Devil & The Deep Blue Sea Behind Me

Synchronicity: "The coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events which have the same meaning; an acausal connecting principle... an effect without a cause."
--Carl Gustav Jung

"Yashua."

"What's up, King!"

"Yashua!"

My first visual of King Ja in the John Wayne Airport was of his shepherd-like appearance holding up in the air a magazine with a large picture of Jesus on the cover. When we made eye contact he yelled out the Hebrew name of Jesus and followed it with a series of giggles. It was Good Friday though me and the King would hardly observe it by fasting and penance.

"So, where's Ruby?"

"Ah, shit man, we just got over another emotional fuckin' break-up brawl. It seems to have settled down for the moment. I just want to get the fuck out of here...the fuck out of L.A. I'm not sure if she's upset or relieved that I'm leaving her. She shows a little of both flows. It was kind of like she showed a sigh of relief under her tears when I told her...unless that's just how I saw it. I don't know what the hell's going on, man."

I originally told the King that I needed him to help me to physically move but the only things I were taking with me were the items I could fit into my car. What I really needed was some support from a male bro because I didn't have enough balls to leave Ruby on my own...to literally leave her on my own. I sat in my Mitsubishi Eclipse a number of times, intending to leave, but couldn't physically force my hands and feet to work properly enough to navigate the vehicle away from the apartment...away from Cali...away from her...in my car alone, looking back at her sad eyes that I had noticed when I had first met her...away from all the controversy...away from Ruby's perfect round tits...shit, man! I just couldn't handle it alone!

"Well, get this, Adam. You know how I can become a bit obsessed with gaining religious and spiritual knowledge, right?"

"Praise the Lordie!"

"Well, I was dealing with a series of books and articles on the rather complex discussion of the authenticity of Christian scripture and, in fact, I had been doing a great deal of research on the critical analysis of the historical veracity of the Bible in general..."

"God damn, King. Now you're speaking in tongues! Christ."

"...I was in a state of intense focus on who Jesus was, not just theologically, but who and what we really know about this person who is said to be the Savior...what it meant...how this collective belief came about...what was true...what was not and so forth. In the midst of my contemplation, I noticed a magazine in one of those fuckin' airport newsstands before getting on the plane in Minneapolis. On the cover is a large picture of Jesus and check it out. Look at what the heading says that is superimposed over his face--"WHO WAS JESUS?""

"Good God!"

After polishing off a couple of drinks or so each in the airport lounge and catching up on old times and new things, the King and I headed to Hollywood, first stopping off at the famous and uppity Beverly Hills Hotel to have one drink...one expensive fucking drink. I had previously taken a fair share of girls on calls to the hotel but this was the first time I had a cocktail in it. After drinking every last bit of our over-priced hootch, including sucking off the ice cubes, we headed first to Sunset then to Hollywood Boulevard. Like most people who are taught that Hollywood is full of glitz and glamour, King Ja was surprised at how runned down it was, though amongst the crackheads and poorly dressed hookers, we did manage to be lucky enough to catch a superaction type movie shoot on Hollywood Boulevard. It was a cliche' scene of a car tipping over and the hero getting away just beyond the destructive reach of the exploding vehicle. We didn't see the car explode but it was safe to assume it to be the next intended step. It was cool but we weren't here for that. We were here to make our own fucked up movie.

"You know, Adam. People are so impressed by movies and actors and their lives and what have you, but the common citizens are who the actors pretend to be. We're livin' it brother. They're just acting it."

"gutter punks! Except they get paid a helluva lot more. Cunts."

"True and if we were offered a role right now we'd take it like the rest of 'em (giggle), but the reality still holds that you can't truly feel like a special agent or a drug addict or a prisoner or a man trapped alone on an island or some shit, if in the back of your mind you know that at the end of the day, you can leave it and go home to your mansion. I see no hero in that."

"True words, King. It reminds me of these homeless kids I met out here on the street. A number of them left their families who were rich as hell. Their parents would give them whatever money they needed if they chose to get off the street. Now, I support their integrity and rebellion against whatever fucked up family issues, rich or not, that they had to run away from, but in the back of their minds, they always have an option to go back depending on how truly messed up their home lives were. I think some of them are out here just for kicks. I give money to the old dudes, not the young gutter punks...you know, Vietnam vets and others who got legitimately screwed over and who have no options of a family with cash or even a fucked up family with cash, for that matter."

"Out of respect for them, Adam, I don't give 'em shit either. I mean, why fuck up their intended journey even if it seems like your helping them."

"Yea, right. Maybe their role was to experience being old, wretched and homeless. We could fuck up their character by helping them, now come to think of it. Shit, we could fuck their whole movie up! We wouldn't want to do that."

"No shit! We should save our money for our own movie and use it for booze. So let's go get another drink, god damnit!"

"Let's get fuckin' ripped!!"

"I love you therefore I have to kill you...you muthafuckers!" King yelled into the air.

"Oh no, not that shit again. How about this instead--I love you therefore let's get ripped!"

"Yea, ripped!!"

Me and the King got ripped.

Surprisingly, we got up the next morning simultaneously and without any traces of a hangover. I've noticed in my life that I have less of a chance of getting hungover when I have a real good time. When I'm drinking alone? Forget it, brother. I'm a guaranteed train wreck. Ruby had gotten up before us and had made us some spicey and beautiful tasting Indian tea of some kind. She was friendly to my friend and friendly to me. Not that I didn't think she was going to be, necessarily, but I was glad that she was. Wow. I woke up with no wretched migraine, no acid-ridden rot gut and to a friendly future ex-girlfriend. The day had our back. I was pumped.

"King. Let's go get a six-pack!"

"Heha...no, my friend. Fuck that. I wanted to get some smokes though. You got a little convenient store close by?"

"Yea, 'bout a block away. Let's get going. We'll hit it before we head to the beach."

