Walking the Sleep (13 page)

I thought I was making sense of things around me.
I clung to my anger. Into my frustration I sank. I bathed. I drank and smoked. And somehow I thought I had a handle on things. And my arrogance, there was no end to my arrogance. But it served me at times.

I really had believed that somehow, for whatever reason, I was different than the rest of those wandering around.
I was no different. I was susceptible to being yanked into someone else’s hell, someone else’s misery, someone else’s dreams. I had thought I could walk and learn. Maybe I could help others. Maybe I could help myself. Eventually leave this place with some dignity. But I had traveled so much, and wandered through so many places, where my soul was tortured. And I saw so many others like me.

“Sam, I think it might have to go soon. I don’t want to. It just seems like there something I have to do. That I can’t do. Hiding here.”

“I don’t have all the answers, kid.
I know you think I do.”

“I don’t know what I think of you, Sam.
But I’m thankful for you just the same. I needed this time. There’s souls worse off than me wandering around out there.”

“So you wanna go save them?
Are you gonna help people over to the other side? Go kill some ravens maybe?”

He chuckles and lights and other cigarette.
He pours a shot of jack Daniels into his coffee.

“Come on Sam.
After all this time, you’re going to fuck with me?”

Sam laughs and takes a long drink from his coffee.
He blows a cloud of smoke into the air. His eyes are twinkling.

“I just wonder what it is you’re looking for.
You’ve been back here so many times. And now you seem to have found a place where you can find yourself. I guess I wonder what it is you will find.”

“I’m not sure.
When I dream, and that is not always, I see ravens, and I see destruction, and I see things that I do not want to see.”

“Perhaps you should listen.”

“To dreams?”

“Why not?”

“You want me to listen to dreams. This seems like one big dream. Not a good one. A nightmare.”

“But you’ve been out there.
You seen that there are much worse places to be. Would you rather walk the sleep? Would you rather be picked apart by ravens? Would you rather slip into the hell of another’s sleep?”

“No.”

“Then stay awhile longer. Not for me so much, though you are a big help. I grow weary of this existence. I grow weary of dealing with the dead. And I cannot stay here very much longer. So maybe stay while.”

“Ok, Sam.
But I know I have to go out one last time. I’m not sure why. But I have to go.”

So the end of my life sometimes takes form and sometimes it makes sense.
Sometimes things are very clear here as I watch people alive and dead buy snack cakes, booze, cigarettes, and everything else that places like this like to sell. And I watch the people come and go. ALIVE and DEAD. I watch them come and go. I come out when I need to come out. But sometimes I just STAY. And WATCH.

And I think back now to the last DAYS. When I was ALIVE. Memories. Last DAYS on that side. ALIVE.
When I was checking my money. When I realized I’d given away so much of my money. I drank away, and smoked away, so much of my money. And I had nothing but a few thousand dollars left. I had wandered up and down the coast, from Eureka to San Isidro. I had wandered down deep into Mexico. Along the coast all the way to the end of Baja. I’d seen things I didn’t want to see. I saw things beautiful. I saw things vile. I lived on the boundaries of civilization and human decency. Of people living. Of people surviving. Of people vacationing. As a bum. A homeless, seemingly penniless, rag picker, all the while carrying around thousands of dollars in my tattered jacket. My Doc marten boots were shredded and torn. Too many nights soaked in ocean water and then dried in the sun. I recall I had given up going to thrift stores for new clothes. I had stopped caring. So I dragged myself inland. And I slept at a mission in Santa Ana. I stayed there for some time. I worked little odd jobs and did whatever the mission asked me to. I even put money in the offering at church when no one was looking. Slowly, I began to see things a little more clearly.

