It was the biggest Goodwill I’d ever been inside, a building painfully stretched like the image on a poorly screen-printed shirt. The structural largess of the Goodwill was impressive, but it was disappointing to find that the store’s guts, while grandly bloated, were essentially the same as my Goodwill back home. Similar prices, similar selection. Was it a dumb expectation for the L.A. Goodwill to show me extravagant costs and zany outfits? I’d been hoping this Goodwill would reflect the specific character of its specific community, a hope I held for all Goodwills. But no. It was just a store with no obligation but to sell its wares.
I knew it would take no time to find a pair of black pants, the final piece to fulfill Gloria’s dress code, and there was still four hours before I had to meet Gloria at ‘The Purity’ in the Hills, so I was decidedly unhurried in my browsing of everything else. Besides, it was easy to get lost in the tales these hand-me-downs had to tell: a light denim button-up with ‘Benji’s Auto Parts’ stitched into the breast pocket; a white t-shirt with a blue frog on it; a safari hat with bullet-holes; a Connect Four with only the red pieces; a VCR/Blu-Ray combo player. Wedding dresses.
Once I’d had my fun, I strolled over to Men’s Pants and soon found a fine pair of black slacks, as nondescript as one could want. My quest was done. Buying anything else was out of the question, as I didn’t want to be carrying crap around with me all night. Feeling a little chagrined by the imbalance between my effort (riot) and my outcome (pants), I shuffled to the tail end of the checkout line that snaked to the store’s single register, questionably built smack-dab in the center of the floor. The register also doubled as the jewelry counter, and the glass cabinet formed a grim, perfect square around the cashier, a strict-looking, middle-aged ginger woman with freckles aplenty, red hair pulled back severely into a neat bun at the back of her skull. She was ringing people up as fast as she could, hands working furiously while her face stayed slack-yet-prepared, like an old cat still primed for the attack. Her whole mien was built by the pieces of armor one dons to face with the pure miseries of working retail.
‘Her’ was Erica. I could see it pinned to her chest if I squinted.
I zoned out for a bit and had to hear “fire in your bag” five times before it broke through the barrier that protected my consideration. Fire in your bag. I blinked and looked about me, trying to coordinate the logic of what I was hearing. Other patrons were doing the same, each with an expression of confused, mild panic that I assumed was on my face as well. ‘Fire’ is a famously alarming claim, but locating it ‘in your bag’ paralyzed our response, as the unique phrasing required a second thought. ‘Your bag is on fire’ made sense, but ‘fire in your bag’? What could it mean?
All these impressions flashed in my brain over the course of a split-second. In the next split-second, I saw it was Erica saying ‘fire in your bag,’ bored like she was taking attendance. Her gaze was cast to an indeterminate point in the line, making it nigh impossible to tell who exactly she was talking to, meaning it was up to the criminal responsible for having a fire in their bag to fess up.
“Fire in your bag.”
“Fire in your bag.”
Whose goddamn bag was on fire? Erica still gave no hints as to the perpetrator, so those of us in line took it upon ourselves to weed out the bag with a fire in it by shooting accusatory glares at each other, thinking we could prod the conscience of the guilty party into admission. We all had places to be, and so the call spread down the line.
“Fire in your bag!”
“Fire in your bag.”
Then I spotted the culprit a couple places in front of me, a stocky man with a gray mop of hair holding an armful of shirts and an over-the-shoulder canvas bag, through the material of which shone a bright, smokeless light, like he had smuggled a star. It didn’t seem especially fire-like, but it was close enough.
I pointed. “There! Fire in your bag.” Trying to save everyone some time, I approached the man from behind and thrust my hand into his bag in an act I assumed held the same immunities as, say, the citizen’s arrest, that mythical maneuver saved for the truly righteous and truly motivated. Today I was truly motivated, and the man didn’t have the wherewithal to stop me. Groping around until my fingertips felt a flammable fabric, I yanked it out and flung the threat as hard as I could away from the line.
Well, turns out it was his phone’s flashlight, not a fire (we all make mistakes!), and the fabric I’d grabbed was a wadded up shirt that had gotten wrapped around the man’s phone in the tumble of his bag. The arc of my throw landed the phone against a metal rack with a sickening crack, and the ensuing ricochet elongated the overall airtime by one more second before it hit the floor, plastic splintering every which way. Alternately, the unfurled shirt, plagued by uncooperative aerodynamics, suffered a much shorter flight. It fell limply to the ground and revealed itself to be adorned with depictions of Looney Tunes’ own Pepé Le Pew doing all sorts of funny things; barbecuing, dressing up, lusting. The tag was green; alas, the day was yellow.
