“If you’re finished, why don’t you relax in that chair while I clean up,” Kate said as she put a CD in the player.
“No, I have to help clean up. I earn my keep.”
“Great. Nice.”
Paul followed Kate’s lead, washing, drying, putting things away, as they listened to the music that seemed strangely familiar to him. He picked up the CD cover, and was surprised to see it was Ry Cooder playing with Indian musicians.
“Wow. Ry Cooder on Indian music. Weird. But I like it.”
“That kind of sums up the high desert for lots of us.”
“What?”
“Weird. But I like it,” Kate said with a slightly crooked smile and a wink.
Paul didn’t eat all that much and was feeling a little bit queasy as he sat in a comfortable chair with his feet up. But he didn’t refuse when Kate offered some gluten-free brownies.
“You know, I don’t even miss the gluten in these. Excellent!”
It didn’t take long after the brownies were consumed with gusto that Paul was snoring away in the chair while Kate went about her business.
Paul was in the same chair that her husband used to nod out on. But usually that was from too much alcohol, or weed, or harder drugs. Yes, even heroin on occasion. She wouldn’t be telling Paul about the heroin that ultimately killed him, yes, in that very chair. Kate had always hoped that by her example over the past 20 or so years her husband would notice her eating healthfully, exercising, improving her mind, and abstaining from alcohol and most drugs. Maybe it was because she shared the occasional bowl of weed with him that he thought everything else he did was okay. Like staying out all night getting high and jamming rock-and-roll with a bunch of twenty- and thirtysomethings. He just wouldn’t accept the fact that he was on the wrong side of fifty and his organs weren’t working like they used to. In fact, whenever Kate was successful in getting him to go to the doctor after a few brutal months of abusing his body, the proof was in his lab work. She always thought it was ironic that he – who believed in UFO’s, aliens, ghosts, chem trails, and every other conspiracy spread by every all-night radio wacko – wouldn’t believe the red numbers, arrows, and letters so plainly warning him of his imminent demise on the doctor’s lab report. He paid dearly.
Kate suspected that’s what she liked about Paul. Even though she didn’t really know him, she had a feeling that he was a pragmatist. Here was a guy who spent his life making choices between good and evil. That’s what a cop does, right? But there are bad cops. How did she know he wasn’t one of them? She thought that Paul’s snoring was even louder than her husband’s. That could be an issue later on. Maybe. She hoped.
“I think I should go home,” Paul said, after being awakened by one of his own explosively loud snores. “Could you take me back to the motel?”
Kate thought for a moment. Should I offer spending the night here? I would have 20 years ago. What would he think of me? And how do I know I can trust him?
“Sure, I’ll take you now, before it gets too late, if that’s okay with you?”
“Definitely. I’m ready. I’ll pick up my car from the park tomorrow.”
Once they were in the car and driving down the washboard dirt road, Paul didn’t feel so good. He didn’t say anything to Kate. He just wanted to sleep it off in private. He couldn’t remember a time when he threw up twice in front a potential date, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Kate dropped him off, and once room 8’s door was closed he made a beeline for the bathroom, where he began throwing up again. He was glad he didn’t barf in her car. As he put his head on his pillow with only his shoes kicked off, the room began to spin. He was worried. His mind raced. He didn’t know Kate from Adam. Or Eve. Who knows what she really gave him to eat and drink? Or what was in that tea. Then it hit him. The tea! The brownies. They were probably full of marijuana! How could I be so stupid?
He calmed himself down by breathing slowly. He began to say a string of Hail Mary’s, his go-to meditation chant for a Catholic kid. Once he knew his heart rate was down, he looked at the time, and picked up the phone.
“Hi, Tracy? It’s your father,” he said to his daughter’s voice mail. “Listen, when you get a chance, give me a call. Okay, thanks.”
He didn’t really want to trouble her with his problem. He wasn’t going to overdose on a little bit of weed tea and brownies. But he needed to talk to someone. Then the phone rang.
