He has bid farewell to the diminutive Hill Country of his native Texas, knolls of reduced significance in the rear view mirror, for a seaside city and a future under water.
Aaron - his real name has not been altered to protect him from himself – was scanning job openings on a laptop at a coffee house when I interrupted to ask for help with a (misdiagnosed) internet connection error. Seated with relaxed ease on lean lime green pillows on a dark polished wood bench the conversation trampled the murky word of computers.
In their awe of the “American Riviera®...Where Life Itself is a Fine Art,” first-time visitors echo the contentment of residents who delight in Santa Barbara's charms. For all of my hometown's singularity, Aaron observes instead the monotony of a corporatized downtown that differs little from malls across the nation.
The convention and visitors bureau would disapprove. He has yet to know that the group probably has something to do with that little r in a circle that indicates someone thought to register the expression.
Aaron would disapprove. I do, too.
Everything is for sale. The predictability annoys him. I tossed back a respectable rebuttal albeit only partially heartfelt. The business model that our model business leaders replicate in city after city (with a lustrous eye and breathless zeal toward worldwide expansion) proclaims variety and choice before it delivers sameness. Impertinent little punk, Aaron poses too many questions. The ideal participant will purchase when asked, accumulate much past need and forge a happy trail into indebtedness. Get them while they’re young but it might be too late in this case.
Aaron doesn’t buy it.
That everyone else endorses consumerist salvation does not diminish the contempt he reserves for phony marketing choices. Aaron articulates aloud ethos that others once expressed before expediency pushed aside the pesky disturbance of moral decisions. They have forgotten. They have dismissed it but secretly and schizophrenically they miss the good old days when nighttime sleep came more easily.
Aaron brought a tidy sum into the exalted Southern California universe, not enough to buy him much time. Even under the auspices of privation, expenses mount steadily. The survivor of this doomed race has already been crowned. And it is not Aaron.
He has a plan - we all do, do we not? He leans forward, flashes a wide grin, a climax of sincerity across what remains an adolescent face. Bangs of blondish hair fall effortlessly into place over blue eyes that, however pensive, do not betray his uncommon resolve. The slide toward insolvency and poverty will be halted by refusing to engage the hamster wheel of housing that for the most part emasculates most players.
A nose made bright red after a few too many hours under the sun adds a gentle comical touch where there is no reason to laugh. The slope only gets more slippery.
Aaron believes. The forces of righteousness will prevail; the universe will provide. His mental landscape has flattened all obstacles with the calm resolve of a Buddhist monk on a steadfast path of ascetic absolution and purification that would engulf me in existential panic. While my mind runs away from me, he plots his way around and over conventions. Unorthodox to be sure, but less warped than the accepted path toward normality, riddled with aberrant compromises.
A hatchback metamorphoses into a hutch where spaces free of purpose are few. An impressive audio system suppresses the din of canned food, clothes, toiletries, books, shoes and swimsuit. Surges of chilly water drench me thoroughly. Let us not drown today, and let us "Keep Austin weird" when I recover.
Convictions like these come with an infectious charisma. Without much resistance I surrender to the dreamy ideals. I remember. The fiction that is fused with my being comes unglued.
Adventurous in spirit and practice Aaron agrees that a one-day escape to the Sierra Nevada with a stranger verges on greatness. One day and nearly 800 kilometers to and from the Needles rock formation below Sequoia National Park. The urgency of engaged escapism conquers rather quickly.
By noon we have left behind the flat (and drab) San Joaquin Valley. We twist and turn across progressively lusher slopes of oaks, willows, pines and, supremely, sequoias with a burrito and jalapeño staying warm on the dashboard. A car stuck in a ditch gives Aaron a reason to slither under its chassis like a pro to secure a chain to pull it out. First time under a car and first time in the Sierra Nevada – in any mountains. First time at this elevated elevation. He looks good, feels good.
Aaron stands tall. Two centimeters or so above me, enough to shrink me. I don’t remember how the nickname came into the conversation other than I think it had to do with my weight (once described by a physician as "borderline obese" ...) and his. Of the 18 definitions listed at UrbanDictionary none is flattering. Limber and agile up the bark of a sequoia or leaping from rock to rock, he is a buttercup.
Thunder claps and a few rain drops land on us as we prepare to introduce ourselves to the fire lookout's caretaker atop the Needles at 2,513 meters. "This is my private residence," a sign proclaims. "No admittance when gate is closed."
With that warm welcome we hurry back down to avoid the inevitable downpour that will never come, at least not here. We catch up to a woman from Germany on a five-month (!) vacation with her son accompanied by man from Venice, also on a prolonged hiatus from civilization. "I feel blessed to have met you," she shares with us as we part company.
Privileged I am, too. This improbable encounter with Aaron celebrates 48 hours of a fundamentally decent intimate fellowship that captures my mind. The dream that connects more than the sum of our parts intoxicates me.
At Dome Rock a low flying helicopter, threatening clouds and more rain imbues the waning afternoon with an Apocalypse Now je ne sais quoi. Or perhaps I am mixing my movie metaphors: with the upper Kern River valley far below the edge of the granite cliff where we have paused I think of Thelma and Louise.
Aaron soaks in the gorgeous immensity. "It's easy to get lost up here."
My grip on reality slips. Not cause for alarm in so far as the transcendance enhances sensations. But the inherent vulnerability scares me. I am about to get lost. The promise of possibilities weakens. A suffocating void rushes in and pledges my soul to a dissolute sentimentality, hated but omnipresent. Imprudent emotions cloud reason and blind me. The walk to the edge ends at an abyss.
Aaron is a magician. Words of soulful generosity transcend logic. An infusion of kindness caresses wounds that persist. The comfortably unconditional complicity hypnotizes me. Captivated by what my eyes can see, what my mind can hear, I proscribed the images of broken dreams that form before me. For an all too brief moment because fear hastened to the surface of darkened days to end the interlude. The promise of possibilities collapses. The whirlwind of disillusion nauseates me. The exquisite symphony ends in a shrill roar of discordance.
“So you think you can tell, Heaven from Hell.”
