’s already disappeared, all you’re seeing is a reflection of the sun as it bounces off the sky. There’s no point in trying to talk you out of anything because this is just your reflection. You’re already on the other side of the horizon. Truth to tell, there are days I wish I hadn’t let myself get talked out of going over the sea the last time I had the notion.

  “When I was on the drill team back in high school, if you’d’ve told me I’d end up living in a place like this all by myself, shit, I would’ve laughed my ass off. Not so funny now, but I’m not ready to call it a night yet, either. Still a chance Prince Charming might come down that road one day.”

  She dropped her cigarette into the empty glass; it sizzled and went out. Then she set it down between us and looked back at me. “You got anyone special, love?”

  I smiled again. “Yes, I do.”

  “They know what you’re doing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they’re okay with it? They understand the why of it all?”

  “I think so. All I could do was tell the truth, and that seems to have been enough.”

  “Then you’ve known the best kind of love there is. Someone who isn’t out to change you or confront you or argue with you, who just understands and lets you go your own way when you feel you have to go there.”

  “I agree. I’m very lucky.”

  We talked for a little longer, until it started to get cold. As I got up to go, she put her hand on my arm. “Got something to take with you,” she said. I thought she was going to give me food or a handout, but before I could stop her, she’d already gone back inside.

  She came out a moment later with a brightly colored postcard. “Something to remember me by,” she said. On one side was a photograph of the Empire State Building, above the words Welcome to the Big Apple! The other side, where you would write the address and the message you wanted to send, was blank.

  “Bought this from a collector at a flea market in Denver. I thought, one day I’m going to go to New York and send someone this postcard so they’ll know I’ve been someplace amazing. But I never made it. So I’d appreciate it if you could take it with you. Take it someplace amazing for me.”

  I promised her I would. Then she hugged me, said good night, and stepped back inside the trailer as I returned to the road.

  On my way back, I thought: Wouldn’t it be interesting if I walked back and found that there was no trailer park, no one watching cooking shows or singing or smoking? The others and I are traveling a road between life and death, between here and there, and sometimes amazing things happen on roads like that. What if I just experienced Colorado’s version of meeting the Buddha?

  But the postcard is still in my pocket, so I suppose that’s a pretty good argument for this not being an illusion. Unless it’s a very clever illusion!

  Sneaky old Buddha!

  When I reached the bus, exhausted and ready for bed, I found that sleep was still eluding me. All I could think about was you, and what Cathy (if she really existed) had said. And I wanted to thank you: for being in the world, for being there for me when I most needed you, and for being my light and my strength when it came time to make this decision. Never judging. Never arguing. Just loving and trusting.

  I love you. I love you so much. And I want you to know that I will miss you. I will miss you terribly.

  Be at peace, love.

  I am.

  Theo

  * * *

  PeterWilliamRouth

  From: Peter Routh GrailHunterZero@gmail.com

  To: Every
one

  Subject: Party!

  Having successfully reached Denver, the halfway point in our journey across Colorado, with nothing between us and the Utah border but some national parks and roadside shops selling Native American jewelry, Vaughn booked himself a suite on the 40th floor and asked me to extend an invitation for everyone to meet for dinner and get totally shitfaced. He promises booze, food, music, more booze, snacks, chips, dips, those little cheese-stuffed celery things nobody eats because they’re totally fucking gross, and did I mention a fuck-ton of booze?

  If anybody wants to bring party favors (side-eyeing you here, Lisa), that’s totally between you, your pharmacologist, and your deity of choice.

  Vaughn would send this himself, but he said he screwed something up in his email settings and now every time he tries to do a group send, they end up going to some lady in Germany who has started to complain to the authorities, and we have enough problems as it is. And I choose to believe him.

  Room 4012. The trouble begins at eight.

  Be there or be cubed.

  * * *

  Karen_Ortiz

  Party!

