"The Honesty of Timothy," Story #9

Golden Gate Park was gorgeous and wide-open beneath the patchy clouds, but it was surrounded by drug addicts and fools. The park opens up best at the end of Haight Street, running through the now tiredly famous Haight-Ashbury district. It’s the kind of place where guys in top hats named Wizard fearlessly man street corners, shouting “mushrooms for sale!” The yo-yos who couldn’t make it drop acid and lay on sidewalks, staring into the sky, guitars silent against their chests. I never felt sorry for any of them because I couldn’t tell if they were being honest or not.
“How do you feel?” Aurora asked me, softly intent. Her question brought me back to myself and I looked over to her. She had a fair and oval face and these crisp, lyrical blue eyes that could soothe me or anybody completely. They sang that anyone could trust themselves in trusting her. I wanted to also, but Chris was sitting right near us.
I glanced at him. He sat with his body facing us and an arm over one knee, but his face turned awkwardly away. He was staring into the park.
“Tim, come on, what’s on your mind?” She asked again, warmly.
“I feel really good. It’s good to be here with you guys.” I nodded a couple of times, shifting on the grass. My eyes found her just for a second, her flowing waves of jet black hair falling around voluptuous curves in a white turtleneck. I was sure not to look for too long. Everything about her was hard to resist. She was actually a blonde but had dyed it a few days before.
“Oh Jesus, come on- that’s a silly thing to say. ‘I feel really good.’ I can tell you’re holding back.” She was right, of course, but I wasn’t gonna start getting too spiritual or emotional or whatever. Things were already tense.
Chris ran his fingers through his wavy, red hair. He shoved his hand in his jacket, the leather creaking, and pulled the pack of Marlboros out. He slid a cigarette into his mouth and put the pack away without offering one to Aurora or me. He lit up and stood, the smoke curling up around his back.

He’d been acting like that for days and it was starting to piss me off. We’d been on the road for a week. Things were fine until we hit Klamath Falls, heading home on the I-97. I remember stopping into some lousy 7-11 to pick up snacks and batteries for the camera. Skeletal women in the nasty tank tops with their eyebrows plucked out wandered around outside, perverted and probably spun out of their minds. I was in no mood for it. The night before had been tough for all three of us, but we were pulling through, even with the headaches and everything. Maybe that’s why Chris was so irritable.
“Tim, would you get us some Icees, ‘cause I’m full-on dying out here. I need an Icee.”
I pulled Chris’s La Baron into the front parking spot. “That’s fine. What flavor do you guys want?”
A hand from the seat behind me squeezed my shoulder. “Oh Chrissy, come on, don’t be so grouchy. Why don’t you say please sometimes?”
Chris paused a second. He was beside me, but I couldn’t look at him. It would have been awkward. I felt him smirk, and he cracked into a laugh and slapped my knee. “Alright baby, please, get us some fucking Icees, ok? Red Icees. Hook it up.”
Aurora sighed and I stepped out. I didn’t slam the door, ‘cause I wasn’t that angry. I understood where he was coming from ‘cause of everything the night before. Nobody meant for that to happen. We’d all just done too much, too fast, and that was that. Things happen. It was awkward the next morning, obviously—I mean, it would be for anybody. It’s not like I was, you know, trying to get between them. All of us were there. We’re close, though, and so I thought we could move on.
I brought our cups to the slushie machine and began filling them. I pushed away a tuft of curly hair and looked outside. Through my reflection in the window, I saw Chris sitting in the passenger side, leaning over his seat, talking with Aurora behind him. I had no idea what they were saying. Chris spoke with his hands in these choppy movements, sometimes closing his fist or opening it completely, the back of his head twitching around as he spoke. I couldn’t see her at all, but you could tell they were interrupting each other.
Suddenly he got out of the car and slammed the door. He walked toward the window. Our eyes locked, his grey and piercing. He pulled a Marlboro from his jacket and lit up, his cheeks all thin as he inhaled. He smiled at me, his face narrowing, exhaling the smoke from his nostrils with the cigarette hanging from his lips.
My hand stung. I looked down. The ice cold slushie spilled over the edge of my cup all over the place. I shook the goop from my hand. Outside, a muffled burst of laughter erupted. I looked to Chris, grinning at me and pointing, our eyes meeting for an instant before he turned and got back in the car, this time in the driver seat.
“Well, what do you expect me to do, Chris?” I demanded through the window. He sat back in the seat, closing his eyes. “How the hell rude would that be, somebody—she’s my good friend, too—trying to get to know me, really get to know me. And I tell her to stop it?” Aurora hadn’t meant any harm. We were being friends. Friends talk. Friends tell each other stories and listen and everything. Friends love—the night before was different. That was an accident for all three of us. I can’t say I regret it because I don’t regret anything, but it wasn’t anybody’s intention for things to play out that way. I was done.
That drive to San Francisco was one of the longest I’d ever had. It was treacherous, clamoring around the eggshells all the way, nobody saying anything worth remembering, too many secret glances in the mirrors. We were finished.

