California

Rain fell from the thick clouds looming over the desert sky, splashing arbitrarily into the muddy yellow puddles here and there. Rivulets trickled past the entrance of the little cave at the foot of the massive butte, just yards from the highway. The rain fell heavily before, but now tapered off into a slight drizzle. Smoke from the fire wafted across the low roof and then was sucked quickly out into the cool, wet desert night. As the sky grew darker, the cave grew warmer, the small fire throwing dim yellow light. To feel the heat of the flame, the man leaned close as he cooked his food.

He was a young man, early twenties, short-cut black hair, wind-darkened skin. Wearing a worn brown leather jacket, black jeans, scuffed black leather boots, he looked out through the flame, into the darkening desert. His eyes were striking, black against white, calculating. A scar ran across his left temple; he was clean shaven. The smell of cooking bacon in the small black skillet and coffee simmering in a pot, just out of reach of the flames, filled the air, sweetening the musty smell of damp earth clinging in the dim, still cave he had stumbled across a short while ago.

Out in the mist, a gray shape under a tarp stood just outside the cave, a motorcycle cloaked against the wet night. And beyond his bike hunched under its blanket, stretched the road from which he had come. Black and glistening in the failing light, it stretched into a gray haze of rain and steam. Lightning flashed, filling the desert night with a strange brilliance and bringing out the distant mountains covered with the storm's shroud. And as the dark fell back onto the mud and pavement, the young man saw a dot of light appear far down the highway, approaching very fast. By the time the thunder rolled across the desert floor, chasing the long gone flash of lightning, the deep, throaty sound of a Harley Sportster motorcycle filled the small cave.

Not taking his eyes from the new arrival, the young man leaned back, away from the fire's warmth and light; pulling the skillet from the direct flames and balancing it on the rock with one hand, he reached back into the cave into his little pile of possessions with the other, into the brown leather saddlebag, pulling out a small revolver which he tucked into his jacket. Leaning back over the fire, he poked at the bacon, watching the new arrival pull up and dismount.

The other man was older, early fifties. He wore scuffed black square-toed biker boots, faded jeans and an old black poncho. He was soaked. The older man climbed the slight embankment up to the cave and stood hunched at its mouth. His weather worn face was obscured under a few days growth of black and gray hair. He looked in with eyes that were deep chestnut brown, red and tired.

"Mind a little company? Sure looks warm in there."

"Come," said the younger man. "Fire's warm."

"Looks warm... and dry." The older man pulled off his poncho and left it in a pile at the entrance. Under it he wore a black leather vest over a gray tee-shirt. "Won't get much use outta that for a few days." He held his nose and made a face of disgust. "Them Mexicans use some kind of burlap and ox hair blend to twine these things all up. That's what gives 'em that pungent aroma." He smiled down at the young man. "Looks like I caught you at dinner."

The young man showed no expression. "Don't have much, but you're welcome to it."

"Well, I ain't a charity case," the older man smiled. "You just get that fire warmed up and I'll take care of some things." He scooped up his poncho, turned and left the cave. The rain died down to a fine mist. The older man called over his shoulder. "Just so happens I got some vegetables here in my pack, and maybe some bread that ain't too soaked, if we're lucky." He untied a canvas pack from the back of his bike and placed it heavily on a rock nearby. The canvas throw he pulled from his pack was old and covered with smears of paint, unlike the new, fitted throw covering the younger man's bike. After the throw was in place, the man walked around his bike, kicking stones and dirt onto the loose edges to hold it in place. He looked up and smiled as he came back to the cave, carrying his pack. The younger man watched every move.

"She doesn't look too good, but all that paint keeps the water out." Dropping his pack by the fire, he held out his hand. "Nick. All my friends call me Nick."

The younger man reached up and took his hand. "Cal," he said.

"Good to know you," Nick said. "What you got under that fancy tarp out there?"

"Ninja, 900. I bought it on the coast," Cal said.

"I'm just coming in outta California myself." He smiled down at Cal and scratched his belly. His hair was thinning, loose and wispy about the collar of his tee shirt and vest. "Course, you could never get me on one of those rice rockets. I'll take a Harley any day." He reached up and smoothly pulled out a red and white box of cigarettes. Without taking his eyes off Cal, he took out two cigarettes and handed one down to him. The other he popped in his mouth. "I can always tell a smoker by the look in his eye when I go for a smoke. Either you gotta have one or you gotta stop me. There's no in between anymore." Cal smiled. Nick smiled back. He pulled out a stainless steel refillable lighter and, with a ringing clink of the flip top, lit his smoke. The stinging smell of lighter fluid filled the small cave. Nick held the flame down to Cal, but Cal held up his hand and shook his head. "Where you going?" Nick said, clinking his lighter shut.

