A blurring movement disturbed Ryan's concentration, which
had focused previously on a steaming cup of mocha placed
between a battered coffee-stained LA Times Calendar section
and the left hand of his distraction for the evening, Lisa.
She was his age, wearing an aqua blue top with a florescent
green Care Bear emblazoned on its center, and she was
chattering incessantly about whatever. Ryan sighed and
shifted his wandering attention over to the next green
plastic table, while still wisely feigning interest in
Lisa's monologue. There was nothing of interest there
though, just a bunch of high schoolers, just as bored as he
was. I glanced around seeing if I recognized any of them as
they took long calculated sips and munches from their
drinks and other assorted goodies. I knew some of them as
friends of Josh, but they were of the "never say hi
variety", so I just nodded and smiled. The Grove was quite
busy for a Thursday night, with another clump of bored
patrons inside the building itself. It was very cold
outside the Grove, and Ryan shivered slightly while looking
at Lisa. We all wondered where Justin was, he was usually
here by now. By coming to the Grove at least four times a
day Justin would sate his lust for caffeine, and keep the
place in business. We had calculated out that Justin, along
with Josh, approximated for about 63.9 percent of the
place's revenue, though we battled daily to beat that
statistic. We guzzled as much coffee as we could, leading
to our own minor financial problems. It was mutual good
policy to follow Justin's advice to the letter, "A person
shouldn't add up the money they spend on their hobbies,
cause more than likely it'll give them a heart attack that
they spent THAT MUCH." always accompanied by a wink and
then a purchase.
I checked to make sure my car was still in the parking lot
where I had left it, and Ryan's eyes began a slow studied
glance of the area. There was Lisa sitting there, short
brunette hair with yellow "little kid" barrettes around an
introspective face, the near empty parking lot framing a
stereotypical suburban mini-mall with a dash of small town
serenity, and the frozen sky stars barely visible from
light pollution. The constellations I could pick out were
subdued and blurred together, nearly invisible. Everything
was the same as it ever was in lovely Villa Park and the
Grove, our joint home away from home. Though all the stores
in the mini-mall were closed, a beaming red Ralph's sign
added ambiance to the Grove's own comforting yellow
atmosphere. I scoped out the stores of the mini-mall to see
who was still around and who was out of business. The store
at the very end of the mall was the most problematic, we
had seen about four businesses try and fail in that spot in
the past year; D'angelos, Fluffies Fritters, The Card
Store, and Bagel Me!, all crashed and burned. Fingers
drumming, wired on caffeine, Ryan held Lisa's silky hand,
slowly caressing it, as we waited for Justin. Justin
arrived in his typical fashion, a rapid, looping boom in
the distance slowly getting louder and louder as the
listener's ears converged on its epicenter as it zoomed
into the parking lot filling it with deep, rumbling bass.
Justin languidly rolled off his motorbike and walked over
to the Grove, his orange jacket catching the red glare from
the Ralph's sign and casting an interesting apocalyptic
shadow on his friendly looking face. Inside the Grove Kia
smiled, and I could hear the cappuccino machine kick up
like a screaming cat as it prepared one of his favorites, a
raspberry iced mocha. I had only tried it once but it was
like drinking a bit of heaven, but a bit too sweet for me
to drink on a regular basis. The high schoolers next to us
whispered and smiled too, Justin was well known and you
could say loved by the Grove community. He usually had the
wits and the "know how" of making even the most hopelessly
boring weekday night into a mild adventure. Justin was also
a close friend of ours. Justin smiled, flicked a newly
found ATM card to us, flourished, and went inside. I
smiled, Ryan smiled, Lisa smiled, and everyone always
smiled, Justin was one of those people that made life
interesting for us.