“Hi, it’s me, Tracy. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, um, listen. Do you know anything about pot brownies and stuff like that? I think I may have ingested something. I’m felling kind of ill.”
“Yes, I do. But it shouldn’t make you really sick. Unless you had like a bunch of them. Like five or six.”
“No just one. And possibly some tea.”
“And tea? Where did you get that stuff? Are you experimenting in the desert already?”
“No, I wasn’t feeling well, and this woman from the motel, well long story short I think she slipped me this stuff without telling me. I was hiking in the desert and collapsed and she sort of rescued me, and I think I might have had a touch of heat stroke, and ate some weird food, like yogurt and kale….”
“Dad. You had heat stroke. You weren’t feeling well. You ate weird stuff. And now you feel worse. Are you very high?”
“As a matter of fact, um, no. Just kind of sick.”
“I doubt she slipped you anything. Ask her.”
“Ask her?”
“Duh, yeah.”
“By the way, what’s going on with you? What’s happening?”
“Oh, we’re still just hanging out and relaxing. We think we’ll be heading up your way in a day or two or three on the way to Twentynine Palms, so I’ll let you know.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“Ask her.”
“I will. Goodnight.”
He didn’t know what to do. Should he ask her? Wouldn’t that pretty much destroy any hope he had of possibly pursuing this as a relationship? But I’m not even high! I feel sick! He thought to himself. What a paranoid jerk! What a moron. What’s wrong with me? Paul was soon fast asleep.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Paul woke up and looked at the red numbers on his bedside clock. 10:15! He still had his clothes on, and it took him a minute or two to realize he felt pretty good. Just thirsty. He picked up the half a bottle of water from the table and answered the door. There she was. Kate looked even more beautiful than before. Her thick hair was tied back and her fully exposed face, neck, and eyes made her look like a teenaged hippie chick.
“How are you this morning? Did you get enough sleep? I only have a minute, I’m due back on the desk,” she asked, earnestly.
“I feel surprisingly good. Thanks so much for last night,” he said almost whispering, as a middle-aged couple passed by the doorway on the patio. “By the way, I meant to ask you, what kind of tea was that. I really liked it.”
“Shit, I should have told you,” Kate said, her hand swiftly darting up to her chin.
Paul was frightened. Would she really slip him pot without him knowing?
“It was that St. John’s Wort. It’s all-natural and it’s supposed to help you sleep. But some people don’t react well to it.”
“I feel great. Thanks. I’ll stop by later.”
He closed the door and leaned against it. Once a cop always a cop. Case solved.
Tracy wasn’t ready to face her father. She knew she would have to eventually tell him the truth about her West Coast trip. And it terrified her. Yes, she knew her mom poisoned her from an early age against Paul. But the nastiest, most vile descriptions of him always seemed to come from her mom when she was the most wasted. When she was very young, around four or five, she thought that when her mom talked about her father in such awful ways, it was what made mommy so mean. Just the mere mention of her daddy made her mommy loud, angry, and disgusting to the point where she would fall asleep, sometimes next to her own vomit in b
ed. And it was always her grandma who would come to the rescue, clean up the mess, and explain to her that her mommy was very sick, and her daddy was actually a nice person. It wasn’t daddy who was making mommy sick. And some day she would understand.
It only took her to about the age of seven or eight to realize that her mother was an alcoholic and abused drugs. In fact it was easier to figure that out from watching TV shows than it was to realize that there was no such thing as Santa Claus. Once that became a fact of life, Tracy and her mom began to switch roles. The daughter worried about the mom, took care of her, went to the store, cooked meals, and cleaned up after her. By the time Tracy was a teenager, she and her grandmother talked about her mother as if they were her parents. Rehab became a running joke. If she was so messed up that she actually agreed to it, she usually managed to come out of it with some new junkie boyfriend or drug dealer connection.
