50
They popped out of the truck in the first downtown Miles had seen in a year. The concrete cage sprawled in every direction as its corners diffused the freshest of natural vibration, traffic littered the streets, sirens pollute the air, the stench of indoor plumbing seeped from below. Branded billboards promised luxury over the heads of the homeless, property managers advertised vacancy with signs of no trespass, dollar menus offered meal substitutes made of plastic.
It was all making Miles sick, like actually sick, his head pounded and his heart raced, his stomach turned the corner, he’d just been pulled from a year’s worth of fine tuning and thrown back into the chaos he’d narrowly escaped. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t even pray, this place was devoid of all that stuff as it actively sought to drain any remaining life from its inmates.
Spaz and Annie knew the feeling, returning to babylon after growing sensitive to the world, it was overwhelming, for sure, but it would get easier to navigate the disarray. Miles didn’t want it to get easier to acclimate to this broken way of life, he didn’t want to desensitize, he just wanted to disappear back into the woods.
“But that’s not how it works,” explained Annie. “If we only ever focus on our own alternative lifestyle, then we’ve only helped ourselves and left the rest with no alternative. Out here’s where we’re needed the most, to spread the energy we’ve built out there, and the only effective way to connect the spirit and the material is to keep a foot in both worlds at once.”
So of course the next logical step was to stop by the library and check out the computer world. Miles reluctantly logged onto Facebook, not the mindsucking feed, just the messages, and apparently he’d fallen off the face of the Earth, though he felt he’d fallen onto it. Friends from the road we’re requesting to make it official, they would transform his timeline into an actual source of information, but something felt dirty about reducing the cosmic web of connection to a thumbnail.
Spaz climbed out of the rabbit hole with an even more disturbed reaction. Just three hours prior to his yearly review, he’d received word of pressing family matters, there would be two bus tickets at will call within the hour. He wasn’t a worrier, and his open window mapquest made the detour a non-issue, but not only did this mean they’d have to abandon Miles on his weak knees, it meant Timps couldn’t tag along, it turns out that Greyhound is simply another misappropriated nomenclature.
Tending to a dog is a big responsibility, traveling with one is a greater challenge, Timps and Miles were close, but he didn’t even know where he was sleeping tonight.
“We’ll be fine brother,” reassured Miles. “We got this. I’ve got everything I need to camp wherever, she’s got enough food for a few days, and I’ve got piñons if nothing else manifests for me, plus it should be easier to catch a ride with just the two of us. You go be where you need to and don’t worry a thing about us, we’ll see you soon, just one thing though, I have no idea where we’re going.”
“I guess you might need to know that, huh? It should be easy enough, I can get you most of the way on a napkin, and Timps will know the rest from there. You’ll be fine. Just don’t lose her.”
“I’m sure she’d lose me first. Just kidding, nobody’s losing anybody, are we girl, and I bet we’ll have a bunch of good stories by the next time we see you. Toksa relatives.”
They chilled out front of the bus depot for a while, it’s one place in town where a traveler with his life in a bag doesn’t look out of place, just another low class bus person, is all. Miles was down to one set of layers and he wore them all, Earth was woven into the fabric, barbs were patched with corduroy. To any inside person, he belonged to the streets, even some of the street people were convinced.
A native woman knew the cut of his jib, he recognized the weave of her wool, she took great care of her single possession, and it would take care of her. Turns out she was from the same rez he’d visited, they’d almost even crossed paths, and now they had. She’d only gone back for ceremony, she lived here, she found the freedom of the street preferable to the cage of the prison camp. They exchanged enough Lakota to make them both feel at home in the abyss, she gave him some medicine, he gave her half his tobacco, but she had to get going before the shelter’s curfew, it was gonna be a cold one tonight.
Wow, what a small world. They’d known a few of the same people, she’d even slept under a roof he had patched, the energy he’d sown into the universe was weaving its way back into his path.
They chilled for a while longer, until it started to get cold, he gave it another smoke for manifest station to deliver, and as he pushed the butt into his back pocket, his tour guide arrived.
“Hey, you wanna hear this beat I’ve been working?”
“Sure, what else have I got to do?”
“Oh, pretty dog, can I pet her?”
“You’ll have to ask her about that one.”
On cue, she rolled her belly into position, her soft fur could open a door faster than Tiana. He pulled out a small speaker and hooked it to his phone, it produced a few pretty good tracks without a plan, he’d steal some wifi tomorrow to give them freely to the people. He carried only an Eastpack, his priorities were streamlined, music was his life.
“I could tell you were a music person,” he appraised. “Are you part of some traveling group of hippies or something?”
“Uh, yeah, kinda, something like that.”