Justin had sat down inside, and we could see a look of
concentration on his face as he scanned the headlines of
The Times Life and Style section. Ryan's washed out blue
eyes moved slowly up from Lisa's hand and locked with her
own emerald green orbs, silent questions and conversation
passing between them. Ryan was notorious for not dating
anyone more than three weeks, give or take a day, and he
was getting to that point with Lisa. Lisa didn't care
really one way or another, but remained hopeful, now that
the end of the third week was approaching. I wondered what
Justin was up to tonight. A slight sound disturbed the
silence. Ryan, a bit on edge, let the beep from his pager
send him a couple of feet out of his chair. The pager was
transparent blue, and I liked how you could see the
circuitry, it made it seem more high-tech than it was. From
where he had placed it upon Justin's arrival, it continued
beeping as it jittered across the green table in a zany
movement not unlike what I imagine a cockroach's death
dance would look like. All of us, transfixed, watched it
complete its journey all the way to the edge of the table
where it fell to the ground with a small swoosh. Ryan
grunted in horror as Lisa's hand snaked out to rescue it.
She looked at the number, sighed and handed it to Zak.
Zak's dark face lightened briefly and then went thoughtful.
Everyone at the Grove knew that look, it was the "should I
go home to my girl", or see what Justin's got for us
tonight look. I sipped my orange juice, Ryan's head wobbled
a bit and slumped to the table, Lisa curled a small twirl
in her hair and that pretty much decided it. Zak took off
with a whir into the blackness beyond the glow from the
Ralph's sign. That was Ryan's second favorite thing about
this suburb, the city had no streetlights, perfect for
toilet papering, which we used to great effect in high
school. Lisa wondered where Josh was.
"Want another mocha Lisa?"
It was so stereotypical Ryan, his going out with Lisa.
Ever since the seventh grade it had been Ryan's unbreakable
routine to scope out the people we had crushes on, and then
without fail date them for three weeks or so and then throw
them away. It was like he trusted our judgement more than
his. Put simply he would leave us to find the choice cuts
and then wrap them up, take them home, and consume them. At
first we got rather ticked at his rather crazy biological
cycle, but he was always very open with any information
gleaned from his little expeditions. Ryan was like the
preview channel, giving us short synopsis's of what to
expect beyond the "crush" level, their favorite toothpaste,
if they had any pets, how mellow their parents where and
what sort of music they liked. I had a crush on Lisa for
about four years over the course of high school but had
remarkably kept it a secret from Ryan, and everyone else.
It actually wasn't that hard or remarkable I guess since at
that point in time I had this shy paranoia going for me. It
kept me safely isolated except from my closest friends.
That's why Lisa thought she still had a chance with Ryan,
and perhaps Ryan thought this was finally "it", a
relationship outside the playpen of our crushes, in which
something might actually bloom. I saw the whole
relationship as a sort of inside joke, with everyone else
looking in. I hoped fervently that they would break up.
Whatever happened Lisa and Ryan were two good friends, and
I knew that even in a breakup Josh, Justin, Lisa, Ryan, and
I would still be tighter than crazy-glued chopsticks.
The air was inky black beyond the mini-mall, but the time
was still afternoon by my internal clock. The seconds
flowed by on my watch. Ryan thought 1:00am still qualified
as early evening, Lisa tended towards the more conservative
6:00pm as her benchmark for the end of the evening and the
beginning of night. The Grove, especially Kia, agreed with
Lisa and started to shut down around 11:00pm. Ryan, Justin,
and I hated this and had pushed for 24/7 business hours for
the Grove. Kia just laughed and shook her head. 3:00am was
about right for early evening to me, given what night it
was and what was going on. Unlike the others, and one of
the benefits of being an ICS major, I could stay up forever
given the right chemical formula of events and
consumption.
"Sooooooo whassup tonight anyway?"
"Couple of parties, couple of shows, couple of movies, is
that a rhetorical question Ryan?"
"Typical Orange County yuck...with all the stuff happening
just forty-five minutes or so away you would think that
some of it would dribble over here."
"Movies, shows, and parties are the dribble Lisa. And of
course the crime. Hear about that ritual slaying and drug
bust up on Mapletree? Gruesome."
