I had a vision that day out in the desert. What I visioned was myself very different than what I had dreamed of up to that point. No longer was I an actor. That was an image that I had as a child--to be famous like Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five.
I certainly wasn't much of a teacher either. I couldn't even drink enough water. So much for leading by example.
The vision I had while being transported back to base camp and getting care was not tied to solitary and solipsitic enedeavors. I couldn't get away from people--even in the desert.
Those days were over, forever, although I did not know it at the time. The green light well beyond my reach, out on Daisy's dock.
"Hey, Bri, you could've died. Didja know that? Gotta drink some water, dude. Lot's of the agua."
"Yeah, I'm stupid, I guess."
Jules who I hardly knew was the guru of the desert adventure escapes--for kids and adults. A hired teacher with his crew who would take anybody out for the right price.
"Say, dude, let me tell you about this time we were wa-a-a-ay out in Death Valley. We were near the Borax mine. You know, Twenty Mule Team and all that shit." Unhooking the IV, Jules pulls the long needle out of my left arm. "I'm not sure where the hell I was because I was wonky too. Very little water and operating on like no sleep. We had just finished tooling through Nevada on this bike day trip where it was snowing and back down below sea level near Furnace Creek where it was hot as hell."
I'm watching him dispose of the needle that was in my arm into a sharps box while pulling out the gauzy tape. He gently wraps my arm. "So, we get down to where the pool is. Bri-man, have you ever been to Death Valley?"
"Naw, I-I-I..."
"Sorry, man, just sit back and rest up. That IV had like double Gatorade. That shit you're drinking is like a nastier version. Anyway..." Jules spits the end of the Steripad package into the garbage in a perfect arc, "We roll right past the pool and I guess I wasn't, you know, looking."
His hand comes down hard on the side of the Coleman temporary table, shaking it and his canteen right off. "Blam. Right into a the back of a truck. I hit that freakin' truck like meteor wiping out dinosaurs. Nobody sees, nobody comes to my aid. I'm lying in this oasis parking lot hearing kids play in a pool in the middle of the desert. Freaky stuff, man."
He's just talking and not even looking to see if I give a damn or not.
"Must have been like 107 degrees, after it was 37 earlier. My body didn't know, you know, what to do."
I blink. Don't want to talk at this point because a guy name Jules who I didn't know all that well was playing beat my story. Pity Poker.
"I get run-over by this Bug. Thank god it was only a Bug or I would have been dead." Jules touches my arm like I'm his date.
"Why the hell are you telling me this." I pull my arm back, quickly. "I'm...just... could you just do your damned job and stop the chatter."
Jules doesn't know about the stuff floating through my head. He's adding to my confusion. Book. The coyotes. What the hell was I going to do now. My head's still hurting like it's about to come out of my skull.
"Sorry, man. I just..."
"No need, dude." He wraps up the rest of his materials in silence and leaves the medic tent. Our infirmary. Tent flapping into the open air, cholla and sage all around.
The vision was about leaving everything that I knew behind. One of those moments where things begin to solidify. But why was my head so heavy? Why couldn't I think straight? I stopped being one thing and became something else.
Jules ducks back in. "I saw you on that show. That's all I really wanted to say. You were good."
"Thanks."
I had no past--memory wiped clean. It looked like my future was forming and reforming in front of my eyes.