“I could tell, you got a different energy about you than most of the people out here. You wanna walk around for a bit? Maybe score something to eat?”
“For sure. I was just sitting here waiting for you.”
“Right on,” he never missed a beat. “I’m Tony.”
“Miles.”
“Word. Let’s go kick it on the strip, there’s always a lot of action down that way.”
“I could be into some action.”
Tony was more than interested in Miles’ journey, especially the dirthouse, he knew of Earthbags and had been wanting to escape the city to some off-grid sanctuary, it refreshed him to know that they actually existed. He wasn’t on the street out of pure necessity, he had folks he could stay with a few states away, he was fit enough for a real job, but smart enough to see that it was all a sham.
“I knew when I was a kid that oil wasn’t the solution, as soon as they told us in school that it would run out someday but no one seemed to be worried about it. And then you grow up and discover that bombs and bloodshed aren’t a video game, they’re the reality of what it takes to ease the fear of running out of American privilege. Even if we already have the most, it’s never enough, so we take what we want from anyone too underdeveloped to stand up to our bullying, and then when they do work up the courage to organize resistance, and nationalize the resources that no one but us could somehow consider our god-blessed birthright, well, we have no choice but to blow them to smithereens, that’s what they get for ever thinking that they deserve an equal opportunity of minimal existence.
This dependence on scarcity is what creates conflict, and money, but they’re just two sides of the same coin. And then our rich history of a world at war since the beginning of the king’s official decree has created a six thousand year lineage of generational PTSD. The sacrifices that must be made in the name of expanding borders weigh on the walled-off hearts of returning soldiers, gotta be a tough guy because boys don’t cry, and all the women gotta suck it up and cheer on the assault because it’s their duty to support the troops, even if it means developing a culture of dominance built on paternal disconnection and patriarchal patriotism.
And the men did all the work while the single moms just sat at home and played house, so the general’s institution of establishment gave them the power to shape society however they saw fit, and with the Howard Sterns of the world manning the helm, we’ve devolved a way of life based on whatever crude act people are willing to do to survive a cash poor existence of voluntary exploitation.
And of course there’s no sympathy for the victims of domestication, as long as they got paid for their time, then who cares what they had to sacrifice in order to eat. And there’s even less consideration of the collateral damaged in the foreign lands we force into compliance, that’s just the cost of keeping our gas prices low. And naturally the orphans we create will want revenge, that’s the American way, which only means that we blow up even more people who are mad at us for blowing their people up. So how could any of this ever end?
Not that I agree with their tactics, because I don’t, but at least the terrorists have a cause, they’re standing up for themselves and what they believe in, their whole world has been decimated and they’ve found the only message that anyone seems to listen to.
And how many innocents have we massacred along the way?
And for what cause?
To defend America’s freedom? By slaughtering anyone with grievances.
To defend the American way of life? By pushing McDonald’s into the countries we drain resources from.
To defend America’s supremacy? Because we’re the greatest thing ever, which means that anyone who’s not us, is expendable, and we have no problem reminding them of that, because the rest of the world just loves us.
Yeah right. We’re a laughing stock to some and genocidal maniacs to the others, and the idea of the American way of life being a compliment, is a joke. We brag about our superiority to the world we’ve stolen to make it possible, pouring salt into the wounds of the spice trade, we’re every bit the greedy capitalist pigs they see us as, but we’re too caught up picking out blinds at Ikea to see the suffering we unleash in the name of...”
“Convenience,” finished Miles.
“Yeah, convenience, exactly. At all costs. Mass produced murder and mayhem, but it’s all good, as long as we can crack a beer and watch TV fiction about America being the good guys.”
Tony was not some scatterbrained street kid with no drive to succeed, he just knew that driving his life away for a paycheck wasn’t the answer. In fact, pretty much everyone they talked to that night, seemed to have a better grasp on reality than the passersby who tried to pretend they didn’t exist. They walked through the menu of styrofoam sustenance, the collision of aroma stirred their stomachs, but some people would rather trash their scraps than feed the animals.
It was all good, Miles had fasted a few times with Paul, he could go at least a day or two, he was only visiting the street, but this was Tony’s home.
They walked another block as the strangest thing came into focus. There was a piano right there in the middle of the pedestrian corridor, no shit, it was a little beat up, all the black keys were depressed below the whites, typical, but most of them even worked. This was awesome, he didn’t need food, or even a place to sleep, he’d be happy just hanging out here as he shared his vibration with the world.
He sat down and started riffing in C minor, Tony tapped out a beat with a pen, people started stopping to enjoy the show and Timps got her fill of rubdowns. And then the next thing they know, and I shit you not, this actually happened, the next thing they know, people start tipping them with tacos. The piano was covered with a mexican buffet, soft shell, hard shell, nachos bellgrande, they’d freely given their energy to the universe without expectation, and those who felt the music in their hearts, felt compelled to share a bit of their privilege with another.