"Six tweaked out teens, one egotistical maniac, fifty
pounds of coke, just add water. BOOM!"
"Ouch."
"Yikes. Hope it wasn't anyone we know."
I usually had a more juicy detail than a ritual slaying,
its was different but the same every week. It had been the
usual kooky type of cult murder, of the type you would see
on "Hard Copy", or "A Current Affair". There was nothing
original or interesting about such a thing any more. But
having just been through finals, I slacked a bit, and
grabbed that story to bring up. Priorities are priorities
after all, and school always takes the top notch. I had my
parents to thank for that one. Justin saved us from the
agony of beating the dead horse on the murder by finishing
his coffee and paper and strolling outside to join
us.
"Sup Justin, where's Josh?"
Josh and Justin were like brothers, in the most idealistic
sense, to each other. Like Ryan, I had known Justin for a
long time, we had gone to the same middle school together,
and then high school. One night we were all over at Zak's
watching movies and stuff since his parents were out of
town. All was peaceful and normal until the knock came on
the door. The movie we had been watching was Tank Girl, and
I was glad for the interruption, the flick was playing
tricks with my mind. Ryan opened the door and Josh stumbled
in, his favorite Jolly Green Giant T-shirt ripped in a
couple spots, his only support being Justin's J tattooed
arm. A single red drop of blood flowed from a slight cut
above Josh's left eyebrow and landed on Zak's white rug
with a soft plop. Both of their faces were pale, vampiric,
but Justin's also had a resolved cast to it. Lisa gave a
little gasp and then sprung into action like a wind-up toy,
her summer red cross training taking hold. She always had
complained that her mom had forced her into it, and that
she never got to do what she wanted to do. We noted for the
record she wasn't complaining now. We laid Josh out on the
rug and Lisa started prodding, imploring for bandages,
gauze, and a first aid kit if Zak had it. Ryan went to get
the stuff, I helped Lisa get his shirt off, Zak just stared
at the single point of blood on the carpet, and Justin
knelt protectively over Josh. All that we gleaned was that
he had been badly beaten. Later we learned that his sister
had gotten a bit distraught after Josh almost killed her
mangy little rat dog, Runt. Lisa, with relief, said nothing
was broken and patched him up. Justin went to get
acquainted with Zak's trashcan and we all stayed up till
around 6:00am talking about what it would be like to see
Earth from space, what we expected from high school and
just how cool it would be to have a meerkat as a pet.
"Hey Justin."
"Week working for you man?"
"Great, great, week's been going great. Josh had to study
so I'm soloing tonight, at least for now. How you all
been?"
"Same old, same old, no sleep."
"Got highlights in my hair, but the place screwed them up
see."
"What color is that anyway Lisa, teal?"
"Just got done with finals scary stuff. The professors
must be on something when they write those things"
"Heheh tell me about it."
The chit chat always lasted a little long for my liking. I
was an unabashed introvert, and so my mouth would wag
beyond my shock story of the week only if certain key
phrases came up. Though sometimes, randomly, we would
stumble upon a subject of mutual interest and rant about it
till the Grove closed and we were forced to either leave
and go hang out at Zak's or go home. I always enjoyed that,
when we actually conversed, it was better than sitting
there staring into each other's faces all night, which is
what usually happened. It made me feel less foolish to
actually talk. Silence is awkward when your not with the
right group of people. Whatever the case, silence or
conversation only lasted so long when Justin was
there.
"Flip open your computer, I want to check
something."
"Justin, whatcha got for us?"
"Justin, are the bad highlights noticeable, or is the
light too dim?"
"Looks interesting, I guess."
"Where do you want me to go Justin?"
"Surf on over to OC Calendar's web site, there should be
an electronic flier there"
My laptop hit the site with a soft whir of the hard drive,
information flowing seamlessly, invisibly across my
cellular modem from who knows where. Justin turned the
laptop to face the others and the light from the screen
played across their faces. I could see the reflection of
the flier in their eyes twirling and swirling hypnotically.
