Life In Parallel
I achieved a full, deep REM slumber last night, for the first time in months. And I experienced vivid dreams. I bounced to different realities parallel to this one, and to different times. Everything had feverish hues, and all five senses were left on for maximum immersion. I love these dreams, because the everyday me gets turned off and characters are created to represent the many different facets that make me who I am. Then they all get on stage and do some very telling theater.
1997 - I was living on the east coast, working a bum job and paying the rent. A mundane existence, not unlike the one I live now. Unexpectedly, my car disappeared and parts of it showed up on my porch. They tried to get me out of the house, my so called friends, so I could forget about it. They were right when they said that there was very little I could do about the situation. But I only watched the passing vehicles, hoping for a glimpse of what was once mine. I accused my friends, violently, loudly. I felt that they did me a disservice by playing what I thought was a sick prank. I shouldered them with responsibility when I could find no other source to place it upon. I felt they were insensitive pricks who tried to wrap every problem up in an orgy of booze and loud music. And I slowly sank into oblivion as they shunned me for losing my mind. Winter came, and I stood poised on my roof, alone. The height at which my arc peaked as I sprung off the roof could only be possible from the pure adrenaline and rage I felt at life. Complete and total disregard for consequences of a head first landing.
1968 - Dressed in black and carrying an ornate easter scimitar, I was in a bar somewhere in Los Angeles, called the Safari Club. The interior was decorated much like that eastern pub in Casablanca. After a time, I began moving through the crowd to the front bar to refresh my drink. Forget waitresses, they wouldn’t come near someone so surly, and they required tips. There were quite a few patrons who didn’t notice my presence until I began to move amongst them. And as a quiet fell over the bar, I said loudly to no one in particular “Don’t be concerned with the hardware, I’m only here to relax. I bring death only to those who have earned it.” The last wording was specially designed to reach key ears, so that they could know that their rendezous had arrived. I sat down next to Kelly Liddel as the crowd uneasily returns to their musings. Tall, slicked back hair, and slightly older than me with a warm deceptively welcoming face. A look when smiling comparable to that of a hyena just before it eats the young of an unknowing prairie herd. He was well known in more arcane circles for his fetish study of oddity, the strange angles and obtuse quirks of life. His sampling that evening was Absinthe, very fitting in many ways for a man of his repute and hobby. We chatted for an indiscriminate amount of time before I excused myself to the facilities. The stir as I waded through the sea of patrons could only be from my obvious appearance as a mercenary with dangerous leanings towards violence and a general disregard for the trappings of immaculate grooming. As I stood in the stall doing my business, some chucklehead greaser tried to peek over the door. I shoved his head away twice before Jesse appeared, a large punk whose general demeanor let me know that I was going to pay for messing with one of his crew. It’s also entirely possible that I owed him money or burned him on some kind of cut previously, but my memory of those kinds of things has always been fuzzy at best, and with good reason. He stares me down over the lip of the stall door until I step out and to the only working sink. The back of my head is grabbed by an unseen hand and I am forcibly shoved towards the far sink, which had been broken in half by some previous cromagnon violence, exposing a jagged outward facing edge. I struggled with this trash talking thug over the impending nasty end to an otherwise plesant evening before I manage to wrestle away from his control. The ensuing fight between us rolled out of the bathroom like some kind of cartoon brawl, with his roaring crew right behind. We bounced between the rear pool tables like a demented pinball, trading punches and kicks. Somehow I sensed from the shuffle near the front door and the clank of boots that the fuzz had arrived and thinking quickly I got Jesse pinned face down and delivered quick blows to the back of his head. Pinning his arms up behind him, I called out to the police as they tromped through the bar angrily searching out what the disturbance was all about. “Hey,” I yelled “over here! Help me with this wild fucker.” They proceeded to immediately start to pull me off of him. Before they could skip the riot act and proceed to the clubbing en masse, I began quickly explaining the situation. And since he was already more in a position to be arrested, they slapped the cuffs on Jesse instead. I triumphantly stood over this and watched as Jesse tried in vain to fight his punch-drunk slobbering and explain his side. It mostly came out like a bible reading from a retard. Someone from the front exclaimed for everyone to have a look outside right after the fuzz hauled Jesse away. It was very visible, even as a hot drenching rainstorm started up, that Jesse was bleeding badly as the fuzz dragged him to the squad car. ‘These are the benefits to being a necessary evil.’ I said to no one in particular. So impressed was Kelly at my wild man style antics that he took me on as an associate. I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to, but an open bar tab in his name softened my regulations about dealing closely with complete strangers.