  Dylan and I could hear music blasting through the cracked-open door even before we pushed through. The place was jamming! I don’t know where Vaughn found all the incredible food that crowded the kitchenette—Dylan said he probably ordered it from a local restaurant, because there was no way the hotel had that much crab and lobster tail and tacos and burgers—but OMG there was a lot of it. It was a corner suite, so we had a beautiful view of the city, and in the distance we could just make out the bright blue statue of the horse the locals nicknamed Blucifer, fire-eyed guardian of Denver airport.

  We were the last to arrive, but this wasn’t the kind of crowd to wait around before digging in. The Rolling Stones and Talking Heads (obviously Vaughn’s choices) were blasting through the suite and the smell of weed was so strong that I was glad the windows didn’t open, not for our sake but because any birds flying overhead would’ve been knocked out of the sky by the contact high.

  Peter was in the kitchenette, looking out at the city and eating from a plate of food so full I was afraid it would spill at any second while somehow managing to balance a glass of champagne on the edge of the plate.

  “Bacchanalia!” he called out when he saw us. “Freaking bacchanalia on the half-shell!”

  “He’s not wrong,” Theo said, loading up at one of the food stations, then added, “For a change.”

  “Hey!” Peter yelled over the music. “I heard that!”

  “Truth hurts,” Theo said, laughing. “That’s what it’s for.”

  We continued into the den, where Lisa was dancing in the middle of the room, as usual not giving a shit that there was nobody dancing with her. “Make it louder!” she yelled.

  “That’s as louderer as it gets,” Mark said, sitting on the couch next to Shanelle.

  “Fuck hotel sound systems!” Lisa shouted, then instantly forgave everything when the Stones’ “Mixed Emotions” popped up on the playlist. “Oh, fuck, this song is so me!” she said, and went back to dancing.

  I was about to ask Mark where Vaughn was when he came out of the bedroom in a three-piece suit. “About time you got here!”

  “Look at you, all fancy,” I said.

  “You like it?” he said, and gave me a turn. “I bought this ten years ago, only wore it twice. Figured I should get some mileage out of it while I can.”

  I realized I was grinning as he raised his glass to his reflection in the window. Until now Vaughn had always been the serious one, watching out after the rest of us, and I loved seeing him turn up the volume and let go.

  Then suddenly Mark yelled, “Fuck! Shit!”

  We turned to see him fumbling with his wallet. “Goddamnit!” he said.

  “What’s wrong?” Theo asked.

  “My emergency credit card’s gone! I keep it in the pocket behind my ID. I was putting my room card inside and I noticed it’s gone! Shit!”

  He headed for the door. “Sorry, I gotta take care of this before anybody else finds it and—”

  “No, no, wait!” Lisa said, then rushed to her purse on the couch and pulled out the card she told me she’d liberated from his wallet the night she’d slept in his tub. “I found it on the bus this morning as we were getting off. I meant to give it to you earlier, but I got distracted.”

  Mark took the card and slid it into his wallet. “Jesus, thanks, that’s a relief.”

  “My pleasure,” Lisa said, and when she glanced my way and winked, I started laughing and couldn’t stop.

  “What’s so funny?” Dylan asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, shaking my head at Lisa. “Just glad his card’s okay.”

  “Put on some neo-swing!” Lisa yelled. “Who’s got neo-swing? Parov Stelar! Caravan Palace! Lazlo! Paul Borg! Let’s burn this place down!”

  Shanelle Bluetoothed her iPhone to the system and an electronic backbeat shook the floor.

  “All right!” Lisa said, and grabbed Vaughn’s arm. “Dance with me!”

  “Why do women keep asking me to dance with them?” Vaughn said.

  “Because you’re an old fart and it’s funny and we love you!”

  “Fair enough,” Vaughn said.

  “Me too!” Shanelle said, and they hit the floor together.

  * * *

  Hi, I’m Audio Recorder!

  Tap the icon to start recording.

  PETER ROUTH: Oh, fuck, here we go.

  LISA: Okay, everybody line up!

  MARK ANTONELLI: What for?

  LISA: Just fucking line up!