“Sir,” Erica said, entirely nonplussed, “theft is not allowed in any Goodwill. Especially not this one. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Oh god, I’m so sorry,” I stammered, “I saw a light on in his bag and thought it was the fire you were talking about. Then I remembered myself and turned back to the innocent white man whose phone I’d just demolished. “I’m sorry,” I said again.
“You fucking moron!” he replied. “You thought a flashlight was a fire? Were you dropped on your head?” The man stepped closer to me with each rhetorical question until we were toe-to-toe and I could quite clearly see the tobacco-stained teeth chewing me out from the center of a raggedy, gray goatee. “You’re the biggest shithead I ever met!”
This was a conversation I didn’t know how to participate in, so I pivoted back to Erica to plead, “I wasn’t trying to steal, but I understand I should leave anyway. I’m sorry for the disturbance.”
But Erica jerked her head to the side and said, “Not you, sir. I was talking to the man behind you. He has to go. Theft is not allowed in any Goodwill. Especially not this one.”
What? While I was happy, yet confused, to be relieved of blame, I was fearful of the reaction from the angry man who’d already demonstrated a willingness to do me emotional harm and might now be interested in expanding his repertoire to encompass a physical element. I took a couple steps back as he spluttered indignantly and turned red. If there was a doctor in the store, they might have to treat a burst capillary momentarily.
“What the hell are you talking about?” he roared, shaking a meaty fist at Erica. Beads of sweat were cropping up in the creases of his forehead. “This guy just assaulted me!”
Nothing about Erica’s voice or face altered. She’d been here a thousand times before. “Sir, why would you keep one unpaid shirt in your bag when you’re also holding three unpaid shirts in your hand?”
The man snorted, making his goatee twitch. “Why would I pay for three shirts and steal one?”
“Why indeed?” Erica’s eyes widened horrifically, the green of her irises glinting against the black of her pupil, the surrounding white made particularly white by the contrast. Time stopped, maybe? Goosebumps sprouted from all my skin and I was beset with the sudden queasiness that comes with interrupted inertia, similar to when I was on the moving walkway at the airport, but I figured if it had suddenly jammed while I riding it, the subsequent feeling would be how it felt for Erica to stop time. The air around me constricted; I couldn’t breathe but I could blink, and when I did so, the frozen moment thawed, the guy trying to steal the Pepé Le Pew had vanished, and Erica was mechanically beckoning me to the counter. In a daze I obediently shuffled forward, clutching the black slacks to my chest, my life vest in this weird sea until I had to surrender them to Erica at the register. She interrupted my struggle to configure an appropriate thing to say in light of the past five seconds, if there was one, by rapping her knuckles on a laminated sign taped to the register:
ATTENTION:
TIME IN THIS GOODWILL PASSES
DIFFERENTLY THAN IN OUR OTHER STORES.
FOR EVERY 1 MINUTE THAT PASSES WITHIN
THE STORE
5 MINUTES PASS IN THE OUTSIDE [sic]
OR IN OUR OTHER LOCATIONS
PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND AS YOU ARE SHOPPING.
“Did you see this, sir?” Erica asked.
“Oh, no, I didn’t. Is it posted at the front?”
“No, sir, our apologies, the sign is only here.” It was a loaded response suggesting an ongoing struggle with store management. “Many customers have come back and used the natural time acceleration at this location as an excuse to get a refund, so we have this new policy to avoid further confusion. I just need you to confirm you saw this by signing the receipt, please.” The ‘please’ sizzled out from between her thin, pale lips like hot tar, and I felt so bad for Erica, for I couldn’t imagine this policy going over very well very often.
After I had consented to the terms of the Goodwill, Erica rang me up with cool, thoughtless fluidity, a true customer service Master, and slid the receipt over to me. I signed it and told her I didn’t want it, so she threw it over her shoulder. Peeking over the edge of the counter, I saw a floor carpeted with such receipts. Then it struck me that I might want to do some time-acceleration-arithmetic real quick to see if I was going to be late to meet Gloria. My phone said it was 3:40pm. If five minutes passed outside for every one minute in the Goodwill, then the time was...it was…
“The time is 6:20, sir. Do you want a bag?”
Still caught between guilt and fear, I issued gratitudes as apologies with sickly obsequiousness. “Ah! That’s so funny, he he. You read my mind; thank you. And no, thank you. Thank you. I’m going to put them on, if that’s alright.”
