I:VIII

My room had two guitars. One was an acoustic that I played often. The other was electric, really showy, and very expensive. I will not disclose the brand of the guitar, or the model, or shape because I don’t want to mislead you, the reader. However I will tell you this about the electric guitar: I had done a lot to it. I had put locks on it, I ordered it with a custom paint job, I installed specific pickups, and the inlays were custom. I ordered this guitar around my soul. As I walked into my room and saw it sitting in the stand next to the window I asked myself for the first time, “What the hell was I planning to do with this thing?” I had purchased it and completed customizing it around eight months ago and I’ve never played the thing. “As a matter a fact,” I thought to myself, “Why the fuck didn’t I buy an amp?” It wasn’t that I was out of money, I just never bought one. I didn’t put it off, it’s not like the one I wanted was out of stock; I just never bought an amp. I didn’t even think about an amp when I was finally holding the guitar and not looking at pictures of it on the internet. “I’m certainly not selling that guitar.” I convinced myself, but I didn’t know what the deal was with the guitar. In fact, I didn’t know why I started thinking about it at that moment.

That aside, Erick sat on my bed and looked though the CDs on the nightstand. I sat at my desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out a rather large bag of marijuana. Erick put a CD in the stereo. I began twisting joints. Erick turned the stereo up. After about twelve minutes of The Black Dahlia Murder’s Miasma- an album I didn’t particularly care for- I had rolled eight joints. I stood up walked over to the door and signaled Erick to turn the music off. He did, then I waved him over to where I was standing. I put the joints in a baggie and put them in my pants pocket. All of the joints were fat so I was very aware of them in my pocket, well, that and the ridiculous odor. As we stepped into the hallway, my brother was coming down the opposite end.

I said, “Hey, Peter, Peter pumpkin eater.”

“Hey, guy. What’s up Erick?” He walked to us. Erick nodded his head and shook Peter’s hand. “What are you guys doing?”

“We were just headed up to the roof. Gonna blaze; you wanna come?” I leaned forward and grinned like I was trying to sell him a car.

He laughed, “Maybe some other time.” He didn’t smoke pot. “Look I’ve got to work tonight so I’m gonna go hit the sack. Are you guys going out tonight?”

I looked at Erick then said, “Yeah, most likely.”

“You want some scratch in case you fools get hungry?” He began to pull out his wallet. “Or gas, or something?”

“Nah, we’re set. Right Erick?” Erick took a big whiff of the air and gave Peter a thumbs up.

We laughed. Peter put his wallet away and said, “Alright. Don’t fall off the roof.” He turned to his right and closed the door to his office.

Erick and I continued down the hall until we were almost in the kitchen. To the left was the staircase, up we went, down the hall of the upper story, I pulled the string to the attic access, a built in ladder came down, up we went, across the wood floor of the attic to a glass door, and out to the small balcony. I drew the curtain to the glass door and shut the door. I lit one of the joints.

The view from the third floor of my house was not what most people would consider amazing, but to Erick and I it was perfect. Rows forever of almond orchard that eventually came to a halt of dirt, and lead beyond the eye ultimately to the high rolling dead-brown of the foothills. When the sun was in the right place during the evening, you could catch blinding twinkles from the windmill blades. The almond sea changed moods over the year. In the spring and summer the leaves were huge and bright green, in the fall the trees blossomed and one could mistake the land for the North Pole. In the fall the petals from the flowers took to the breeze with no flight plan. It was always an amazing sight but, alas, the shortest of the orchard phases. After the leaves and petals fell, one could smell the death rising from the earth. It smelled like a massive fire, only the flames were still, and once, they were alive. Now the trees looked old, naked, angry. The orchard looked like a place for things to die.

We stood out on the balcony for a while. I was pretty stoned. “Beautiful, huh?” I said after a while.

Erick replied, “A violent torrent of malignant turmoil.” Then there was silence.

Sometime later, the sun was setting and the time had come to set out. The house was still and dark. We exited the front door and staring forward through the rows of trees didn’t count for much. It looked as if the shadows were coming to engulf my house. We got in the car and Erick put on a CD. The tangled roads in these orchards could probably cause someone unfamiliar with them to be lost for weeks. At least that’s how it seemed to me. Sometimes I wondered how I even remembered where to turn.

The main street in our town was four lanes across. Over time it just became known as the Boulevard. It was Mortem’s aorta. On it was the better of what little commercial district there was. It was the place to cruise, there was a theatre, gas, and a couple of franchise burger barns. Also there was a bus station; the only way in and out if you didn’t have a car. We pulled in and parked with the back of the car to the Boulevard. A few spaces away was the driveway leading to a two lane road; to the one way out of here, as street called “Memorial Road”. The sky was brilliant yellows, reds, and oranges and everything was in shadow.

The music was off and now we just sat in the car. This was a mission? Erick adjusted his seat to get comfortable. I did the same as I pulled a bag out of my pocket.

We were very stoned a few hours later. Buses had come and gone. No one got on and no one got off. I was still unclear on what Erick and I were doing here. Not much had been said since our first joint. By this time we had probably burned four or five. “Erick,” I said, “Let’s hear a story.” He nodded and took a moment to collect his thoughts.

“It was an infernal contraption with malice intent to retrieve the burden of still water. In final product, the distilled incessant virtues of camaraderie, between the three parties, were invaluable; the third being the Heron. ‘O’ heron’ it would pulsate a magnificent screeching, ‘Enlighten the entities of my bureaucracy without proverbial force.’ But only a binary response rang through the seas…” He carried on; I listened intently.

The last bus until tomorrow was pulling into the station. The “mission” was absolutely fruitless. I started the engine. As I reached to put it in to reverse Erick hit me to grab my attention. I looked at him and he was staring forward. I looked to the bus and saw three people getting off the bus, all wearing dark black clothing. I was about to say something when out of nowhere, a black cat darted across my hood. It moved unbelievably fast but it caught both Erick’s and my attention. As we followed it with our heads to Memorial, a large black pickup truck sped past the station and fishtailed into the intersection on the Boulevard. The truck barreled behind us down the Boulevard. I looked at Erick. He was shocked.