"East," Cal said, tucking the cigarette behind his ear and throwing some sticks in the fire. He turned and watched Nick move about the small cave. After Nick placed some potatoes and a few handfuls of string beans on a rock near the fire, Cal scooped out three thick slices of bacon, already stiff in the cooling pan, and handed them over to Nick. "They're cooled off a bit, but they'll hit the spot." He took the simmering coffee from its perch and gently poured some into a shallow metal camping mug. "Only one cup, we'll have to take turns, if you want coffee."

Nick sat heavily and shoved a whole piece of bacon into his mouth. "Never touch the stuff. Shacked up with a broad once in New Mexico, a Chicana. She drank two or three pots of it a day. She only slept about an hour a night and got the worst headaches I ever saw if she ever missed her fix of coffee. Swore I'd never get addicted to the stuff." He chewed the bacon recklessly, swallowed and shoved the next piece in. "Damn it is good. Seems like I haven't eaten in days," he mumbled through his bacon. "But I just ate up in Tahoe this morning, and then a sandwich at noon. Riding makes a man hungry.

"Riding does make a man hungry," Cal said. He bit small pieces off his strips of bacon, sucked on them until they were soft and swallowed, barely chewing. He washed down each piece with a sip of hot coffee. "You came out of Tahoe? You live there, or just visiting?"

Nick looked up from licking his fingers and stared closely at Cal. After a moment he said, "Lived there. But I don't live there anymore. Used to live on the South Shore. Lived there a long time. But they threw in the fast food places and casinos and the hotels and the damned tourists and I couldn't take it anymore." He reached down and gave the potatoes a half turn and pulled the hot beans away from the fire. Nick handed roughly half the beans over the fire to his new companion. He blew on them before he popped them whole, one after another, into his mouth.

The light outside had nearly disappeared. The dim, gray canvas shapes stood just the other side of the edge of light, barely perceivable. Cal looked out into the darkness, slid beans into his mouth slowly, biting down half way. When he was done with his beans, he sighed and lifted another strip of bacon out of the skillet. Leaning over the flame with the fork, he slipped the bacon into Nick's waiting hand. As Cal settled back, he stabbed a large potato with the fork and reclined wearily. "Wish we had some butter. These potatoes would be nice with real butter."

"After a while you don't miss butter, as long as you have salt n' pepper." Nick reached in his vest pocket and pulled out a handful of various restaurant brand salts and peppers and dropped them with a smile in a pile next to the fire. "Just set that pan back here on the rocks and dab your potato in it and that'll fix you right up."

Cal tried it and smiled when he did. As they ate the potatoes together, wiping up the last of the bacon grease, Nick watched Cal's face and his obvious pleasure. Nick was done first and leaned back against his wall with a smile. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling, wiping his greasy hands on his jeans. In one motion he reached his right hand in his vest and pulled out the box of cigarettes and flipped the top with his thumb while his other hand pulled out the lighter. He shook out a smoke and pulled it from the pack with his mouth. It was lit before he flipped the pack shut with his thumb again. "Nothing like a smoke after food," he sighed. He reclined and held his smoke in the crook of his index and middle finger, his hand hanging limply over his knee. He drew deeply from his cigarette, then blew a thick plume of smoke at the dark roof close over his head and hummed some song.

Cal finished off the coffee, swishing the dregs around in the pot and flinging them across the cave out into the night. The fire cracked weakly among its stones as the two men stared; Nick up, Cal out.

Time passed; it could have been hours that passed instead of only moments. The rain outside started up again; first there was just a fog, then a fine mist giving way to a drizzle. Little torrents poured down from above the cave's mouth, formed little rivulets that hesitated at the edge of the cave's lip before spilling out into the night. Before long the rain drove down heavily and loud on the canvas wraps out in the darkness. The men reclined, each to the quiet comfort of his own thoughts. The rhythm of the rain drumming on the earth, on the canvas out in the dark, mesmerized them, drew the men from their individual postures and shaped them. Soon they sat in the same position, leaning forward, chin in palm, staring out into the flood. Their eyes seemed glassy, spellbound by the ceaseless tumult of falling water through the dim firelight, water falling in little dribbles breaking into streams were interrupted suddenly and replaced by little dribbles and then nothing, strung all across the black opening that held out the night. Patterns emerged, then danced away over the edge that separated order from chaos.

