out of its element, nothing as large as an owl.
“This is stone-dead serious, Bobby. I need your help.”
“You see what you get for ever going inland? ” Bobby lives far out on
the southern horn of the bay, and surfing is his vocation and avocation,
his life’s purpose, the foundation of his philosophy, not merely his
favorite sport but a true spiritual enterprise. The ocean is his
cathedral, and he hears the voice of God only in the rumble of the
waves. As far as Bobby is concerned, little of real consequence ever
occurs farther than half a mile from the beach.
Peering into the branches overhead, I was unable to spot the now quiet
bird, even though the moonlight was bright and though the struggling
laurel was not richly clothe in leaves. To Bobby, I said again, “I need
your help.”
“You can do it yourself. Just stand on a chair, tie a noose around your
neck, and jump.”
“Don’t have a chair.”
“Pull the shotgun trigger with your toe.” In any circumstance, he can
make me laugh, and laughter keeps me sane.
An awareness that life is a cosmic joke is close to the core of the
philosophy by which Bobby, Sasha, and I live. Our guiding principles are
simple, Do as little harm to others as you can, make any sacrifice for
your true friends, be responsible for yourself and ask nothing of
others, and grab all the fun you can. Don’t give much thought to
yesterday, don’t worry about tomorrow, live in the moment, and trust
that your existence has meaning even when the world seems to be all
blind chance and chaos. When life lands a hammer blow in your face, do
your best to respond to the hammer as if it had been a cream pie.
Sometimes black humor is the only kind we can summon, but even dark
laughter can sustain.
I said, “Bobby, if you knew the name of the weed, you’d already be
here.” He sighed. “Bro, how am I ever going to be a fully realized,
super maximum, jerk-off slacker if you keep insisting I have a
conscience? ”
“You’re doomed to be responsible.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
“The furry dude is missing, too, ” I said, meaning Orson.
“Citizen Kane? ” Orson was named after Orson Welles, the director of
Citizen Kane, for whose films he has a strange fascination.
I made an admission that I found difficult to voice, “I’m scared for
him.”
“I’ll be there, ” Bobby said at once.
“Cool.”
“Where’s there? ” Wings thrummed, and another bird or possibly two
joined the one already roosting in the laurel.
“Dead Town, ” I told him.
“Oh, man. You never listen.”
“I’m a bad boy. Come in by the river.”
“The river? ”
“There’s a Suburban parked there. Belongs to a mondo psycho, so be
careful. The fence is cut.”
“Do I have to creep or can I strut? ”
“Sneaky doesn’t matter anymore.
Just watch your ass.”
“Dead Town, ” he said disgustedly. “What am I going to do with you,
young man? ”
“No TV for a month? ”
“Kak, ” he called me again.
“Where in D Town?”
“Meet me at the movies.” He didn’t know Wyvern a fraction as well as I
did, but he would be able to find the movie theater in the commercial
area adjacent to the abandoned houses. As a teenager, not yet so
religiously devoted to the seashore that it had become his monastery, he
had for a while dated a military brat who lived on-base with her
parents.
Bobby said, “We’ll find them, bro.” I was on a perilous emotional ledge.
The threat of my own death troubles me far less than you might expect,
because from the earliest days of childhood, I’ve lived with an
awareness of my mortality that is both more acute and more chronic than
what most people experience, but I’m crushed flat by the loss of someone
I love. Grief is sharper than the tools of any torturer, and even the
prospect of such a loss now seemed to have severed my vocal cords.
“Hang loose, ” Bobby said.
“I’m just about untied, ” I said thinly.