textfiles/reports/ACE/derek.txt

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Grade Level:       Type of Work           Subject/Topic is on:
 [ ]6-8                 [ ]Class Notes    [Creative Story on a     ]
 [ ]9-10                [ ]Cliff Notes    [Person called Derek     ]
 [x]11-12               [ ]Essay/Report   [who's high and has alot ]
 [ ]College             [x]Misc           [of problems.            ]

 Dizzed: 09/94  # of Words:8231  School: ?              State: ?
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>Chop Here>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ>ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
                             DEREK

     Derek lifted the large plastic tub, which he had just filled
with ice, level with the counter, dumped the ice into the
stainless steel container, and sighed.  He looked at his watch:
10:25, it said; almost mid-morning, and five eternal minutes left
until his fifteen minute coffee break.  Fuck it, he thought, I'll
take it now.  He bent down low with a much-practiced 'bowling'
motion and sent the plastic tub whizzing down the tiled corridor
into the dish room where it hit the surly dishwasher on the
ankles.
     "'Bowling For Busboys'!" he yelled (out of habit, mostly,
since it had been a while since he had found the consequences of
that action really amusing), and paced off to the staff room.
     "I'll bowl ya!" he heard the irate dishwasher yell, but the
dishwasher always yelled that, and Derek had long since ceased to
notice:  he was already reaching for his cigarette pack.  With
quick, practiced movements he withdrew one of the long tubes from
the cardboard package.  With one hand he placed it in a precise
position in his lips while the other hand was occupied with first
replacing the package to his shirt pocket, then digging out a
half used pack of matches from his too tight jeans.  He was
extremely conscious of the fluidity of his movements; lighting
the cigarette with the match was the hard part, and he wanted to
look as cool as possible, smooth and flowing, for all the eyes he
perceived to be on him.  He managed to execute the task to his
satisfaction as he entered the staff room above the restaurant,
but only Karen was there, finishing a butt of her own.  He didn't
give a shit about Karen and there was no one else around.
     He felt a frustration welling up inside that seemed
incomprehensible.  He thrust himself into one of the tattered
chairs which his employers had so graciously donated to
facilitate his comfort, and blew out a long stream of smoke from
his lips, like a visible sigh.  Karen eyed him with wary
curiousity, but Derek was busy inspecting the floor.  He could
hear the clank and clatter of dishes from the dishroom, and the
slamming of doors and calling of orders as the waiters and
waitresses bounced off of and around each other like atoms in a
solution.  He realized he had to go back out there and face that
frantic pace again in only fifteen minutes.  Unconsciously he
looked at his watch and saw that five of those minutes had
already passed.  "Fuck," he said, without thinking about it.
     "Whatsa matter?" asked Karen as she cracked her gum.  She
could stand the silence no longer; it made her uncomfortable.
     "Nuthin'," Derek lied, but it wasn't anything he could have
spoken to her about.  It was a subject which seemed to be most on
his mind but least on his lips, and when he tried to articulate
these things he simply stopped talking:  there were too many
things he wanted to say, all of them at once, and he couldn't
decide where to start.  That seemed important:  deciding where to
start.  He feared that if he started in the wrong place his
listener might get the wrong idea, or make the wrong conclusions
about himself.  It seemed like everything he wanted to say needed
to be qualified.  So he said nothing, or very little.  "I dunno,
just restless, I quess.  Don't really want to be here either."
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
     "Yeah, I know what ya mean.  There's a good movie on T.V.
I'm missing," said Karen, cracking her gum again, and chewing
enthusiastically.
     That's not what I meant, bitch, he thought.  Derek hated the
tube.  To him the T.V. was an insidious invention:  it was far
too powerful a tool in the wrong hands, and too easy an excuse
for not doing anything yourself.  Derek thought that "The Glass
Teat" was a perfect name for it.  Still, there was a good side to
it:  it helped tie together the world in a network of
communication, which was valuable, provided the communicators
were trustworthy.  But Derek felt that most of them weren't.
Most of T.V. was blatant propaganda, and people like Karen just
lapped it all up, like kittens to milk, or junkies to junk.  But
he didn't feel like explaining all that to Karen just now.  Most
of those thoughts were coded as symbols in his brain, and
drumming up sentences to clothe those symbols with meaningful
dress was too much like work.  So he said, "No, I mean I'd rather
be somewhere else entirely, like another country, or something.
I'm tired of this..." he waved his hand around in an "all-
encompassing" gesture.
     "Yeah, I like to travel, too.  We went to California once,
saw Disneyland.  'Course, I was just twelve.  But I'd go back
tomorrow, if I could.  I remember..."
     Derek tuned out Karen's voice as she droned on and on about
all the things she saw at Disneyland, how her brother was such a
pest and got chocolate ice cream all over his new white shirt
with a picture of Goofy on the front, and how the Matterhorn was
such a scary ride, why, she almost fainted, and on and on, and
Derek felt that Karen didn't have a clue what he was talking
about.  He didn't see how anyone could consider going to
Disneyland "travelling", or the United States as a different
country.  It still had a familiar atmosphere:  the language was
the same, the religion was the same, the cars were the same.
Even the T.V. was the same.  The goals were the same, the same
ethics, the same books, same records, same, same, same.  Derek
felt that Karen would be horrified by the thought of going
anywhere unfamiliar, like Mexico, or the island of Celebes.
     "I don't know about the States," said Derek carefully, for
he believed in being diplomatic unless he held a person in
complete contempt and there were others around who felt the same
to back him up.  "I was thinking of, like, maybe, Mexico."  He
said Mexico as if it was some improbable place that he had just
dreamt up out of his head.
     "Oouu!" her face crinkled up, "I hear it's dirty, and
there's all these beggars, and they'll rob you blind."
     "How do you know that?"
     "Well, that's what I heard," she said, indignant that he
would question her.  "I don't know.  But they always look dirty
on TV."
     Derek leaned back in the ratty chair and folded his arms
over his chest, the dim clatter of dishes downstairs echoing the
random and hazy pattern of his thoughts.  Abruptly he looked at
his watch and his shoulders slumped in disappointment:  he was
five minutes overdue for his return to work.  He muttered an
obscenity and, without so much as a look at Karen he went back
downstairs.