I always liked the energy the various groups poured into
these electronic fliers. This one was especially good, in
the background, there was a whirling Mandelbrot set cycling
through several million colors, while in the foreground a
small animated Calvin and Hobbes gave the information via
speech bubbles. We said our farewells to Kia and headed out
into the night. No high schoolers came tagging-along
tonight, good thing too. They always made me feel over-age
with their under-age mentalities. They felt like pieces of
baggage whenever they came, except for a few of Josh's
friends, who were tolerable.
"I'll drive, you pay for gas."
"Let me get my purse and um some stuff from my car...one
sec."
"I'm a little short on cash Justin, can you float me for
tonight?"
"Sure, I think its free anyway."
"Location Justin?"
"It there at the bottom of the flier. It shouldn't be too
crowded either, just the normal people, and of course
random stragglers like us"
"Good I hate a big crowd....Ryan you ok to drive? You look
exhausted.?"
"Heheh Lisa chill...I'm fine, you know I can drive in my
sleep ."
Ryan's navy blue sport utility vehicle ripped down the
black surface streets with its usual aggressive fury,
hunting in the night for the location being sucked out of
the website onto my laptop and then into the car. It took
only ten seconds to lock the coordinates into the car's
map. I was pleased to see how close it was. As we headed
down the 91E freeway the light pollution gradually faded
and the stars began to regain their luminosity. Outside of
the cities things were darker, clearer, constellations were
actually distinguishable, and you could even see the Milky
Way if you got far enough up into the mountains. We laid
back observing through the sunroof the astronomy lesson
going on above the freeway. We could feel the freeway was a
curvy line, and saw dark hills rising on both sides as the
SUV's lights cut the night in front of us. The light
sometimes reflected back to us from stunningly massive
freeway signs, beckoning us with freedom and familiar
places. Drive to Sacramento. Drive to San Bernadino. Drive
to Vegas. Drive to Forest Home. The silent roar of the
SUV's engine and the tinkling of bottles rolling around on
the SUV's floor lulled us with its discordant melody, since
Ryan's stereo was nothing more than torn out wiring right
now, disconnected. I could see the sliver of the moon
setting to the west behind us reflected in the SUV's rear
view mirror. Lisa had brought Skittles, Starburst, and
Granola Bar's to munch on and her favorite Mighty Mouse PEZ
dispenser, and we guzzled JOLT to keep us awake.
The sign said Featherly Regional Park and at 90 mph the
death spiral off ramp nearly killed us all with laughter.
The yellow speed limit sign of 25mph made Ryan feel a
little twinge of guilt though, so he slowed down slightly.
By democratic vote we agreed to let me drive next time. The
map showed the location was just off the freeway in the
Park, and so the car headed that way. Ryan's SUV pulled up
to the Ranger's station, a standard issue, dilapidated wood
shed with one of those rise-up turnstile roadblock things
about five minutes from the off-ramp. A crinkled old
woman's face glared back at us, she made a slight motion
suggesting forward movement, and gave us a freakish grin.
The turnstile went up and we drove in. It was pitch black,
no taxpayer money going to street lights in a state park at
12:00am at night. Parking was abundant so we set ourselves
into what seemed like a demarcated parking spot and got out
and walked. Then we undertook the primary rite of passage
searching outward with our ears and our eyes into the
towering oak trees, the fallen dead leaves of October
crunching beneath our feet, until we came upon a clearing
bathed in soft green and orange light, radiating with
immense sound. About two hundred or so bodies were there,
in undefinable light, clustered, talking, listening,
bopping around and looking at the stars, spread in an
uneven but dense arc outward from black geometry at the
back of the clearing which was silhouetted against the
night sky. The silhouettes consisted of several rows of
monolithic rectangles and squares. A female figure towards
their center hunched over a black box encrusted with knobs,
sliders, cabling, and digital readouts, her hands moving
confidently back and forth between two vinyl circles of
blackness on either side of the box. I went to watch her
manipulations of reality with the others for a while until
I could feel the sound reaching dangerously into the
"titanittus zone", and we bade a hasty retreat to avoid
deafness.
