Noah Cicero - The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. II

Fish in the stream for a little bit.

Shoot the bow and arrow at a target.

Help take care of the garden.

Learn how to skin a rabbit.

The days are nice and I become rejuvenated a little.

It is a nice escape.

But it is too lonely.

Misail and I are sitting outside his hut.

The sun is shining and it is a beautiful day in the forest.

I say to Misail, “I have to go now. I’ve got to get back on the road.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“The desert.”

“What’s in the desert?”

“I don’t know, but it seems right to me.”

“It’ll be hot there.”

“I don’t mind. I can handle heat,” I say.

“What are you gonna do for money?”

“Oh, fuck, who cares. Work somewhere I guess.”

“Wait, hold on.”

Misail goes into the hut then returns.

He hands me a wad of money.

I take it and say, “Thank you. You don’t need it?”

“No, I have enough.”

“Thank you, Misail. I’ll be back one day to visit.”

“If you never make it back, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.”

I get my stuff from the hut and Misail and I walk to the car together.

I look at Misail.

He looks okay.

He looks like he made a choice he can live with.

I look at him and say, “What are you going to do?”

“Someday a bear will eat me and perhaps my life will come to some use.”

I laugh, get in my car, and leave.

I’m sitting on the hood of my car.

I’m in Nowhere, Utah in the middle of the night.

At a lookout that overlooks a valley where more dinosaur bones were found than any other place on earth.

At least that is what the little plaque says.

It is around a hundred degrees out.

I’m sweating on top of dry sweat.

Shirtless, wearing a bandanna to keep the sweat out of my eyes.

Misail gave me two-thousand dollars.

I don’t know why he gave it to me.

I think I’ll start over.

Maybe

be

someone new.

Who knows?

“It sure is hot out here,” I say, laughing in the desert.

Around eleven o’clock at night the phone rings. It says on the caller ID Benway and a phone number. The name Benway and the phone number lead to my ex-girlfriend I had three years ago, Jessica Benway. I stare at the phone number and it all flashes in my mind, all seven years of weird hell I had with that girl. All the fights, all the yelling, and even some good times; there were good times. There had to be good times sometimes or I wouldn’t have stayed. I remember the best times were when we weren’t talking. Like watching television in silence or eating in silence or showering together in silence.

Sometimes I look at Benway’s MySpace page. I stare at the photos of her face and think, ‘She still looks kind of pretty. It is nice that pictures are silent.’ Now I am not trying to say women shouldn’t talk. I love to hear Isabella and Sasha talk. But Jessica was not my type. She was one of those classic leftovers from high school. We started dating in 10th grade, then we went out and broke up and went out again and broke up again for too long. Our problem, or at least my problem, was that if I totally broke up with her then I would have to admit high school was over and that I was totally an adult, and that was something I did not want to do and still today I don’t want to admit such an atrocity.

But it’s strange that she would be calling because from what her MySpace page says, she got married, had a baby and moved to northern California. Maybe she is home on vacation, I don’t fucking know. This is terrifying. Picking up the phone is dangerous. Don’t we already have closure? Isn’t closure totally completed after you get married to someone else? Doesn’t like Jesus come down and anoint the married couple in closure oil or something.

I pick up the phone.

“Hello.”

“It’s me, Jessica.”

“Okay.”

“I’m home on vacation and want to see you.”

“Aren’t you married and shit?”

“Yeah, so, I don’t want to fuck you. I just want to sit and talk. My husband is back in California. I just want you to come over and drink coffee with me for an hour. That’s all.”

“There’s a blizzard out there.”

“I know you can drive well, don’t fuck around.”

“You are already hurting my feelings.”

“Shut up. Just come over.”

“Where? To your mother’s house?”

“Yeah, to my mother’s house.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“I think you might.”

“No, no death.”

“Okay, I’ll drive over.”

I hang up the phone. This is a bad idea. I know it is a bad idea. But fuck, it isn’t like I have anything else to do. It isn’t like Youngstown is offering a great night of fun besides getting drunk downtown, slipping on the ice on the way home, breaking my leg and freezing to death.

I go into the living room to talk to Chang about it. This is drama; I must soak up every minute of it.

Since I brought Chang home, he hasn’t left. He has been sleeping on my couch not really doing anything for three days. The not doing anything doesn’t seem to affect him; I have a computer with the internet so he is staying in tune with MySpace.

I walk in and sit on the floor. Chang is reading some used copy of the

Philokalia

, which is some deranged book written by solitary Eastern Orthodox monks who lived in the forest writing crazy shit five-hundred years ago.

“Chang.”

He looks up from the book and says, “Yeah.”

“I’m leaving to talk to Jessica.”

“Your ex-girlfriend.”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds dramatic.”

“I hope so, nothing dramatic has happened to me in a while.”

“Didn’t you say you impregnated Isabella.”

“I’m not sure if I did. If she is actually pregnant that will be dramatic. But we won’t know until and if she misses her period and then takes a pregnancy test. So currently I’m without drama.”

“Bring back some bananas and some pop.”

“Can I ask, why the hell are you reading that? You don’t even believe in God.”

“They’re alone.”

“Okay.”

“Be careful, there is a winter storm warning.”

I drive down roads covered in snow to get to Jessica’s house. It takes forever. It is cold and the snow won’t stop falling. Why would I drive through this snowy hell to see someone I haven’t seen in three years, and for sure nothing will happen, and words will be said. There will be staring and memories brought up. But nothing will happen. It will result in nothing but me eventually leaving and picking up bananas and pop for Chang.

Oh yes, dumb drama will happen. Drama, the life force of Americans, like it is our religion now. When it became our religion I don’t know. But it is now. God died and was replaced with drama. We all go to the altar of drama and pay tithes, we bow and pray at the altar of drama, of pseudo-emotions and play-acting. We love it. We love watching it on television, reading it, talking about it, starting it, ending it, being a side actor watching it, we love to hear about it, and the grosser and more despicable it is, the more we love it. The other day, a friend of some girl I know dropped his cellphone at a local sporting event and when whoever picked up the phone was looking for who owned it, they found pictures of naked eight-year-olds. My friend told everyone, we all listened intently, we all asked questions. She loved to tell us and we loved to listen. It was drama. It didn’t have anything to do with us, but it was drama and we as good Americans considered it beautiful.