1969 - Mr. Liddel and I were on another ‘stakeout’ as he liked to call them. If we were indeed working for any kind of law enforcement agency, it was not immediately clear. Kelly kept me in the dark about the details of things as much as possible. I didn’t care much, as he kept me informed of all manner of odd things otherwise. We were tracking the flow of a new phenomena, this white powder from South America, that is said to drive men crazy. Individual entrepreneurs were increasing the rate at which it moved into the country at a staggeringly profitable rate, and we were investigating. I got the feeling that it was more than just observational and more than a little personal for Kelly. I didn’t mind too much, I got food and drink paid for in exchange for a free pass on violent acts. Over the hill and out on the lake, we could see a small boat, stacked high with large, individually wrapped clear packages of this powder. The occupant was scruffy, donning oversized sunglasses. And for a reason unknown to us, he began shoving these packages into the lake, as if he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. That’s all some of the beachgoers needed to stop pretending not to notice and spring into action. The occupant of the boat finished his job, and seemed to laugh for a second as he watched a bunch of 20 something flower children swimming furiously in his wake, attempting the get enough breath to make it to the white gold at the bottom of the lake. As he docked in the shade on the far side of the lake, he was very close to Kelly and myself. He must have caught the glint of the binoculars in the late afternoon light, because he suddenly was less concerned with mooring the boat and more concerned with getting away from it as fast as possible. Kelly took off after him, long black coat flowing after him. I was running with my hands and feet faster than the wind, like that boy from the Jungle Book. We hopped in the car, but a few times around the parking lot filled with minibuses and sedans that all looked the same told us we had lost him.
1971 - Still hunting the beast. We’d been shadowing the workings of more than a few petty dealers, and witnessed more than a few busts, but never had we actually entered into the game, or tangoed with the scruffy man from the lake. Kelly told me that he was the one we needed to work closely with, but we never seemed to get any closer to him. We were always the curious unseen spectators, watching the entire dance with an equal mixtures of reverence, repulsion and awe. Oh, the money that changed hands in the name of this ‘cocaine’. It was as dizzying as it was maddening. We failed to notice in the midst of all this that we too were being watched. Izzy made herself known to us at an outdoor party in a park just north of Belmonte, far up the coast from the city lights and oppression of police action. There was consumption of your average kinds present in abundnace, and we were giddy spectators to it all. It was a kind of throbbing human psychology circus. Kelly and I talked amongst ourselves about the science of it all, as we moved amongst the party goers and free thinkers. We stuck to analogy and insider metaphor, so as to maintain the cover of ‘being high’ instead of a couple of novice Jane Goodall squares scoping the freaks in action. I’m not sure how long she had been walking with us silently, but all of a sudden, we both realized we had a beautiful creature walking in our footsteps. Isabella as I saw her that day was about 5’9, skinny but athletic with long dark hair and exotic features that would melt polar ice caps at the crack of a smile. And it was this smile that said hello and invited us into her world. She preferred Izzy, and when we found out just how connected she was, we agreed to anything she said. She showed us around to different hot spots, told us how things went down. Her father, she said, was almost as high up in the world of powder as you can get. And Kelly was rapt in an instant. Moreso, I think, than just over the possibilities of where she could get us.
