Part 4: Joseph
Any reasonable person would have called the police to report their vehicle stolen, but I am not one of those–reasonable people, I am anything but that! I placed the sleeping bag into the chest, slammed the lid shut, and used the carry strap on the tent to sling it over my shoulder. I licked my finger and held it up in the air to get a sense of wind direction. Tucking the stuffed gator under my left arm I grabbed the handle on the chest with my right and dragged it toward highway on-ramp.
The loose gravel on the side of the road made pulling the chest not as hard as I thought it would be. It was my burden to bear, and I decided against leaving the chest at the campground. I took about twenty minutes to make it to I-25. So far, so good. Cars passed me on the highway like speeding bullets, little self-contained bubbles of life swooshing past me. I trudged on…
Then the rain came in buckets and drowned out the noise. I swear it rained sideways, and since it came in from the North, I had to lean forward to keep my balance as I pulled the treasure chest towards Colorado. The road soon grew silent because the highway was closed between Raton and Trinidad, Colorado. It was deep night by the time I made it to where the construction started, so it was just me and the road.
The rain didn’t last. I don’t think it ever rains long here. I lost one flip-flop and the stuffed gator in the deluge that soaked me to the core, so I pulled the chest into the desert landscape to pitch my tent next to a big scraggy bush. Total nightmare putting the tent up because of my numb fingers. What the hell am I doing? I shook. I lost faith. The words “no, no, no” and “help me” played in a loop in my mind.
I hung my clothes up in the shelter to dry from some hooks. I was starving, hungover, and freezing. The sleeping bag’s warmth felt like heaven on earth. I opened the last rum bottle and took small sips. It burned as it made its way down my throat. I became a premature baby sucking on a radioactive teat, gripping the breast, squeezing hard to get every last poisonous drop. I drank in the booze and drifted off to a dark place where my demons live, sucking my life’s blood and gnawing on my bone marrow.
I don’t remember dialing.
A voice talked over the speakerphone of my cell. The wind outside howled, and the tent shook in the strong gusts. It was faint, but I heard a voice call my name.
“Jeff, where are you?”
“Rachel. Rachel, is that you?” I screamed. I tried to stand up but could not move all zippered up in the mummy bag. I panicked and yelled Rachel’s name.
“Jeff, this is Tammy. What the hell is going on? I’m worried…”
I blacked out and slept like the dead. When I woke, I wished I no longer existed. No food, no water, no hope. Nothing but the burning need for Rachel, the woman of my dreams, the woman I must find even if I lose myself. I wanted her more than water. I had to find her.
I checked my phone. It only had a little battery left. I pulled up my news feed. Missiles positioned near the Ukrainian border, the existence of nuclear torpedoes confirmed, the end of the arms treaty between the US and Russia, and the militarization of space. I blacked out again and slept more, tossing and turning in the constrictive bag like a larva attempting to break free from a cocoon. I dreamed of a large black clock with bones for the hour and minute hands that mark the passage of time, inching to midnight, slowly moving towards annihilation.
When I woke again, I left the chest and everything behind. I was out of booze and perhaps at this point out of my mind. I freed myself from the bag, unzipped the tent door, and carried the chest outside. I then took each keepsake one at a time out of the chest, kissed it, and threw it over my left shoulder. The small stuffed cat I bought in Mexico from a child, my lieutenant’s bars from the army, the carved dog my grandfather gave me before he died, little things, stuff that mattered more than anything in this life. Tammy thought all the mementos stupid and wanted to toss everything out. I guess she wins. After I emptied the chest and all of my life’s markers lay strewn on the desert floor, I walked towards the road again, not looking back. Dressed in my wrinkled pirate clothes and carrying only my shaving kit, I hobbled one flip-flopped down the road toward Trinidad.
It wasn’t long before delirium kicked in and everything became hilarious. Then nothing was funny. For a minute, I forgot my name. Forgot my destination. The sun beat down, and my eyesight failed. Everywhere I looked spots obscured my vision and floated about. I could not tell the difference between up or down. I became dizzy, and my heart beat frantically. I remember seeing a whale swimming in my direction, or was it a truck? I fainted.
A truck–I wished it was a whale, but it was an old tow truck with the words “Glory to God Towing” painted on the side. This I found out later because when I first awoke, I was in the truck’s cab, and we were blazing down the road heading to Trinidad. When Joseph, the driver of the vehicle, saw me stirring, he pulled over at a rest stop and carried me from the cab to picnic benches in the shade. He left me there for a minute as he ran back to the truck to get water. He returned and lifted me and cradled me in his lap and slowly fed me sips of water until my strength returned. I tried to talk, but he shushed me.
When the sun reached the horizon, he carried me back to the tow truck. It relieved me to see my shaving kit on the dash. Joseph saw me looking at the bag and said, “Don’t worry; everything is still in there.” I took a peek, and sure enough, everything still in place.
“Son,” said Joseph. “You are far from the sea. We don’t get many pirates in these parts.”
“Thank you for helping me,” I replied, not knowing what to say.
“I need to take you to the hospital,” said Joseph, looking at me with tired serious eyes.
“No,” I pleaded. “There is a woman I must find. I know this sounds crazy, but I met her in a dream, and I must find her. I must!”
At this, Joseph’s eyes softened, and he said, “Tell me the dream. Perhaps I can tell you what it means. People say I understand dreams better than most folk.”
So I did. I told Joseph everything.
After I retold the tale, he said he would not take me to the hospital, but would instead take me to Estes Park, Colorado, the gateway to Rocky Mountain National Park. I smiled and wanted to kiss the bearded man but held back. I insisted on paying for gas.
“How much will it cost to get there?” I asked.
In all seriousness, he replied, “There is no set fee. Pay what God would have you pay.”
“God’s thinking a hundred bucks.”