“Outside the store, sir.”
“Oh, of course, yes, later. Sorry and thank you.”
I reached hesitantly for the pants between us. The second my fingers touched the fabric, Erica grabbed my wrist and I just barely held in a screech, smothering it into something that sounded like an emotive hiccup. Our eyes made brilliant contact, Erica’s scouring mine for I didn’t know what, the crows-feet printed at the corners of her lids expanding and folding. I let her do it, stock still, even when I felt her thumb rub my wrist like a lucky penny for one, two, three seconds. Falling deep into the blackest black of Erica’s pupil’s I suddenly knew, without a shred of doubt, that Erica had seen it all from this counter at the center of this Culver City Goodwill: the beginning, the end, all possibilities squandered and capitalized upon, all love lost and found, children who died too young, who grew too old; but, above all else, Erica had seen despair. She had seen despair and the masks it wears when it approaches the counter, its struggle to focus, its exhaustion, its lack of appetite and its mumbled speech. It pays $22.95 and leaves to pick up the kids.
“You’re going to be too late.” Erica’s words, no longer flat and stagnant, broke the silence, curling upward with satisfaction like she was letting me in on a naughty secret. Some silence passed. Was Erica talking about my rendezvous with Gloria? Or…!
As soon as it was considered, I knew it was true: Erica wasn’t talking about my Uber. She was talking about something after that. Sensing that I understood now, Erica nodded slowly, a grin seeping across her awful, prophetic visage. My pulse quickened, and Erica to increased the force with which she pressed her thumb into my wrist, getting as close to my terror as possible, and it occurred to me that Erica didn’t just passively witness despair–she sought it out, had taken roost in this Goodwill to invite and incur despair like it was petty gossip.
“I’ll only be a little late,” was my vague, halfhearted rebuke. My breathing was devolving to rapid, staccato stabs, and I felt myself getting dizzy.
“Poor Seth,” she continued with hushed excitement, her grasp on my wrist still vice-like. “Little boy takes his mistakes so seriously. Thinks they’re monuments. Admires them with a collector’s eye and says to himself, All these things I already know.”
Those words. I put my fingers to my upper lip and they came away slick and red. My nose was bleeding.
“My nose is bleeding,” I said.
“If you want it to be,” said Erica, and I fainted.
***
I woke up in the nicest backseat of the nicest car I had ever been inside. My window was open and a warm, refreshing wind bustled around me, tussling my hair. The rest of the enormous, tinted windows were closed, but through them I could see a sunset exploding the sky into an eclectic quilt of red, pink, and gold light that glimmered over the outline of thin, rippling clouds. I tried to take a deep whiff of the air, but found my nostrils completely obstructed by tissues. At the same time, I became aware of a tablespoon’s worth of blood being gargled at the back of my throat. It must have trickled into my mouth while I was asleep. “Oh fuck,” I moaned in disgust, and spit out the window. I gently extracted the tissues from my nostrils and, without thinking, rubbed my nose with the back of my hand, smearing mucus and blood across the knuckles.
“Uggghhhhh,” I whined. The ugly sound only just escaped my lips before a fresh package of tissues was handed back to me by the driver.
“He’s awake! There’s a trash bag back there for you; I don’t wanna hear from my next passenger that there’s bloody tissues on the floor.” The driver gave me a bottle of water to help clean some of the dryer gunk from my face. I thanked him profusely, to which he held his right hand up like hey don’t worry about it. I washed myself up best I could and put the tissues in the plastic grocery bag designated for trash. There was a flattering whistle from up front, and in the rearview mirror I saw the driver smiling at me.
“You clean up good, son. I’m your driver. Name’s Robert. You’re in a Tesla.”
I bounced my eyebrows to show how impressed I was. “Robert, nice to meet you, I’m Seth. I’d shake your hand if you weren’t driving the Tesla.”
“Nah, man, it can be done!” I smiled and shook the hand that reached back. From what I could see, Robert was a 30ish-year-old black man with a shaved head and a perfectly trimmed beard outlining a perfectly square jaw. A stylish, but simple, pair of glasses magnified warm, intelligent eyes. “We should have you in front of The Purity by 7:20.” His voice was high-pitched with a gentle rasp to it.
“Perfect.” I relayed the info to Gloria over text, then realized something. “Oh, Robert! You must need my destination, no?”