  PETER ROUTH: Lucy is in the house.

  DYLAN: Oh, shit.

  THEO: All right!

  VAUGHN: Who’s Lucy?

  LISA: Shit, I dropped the dropper.

  MARK: So I guess it’s a dropder.

  SHANELLE: Just a variation on louderer, come up with your own jokes.

  LISA: Here we go! Who’s first? Peter!

  PETER ROUTH: Hit me.

  MARK: Me too.

  LISA: Fine, whatever.

  VAUGHN: Who’s Lucy?

  LISA: Molly’s bigger, badder older sister. You liked Molly?

  VAUGHN: Yes, very much.

  LISA: You trust me?

  VAUGHN: Shit, no.

  LISA: Open up anyway.

  PETER ROUTH: Go Vaughn!

  LISA: Dylan?

  DYLAN: Sure.

  LISA: Karen?

  KAREN: I don’t know.

  DYLAN: It’s all right, I’ll be right here.

  KAREN: Okay.

  LISA: Bam! Theo?

  THEO: Absolutely.

  LISA: You on board, Shanelle?

  SHANELLE: Why not?

  LISA: And ba-bam!

  PETER ROUTH: Want me to do you?

  LISA: I would definitely need Lucy first—

  DYLAN: Bet you hear that all the time.

  PETER ROUTH: Fuck you.

  LISA: I can do myself.

  SHANELLE: Yeah, we’ve noticed.

  LISA: Hey!

  END RECORDING

  * * *

  Karen_Ortiz

  I’ve never used anything stronger than weed, so the idea of doing acid scared me enough that it never even got near the bucket list, but I knew Dylan would protect me if things got weird, so I went for it. At first I didn’t feel anything, and I thought maybe Lisa was just bullshitting us about Lucy, but then it started to kick in.

  Writing about what happened is like remembering someone else’s dream. Random images blurring into each other. The lights of the city spiraling like a galaxy, my arms three times longer than they should have been. Everything was a smear of color and sound and sometimes I couldn’t tell one from the other, and I kept thinking how Dylan had a soft green voice and Mark’s was purple, and you can never entirely trust purple. When Dylan touched me, it felt like static electricity, a flash of energy where his cells touched my cells and whispered to each other in their own secret l
anguage.

  And Theo! If liquid could become a person, sit on a couch, and be effortless and present, there and not-there, it would be Theo at that moment in that place.

  After a while I had to go to the bathroom, and it seemed to take forever to cross the room, walking past Vaughn and Lisa and Peter and Shanelle dancing, and the window where I didn’t dare look out at the blue horse in case he might be looking back at me. By the time I got inside the bathroom and closed the door, it felt like an hour had gone by.

  Once I remembered how clothes worked, I sat on the toilet and closed my eyes, only to snap them open again because I wasn’t sure how much time had passed or which bathroom I was in.

  Moving carefully and deliberately, I flushed, dressed, and washed my hands in the sink. But when I looked up at the mirror, it wasn’t my reflection staring back at me.

  It was the Spider.

  For a second I thought I should be afraid, but I wasn’t. Somehow seeing it outside me made it seem smaller. Pain is amorphous, invisible; it doesn’t have a face, it’s just there, as big as the world. But now the Spider was the same size as me.

  And I wasn’t afraid.

  This time it was the Spider who was afraid.

  I live only through you, it said inside my head. If you die, I will have nowhere to stay, and I will die too, and I don’t want to die.

  Tough shit, I thought back. Should’ve thought about that before you made every day a fucking nightmare.

  I was protecting you from the world. I kept you close, and made for you a cocoon of tears.

  You hurt me.

  I was singing to you in the only language I know.

  Bullshit. You’d say anything to save yourself.

  Yes, I would. Is that so wrong? I am trying to save us both. I am made of your nerves, your neurons, your flesh, your blood, your muscles, your bones. I/we knitted them together into webs, into a thought, into a word, into a Spider. And if I am made of you, then whose face are you really looking at in the mirror?