They don’t care.
The wind does not judge me and I have no reason to judge the wind.
Free at last.
At last, I need no escape.
I feel good now.
I’m cold but I feel okay.
Like not killing myself wasn’t a bad idea after all.
Lying here in these mountains.
Makes me think if there are other things.
I’m missing.
Maybe I can live?
I don’t know.
But I feel better.
Rejuvenated.
I have to pee before I fall completely asleep.
I go outside.
And unzip behind my tent.
A mountain lion walks out of the forest.
He walks no less than ten feet from me.
I don’t move.
A fear rushes up in me.
But I attack the fear at once and calm my heart.
The mountain lion stops for a second and looks at me.
I can see its glowing eyes.
It is beautiful.
This enlarged version of the household cat that could kill me without much effort at all.
The mountain lion looks at me.
And goes on its way.
I finish peeing and go to sleep.
7
I’m sitting at a lake in Northern California.
The trees are burnt all around me.
Everywhere I look is burnt trees.
Soon the fires will start again.
Soon summer will start and fires will blaze.
And more trees and more houses and more people will be burnt alive.
The lake is blue and beautiful.
If I had a boat I would go on it.
And sail around.
Maybe cast a line in the blueness.
But I’m sitting here.
Soon I will be at Jessica Benway’s house.
Who is Jessica Benway?
An old lover.
An old friend.
She has a kid now.
She was married.
Jessica is no longer married.
She wrote me an email inviting me to stay with her.
I’m about two hours from her house.
I don’t know if I want to go there.
It probably won’t make me happy.
She doesn’t seem very happy.
Why would I want to visit an unhappy friend.
But this is the trip, for better or worse.
This is the west.
Maybe I’ll get laid.
Who knows?
8
I’m in Jessica Benway’s one room apartment, sitting on her bed.
She is in a reclining chair.
She has gained weight.
A good amount of weight.
The garbage can is full to the brim with empty Steel Reserve cans.
Cat Stevens’s “Moonshadow” is playing on repeat on low in the background.
I look at my shoes and say, “So this is it?”
“Yes, this is it. This room. Those sheets. Those pictures on the wall. That sink over there, my feet and hands. This is my life now. This room is my life. This city and with me in it is my life.”
“How did you get here?”
She rubs her right boob and continues. “I don’t recall ever being a human. Ever really being alive. Ever having a chance. Ever knowing or not knowing what to do. I’ve always kind of floated along on a dream. There I was, once, a little girl, and the dreams picked me up and let me float on them. Not like dreams when you sleep or American dreams, or dreams of becoming a lawyer or doctor. Like a dream, a living dream I floated on. It was like a boat, or a car, a spaceship. I would cry sometimes, and I knew it was because the dream was not true. But I persisted. I held fast to the floating dream.”
She goes to the refrigerator and gets a Steel Reserve. She offers me one and I take it.
We pop open our Steel Reserves and she goes on. “I’m dark inside. That’s why you liked me. I reminded you of Lizaveta. I spoke to Lizaveta a couple of times and once, when we were alone, she told me in that thick Russian accent of hers, ‘Jessica, all I ever wanted was freedom. I have always loved freedom. I wake every day looking for freedom. Where is this freedom Americans speak of? I look and look and find none. I find control and power, and the beaten and hurt, but no freedom.’ Your sister is dead now. Her suicide was her freedom, Vasily. She felt controlled and dominated. She knew that life is a scam. She knew that her only purpose in life was to work and pay bills and the only virtue she needed for that was a self-loathing fortitude. But not a fortitude to win a war or fight oppression, the fortitude to show up to work on time for thirty years, do our job good enough to not get fired and eventually reach retirement to die alone with shit in our pants in a decrepit nursing home.
“Lizaveta killed herself as an act of freedom. As an act that said to the world, ‘You think you have me, but you don’t. I am still free and can do at least one thing you can’t stop.’ And Lizaveta did it. She died free.”
Jessica takes a large drink of Steel Reserve and says, “Have you noticed I’m fat now?”
“You put on a little weight.”
“No, I’m fat, Vasily. I’m fat and washed-up.”
“You look fine,” I say.
“No, I got fat on purpose. Listen. I wanted Charles to leave. He wouldn’t leave. So I got fat. He told me that shit about not minding and all that shit humans say to make each other feel better, even though they feel horrible about the situation and what’s going on. He wouldn’t leave so I cheated on him. But I’ve gotten used to being lazy and drinking beer. And these stretch marks, do you wanna see my stretch marks?”
