The Vista

The vista is at once stark and ad infinitum gorgeous. You would break over hills to find the highway before you, spotted dark like sweat stains from a desert shower that is running a distant marathon ahead of you. The kind of rain that evaporates as soon as it lands, like the kiss of a woman you would rather forget. That smell of earth disturbed by a rain that comes in hot, that signals a grand forgetting of years in the belly.

Your commitment to listening only to radio stations you can pick up in your Uhaul—no podcasts, no playlists—has stranded you in the frequency of God country, the few gospel channels that dial in clear in an otherwise brine of static. There’s Christian country, hard to stomach. Christian rap, a hilarity. And Christian pop, surprisingly adept at pulling on the strings of your heart, still left exposed after the sutures have scarred over, tendrils breaking through the stone and mortar you have lain under for a score of winters.

You play along. Entertain the idea that, as you barrel down towards the City of Sin, you will experience a come-to-jesus moment. That if you only believe, if you scrape your knees on the concrete in holy supplication until they weep rubies, if all the detritus of your tresspasses would suddenly defy gravity, you could believe. Now free of a checkered past, only a few chess pieces left on its burnished and battle scarred surface. The King about to tip over. You could leave behind a world white hot and burning, gangsta glam VS bedazzled Police State—we all traded quips and one-liners over a gun fight and a laugh track. You could leave behind that small and sordid affair, and her, and her, and also her.

Then a burst of static jumps the needle, and the radio snaps to the bottom of the news, and you find a chuckle in you that, when it lifts your mouth and edges your eyes, you will swear to people that it makes for a fine grin, not a snarl, on God.

Let’s recall winds that whip up a second skin of blurry sand along the hillocks and plateaus a million miles away from here. Pieces of dunewood that have been tumbled and sun bleached and weigh less than the hollow of bird bones. There you walked barefoot on sand that carried a not-too-hot heat and yet it scoured your soles. Nobody else around. Beaches in the vista.  Heart is light, head is clear. You were alone, not lonely.

This is the solitude that runs a distant marathon behind you as you careen towards a paradise of vice and sex, money, drugs, kill or be killed, gang gang. There is an opportunity, a final snatch at the brass ring, the fulfillment of ghetto dreams. Your brother has promised this. There will be camaraderie, brothers at arms, hands that clasp yours in the complex handshake and sign language of game recognize game. There will be acolytes who see you as you were, who praise your past victories. There will be temptation. Also, eyes of compatriots half-lidded in the parking lot, piles of beer empties by the warehouse roll-up door. Also, that long conversation with the OG shared over menthols and some new strain of weed bioengineered in labs, not streetborn. He will tell you things that are laugh-out-loud and cry-alone-later cuz we do not show our fellow men our weaknesses in person.

Las Vegas: let’s discover buildings there that duck down as if dodging hot ones whistling overhead. Or lean over as if the half pint of ass pocket gin has done the deed, so brick and mortar creak with a drunken stupor. This is the ‘hood after all. No, the ghetto, after all. No, that’s not right either, as we reshape language to reflect more of the others we have ethered out. Our own implicitness in the crimes against humanity we suffer and support.

Let’s observe the corner stores and mental health clinics in the cracks and crevices of a city applying makeup over recent bruises. Ruin porn temptations 360 degrees...not to mention triple digit degrees Fahrenheit 24/7. Mid-pandemic. Furrows and cracks in concrete will remind you of the faces of old casino workers after a life of slinging drinks and dealing cards in smoke drenched halls. Faces of street walkers will be avatars of fatigue, exhausted from the exhaust of the cars that idle by, the occasional stop to negotiate the price of a handjob, or more. 

From the not-too-distance are the spires of the strip, the only skyline in town. Along the horizon, sky and mountain will kiss at the peaks of a jagged, hyperventilating heartbeat. Your shoulders will scrape past throngs of people yet you are alone alone. There will be eyes that rove across you but never see you.

—You got something?

—Yeah, I got something. There’s a shipment of orchids from Hawaii dropping in. I know the when and where, waiting on the who. My people on the Big Island are particular about the who. Also, the Black Mariah’s been spotted on the Northside. Same kinda get-up as we used to get in the 916. Giving you enough rope.

—We know. They been dropping mostly small arms, 3-D printers, and some new kinda drug we haven’t coined a name for yet.

—What iz it do?
            He offers me a smoke. As hot as it is, topping out at 114, I am told, I take one.

—Fuck if I know. Gives you fever dreams. Hallucinations of grandeur. Same shit, new substance. We’re thinking we market the shit as a resin, or some kinda crystal.

—It’s gotta have a good name, I point out. —Like ‘Glow,’ or ‘FWB.’

The cock of his head as he lights my cigarette. FWB?

—‘Friends With Benefits.’ Like, a name these days has to be totally fucking divorced from what the product is or totally literal and on brand. Google, the fuck’s a google?

He gets it. —But like Soundcloud is telling you it’s just sounds in the cloud.

