2:15AM
Reid kept walking west on Santa Monica Boulevard. If the ghost wants to follow me, he thought, let it.
Pawn shop. Donuts. Massage. Liquor. Mufflers.… no cabs. Car wash. Printing. Flop house. Laundry. Tacos… still no cabs.
On the corner of Santa Monica and Vermont, Reid stopped beneath the canopy lights of an ARCO station. Let’s get a better look at this ghost.
It wasn’t just the hollows where eyes should be, the 40s attire, or overall skeletal appearance. It was something unexpected.
When you allowed your eyes to focus, the ghost appeared to be made of a million buzzing hexagons. Its presence in this world due not to biology but physics, its atomic structure laid bare. Translucent spaces between electrons. Not of the known periodic table.
But when Reid looked around, everything else—news boxes, parked vans, scraggly trees—all these appeared to be buzzing as well. His own mind, seen from inside out, seemed subject to pixilation. One floating thought could just as easily be another. Personality felt random.
He decided to play it cool.
“You got a smoke, or not,” he asked the ghost.
“Gave it up.”
Its voice came directly from its trachea.
Reid walked to the bulletproof service window of the ARCO station, unfolded a ten and slid it under the slot at the base of the window. The attendant returned his change with the smokes.
“Matches,” Reid said.
The attendant shook his head.
“Matches, matches, matches,” Reid repeated.
“No matches in a gas station,” the attendant said.
Of course not.
Nothing else was open. A million years since early humans learned to cultivate fire, where had this left him? Emboldened by necessity, he approached a guy drinking from a paper bag and asked for a light. The guy offered his own cigarette from which to light it, which struck Reid as profoundly generous.
Reid kept walking, now possessing fire. The ghost kept following.
“So what is it, then?” Reid asked him, exhaling smoke.
“You tell me.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You were born,” the ghost said.
This made no sense whatsoever.
Grime and gum spots passed underfoot. These too buzzed molecularly and would seem an abstraction, if you could get past the revolting nature of the city sidewalk.
Reid looked up again. A road sign with familiar numbers suddenly seemed to explain everything. Santa Monica Boulevard, as it crossed Los Angeles, was apparently the same as Route 66, the highway Reid imagined the ghost had been following this whole time, haunting his way across America.
“That’s it, isn’t it,” Reid said, pointing to the sign.
“Makes a good story,” the ghost said.
“So, this is the end of the road?”
“This is the City of Angels.”
The boulevard bent southwest at La Cienega. Reid failed to notice the side street he should have been looking for. Within a block of his hotel bed, he kept walking into Beverly Hills.
He’d been into meth at one point. Ketamine, he noticed, was different but the desire was similar, to keep going, going, going. There was a sweet pain in his feet from wearing the wrong shoes for a march the width of a city. This, too, was somehow okay.
Maybe he liked this ghost after all. He was intriguing. Reid was inclined to keep talking.
“So, this death thing,” Reid said.
“I misspoke,” the ghost said.
“About what.”
“About you being born.”
“Interesting.”
“There are no walls, it just keeps going.”
“From person to person.”
“From star to star.”
You couldn’t hope to see them past the light pollution, but Reid could almost feel the celestial bodies in all directions, now that he’d mentioned it.
“Yeah, shit, I think you’re right.”
Others were walking with them now. Just a few at first, then a whole crowd of spirits walking in the mists about them, trekking westward, with great sense of purpose. The destination was never specified but the magnetic draw was evident.
Beneath the 405 they kept walking. Reid no longer felt his body so much as the action of walking itself. It could not be stopped. As they sloped gradually into Santa Monica, a glowing drive-thru bank clock beamed 4:30, which seemed likely considering how long they’d been at this, but it could be any time.
Restaurants and stores were still hours away from being open but tilted toward the day, the deepest part of night now behind them.
A person sleeping at a bus stop sat straight up, as if he could plainly see the whole passing gathering, ghost after ghost after ghost.
A final cross street. A public park along a bluff. Beyond, a vastness so undeniable there was no longer any question. This entire sweeping journey, not only across Los Angeles, but across the entire country, it ended here.
The sea.
The ghost, who had grown silent, said one last thing.
“This is my stop.”
Whether he disappeared or was subsumed into the larger gathering of souls was unclear. The collective spirit energy that had buoyed Reid thus far carried him one last bit further, along the bluff, down a winding stairway, across a bridge and out onto the beach, almost to the water’s edge.
It was here that Reid collapsed onto the sand. It was here that he fell into a deep sleep.
# # #
The sound of an approaching vehicle was too big to be a car. Reid opened his eyes in the blinding sunlight, rolled over to face what looked like a piece of farm equipment, chugging steadily in his direction. It was pulling a giant rake.
Part of the tractor driver’s job was to differentiate clumps of seaweed from passed-out bodies. He swerved, leaving Reid undisturbed, a human lump surrounded by raked sand, like a boulder in a Japanese rock garden.
Reid rolled onto hands and knees, the process of rising to his feet a slow one. He was no longer high, but he wasn’t right, either. Something like having had a hot iron pressed against his brain, flattening out all the creases.
