Robert George

I don’t see much, and I can’t hear a goddamn thing unless they yell at me, which they rarely do, I think. My thinking’s good. Real good. The best. That’s all I really do, and I like it. I had a Burmese neighbor, Hein, who was Buddhist, and he told me that some people get stuck between living and being dead, and that's sort of where I feel like I’m at now. It’s peaceful, to tell you the truth, which I always do. The last thing I heard clear as a Daisy was that my Granddaughter was flying first class to Japan with some guy named Joe. I remember having to go to Australia once, and I was going to fly first class, but it cost 10,000 dollars. Guess everyone has 10,000 now, and Joe has 20.

The only time I flew first class, I had 14 dollars in my pocket and no bank account. The booze was free, and on a four-and-a-half-hour flight from Chicago to Reno, you eventually fall asleep after much scotch. Still, it's ok because in first class they put you in a pod that extends into a bed, and Richard Branson watches you sleep, or at least that is what I was told by the guy who was drunker than I was across the aisle. I had soda in my drinks. This guy was a straight-up animal. His name was Leonard and literally looked like an opossum in an Armani suit. He put me to sleep really fast, and I still dream about him.

I got the ticket because my uncle's neighbor was a rich woman who was somehow connected to, or a member of, the Dole Pineapple family, and when she heard why I was laying down tar on her roof, she offered to use her points to fly me, first class, to Reno, which I did, in that pod where Richard Branson watches you sleep. I had already contacted a man on Craigslist to pick me up at the airport and agreed to pay him once I arrived. I grew up in Chicago, but was living in Nevada City at the time, in a cabin between Sacramento and Tahoe, right up against Tahoe National Park. This was before your phone was a computer, and this was done on an actual computer before I flew out. I don’t know why I didn’t ask anyone I knew for a little bit of money. I had money, but it was in Nevada City, CA, under my dresser. You’re really stupid when you are 22, that’s why people used to get married at that age, have children, and die angry. It seems like a long time ago, but my Granddaughter says nothing is that long ago. She’s smarter than I am. She’s got Joe taking her to Japan.

I got woke up on an empty plane. I thought maybe they had to toss Armani man, drunk Leonard, cause he looked like he wasn’t ever going to leave his pod, but we were in Reno, and I walked off the plane a bit buzzed, found my Craigslist ride without any problems, except I didn't get into the car. One, he had a giant, hairless, dry scar across his sweaty face, obviously made by a blade, and two, before he could take me to Nevada City, he said we would have to stay at his cousin's for a week. I asked where his cousins lived, and he said, “Why do you ask so many questions, motherfucker?” Then, three: I looked in the back seat, and there was an axe. I said, “Sorry, not getting in,” and he drove away. Sometimes I wonder if that was how I was going to die, but no. I’m still here, but at the time I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be around. I thought all airports were open 24 hours, but this is not true. The Reno Airport closes at 10 PM, and I begged the security to let me stay, but they just shrugged and walked me out of the building, into Reno, Nevada, at 10:15 PM. I had 14 bucks in my pocket and did some math. I asked them where the closest Motel was, and they said there was a Motel 6 right down the street. There was one, but it was an hour's walk, and boy, did it feel like an hour. Everyone looks at you when they can smell that you have no money or a place to stay in Reno. They all know it.

A room with taxes was $39.99, and because I didn’t want to die in Reno, I started introducing myself or hollering at folks who were checking in, and asking for money. I’d show them how much I had and that I only needed xyz to get my own room. Two families said no, but a guy named Robert George said he had just booked a room with two beds and that I could sleep on the other one for free. I did not know this at the time, but looking back, Robert was on a lot of meth. In our room, he went to the bathroom a lot, told me he was in a band, but they played on top of a mountain in southern California, and the devil took away their instruments. I remember tis conversation like it was yesterday, and I still have a recording of our talk on an old laptop that works very slowly when plugged in to an outlet. There’s also a photo of both of us. He was red as his eyes, and his hair was slicked back with either sweat or grease, I couldn’t tell, just like I couldn’t tell if he was drinking mouthwash or schnapps. He worked at a cab stand. Was the mechanic. He never asked me my name.