But then she realized her father wasn’t Satan in the flesh. After years of Al-Anon meetings as a family member of an addict, she knew that sometimes a spouse has to leave. And knowing now through her grandmother that Paul footed the bills, kept close tabs on her from a distance her entire life, and even secretly drove hours from New York City just to observe her from afar, she realized that he was a special man. But that wouldn’t make it any easier to tell him that she was a lesbian. And on top of that, she was going to marry her girlfriend and join the Marines so they could both be in the Corps together. In the meantime, sitting by the pool, playing softball, working out, playing golf and volleyball were excellent ways to keep her mind off the day when she would tell him the truth about herself. If he disowns her again, then that’s his life choice, not hers. She was ready for whatever happens.
After taking a cab to pick up his SUV in the parking lot, Paul drove to the Frontier Café for breakfast, and sat alone at an outdoor table. It was late morning and about 90 degrees, but it didn’t feel hot to him. He didn’t even mind the piping hot cup of black coffee, and spicy huevos rancheros. There was something about the heat and the air and the dust that made one slow down. Even breathe a little slower. The cars in the desert were dirtier, and it was easy to pick out the local desert rats, as opposed to the tourists from L.A. or Europe. Desert rats had that dark brown tan with creased leathery lines across their faces, the moisture having been sucked out of their skin and organs after decades of exposure to the sun. But they still had a glint in their crow’s feet-lined eyes, full of stories to be told if you were bold enough to ask and patient enough to listen. As he got a third warm-up on his coffee he wondered about Kate. Was she telling the truth about the tea and brownies? Maybe she was setting him up for next time when she really would put some pot in his tea and brownies, like people who poison their spouses by putting a pinch of arsenic or a few drops of anti-freeze in their morning coffee. Or tea. But why would she do that? Her husband died from drugs. Maybe she blamed cops or the drug war or the government for his death? After all Paul wasn’t just a cop. He was an undercover narc. Then Paul stopped himself. He was still thinking like a narc. Looking for clues in everything. Noticing things like a bulge in a waist band – a gun? – a drop of sweat on a brow – why so nervous? – or an eyeball looking at something nearby – what’s he up to? – could mean the difference between life and death. He never wore a wire while undercover, so he knew very well that all he had to rely on were his own senses and gut instincts.
After breakfast he finally felt good. Whether it was the food, the coffee, the five glasses of water, or just being fully recovered from his heat prostration episode he wasn’t really sure. Maybe it was the St. John’s Wort.
There was an envelope on the floor inside his room. It was from Kate. If you’d like, meet me at the Integratron later today. I have two reservations for a sound bath. Text me if you can make it.
Paul pulled out his phone and texted, Yes, I’ll meet you there. Let me know when. Do I need to bring my bathing suit?
Immediately she responded, No. Just your birthday suit.
Paul laughed, then stopped. What if she meant it? What if it was a nudist thing? What if it was with other people? Paul had gone skinny dipping a couple of times with girls, but that was when they were in their early twenties and it was a just a big old drunken late-night party with friends at the beach.
Paul laid down on the bed, kicked off his shoes, and instructed himself that he wasn’t going to let this experience frighten him. Here he was, 3,000 miles and a lifetime away from his past. From the time he was in first grade he wore a uniform of some kind, whether it was the uniform of Catholic grammar school and high school, or the police force, or the uniform of jeans and sports team t-shirts worn while hanging out with friends in the same old neighborhood bars where fathers, uncles, and grandfathers used to hang out. It was time to start thinking differently. Stop being suspicious of everything and everybody, and start seeing the world with new eyes. Listening with new ears. And a sound bath is a perfect place to begin. Nude or clothed.
To his left, the red rubber ball of a sun was just beginning to drop behind the rocky hills as Paul drove on the two-lane blacktop called Old Woman Springs Road. On the right, the mountains were becoming purple mountains majesty. With every mile the landscape became a little more barren, the fences fewer, and the abandoned ramshackle sheds more prevalent. He passed through Flamingo Heights, a curious name since the closest wild flamingo was several thousand miles away and the heights were a good five miles to his right and left. He made a right onto Reeche Road, the first side street that was not a dirt road in quite a while. And after another turn and five miles later, there it was!