                              II

     Derek walked out ten minutes early into the fine, warm and
breezy afternoon day.  He felt bad leaving all his co-workers
behind in the hot and stuffy restaurant, but not bad enough.
Outside he finally felt like he had enough room.  He took a deep
breath and smiled as he exhaled.  The rush hour was swiftly
approaching, but as yet there was only a faint cloying smell of
exhaust fumes so he took in another lungful and savored it.  In a
little while he would be on the bus, and by habit his breathing
would become shallow and rapid; he hated some smells, especially
chemicals.  Other people's rancid sweat also topped the list,
along with musty attics, restaurant kitchens, paint, powerful
perfumes, stale beer, and old, full ashtrays.  But machine
exhaust was the worst, and had been ever since his Dad had caught
him, long ago in his childhood, squatting behind the car while it
was running, sniffing the wondrous sweet vapors.
     "Hey!" Dad had yelled.  "What the hell are you doing!?  You
want to get brain damage?!"  Derek hadn't been old enough to know
precisely what brain damage was, but he understood that it was
BAD; it wasn't often that his Dad yelled like that.  From then on
he tried to make sure that whenever he smelled car exhaust he
held his breath, even if it meant having no breath to hold.
     A truck went by, and Derek breathed cautiously, but the
breezes washed the fumes away.  He continued to his bus stop,
smiling.  I could walk home and enjoy this fully, he realized.
He knew of a couple of long-cuts that would take him through some
nice residential streets, past a well kept park by the river with
lush grass and tall, fat trees.  If he stopped in the park for a
sprawl in the grass it might take about an hour to get home to
his apartment.  Besides, he needed the exercise:  his shape was
gaining even more than his usual paunchiness.  Even though he
despised the food he worked with, he could not seem to help
nibbling throughout the day.
     But he felt tired.  He'd been on his feet all day, and maybe
that was enough exercise.  No need to abuse oneself, is there?
He got to his bus stop next to the oversized department store,
perched himself on the steel tube railing which divided the
parking lot from the sidewalk, lit a cigarette, and waited for
his bus.