Josh's bright face materialized in front of us about two
hours after arriving. We knew that organic chemistry had no
chance against Justin and Josh's friendship. Lisa was
thoroughly thrilled and gave him a monster hug before he
was whisked into vivid conversation with Justin. Lisa,
seeing a lost cause, decided to head off to make the social
rounds. It always amazed me that despite the churn of these
things she always seemed to know at least fifty percent of
the people, and at these smaller things seventy-five
percent of them by the end, if only by name. Lisa was the
extroversion to my intractability, she had the people thing
down pat. There was a little fake lake off to the side of
the clearing and so Ryan and I decided to take a breather
and relax for a bit. It was getting towards 3:00am. Peak
time of our nocturnal awareness and of the forest around
us. A slight mist was rising from the lake letting the
periodic lighting from the clearing trace futuristic
patterns in the air. Aliens. Weird fractal things.
Triangles. A mountain lion climbing upward in mountains of
mist. Whirlpools. They were discordant things formed of
neon blue and neon green laser light and moving to some
primal beat. They were puppet strings with my senses,
perceptions blending together to soak up every confusing
whirl. Above the sound of the clearing I could hear the
slight movement of cold wind in the tree's branches and the
yipping of something from somewhere far in the distance. It
made me picture rabbits howling at the moon. Giggling, I
looked around, there was so much just to sit there and
savor, completely relaxed, Ryan and I , just like the old
days. Ryan looked deathly serious.
"We're getting older, and it sucks."
"Huh?"
"We're getting older, and it sucks."
"Yeah I know. It sucks."
" Do you ever wish you could go back and change
things?"
"Of course..."
"Or stay at a point in time forever."
"You can stay at a point in time forever. Its called
death."
"Lisa's leaving for med school in a month..."
It was getting loud out there, even though we were a bit
away from the clearing. I don't think I heard as clearly as
maybe I should of, his lips moved but I couldn't tell
exactly what they said. I was thinking about other things,
but followed the fragments of Ryan's conversation that bled
through. My heart beat wave's counterpoint to those flowing
through the air from the clearing. Staring at Lisa tonight
especially, looking at her interact with Ryan some strange
and disturbing feelings had roiled to the surface. I wanted
to axe murder him when Lisa was giving him that back
massage. The feelings would not have been notable except
they where completely alienating since I had never felt
anything like them before. I was a little on edge I guess
from something, maybe the caffeine. My mind was blinking,
imploding, my emotions on ice, on fire. I couldn't pin down
a sensation, my feelings cycling like the colors of the
mandelbrot set in the flier. My gut said talk it out with
Ryan, like the old days. It was impossible. We always just
chatted now, enjoying memories and experiences as always.
We never got as deep as we used to, when we were younger,
going to the same high school seeing each other every day.
Things were distanced now by city's freeways, only drawn
together by places.
"Remember the old days?"
The Coffee Grove had wanted to change its name three years
ago. Its teenybopper clientele wanted it changed rather,
not the owners. Since its inception the Grove had slowly
been invaded, taking the bleed from the school only 1/3 of
a mile away from it. Ryan and I had seen the inevitability
of change coming as the demographic of the Grove contrasted
against that of its local rich, snobby, senior citizens.
But our community's most reactionary members appeared to be
its high schoolers. Our first time at the place had been to
play cards, there was nowhere else in the city to do it.