Now I see, in the end. That NIGHT. The END.
I didn’t have an apartment. I was living in a storage unit very close to where I died. I had rented that unit. I’m not sure how, but I had rented it. I closed it at night time and I slept there. I had rigged the outside lock to look secure when it was down so the security guards didn’t find me, or worse, so I didn’t get padlocked in. During the day I wandered around Santa Ana. I sometimes ate at the mission because of my appearance, but on days that I drank lots of whiskey, and didn’t care anymore, and my shame didn’t nod at me, I would go and get a hamburger. I made sure that I was back at the storage area before closing. And sometimes, when my stomach growled from no food. When my body shook with terror from no alcohol. I slid the door up a few feet and slipped into the night. Headed for the store. And I would return to my unit. Close myself in to my safe little place. And I would sleep there. At night, when I couldn’t sleep. Even when the whiskey couldn’t make me sleep. I would sometimes walk around. And this liquor store was a place that I came. Sam’s Place. Perhaps I could have lived this way longer than I did. But for chance I came out on the wrong night. I was seen. I was seen by someone by chance. Someone that knew someone that was looking for me. Looking for me for a very long time. Someone that knew me, or least recognize my face, and they told someone that I was not DEAD. That was I very much ALIVE. And those people, those people that wanted me dead, well, word finally got back to them. I was not dead. My life was dead. My existence was dead.

All that I had loved and held was dead. But I wasn’t.
Any shred of decency, of personhood, of respect, of anything anyone would hold dear, all of that was dead. But I was still walking around. And that was a problem. I shouldn’t be walking around. I had crossed lines. I had done things that should not have been done. I had crossed people that should not have been crossed. People that you do not cross. People that no one crossed. And though I had done things that I believed were right, in my own mind, had justified them, for those that felt I had done wrong, I was alive, and that must not be so. And so the wheels were put in motion. And it took a long TIME.

I had wanted to die

more than anything

I had ever wanted

I sought death in that moment

One touch away

One ounce of pressure

In that moment

I wanted nothing more

But I could not

I simply could not pull the trigger

Because of her sweet face in my mind

Baby face

Chubby

Angelic

I was here and I did not need to be here.
And yet I still had no place to go. In the beginning I always believed that I could leave. I always believed that I could go. And the beginning.

I thought there was some of them waiting for me.
But now, I do not believe that.

Maybe I can go.
But there’s no one who will be waiting for me. I have no faith or belief that anything will be better than what I have now. And still even though I don’t know how or will it can be out there, I will walk, I will wander, a walk the sleep. I will leave this place and I will leave the safety of Sam. I will leave the safety of my room and wander again. Not because I want to but because I have to. And I cannot explain why. But I have to.

The morning I left was not unlike any other DAY.
The liquor store was very empty. Sam was late, or maybe wasn’t coming in at all. He knew I was leaving. Maybe Sam felt he didn’t want to say goodbye. Maybe he thought. Maybe he knew. I was never coming back. But I was sorry to not say goodbye. I was sorry not to thank him for all he had done.

I walked out and I walked into the sleep.

I walked the sleep DAY.

DAY in

DAY out

I walked.

NIGHT

I slipped into many places cold, and dark, and evil. I walked in nothing. I saw people that died.

I saw people I killed.

I saw people I cared about.

I saw people I hated.

I saw people I loved.

I just walked and didn’t look back anymore.

A fog of despair and hatred.

For all that I saw, it did not matter anymore.

I came back and rested. I smoked. I watched.

Sam and I didn’t say a whole lot to each other after I returned.

I just walked in one morning, grabbed a pack of smokes and a bottle. I went to my room.

Days, weeks, months, many years maybe.

MANY YEARS.

I’m not sure. I just decided one NIGHT to leave again.

It was the right TIME.

I walk into the NIGHT.

It is late. I take a last look at the liquor store and see Sam looking at me from the cash register. I wave a final goodbye. I’m glad I can leave this time when he is there.

He nods. I walk into the parking lot and head north of Dyer Road.

I feel something in my hand finally.

A plastic bag. I start to look inside the bag.

But I don’t.

I don’t need to.

I know what’s in the bag.

I know.

A brushing against my leg. King. My dog. He looks up at me with his doggy smile and wags his tail.

“Thanks for coming back boy.”

I look back to the store and I see Sam looking at me. He nods. I give him a wave and walk south towards the 55 freeway with my dog.

Best dog in the whole world. KING.

Walk

Come with me
.

Take my hand as we walk the sleep. There is a warm comforting hand. Embrace it as we walk together. Come down with me. We shall wash our souls from the pain and find solace there, my love.