                              III

     Derek got off the bus two stops early and walked the rest of
the way home down the busy street which ran past his house.  He
did it as a sort of penance for not walking all the way home, and
ended up not enjoying it a bit.  The street was a major artery
for traffic bound for home across the river, and was bottlenecked
by the small width of the old steel bridge.  It was jammed, as
usual, with a variety of traffic:  executives on their way home
in their air conditioned self-contained personal transport units,
isolated from the very world they controlled, and looking as
though their thoughts were unfathomable; toughs in hotrods
playing the latest Heavy Metal bands, or classic Led Zeppelin;
prim librarians with nouveau-hornrimmed glasses (faint strands of
Bach and Mozart), followed by a nondescript fellow in a battered
Datsun from which Mahler's Symphony #2 blared forth.  Some old
red-faced guy driving a matching old red pickup fitted with racks
for carrying plate glass tried to go around a stalled car before
he looked, and the successful saleswoman in the expensive
Oldsmobile would have had to slam on her brakes, but she hit the
gas instead and her heavy iron beast (roaring) leapt into the
side of the old red glass-truck.  Shattered glass misted the air,
rainbow colors which swiftly fell to the pavement and became
dangerous garbage.  The toughs in the hotrod jeered, "AwwwRIGHT!!
Didjew see that, man?! Haha!"  The old guy in the old red pickup
hit the horn getting out of the cab and it stuck on, braying like
an injured mule.  Been meanin' to git that fixed, thought the old
guy.  He went around his truck to where the big powder blue Olds
tiger had taken a bite out of his rusty red mule to survey the
damage.  This wasn't his first accident, no sense in getting too
worked up.  He knew it was his fault, too.
     The saleswoman's shriek surprized him.  She couldn't get her
door open, and she was trying hard to roll down the window.  As a
result, her first few words were muffled:
     "...dam son-of-a-bitch, waddaya tryin' ta do, huh?!  Y'wanna
get everybody killed?! I'll sue you you bastard!..."
     Derek tuned out the rest as best he could and wished
fervently that he had walked all the way home.  I will, he
thought fiercely.  I promise I will walk home everyday, he swore,
as if standing up to himself and putting his foot down.  Unless
it is bad weather, his brain quickly added.  Derek cursed.  It
seemed that everytime he made a vow to himself a host of imps,
and even some more powerful devils, crowded into his headspace
trying to make exceptions and prove him wrong.  There were even
times when, in disbelief, his conscious mind sat back and watched
while the imps, like perverse puppeteers, twisted his tongue into
saying things he had no right to say (such as criticizing others
and judging the depths of their spiritual depravity), or forced
his feet towards the drugstore where he could buy another pack of
smokes, even though he kept telling himself that he really wanted
to quit.  His conscience could implore and beg, but it was only a
quiet, still voice, easily ignored.
     Derek clenched his fists in frustration; he ground his teeth
in desperation.  He longed for an answer:  how do you make
yourself do the things you really want to do? or make yourself be
the way you really want to be?  Is there an answer?  Derek didn't
know.  It seemed like everytime he thought about stuff like that
it made his head whirl.  He didn't even feel like he could talk
properly, communicate at all.  There were so many words crowding
his brain, and words needed to be let out one at a time, in a
certain order.
     He didn't even notice that he had already automatically
turned across the front lawn (he never used the cracked and
heaving sidewalk) and was making his way up the creaking stairs
at the side of the old leaning house where he was renting an
apartment on the third floor.  He reached into his pocket to pull
out his key ring and froze:  it wasn't there.  His eyes widened.
Shit, he thought.  He patted himself absently and dug his fingers
into other pockets while he mentally retraced his steps home.
Then he remembered leaving them on the table in the staff room as
he had gotten changed to leave.  He'd been in a hurry:  skipping
out early wasn't something you did when your fellow employees
were around.  He'd almost made it unobserved, but Andrea had come
bursting in the back way, almost taking his head off with the
door.  Andrea was a waitress he got along with quite well, but
today he had been curt with her:
     "Hey Derek!  How'r ya?  Looks like you're leaving a little
early," she said, far too loudly.  He rolled his eyes and said,
"Yeah, so?"
     "'Yeah, so' nothing," she shot back, refusing to be daunted.
 "See you later."  It was a statement of fact.
     That's what he'd always liked about Andrea:  she was
straight-forward and honest, and full of energy.  She was one of
those persons who exuded energy and managed to animate everyone
else around her.  She was one of those neat independent girls who
somehow latch onto and keep interesting, handsome and artistic
guys, while being the object of every other guy's not-
necessarily-sexual desire.  She wasn't someone who you had to
groan about while they went around with some goofball who managed
(by what means, no one knows) to impress her with his car.  You
couldn't help liking Scott, Andrea's boyfriend.
     Thinking about talking to Andrea made it that much easier
for Derek to get up his resolve to head back to work.  Suddenly
he chuckled, thinking that Fate was going to make him walk, no
matter how hard his natural apathy tried to assert itself.  He
clambered back down the stairs and headed for the back lane,
instead of going up the busy front street.  It was much more
peaceful; the delapidated houses and the accumulated garbage even
looked like Art.  He suddenly felt good, so good that he decided
to reward himself.  He promptly lit a cigarette.

