“No, seriously,” Ronnie continued, “kids are fine, good kids. They would never guess that we used to live up here, smoke grass and live off the land.”
Both men kept their thoughts hidden. Life had been so easy back then, so simple. It was only a matter of where your head was that made the world. The lesson had been well-learned, though, never to be forgotten. The world was bigger than they were. Their peckers had, indeed, gotten them in trouble.
“How is the fire business?” Ronnie asked.
“Jesus,” Bill spoke, “let me tell you about the blonde I pulled out of an apartment with the crotchless panties. Finger lickin’ good.”
Ronnie moved his hand for two more beers. “I see Saavedra still owns the bar. I wonder where he finds these girls.” Ronnie watched the tits of the barmaid as they bounced toward them. “What they need is a wet T-shirt night.”
“What they really need is herpes, like California,” Bill laughed.
For a few moments they said nothing. Both were content as they realized how fast the year had passed. Another year, a year that seemed like nothing. It was funny, everything except the mountains, the fishing, and the trip seemed to be the dream of their lives. It made no sense.
Bill poked Ronnie with his elbow, “I have some Afghani that will do the trick this year.”
Ronnie rolled his eyes back, “Good, I have some coke that is at least sixty percent mannitol.” Both men laughed and took another slug of beer.
“God, it’s good to see you,” Ronnie spoke.
At that moment, Riley Page entered the bar, all five feet eight inches of him. Dressed in Levis and a western shirt, he looked like a short version of the Marlboro Man. When they had first met, Riley was fresh out of Vietnam. The first year he lived in the mountains, he couldn’t get it up unless the girl put on a camouflage T-shirt. He was plagued with recurring dreams that it was all built on the side, and a constant fear that he would develop syphilis when he was old.
Both Ronnie and Bill jumped up, and the three men danced in a small circle. They began to chant — big tits — big tits — big tits. The bar girls smiled and brought them a round of beer. During the greeting, two cowboys came into the bar and sat at the far end. Both looked tired, smelled of cow shit, and looked like yesterday’s windstorm. Ronnie, Bill, and Riley paid them no mind. There was nobody in their world, only them, the beer, and the big tits on the bar girls.
“Fuckin’ Saavedra still finds ’em,” Riley spoke, spilling beer down his chin. After the hippie phase of his life, Riley had gone back to school and received a degree in photography. He got a job teaching at the University in Denver and spent his time fucking young college girls. He still was not married.
“Listen,” he would say, “you can have your kids, your wives, your responsibility. No steady squeeze for this kid. I’ll take my chances getting herpes.”
There was nothing finer to Riley than the beginning of the new school year, and the anticipation of which young coed would be sitting in the front row. He counted beavers like some people counted the fish they caught. But the highlight of each year was this week in the mountains. Whatever else Riley was, he loved the mountains. The dreamer, the veteran, the photographer. He was constantly on the search to make life more than it was.
The three men sat at the bar. By nine there were over half-a-dozen other customers staring at the girls through the cloud of cigarette smoke.
Riley looked out the window into the darkness. “Frank is usually here by now,” he spoke to himself more than to the others.
Everyone looked nervously at each other until Bill told a joke, “You heard about the new DeLorean car? You drive around the street until the white lines disappear.”
“That reminds me, anybody want a toot?” Ronnie asked, not laughing. Riley nooded his head and took the folded paper as Ronnie handed it to him under the bar.
As Riley walked off, Ronnie looked at Bill, “You know, the bathroom has become, in modern times, the most active area of any party or restaurant. Have you noticed how many people go to the bathroom with somebody else?”
Bill scratched his head, “I wonder what will be next on the list of recreational drugs that blow your mind.”
Ronnie sipped his beer, “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I hope a lot of it grows in my back yard.”
Riley walked by the assorted cowboys and Mexicans along the bar. Inside the bathroom, he locked the door and opened the folded wrapper. Taking his knife from his belt, he dipped the point in the white powder and placed it under his nose. He inhaled, made a face, and repeated the process. He folded the paper carefully and went back to the bar. Sitting back down by Ronnie, he slipped the paper back to him.
“Jesus, you buy the worst shit I have ever snorted. That must be at least sixty percent mannitol.”
Ronnie shook his head, “That’s what I figured.”
Bill put his hand under the bar, “Let me have some of that shit.”
Bill made his way past the line of onlooking Mexicans and cowboys. One nodded, one smirked, and one drank his beer. Inside the bathroom, Bill opened the paper carefully, poked his finger in the pile, and then rubbed his gums. He had heard that this was better, no chance of burning holes in your nose. Walking back past the line of beer drinkers, nobody looked.
After he sat down, he handed the paper back to Ronnie, “Riley is right,” he spoke, “that stuff is terrible.”
“Sugar rush better than no rush,” Ronnie chirped.
By ten in the evening, all the men were sufficiently full of beer to make the walk to the bathroom after each glass. Filled with mannitol, the beer didn’t seem to have any effect except to run through their bodies, leaving nothing but a few hops and grain as it went.
“You know,” Bill spoke, “I know I’ve pissed a fortune in my life; enough beer to fill a beer truck, buy a house in the mountains, do a drug deal.”
Everybody laughed. Riley sat drinking his beer and became silent while Bill and Ronnie told stories. Bill noticed his quietness, “Now don’t go getting sentimental on us yet, Riley.”
Riley was known to grow despondent. His attacks would come at various times, eating, drinking, driving, sitting in the tent with the guys, in the middle of making love. Riley had a general and precise understanding of the futility of the human condition. At times, there was not enough outside stimulus to keep the wisdom covered, and he would see everything as the passing thing it is.
He looked at Bill and Ronnie, “We’re just like all the rest,” he spoke quietly, “cramming moments and periods of time we love into small bits of life. Hung up, strung up, fucked up; God, how depressing to be lumped in with mankind.”
Bill sipped his beer as Riley continued. “Remember when we first met — sitting in our log homes, cutting wood, freezing our asses — boy did we know the world. We believed we were the changers of life, everybody would join the flock. Remember sitting and smoking pot, discussing life and love, war, hate? Now look at us, scattered across the face of America. We fit. We molded our thoughts and beliefs until we fit.” Riley started to continue, but Bill cut in.
“Everybody had to fit, everybody has to, Riley. Nobody here is a hermit, nobody can keep the vigil. Fuckin’ world is too big. We were just like everything else, a passing, that’s how it is. Nobody likes it, but that’s how it is.”
Riley looked at Bill, looked at Ronnie, sipped his beer. “I know,” he spoke with a twinkle in his eye. “I know, but what a bummer.”
Ronnie chuckled, “You ex-hippie fuck. Maybe you should go back to living off the land or sell a load of pot.”