In Golden Gate Park, Chris was utterly done. He tossed the cigarette butt away and faced us. “I’m full-on fucking finished. Ok? I think it’s high time we get out of here. I’m ready to go home.”
We stood. “Chris, dude,” I said and stepped toward him, “why don’t we go to that CD shop before—“
“We have one in LA,” he interrupted, “Tim, why would we go to this one if we have an Amoeba at home? And I want to go home?” He grinned. “It’s time to stop being so short sighted.” He walked off toward the car.
Aurora stood beside me and watched him for a moment. She turned to me. “Chris can’t always deal with his emotions. I love him, but he just can’t hold it together.”
I nodded a couple of times. “Yeah, yeah…” the sounds of the fools and the traffic around the street swelled a little. “I need to know…” I swallowed and looked her deeply in the eyes.
“Yeah, Tim?”
“I need to know… do you regret what happened that night?”
“Ahh, so, that’s what you wanted to ask me.” She closed her eyes and nodded with the question. I don’t think she nodded because she regretted it, maybe just because she wondered about it. That’s what I believe. The breeze came up behind her, winding around her hair and hips. She smelt like wild flowers, eternal wild flowers. “Well… we’d all just done too much. Nobody was really in their right mind.” She looked back to me and smiled. “But, even if it’s cliché, everything happens for a reason, Tim. It builds your character.”
I kept looking her in the eyes, the rest of her a blur, softer than silk. “I don’t.”
“What?”
I clarified, “well, I mean that I don’t have any—“
The black car slowed through the intersection and the driver laid on the horn. It was Chris with the La Baron. He shouted to get into the car, so we caught up and I got in the back seat. After some focused city driving, we found the highway and settled in, slightly, and I fell asleep sometime after passing through Gilroy.

I awoke with a start. I jumped up, looking franticly for what made the crashing noise. No other cars were near us on the freeway.
“Are you alright, Tim?” Aurora asked me. She looked serious, bundled snugly in the passenger seat, the car dark in the fog around us. The confusion gradually left me.
“Yeah… I was just dreaming I guess... something tough, you know?
She nodded wearily. The car was still thick with tension.
Chris drove with one hand, his forehead resting in the other.
I stared out the window. Suddenly, the fetid stink of a million pounds of shit sucked through my nostrils. The endless farmlands gave way to massive, steaming cattle pens packed tight with a thousand trapped animals. A huge monolithic tower or mill or something loomed over the pens, shrouded in the mist. It was probably the slaughter house. Maybe they did it off site, but I think they took care of it there. Just after the farm, the sign for Harris Ranch rolled past.
“Goddamn, steak sounds great,” Chris said. I don’t know how anybody could crave steak after smelling that shit farm, but he was right. “Why don’t we stop? Let’s stop. I’ve been hungry for so long. Gotta get a flank skank. That sounds—“
I laughed, the tension breaking. “You said ‘flank skank.’ You’re a funny guy, Chris.”
“What? Flank steak? Why is that funny?” His voice was overwhelmingly sober.
A long smile crept over Aurora’s face. “No, Chrissy, you called it a ‘flank skank,’ I heard you too!” She looked over to me and giggled, wrinkling her nose, her eyes bright.
I saw Chris’s shoulders tense in front of me. “Yeah, ok. Great, that’s soo funny. I’m glad we can laugh!” He laughed uproariously. “You’re fucking retarded. Both of you. What the fuck, Tim—“
“Chrissy! What’s the matter with—“
“Tim especially, you son of a bitch—think you can laugh whenever you want!? You can’t! There’s not—“ he cut himself off, jerking the car on to the shoulder, slamming on the breaks. “Do you seriously think I don’t know? You think I don’t know what’s happening and about that night?!”
“Chris, leave him alone!”
I leaned forward. “I don’t know what to say. You’re still upset. It was a mistake, all of us—“
“No!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “Not ‘all of us’! It was you two! I was out of my mind and you sons of bitches thought I was asleep, didn’t you?! I watched you! I watched you!!” He thrashed the wheel again and again. The rage was uncontrollable.
“Chrissy, I’m so sorry, I—“
I held a hand out. “Listen listen listen! Wait! I wouldn’t take advantage!” I wouldn’t. I really didn’t. It’s not what happened. Why would I betray my friend?
He grabbed me by my hair, slamming my face into the center console. My nose splintered. I recoiled, the blood erupting. Stinging agony exploded in my head and stomach. He screamed for her to get out, I felt the car move. I was blind with crazy, ringing agony. I felt jerking motions, a gust of cold air, and suddenly my legs rolled over my head. I could taste dirt with the blood on my lips. Horrible screeching ripped my eardrums. I looked up fast to see the La Baron speeding away.
I lay in the dirt for some time. Aurora stood with her arms crossed, silent, staring out into the fog.
I steadied myself, brushing dirt from my jeans and shirt, and walked up beside her. She kept staring.
“It’s ok… it’s ok. Now it’s just you and me. He’s gone. It’s us.”
She shoved me away. “Grow the fuck up, Tim. Grow up. It might take you an eternity.”

She walked fast toward Harris Ranch, her arms crossed. She didn’t cry or anything, I don’t think. I followed her there after a long while of staring.