1972 - Kelly and Izzy were inseparable that summer, and I was becoming something of a fun sidekick, but I had Izzy’s favor, so Kelly could not ditch me as a means of ditching one meal ticket for another. I suspected her of accidentally drawing Kelly in the world of the powder monster that was silently eating our nation whole, but he insisted and argued with me that we were learning nothing by maintaining a safe distance. Regardless of the influence on Kelly, it was nice to bask in Izzy’s attentions, even if they came second to a budding love affair with my proctor. She worried about me, much to the chagrin of Kelly’s green eyed jealousy and fumbling efforts at romance that she loved him for anyway. It was about this time that Izzy introduced us to Amanda. She had happened across our path, panhandling outside a gas station just inside Salt Lake City. No where else to go, just a reject of the public school system and bearing the scars of an evil home. Izzy recognized her as a good person at heart, deserving of the kind of security our merry little band could provide. And I think secretly, Izzy hoped that we would take a liking to each other, thus giving herself and Kelly more free time. We kissed once at a party outside of Phoenix, and never anything else after. I believe this to be directly related to the fact that she looked to Kelly almost as a father figure. Almost as an infatuation. Kelly was oblivious, blinded by the brilliance of Izzy's love. He would have long informative talks with Amanda, Izzy wrapped around his arm, both women soaking up his charm and insight. Often the talks were signified at an end when Kelly would stand up and shuffle around Amanda's hair in a lovingly dismissive manner. In that way, Amanda and I affectionately garnered the pet name ‘the kids’ by the two elders.
1975 - A long hot summer’s night in Houston found us at the end of our day in Skippy’s. It was a hole in the wall roadhouse, converted from ramshackle living quarters to a decent kitchen, bar and jukebox. The accommodations were nothing more than card tables and fold out chairs, but the human contingent streaming in and out to destinations unknown was more than interesting enough to draw our band of wanderlusts. Burnouts from the hippy age, soldiers turned to outcasts by their own country - still fighting the ghosts of the jungle, and locals that shunned the television for more visceral interaction; all of them came together under one rickety roof to commiserate the impending death of the American dream. One table in particular held a few Halflings, or midgets as the less congenial were apt to call them. They seemed something more than just that however. They seemed more than real, even with their ourlandinsh clothing and strangely colored eyes. I must have been staring too much, because as I passed on the way for more drinks, I got pulled into their circle. Much to my surprise they were sharp as tacks and very lively. “You’re older than you look,” one exclaimed with surprise almost immediately after taking my hand to read my palm. From there I felt completely at home, as if I had known these people all my life and beyond that even. They spoke in strange languages that I understood, and showed me the ‘glow’, a light show generated by quick motions with their hands that I was sure everyone could see, but only held us at the table rapt. One in particular pulled my attention squarely on him and showed me without words of the many different origins and lives I had or will live. I felt more complete in joy and in sorrow than I had ever experienced. He was taking the sum of what life means an putting it into a single moment, trying to communicate some greater truth to me. I think after a few attempts, he had determined that I wasn’t bright enough to grasp what he was getting at, and I wasn’t fit to know the secrets of the universe completely just yet. I suddenly snapped to, and they had left. I seemed to me that hours had passed. I wasn’t sure if they had put something in my beer, or if what had transpired had actually transpired in anyone’s world other than my own. I noticed a group walking in, and I immediately recognized them, but I wasn’t sure how. They were lithe and beautiful, almost as if they had walked in straight off a Hollywood set. I ran up to them and tried to thank them, but they just smiled and took another table to relax. All at once I understood. In our journeys, Kelly and I had heard tell of them, though the details were always fleeting and sounded more of legend than fact. A traveling group of gypsies, well versed in illusion and magicks. A dying breed. More than likely the last of their kind in this part of the world. And sure enough, my pockets were lighter than I expected. I awoke Amanda, asleep at the far end of a table where Kelly and Izzy were necking quietly and happily. I tried to rouse them to leave, but it seemed I was the only one in condition to do so. Sleeping in the empty van was something strange to me, echoes of my vision denying me sleep.
