This was something new for me.
We old souls, striving to evolve beyond human, had no use for Bob's kind, hell-bent on devolving into animal. But the day I met Bob, I pulled out my pad and pen, wrote, "Often an old soul will saddle up with a new soul. Why? To lighten the load that comes from having to serve yet another life sentence down here on the low earth plane."
Though Bob and I had little in common, what we had in common--other than age and unkempt hair--was a passion for writing fiction. Or, was it a passion for living the life of a writer?
Bob had approached the writer role differently than I. My game plan; get mindless jobs so I could work on my writing while I worked. Bob, on the other hand, had majored in Business Administration in college. His plan; put off writing, stalk the big bucks so he could retire at forty and do nothing but write. Well, Bob was retired now, but he didn't write much--his life too full of the arts and crafts of retirement; drinking and chasing women.
Though pleased with the kicks I was getting, sometimes I'd forget Bob was my sidekick. After all, we old souls were down here, largely, to inspire individuals, wherever they were, to take the next higher step. Truth was, Bob was a better writer than I, and, sometimes, fed up with Bob's hedonism, I'd get on my high horse, tell the pig to quit horsing around, open his laptop, contribute to society.
Of course, we literary types must choose words carefully when high on Old Paint. There are, after all, better ways to light a cellar than razing the house. A good way is to open the cellar door, pull down on the string strung from the bare bulb.
"See Bob," I'd say, using the littlest of fingers to rest upon my chest, "writing requires a degree of sacrifice. A writer is he who secedes from life so he can, through the living page, breathe life into the dear readers of the world who--to the avail of the publishing industry--are too afraid to join the living."
"That reminds me," Bob would say, his big finger in my face, "when are you going to get a life?"
"Hey," I'd say, "what I have I'd take any day over what you call a life."
"Ya, well, good luck taking death by the horns; I'll stick to life."
"Which begs the question, Bob: Is it you who's stuck to life, or is it life that's sticking it to you?"
"That reminds me," Bob would say, "there was this chick I stuck it to the other day, who . . ."
Bob's tales of conquest were always captivating, for Bob was very creative when it came to lying his way into a girl's pants. Of course, he had to ruin every tale with his pig ending. "Ka-ching," he'd say, blowing imaginary smoke from his gun finger, "another notch for the old gunstock."
I knew Bob said this to upset me. And it did upset me. No, not the score-keeping part--most men saw women that way; there for the slaying. What upset me was the way his "Ka-ching" spanked me awake, filling me with guilt for having bit so hard on his pig tale.
It was a rare day I took my pickup out on the freeway. Freeways were for rats who had signed up for the race. Though we peace-seeking old souls preferred the slow scenic route, sometimes we took to the freeway just to get a feel for life.
Or, so I took to telling myself when I'd been forced onto the freeway by some fucking asshole in a sixteen wheeler who had refused to yield.
I thought of the fork I took on the gallery patio. I licked my puncture wound. I thought of the "sick," I took in the orchard. I reached for my heart. In the way of my heart were the contents of my breast pocket. Exiting the freeway, I removed my new reading glasses--a level stronger than my old.
At the stop light, I got my face in my review mirror. I never liked my nose; too big for my pinhead. And today, with some trick of light, my nose was the color of the sky. I liked blue, but it was no color for a nose. Then again, when you have a nose the size of a silo, the sky's your friend.
Bob had lost his wheels--cited for drunk driving, so I helped him out on occasion. Today, I was taking him grocery shopping. Or, more accurately, taking him to the grocery store so he could hit on every lipsticked chick under thirty.
No more had Bob climbed in my pickup when he started opening and closing my glove box door. This rapid-fire activity seemed to fuel his favorite topic; the worship of women as objects. After a mile or two of hot-box this, hot-box that, Bob stopped banging, looked at me. "Peculiar," he said. Only he pronounced it, pecooliar. This was what Bob always said when he was about to critique something, or more often, someone.
I, of course, baited him by saying, "What Bob? What's pecooliar?" I knew he was about to lay in to me, but I was an old soul, a master of detachment. Instead of finding criticisms insulting, I found them entertaining.
"Well," Bob said, getting back to his banging, "I try everything to get you to go on about women, but you just sit over there and shake your head like you're not interested. Sometimes, I think you might be going gay on me."
"Ya, right," I said, knowing better than to present a defense.
"And then you go on and on about how you haven't gotten laid in over a year, as if that's some great accomplishment."
"That is a great accomplishment."
"All that accomplishes is making me think you've gone gay on me."
"I'm straight, and you know it. It's just that I respect women."
"I respect women," Bob said. "Every woman I respectively nail."
I looked down my nose at Bob. "Women are more than a place to put it, you know."
Bob looked up my nose. "I'm more than a place to put it, you know."
I pulled up at a stoplight, studied Bob rolling down his window. Why was he being such an ass today? Perhaps he'd gotten a jump on his evening drinking.
Bob stuck his head out his window, yelled at the woman in the car next to us. "My boyfriend here; the most insensitive significant other ever. All I am to him is a place to put it. I hope your boyfriend treats you better. Say, what are you doing tonight? Maybe we should get together, badmouth our men over a glass of wine."
Hand shielding my face, I took an interest in things out my window. Maybe that's why I hated the color red--my face was always turning it. A good way to put the fire out in ones face, is to lose oneself in a cooler color. Say, maybe that's why my favorite color was blue.
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