CHAPTER 29 Lost - Who Me?
My friend had an apartment in Aspen, where I was welcome to crash on the floor for one night. Thanks for the ride. After that, I was totally on my own with a half tank of gasoline, a few packs of cigarettes, no food and no money. That led me to explore the camping grounds towards Independence pass about four miles out of town.
The campground was essentially deserted. They must have heard I was coming. When one does desperate and stupid things though, God blesses one with desperate and stupid companions. You learn to share your resources with those folks as a reminder that peace of mind is truly a state of mind, and that God uses each of us to watch over us all. I had no thoughts at all of Bonnie or even of Sandy. In fact, I had no thoughts at all. It was a form of burn-out. I was on another kind of adventure and my rage was a de-fused and useless bomb that had not exploded. Thank God.
I picked a secluded spot well away from the main road and nestled in. I had spread a place for my sleeping bag and was working on a long afternoon nap when the pizza and wine were delivered.
I woke up to "that" trance-like feeling of Deja Vu' much like I have experienced and explained to you often here. I was on the edge of eternity again and about to experience something profound. A car arrived.
I was sure it was the cops. There was no one anywhere except this old and unmarked maroon chevy sedan that had pulled up ten feet away. It had Arizona license plates and at one time must have been a government vehicle. No identifiable stickers, marks, antenna or white walls. I climbed out of the sleeping bag slowly, keeping my hands in full view at all times. Behind the wheel was a smallish man in his mid-50's who was staring straight ahead. He had an expression on his face that made you think he had decided to drive off a cliff and had arrived at the brink. "You want some pizza?" he said. It sounded like he was about to take the biggest chance of his life. "Sure, thanks", I replied. My pizza delivery man had a bottle of wine as well and for some reason, I declined. The pizza was great though, from Pinnochio's in town. He seemed concerned that I had nothing to drink. I pointed out to him that we were less than fifty yards from an entire river full of some of the purest water in the world.
We had just begun to touch on the introductory overture of who we were when he slid out a nickel plated 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. All the cheese in all the crust of all the pizza I had just eaten curdled in my stomach all at once. An entire river of the purest water in the world would not have washed away that sudden indigestion. I had my answer. He was a nut. I was a nut, and I was about to die for being one.
"I used to be pretty good with these things", he said. I wondered if I could make the six foot jump from me to him in time to jam the muzzle of the gun. I knew I couldn't. "I was a marksman in the Air Force. I retired a few months ago and then my wife died". I knew then he was on the edge of something akin to murder or suicide and a lot of what happened next depended on me and the wine. I knew that if I could at least push back on the muzzle of the 45 it would move the slide back far enough to prevent the firing pin from striking the bullet. I never knew if that was a safety feature or a design flaw. It didn't matter, I was helpless. I decided to ignore the gun. At that moment he raised the weapon in a two-handed marksman's grip and just before it leveled with my eyes, he turned it toward a nearby tree.
He decided to let the tree live and lowered the weapon. He just sort of sighed, and put it away. I knew now that he was armed and would probably love to get drunk and find someone to blame something on. He had made his point. I decided to convince him to try to keep on living. I knew it could help extend my own life expectancy as well.
I replaced my stomach into its usual alignment with my spine and we reduced our mutual state of emergency readiness from a nine to a three out of a possible state of ten. I had shown no fear. He had shown no anger.
The next day was a repeat of the day before. Warm sunshine was my companion in an early afternoon nap, until the maroon Chevy rolled up with another delivery of pizza. My friend had been staying in a motel. This time there was Coca-Cola along with the wine. There was a little bit of trust in his eyes that I was proud to return. The pizza was to share. The coke was for me.
The breakthrough came almost immediately. He needed help. He had been a career Air Force officer and for a man so well equipped, I had never met one so apparently helpless. He literally had everything one could want for camping. Everything was brand new, still in boxes and fresh from a Yellow Front store in Arizona. It had occurred to me that the equipment had been in his car for days. He had been trying to work up the nerve to go camping.
He was totally baffled as to how to use his wealth of camping gear. Geometry to him was straight lines; trajectory paths, from gun to target. Nothing with an angle, fastener, knot or unfamiliar mechanism made any sense to him at all. A lot of things made no sense to him at all. I had to show him everything. How to make a string tent from a plastic tarp, how to set up his own tent. How to assemble, fuel and use a camp lantern. He did well with the air mattress but in terms of practical technology, the little Coleman stove may have just as well been a satellite.
Without even so much as a day of relaxation, God was teaching me another lesson of life. Here I was trying to escape my passion for a woman who had no idea of how I felt, while at the same time being blessed with a woman (Bonnie) who felt quite exactly the same way about me. Placed in my charge was an older man who had no woman at all, for whom the death of his wife had left apparently, part of his entire universe missing. I began to think about returning to Arizona.
When we finally got his camp pitched next to mine, a kind of sadness came over me. It would have come over you, too. My guitar became our comfort, our mother. Late that night as it sang of Mexico or Texas or almost anywhere, it sang of lovers too. There was peace for these two frightened men who had found and learned to trust each other. I let the guitar sing its own song. It was a song for children who had become aging men with lost wives and lovers. The guitar worked its magic much better than did the wine.
