The sun was just setting as I approached the Bellagio fountain spewing an aquatic symphony that called the attention of every passerby. The orange glow in the west silhouetted the palatial hotel. Colorful lights again splashed across streets and buildings, then powered predominantly by the Hoover Dam and various photovoltaic facilities up and running again, but the ambiance was somehow different than it had been before. In the air was a celebration, not of debauchery and hedonism or of an escape from reality, but of love. A newly constructed plaza off of the hotel restaurants overlooking the fountain had been completed just before the collapse. Upon it was a wedding ceremony in progress, where cheers erupted with the “I dos” from the bride and groom.
I entered the lobby after leaving Nomad with a valet outside, which I found strange, but as horses had replaced cars, so had stables replaced parking garages. They would provide him with feed and water immediately, as he had grown weak during our time in the desert. I was nervous still, leaving him alone, but the valet assured me that there was nothing to be concerned about. They had not had a single incident of thievery, probably because everything in that town came free.
Reluctantly, I left him, in dire need of my own mending. I walked in with an awkwardly foreign appearance under the Chihuly glass ceiling, glowing like a garden of colorful jellyfish above my head, screaming of an intruder. Immediately I felt out of place. I was filthy and dressed in rags not fit for such an elegant establishment. I hadn’t bathed since the coast. At the front desk was a pitcher of water, the entirety of which I gulped down as they were setting me up with a room overlooking the strip and providing me with a list of complimentary restaurants. It was surreal. I felt briefly like a child without a care or responsibility whose needs and wants were all satisfied with no requirement that that satisfaction be earned.
“How long will you be staying with us?” asked the clerk at the desk.
“Only a night,” I replied. “I’m just passing through.”
“I hear that more often than I used to. Travelers passing through are the only reason our little oasis still exists out here in the middle of nowhere. Probably a lot of folks wouldn’t be alive if they hadn’t found us on their way to greener pastures. Where are you headed?”
“Southern Missouri.”
“Really? This time of year? You may want to rethink a winter jaunt through the Rockies. Let me know if you decide to stay longer. We can set you up with some temporary work.”
Nothing was stopping me then, though, and I didn’t pause to consider his warning. My first order of business was hygiene and hydration, and then I would fill my aching stomach. After taking advantage of the complimentary food and drink, most of which had been brought in from California, I decided to join the public wedding reception on the plaza outside. It seemed to be an open invitation affair, and I could use a distraction. There were plenty of those to go around.
By then it was well into the evening, and many of the guests were sufficiently liquored up. I didn’t intend to find myself in the same state, but one usually doesn’t. The more I drank, however, the more my mind drew back to the memory of my own wedding day—Maria’s beautiful face, slipping the ring onto her finger, the sound of her sweet voice when she had said, “I do.” It brought me nearly to tears, and I drank more in hopes of driving out the memories. They were just too painful.
“So who are you with?” asked a friendly fellow who had taken a seat at the bar next to me. “Bride’s side or groom’s side?”
“Neither, actually. Don’t tell anyone.”
“Not here for the wedding?”
“I just needed some company,” I said.
“And drinks, I see. What do they call you?”
“Joe.”
“Ah, Joseph, a name as suitable for a humble man as it is for a king. Which are you?”
“The former. At least I’m trying to be.”
“Well I’m Zeke,” he said. “I don’t know them either.”
I laughed.
“In fact, I’m not sure anyone here does,” he continued. “People are drawn to love, though, especially these days. We’ve always had lots of weddings in this town, but half of them were just charades.”
“If you consider the divorce rate,” I replied, “I’d say half the marriages anywhere in this country are charades.”
“Agreed. Whatever happened to ‘till death do us part’? Why is it that a spouse is the one expendable family member who can be legally disposed of for any cause, or even none? Seems to me that the ease of divorce defeats the entire purpose and meaning of marriage and, by default, family. And without family, what do we have? Look at that beautiful bride and groom.”
I took a drink and turned toward the newlywed couple dancing in the center of a crowd on the patio.
“It’s like they’ve forgotten what happened here,” he went on.
“What was that?” I inquired.
“You’d never know it now, but this place became a war zone after the collapse. Literally. We’re isolated in the desert, you know? Not much farmland out there. Not much fresh water. When deliveries quit coming in and the public water turned to sludge, people turned on each other, and that was before the heat of the summer. Gangs took over, fighting to the death for the last bits of whatever it was they needed at the time. Food. Water. Women. That fancy fountain there? People drank it dry. Then the gangs used the plaza for public executions, and there was a mass exodus of honest people to the desert. The ones who left knew their chances were slim out there, but they had to be better than staying. Bodies were piled in the basin where the fountain once was and where it is now.”
“What happened in between?” I asked.
“Eventually, we realized that nobody was going to win if it meant someone else had to lose.”
“We?”
“I was as much a part of it as anyone,” he said, taking a drink. “Hard to believe that plaza where all those people are dancing was not long ago painted red with blood.”