“Nope.” Robert waved his hand dismissively. “Erica gave me all the details. You were in the Goodwill during her shift?
I affirmed that, yes, Erica was my cashier at the Goodwill, and Robert chuckled. “Same old, same old with the lady, I see. I assume you came away with the impression that she was maybe…a little more than just a cashier, right? Like, how did she know where you wanted to go, right?”
I nodded, consoled to have my bewilderment validated. “Yeah,” I exhaled. “She was doing some freaky shit in the Goodwill; stopping time, making people disappear, prophesying at me. Is she, like...magic? And how do you know her, Robert, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“I don’t! Erica is a very special girl. We were both born and raised in Culver City and I’ve known her for as long as I can remember. Don’t ask me where in Culver City, that’s private, but rest assured I’m no Bakersfield trash. We were always attracted, like magnets, back to each other no matter where else life took us–I saw a very special girl in Erica and Erica saw a very special boy in me.” Robert paused here as he negotiated a tricky stretch of road undergoing construction, applying his car’s horn exactly as they teach in Driver’s Ed (firm but fair) to prevent accidents left and right. I felt totally at ease in Robert’s hands. His use of very special girl, though…A notable title, one I had called Gloria by, and for good reason. His use of the phrase could be coincidence, but I was starting to accept that here in Los Angeles, coincidence was more the exception than the rule, and Robert’s relationship with Erica made me certain that, while Robert was not inclined toward cruelty like Erica was, they were two sides of the same coin (and Rosemarie was the third?), a coin hellbent on alluding to Gloria Stuff again and again. I was being provoked, but a healthy sense of spite got me to dig my heels in and have a non-reaction, listening attentively as Robert continued to talk. “No one here knows how to drive, man. Anyway, a romantic thing was attempted at some point, but was deemed pointless pretty quickly. Anyone could see that our relationship operated...outside that, if you get my meaning. Seth? Am I talking your ear off? Also I hope you don’t mind that I changed you into your new pants while you were out of it.”
I looked down and saw that he had, indeed, changed my pants while I was unconscious. I considered being upset about it, but couldn’t fake it. I didn’t care at all. “No, you’re not talking my ear off,” I assured. “It’s all very interesting. And thanks, you did me a favor. I hope you threw those old ones away.”
“Yessiree, they were trashed. You get hit by a car or something?”
“Yup!”
“Damn. Well, Seth, we’re about thirty minutes away, and it seems like you’ve had a hell of a day. Want weed? I bet you’re hankering, a young guy like you, and besides, have you ever had L.A. weed?” I was still adapting to Robert’s mode, which was to lay out a slew of questions in one pass, so sometimes my responses felt like recitations as I concentrated on addressing each of his points.
“Uh, yes, weed would be lovely, thank you. And no, I haven’t tried any yet.”
“Of course you haven’t. It’s your first time here, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“C’mon, man.” Robert looked over his shoulder with a grin. “I don’t need to be magic like Erica to tell the difference between a native and a tourist. You’ve never been to L.A. in your life. And because that’s the case,” Robert said with business-like satisfaction as he opened his center console to retrieve an absolute unit of a joint, immaculately rolled, five inches long and stiff as a rod, “this one is on me. The strain is ‘Saturday Night Sativa,’ and I think it’s the perfect thing to start your night off right. You’re gonna be up, man, you’re gonna feel good. This shit is on the next level. ” The enthusiasm of Robert’s delivery was infectious, and I laughed along, my previous anxiety steadily drifting off into the night, ushered out by the anticipation of being high. And seeing Gloria.
Oh, whoa. It really struck me then, the unreal reality of seeing Gloria in the flesh so soon, the first time in two years. A clump of tangled emotion caught in my throat, my heart flexed deep and wide. Was I excited? Scared? What did I want from Gloria? What did she want from me? Were we thinking the same thing? What would life be like when I left? These were questions I’d asked myself often enough since confirming the trip, but they felt more unanswerable than ever. The once-interminable distance between us was rapidly closing and the sun was bid its final adieus to the day, changing its curtains from red and orange to blue and purple, steadily transitioning through darker and darker shades before inevitably settling on black, which ushered in a different sea of light that alternated between blinding white (headlights) and murky red (brake lights).
“What’s on your mind, buddy?”