I nod. —What a time to be alive. What else?

—You get the signal about the congressman?

—Yeah. He wants to make sure Morgana is available when he’s in town. Can’t get enough of her sexmagicc hoo-doo. He hasn't seen her in her crone form. Wouldn’t that blow his mind. White hair, sagging titties.

He laughs, a sound like a thing dragged across gravel by the beast that has it by the neck. Claps me on the shoulder so I can roll with it, our body language a script so we can scan the street for one-times or the Feds—or worse, the shadow walkers who might be watching—without looking like we do so. Absolute invisibility in a world full of eyes on the Strip is key. No shifty behavior, no looking suspicious in our crew. You look at us, we’re just two homeboys on the Strip in between casinos, shit-talking, nothing more to see here. Near my feet Queen Hyena ruffles her fur, nuzzles my leg. Only I can see her. I trust her vigilance. She growls: we're safe.

I nod. He looks into his pack of smokes and hands it to me with a shrug as if I can have the last one. Now I’ve got the Wirecutter.

He says, —I’ll let her know. She’s getting sick of his shit. I’m telling her, not much longer, Queen.

—No, not much. Don’t know who we’ll pitch him to yet, but the Big Island’s working on that.

He holds out his hand, palm up.  —Rock, scissors, paper, who gets to host Morgana next?

I land on rock. He smiles, hands me the condo keycard. Not like I haven’t hosted her before, but already, like a runt from Pavlov’s litter, I can taste her blood smeared across my mouth.

—

There will be a woman, an old school crush from high school, and the two of you will crash into each other with whiskey and a loootta fucking. It won't end well. The both of you have promise in each other’s eyes but not the will to deliver. Too much vice in your veins, not enough valor. You know this but you take solace in her breasts, running your tongue down her belly. The drinking doesn’t help. Your brother will betray you. You will lose old loyalties, the homies, yourself into the bottle. Nights will be drenched in dreamsweat, days will shake with fever. The Queen Hyena will nurse you along as your downward spiral becomes rope, then chain, then barbed wire, tightening around your throat. As it is. As if it would end in any other way then this.

You will realize you knew this was coming. Remember that book you read, that study about fear? All those accounts of people who knew, who knew they were entering into danger and peril and still they went. Crazy how often we bear our necks to the ax of our killers. You knew this was coming. That the drinking had been out of pocket and here it would get out of hand. You would get out of control and get into the shit. You saw the brick wall rushing toward you. You did not pump the brakes.

Let’s recall that summer years past, her head in your lap, hair fanning out across your thighs. Her lips bruised purple from the blackberries you were feeding her. She had a laugh that engulfed valleys. She left scratches in your back like comet tails: here was her man. She was the first woman to say This pussy is yours in such a way you believed her. In such a way you believed in yourself. She was One Who Got Away, she was You Didn’t Know What You Had.

She cried when you bragged about some dirt you had done. She laughed when you did your British accent and robot danced around her living room. There was hail that summer that left small divots in her car. There was that trip to San Francisco, a city of magicc realism realized in the flesh, in concrete and glass and neon, transcendental in scale.

Las Vegas, tho, is not magic, it is science. It is dreams of hitting the jackpot broken down into every component so that its practitioners can break down your wallet, your purse, the shirt on your back. The only power here is in the raw-dogg millions of dollars and yen and pounds that pump through casino arteries daily. You are not a gambler but all your self worth will be extracted by this city and its shivering denizens.

—You got something?

—Yeah, I got something. Paid the tithe on the orchids, got another tip. Turns out some Albanians here are smuggling exotic plants out of Cali.

—The underbelly never don’t surprise does it? What kinda plants?

—The carnivorous kind. There’s good money in the trade. Private collectors with temperature controlled rooms and shit.

He jacks an eyebrow, offers a smoke. I've had a few cocktails while waiting for him, the casino-lite kind, small plastic cups with too much ice, so why not jack the buzz up with a shot of nicotine.

—The kind that eat flies and insects?

—That kind. I say we squeeze. Find out who they're with first of course. Albanians ain't no punks.

—That part.

—Might be smart to tap in with the Samoan brothers.

—That part, too.

—Between them and the Big Island we might have enough clout.

—That part three: the Un-Partening.

I shoot him a look that says: Cut it out, bro. I say,  —We don't wanna spread ourselves too thin tho. Not with the Black Mariah going rogue. Not with revenue drying up from Jazmine’z and the funny money.

—That part four: Back to That Part.

I shake my head. Queen Hyena mirrors me, as if shaking off a tick from her nose. He laughs, an echo like a collapsed lung, shadow boxes with me. We trade a few playful blows, scanning the block for any obvious surveillance. On the corner is a sedan that doesn't feel right. Remember that book about fear? Trust your instincts. I close my eyes a shade longer than a blink and he gets it. I'll pass him the Wirecutter next time.

—Morgana wants to know when we're flipping the congressman. Reeeally ready to be done with his creeper ass.