I watched the newlywed couple. The love was plain on their faces and in their smiles. They were entirely absorbed in a world of their own. It was as if they had forgotten not only the hundreds of people watching them, but also the entire collapse and all of the struggles we had all faced over the course of the last two years. We couldn’t run from them or leave them behind, but perhaps we could learn from them. Perhaps we could even fix the things that had gone wrong. Despite the trials we had faced, love had managed to prevail in that place. Perhaps, if given the chance, love would always prevail. That radiant couple was entirely unfazed by the changes in the world as if those changes didn’t matter. All that mattered was their love for one another. With that, they could overcome any obstacle. I knew that kind of love all too well.
“They look like they know,” Zeke said. “You shouldn’t get married unless you know.”
“Do you know?” I asked him.
“I did. And you?”
“Yes,” I said, looking at the ring on my finger.
“Where’s your wife?”
“About fifteen hundred miles east of here.”
“Miss her, don’t you?”
“Every day.”
“Been gone awhile?”
“The better part of a year,” I replied.
“You look it.”
“The flowers were just blooming when I left.”
“We’ve still got plenty of flowers in bloom.”
“Back home they’re wilting.”
“The flowers are always wilting somewhere,” he said, “but they’re always blooming somewhere else.”
I had failed to take into account my recent dehydration and the months that had passed since the last time I’d had a drink; it must have been with Leah. The liquor was hitting me hard.
“Zeke,” I said, slamming my drink down on the bar, “are you up for an adventure?”
“Ah, a man who has been through bitter experiences and traveled far enjoys even his sufferings after a time.”
“What?”
“Never mind. What sort of adventure, Odysseus?”
“Something to sober me up.”
“I’ve got just the thing,” he said. “Come with me.”
We stumbled out of our chairs, past the party and the fountain, and onto the strip. All around us, themed hotels towered, block after block of extravagant complexes representing places all over the world that were experiencing the same things we were. How different they certainly were from before. Everything had changed, and perhaps not in the abysmal way that it had seemed in the beginning. People, I thought, had somehow grown wiser.
We’d been mischievous when we were young, as youth naturally are. Many times we had been irresponsible, even. We had driven fast, taken risks, and broken rules, always in search of thrills and in love with the rush of our defiance of authority. There had been a time when I’d kept the company of rebels—people who took pleasure in destruction. We hadn’t considered our karma. Losing honor to greed. Losing health, both physical and emotional, to promiscuity. Losing friends to drugs and lies. The world always taught lessons in response to our mistakes. It was up to us to accept them.
People will always be people, though, as I would learn that night. We each have our own ways of coping with internal struggles, sometimes by means of self-destruction. The worst way to face those struggles is alone.
Zeke had a favorite spot where he liked to sit and watch the world as he knew it. That spot was on the rooftop of a restaurant that gave him a clear view down the strip in both directions. I was a little uneasy when we exited the door at the top of the stairway into the breezy desert air, but Zeke was no stranger to that place. He had spent many nights there. Watching. Waiting. Wondering where he might go next. It was evident that Zeke had been lost for some time, all alone in the crowded, electrified oasis. He took a seat on the ledge and dangled his feet over the side.
“Come on, sit down,” he said.
“I’m good back here. I’ve had my share of confrontations with gravity.”
“You’ll balance better on your ass than on your feet. I saw all those glasses in front of you. Come on, don’t waste this view.”
Reluctantly, I crawled to the edge of the rooftop and scooted my feet over the side. The view was indeed glorious. The atmosphere glowed with neon lights and extravagant hotels, and behind them, the mountains were silhouetted by the moon. Below us, the streets were alive with pedestrians, but no cars—a hybrid culture of modern and primitive technology that was fascinating to observe from the outside. From above.
“I told you,” said Zeke. “A whole new perspective.”
“I haven’t done anything like this since I was young and invincible.”
“I know what you mean. It’s interesting how, when we’re children, we have adults in our lives who we look up to with the belief that they have all the answers to life’s infinite questions, and yet we rebel with insistence on our independence. Then we grow up and realize they didn’t actually have the answers at all, and neither do we. It’s a terrifying revelation. Sometimes we see how childish adults can be, and we’re glad we were too innocent to see that as children. We would have had nowhere to turn for role models. Really, we’re all still children. The real growth happens in the next life.”
A gust of wind blew across us, catching my beard and long hair, and I gripped the ledge as my stomach dropped.
“Don’t be so nervous. You’re not going anywhere,” he said, standing up. “But I am.”
“Oh yeah? Where’s that?”
“That remains to be seen. Do you ever wonder about gravity, Joe?” he asked, spreading his arms like wings and scooting his toes over the edge. “Why are we so drawn to earth?”
“Gravity draws us to one another as well,” I replied. “Why don’t you take a step back, Zeke?”
“It draws us to the thing with the greatest mass. What is there greater than the earth?”
“God, maybe? I don’t know.”
“Ah, yes. Can gravity explain then why we’re drawn to God?”
He closed his eyes and spun in a circle. The wind whistled in my ears.
“If you’re not careful, you’ll learn very soon,” I said. “Sit down, Zeke.”