The King ended up walking down to the corner store alone while I had a discussion with Ruby. It was strange being cordial with her knowing that I was leaving in a couple days. Looking at her, my heart felt like it was heavy and sunken. God damnit! Did I really love her or was it insecurity bubbling up amidst the present impending change? Claustrophobia and a hot sensation enveloped my head. It was the beginnings of that terrible feeling you get when you think you've made a very wrong decision. I was starting to have second and third thoughts about the whole situation ...starting to lose it, when Ja returned to the apartment in an abrupt and excited fashion.

"WHO AM I!!"

"Huh? What are you on about, man!"

On his mission to get cigarettes at the convenient store, King Ja had discovered a local weekly entertainment guide, the L.A. Weekly, I believe it was, displaying a large, medieval picture of Yashua. The title heading of the article and on the cover read, "WHO AM I." King Ja's question he's been asking about Jesus as of late, about himself really, was plastered all over the place, now even in L.A. Unbelievable. Ask and you shall receive. Even more unbelievable and unbeknownst to Ja before shortly informing him, was the fact that this was the question, the same question asked to me by "M,"--the final, ultimate question from the Total Freedom bullshit Rundown he contrived from his offshoot branch of Scientology. The same question that the answer of only silence would satisfy. It was within this context that the following week had began for the both of us, setting the stage for an onslaught of growing intensities in regards to so-called "coincidences."

We took a roundabout way to get to the beach via the Sunset strip through Beverly Hills and Century City. I took the King through all the famous names and places, places you'd want to see once just because you've heard of them countless times on television and otherwise. After getting through Santa Monica and finally finding a spot to park in the crowded Venice Beach area, we observed a few street performers, jugglers, break dancers, and crazy Arab roller skaters before plopping our bodies on to the warm sand. The waves in the Pacific were huge and glistened the air with a powerful mist that was amplified by the sunlight. It was a brilliant fucking day. Perfect weather.

"Damnit. I left my smokes in the car."

"Hey, that chick over there looks like she's smoking. Go ask her for one...actually, let me come with you. I want one too."

"Excuse me. Could we pay you for a couple smokes? We're dyin' for one. We left ours in the car."

"No. You can't pay me for 'em but you can have 'em for free. Like Camels?"

"Yea, s'what I smoke." I lied. I smoke whatever's free. I swear, I've smoked a cig or two a day for years but have never actually bought a pack. I was the ultimate cigarette mooch. The first two drags are the only good drags anyway. On this particular day, the fags we got from the girl on the beach were uncommonly savory.

"I smoke Camels, normally about a pack a...hey what are these? Are they fatter than usual or am I seeing things?" Being more of a smoker than I was, the King noticed a change in the cigarette girth.

"They're Camel Wides."

"Hmm. Never heard of 'em. Thanks. They're tasty."

We headed back towards the sidewalk of restaurants and shops that bordered the beach and as we were commenting on how good our "Wides" tasted, we noticed a sign on a convenient store window containing the Joe Camel promo for Camel Wides. It was about poster size. We went in and bought a pack and saw the promo again on a magazine. After leaving the store we walked down the boardwalk a bit and saw a small billboard at eye level of a larger version of the same Joe Camel advertisement. Camel promo specific to Camel "Wides" was popping up everywhere...in signs, on people's t-shirts...and it was picking up in speed and intensity as we made our way back to our vehicle. While opening my car door, a loud city bus got our attention as it sped by. Painted on its side was an advertisement of, that's right, Camel Wides. Chuckling with astonished-like half-giggles, we jumped in the vehicle and took it to the Santa Monica Freeway on our way back to the valley.

"What the fuck! I've never heard of these fucking things or seen any ads for them and now they're all over the place!"

"Yea and they're growing like the god damn blob! Ja, check it out!"

Just beyond the on-ramp mounted in the grass, on the side of the road, was an even larger and "wider" promo for Camel Wides on a huge highway billboard. A giant Camel mascot was smiling at us with a shit-eating grin as we zipped passed the structure in which it was placed on. Needless to say, we laughed our asses off and looked at each other simultaneously saying...

"What the FUCK!?!"

After collecting ourselves, we of course, had to light up a fresh Camel Wide from the new pack that King Ja purchased in Venice Beach. If magical concurrences were the marketing plan of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company...well, then their brainwashing campaign deemed successful with us. We were hooked after the first one which, like all drugs, was free, I might add. Did we create these conjunctions directly or did we tap into and pull in its potential reality? We weren't sure if these two ideas were even any different from each other, though King James and I ultimately agreed that it was our own manifestation when it came down to it. I'm sure others would disagree and say that since the cigarettes were introduced to us, it became thus recognizable and noticeable...ie, that it was already everywhere before we saw it. Maybe, but after a lifetime of run-ins with such synchronisms, one begins to wonder. I feel it very possible that we created its past as well...or entered the Earth dimension where there was a certain cigarette called Camel Wides. And even if they did exist outside of our minds which nothing can, but even if they did, what are the chances of them being presented to us in the combination and timing as such--never seeing them, then being perceptually bombarded with them wherever we turned. Was it magic? Was it science? To me these are both the same thing. Either way, our intention was somehow manifested and confirmed and we continued to drive down the highway, painting it to our liking as we rolled along.

We took the Santa Monica Freeway to 405 North on our way back to North Hollywood. I didn't feel like going home yet and King Ja wanted to see some of the countryside north of L.A. so we headed west towards Oxnard. A couple minutes before veering onto Highway 101, a song was playing on the radio, an old song by the band America called, "Ventura Highway." It was a song of no particular interest of mine, it just happened to be playing on whatever station we were tuned into. When King Ja realized that Highway 101 was also called Ventura Highway, he shook his head and smiled before starting in on the lyrics to the song we heard minutes before. I shortly joined him, forming a decent sounding harmony with what words I knew of from the song...

"Ventura Highway in the sunshine. Where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine. You're gonna go, I know...'Cause the free wind is blowin' through your hair and the days surround your daylight there. Seasons crying no despair. Alligator lizards in the air...in the air...."