He flicks his cigarette into traffic. —I heard he doesn't like she dying her hair white.

—Which is her real fucking hair color, bro.

—Right. The congressman is about sharp as a fucking bowl of jello. All crown, no filling.

—Has no idea that her lipstick is real blood. That she’s marking him.

He holds out his fist. —Rock, scissors, paper who pitches the congressman to the Pantheon?

I land on paper. He pulls out his phone.

—

This entire chapter will last a year. It will lash an albatross of past traumas around your neck. Rotting carrion that will weigh you down to your knees, then your hands and elbows, scraped raw with blood diamonds until at last your forehead touches concrete and then beyond into the Otherworld. There the Mother will reset your bones, the Maiden will nurse your healing. The Crone will etch this gauntlet into your ribcage with filigree. She will walk you through the mausoleum:

Here, you are making out with that girl on the beach, rolling around in the sand like the knocking of a car engine cuz that’s what soap operas told you was how lovers kissed. You will remember her name begins with an M but that is all, something you will try to recall with a Mmmm, or a Hmmm. Silica glittering in her inkblack hair.

Then, there’s those square toed blue cowboy boots that you adored, and most specifically you will remember they could not, in fact, grant you with the kind of airborne leaps that would bound you over implacable fences. When you recover this memory, it will come to you as Wile E. Coyote slapstick splatflat against a canyon wall. His murals so convincing that the Road Runner believed. The Road Runner ran through painted tunnels to the other side. But Wile E. Coyote did not believe in himself.

That boy at the Montessori school, grabbing you by the hand, insisting you follow him. You resisted, you said no repeatedly until that was not enough, so your response was a rictus gnash of your teeth as you bit his arm. There was blood. He was absent from school for several days. When he returned his whole forearm in a white bandage. What happened to him, you asked a teacher. She whiplashed you with, You know exactly what happened to him.

There’s the babysitter, she was 13, and you. You were 11. There’s the boy gutted by his surfboard. The midnight raids. Helicopters overhead, sound of: huffing dragon, color of: invisible, shape of: your stepfather chopping down plots of marijuana by machete as the bird hovered, its spotlight igniting the crop, the flash of the machete, the whip of the blades above and the blade in his hand.

You will forget these audible gasps until it is time to unforget. Here, we have pressed them into photographs. We have taken them from the celestial stars, clenched them in our hands, wrung out the minerals until they are tiny asteroids to fall upon the beaches between your dreamland and the crack of dawn. From whisper to sonograph.

Let's consider the teenage years were just so and college did not happen and that the roaring twenties is where the rails turned off of well lit streets and into corners and alleyways. Here is where the arc of your life got unpredictable and risky, mistakes recorded by the haskmarks of a cutter’s wrist or the squint lines in your face as you would sight down the barrel. Love affairs with married women and the ‘hood. Gangster shit but let's be clear: we were gangsta with a soft a, and the streets we claimed were owned by gangsters with a hard R.

You eventually left all that behind. Forged a new identity and life in the Elsewhere but then—all of this was a facade. Once stripped away, the last few years took the rug out from under you. A pound of flesh. The shining skyline of Las Vegas the only beacon in sight. But then the beacon became a banshee cry and now here you are, jackknifed in the bed and cold and dying and terrified. The velocity that brought you here is a supernova, which is a sexy word for black hole, which is a sexy metaphor, lipstick on the beast gnawing at your neck as the Queen Hyena drags the beast away.

Then your sister will call. She hears the edge in your voice, that your teeth are fingernails clawing at the bluff, no purchase there as you slide deeper into the hole. She will be a voice that rappels from the cliff tops above. She will coax you to get well, to endure the torture of withdrawal, nerves once blunted now exposed to the elements. She will invite you to leave this city and the detritus and all the sloughed off skin of these last few years. The Queen Hyena can feast on the sheddings you leave behind. Your sister will be a small whisper that grows stronger—

One final twist of the knife from your brother, jammed into the hilt, and there is nothing left for you here. Nothing at all. The silence is deafening but it rings true.

Close the chapter. Bookmark this page with a razor blade. Careful you don't slash a finger when you do. There are new stories to tell, songs to sing, novels to unspool from barrels of thread just a touch away from the spindle.

—

The vista is hidden by a lush and dense stratum of greens and shadow. A canopy overhead that allows for little sunlight when you go in deeper. Trade in the heat for cool, flatlines of terrain for hills and towering redwoods. Trade in the growling urban wilderness for small town energy. The wolves here are friendly. Trade in the end of a chapter for the beginnings of a third act. This isn’t running, you remind yourself. Or, you’re running towards something, not away from.

The vista here is wind-whipped along the hillocks and plateaus, long stretches of beach empty of tourists. Dunewood here are whole redwood stumps, massive sculptures worn smooth by years of tidal baptisms from the ocean. The dunewood here weighs a ton. The sand beneath your feet is cool, tinted here and there with the silica of gold and silver. Once again, you are alone, not lonely. There is a difference.