Every other place would give us these dirty looks. In
thanks we actually began buying stuff, muffins, orange
juice, cookies, and iced cappuccinos. We would first get
some lactic acid buildup running in cross-country and then
pop by and let a blended ice-mocha course through our
veins, stimulating us with artificial energy. We'd talk
geek speak, computer stuff, politics, and sometimes lapse
back into music so the hot coffee-maids could jump into the
conversation. Lisa had worked there, and served us our
first stimulants in the history of things. The name the
teens wanted to change it to was silly, Coffeelandia. As
some of the longest standing patron's Ryan and I had final
say, and we told Kia not to change it. Ryan thought some
things should remain constant, the world was accelerating,
things fragmenting everywhere but here. I just enjoyed the
power trip of pissing off a bunch of high schoolers. Our
apartment phone lines got nuked, we called their parents,
and fried their schools computer systems, changing all the
offenders grades to F's. With Justin's help that took about
ten minutes, the calls to the parents took an hour.
Ryan was looking at me or was it the sky, eyes huge like
an owl. The lighting was too chaotic to get a good look at
each others faces. His face was getting blurred, though not
unrecognizable, in the non-light. Ryan disappeared. Lisa
came back.
"Hey Lisa, enjoying yourself?"
"As expected, this rocks. Also just ran into Zak and
Terrestra."
"Yeah."
"Do you remember that time at the Grove?"
"When?
"When we talked about what the heck we were going to do
with ourselves after we got sick of bumming around
here?"
"Yeah."
" I think I've decided to become a doctor."
"Huh?"
"A doctor, I want to save lives."
"A doctor, cool. You would be good at saving lives."
"Like my mom..."
It was getting really loud now, a swirling hurricane of
sound, crunchy and fluid rolling over the grass and lake,
invading every crack and crevasse, mental and physical.
Unlike Ryan, I couldn't hear a word she was saying,
fragments came through but it sounded like a foreign
language. I could still hear the woodland though, the
sounds of crickets near the lake, and the yipping
recognizable as coyotes, the same sound I heard as it
echoed across the hills next to my house late at night up
working on some computer project. Her lips moved, and I
resigned myself to incomprehension. I just enjoyed being
there, nowhere else, with no worries and no apprehension. I
watched, too, more than I had ever watched before, nodding
my head at a good interval, smiling back when she smiled at
me. We pseudo-talked for about half an hour I guess. It was
perfect despite the fact it was a one-way connection. My
mind realized it was enough, the friendship, and the hot
and cold of the feelings about her and Ryan faded into
exhaustion and apathy. Feelings like that were irrelevant
to me now, and time was passing way too quickly. Too many
things were constant for me to worry that through the years
it was the friendships that made relationships not the
crushes.. Her face had gotten all blurry and indistinct,
smudged with exhaustion. Lisa disappeared. Josh and Justin
came back.
"Ever been cross-country ?"
"Ryan and I ran in high school, why?"
"No I mean across the country."
"Like those massive road trips your parent's took a couple
years ago."
"I hate those. "
"Its life, big journeys, I think Josh and I are going to
try it."
"That is of course if I can get my parents permission,
Justin."
"They trust Justin, shouldn't be a problem..."
On an off glance I noticed that the clearing had changed.
It was like time-travel, seeing into a future where I was
utterly alone. Last time I looked, the clearing had still
been pretty packed with people. It was a bit disconcerting
feeling the absence of people where they had existed
before. Pretty much everyone was gone now except the people
who had put the evening on. They looked like little robots,
picking up and depositing the debris of the night into
orange trash bags, methodically and soundlessly. We helped
a bit to show our thanks for a cop-free time. As the final
plastic water bottle was consigned to its fate in a
landfill, Zak, Terrestra, Josh, Justin, Ryan, Lisa and I
formed our traditional "we are exhausted but happy" pile on
a small hillock overlooking the clearing, and watched the
sun rise spreading fiery gold across the scrub laden hills
to either side of the valley. We could hear the whir of
cars on the freeway, and our tired bodies also felt a
slight dampness from the dew-soaked grass. We gave one last
collective blink as the sun rose fully and seared our tired
heavy eyes, and we strolled back to Ryan's SUV, parked
three feet away from ramming into an elaborate wooden
jungle gym. Cramming in, since Zak and Terrestra's ride had
ditched them, we headed back down the 91W freeway, towards
home, school, work, whatever and boring days.