POINT OF NO RETURN
Back in LA, it did not take long before that idea of watching the sunset on the ocean was stowed behind the snobbish shoulders of private property holders, over the constant border patrols and beneath the police brutality riots simmering in caustic volitility. It all became too crowded, too cloudless, too crass a concept to bring you any peace of mind. That crap pile that is society kept stealing the spotlight and getting in real beauty's way. So, you soon found yourself back on an eastbound plane.
Adam was persistently urging this return. Apparently, he was not kidding when he said he wanted you to be his wife. But it was difficult to consider his proposal seriously. The moment you were back in his company, he gave you something that would last a lot longer than most marriages do: Herpes. Great. Though you were grateful he didn't give you syphillus or AIDS, you bowed out saying, "Thanks, but no thanks," to the honorary title of being his old maid.
A debilitating fear had formed around this worrisome concept of the wedding dress of chains. Wife just looked like a worse version of the girlfriend role you already so sucked at playing. So again, you failed to achieve any of the love you thought you wanted until it was staring you in the face. But it only resembled death by then. All the joy lightness and vitality of your previous feelings for Adam had dissipated. Now it felt forced obligated and confining, in a really tediously dull and boring way.
Then a distant relative died -- an aunt from your father's obscured family line. She used to call you "devil's spawn" so the thought of her leaving you a parting gift was completely unexpected. She willed you a savings bond that could only be cashed in your name. Therefore you actually received this one and only cash sum of $1200. All other gifts later bestowed upon you from other relatives never made it past your parent's bank account of utter unhidden disdain for the "drifting through life" choices you continually made.
With his head hung low, Adam glared at you resentfully from the station's departure platform. You just giggled, childishly waving Bye Bye from the window of an Amtrak train headed west for San Francisco Bay. You decided you wanted to be a comic book artist and finish college at the Art Institute. This was the new aim in your life spent adrift. At the farthest other end of the country, you felt you'd be safely out of your parent's disapproving reach. "Fuck them," you said, and I agreed.
You had already chosen to live, that much was true. You accepted that there would be a shit ton of work to do, but no fucking clue as to the How To... How to live, how to live with other people, how to live with yourself. So you began with Aldous Huxley's 'The Doors of Perception' in one hand and a bottle of valium, a bag of weed and a bunch of acid hits in the other.
America's various sameness dramatically swayed through the smoking lounge car's window. Night and day cascaded across the hard labored serpentine rails. The lullaby of a rhythmic angelic cradle. Moving from and moving to. In one long continuous 96 hour blur. From black to brown to yellow to green to white to gold and to gray.
*u can call me ph!*