Sure, there was a Taco Bell on the same block, and yeah, it was just the remnants of oversized portions, but Miles was feeling some kind of way as he manifested abundance in the middle of desolation row. Or maybe that was just the tacos.
Miles ate more than his fill of the lowest quality tacos he’d had all year, but he prayed with them really good. Timps wolfed her two, she normally ate as clean as everyone else, but this was cheat day, so Tony traded his for some meth and shot it into his toe.
“This shit’s no good man, I know it, but after you’re out here long enough, it just grabs ahold of you and won’t let go. You’ll be just trying to survive the subzero night, you’re so cold, and hungry, and you feel like a worthless piece of shit because that’s how everyone treats you, and just a little bit of this stuff makes all three disappear. I’ve never had to steal for it or anything, you saw how easy it was to get, especially out here.
I need to quit, I know. I pretend it only hurts me, but I know that’s not true. My family wants to help, but they can’t understand what it’s like, they have no clue, they think it’s just a simple decision to be sober and I must not love them enough to care. They don’t know how it eats at you, and even if they did, they didn’t understand me before all this anyway. Why I couldn’t be a part of that fucked up world that’s got them so wrapped up in themselves. Why I’ve always felt like I didn’t belong. And the street may not be the easiest place to survive, but at least the people out here get me, they don’t look down on me with judgement and disappointment, they accept me for me, and it’s the only place that I can accept myself.
They think I spiraled away because I smoked pot when I was a teenager, the gateway drug to hell, they’re so oblivious to how anything works out here that they’ll believe anything they hear on Fox News. They say that the majority of drug addicts started with weed, so that must be the culprit of it all, couldn’t possibly be the less than pleasant childhood or anything. Sure, a lot of junkies smoke pot, but even more drink alcohol, but the government says that one’s just fine and dandy, along with every network drama that glorifies the big three; cops, doctors, and celebrating the saviors with a drink to forget the world.
Plus my folks drink, and they never needed anything stronger to fill the hole, so why should I? But how many people that smoke herb also don’t grow up to be me? And how many meth heads tried caffeine before that, and aspirin before that, and every little kid knows that if they want to feel better, there’s a drug for that. How are any of those any less of a gateway to addiction than the clinically non-addictive devil’s grass?
And you can’t say because it’s illegal, because it’s not anymore, not here anyway. It was when I was a teenager, that’s when it was dangerous, when I had to go to the black market for a joint, and that same sketchy dealer had the hard stuff, but I managed not to get mixed up in it back then. And back then, they told us that pot was as bad as meth, it’s not by the way, but wherever it’s illegal it’s in the same schedule as heroin, so when a young dumb teen smokes a blunt and nothing bad happens, well, they might as well get smacked up next.
But now we know more about it, some of us anyway, and it’s treated with respect, researched, regulated, and you can walk into a well lit secure location to score, so the only danger left is a Funyun overload.
You wanna know how many people have died from a pot overdose? None. That’s less than caffeine. And aspirin. And how about alcohol? Or Fentanyl and the rest of the pharmaceutical catalogue? But there’s big money in all that stuff, for the big companies that own us and our big government, and everybody knows that gateway drugs don’t come with a prescription.
I didn’t start shooting meth because I smoked pot, anymore than a serial killer murders because they ate meat, it sounds like a joke, but if vegans had the same propaganda as the Reagan administration, we’d all be eating tofurky tacos for dinner.
Caution, side effects may include happiness, kindness, compassion, euphoria, self-awareness, increased creativity, and in some cases it’s been found to make patients funnier, at least they think so.
No, I didn’t get hooked on crystal because of pot. And I’m not on the street because I smoke crystal. I’m strung out on this shit, because I’ve never felt any kind of connection to that world they told me I was supposed to belong to, and as far as I can tell, all those that claim to fit into that way of life are even more lost than I was. I know the way I’m living isn’t healthy for me, but the way they’re living is a disease to our entire planet, and as sick as I feel out here, there’s no way I can be a part of that out there.”
Tony was glad to have someone actually listening to his unfiltered struggle, someone who saw him as a human being, someone who understood that they couldn’t understand, someone who was grateful to have found his own way outside the cage that was killing his brother.
“Listen man, I think I’m gonna go somewhere safe to finish the rest of this off, but I know this sweet rooftop spot that’ll be perfect for both of you. There’s like this little garden thing up there, some small trees and stuff, right there in the corner, it’ll be like a little slice of nature right here in the middle of downtown. Should be pretty dope.”
Miles looked for Tony the next day, didn’t see him, prayed for him though.