1978 - Kelly and Izzy are too far gone to effectively lead us. They’ve been caught in the grip of the powder and we have lost all direction. The unofficial hiatus of our leadership has left Amanda and I aimless. We have been staying on this campground in Oregon for close to a year and a half now, Amanda has found solace in the arms of the campground master’s son. They are trying to hide their relationship to avoid problems between Kelly and the Campground master, who are notorious for being at odds. I rarely see Kelly and Izzy out of their camper. They hide away, half watching the television and barely eating. Every now and again I hear shouting, but just as often I see them taking walks at dusk, when they are least likely to be bothered. I’ve tried to chronicle our many many experiences in a scatterbrained account. But I suspect they have been putting small doses of something in my food, and it's further affecting the clarity of my memories. It makes sense. They can’t be bothered to travel about anymore to study the effects on the populace, so they experiment on those they have access to. I feel I must get Amanda out of here, it’s unfair for her to be subjected to this life. She has already been through too much. At least she has a good chance to settle down somewhere and return to some semblance of a normal life. But I’m sure the rage that I would incur from Kelly would find me a beggar inside of a year’s time, if not dead. I fear his rage in a very deep and primal sense. So I am her reluctant keeper until I find a way to release her and disappear at the same time without a trace. God knows what they would do if they somehow found us after we left them to rot. They've come to believe they are somehow more important than us, but they would never admit that out loud. Almost as if we are to be grateful for the favor they show us. I for one should be, for the food and the camper. But Amanda...she deserves more.
1981 - Shit. I fell asleep again outside. I must have been looking for my car again. My memory is faulty somehow. I have never myself possessed a car, yet. Somehow I always find that when I am walking back from the main campground building through the parking lot, I begin to inspect each and every vehicle to see if it is mine. Somehow the gypsies have polluted my mind. Or was it something Izzy did to me? I can’t seem to recall. This beard on my face makes me look haggard and evil, like a mad scientist. I went to check up on Izzy and Kelly today. They’ve taken to keeping Amanda in with them, not only because her love, the campground master’s son jilted her, but because he also had some choice words to say to her about her sanity. They have been extremely guarded of her. I haven’t seen either her or her beau in quite a while. I inquired after the campground master’s son and I was told he is away visiting friends for an extended period of time. But I see how they watch Kelly now, and I suspect him just as much as they do. I’m finding that my blank out time where I blindly search for a car that doesn’t belong to me is taking me farther and farther away from home. Last time, I had to hitch a ride back to the campers from 45 miles out. Is this what it is to become a gypsy? Do they find you once you are completely gone to the crossroads of the land?Are they waiting until I can't go home again? Will they come for me and take me in? I couldn’t be sure of any of the things that were happening to me. I felt compelled to check up on my ‘family’ once more before I completely spaced and was lost to the winds forever. Izzy opened the trailer for me, in a robe and underwear looking gaunt as ever, but still beautiful in her strange elemental way. I followed her to the back of the trailer, shuffling through trash strewn about carelessly. Izzy was scrreaming something vulgar to Kelly about my arrival as she picked her way to the back of the now heavily modified camper. When I made my way to the bathroom doorway, Izzy had already propped herself back up on the edge of the sink. I could tell she had been there all morning the various cosmetics arranged on the counter around around her bare legs. And the way she was warily perched, she made it look as if the counter and the cabinet were the only things holding her up. Amanda popped up from the half full bathtub, presumably cutting her hair underwater again. All she had left of her beautiful blond hair were two pencil thick strands on her left side, one colored pink, the other purple. And Kelly donned a beard and shorts, standing under the showerhead that was blasting him with cold water. But he seemed as aware of his surroundings as he was the shampoo he had yet to wash out of his hair. He just stood facing the tiling, eyes to the ceiling and mouth agape, in another world. And my god, i realized after ten minuted I had been angrily inquiring after that damn car that didn't exist. They didn't even flinch anymore whne I asked, just pretended I wasn't even talking. This was the perfect scene of our generation gone wrong. Here in this bathroom was everything we had been looking for, but Kelly never found it because he inadvertently created it around his feet. Invited it into his home. The staggering irony was just starting to hit me when Izzy, already slumping critically to the left, failed one last time to continuously pull up her lingerie top that was hanging on her frame. She unceremoniously fell to the floor and began seizuring violently from whatever potent cocktail she had ingested over the course of the morning. Amanda sprang to her rescue, not really knowing what to do but hold her and scream over and over. Kelly just began laughing without moving.