I looked up and saw my portrait painted in Robert’s rearview window: Young Man With Eyes Wide and Mouth Slightly Agape. Robert didn’t miss a thing. I started to answer, but he shushed me and put the joint in my face, which I accepted. “Smoke this first,” he ordered. I obliged, gingerly receiving the thing between my pointer and middle fingers, as reverent as if Robert was passing back my firstborn. I asked Robert if he wanted me to roll down a window. “Nah, you’re my last ride for the day, so let’s hotbox, yeah? Unless you’re uncomfortable with me driving high?” I told Robert hotboxing sounded like a cool idea and that I didn’t mind him driving high. “Nice. You don’t have to worry about me, really; I could be blackout drunk and still get you from here to Timbuktu without a scratch. I could be tripping into another dimension and have you in Albuquerque right on time.” He paused thoughtfully. “But you know, I would generally try to avoid a situation like that.”
“As would I, as would I,” I hummed agreeably, pulling the yellow Bic from my pocket and putting the joint to my lips. Igniting the lighter cast flickery shadows across the interior of the Tesla, breaking the darkness into dusky shards. Robert and I toasted to the night before getting toasted ourselves. Touching tips, flame to joint to lips, I sucked until the heat concentrating at the back of my throat got to be unbearable, at which point I coughed violently with the same suddenness as unexpected vomiting, like bleah! Robert fished the joint out of my trembling hand and pulled from it with relish as I hacked in the back of his Tesla for a minute or two, full-body-coughing so hard I thought I might faint again. When I looked up, Robert was passing back a bottle of mango-scented water. I gulped it down and collapsed back into my seat, gasping.
Robert laughed at me. “Oh, Seth, you are about to feel it. L.A.’s weed is one of its famous Three W’s. Are you familiar with the Three W’s of L.A.?”
“Um.”
I just needed a second. I was soooooooooooooooooooooooooo high. Pressing my forehead against the cool of the windowpane, I saw light blooming from cars, street lamps, neon signs, and neon billboards, and it was all blurring together into an electric haze as the Tesla accelerated to an m.p.h previously unexplored by land vehicles, it felt. By contrast, my limbs felt like they’d been dipped in amber 65 million years ago, and the competency of my cognition had devolved to that of primordial ooze. Sounds rang louder, sights made no sense, and I discovered that everything, everything, vibrates imperceptibly–imperceptibly, that is, to anyone not soooooooooooooooooooooooooo high.
I smacked my lips. “Rovert. Robert. What. Is the. Are the...three...things?”
“Alright,” Robert began. “Before I start, do you want any more of this?” I abstained, said maybe later. “Cool. We’ll cover the Three W’s of L.A. and then get to what’s on your mind. The W’s are as follows: Weed, Weather, Women. Obviously, you’ve just experienced the first W firsthand. Seth, did you tell me where you were from?” I hadn’t, so I did. “Well, I don’t know about the weed there, but I doubt it’s better than what you just hit.”
“Probably.”
“HA! And you can’t beat the price. If you buy some yourself, you’ll see.”
“Right.”
“The second W is weather. It is so nice all year, like living in heaven. A little less nice in the middle of summer when the water runs out. You came at the right time, there’s still a little water left. Honestly I don’t have much more to say about the weather than that. It’s just nice. Except when we run out of water.”
“Right.” I was struggling. If it weren’t for the glowing, dwindling joint I would have thought time had stopped again. From the second it was lit our stanky hourglass had smoldered with unsettling gusto, smoke gushing out like water from an opened hydrant. After only one hit I was more done than done. Obliterated, I thought, picturing a big asteroid pulverizing a smaller one into dust. I felt like that dust in space. My brain was splintering into a thousand different directions at a million different frequencies, which sounds maybe impressive or exciting but really only amounted to a struggle to think just one thing.
Robert, barely phased by the Saturday Night Sativa, took another hit. I told him it was alright if he finished the joint, that I appreciated what I had gotten. “You’re very welcome,” Robert said. “It’s good to know your limits.” I drooled. “Now!” Robert declared, plowing ahead, “The third W is indisputably the most important: Women. Los Angeles is a Mecca for Beautiful Women. Whatever you fancy bodywise, facewise, ethnicitywise, agewise, horoscopewise, intelligencewise, languagewise, or careerwise, you’ll find the perfect lady for you. They come here to be actors or pop stars or models, and sometimes they do, but mostly they just end up getting stuck with regular guys like us! Ha! And from what I understand,” Robert turned back to me and tapped his temple, “and I understand a lot...You’ve got your own W thing going on, right?”
I laughed choppily and coughed. “Oh yeah, I’m fighting them off, Robert.”