                               IV

     It took more than an hour to get back to work, longer than
Derek had anticipated, and he was tired by the time he arrived.
Man, I am out of shape, he thought, and he felt vaguely guilty
about it, but pushed the thoughts aside with the conviction that
he was doing something about it--he was actively pursuing a goal.
Action was very important.  Action could change your very mind;
like washing a car, with action, force and energy you could
remove all the dirt and corrosive salt to reveal the gleaming,
solid entity beneath.  Sometimes Derek felt that his mind--maybe
consciousness was a better word--was somehow smothered, and, had
there been some sort of "other-word" entity there to assess it,
would have appeared indistinct and amorphous.  He spent most of
his conscious thought-time wondering where to start cleaning.
But at times like this he felt much better, like as if he had
been aimlessly scrubbing, and suddenly saw, beneath the crust and
ooze, a wonderful stray gleam.  He dared not question.
     With a smile on his face he jerked the door of the
restaurant open and swung inside.
     It was always dark in the restaurant, but the kitchen was
well lit, and he nodded greetings to the two busy night-shift
cooks.  The head cook, with the unlikely name of Ipzwaldt, was a
tall, lanky guy with a pleasantly twisted face.  "Hey Derek!" he
yelled, "since you abandoned ship too soon before, why doncha
bail us out for a bit?"
     "Sure thing, Captain Waldo," said Derek with a grin.  He was
in too good a mood to feel bad about his earlier actions.
     "That's 'aye aye' to you, sailor."
     "'Arrr, like bloody 'ell," snarled Derek, reaching to butter
some bread.
     "Watch yerself, mate.  That's close to mutiny.  Hey Bob!"
said Waldo, calling to the other cook.  "Hold this bugger down
while I pour our Special Sauce down his pants."
     Bob, who was new, got into the spirit of the banter.  "I'll
not do it, Cap'n.  Not 'til I get a bloomin' raise," he said in a
parody of Irish.
     "What?!  Insurrection on my ship?  Fine, I'll do it meself.
But you'd best look to your own britches later."
     They carried on for a while, until the waiters and
waitresses stopped plying them with orders.  Andrea noticed Derek
working.  "What are you doing here?" she asked.
     "Bailing," he said, and flashed her a smile of "I'm OK,
you're OK too".
     "You're weird," she said, and wondered how he could be so
moody.  Derek just chuckled.