I guess at that moment I was the most lost at the crossroads, because all I could do at that moment was fade away and wake up.
1997 - I was living on the east coast, working a bum job and paying the rent. A mundane existence, not unlike the one I live now. Unexpectedly, my car disappeared and parts of it showed up on my porch. They tried to get me out of the house, my so called friends, so I could forget about it. They were right when they said that there was very little I could do about the situation. But I only watched the passing vehicles, hoping for a glimpse of what was once mine. I accused my friends, violently, loudly. I felt that they did me a disservice by playing what I thought was a sick prank. I shouldered them with responsibility when I could find no other source to place it upon. I felt they were insensitive pricks who tried to wrap every problem up in an orgy of booze and loud music. And I slowly sank into oblivion as they shunned me for losing my mind. Winter came, and I stood poised on my roof, alone. The height at which my arc peaked as I sprung off the roof could only be possible from the pure adrenaline and rage I felt at life. Complete and total disregard for consequences of a head first landing.
1968 - Dressed in black and carrying an ornate easter scimitar, I was in a bar somewhere in Los Angeles, called the Safari Club. The interior was decorated much like that eastern pub in Casablanca. After a time, I began moving through the crowd to the front bar to refresh my drink. Forget waitresses, they wouldn’t come near someone so surly, and they required tips. There were quite a few patrons who didn’t notice my presence until I began to move amongst them. And as a quiet fell over the bar, I said loudly to no one in particular “Don’t be concerned with the hardware, I’m only here to relax. I bring death only to those who have earned it.” The last wording was specially designed to reach key ears, so that they could know that their rendezous had arrived. I sat down next to Kelly Liddel as the crowd uneasily returns to their musings. Tall, slicked back hair, and slightly older than me with a warm deceptively welcoming face. A look when smiling comparable to that of a hyena just before it eats the young of an unknowing prairie herd. He was well known in more arcane circles for his fetish study of oddity, the strange angles and obtuse quirks of life. His sampling that evening was Absinthe, very fitting in many ways for a man of his repute and hobby. We chatted for an indiscriminate amount of time before I excused myself to the facilities. The stir as I waded through the sea of patrons could only be from my obvious appearance as a mercenary with dangerous leanings towards violence and a general disregard for the trappings of immaculate grooming. As I stood in the stall doing my business, some chucklehead greaser tried to peek over the door. I shoved his head away twice before Jesse appeared, a large punk whose general demeanor let me know that I was going to pay for messing with one of his crew. It’s also entirely possible that I owed him money or burned him on some kind of cut previously, but my memory of those kinds of things has always been fuzzy at best, and with good reason. He stares me down over the lip of the stall door until I step out and to the only working sink. The back of my head is grabbed by an unseen hand and I am forcibly shoved towards the far sink, which had been broken in half by some previous cromagnon violence, exposing a jagged outward facing edge. I struggled with this trash talking thug over the impending nasty end to an otherwise plesant evening before I manage to wrestle away from his control. The ensuing fight between us rolled out of the bathroom like some kind of cartoon brawl, with his roaring crew right behind. We bounced between the rear pool tables like a demented pinball, trading punches and kicks. Somehow I sensed from the shuffle near the front door and the clank of boots that the fuzz had arrived and thinking quickly I got Jesse pinned face down and delivered quick blows to the back of his head. Pinning his arms up behind him, I called out to the police as they tromped through the bar angrily searching out what the disturbance was all about. “Hey,” I yelled “over here! Help me with this wild fucker.” They proceeded to immediately start to pull me off of him. Before they could skip the riot act and proceed to the clubbing en masse, I began quickly explaining the situation. And since he was already more in a position to be arrested, they slapped the cuffs on Jesse instead. I triumphantly stood over this and watched as Jesse tried in vain to fight his punch-drunk slobbering and explain his side. It mostly came out like a bible reading from a retard. Someone from the front exclaimed for everyone to have a look outside right after the fuzz hauled Jesse away. It was very visible, even as a hot drenching rainstorm started up, that Jesse was bleeding badly as the fuzz dragged him to the squad car. ‘These are the benefits to being a necessary evil.’ I said to no one in particular. So impressed was Kelly at my wild man style antics that he took me on as an associate. I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to, but an open bar tab in his name softened my regulations about dealing closely with complete strangers.