Robert laughed back, longer than he had laughed yet. “I’m sure you are. But I was talking about Gloria. You came to see her?”
“Yes,” I replied, surrendering disbelief. Nothing surprised me anymore. Of course Robert knew Gloria’s name. Everyone did, I guess.
“And was it Gloria making you zone out earlier?”
“Yes.”
Robert smiled and sighed sympathetically. His GPS announced that we were ten minutes away from my destination. Outside, sources of light were less frequent and the traffic was less dense. In the dark, the mood in the cabin of the Tesla settled, turning soft and contemplative.
“Seth, I’d like to tell you a story about a girl named Patti. I’m going to tell you this story, and you can take from it what you will, but I think you will see why I’m relating it to you. May I?”
“Yes. Thank you,” I whispered. It just seemed like I should be whispering.
“One night, I think it was about three years ago, I have a dream. I dream a lot, Seth, so this isn’t strange. Erica does, too; it’s one of our many commonalities, but there is a difference in the natures of our dreams, and that difference is significant to the story. See, Erica dreams what will happen the next day.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t get too excited. She can only ever see what will happen inside that Goodwill she works at. Not minute to minute, but she wakes up with a solid comprehension.”
“Was that how she knew that a guy was stealing today?”
“Eh, maybe. There could be a couple different explanations for that, but try not to distract me, Seth, I’m very distractible, especially high.”
“Gotcha, apologies.”
“So...Goddammit, where was I? My memory’s shot.”
“Erica dreams and sees tomorrow at the Goodwill, and you were about to say what you see.”
“Ah, thank you, yes, what I see. I don’t see shit. Or maybe I do, and I just don’t remember it. For me, I wake up with the explicit knowledge of exactly one thing that will happen. The catch is that the thing could be anywhere in the whole world, and there’s no context provided–it appears in my brain as if I already know the context. So, like, an example...ah, there’s so many...Let’s say yesterday morning. I woke up and knew Tamara was going to have a harder time than expected moving into the new place. The sensation of dreaming my dream imparted that feeling to me, but for all I knew, Tamara was somebody’s cat. Does that give you the gist?”
“C’mon, gimme one more!”
Robert let out a good-natured sigh. “You see why I don’t share this with many people? But sure, one more. This morning I woke up and knew that Rosemarie was going to eat something she shouldn’t have.”
That shut me up. “Okay, thank you. Carry on.”
“So it’s five years ago, I have a dream, I wake up, and what do you know? I’ve learned something about little ol’ me! I’ve learned that when I stop by the Goodwill to say hey to Erica, I’ll fall in love with Patti. I have no idea who Patti is, but, regardless, this news excites me a great deal.” Robert created a pregnant pause to pull on what was left of the joint, inhaling until he hit the filter and throwing it out the window. Miraculously, no stank stuck to the Tesla’s luxurious upholstery. On the contrary; I caught a hint of lemon. Robert may just be the finest Uber driver on the planet, with José solidly in second. As my highness mellowed out, it felt like the speed of the car did, too, and the lights lining the street flicked by less freakishly as the Hills of Beverly swept by clean as a whistle.
“Where was I?”
“You were excited to fall in love with Patti.”
“Boy, was I. It’d been so long since I felt a real love for someone, and my dreams don’t lie. I go to text Erica that I’m swinging by the Goodwill later and that I’m looking for a girl named Patti, but before I do, I see that Erica has already texted me. Curious, right?”
“Very curious.”
“Thank you. So I read the text, as one would. It reads, ‘Don’t come to the Goodwill today. I saw that your life gets ruined. Dunno how exactly but just don’t come.’ This puts me in a difficult spot. On a Venn Diagram where the two categories are ‘Falling in Love’ and ‘Ruining Your Life,’ those two circles are going to be practically on top of each other. It wasn’t hard to imagine how both of our premonitions could be true.”
“Tricky.”
“Yes, tricky, but as an old hand at this sort of decision-making, I wasn't too torn up on the way to my conclusion, which was to go to the Goodwill and see what would happen. Around noon I walk through the doors of the Goodwill. I wave to Erica at the counter, Erica doesn’t wave back, she looks agitated, but I don’t think she was surprised that I came, she knows me well. She gives me a little wave of her hand and goes back to work. At my leisure I stroll through the store, totally relaxed, knowing fate is fickle and self-possessed, coaxed into action by nothing and no one. I look at shirts and flip through books, all the while keeping an eye out for any ‘love-at-first-sight’ types and keeping my ears open for the name Patti.” Robert paused again as he smoothly pulled up to a curb, startling me, as I’d lost track of my ride’s progress. I was on the absolute edge of my seat, invested in Robert’s story and terrified of the moral it might impart. He shut off the Tesla, taking us from silence to more silence, and turned to face me.