"Whoa," Nick jumped. Cal started from his daze, reached slightly toward the opening of his jacket and glared at Nick. "This is the kind of thing that can make a guy do some pretty strange stuff out on the road," Nick said, thumbing out at the rain. "Probably most every place else, too." Nick glanced at Cal's hand poised above his jacket and smiled slightly. "Calm down kid, it's just a storm."

"I know," said Cal. "I just don't like surprises." Cal sat up uneasily and looked deep into the fire. After a moment, his face became listless and distant. Nick watched.

"Hey, Cal, you look like a pretty decent guy; a little up tight, but decent. This is my first night out on this trip, let's have a little party." He reached into his vest and pulled out his cigarettes again. This time he was more careful as he fished around in the pack, then slowly pulled out an unfiltered smoke that was more wrinkled than a normal cigarette, a fat joint rolled neatly and evenly. He smiled over the pack of smokes, dancing the joint around in the air. "Ta da."

Cal looked at the joint unexcitedly. "Um," he said, "I would, but unfiltered stuff effects my asthma."

"Ah," Nick smiled. "Miasma."

"And I gave up pot a long time ago, when I was in high school." Cal smiled lamely and looked into the flame.

"But go ahead, I don't mind." He didn't look back until Nick had his joint going and was inhaling deeply.

"So you never did say where you were coming from," Nick finally said after several hits. He leaned back and slid slightly down the wall, his eyes softening into red cracks on his face. "You a native Californian out to see the world?"

"No, I wasn't lucky enough to be born there."

Nick reached behind his back into his bindle. After fumbling about he pulled out a pint of Scotch, casually twisted off the top and took a long pull. Nick handed it over to Cal without looking at him. Cal didn't move.

"You don't drink either? This is good stuff. How old did you say you were?" Nick smiled at Cal.

Cal grinned back, "I didn't."

Nick drank long and deep from the bottle, then sighed as he chased down the shot with a hit from his joint. "Ahhh," he said. "So you ain't a citizen of Rome. All those 'Welcome to California, now go home' bumper stickers meant just for you?"

"Not exactly. The people who raised me were native Californians. They got me from New England--"

"New England! What a hell hole! Do you know how hot it gets in New England? And cold?" Nick leaned forward and laughed. "Is that where you're going? Have you ever been there?"

"Not exactly." Cal sat up a little, his eyes narrowing he spoke slowly. "I was born there, but then they sent me to California."

Nick settled back and assumed the deep, confident voice of a man of the world. He drew deep from the joint and let the smoke drift dreamily from his face as he spoke. "I'll tell you, I been there so many times over the past thirty-five years, always looking for work or visiting friends or just having a hell of a time, and I always end up back where I started from. California. The weather there is great! Where else can you walk around in your drawers outside in the dead of winter? You can't beat California for weather." Cal cocked his head and smirked as he listened.

"Ever winter in Tahoe?"

"No, not winter in Tahoe." Nick looked away shaking his head and taking several small puffs from the joint. Both were silent for a minute, then Nick looked back, relaxed and thoughtful. "You know, kid, there's nothing like hot food and a good smoke on the open road. There used to be a time when everyone was on the road coming west." He grinned slightly as he spoke. "Roving with the communes when I was a teenager, getting it on with everybody. Now that was fun." Nick slapped his knee. Cal stared at the flames. "People always love to come west. 'The west is the best,' that's what old Jim Morrison sang. Nowadays you don't find a whole lot of hospitable people on the road. Everyone is too wrapped up with their own fears. With their own hate."

"I'm looking for something, too, I guess," Cal said, his eyes distant in the flame. "I'm looking for something I've never known. I'm looking for commitment that means more than staying with someone only until you come or the sun rises. I'm looking for someplace where the human body is more than just some pleasure machine that's drooled over for its curves and holes. For--"

"Hell, you're chasing dreams, kid." Nick leaned back and took a long haul from his joint. "You're traveling the country looking for all the wrong things. I remember when people looked for something on the roads of America that was worth searching for--self."

Cal squared his shoulders slightly and set his chin. "I'm actually looking someone up. I have a score to settle."

"Oh." Nick looked down into the fire. "A little revenge on the downside of your soul searching?" Cal didn't answer. Nick looked long into the flames as Cal watched him. Sip by sip, Nick finished off his pint, concentrating on Cal the whole time. When Nick was done, he flipped the empty out into the pouring rain. The sudden motion of Nick's arm made Cal look up and watch the bottle flash across the cave in the firelight, disappearing through the curtain of water.

