Invisible planes are flying above gray skies and the twenty nine seconds left on the microwave by the previous guest are imbued with a mystical power that can bring about both creation and destruction. Fat children jiggle around a heated pool while the Mexican maid pulls her daughter by the arm up a broken flight of stairs. From the corner of my eye I can see the yellow dots sprinkled on the purple shag at my feet scurry around like cockroaches. It’s hard to explain.
Itay’s outside, putting heavy bags on top of vinyl records and old arcade cabinet assembly manuals stored in the trunk of the Toyota. Braver is in the shower using up the Israeli shampoo that makes my hair do what it’s told, and I’m sitting on the edge of the bed in a leather jacket that smells like a campfire, watching the sunrise on television with my sunglasses on.
It’s all very strange and hard to explain. Last night was awkward for everyone involved. An emotional workout heavy on the cardio. Oscar worthy performances all around. Very dramatic.
Italy pushed Braver harder than an overpaid professional. Scabs were picked, outer layers penetrated, furious yolk leaked out a crack in a precious, pearly white shell, barely holding it together. Braver’s head transformed into a ripe grapevine tomato. He was screaming that Itay didn’t have a clue what it’s like, that sometimes he wants to kill himself, that he doesn’t know how to deal with it, that he’s fucking sick of it, and he throws his plastic cup at the wall, spraying water at the paintings for sale, the empty pizza tray, and at our faces. He storms out, knocking over a chair and a cardboard cutout of an Italian stereotype in his path of destruction. Itay goes after him and I’m left alone with the waitress who’s understandably peeved. My clumsy attempt at a sincere apology falls on deaf ears, so I make for the door before the colors on the kitschy painting of a Monterey beach start to run.
We find Braver hiding in the bushes and join him there. We hug him while he cries.
His father is dead. Hard to argue with that, impossible to reason with. It’s not a “there-are-other-fish-in-the-sea” type of situation. Every father is the last great white whale, a Moby Dick, and Braver’s was recently harpooned by a truck while making a U-turn in a poorly designed intersection outside Tel Aviv. Braver says he’s sorry for being a drama queen, that he doesn’t want to be the guy that ruins it for everyone else, that he doesn’t want to be the guy that snores the loudest, that he doesn’t want to burden us with his baggage, that he doesn’t want to be that guy. We remind him that his father is dead, and that it’s now or never. I couldn’t tell if my hug was sincere and wondered if he could.
We stop for chocolate comforts at a 7-11 before heading back to the Travelodge Motel. The sugar hurts my teeth, I can feel it making itself comfortable in my stomach, igniting serotonin fireworks in my skull, and I like it. I’ve shed all pretense about my appetite for any substance or activity that makes past and future fade away, that allows me to wade through the moment like a confused animal. It can, and will, get much worse than chocolate.
We leave the wrappers with the rest of the trash piled up in the Toyota. Itay and I share a bed and Braver rolls around on the bed next to us, snoring like a drum solo playing off a skipping record. I don’t have the nerve to wake him up and roll him off his back but I’m grateful when Itay does. Unfortunately he goes on to sleep the rest of the night with his knees in my back. I don’t have the nerve to wake him up either.
The morning sun couldn’t be less interested in the gruesome details witnessed by the moon the previous night. Nor does it manage to wash away this feeling that’s hard to explain, this thing which makes a picturesque little beach town on the California coast seem as inviting as a refugee camp on the Gaza strip. I find the right moment and make the most of it. With Itay down by the car and Braver in the shower I get sufficiently high in order to reason with the gaudy aesthetics of the Travelodge Motel. I’m hoping that we’re all weak enough to pretend that last night didn’t happen, that we’ll manage to avoid analysis at least until lunch, hopefully until we pick up Amit from San Luis Obispo.
I’ve yet to decide if Amit was clever enough to anticipate the meltdown and avoid it or whether it was mere happenstance, but he decided to split off from us two days earlier, claiming that he needed a little break from this road trip—The Trip, as we began referring to it with no little reverence, as if we were already writing it as a chapter in our autobiographies. In defense of his departure, his abandonment of his designated post in the holy crusade which is The Trip, the testosterone levels in the Toyota were getting dangerously high. Symbolic battles over the control of the air conditioner, diverse tastes in music turned into ideological conflicts of passive aggression, clenched fists hiding in pants pockets, hoping for a worthy excuse to set them free. His absence, and Braver’s little fit which followed soon after, may have re-pressurized the cabin. On the other hand, I hope that missing the beat of just one of many nervous breakdowns won’t cause him to play off rhythm.