Our styles of singing and especially our tastes in music were polar opposites, as were many things about us, but somehow we managed to harmonize fairly well. The King had a great 80's type, strong pop voice and along with 80's mainstream music, his favorite band was the BeeGees. He was a Christian and into the BeeGees! Well...a former Christian. My tastes went from punk, metal and industrial dance to old school jazz and for the most part I despised Christians and mainstream weak ass pop music. It was amazing that we harmonized as well as we did in voice and otherwise. We were two people normally not meant to hang out. When we did, the combination of our different energies was almost 100% guaranteed to pull into us some strange, controversial, funky, unexplained, paranormal spiritual shit. In opinion, taste, style and integrity we were divided, though a division that was no match for the experiences that had synchronistically bound us together as an awkward reality discovering and reality creating, two-headed machine.

There were many devil and god/ lust and love motifs that would spring into our spaces during our waves of meaningful coincidences and that following night, events proved no different. It was Saturday in Hollywood and with the escort service no longer up and running, I finally had a weekend evening open to raise some hell of other types.

We hit a few larger clubs, at first, but we both decided after paying significant cover charges for no entertainment, aside from the amusement of people trying to claim richness and fame in a blatant show off fest, we decided that smaller, off the beaten path type establishments would be more fitting in accomodating the spice our souls required for stimulation. We hit a couple random bars off side streets from Hollywood Boulevard including the Frolic room, a griddy and awesome, little, Hollywood melting pot of the rich, the poor, the downtrodden and the high-rollin'. I traded off shots with a judge there on one occasion and an old school, purple suit and hat wearin', pimp daddy mack on another. It was a cool place but the King and I had to keep moving. We had to see it all...eat it all. We were reaching that zone of drunkenness where you start to walk and feel like a fucking animal...like growling and gettin' into some shit. So we found a cave, The Cave, I should say. It was a peep show and adult theatre located directly on the Boulevard...a dark little place...full of fucking spice.

After walking over a snoring, fat bear of a homeless man who was sleeping on the sidewalk directly in our path to the entrance, we managed to open the black, tinted door that lead to the inside. The place smelled like old magazines mixed with a bleachy scent of stale cum. It was disgusting. I never understood why some sex establishments had to be so physically dirty. Leave the dirtiness in the sex and clean the fuckin' place for Christ's sake, I thought to myself. What's the problem? Anyway, the entrance from the lobby into the actual theatre room was shielded by a metal and glass industrial looking cage where the gatekeeper accepted the admission fee. He fit the bill, as well--a hairy, rude, somewhat intimidating, old fart with a chewed up, spit-ridden cigar in his mouth, clamped down on by his tar-stained teeth. Searing behind his hateful eyes was a life of misery and failure...a life where he at one time may have come to Hollywood to live the "dream." Now he was a sixty-some year old loser mopping up the cum of a younger generation. If sexuality had an opposite, it was the doorman at The Cave. It was odd and ironic yet made complete sense that he worked there.

"Go on, then."

"Which way?"

"Right there! The two doors right fuckin' there! Christ."

We pushed through the swinging doors, which were more like two large flaps than doors, and we entered the theatre. A stage sat in the center of a large room, illuminated only by red and pale yellow lights. Surrounding it were torn up seats set up in rows on three sides of the platform. The fourth side was where the performer would come out from behind a curtain. I remember it being a stained, old, burgundy satin drape. Minus the actual connected movie theatre type seats, the place was set up like a strip joint though it felt nothing like one. The air was dank, the music was quiet and somewhat scratchy, and their audio system sounded like it was something out of the 1920's or 30's having that muffled phonograph sound that you hear playing in the background of old black and white movies.

I wasn't quite sure if it was coming from within the music or from one of the people in the theatre, but I heard someone speaking in German...very aggressively in German and it sounded something like Hitler giving a speech with a strange soundtrack playing as his background anthem. Fucking Nazi's again. Every time I have a bad trip or enter any space that feels as satanic as this one, I always hear or feel or see Nazi shit. Why!? What the fuck is that?...and god damn, I thought. Did they set it all up like this on purpose for affect or was the place really stuck in some outer limits, cross over, time warp? Somebody had to be fucking with us. There's no way they can be serious. Shit, I wasn't even high on any drugs and I felt like I just left the planet. It sucked me in so hard, that I was afraid to leave the space in fear of the outside world from where we came being altered or possibly nonexistent. It was thick...a dimension of compact and heavy density. After being there a few more minutes to witness the first "performer," I realized that the place was more twisted than I could have imagined, uncontrived and definitely "serious."

The woman who came to the stage was tall, big-boned, blonde and middle-aged. She had broad shoulders, fat lopsided tits and big eyes, not big beautiful eyes, but bugged out, tweeked out looking cow eyes. She looked like she was in a trance or hypnotized. Her movements were jagged and definite. There was no dance nor any smooth rhythm involved in her act. It would be best to describe her motility as a type of whole body sign language, looking random but definitely having an intention behind them...a much too serious intention that went beyond....I don't know...something. We noticed that she repeated the same exact motions again and again...exactly. Her seemingly willy-nilly movements were planned. The King and I were equally perplexed. Why was she up there? She wasn't making any money, I mean, she accepted no tips. She just did her "thing" on the middle of the stage. Her eyes were fixated forward through her entire set and when she was done with the final, choppy movement of her choreographed, robotic, devil dance, she left the stage naked like she entered it, still looking like a mesmerized deer caught in the headlights. Upon her leaving the stage, a man sitting to my right spoke to me in a German accent...

"Vasn't she undcredible."

"Huh? Well, she....oh fuck!"

I noticed him jacking himself off when he was talking to me. He was a wretched, small, dirty rat of a man, holding in his hand a ridiculously large, uncircumsized penis. At that moment, I realized that the sticky texture to my seat, may very well not have been gum.

"Adam. I'm freakin' out. We gotta get the fuck out of here."

"No shit. Move brother. Go. Go!"

We started in a fast walk that became a run and increased in speed as did our giggles. Finally, at full sprint we started yelling profanities at the place as we tore passed the crusty, old doorman.