“I’m there for a little while before I see the last person I expected to see that day, an ex of mine named Francis a few aisles over in the lady’s section. Long, complicated history between us, hadn’t seen her in years, and now I see her in this Goodwill on this day? I can’t lie to myself and call it coincidence. Francis must be involved somehow, but I can’t figure exactly how. I don’t go right up to her because that would be selfish of me and unpleasant for her, so I keep my distance and keep milling about, thinking hard.”
Robert stopped to laugh at me. “Seth, your face, you look like we’re sharing spooky stories ‘round the fire. You can chill bud, no one dies in the end.”
“You’re telling it very spookily,” I retorted. “And you said this story was going to relate to me somehow, and so far I don’t like how this looks for me.”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” Robert replied cheerfully, patting my knee. “We’re almost to the end. So I’m thinking and thinking when I hear Erica on the intercom say, ‘Can we please have Robert come up to the main desk?’ This gets an eye roll out of me. Clearly, Erica is meddling, trying to distract me from what she sees as a life-ruining pursuit. I sigh and make my way to the counter. Erica’s standing there with her hands on her hips, and the second I approach, she snaps, ‘She’s yours.’ I say, ‘Who?’ She points over my shoulder and there stands a little girl, like three years old, with a piece of paper pinned to her shirt, and on the shirt was written ‘READ ME.’ I take the piece of paper off the little girl’s chest, and open it. It reads: ‘My name is Patti. My mom can’t take care of me anymore. Please take care of me.’”
I thought Robert would keep going, but I saw him looking at me expectantly and realized that was his ending. “Oh...So, did Francis leave the kid? Was she your kid?”
“Is. Patti’s back at home with the sitter. I am unsure if Francis or I had any part in creating her. After finding Patti, Francis just disappeared from the store and I’ve never been able to get in contact with her.”
I felt my face screw up in confusion. “Wait, so–”
“Ah!” Robert cut me off, raising his palm up like a stop sign. “I said I wouldn’t explain it. We’ve arrived at your destination, Seth, it’s time for you to get out.”
I heaved a sigh of exasperation and asked for one more bottle of mango-scented water, which Robert was kind enough to hook me up with, throwing in a little bag of pretzels for good measure. With janky overexertion I opened the passenger door and fell shoulder-first onto the sidewalk, saved from splitting my head open on the curb by Robert’s perfect parking-job. I actually did a neat roll-move and used the momentum to get up on my feet in one smooth motion, but coming up so fast made me lightheaded, so I collapsed back on the ground in an unfortunate sprawl. My goodies from the car were strewn across the pavement.
“Fuck!”
Cheeks flushed with embarrassment, I stood up slowly this time, using my hands to help. Laughter from the Tesla soundtracked my shame as I brushed off debris and checked my pockets. Robert was laughing his laugh in a series of hee hees that sounded pleasantly like an old dog wheezing.
“Hey, Seth.” Robert was beckoning me over through the passenger window. The Tesla was so low to the ground that I had to bend at the waist, hands on thighs, to meet his eye.
“Hey, Seth!” he repeated.
“Hey, Robert,” I responded, a little annoyed.
“C’mere. C’mere!” Robert wore a sly grin on his handsome face. Still bent over, I trudged forward lazily with my knuckles grazing the ground like an unlikable orangutan.
“What’s up,” I drawled, draping myself over the Tesla’s windowsill.
Robert gave me the elevator eye and chuckled. “Seth, you got your shit together?”
I snorted. “I’ve been high before, Robert. Can I go?” I’ll admit, I was upset about the cryptic and didactic story. He had some nerve to lay that at my feet all and demand that I decipher it. And what for–my benefit? Like, yes, I got it. The arrival of a child in his life could ‘ruin’ it, as in upend his plans, while also being a source of real love. Wow, profound. I could figure out my own shit without his tired allegory.
Robert soothed me with a voice he must have used on Patti a lot. “I’m not asking you to think too hard about the story, Seth. It’s not homework. I just thought the telling might give you some helpful insights into whatever your situation with Gloria is.” He exaggerated this word to imply that he, in fact, knew very well what the situation was.
“I guess.”
“At the very least,” Robert said, “you know something about me, now, Seth. Not many people can say that.”