1969 - Mr. Liddel and I were on another ‘stakeout’ as he liked to call them. If we were indeed working for any kind of law enforcement agency, it was not immediately clear. Kelly kept me in the dark about the details of things as much as possible. I didn’t care much, as he kept me informed of all manner of odd things otherwise. We were tracking the flow of a new phenomena, this white powder from South America, that is said to drive men crazy. Individual entrepreneurs were increasing the rate at which it moved into the country at a staggeringly profitable rate, and we were investigating. I got the feeling that it was more than just observational and more than a little personal for Kelly. I didn’t mind too much, I got food and drink paid for in exchange for a free pass on violent acts. Over the hill and out on the lake, we could see a small boat, stacked high with large, individually wrapped clear packages of this powder. The occupant was scruffy, donning oversized sunglasses. And for a reason unknown to us, he began shoving these packages into the lake, as if he couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. That’s all some of the beachgoers needed to stop pretending not to notice and spring into action. The occupant of the boat finished his job, and seemed to laugh for a second as he watched a bunch of 20 something flower children swimming furiously in his wake, attempting the get enough breath to make it to the white gold at the bottom of the lake. As he docked in the shade on the far side of the lake, he was very close to Kelly and myself. He must have caught the glint of the binoculars in the late afternoon light, because he suddenly was less concerned with mooring the boat and more concerned with getting away from it as fast as possible. Kelly took off after him, long black coat flowing after him. I was running with my hands and feet faster than the wind, like that boy from the Jungle Book. We hopped in the car, but a few times around the parking lot filled with minibuses and sedans that all looked the same told us we had lost him.
1971 - Still hunting the beast. We’d been shadowing the workings of more than a few petty dealers, and witnessed more than a few busts, but never had we actually entered into the game, or tangoed with the scruffy man from the lake. Kelly told me that he was the one we needed to work closely with, but we never seemed to get any closer to him. We were always the curious unseen spectators, watching the entire dance with an equal mixtures of reverence, repulsion and awe. Oh, the money that changed hands in the name of this ‘cocaine’. It was as dizzying as it was maddening. We failed to notice in the midst of all this that we too were being watched. Izzy made herself known to us at an outdoor party in a park just north of Belmonte, far up the coast from the city lights and oppression of police action. There was consumption of your average kinds present in abundnace, and we were giddy spectators to it all. It was a kind of throbbing human psychology circus. Kelly and I talked amongst ourselves about the science of it all, as we moved amongst the party goers and free thinkers. We stuck to analogy and insider metaphor, so as to maintain the cover of ‘being high’ instead of a couple of novice Jane Goodall squares scoping the freaks in action. I’m not sure how long she had been walking with us silently, but all of a sudden, we both realized we had a beautiful creature walking in our footsteps. Isabella as I saw her that day was about 5’9, skinny but athletic with long dark hair and exotic features that would melt polar ice caps at the crack of a smile. And it was this smile that said hello and invited us into her world. She preferred Izzy, and when we found out just how connected she was, we agreed to anything she said. She showed us around to different hot spots, told us how things went down. Her father, she said, was almost as high up in the world of powder as you can get. And Kelly was rapt in an instant. Moreso, I think, than just over the possibilities of where she could get us.
