Morongo Straight

Hi.

This was my Sunday.

---

I woke up on the not-completely-comfortable couch in my uncle's Cathedral City home, with my cousins, all children, running in and out of the house asking when I was going to wake up. After pretending to hide under the blanket, them finding me, and Palmer, the oldest, showing me some of his illustrations, I lumbered off to the bathroom and got ready. I hadn't planned to stay the extra day, but my uncle had been asleep when I'd arrived the night before after a late working day, and we hadn't had the time together I would have liked us to. By the end of the day, between family activities and other distractions, I still hadn't had the chance to talk to him about what has been, indelibly, on my mind. I would have valued his advice.

After spending too much time fussing with my mohawk, I emerged from the bathroom to greet the sundry relations, and began a long and eventful morning full of backyard battles, organized jousts, the Mrs. Muffin saga, the burial of a guppy, and the always-present-at-Uncle's-house feast of rare and exotic delicacies. Apart from the commonplace yet dilectible blackberrys and dried apricots, my uncle had, on hand, dried bits of dragon fruit (a singularly bizarre looking fruit which nonetheless is delicious in dried form), mushroom and pepper omelettes, cactus pears, cheese twists and the always available fresh mocha. I love eating when I go to my uncle's. Needless to say, I've been off the diet the last day or so. It was a nive hiatus, in which bread was enjoyed as one might savor a fourteen-year-old wine.

During the musical portion of the afternoon, Palmer brought out a small toy harmonium, which played remarkably well for its amateur intent. Taking up the instrument, I improvised a fetching little tune, to which words were soon put, and in the course of a few minuted my uncle and I had come up with quite a workable sea shanty.

I'm like the sea, the sea is salty,
Everyone says the sea's like me,
Some people think my reasoning's faulty,
What do they know? They don't know me.

I've got a girl, she's called Sally,
She's called Sally, she's not me.
Everyone says her name is Sally
She likes the sea, so she likes me.

My uncle has evidently begun learning how to make balloon animals, and showed me the collection of balloons and the rather substantial pump he had been using. We made several balloon creation for the children. I made a sitting rabbit. He made a zebra (a white "animal" with markered-on stripes) being ridden by a rather convincing man. We collaborated on an aborted fennec that became a rather large and striking praying mantis with huge, yellow eyes. I made an octopus and drew on horizontal pupils and siphons. One of its legs deflated.

They eat their legs under extreme stress.

Laughing raucously and occasionally singing the reel written hours before, the entire family and I shoved off to the local Ruby's to cash in a Student of the Month voucher which Olyn, the older daughter, had recieved for her superior scholasticism. It runs in the family. Olyn also was the one who astutely proclaimed that my "belt was my name" (my buckle indeed spells out my name) and my shirt "is you... is an octopus" (my shirt, indeed, sports the image of a cephalopod. It is the newest addition to a growing collection). I used crayons to draw a picture of swirls and wisps around a Ruby's crayon on the back on my placemat, and gave it to Olyn, who kept it.

Willow, the youngest, asked me more than once if I was going to stay "forever." It was all I could do not to say yes.

I would have left then, as I had driven to the restaurant separately, but had not packed up my few traveling possessions when we'd left; my guitar, a book of short stories and poems, my jacket, which belonged to my uncle decades ago, and a case of cigars which I'd planned on sharing with him, though we had not found the time. We returned to the house, I used the bathroom, and of course I stayed a while longer, enjoying the company and attempting to record a low-sound-quality version of "I'm Like the Sea" on my cell phone's voice recorder. I wrote down the lyrics so I wouldn't forget.

Then I left.

Pulling around the corner from the house, I pulled over and fired up a CAO, thinking for a moment that, with the window down to allow the smoke to escape, the wind on the freeway would muss my hair. I remember thinking, "Thank God I don't care about that anymore." And I knew, then, that it was true.

And I drove down the 10, heading west, billowing smoke and singing the Smiths as loud as I dared, with the window down. In the roar of the passing traffic (or traffic I was passing, going 85 and wild-eyed) and the wind rushing, there was little chance anyone would hear. And I thought, I feel good.

Further up the road, traffic was slowing abruptly in a red glow seeping through a thick smoke screen. Soon, the flickering light was easily seen, and as sad as I felt for whoever owned the car that sat on the side of the road, front end wreathed in flame, tires and all, it was quite a think to see. Once past it, I accelerated again to dangerous and irrational speeds.

I had thought about it while driving up, having rode directly under the looming, coruscating neon tower, but had not really seriously considered it until just then, past the flaming car with the great lit tower in the distance. The principle was sound, I had always thought it could be done, but it was once vice that I had always taken pride in never taking part in. At least formally. But what is vice? Could it really be considered vice? Did I even care anymore.

In the end, I wanted to try it, and as the orange-black plume shrank in the distance and the spotlights neared, their beams coloring the black night sky purple, I began to accept more and more what I was eventually going to do. I pulled off the road at the approximate exit, headed toward the tower so bright it might have been standing in daylight, and placed my still-lit cigar on the bumper of my car, after parking. I called a friend, Brandon, and asked him about the finer points of roulette. I walked into the casino with nothing in my wallet.

I walked out, forty minutes later, with six hundred dollars in twenties.



My wallet bulged, and the two hundred dollars I'd used to start betting had earned me, in less than an hour, what it takes me in my current job two weeks to earn. I wondered how much of what I was doing was what I'd always wanted to do, and how much was me trying to prove something. To someone, to myself. Either way, it felt good. Winning felt good.



I called Brandon and thanked him for his advice on roulette etiquette, though I had only been able to find a video station, so the sense of community was lost and his advice became largely confidence-building rather than anything else. I collected my cigar from the bumper, relit it, and stole off into the night.

Arriving home, another friend called me and invited me over and, lighting one of my cheaper, uglier perritos I drove over to spend some quality time with my oldest friends. After an hour or so, we found ourselves in the backyard, in the dark, me poofing away at the spiraled, hollow tobacco and talking about the bible. I had a paper to write, still have a paper to write as of this moment, and was viciously hungry, and invited them both over before excusing myself. They, being creatures of the day, declined. It seems I always, always have a paper to write.

I went home and photographed my winnings, like you would a newborn. They rest now in the leather billfold that is slowly but surely deteriorating under the strain of too-many plastic cards but not-so-many as would be more than pockets to allow for. The tri-fold wallet, which normally lies closed, is splayed wide open, flayed and spread from the bulk inside it. I am as proud of it as I am of my pending conferral. In some ways, it exists more.

If nothing else, I am myself, whatever that might mean. I smoke and I gamble, I fight and I play, I cry and I love, and if this life isn't enough for everything I want to do in it, then damn but I'll find another one to live when I'm done.

---

I keep opening it up, and it hurts each time. My only consolation is that, one of these days, it will be hardened over, and tough. A calloused scar instead of an open wound. In the meantime, I'll just grit my teeth as I bleed fresh. Kill me if you can, but I don't think you ever could.