He patted his front jeans pocket. He was amazed his wallet was still there.
The vastness of ocean before him was irrefutable evidence of his relative insignificance on the planet, much less within the scheme of the universe. The roar of surf all-enveloping without the piercing highs of a night club sound system. It called to him.
Stumbling toward the water, an errant wave washed in before he could react, drenching his boots through to the socks. He made no attempt to move, other than reaching down in time to feel the wave slipping through his fingers on its way back out.
Standing back up, he spread the ocean’s wetness over his face and hair. Thus baptized in the Pacific, he turned from its expanse to face the continent that had beaten him and dumped him here.
One voice:
You need to get back now.
Another voice:
You have nothing to return to.
That his feet started moving toward the pier was more reflex than conscious decision. It was a big and obvious target. Once beneath the pier, its shade provided temporary relief from the sun. He staggered through a forest of wooden support piles which smelled strongly of fishing nets and the creosote which kept the pier from rotting into the sea.
Reemerging into the sunlight on the other side, the beach seemed to grow wider. Trudging the last fifty yards with sand-caked boots took more effort than crossing the entire city.
When he finally stepped onto the cement boardwalk, he caused a near collision with multiple passing cyclists and roller bladers, all of whom cursed him.
“Sorry, sorry,” he said, hands raised defensively.
He waded toward the safety of the pedestrian lane, where he straightened his heavy black clothing and began staggering among the day glo masses, body aching like a man twice his age.
An available bench appeared, he eased himself onto it. He reached for the smokes he’d bought at the ARCO station a few hours before. A soft pack, they’d been partially crushed by his collapse onto the beach. He stuck a bent cigarette in his mouth, still lacking the means to light it.
As if reading his predicament, an unshaven surfer in a ripped sleeveless t-shirt fell onto the bench beside him, Bic lighter flaring. Reid leaned into the guy’s dirty hands, cupped against the ocean breeze. Cigarette lit, Reid extended the sad-looking pack, from which the guy helped himself and lit his own.
“Running late,” the guy said, “gotta get to St. Anne’s by ten.”
Reid scanned the guy’s face, half expecting another phantasm, but this one’s skin was all too real, the smell of cheap beer from the pores indisputable.
“Yeah?” Reid said, his voice so gruff he didn’t recognize it.
“Gonna miss breakfast.”
“I’m okay.”
“Suit yourself, brother.”
It took a moment after the guy split to process the exchange. Until now, what street people had noticed Reid looked at him as a potential mark. This one seemed to regard him as one of his own.
Reid smoked the rest of his cigarette and stubbed it out on the sidewalk, forgetting a previous resolution to chain smoke to keep the fire going.
Rubbing his face, the stubble felt more substantial than he’d imagined. How long had he been out here on this boardwalk? Like the single flash of a strobe light, it came to him that this was very possibly his actual life out here on the boardwalk, the tour bus a dream he’d woken from.
His brain continued to press against the inside of his skull like his swollen toes crammed within the wet boots. The color balance of everything was off. A low tone intensified within his cerebral cortex and a sudden, wincing pain in his frontal lobe caused him to close his eyes. Was this what a migraine felt like?
He wasn’t sure how long he sat with his eyes closed against the sun’s glare. It was only when he sensed himself in shadow that he opened his eyes to find someone standing before him, staring at him.
“Are you Reid Whitaker?”
Reid shaded his eyes, looked up. The kid was maybe college age, checkered Vans, plaid shirt. His question seemed almost existential, considering Reid doubted his own identity at the moment, but in all likelihood it was a simple yes-or-no question.
“Yeah,” Reid said.
“I knew it. You mind?” He sat down on the bench next to Reid. “I was at the El Rey last night, it was fucking awesome.”
Reid wasn’t convinced the show wasn’t a dream. Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe he was dreaming now.
“Alright then,” he said to the kid.
“What’re you doing here?”
Probably not a good idea to actually explain. Somewhere within mental muscle memory, he remembered how to coast conversationally as minor rock royalty, use as few words as necessary.
“Long story.”
“Must be,” the kid said, maybe a comment on Reid’s appearance.
In the near distance, Reid spied a colorful umbrella, guessed it to be a coffee cart. Working a twenty from his wallet, he handed it to the kid.
“Grab me a coffee?”
“Totally.”
“Get something for yourself.”
The kid hightailed it to the coffee cart like a jackrabbit, youthful energy miraculous. Reid rubbed his forehead, the connection between palm and frontal lobe providing temporary relief.
“I got you an Americano,” the kid said when he returned.
It tasted good. As he sipped it, Reid thought about Excedrin, how it had caffeine in it. This was liquid pain reliever. Seemed to help.
Senses engaged, Reid began to accept a base-level reality in which he was a touring musician miles from where he should be. Some course of action would soon be necessary.
Weighing limited capacities against the rest of the world’s current perception of him as a homeless person, enlisting this kid’s aid seemed his best shot.
“I need to get back to West Hollywood. Can you get me to a bus stop or something?”