1972 - Kelly and Izzy were inseparable that summer, and I was becoming something of a fun sidekick, but I had Izzy’s favor, so Kelly could not ditch me as a means of ditching one meal ticket for another. I suspected her of accidentally drawing Kelly in the world of the powder monster that was silently eating our nation whole, but he insisted and argued with me that we were learning nothing by maintaining a safe distance. Regardless of the influence on Kelly, it was nice to bask in Izzy’s attentions, even if they came second to a budding love affair with my proctor. She worried about me, much to the chagrin of Kelly’s green eyed jealousy and fumbling efforts at romance that she loved him for anyway. It was about this time that Izzy introduced us to Amanda. She had happened across our path, panhandling outside a gas station just inside Salt Lake City. No where else to go, just a reject of the public school system and bearing the scars of an evil home. Izzy recognized her as a good person at heart, deserving of the kind of security our merry little band could provide. And I think secretly, Izzy hoped that we would take a liking to each other, thus giving herself and Kelly more free time. We kissed once at a party outside of Phoenix, and never anything else after. I believe this to be directly related to the fact that she looked to Kelly almost as a father figure. Almost as an infatuation. Kelly was oblivious, blinded by the brilliance of Izzy's love. He would have long informative talks with Amanda, Izzy wrapped around his arm, both women soaking up his charm and insight. Often the talks were signified at an end when Kelly would stand up and shuffle around Amanda's hair in a lovingly dismissive manner. In that way, Amanda and I affectionately garnered the pet name ‘the kids’ by the two elders.
1975 - A long hot summer’s night in Houston found us at the end of our day in Skippy’s. It was a hole in the wall roadhouse, converted from ramshackle living quarters to a decent kitchen, bar and jukebox. The accommodations were nothing more than card tables and fold out chairs, but the human contingent streaming in and out to destinations unknown was more than interesting enough to draw our band of wanderlusts. Burnouts from the hippy age, soldiers turned to outcasts by their own country - still fighting the ghosts of the jungle, and locals that shunned the television for more visceral interaction; all of them came together under one rickety roof to commiserate the impending death of the American dream. One table in particular held a few Halflings, or midgets as the less congenial were apt to call them. They seemed something more than just that however. They seemed more than real, even with their ourlandinsh clothing and strangely colored eyes. I must have been staring too much, because as I passed on the way for more drinks, I got pulled into their circle. Much to my surprise they were sharp as tacks and very lively. “You’re older than you look,” one exclaimed with surprise almost immediately after taking my hand to read my palm. From there I felt completely at home, as if I had known these people all my life and beyond that even. They spoke in strange languages that I understood, and showed me the ‘glow’, a light show generated by quick motions with their hands that I was sure everyone could see, but only held us at the table rapt. One in particular pulled my attention squarely on him and showed me without words of the many different origins and lives I had or will live. I felt more complete in joy and in sorrow than I had ever experienced. He was taking the sum of what life means an putting it into a single moment, trying to communicate some greater truth to me. I think after a few attempts, he had determined that I wasn’t bright enough to grasp what he was getting at, and I wasn’t fit to know the secrets of the universe completely just yet. I suddenly snapped to, and they had left. I seemed to me that hours had passed. I wasn’t sure if they had put something in my beer, or if what had transpired had actually transpired in anyone’s world other than my own. I noticed a group walking in, and I immediately recognized them, but I wasn’t sure how. They were lithe and beautiful, almost as if they had walked in straight off a Hollywood set. I ran up to them and tried to thank them, but they just smiled and took another table to relax. All at once I understood. In our journeys, Kelly and I had heard tell of them, though the details were always fleeting and sounded more of legend than fact. A traveling group of gypsies, well versed in illusion and magicks. A dying breed. More than likely the last of their kind in this part of the world. And sure enough, my pockets were lighter than I expected. I awoke Amanda, asleep at the far end of a table where Kelly and Izzy were necking quietly and happily. I tried to rouse them to leave, but it seemed I was the only one in condition to do so. Sleeping in the empty van was something strange to me, echoes of my vision denying me sleep.