"Hey!! You cocksuckers better slow the hell down!"

"Eat my fuck, ya old nasty, perverted Nazi asshole prick...and fuck this shithole. Hope ya die here y'old bastard bitch. Fuck you. We'll burn this fucker down and throw you in it, you piece of shit!"

I'm not sure of what we yelled exactly--the nastiest shit we could possibly think of in the midst our hastened getaway and under our laughter. When leaving the last door to the outside world of, hopefully, the reality we remembered it as, we stumbled over the bum who was laying there when we first went in. He was still sound asleep. King Ja looked back at him, grabbed a handful of change from his pocket and threw it at our hibernating homeless friend. We were both still laughing and I think he did it just to throw something and add to the chaos--that or we were simply just in asshole mode at the moment, drunk and wanting to fuck with something.

"Here you go you fuckin' hibernatin' bum cocksucker! Get a room ya son of a bitch!"

When the change hit him, he jumped and flinched violently out of his slumber. It was one of the funniest physical reactions I had ever seen and it was followed by odd alien grumbles as well that only added to the bum's ridiculous flailings. His involuntary thrashing sent the King and I to the ground at his level, flailing and flopping involuntarily, as well. We were sprawled randomly all over each other, laughing, spitting and kicking like fish out of the water. We couldn't stop. I saw some cars drive by us and slow down and I forced myself back to my feet in fear of a cop driving by and seeing us convulsing on top of each other in the middle of the street. It just wouldn't have looked good.

After regaining our composure, we decided to find the car and call it a night. I drove...sort of. It wasn't so much the booze that was affecting my driving skills as much as the uncontrollable mirth. While I was laughing and trying to focus on the road, I saw what I thought were a pack of dogs trotting across an intersection. They came down from the hills that lead near the Greek Observatory.

"Dogs? Hey those aren't dogs, Adam. Are they?"

"Hell no. They're coyotes. I've seen them before in this same area."

"Right in the middle of Hollywood? That jus' seems zimpossible to me. I mean, who'd a thunk that...and check it out! Look at that fucking moon! Iss huge! We better get home."

King Ja was slurring his words at this point but he was right. The moon was incredibly sublime and perilous at the same time. Booze and the moon. Always a great combo...not sure why. I felt that we had to give special focus on making it home safe, not because of cops but because of the vibe that was telling me to do so. We arrived home unharmed and relieved, both falling to the couch to catch our breaths. Ruby was still up and was looking at us funny, wondering what we were so riled up about.

"Where'd you guys go?"

"We went to a place called, The Cave, where this weird chic was dancing...or...well, not dancing but she was doing this uh...this.....No. NO! No way!! Look! Ja! LOOK!" I was interrupted in answering the query of Ruby when something unbelievable was going on on the television.

I only had basic cable and I have no idea why nudity was suddenly allowed on one my stations, but a naked lady of similar size and stature as the zombie performer at The Cave was dancing or, I should say, moving with the same odd jagged but planned movements! She was repeating the same exact motions in the same patterns as the girl in The Cave! And she was also wearing some kind of a devil dog type mask!! Amidst almost losing consciousness from his now near painful laughter, the King was on the brink of momentarily losing his sanity. It was too much.

"Change it! Hahaheheha. Change it! I can't...hahheha...I can't take it...you gotta chan...hahahh..."

The very next channel I changed to showed a cartoon of Yosemite Sam tripping down some stairs from a boat deck. His positionings and movements he displayed in trying to keep himself from falling mimmicked the same motions of the devil dance at The Cave. At that point, I shut the tv off and flopped on King Ja's lap, once again chuckling violently and flailing like a fish as the King did the same. Ruby didn't understand and left the room blowing it off as two crazy, drunk Americans. We tried to explain the whole series of events to her but she just couldn't grasp its significance...at least not until the next day when the synchronicities continued even in her presence.

It was Easter Sunday, April 19th, our last day before leaving Los Angeles. I figured it would be proper for the three of us to hang out being that I may never see Ruby again. My depression and anxiety in regards to her had lifted, at least for the moment. I let Ruby decide what our afternoon should entail so she directed us to her favorite Indian restaurant off of Sunset Boulevard on the edge of West Hollywood. On our way there we stopped off at the Greek Observatory where we had a somewhat hungover yet serene moment. While looking through the smog, out at the entire Hollywood and Los Angeles area, I explained to King Ja some of my run-ins with my nemesis, M, and some details in regards to the philosophies of Scientology.

"Sounds like they took a bunch of different religious and spiritual paradigms and sifted through that knowledge to create their own mock up system--sifting through it articulately for their own purposes."

"Yea and they have their own language, as well, so as to guard themselves from scrutiny because in order to criticize, one must first understand it...and, of course, to understand it one may get caught up. It's been getting a lot of bad promo as of late, though we all know that in Hollywood all promo's good promo. Fuck, what better cult than the querky one of Scientology to have here in plasticland. It fits. Shit, they even have a center, a "Celebrity Center" set up specifically for the rich and famous."

"So this guy, M, you had dealings with used Scientology for his toils just like Scientology used bodies of knowledge for their game."

"Yep. I fell for it for a bit. He seemed sincere to me at first...very friendly, funny as hell. His way of buttering me up, I suppose. His game seemed to show itself when Ruby here came along." As I said this, I glanced at Ruby and saw a serious look on her face...a serious but peaceful look.

"Fuck 'em, Adam. He was a wolf in sheep's clothing," said King.

Yea, fuck 'em. He got dealt and I'm sure he'll get dealt more. Let's go get some awesome Indian food and eat like pigs."

We took Western Avenue down to Hollywood Boulevard. As we drove, the King and I tried once again to explain to Ruby the synchronistic series of events that we had observed the night before. We spoke about the devil dance and how it followed us home via a nude dancing woman on the television along with the movements of Yosemite Sam on the next station. At that moment, a documentary of some sort was going on on the radio with someone speaking about the death of the late Mel Blanc, the voice of Yosemite Sam and many other cartoon characters. Ruby thought this a bit coincidental but still didn't get it. We finally gave up and changed the subject.