"We should stick these pans and stuff out in the rain," Nick said. "If she holds up long enough you'll have clean stuff to pack in the morning." He reached across the dwindling fire and grabbed the pan and pot lightly by their warm handles. Nick crawled to the opening on his knees and positioned the utensils under a few fairly consistent streams of water, then backed into the cave and settled down on his spot again. "That ought to do 'em."

"So," Cal said casually. "You caught a pretty wet night to start on your first night out. Where you headed?"

"Away!" Nick laughed. "The casinos weren't the only thing making me uncomfortable at home, if you know what I mean." He held up his left hand and pointed to a fleshy, white, untanned ring around his ring finger. "Ever been in love?" he said. "Listen, Cal, here's some free advice from someone that knows, if you ever get married, pass on the kids. They only make the divorce more complicated."

"You've been married?"

"More times than most."

"And you have kids?"

"More than most, and maybe some more on the side here and there." Nick laughed and put both hands up behind his head. "The women are the problem, always getting in the way. But the kids ain't a problem. They're smarter than people give 'em credit for. They're born with instincts that keep 'em going. They're a Hell of a lot tougher than a lot of adults I know. Leave 'em alone and they'll look out for themselves, just pat 'em on the butt and shove 'em out into the real world. Just like the birds. Best advice a man can get." He leaned back toward the fire and tossed a few sticks into the dying flame. He reached back into his vest pocket and pulled out his smokes again. In one motion he lit a cigarette and settled back. "Yup, if you get stuck with kids, just let 'em raise themselves and watch out for your own ass. If everybody 'd do the same the world would balance herself right out."

Cal sat silently, his face expressionless. The whole time Nick spoke, Cal sat motionless, legs out, arms crossed on his stomach, pressing the hard steel into his gut. As Nick spoke, Cal's eyes seemed to come in and out of focus, staring at Nick's smiling mouth, then drifting down into the flames, then out into the dark rain and back to Nick's mouth again. The rain was dying down into a cool fog that drifted into the firelight in wisps.

"You never said who you were looking for back east," Nick said.

"A relative," Cal said quietly. "He's just about your age by now... Maybe its about time for sleep. This mist will probably make us stiff as wood in the morning." He unrolled the brown blanket that was his bindle and covered himself as he lay back along the side of the cave wall. "Good luck sleeping, Nick," he mumbled.

"Oh, I never had trouble sleeping out. I remember one time back east, Massachusetts I think it was, I slept out every night for weeks. I was traveling then, like I am now, on the go...." He talked quietly to Cal in the darkness long after Cal had fallen asleep.

The morning came in a steamy mist and a light drizzle. The cave was dim and smelled of moist earth, as it had when Cal first arrived the night before. He sat up stiffly and rubbed his shoulder; the cave crouched in black and gray, color absorbed by the weak pre-dawn light. Cal coughed and patted himself, then began sweeping the damp coals from the fireplace. Taking a handful of twigs he saved from the previous night, he arranged them into a tent-shaped heap over a ball of paper, lit the fire and sat back. The smoke drifted over into Nick's face, who stirred and looked up at Cal.
"Cool," he said, "breakfast."

"Why don't you reach out there and grab the skillet and cook the last of my bacon," Cal said offhandedly.

Nick stretched and groaned in the dirt. He had fallen asleep where he lay, uncovered and resting his head on his pack. "Ahhh," he groaned louder, then sat up and lunged out to grab the skillet. "Bacon sounds good." He flicked the rainwater out into the mud and tossed the skillet to Cal.

"You got anything to throw in for breakfast?" Cal asked quietly.

"Well, now that you mention it, I think that was the last of my stuff we ate last night."

Cal sat staring into the flames. After a minute he sighed heavily. "Tell you what, let's go into the next town and find ourselves a greasy spoon. I haven't eaten in any restaurant this trip so far. I can't afford to do it more than once or twice. This morning seems as good a time as any."

"A small town diner," Nick said speculatively. "Well, today's a good day as any to die." He looked up from his feet and smiled. "Or at least to give the heart a good coat of grease."

Cal let out a huge yawn, blinking sleepily at the growing fire. "Let's just warm up a bit, have some coffee." He pointed out into the lightening fog at the small pot. Nick reached out again and picked it up lightly. No rainwater spilled this time. "I'll take you up on the fire and the greasy spoon, but I'll pass on the coffee," he said, passing the pan over to Cal and rubbing his hands over the fire.

