Second 1000 (ish)

[Dear reader: If you want to start at the beginning, read the First 1000 (ish), or read this 1000 (ish) on its own.]

Amy took a long inhale, feeling pleasure as the smoke filled her lungs. She toked until the hit was up to her eyes, ballooning her head. She blew out an enormous cloud of smoke, watching it form a face, or a pyramid, or a cat in front of Skat. It was her last memory of the night.

God takes care of drunks and fools, Amy thought as she hit the stairs to the pier, breaking into a light run, ascending, knee over knee, her sight on the next step up, up. “And I’m usually one or the other, or both,” she said out loud, clearing the last stair and slowing to a walk.

The OB pier advertised itself as the longest concrete pier on the West coast. Fishermen slouched over their rods, others flouted the “no overhead casting” signs, seeming to have eyes on the back of their heads, expert at knowing when the coast was clear to cast.

The surf ,good earlier this morning, floated a few stragglers, mostly sitting on their boards, facing the sets. They reminded her of Skat. Another fizzy memory. His expression benign, but still emitting some alien twinkle, eyes looking into hers. Did he speak, or did she hear him another way? “I see you. You’re ok. It’s up to you.” His hand on her shoulder, warm and comforting, set off a jolt of recognition. That was it. Fade to black. Black.

Recognition of what? Her pace quickened without her realizing, legs scissoring, her hangover injecting her stride with a pull to weave. The attention needed to walk mostly straight ahead focused her thoughts from confetti to narrative. Did she embarrass herself? Gin had been passed out. Typically, according to some universal logic, if Amy was wasted, Gin was not, and vice versa. So why both of them last night?

Amy felt the anxiety of the unknown start a ping pong game between her chest and her guts. She woke up this morning, saw she had walked home, washed her face, brushed her teeth and put on pajamas like any other night. Only she remembered none of it. A thudding feeling of shame somewhere behind her navel kicked her toward helplessness. What could she do? Her teeth ground together, circular movement echoing her thoughts. It was not the second, maybe even not the third or forth time she binged herself blacked out this year. Fuck. Mind images exploded against each other. Michael handing her the bong. Skat’s hands on the guitar, his hand on her shoulder. Gin’s laughter from the other room as Amy emptied her bladder for the forth time in a few hours. Her hands grabbing a beer, turning the bathroom tap on and off, touching Skat’s arm. Touching his face?

The LB passed a glowing sphere between them and around them. The Guardian reclining on a rounded sofa, bolstered up by layers of pillows: one upward nod from her kept the orb weaving. The Second standing nearby and attentive to other things in between his turn waved it past at the waist. The Others did most of the work, always focused on their task. The soft light from the orb trailed into a web shape. Wove around the Child’s thoughts, holding them from expanding. The web widened and pulsed, billowing and contracting. The orb’s color changed, morphing from green, to pink, then white. The whole web took on a geometric rose shape, balanced. The LB could help ease her pain, if only the Child would allow.

Every day was a new chance to be…. Amy’s thoughts stopped and she stopped walking. Her eyes focused on the entry to Granny’s Garden. Somehow, she had walked out and back the length of the pier, down the stairs and a block East on Newport. Perfect. She felt hollow. Food and coffee would bring her back to life like Marty in Back to the Future when his parents kiss and fix the space time continuum. She walked through the waist-high picket fence that divided the tables of the coffee shop from the sidewalk, an image of herself springing upright from a listing slouch put a smile on her face. Only a few people in line and she took a deep breath cutting away the last clinging of her spinning thoughts.

Of all the different varieties of waiting, Amy enjoyed waiting in line. Her eyes took in the brick wall to the left of the counter. Then the man in front of her wore his sunglasses backward around his neck so it seemed as if his neck were looking at her, the straight line of hair at the base of his skull became the top of the “forehead.” The man looked to his right, causing the sunglasses eyes to look to their right. Amy’s eyes followed.

The sun cast bright rays colored yellow-white onto the small courtyard at the center of Granny’s, created by the International Youth Hostel to the East, and a new brewery to the West. A noisy wall fountain fluttered a stream of water from a lion’s mouth, giving a soundtrack to the oasis. Oxygen rose from the lush perimeter of plants. She inhaled the lush air. Imagined it rushing into her like shiny steely marbles, knocking out the evil dark-glass hangover marbles. She gave a loud sigh of relief just as the man in front of her turned to walk away with his coffee. He looked up sharply and she gave him an overly big smile, worried he mistook her sigh as impatience. He continued on without showing any response. She paused to make sure he understood she was happy to wait, then stepped forward, ordering a coffee and pear ginger scone in a quiet voice.

Her order up before she became tired of waiting: she was out the door smoothly. Passing the neck face man, a vacationing bull semen salesman she would never see again, she headed back to her cottage. Walking invited back thinking, the body and mind stress-dueting. What the fuck happened last night? A squirm of discomfort went through her. Mind slipped toward berating— desperate, weak, dumbass. A flash of static electricity hitched her step. Let it go. steady. Her brows remained knitted five blocks later as she entered her house.

The LB saw this one’s ingenious resistance. They sat in bemusement. Chaos caused by the tiny crack of herself the child let show through her voice in song. See now how she tortures herself, struggling for the memories blackened by indulgence. Poor dear one. She checked herself willingly into their care last evening. They guided her home. The man with the guitar was too wise to take advantage of her loose impulse.

The LB moved closer to her, rebuffed by her swirling thoughts, but resolute. They were there for her always. They favored her. Of course, they favored all of theirs. They loved her, doing what they could with limited access to calm her. Her attempt to kiss him was her strange way of trying to be hidden again. To the poor dear to be whorish meant to be erased. But all involved knew it wasn’t authentic or true. It was already forgiven. Forgotten in all ways. If she would allow it.

Only after Amy had stood under the warm spray of the shower for some minutes did she think of her interview that day. It would be a sham, since her boss had already decided the guy would be hired. Her interviewing him a formality. She hadn’t made the call on any of the six people she supervised over seven years. Her boss was The King, she told people with affection, and Amy was the loyal steward. She had lived through her boss’s special hires before. Why did she feel anticipation? She decided it was remnants from last night.