* * * * * * * *
The Subjects are deposited at the corner of Newport and Cable Street, after dropping acid 10,000 feet in the air over the Chihuahua desert a couple of hours earlier... Voltaire St. is somewhere in the close vicinity. All signs point to east of their location, but they're holding onto gravity by the grains of sand on the sidewalk and the shifty eyes of encroaching pelicans, who only want the weed.
The first stop is the bathroom and the epiphany afterwards, proceeds as follows:
"I'm usually apalled by the amount of filth in there. Today, there is ample toilet paper in the stalls because it's early in the morning and all the street people ain't washed with the entirety of the pink soap in the dispenser yet."
When they finally make it to the beach itself, Subject A writes something down about the woman closest to Subject B's proximity:
Lady in a pink
skirt with your
cat at the beach your
cat on a leash
don't want no
bath in the
ladies room at
the lifeguard station
Subject B is amused by the anecdote, hysterically amused in fact, but is distracted somewhat by a full bladder and the violet reflection emitting from the sun, or the waves, or the sand, or Subject B's photoreceptor cells, which Subject B is convinced have betrayed Subject B in every sense of the word.
Subject B talks about the early 90's hit: The Wizard, starring Fred Savage, Christian Slater, and some autistic kid who never made it farther than "California...California." because that's all the little shit ever talked about...
Subject B can hold it no longer, and treks off to the Lifeguard Station, feeling like a saturated Rimbaud with one leg. Subject B releases.
Meanwhile, Subject A has become fascinated with the catwoman, the cat's bathing rituals and the cat frolicking aimlessly in the sand dunes, AS FAR AS ITS LEASH WILL ALLOW. Catwoman, has turned on her i-pod, wears no headphones, and dances with the cat, AS FAR AS ITS LEASH WILL ALLOW.
The monologue goes accordingly:
Lady with your
cat on the leash
with your chunky
ass in a
yellow sunset bikini
I ain't tryin to
hear no Korn
song right now
put your pink
skirt back
on & quit tryin
to sing it to
me silently.
Subject B returns from Lifeguard Station after crying profusely at the urinal and urinating for what seemed like 2 years, but in all actuality was only 20 minutes.
Subject B relates the experience to Subject A, via telepathy, hand gestures and simultaneous verbal communication techniques. The technique is not lost upon Subject A, who has become incredibly attuned to the little revelations one experiences when frequenting the semi-sanitary bathroom stalls. Subject B saw no such thing. Subject B, peed into a hole in the wall with a bowl of water at his feet. Subject B thinks of Henry Miller's recollections on French Urinals in The Black Spring, specifically A Saturday Afternoon:
Subject B thinks of his own life:
"with intense blues and luminous greens, the life of sin and grace and repentance, a life of high yellows and golden browns, of winestained robes and salmon-colored streams"
(H.M.)
"So I finish up, and I turn around and this guy has obviously been standing behind me for the entire 20 minutes, and I got tears staining my cheeks, which I feel like everyone can see even with these sunglasses on. So I go to the sink to wash my hands and there's no soap, or the soap dispenser has evaporated. I don't know, but I'm standing there, my hands are already under the faucet, the place is crowded with tweekers or what I perceive are tweekers, and the only thing I can think to do is sprinkle my eyes with penis water, and split real quick... For a moment, I almost screamed out: You've left me no choice San Diego! You drove me to this!"
Subject A is equally amused by Subject B's bathroom anecdote, which has peaked Subject A's interest once more.
Subject A makes off for the Lifeguard Station, and Subject B wonders if she really has to go that much or is it more or less for the experience and the observations...Subject A admits to nothing, for the moment, but later confides that yes, Subject A did have a full bladder, but Subject A was mesmerized by her previous findings and felt compelled to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak.
The relevance of the evidence was uncanny and well documented:
"Looks like someone shit on the wall in there. The Lifeguards go in and throw cat litter where it had dribbled down...I feel like Dexter, examining the blood splatter pattern of a mutilated corpse...Somebody drew an arrow pointing to the mess and asked: Does it take a real concentrated effort to shit like that on the wall?"
The mystery is never solved. The catwoman has disappeared. The waves have finally broken back, the surfers are leaving and the orange juice is completely gone.
Subject B asks Subject A:
"You down for some fish tacos?"
All signs point to yes...emphatically so.
The acid is still pulsing through their bloodstreams when they get back on the plane, a mere 4 hours later. Albuquerque is colder than usual, as they make their final descent before landing...