                              V

     Derek liked working with Waldo.  Waldo rarely lost his cool,
and was almost always in a good mood, but the thing Derek liked
most was that Waldo and he never bumped into each other.  That
might seem like a small thing, but in a crowded kitchen full of
objects both sharp and hot it became important.  Somehow he and
Waldo knew where each other were going, which way the other would
move, even whether or not the other guy was coming around a blind
corner.  Derek could remember many times when he had avoided a
collision by slowing down for no other reason than he felt he had
to.  And he knew that Waldo had done the same.  It was sort of
like dancing (once the restaurant got going you did get into a
rhythm), and he and Waldo were great partners.
     Of course, Derek didn't know why this was so, but he knew it
was true.  When he worked with other guys, half the time he was
running into them, saying things like "'scuse me" and "oops!
Sorry" all night.  It got frustrating, and usually destroyed
Derek's good mood.  Derek had a passion for harmony and flow; it
got right to his gut when he was working with some klutz who
couldn't seem to understand what dancing was all about.
     So Derek, enjoying himself, stayed in the kitchen and worked
for a couple of extra hours for free until the manager, a short,
squat, young guy named C.D. (the cooks all called him Compact
Dip--behind his back of course) told Derek that he had better
leave the kitchen since he didn't have on his uniform.  Derek
remembered his keys, and then remembered that he had wanted to
talk to Andrea.
     "Sure thing, C.D.," he said, agreeably.  "We'll see you
mates later," he left Waldo and Bob in the now calm kitchen.
Waldo threw a chunk of pineapple his way, but Derek dodged around
the corner and was gone.
     Having gathered his keys, he headed towards the staff table
which was set into an unobtrusive corner of the restaurant, and
sat down on the bench seat next to Tracy who was chattering
animatedly (as she always was) with Andrea.  Andrea nodded a
greeting; Tracy said "hi", absently, because she was engrossed in
her story (as she always was).  Derek tried to pick up the flow
of the conversation while he surreptitiously checked Andrea's
pack of cigarettes.  She had only one, so he left it there.  She
caught him as he put the pack back down and slapped his hand,
giving him an exaggerated dirty look.  Tracy, feeling
interrupted, hit Derek too, and said, "Leave her stuff alone",
then continued with her story as if nothing had happened.
     Derek envied her that.  If someone interrupted him in the
middle of a sentence he usually forgot what he was talking about.
And sometimes he even managed to interrupt himself, new thoughts
intruding upon the current ones.  That was embarrasing.
     Derek was wondering how she did it when he realized that she
was talking to him, trying to get out of the bench seat.
     "Will you move?  Or do I have to cause some pain?" she
wielded a burning cigarette threateningly.  He grabbed a knife
from the table and took an "en guarde" position.  They fenced for
a bit, laughing, then he got up to let her out of the bench seat.
     "You look preoccupied," said Andrea as Derek sat back down.
     "Ah so, so very perceptive, missy.  Derek Chan seek profound
wisdom from you'self.  He is at great loss."
     "Yeah, what did you lose?"
     Derek got serious.  "My sanity," he said.  She laughed.
     "So you finally realized.  Well, join the club, sonny.  If
you think you're the only one just take a..."
     "No!" he said with some heat.  "I know I'm not the only one,
but I want to do something about it."  He looked around, but no
one else was near.  "Look, I'm starting to realize some things
and it isn't pleasant.  I'm not going anywhere, I'm just
drifting.  I'm just floating along in this not-so-pleasant world.
I want to go somewhere else, do something different!  I'm tired
of this crapping lifestyle..." he trailed off, groping for words.
     "So do something, then."
     Derek's whole body slumped.  "I guess I just don't know how
to start."  He fiddled with a book of matches, sighed, and tossed
them on the table.  Derek felt disappointed.  It was as if,
having seen the first stray gleam from the body of his mind he
had left it, partially satisfied, and when he had come back the
shiny patch was gone.
     "Why don't you go travelling?"
     "What?"  Derek broke out of his musings.
     "Go travelling.  You know, hop on a bus and head south with
the birds.  Hey! Then you could avoid the winter.  You go far
enough south and you just find a nice beach and stay there.
Smell new smells, taste new tastes, hell, see new seas.  Ha!"
Andrea was getting excited, "I know a place in Mexico where you
could have a hut on the Pacific for about ten bucks a month.  And
you meet all these great people!"
     Her enthusiasm infected him.  He had heard a lot of Andrea's
stories before, and he had listened with a kind of wistfulness,
as if he knew that those things would never happen to him, though
he would like them to.  But this time he didn't feel like
listening to any more stories.  He interrupted her again.
     "So how much would it cost me to get there and back by the
cheapest way?"
     She blinked.  "Really?  You wanna go?"
     He nodded.  "I have managed to put some money away.  It was
going to be for a car, but who needs a car?"
     "Well that's great!  But maybe we shouldn't talk about it
here.  Why don't you come over, let me see," she counted on her
fingers, "how about Friday night?  That way you can think up some
good questions, and Scott and I can figure some stuff out."
     He beamed at her, and privately decided to bring a bottle of
scotch.