It sang for itself - for it too, was lonely.
My lost friend was asleep.
The campground was essentially deserted. They must have heard I was coming. When one does desperate and stupid things though, God blesses one with desperate and stupid companions. You learn to share your resources with those folks as a reminder that peace of mind is truly a state of mind, and that God uses each of us to watch over us all. I had no thoughts at all of Bonnie or even of Sandy. In fact, I had no thoughts at all. It was a form of burn-out. I was on another kind of adventure and my rage was a de-fused and useless bomb that had not exploded. Thank God.
I picked a secluded spot well away from the main road and nestled in. I had spread a place for my sleeping bag and was working on a long afternoon nap when the pizza and wine were delivered.
I woke up to "that" trance-like feeling of Deja Vu' much like I have experienced and explained to you often here. I was on the edge of eternity again and about to experience something profound. A car arrived.
I was sure it was the cops. There was no one anywhere except this old and unmarked maroon chevy sedan that had pulled up ten feet away. It had Arizona license plates and at one time must have been a government vehicle. No identifiable stickers, marks, antenna or white walls. I climbed out of the sleeping bag slowly, keeping my hands in full view at all times. Behind the wheel was a smallish man in his mid-50's who was staring straight ahead. He had an expression on his face that made you think he had decided to drive off a cliff and had arrived at the brink. "You want some pizza?" he said. It sounded like he was about to take the biggest chance of his life. "Sure, thanks", I replied. My pizza delivery man had a bottle of wine as well and for some reason, I declined. The pizza was great though, from Pinnochio's in town. He seemed concerned that I had nothing to drink. I pointed out to him that we were less than fifty yards from an entire river full of some of the purest water in the world.
We had just begun to touch on the introductory overture of who we were when he slid out a nickel plated 45 caliber semi-automatic pistol. All the cheese in all the crust of all the pizza I had just eaten curdled in my stomach all at once. An entire river of the purest water in the world would not have washed away that sudden indigestion. I had my answer. He was a nut. I was a nut, and I was about to die for being one.
"I used to be pretty good with these things", he said. I wondered if I could make the six foot jump from me to him in time to jam the muzzle of the gun. I knew I couldn't. "I was a marksman in the Air Force. I retired a few months ago and then my wife died". I knew then he was on the edge of something akin to murder or suicide and a lot of what happened next depended on me and the wine. I knew that if I could at least push back on the muzzle of the 45 it would move the slide back far enough to prevent the firing pin from striking the bullet. I never knew if that was a safety feature or a design flaw. It didn't matter, I was helpless. I decided to ignore the gun. At that moment he raised the weapon in a two-handed marksman's grip and just before it leveled with my eyes, he turned it toward a nearby tree.
He decided to let the tree live and lowered the weapon. He just sort of sighed, and put it away. I knew now that he was armed and would probably love to get drunk and find someone to blame something on. He had made his point. I decided to convince him to try to keep on living. I knew it could help extend my own life expectancy as well.
I replaced my stomach into its usual alignment with my spine and we reduced our mutual state of emergency readiness from a nine to a three out of a possible state of ten. I had shown no fear. He had shown no anger.
The next day was a repeat of the day before. Warm sunshine was my companion in an early afternoon nap, until the maroon Chevy rolled up with another delivery of pizza. My friend had been staying in a motel. This time there was Coca-Cola along with the wine. There was a little bit of trust in his eyes that I was proud to return. The pizza was to share. The coke was for me.
The breakthrough came almost immediately. He needed help. He had been a career Air Force officer and for a man so well equipped, I had never met one so apparently helpless. He literally had everything one could want for camping. Everything was brand new, still in boxes and fresh from a Yellow Front store in Arizona. It had occurred to me that the equipment had been in his car for days. He had been trying to work up the nerve to go camping.
He was totally baffled as to how to use his wealth of camping gear. Geometry to him was straight lines; trajectory paths, from gun to target. Nothing with an angle, fastener, knot or unfamiliar mechanism made any sense to him at all. A lot of things made no sense to him at all. I had to show him everything. How to make a string tent from a plastic tarp, how to set up his own tent. How to assemble, fuel and use a camp lantern. He did well with the air mattress but in terms of practical technology, the little Coleman stove may have just as well been a satellite.
Without even so much as a day of relaxation, God was teaching me another lesson of life. Here I was trying to escape my passion for a woman who had no idea of how I felt, while at the same time being blessed with a woman (Bonnie) who felt quite exactly the same way about me. Placed in my charge was an older man who had no woman at all, for whom the death of his wife had left apparently, part of his entire universe missing. I began to think about returning to Arizona.
When we finally got his camp pitched next to mine, a kind of sadness came over me. It would have come over you, too. My guitar became our comfort, our mother. Late that night as it sang of Mexico or Texas or almost anywhere, it sang of lovers too. There was peace for these two frightened men who had found and learned to trust each other. I let the guitar sing its own song. It was a song for children who had become aging men with lost wives and lovers. The guitar worked its magic much better than did the wine.
It sang for itself - for it too, was lonely.
My lost friend was asleep.
posted by freespeak@gmail.com at 12:41 PM
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