It certainly looked like a UFO, sitting in the middle of a dirt lot behind a wooden and wire fence. It was bright white, sort of like a geodesic dome, but not quite. It had windows on the top portion and some sort of cylinders every few feet protruding outward as if they were remnants of some sort of propeller. It was futuristic yet had an ancient air about it, as if it was one of those drawings unearthed in a cave that revealed the earth was invaded by aliens in prehistoric times. He saw Kate’s car in the lot and parked next it.
He walked over to the only door, which was quite ordinary for an intergalactic space ship, and just as he knocked a bunch of floodlights turned on and illuminated the structure brighter than a Vegas Strip fountain. The door opened and a hippie guy with a tie-dye shirt, white cotton pants, and long gray hair appeared. The smell of marijuana surrounded him like the dust cloud around Pig Pen.
“I’m here for the sound bath with Kate.”
“Welcome! Are you a virgin?”
“Excuse me?”
“Is this your first sound bath?”
“Yes, I’m a virgin,” Paul said as he stepped inside and hoped that it was a clothing-required event.
“I’ll get Kate. She’s upstairs,” the hippie dude said as he bounded up a rickety set of stairs that was more like a ladder that might lead up to an attic.
The room was circular, all wood, with wires strung across from one side to the other just above his head. On the wall there were pictures portraying the construction of the building throughout the years. There were magazine and newspaper articles, diagrams, graphs, charts, and even maps of the solar system. He turned to the staircase when he heard it creaking with footsteps.
Kate was resplendent in her long white cotton dress, which seemed to have thread made of silver. Her hair was tied back and she had a narrow silver headband that was almost halo-like.
“I guess you met Ranger?” Kate said walking across the room.
“Oh, is he a park ranger? Paul asked.
“No. That’s his name. Ranger. He’ll be down in a minute to give us a short history lesson.”
“Looks intriguing? Who else is here?”
“A friend of mine from meditation class and her friend.”
The ladder shuddered with more feet descending. Ranger was first, backing down, followed by a woman in yoga pants, and a guy wearing black leather pants, which is not exactly some
thing you normally see just after a 98-degree day in the high desert. At the bottom of the stairs the woman came towards Paul. She was about ten years younger than Kate and resembled her. Same calm, friendly, natural, demeanor. A new-age hippie. The guy, however, looked like he was wearing a costume rather than an outfit. His 50 pounds of extra weight made his leather pants look like they were the outside skin of a lumpy kielbasa. He had a three-day beard, a cracked front tooth, and a tattoo on his neck of some Chinese characters. Paul’s plan to not look at the world like a cop was already falling by the wayside.
“This is Jasmine, and this is….”
“Ash,” the guy said, with a voice made deep possibly by decades of booze and weed. “Thanks for letting me join in here with you.”
Kate, Ash, Jasmine, and Paul waited for Ranger to begin his tour, as he was busy doing some kind of meditation underneath the center wooden pillar, where all the wires converged. His arms reached up and his index fingers touched two of the wires that were strung across the room. His eyes darted back and forth like he had just stuck his finger into an electrical outlet. Then he stopped and acted as if nothing happened.
Ranger didn’t faze Paul in the least. He reminded him of the old hippies who frequented the streets and park benches of the East Village back home. As long as they had their weed, food to eat, and a roof over their head – in that order – they were harmless enough. But Ash? That was another story. Paul was getting a vibe from him similar to the harder-core dudes in the Village who supplied the Rangers of the world with weed and whatever else the market demanded, from cocaine cut with assorted poisons to pure black-tar heroin and the latest synthetic mishmash of hallucinogenic amphetamine-laced concoctions brewed-up in some Mumbai lye factory sure to make you want to bite your girlfriend’s face off. He didn’t know exactly why he sensed it, but he learned about three weeks into being a cop that it was better to be wrong about hunches and get your ass chewed-out by your captain, than to be chewed-up by rats as you rot in a Staten Island landfill. He’d stood at attention in his dress uniform behind a family all in black too many times to make those kinds of mistakes.
High Desert High Page 11