Cal dumped a fistful of coffee grounds into the water and set it close to the fire to simmer. Each man sat in his own thoughts as they watched the water begin to steam. "I had some weird dreams last night, kid," Nick said suddenly. "I dreamed about a shooting I saw a long time ago, probably before you were born. I dreamed it like a haven't remembered it in a long time." He looked hard at Cal.

"You saw someone get shot?"

"Blew a guy to pieces," Nick said softly. "Wonder why I was dreaming about guns...."

Cal shifted on his seat a little and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Beats me."

Nick rose stiffly and hobbled hunched over out of the cave. Outside he stretched tall, his back making tiny cracking noises. He looked out across the gray desert at the sun breaking over the mountains in the east and the desert colors creeping out of hiding. As Nick watched the gray mud turned a dull gold, all the little pebbles around the mouth of the cave exposed from the dust stripped away from the torrents of the night before. The brush, spiny gray bones in the pre-dawn, displayed tiny green buds coated with shimmering droplets of water in the new sunlight. The canvas coats of the bikes sparkled with a thousand drops of morning dew. Nick lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, then turned and looked back at Cal sipping coffee by the fire.

"It's going to be a beautiful day on the road," he said. Cal swished coffee grounds against the cave wall.

The two men packed their gear quickly as the sun rose, each helping the other remove his canvas and shake free as much dampness as possible before folding up the tarps and stuffing them away. They started their bikes and let them idle while they packed up the last of their things. When everything was all stowed away, the two went back into the cave for a last look before getting on the road.

"Looks pretty clean," Cal remarked as he headed out. The fireplace made a faint hiss and Cal turned back to see Nick standing over the embers, urinating with a big smile on his face.

"Smoky the Bear," Nick laughed. The close cave smelled of burning ammonia, acrid and foul. Cal turned and left the cave. Sidling up to his humming bike, he unlocked his red full-face helmet from the saddle lock-ring, pulled it over his head and cinched the straps tight. Cal reached into one saddlebag and pulled out a pair of brown gloves. He looked at them a moment, glanced up at the sky and inhaled deep]y the clean air, then tossed them absently back into the bag. He threw his leg over his bike and kicked back the stand. Without looking back, Cal pulled on to the road and accelerated. After a few seconds, he looked over and saw that Nick was riding next to him, his hair flipping around his face; he wore no helmet. Cal slowed and flipped up the visor of his helmet.

"So, you want to race, do you?" Nick laughed. "Last one there buys breakfast."

The two bikes rode side by side for a while, slipping easily over the hills that rolled through the desert like swells on a calm sea. The air was crisp and damp and the low-lying fog had burned away, revealing black thunderheads that towered in the sky, preparing to sweep more rain into the desert valley. The riders crested a rise, still side by side. Off in the distance crouched a small town in the thinning haze. Several miles of straight, black road and several tiny red stop lights in the middle distance were all that held them from breakfast and escape from the coming rain. Cal throttled up his bike and leaned down over the gas tank, shooting down the hill ahead of Nick's slower Sportster. Nick leaned back and throttled up, accelerating slowly and steadily.

Cal crossed the desert floor, passed through one green light, then sped up to run a yellow. He was just one light away from the small town when the light, fifty yards ahead, turned from green to yellow. He opened the throttle full and hugged against his gas tank. He passed through the intersection just as the old green station wagon crossed through. The old car's peeling chrome grill shattered as the wagon hit Cal head-on. His leg was nearly torn off by the car's front end, but he flipped free, relatively intact, slid up the dusty hood and smashed into the brown-streaked windshield. His body flipped up onto the roof, the spear of the luggage wrack piercing the face shield of his shiny red helmet. As his body flipped up and around, his head remained stationary. He came to a crushing thud on the roof of the car, his head twisted all the way around backwards.

The woman inside the car never made a sound. She just stared with wild eyes into the furious crash, the splintering windshield, the boom of Cal's body crashing over her head, white-knuckling the steering wheel as the car dragged over Cal's bike, a stream of sparks flying from the bike's chrome grinding across the pavement.

It was very still when Nick rolled through the intersection. Cal lay on the roof of the car, twisted and bleeding in his brown leather, the outlines of bones pressing strange shapes here and there in his clothes. Both of Cal's white hands were raised in the morning sun, limp and lifeless. The woman, older, with blue hair, sat in the driver's seat, staring into space, a grocery bag with a dozen eggs on the seat beside her. Large droplets of rain began to fall as Nick slowed to pass through the intersection. He threw the throttle full-open as he passed through the little town, the throaty roar of his Harley filling the morning air as he siddled down the slick black road.