It used to be pretty simple. Plan A, the “I want to be an astronaut” plan, fell through a long time ago. I think I took it harder than most, but I soldiered on to plan B like the other average, and from now on forever bitter, adults. When plan B fell through I was better accustomed to compromise. I crawled to plan C on my hands and knees with my chin held up high, perfectly content in my mediocrity. By the time plan C failed I was celebrating defeat, wondering how it would feel to sink to new depths, to flirt with the bottom of the barrel, to touch its rugged surface. The answer came in the form of plan D: a community college summer math intensive titled Math 80.
Two weeks into probability and statistics it becomes painfully clear that I have no business being there. I was supposed to be a great success, the pride and joy of family and friends. I was told that there would be no math. Room 71B in the architectural Soviet nightmare which is Batmale Hall was not on my itinerary. This is not a room where heroes and cultural icons are produced. No one will ever write a book reminiscing about the electrifying energy that was pulsating between the walls of room 71B. 71B is where the below average toil to achieve lives of toil and are grateful for the opportunity. 71B is where we need to look up to see the bottom of the barrel. These pie charts are visual representations of the art of deception. These histograms are monuments to the science of bullshit.
I drift in and out of concentration, alternating between assessing how terrible my life is and staring at the chalk marks on Mr. Thaggert’s bulbous ass. Whenever he stops to address the class he plants his hands on his desk and leans forward, pushing his behind against the part of the blackboard that holds the erasers. I wonder if he just hasn’t noticed that he’s been doing this for the last thirteen years he’s been teaching here (a frightening thought in its own right), or whether he’s perfectly aware but no longer cares, and which of these options makes me sadder. My hell is lit by fluorescent lamps; Thaggert’s lecture is indistinguishable from the hum they produce.
I can feel any and all meaning in my life slipping in between my fingers, I can see Plan D circling the drain, and I panic.
I’m on the bathroom floor in a fetal position when Braver calls. I’d crawl under the bed if I could, but the mattress–single extra long–sits on the floor of my studio (efficiency) apartment. Plan D was on its last legs when it was taken behind the shed and shot by a pop quiz. Plan D was a poorly packed reserve chute. The grown man on the bathroom floor is free falling in place, he’s some sort of location–specific art installation, it’s hard to explain.
Braver just finished a six month tour of South America, no doubt getting swept up in one of the roaming herds of Israeli tourists giddily stomping and poorly tipping their way through Third World hot spots. The last time I saw him was over a pale kosher burger when I visited home more than a year ago. I resented the upswing of his life at the time: he finished his service in the army successfully. He was more than gainfully employed at a successful web design firm. He succeeded in maintaining a healthy relationship with his girlfriend for two years and was moving in with her. He was successful in getting into an elite program in a university.
Over the best burger in San Francisco he informs me that since the last time we met he has quit his job and dropped out of school, identified what was left of his father at the morgue, was dumped by his girlfriend, and got on a plane to Brazil without even a hint of purpose. I still resent him when he says he had anal sex with a beautiful Australian blond in Colombia.
He says that Itay’s in Nashville and Amit’s in Alaska. The three of them are going to meet here in San Francisco, rent a car, and hit the road for a few months.
Apparently they became quite the trio since we graduated from high school and I left the country. They’ve been dreaming of going on a road trip together for a while, and since they all had a chance to meet in San Francisco, now would be the perfect opportunity. As Braver uses a napkin to wipe the blood and ketchup from his mismanaged facial hair he is completely unaware that I’ve already added myself to his road trip.
I’m doing my best to give the appearance of steadiness and composure, of someone who still has something to lose. I’m trying to remind myself that Braver is most likely more miserable than I am, and that misery loves company. If I’m going to be curled up in the fetal position, better the beach than the bathroom floor. I’m going to crash and burn, that much is a given. This trip might give me the opportunity to make it a beautiful spectacle.
As Braver’s eyes get misty for no apparent reason and turn to no particular point in the room, he’s completely unaware that I’m destined to be in that Monterey Travelodge. I’m already there, sitting on the edge of the bed, wishing I had a breakfast burrito to put in that microwave, considering putting Itay’s harmonica in there instead.
Braver emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of steam and those same misty eyes. Itay comes up to the room and informs us that we’re packed and ready to head for San Luis Obispo. He tells us he broke the 12–inch record Amit bought in Santa Cruz while he was packing the car.
The Toyota creaks and moans out of the parking lot and we head south with a trunk filled with emotional baggage, a broken record, and this thing that’s hard to explain.