1978 - Kelly and Izzy are too far gone to effectively lead us. They’ve been caught in the grip of the powder and we have lost all direction. The unofficial hiatus of our leadership has left Amanda and I aimless. We have been staying on this campground in Oregon for close to a year and a half now, Amanda has found solace in the arms of the campground master’s son. They are trying to hide their relationship to avoid problems between Kelly and the Campground master, who are notorious for being at odds. I rarely see Kelly and Izzy out of their camper. They hide away, half watching the television and barely eating. Every now and again I hear shouting, but just as often I see them taking walks at dusk, when they are least likely to be bothered. I’ve tried to chronicle our many many experiences in a scatterbrained account. But I suspect they have been putting small doses of something in my food, and it's further affecting the clarity of my memories. It makes sense. They can’t be bothered to travel about anymore to study the effects on the populace, so they experiment on those they have access to. I feel I must get Amanda out of here, it’s unfair for her to be subjected to this life. She has already been through too much. At least she has a good chance to settle down somewhere and return to some semblance of a normal life. But I’m sure the rage that I would incur from Kelly would find me a beggar inside of a year’s time, if not dead. I fear his rage in a very deep and primal sense. So I am her reluctant keeper until I find a way to release her and disappear at the same time without a trace. God knows what they would do if they somehow found us after we left them to rot. They've come to believe they are somehow more important than us, but they would never admit that out loud. Almost as if we are to be grateful for the favor they show us. I for one should be, for the food and the camper. But Amanda...she deserves more.
1981 - Shit. I fell asleep again outside. I must have been looking for my car again. My memory is faulty somehow. I have never myself possessed a car, yet. Somehow I always find that when I am walking back from the main campground building through the parking lot, I begin to inspect each and every vehicle to see if it is mine. Somehow the gypsies have polluted my mind. Or was it something Izzy did to me? I can’t seem to recall. This beard on my face makes me look haggard and evil, like a mad scientist. I went to check up on Izzy and Kelly today. They’ve taken to keeping Amanda in with them, not only because her love, the campground master’s son jilted her, but because he also had some choice words to say to her about her sanity. They have been extremely guarded of her. I haven’t seen either her or her beau in quite a while. I inquired after the campground master’s son and I was told he is away visiting friends for an extended period of time. But I see how they watch Kelly now, and I suspect him just as much as they do. I’m finding that my blank out time where I blindly search for a car that doesn’t belong to me is taking me farther and farther away from home. Last time, I had to hitch a ride back to the campers from 45 miles out. Is this what it is to become a gypsy? Do they find you once you are completely gone to the crossroads of the land?Are they waiting until I can't go home again? Will they come for me and take me in? I couldn’t be sure of any of the things that were happening to me. I felt compelled to check up on my ‘family’ once more before I completely spaced and was lost to the winds forever. Izzy opened the trailer for me, in a robe and underwear looking gaunt as ever, but still beautiful in her strange elemental way. I followed her to the back of the trailer, shuffling through trash strewn about carelessly. Izzy was scrreaming something vulgar to Kelly about my arrival as she picked her way to the back of the now heavily modified camper. When I made my way to the bathroom doorway, Izzy had already propped herself back up on the edge of the sink. I could tell she had been there all morning the various cosmetics arranged on the counter around around her bare legs. And the way she was warily perched, she made it look as if the counter and the cabinet were the only things holding her up. Amanda popped up from the half full bathtub, presumably cutting her hair underwater again. All she had left of her beautiful blond hair were two pencil thick strands on her left side, one colored pink, the other purple. And Kelly donned a beard and shorts, standing under the showerhead that was blasting him with cold water. But he seemed as aware of his surroundings as he was the shampoo he had yet to wash out of his hair. He just stood facing the tiling, eyes to the ceiling and mouth agape, in another world. And my god, i realized after ten minuted I had been angrily inquiring after that damn car that didn't exist. They didn't even flinch anymore whne I asked, just pretended I wasn't even talking. This was the perfect scene of our generation gone wrong. Here in this bathroom was everything we had been looking for, but Kelly never found it because he inadvertently created it around his feet. Invited it into his home. The staggering irony was just starting to hit me when Izzy, already slumping critically to the left, failed one last time to continuously pull up her lingerie top that was hanging on her frame. She unceremoniously fell to the floor and began seizuring violently from whatever potent cocktail she had ingested over the course of the morning. Amanda sprang to her rescue, not really knowing what to do but hold her and scream over and over. Kelly just began laughing without moving.
I guess at that moment I was the most lost at the crossroads, because all I could do at that moment was fade away and wake up.