“That’s okay, I believe you.”
“No, I want you to see what that baby did.”
Jessica stands up and pulls her shirt up and shows me her stretch marks. It looks like a truck ran over her belly.
“Do you see what that baby did?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m in hell and I’m fat.”
“You’re being really dramatic.”
“I’m being dramatic. My life is ruined. Oh, Jessica Benway’s life is ruined, who the fuck cares. You don’t care? You know why, because you can leave. You can leave any time you want. You don’t have a kid and an ex-husband. You don’t. You’re Vasily and you’ve always been smarter than that. Well, fuck, Vasily, I’m not. I’m not smarter than that. I make mistakes.”
“I’m a fucking dishwasher. Don’t make me feel guilty.”
Jessica stands up and starts pacing and using her arms to make points.
“Listen, Vasily, you must understand, I’m fat and washed-up. Who wants a fat woman with kids? No one does. I’m alone now. But you know what, I don’t hate Charles. I don’t. I think he’s a nice guy. But I didn’t want to live in the same house with him anymore. That’s all. Our life was fine. We had money and a kid and cars and the bills were getting paid on time. We were living out here in the west and life was totally tip-top. But goddamn, I was bored. You know what I’m saying, Vasily?”
“Yeah, I got you.”
Jessica sits down and says, “Did you think if you came here you would recapture something? Because it seems kind of melodramatic that you came here.”
“I didn’t come here. I came out west and you’re here.”
“Oh, make me feel unimportant. I thought we were going to have a moment. And you go and ruin it with facts.”
Jessica and I lie down together on her bed to go to sleep.
I’m in my underwear and she’s in a pair of pink pajamas with bunny rabbits on them.
Jessica says in the darkness, “I don’t think we should have sex.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m really sleepy and it wouldn’t help my self-esteem.”
“It wouldn’t help my self-esteem either,” I say.
“Vasily, you don’t need self-esteem.”
“Why don’t I need self-esteem?”
“You’re Russian.”
“Huh.”
“I have no idea what that means. It’s an excuse. I can’t have sex right now. I don’t know what is wrong with my pussy. It is wide right now.”
“Wide?”
“Yes, it takes more to fill it. You will be lost in there. You are average, but average won’t cut it with this hole.”
“You’re saying you’re embarassed because your pussy is big now.”
“Yes, and I can’t do it. My arms won’t do it anymore. I’m afraid. I know what the cost will be.”
“What will the cost be?”
“Listen, I know you. I know myself. I’m ruined. Do you want to have sex with a ruined woman?”
“I never mentioned having sex with you. You did.”
“Then why are you grilling me with questions?”
“I’m just talking.”
“This is hurting me. This whole thing.”
Jessica gets up, opens a bag on the floor and takes out a pill bottle.
She opens the pill bottle and takes a couple of pills and stumbles back into bed.
“That was dramatic,” I say.
“You don’t know drama.”
“I don’t know drama?”
“I am like da Vinci when it comes to drama. You are like a monkey drawing with crayons.”
“That was so weird.”
“Remember that time I cried for forty minutes so you wouldn’t go to the bar?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“That was great, wasn’t it? I just kept crying. It was wonderful. I could have stopped at any time, but I kept it up. Crying away until you gave in.”
“I knew you were acting.”
“I know you did, but you knew I wouldn’t stop acting until you gave in. And I knew you giving in was just acting and that you really wanted to go, but I wanted to exert power.”
“Remember that time you came in the living room and accused me of being a brat because I asked you politely to get me a glass of water.”
“Yeah, you sucked that day.”
“Why did I suck?”
“Because you didn’t give in. You sat there. I started crying and everything. I even brought up things you did in the past that were mean. And you sat there like a fucking rock staring me down. It was horrible.”
“So can I fuck you?”
“I don’t know. All right, but don’t touch me.”
“How am I supposed to not touch you if we’re fucking,” I say.
“I’m going to roll over on my side. There’s lube over there. Lube yourself up and put it in and you can pump for like ten minutes, okay?”
“That sounds cool.”
I take my boxers off and get the bottle of lube.
Jessica pushes her pajama bottoms off but leaves her shirt on.
She rolls over on her side.
I get behind her and insert my penis.
I pump.
Jessica makes no noise.
She stares at the wall.
I ejaculate.
I pull out and go to sleep.