"So Adam, where we gonna stop first? I'd like to stay in Vegas for a night. I've never been there."

"Vegas?! Fuck. Alright, but just for a night. I don't like that place."

"After that, are you guys going to check out the Grand Canyon?"

Precisely at that moment, almost overlapping the end of Ruby's last word, was a voice on the radio randomly blurting out, "...the Grand Canyon today, bla bla bla..."

"Ohhh. I get it! Wow. Weird!"

Regardless of sounding like a cliche' dumb blond in her response, Ruby finally understood by direct experience, the meaning and feeling of synchronicity. A few moments later, another semi-meaningful coincidence occurred as a closer to our Camel Wide magically timed promo sitings. There was a large billboard...no, a gigantor huge billboard of the Joe Camel promo towering over and above none other than the Scientology building headquarters.

"Cool! This is fun," said Ruby with all kinds of lightbulbs going off in the air-sealed vacuum that is called her brain. Actually that's not true. Her head was full of air though I shouldn't rip on her. As dumb as I thought she was, she was highly skilled in the survival department and looking back at her and L.A. and that whole situation with M, she opened up my eyes and saved my ass from him. I can't be mad at the bitch. I couldn't use anger to let her go. I just had to...let her go. Wow. What a concept. It was something I did not know how to do, with her or with anything in my life. Let go? How? I was simply not born with the part of my brain that would normally be used to grasp this idea...this mysterious ability. It was my weakest attribute. Endings. Nothing jacks my brain off kilter more. It was time to go...time to at least transport my body back to the Midwest, anyway.

The next day was tough. I felt like I was leaving someone behind...leaving my girl and my relationship to the wolves...and trading her comfort for a cold and lonely mistake. Part of me not wanting to go, I procrastinated the departure until late afternoon. The feelings of failing something or someone grew inside of me but still, I had to move on. Did I really desire her or did I just fear losing her? Did I really want to go or was my claustrophobic fear of staying in one place with one person equal to the pain of leaving? I was confused and I was caught between a jombled insecure mess of my own fears and desires.

"Are you going to be okay, Ruby?'

"I'll be fine. Just go. I found a new place to live in Redondo Beach. You know I love the beach. My brother, Sanjay is going to be living with me, too. It'll be the first time we lived together since we were kids when my father brought us here from India. We need each other right now. It'll be fine. Go."

All our battles and arguments felt nonexistent at this point. I hugged her and kissed her goodbye. She cried but I held back tears to save face in front of my friend, still harnessing my ego amidst this emotional upheaval. We jumped in the packed Eclipse. I saw her standing in front of our place, not waving, just standing and looking. King Ja, either oblivious to what was going on or choosing blatantly to change the negative mood, blurted out...

"Let's go to fucking Tijuana!"

"What? Hell no. Fuck TJ. I vowed never to go there again and I'm sticking to it! We'll go to Vegas. That's bad enough."

"Why? What happened in Tijuana?"

"Me and my cousins went to party there. It was fun and all but fuck, man, if you go down the wrong road, you're screwed, brother. We went off the beaten path to look for whores and we had to run from about 20 young mexican gangster dudes chasing us with sticks and bats and frying pans and shit. We got about a block from the main tourist road, Revolution Boulevard, and they all magically stopped like they hit a force field or something."

"Well, we'll just stay on the main road then."

"No, that aint it. When we got half a block before the main road, we all decided to take pisses in an alley way. That's when the policia showed up to tax us for some bribes. I was so drunk that I curled up my fist to swing on them when my cousin grabbed my arm and looked in my eyes with terror telling me in a whisper, "...don't..." The cop pulled out his cuffs and flagged down some of his buddies. I gave him all the money I had left, like 40 bucks, but apparently it wasn't enough. To make a long story short, we ended up running from them. They chased us on foot and in a number of cars but we managed to get to the border where we were temporarily and fortunately arrested by border patrol who thought we were mexican immigrants."

"So the gangsters stopped when they got to federali turf, huh. Well...serves you right."

"What?"

"You shouldn't of been pissing on another person's country!"

"Huh? Yea, but that tequila runs right thr..."

"Adam, I was just kidding. Though, man, if you'd of swung on them, you'd still be in jail down there."

"That's why were not going. Off to Vegas," I said as I pointed in the city's direction.

After finally getting out of the L.A. area, we went through the town of Barstow and headed up Interstate 15 going Northeast towards Las Vegas. The desolate yet peaceful drive through the Mojave Desert began to have a sedative effect on my nerves about 3 hours into the trip. I felt confident enough at that point to open up to my friend, telling him how I really felt about leaving Ruby. I also explained to him how I was confused and trapped between what I was afraid of and what I had yearned for.

"Ahh. You are caught between the burning trees of fear and desire! Some are afraid of what they want along with others who crave what they fear and what can hurt them, like a moth to flame. You don't love Ruby. You desire her. You were in a game together. You even told me this, Adam."

"I don't know, man. I think I loved her. Underneath the game, I felt for her."

"Well, you'll never know if it in fact was real or not until you conquer your fears and control your desires. I'm the same way...caught in the tension...caught in the middle of the fiery trees."

Focusing on King Ja from the passenger seat as he drove the car and preached his word, I shifted my eyes towards the front of the vehicle and noticed from a distance what appeared to be two burning trees on each side of the highway where the road met the horizon.
As we got closer, we realized they were not organic trees but billboard type structures that were part of the casino's marquee that were lit up in neon flames and shaped like two trees. Without me pointing them out, Ja noticed their significance right away. Speaking in a southern black preacher's accent with one hand raised into the air, the King yelled out into cobalt, blue sunset sky...

"We are now crossing the path between the infernal trees of fear and desire, brothers and sisters! There is no turning backa...I saida there's a no a turnin' a backa!"