That softened me. It was time to lighten up. “Ah, I’m sorry for the attitude, Robert. It’s just that it’s been a...provocative day. Tiring in general. I appreciate your advice, I’ll keep it in mind.”
Robert accepted my apology with grace, raising his hand and saying, “Don’t mention it. Now, I’d like to give you a little present. Not because I feel bad or anything, but just ‘cause I think you’re in the best position to take advantage of it tonight.” Real smooth-like, he pulled from nowhere a little baggie of white powder. I looked at it.
“It’s cocaine,” he explained. “A passenger gave me this a few weeks back as thanks for some particularly excellent advice I gave.” I rolled my eyes. “And I want you to have it.”
“Ah. How much?”
“About ten grams.”
“Jesus. And I meant cost.”
“Depends.”
“On what.”
“Have you ever done cocaine before, Seth?”
“No.”
“Ketamine?”
“Also no.”
“In that case,” he said, producing another, almost identical, baggie of white powder, ”They are on me, my friend, if you will have them. I have it on good authority that there’s nothing laced in there or anything, though I was told this ketamine is extremely, extremely potent, so only take it in itty-bitty bits.”
I looked at the drugs, then at Robert, then back at the drugs. “Why do you like me so much?” I asked Robert flat out. “Why are you being so nice to me? I’m really flattered but also really confused.”
Robert considered my question, scratching his chin for a moment before replying, “I like you, Seth, because I can tell you take shit really seriously. Maybe too seriously for your own good sometimes, I bet. I take things seriously, too. Best way to be. But the thing about serious guys like us is, we gotta learn to sense when it’s time to lighten up.” He winked and patted my cheek; I got it. “Hold on a second,” he said, rummaging around his pants pockets before producing a hundred-dollar bill and a business card, holding them up suggestively. “Seth, do you want to do cocaine for the first time?”
Robert hummed contentedly as he tapped out two even lines of cocaine on the card, deft in his movements. Without a word, he rolled the bill up into a loose tube and sniffed up one of the lines with as much dignity as one could have when doing this sort of thing. Robert sniffed a few times, pinching each nostril in turn, and passed me the cocaine and its utensils. For a second I wondered if this was the best thing for me to be doing after a day of memorable nosebleeds, but the point of no return is a persuasive place to be. And I was on vacation, for chrissakes!
I bent my head.
“There you go, buddy.” Robert’s breath was warm on the back of my neck, passing down from cocaine father to cocaine son. I snorted with vigor to leave no doubt as to the blow’s successful delivery. I didn’t want to do this twice. I lifted my head. Concentrated at the back of my throat was a wet, metallic sensation, and all along my nasal passage an icy wind blew despite the temperate climate outside. This all seemed about right.
“You like it?” Robert asked. By way of reply I showed a broad, toothy smile and did a jittery nod. Yes, I think I did like it. The cocaine was making me feel good. Light and propelled, though I was left wondering why this was so much more illicit than caffeine when the effects were such close siblings. Racism, I hypothesized. Historical, systemic, racism and…other things. But, upon thinking further, while I was confident that racism had some hand to play in the severe criminalization of cocaine, I didn’t feel that cocaine should be recreationalized or anything. But at the same time as I had that thought, I chided myself that the science of the chemical composition of cocaine was something I knew very little about, so it would be hard for me to have an informed opinion on the matter. But on the other hand, realistically, it was very likely cocaine was so much worse than caffeine as far as its influence on the human body. But maybe it was the systemic racism making me think that way about cocaine. Maybe it was fine. Maybe cocaine should be stocked at pharmacies.
I was still nodding and doing my open-lipped smile.
“Glad you like it!” Robert laughed. “It’s pretty good. Remember: Be very safe with the ketamine. Save it for the end of the night if you’re going to do it, and do a tiny amount.”
“SOUNDS GOOD, ROBERT.” I realized I was screaming. “Sorry, I’m screaming. Sounds good, Robert.” We shook hands to make the farewell official. “I–I’ll never forget you,” Robert, I stammered, eyes moistening ever so slightly. I was so grateful to have known Robert.
Robert smiled and dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “Have a good night, Seth. I have a feeling you’re going to turn out alright. Remember: It can be simple.” Our eyes held onto each other until his tinted windows rolled up, severing the optic embrace. Robert’s Tesla went off into the night to save another life. I inspected his business card, already counting it amongst my most beloved treasures:
ROBERT HERMEN
ENTREPRENEUR
LIFE COACH
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