“God!” he called, his voice echoing off of the buildings around us, “Why do you bless us so, only to take those blessings away from us? What good could possibly come from this misery?”
He was shaking as he spoke to the sky, laughing and crying at the same time. He stumbled, nearly falling over.
“Zeke, sit!” I insisted. “You’re too close to the edge, and I don’t want to see you die tonight.”
“O ye of little faith, don’t you believe I can fly?”
He began flapping his arms, looking at me and then over the ledge. I didn’t know what was happening. Granted, I had only known him a short time, but how could such a seemingly normal man have taken such a turn? What could possibly have driven him to that madness? I stood up and backed away, trying to coax him in the direction of the stairs.
“Let’s go back down,” I said. “You’ve lost it.”
“Precisely my intention,” he replied, turning away and looking into the night. “Would it be so bad? We all have to die someday.”
“Don’t do it, Zeke. Please.”
“I didn’t want to die alone.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’m not. Tonight’s my night. Good-bye, Joe.”
He stepped to the edge, closed his eyes, and took in a breath, and I saw him disappear in silence.
It happened too quickly for me to react, and I was left standing there in shock. I was speechless—frozen. The lights blurred. I heard screams from the street below.
I had never seen a person die before, and surely not by his own choice. It was, without a doubt, the most horrible thing I had ever witnessed. I vomited and collapsed onto the rooftop in a cold sweat. So many thoughts rushed through my head, mostly of Maria. Where was she then, as I was watching a man jump to his death? She was so far away. I thought of the marlin in my dreams.
I don’t remember going down the stairs, but when I reached the street, I saw a crowd of people gathered. A path cleared, and out came two horses hitched to a cart upon which Zeke’s limp body lay. They passed quickly, and between the heads in the crowd I could hardly see him, but I watched them disappear down the road. I sat on a nearby bench and put my face in my hands.
Some time later, I felt someone take a seat by my side.
“Can you believe that?” said a voice.
I was silent.
“He’s lucky to be alive.”
“What?” I asked, looking up at the man next to me.
“What are the odds that he would land directly on the canopy?”
I turned toward where Zeke had fallen and saw a hole in the canvas awning just over the front door of the restaurant and the blood spattered on the pavement below it.
“Where did they take him?” I asked.
“The hospital, I imagine,” said the man, pointing in its direction.
Leaving him there on the bench, I ran as fast as I could. I scrambled into the lobby out of breath and asked where they had taken the man who had just fallen off a building. He was in surgery to repair several compound fractures and some internal bleeding, so I waited. I slept there in the lobby all night, forgetting the elegant hotel room that had been prepared for me free of charge.
In the morning, they said Zeke had been moved to a room for observation, and I was allowed to see him.
“Quite a night,” I said when I came in. All four of his limbs were in casts, and there was a brace on his neck. His face was purple and swollen.
“Yeah,” he replied, turning his eyes away from me.
“How are you feeling?”
“Hungover. And broken.”
“You look it,” I said with a laugh.
“This is where she died,” Zeke said, looking around. “It happened shortly after the collapse, when we lost power. Someho
w, when you lose someone you love like that, suddenly everything else you’ve lost doesn’t matter.”
I nodded.
“It’s so hard to go on after that kind of loss. Sometimes I think life isn’t worth living. I have to wonder why she was taken from me.”
“Perhaps so that she would never have to feel the pain you’re feeling.”
“But so young?”
“I like to think that some people are just too graceful for God to leave in a world that often seems so far away from him. Sometimes he takes them back.”
“I like that. She was that special to me.”
“Someday you’ll know.”
“Yes, someday.”
I left town with my horse that day, having never slept in that beautiful hotel room. The city was just as it had been when we had come into it. Nomad and I trotted past the restaurant from which Zeke had jumped, and they were outside patching the canopy. His blood had already been cleaned from the sidewalk.
15
COLORFUL BLESSINGS
Is it worse to be lost at the beginning or near the end of a long journey? In the desert, I decided to leave the highway and take what I thought was a short cut. Since I was not in a car, there was no reason we had to stay on the road, I thought. I had mapped out a new route for us through the desert and judged by the date on my watch that we could make it through the mountains to the city that had once been called Denver before the winter really got bad. How we ended up on the south side of the Colorado River, I still have no idea.
My determination to finish what I had begun was so intense that it blinded me to my periphery. By the time I realized that the Grand Canyon was supposed to be on my right side, not on my left, we would have wasted more time trying to correct the mistake than we would moving on as we were and making adjustments accordingly. I didn’t remember crossing at the Hoover Dam, and I certainly had no recollection of a romp across the canyon. Yet there I was, within eyeshot of the path I knew I should have been on and unable to reach it. So close, yet so far away. I was dismayed at the discovery, to put it lightly. That mistake would be more costly than I realized at the time, putting us days behind where we would have been had we simply stuck to the old highways as planned. Sometimes only a few days, minutes, seconds, even, can mean the difference between life and death.
The World as We Know It Page 20