Zachary Karabashliev - 18% Gray

“New York.”

“Can I come with you?”

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“You wanted to die, didn’t you?”

“Exactly. I will die of boredom riding with you.”

“Boredom? You have no idea who you’re dealing with here,” I snap. “I’m funny.”

“You’re boring.”

“I am hilarious.”

“Boring.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are, too.”

“No.”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes, you are boring!”

“Shh, be quiet.” I put a finger to her lips. On the TV above the bar, I see the San Diego suburbs in flames.

“You’re boring!” Pictures of buildings and trees on fire. “Buy me a beer. Only one beer, please.” The Santa Ana winds, human nature, the original human anti-nature, fire, Prometheus, knowledge, the greed, the madness, the self-destruction, deeply coded in our DNA. . “I want beer. And I don’t have any money.”

“Where’s your money?”

“In my wallet. You took my wallet.”

“Excuse me?”

“My wallet’s missing, my ID is missing. HAS ANYONE SEEN MY WALLET!?”

“Be quiet!”

“Buy me a beer then!”

“I won’t!

“Buy me a beer or I’ll scream.” The wild fires keep creeping west toward the ocean. The governor has declared a state of emergency. The president has declared a state of emergency. “Hey!” She yells. “What are you watching over there?”

“It’s burning.” I say.

“What’s burning?”

“California’s burning.”

“What do you care about California? We’re in fuckin’ New Mexico!”

“The fire’s very close to where I live,” I say. “My neighborhood’s next.”

“You have a neighborhood?”

“No, I have a house.”

“Hey, motherfucker, you have a house and you don’t wanna buy me a beer? Why can’t you buy me a beer? Why don’t you buy me a house, too? I want a house, I want kids, I want to die, where’s my wallet? Why did you take my ID? Where am I? Why did you kidnap me, who the hell are you? WHO ARE YOU?! Please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me, I want to go home, please take me home. .”

A few heads from the neighboring tables turn in our direction. I take her by the arm. She pulls it back abruptly.

“DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH ME! I DON’T KNOW YOU! HELP!” She starts scratching the place on her arm where I touched her as if there are insects crawling underneath. “WHO ARE YOU? I DON’T KNOW YOU! LEAVE ME ALONE!” I get up quickly and make an attempt to call the waitress, but a man in a flannel shirt and a Red Sox cap blocks my way, fixing his belt.

“Is there a problem, pal?” He asks.

“No.” I attempt to go around him.

“What about the girl?” The flannel shirt blocks my way.

“What about her?” Only now I notice that the woman I saw rocking back and forth next to the pick-up truck’s red tail-lights alongside the freeway is actually a girl no older than nineteen.

“I think the girl is upset.” The flannel shirt lifts a plastic cup to his mouth and spits tobacco in it.

“Leave him alone, Randall.” I hear the waitress.

“I don’t know this girl,” I say.

“Then why is she upset?” He turns his baseball cap backward and advances on me.

“I haven’t upset anybody,” I say.

“You’re making me upset.”

“Hey, hey. .” I flip out. “I found this kid by the highway. She’s been in a car crash. We’re waiting for her friend Joey to arrive. .”

All of a sudden, a jug of coffee smashes over the baseball cap and splashes me with hot brown liquid.

“You dumb redneck, leave my man Zack alone!” The girl jumps between the flannel shirt and me, holding the handle of the coffee pot. Two more flannel shirts jump up from the tables around us, grab her and twist her arms behind her back. The flannel shirt with the baseball cap, with a painfully twisted face and a hand over his left eye, makes his way toward the bathroom.

“Fuck! You bitch, you fucking bitch!” Coffee is dripping from his yellow mustache.

“Randall, don’t think about it, or I’m calling the police.” The waitress yells in panic. A youngster in jeans, a brown leather jacket, and long blond hair enters.

“Joey. Joey!” The girl waves her hand. “Over here.”

I leave money on the table and rush out. Getting into my car, it crosses my mind that 66 Diner sounds like a title of a short student film, shot on 16 mm and shown to an audience of about thirteen people, relatives and friends, on a cold rainy afternoon.

*

I make just one more stop in New Mexico. In a small parking lot in front of a liquor store, a plump Native American bangs on a ritual drum, his eyes squinting, and his right ear lowered to the leather, humming gutturally. Another Indian, dressed in a Navajo poncho, slowly dances, shifting the weight of his heavy body from one white Puma sneaker to the other. A few more fellows are watching the dance indifferently, sipping from brown paper bags.

I walk into the liquor store and buy water, chips, and a bottle of bourbon.

I drive toward Texas on the desolate night highway. The white line of the road hits the hood ornament of my car at 140 miles per hour.

I love American roads at night. The prairie outside is dark and cold. The American West. Ever since I can remember, I’ve wanted to be a part of this. But why? Is it possible that I had simply been charmed by the idea of the West, the West of absolute, raw freedom? I grew up with my grandparents’ fairy tales, with innumerable stories of our own national heroes — my mom read me to sleep every night.

The American West, however, was the myth I discovered on my own in books and, later, in films. The myth that included all other myths. In my American West, there was a place for everybody — for Old Firehand and Winnetou, Levsky and Jesse James, for the Apaches and Benkovsky’s Flying Squad, for Sitting Bull, Ivanko, King Arthur, Botev, Richard the Lionhearted, and Budyonny. . In my American West there was room for all of these horsemen. In my American West, they were all Sons of the Great Bear. As a child, I often fantasized that the hordes of Khan Asparuh were closely related to the Iroquois.

I remember when our history teacher took us on a field trip to the archaeological museum where we were shown the restored head of a Thracian chieftain, I was ecstatic. It was the face of an American Indian. So that means the Thracians and the Indians. . and since Bulgarians are part Slav, part Thracian. . so I, too, am maybe related to. . I fell asleep tangled in my own infantile hypotheses.

I now realize that my American West was not a geographical place, but a sacred territory in my dreams. Perhaps everybody has their own Wild West. From a very young age, I knew with certainty that one day I would live in mine. I’d caress the yellow prairie grass and the wind would kiss my face. When did I lose all that? How did I manage to desecrate my West by replacing it with the plastic version of what I’ve been living in for the last few years of my life?

I press the gas pedal harder.

California, of course. The end came with California. That blonde bitch — silicon breasts, whitened teeth, fitness-firmed buttocks, pink tank top, frozen smile, and empty blue eyes — California. The bitch I couldn’t afford but still wanted, infatuated with the idea that I was with her, in her, that even for a little while I shared her with rock stars, movie stars, TV stars, porn stars, photo stars, kid stars, I shared her with millionaires, billionaires, multi-billionaires, and bums. I don’t want to think about California right now.

Suddenly, something underneath me rumbles, startling me. I must have dozed of for a second. The car has veered onto the gravel of the shoulder. I get a tighter grip on the steering wheel, shake my head energetically, and swerve back into my lane. Later, I stop to stretch my legs. I inhale the prairie. The cool air wakes me up. Far away from populated areas that fill the night sky with light pollution, the stars are much bigger and closer.