The two casinos attached to the burning trees told us that we were on the outskirts of the Las Vegas city limits. A few more miles down the road we new were there after noticing an orange glow beyond the foothills that lied just ahead of us. After driving over a ridge and over the last crescent that blocked our view, Vegas finally made its appearance in the darkness--a blinding city of lights set in the middle of a dry and pitch black desert landscape showing itself like a piece of neon gold in a tar pit. It was a mirage in the desert, posing as an oasis of riches... riches that evaporate as soon as one enters its foolish paradise.

We took up a room at the Continental Hotel and wasted no time starting in on some free drinks given away by the establishment as false gestures of kindness, the real intention being, of course, to induce stupidity in it's prey before reaming their pockets of all energy. That's right, energy...or money...energy...money...same goddamn thing in this world. King Ja and I took their butter but intelligently refrained from any significant gambling. We pretended to play some slots and would put a coin in only when the casino waitress would come around to us to serve the complimentary cocktails. I already had my run-in with this shitty ignis fatuus of a town and wanted nothing to do with anything in it save the free hootch it offered. It was the epitome of everything I despised about humanity--greed, superficiality, selfishness, vanity, and deception...all the things I gleefully participated in in the last few years. And what did it get me? A few bucks? Some pussy? No. It got me a casino bar stool, a glass of cheap booze and the memory of a girl I could've loved in which I had just abandoned a couple hundred miles or so back. The only thing real in this fucker was the whiskey sliding down my saturated esophagus. Even the devil gives out medicine.

The King and I took our drinks with us out of the hotel and headed to the strip. When we got there, they we everywhere! Old people. All old people, scurrying in and out of casinos. Retired and still being played. You'd think someone making it to their mid-sixties or above would automatically be equated with someone of wisdom but apparently age doesn't make a sage. We stayed out on the street but there was no getting away from their frenzy. I mean, were talkin' fucking zombies--mesmerized, hypnotized, mystified and most of all stupefied. How long did these people save their hard earned money to get here, I thought. Mankind is a joke. It was now officially confirmed. I couldn't take the ignorant energy anymore and told King that I had to go back to the hotel and call it a night before vomited from disgustipation. Yea, I was a negatively charged, bitter, heart sick, party pooper fuck, I was. No reason to lay the shit on my friend for too long. King Ja came back to the hotel with me, I gave him the keys to the car and back out he went.

After 3 hours or so of indulging in self-pity and perfecting the art of feeling sorry for myself, King Ja nearly busted through the door, pissed as all get up.

"I got bam-fuckin'-boozled!! Well...almost!"

"What happened?"

"Well, I went looking for a strip joint and I walked in this place that looked like a brothel..."

"Oh, no! Don't tell me you went in that place where it's like a strip mall of strip joints did you?! Was it pink and black?"

"Yea, it was! There were a couple places that just had dancers but there was one in particular that supposedly did one-on-one shows in the dark back rooms."

"Dude. I was there a while back. They tried to hustle you into buying one of their girls a $40 dollar glass of beer right?"

"Exactly! I agreed on buying her a drink before I heard the price. When they told me forty bucks I told them I ain't payin' no $40 for no fuckin' beer. Then they brought out these big gorilla lookin' motherfuckers to intimidate me and they said I owed them the money for my drink and hers. I layed down $40 for my drink and told them to go fuck themselves for the rest. They walked me out the door and were talking some shit that they were going to beat my ass as they poked me in the back. I'da been more scared if I wasn't so drunk. We should go back there with baseball bats and fuck them up!"

"I went to the same place and they pulled the same shit on me, man, and, no doubt, those guys were some of the biggest male humans I have ever scene. They were like freaks of nature. They'd still lose to a couple baseball bats but we'd go to jail. The cops are probably their buds, anyway."

"I'd still like to drop those big bastards!"

"So you were looking for a prostitute?"

"Hmm? Uh, no, I was just looking for, you know, I don't know what...somethin'. I'm not sure. I am sure that I walked right in the goddamn middle of the trees of fear and desire, though."

"The damn edge of the dark forest, I say. Fear being..."

"...fear being the giant assholes who were fucking with me and blocking me from my desires!"

"...desire for women...desire for lust! Oh, on a side note, King, prostitution isn't legal in the actual city limits. You need to go about an hour out. Those cocksuckers were just posing as a cathouse and were going to take your money--all of it and by force if they had to. You were lucky to get out of there. I went through basically the same thing. I don't know how they get away with it. Fuck this town. That joint you were just at was the true representation of this place though in more of an obvious form. Whatever is seen through the eyes of these old people out here is a gross lie! I can't believe you went to that same exact establishment and experienced the same exact thing."

"Fuck this town, Adam."

"We'll leave in the morning. I'm never coming back to this motherfucker. Never. We'll go the the Grand Canyon tomorrow...you know, get away from this place...away from people."

"Cheers on that." The King and I clinked bottles and finished the last two beers we had left in a cooler from our drive earlier. It was a great way to put a book end on our somewhat questionable day...or any day, for that matter. We passed out for maybe 7 or 8 hours, woofed down a $1.99 cheapy steak and eggs breakfast, got out of our car to take pictures of ourselves mooning the "You are now leaving Las Vegas" sign, lit up a couple Camel Wides and headed to our next destination.

The desert and the canyon were beautiful. The weather was not yet blaring hot and there was a nice breeze. It was perfect. Nature was perfect...even when it wasn't. Our hangovers dissipated quite rapidly when posed up against the natural healing omnipotence of the Grand Canyon. We stayed away from the tourist area and people in general as much as possible and found a small cliff we could walk on. The cliff went out over the canyon in a u-shape giving us approximately one car lane's worth of width to walk upon, a space one could easily run up and down...unless, of course, one consciously knows that on each of its sides is a very steep drop to ones ultimate death, that is. Needless to say, we were on our bellies crawling on the rock, scared off our asses. I was a pussy with heights...and with deep water...and with closed in places...and the dark...fuck! I was a pussy. Though, according to my biodad, being scared doesn't make one a pussy. Only if you let what you fear stop you from your task are you a true pussy. Well, the King and I went to the edge. Sure we wriggled like frightened worms to get there but got there nonetheless.