“You don’t wanna take a bus!” the kid said, in disbelief that a guitar hero would dream of such a thing. “I’ll drive you!”
“That would be…appreciated.”
Keeping up with the kid took effort. Every joint in Reid’s body ached in a way that felt as if old age had taken a grip on his thirty-year-old body in the course of a single night.
The kid kept looking back as they wound their way from boardwalk to side street, where he’d parked a powder blue Chevy Malibu that surely he’d inherited from his grandma or something. He’d hung fuzzy dice from the rearview to make it seem cooler.
Falling into the front seat and shutting the door, Reid breathed a sigh of relief. This was the first time he’d felt remotely safe since he’d left his hotel room last night, which seemed forever ago.
“We just gotta pick up my friend Kevin, okay?” the kid said. “I’m Tyler, by the way.”
“Tyler,” Reid repeated, and closed his eyes.
Not knowing LA geography, Reid nonetheless sensed the zigzag course to Kevin’s house was not remotely on the way to West Hollywood.
When they pulled up, it was actually more like Kevin’s parents’ house.
“I’ll just be a minute,” Tyler said.
Time remained an elusive concept. Maybe it was a minute. Maybe it was a half hour. When Tyler reemerged with his friend, Kevin stooped to look through the windshield to confirm.
“Fucking A,” Kevin said.
“Told you,” Tyler said.
Tyler got into the driver’s seat, Kevin fell into the back and just kept staring, waiting for something to happen, so Reid looked back.
“Hey Kevin,” Reid said.
Reid Whitaker had just used his name. It almost blew his mind.
“Hey Reid,” he said.
Tyler smiled real wide, like he’d just brokered the deal of the century. He threw it in drive and off they went.
“What’s the name of your hotel?” he asked Reid
“West Park, something like that. It’s off Melrose.”
“I know that place, all the bands stay there.”
Again, the route did not seem direct.
“Uroboros last night, fucking killer,” Kevin finally piped up.
“Think so?”
“Totally. What effects pedals were you using?”
Here we go, Reid thought, gear head. Nothing he could tell this kid would ever live up to his imagination.
“I dunno. Some overdrive distortion thing, sorta just happens.”
Kevin kept nodding his head until he realized this was the extent of the wisdom he was going to receive.
“Cool,” he said.
“Hey, you wanna go to In-N-Out or something?” Tyler asked.
“I, uh, gotta get back to that hotel,” Reid said.
“Yeah, of course,” Tyler said, and with that his sense of direction seemed to shift from a generalized drift to a focused effort to deliver Reid to his destination.
When they finally pulled up in front of Park West, Tyler jumped out to shake Reid’s hand.
“Sorry, I guess Kevin’s house was a little out of the way,” he apologized.
“No worries, really appreciate the ride, Ty.”
“He just wouldn’t have believed me. Plus he’s, like, my best friend, you know?”
Reid smiled and nodded like he understood.
“Yeah, I used to have one of those,” he said.
# # #
When Reid got to his suite, the key card didn’t work. Angled three different ways, still no dice. He headed down to the lobby where he found his bags on the floor by the front desk.
“There you are,” Roncho said, racing over. “Grab your stuff, we’re going to LAX.”
“Where is everybody?”
“They’re there already, we’re running late.”
“For what?”
“I’ll explain on the way over.”
Reid could tell from Roncho’s voice that the rush was for real, but that just wasn’t Reid’s fucking problem right now. Going along with the gang was no longer an effective game plan. Everyone was taking care of their own needs, now it was Reid’s turn. If that meant they were late for a plane or whatever, that was just the way it was going to be.
“Tell me now.”
Roncho, who’d danced backwards to make this thing happen, was at the end of his rope, but at least Reid had showed up. He looked at his watch, calculated they had exactly three minutes. He gave Reid the Reader’s Digest version.
It wasn’t hard for Reid to understand that, since the tour was over, it made more sense for them all to fly back to New York, regroup from there.
What Reid couldn’t understand was why Jordan had ditched him the night before and left him to fend for himself in Los Angeles. He couldn’t understand why Liz had narced on him and thrown his relationship into chaos.
Making nice-nice with either on a flight back to New York, he just couldn’t picture it. And he definitely, in his current state, could not picture dealing with Kristina seven hours from now. That’d be the end of that for sure.
Roncho’s plan worked for Roncho. But it didn’t work for Reid.
“Where’s the bus?” Reid asked.
“It’s around back, Kenny’s about to head out.”
Reid thought of the nights he’d spent up front on the bus. Kenny was the only one who was solid, who looked after him time and again, who hadn’t fucked him over. He’d even combed his hair and made it all the way from the Valley to see what had turned out to be their last show.
“I’m going back on the bus,” Reid said.
“You can’t, Kenny’s not going back to New York, he’s driving straight to Tennessee.”
“Works for me.”
“Look Reid, the plans have been made, we are flying back to New York.”
Reid picked up his bags. Leaving Roncho at the front desk, he headed for the backdoor.
“I’m riding with Kenny,” he said.
—
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