I don’t know how I fell asleep, but when I woke up, I was alive, and Robert was still awake, smoking meth in the bathroom. I smoked a pack a day then, and he gave me cigarettes like they were nothing. He saw the look on my face and asked me about my predicament and where I was headed, which I admit, I did not think he was capable of, but Robert eventually proved to me he was capable of just about everything. I figured I needed to take the bus, which would cost me around 50 dollars to get from Reno to Grass Valley, and then I would have to pay someone in Grass Valley to take me to Nevada City. Robert asked me again how much I had, and I told him I had 14 dollars, and his eyes lit up like stars. I remember thinking he wasn’t human, and as I look back, it was probably the meth kicking in, but he is one of God’s children. He had wings but was modest. He said we should go to the casino.

“Give me the money, and I’ll get you your 50 and then some, and because I’ll be gambling, you can eat at the buffet, and here's some more cigarettes.”

I gave him the money. I thought he was going to run off with it, but he let me sleep in his room, so that was fine, but we sat and ate at a buffet for free because he was playing blackjack and roulette until I was comfortable enough to wait in the Sports room and watch football, until he tapped me on the shoulder and handed me 200 dollars. He was really red and sweaty. More so than before, and smiled, which I hadn’t seen him do until then, and his ayryan eyes had cleared.

It wasn’t until recently that I thought about what he might have thought of me, which is a bit selfish, but I’ve just been so curious about him recently. He’s definitely dead. He was older than me by about 25 years then, and all I hear these days is that I am going to pieces. I can’t tell if Robert was ever in pieces despite his meth addiction, and whatever else made him tick. Maybe he is alive. Maybe things don’t die, they get traded. We can’t all be happy, and we can’t all be sad. Kurt Vonnegut once said, "You can look at life and either laugh or cry." He prefers the latter, and so do I.

I dreamt about Robert recently, which started all this thinking about him. He sat on a fallen tree at a New England beach, and beside him was the only author I’ve ever seen in a dream, Larry McMurtry. I don’t know why he was there, but they called me to them and had me take a seat between them. They watch the surf crash and roll back, and though there is no physical manifestation of time in dreams, you can hear them breathing very slowly and calmly through their nostrils until they say, “It’ll be alright.” I looked at Robert in the dream, and his dry, blue eyes told a tale. I saw him when he was five, running around a backyard with his father. My earliest memory is my father “finding me” in a cupboard and laughing. My most painful memory is of my father passing. Is that why we smoke meth? Is that why we stop? When did Robert get his wings, and why did he choose to stay here, with the rest of us? I asked him in the dream, and he said, “It doesn’t matter where you go, because not only does everything follow you, but it’s usually ahead of you, and I’d rather help out some mixed-up kid than be found by a bunch of saints who have long forgotten that life is on the other side of those pearly white gates. No one lives forever. Do you have five dollars?”

The dead are remembered. Sometimes we want to be alone, and sometimes we ask for money outside motels. Our parents spank us, and people give us first-class seats. Our memories are like our bodies: whether we like them or not, they are always fluctuating, growing old, or altering who we wish we were or think we can become. Robert George smoked meth, and in the 5th grade, I was told these were bad people. If this is true, then I understand a fraction of what evil is, because Robert George was the baddest man on the planet, and if he was the baddest, maybe that’s why the devil took his band's music equipment, but why would the devil punish one of its own?

I remember looking out the passenger side window before I fell asleep in that pod. It was night, and I looked up at all the stars. I had never seen so many, and their significance to me was how beautiful something can be that's so far away or burnt out. Robert George told me he was burnt out, but he shone like a star under the casino lights, high out of his mind. The last thing he said to me as I got on the bus was, “I hope everything works out for you, good luck,” and we hugged for five minutes until the bus driver honked the horn.