"Holy fuck! Can you imagine!"

"What? Falling?"

"Yea...well, no. Jumping!"

"Let's do it."

"Okay. You first."

"No, you first." I grabbed King's sleave and nudged on it slighlty, putting pressure on him towards the way of the canyon.

"Don't! Hehehehe." He then did it back and I almost shat myself. The King stood up...sort of. He was hunched over like an old man with his arms outstretched.

"King, what are you doing!"

"I have to get something out of my backpack. Stand up once. It's freaky as shit!"

"Shit. Okay. Holy fuck! Why do I want to jump. What the hell kind of instinct is that! What do you have in your hand, Ja?"

"It's Sherman's demo tape from his new band. Should we throw it in the canyon? Haha..."

"Yea, fuck it. Throw it in. Will he think it's funny or get offended?"

"Fuck him. I think it's funny. Here. Put it on the edge. I'll take a picture of it first."

We took a picture of Sherman the Derelict's demo tape and then tossed it into the canyon. It was our way of saying....oh, a couple things about him I guess. One, that we wished our friend was here and two, that the only way the Derelict would ever be out on that ledge would be via his voice on a tape because Sherman was a cliche' coward if I ever knew one. I don't know. Somehow it made sense. King Ja, after chucking the tape into oblivion, then told me how he lost a best friend in the mountains in Colorado when he was on a Christian retreat. Apparently his friend was struck dead by lightning right in front of him. King Ja told me it was what altered his fundamentalist beliefs and sent him on a search for something more. He was offended by the god that him and his best friend, at the time, put so much energy into...a friend that he really loved taken away directly by whom they worshipped. King Ja told me this while we were standing on the edge of the monstrous chasm. At that point, I decided it a very favorable idea to get off the cliff and head back to the car which stood on wider and more solid ground. One last time, I looked down into the canyon's depths and still had that unexplainable desire to jump into it. It gave me the heebie jeebies all the way back to the car. Falling to ones death. What a rush that would be. No drug could compete with that!

We drove for a bit but fucked off most of the day, stopping at numerous places in Monument Valley on the edge of the Utah-Arizona border. Some of the rock formations we observed were simply mind-blowing. The idle silence and solitude of Utah's southeastern desert area was frightening and soothing all in the same motion. Familiarity in feeling and in visuals covered my consciousness. It was a deep feeling...something ancient in my being, stirred up by the vastitude and boundlessness of the desert. My brain...my body...my mind was.....Open--and when one's mind is truly Open, things normally hidden in one's memory banks have no choice but to flood in. My memories were just feelings. No specifics, just awesome, powerful, rich, deep subconscious emotions connecting me to the place where I stood with my friend watching the Sun go down that casted shadows off the red-bone colored monoliths ...monoliths that defined and guarded the desert. I felt part of the Earth and united with its entire evolutionary history...not a human history but one of rock and sky. Archaic memories. No, not memories. I was tuned into a vibration. Yes. An archaic vibration and a powerful one at that.

It was getting dark in the desert, a place you don't want to be at night...and a place that doesn't want you there at night, as well. There's something about it after sundown. It just seems haunted with strange beings or what not. That or oh yea, I forgot. I'm a pussy. Regardless, we got back on the road and drove for some miles before stopping at a gas station just outside of Grand Junction, Colorado.

I couldn't believe how cold the desert got at night. After filling up the car, we threw on our jackets, our leather jackets, and headed into the gas station to pay the bill and to grab some junk food road snacks. We entered the station to the sound of the band AC/DC's "Hell's Bells" playing on their radio. The locals turned and stared at us in skepticism and fear. Christ, it was like they never saw a couple guys with leather jackets on before. I paid the bill and looked at King Ja in mutual understanding of the vibe that was tele-beamed our way. As we walked out of the gas station's glass doors, we almost felt like what we assumed the locals judged us as being. With the music fueling my imagination along with my natural constitution of corniness, I felt like a desert hombre'...a dangerous vagabond passing through town...a road warrior of the night, not to be messed with. The King and I found it fun to play along with what we were unwarrantingly perceived as. We almost moved in slow motion on purpose. It's cool being a bad ass. I don't care what anyone says. We did nothing to deserve the judgment but we thoroughly enjoyed the moment nonetheless. Shit, might as well go with it.

After getting a shitty little motel in Grand Junction along with some more fearful shifty looks from the desk clerk, we headed to a local dive strip joint still sporting the same "bad ass" mojo that was bestowed upon us. Within five or ten minutes of our presence, we were somehow deemed as celebrities or in the least associates to celebrities. Apparently, the band, "Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch" had played in town earlier in the evening. By the clubs assumption that we were part of Marky Mark's entourage, we became Marky's road manager and sound engineer. The club played a Marky Mark hit song which the DJ announced in our behalf. Within minutes after, we were hoarded on by beautiful and semi-beautiful women, at one point having a girl on each side of both of us, sitting in our laps and fondling us. Drinks were complimentary as were also the women. In Vegas, fear manifested as the prime polarity. In Grand Junction, it was the good end of desire....and a boon for our bullshit. Better yet, it was our karmic payment from accepting the town's judgment. I see it as us getting paid for giving a bored outpost an archetype that they oh so needed. Thank you for the free booze and free pussy, Grand Junction. Cheers.

We got on the road fairly early in the morning and continued our jaunt through the Rockies. I've been through them a fair number of times and each visit was as impressive as the other. I couldn't get enough of it and I don't get enough of it, I thought. Always in some city... always losing myself. Besides drug-induced and some random, spontaneous moments of clarity that occasionally allow me a fleeting glimpse beyond the filter of the American machine, the desolation of nature has always given me a natural lucidity, a lucidity we all need a hell of a lot more of. The King and I decided to stay another day so we could hang out in the mountains for a bit longer. We fucked off all day, went on some random short hikes and landed ourselves that night in a motel just east of Denver. In the morning, once again we had to fill up on gas and once again, we needed our leather jackets for the cool early weather.

It was like a deju vu. We entered the gas station and once again, "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC was playing--this time on a boombox behind the cashier. Scanned by apprehensive and untrusting looks, Ja and I looked at each other, looked at each other's coats and felt "cool" all over again, though this time we felt the energies of mistrust and dislike more so than the energy of fearful respect emanating from our potential adversaries. We didn't feel so "cool" as much as we felt "bad." Fair enough. We'll take it. At least nobody fucked with us. Back on the road.

"Fields. Flat land. Fields. Nothing but flat nothing flatness. Fluck Nebraska! God damn, King. This place is boring as hell!"

"Hell ain't boring son. I know. I got friends there."

"Okay, cheeseball. We don't have to be cliche' bad asses no more. We're well away from that gas station. I mean look at this shit. It's the same for miles! Flat land and farm fields. What do think will be over that hill?"

"Farm field...flat land....fields....flat...hehehe..." King said this in a robotic sustained monotone voice before giggling.

I was getting restless. Previously, our trip had been eventful enough for me to not think of Ruby and the situation I left in L.A. Nebraska had no stimulation and no cool nature. Nebraska was allowing me to think about shit I didn't want to think about. Nebraska was pissing me off. I sped up.

"Fuck this piece of shit state. I'm getting the fuck out of here!...Aww, shit. We're nearly out of gas already. Son of a bitch."

I filled the tank at a gas station off the very next exit and hurried inside to pay for it. Upon my entrance, I couldn't fucking believe what my ears had once again heard--AC/DC. The track playing this time was, "Back in Black." I flagged the King to come into the store and when he heard the song he burst out into laughter and said,

"What? What's up? Don't look at us like that. Don't y'all remember us from Grand Junction....from Denver? Hehehe. They're just leather coats for God's sake! Man, oh man! Hehaha..."

No one knew what the hell he was on about nor was the King really talking to them. He said it more for me, himself and the divine jokester who seems to have an affinity for AC/DC. There was very little fear in the local's eyes this time around. The feel was more of a hatred type energy...a "get the fuck out of our town" type vibe, if you will.

Hmm. "Hell's Bells & "Back in Black"...striking thrice. What the fuck did it mean in regards to our situation? I still don't know other than that the pattern of "three" seems to be an ongoing symbol of something completing itself as in beginning, enduring, and ending--the three steps to just about any living entity or event that comes into and out of being. We were going to stay in Nebraska for our last night on the road before reaching our destination the next day, this telling me that the third part of the AC/DC synchronicity was a symbol of our trips completion. Following this was the immediate realization that once again I would have to deal with the reality of my daily thoughts and all the emotional turmoil that I was sure they would soon bring.

The next morning the somewhat negative ju-ju thickened and just before entering the state of Iowa, we were pulled over by the state police. Normally I consider it fairly intimidating to be confronted by the cops in any situation but this time I was too pissed at Nebraska (like it was some actual singular living entity) to feel like portraying any false passive front. My bitterness, though, quckly turned to near laughter after seeing how large the funny looking redneck sheriff's ears were. He gave us a warning for some bullshit we didn't do and told us that, "We 'round here don't like yer types so'd be best if you took yerselves quickly down the road." King Ja started laughing before the officer walked far enough away to not hear him.

"I don't take kindly to laughter. Now move along before I change my mind!"

I don't take kindly to laughter? I couldn't wait to use that some time in my life. I held back from busting a gut long enough to pull away from the hearing range of the trooper. When I pulled my hand away from my face and let it all out, snots along with air and chuckles exploded out of my orifices. King Ja also broke out.

"Hahahaha...take kindly to laughter--now is that grammatically correct?"

"I don't know, man. I don't thing that cop as a whole was grammatically correct or otherwise. Fuck him. He was a long-eared galoot anyhow."

"A what? Did you say galoot? Adam. What the hell is a galoot anyway?

"The cop."

"No. Seriously. I've heard the word my whole life but what is a galoot really?"

"You know, I don't actually know come to think of it. I just know that Yosemite Sam always calls Bugs Bunny a long-eared galoot. I think its a fat hillbilly with a slack-jaw and big ears."

"Yea but Bugs Bunny was a skinny, rabbit city slicker type."

"Hmm...that's true. You know I really couldn't tell you what the fuck a galoot is. This is gonna bug me now. Well, whatever it is it can't be a good thing to be."

"No. It definitely can't be good to be a galoot."

It was Friday, April 24th and we were finally on the last run home...home? Shit, I had no idea where I was going to live so "home" was vague at this point. I had saved a fair chunk of change so I wasn't too worried. Underneath and within my emotional bullshit, I had a good time. King Ja and I within our week or so of strange manifestations had developed a certain timeless connection, as well. Our week trip from L.A. to the Twin Cities confirmed the power and magick that life can have in breaking through the lies we have been told about our seemingly undetermined reality...a reality that supposedly exists outside the self where amidst my weaknesses and immaturity, I have at least learned this: Nothing exists outside the Self...and if I ever forget this consciously, which I'm sure I will on a daily moment to moment basis, I can always look back on our trip...a trip where "idea portals" were created for this reason.

We were heading up I-35 and entering the city limits of Minneapolis. Our last few miles held no conversation. Quietness was well needed at this point. Synchronicities were no longer displaying themselves and we were physically and spiritually exhausted. I looked in the rear view mirror and stared at the horizon behind us. I was only gone for a year and a half. It felt longer...much longer. I know I learned some things but, still, what did it matter. What I knew or thought I knew meant nothing when set along side her image...still fresh in my mind...her image in the rearview mirror as I had seen it when we left her standing in front of my apartment on Hesby street...the only thing having defined edges in the muted fog I called my mind was her image...her crystalline and unyielding image.

(Hollywood to the Twin Cities, April 17th to April 24th, 1992) . . . . . . aa

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