                          CHAPTER TWO

                              I

     The great rythmic beat swelled up around him, massaged his
body, pushing it gently to and fro.  His eyes were closed, but he
had just rubbed them and the brilliant waves of magenta and blue
made his heart pound with a familiar but enigmatic ecstacy.
Derek opened his eyes and stared again into the warm flame of the
candle, the only light in the room.  There was nothing else; just
this creamy white candle which fed the tiny sprite dancing on its
tapered tip.  The moment lasted forever; Derek felt as if he was
on the verge of Truth.  Just a little higher, he thought.
     He brought what was left of the joint to his lips and drew
in professionally, with just the right smooth mix of air and
smoke.  He held it there in his lungs feeling the smoke swirl
inside his body, his huge body the size of the Earth with its
currents and pulsings; he could feel the marrow growing inside
his bones, sensed the slow secretion of the stuff that made up
his fingernails and hair.  He felt a dust mote land on his arm
and poke a nerve; it began to itch.  His inner ear warned him
that his gentle rocking had gone too far.  He fell over and
realized that he had held his breath too long and was passing
out.  That struck him as absurd; he snorted and began to laugh,
the thin smoke escaping his lips in small puffs.
     Abruptly he began to cough, violently.  He groped for his
glass of orange juice and soda, almost knocked it over, and
brought it to his lips too fast.  He banged his teeth on the
glass and some of the orange juice spilt onto his T-shirt.  He
hardly noticed as he finally gulped down the cooling, bubbly
liquid.  He coughed a couple of times more; the burning sensation
in his chest lessened.  He sat there, feeling it with the whole
of his being while staring into the dark to the left of the
burning candle.  The moment of Truth was gone, and Derek jolted
out of his timeless revery feeling a profound cold silence all
about him and within his very soul.  His eyes widened and he
looked around.  The thin yellow light of the candle glimmered
from the white walls which now seemed much too close.  A pang of
fear chilled Derek's heart.  He swung his head and looked across
the room and the immensity of the space before him, yawning like
the vortex which preceeds the black hole, hit his brain like a
shock.
     "What is happening?" his lips moved, but no sound came out.
It was like when he was a kid and was having a nightmare.  He
would come into a semi-wakeful state, terrified and wanting to
scream, but the most he could do was whisper "mom...mom...", and
that was the most terrifying of all.  But Derek was a little
older now, and he had some faith in his own reality.  He was
suddenly aware of the muffled warbling sound of the TV of the
people who lived below him, and he realized that the record he
had been playing was over, had been for a while.  A relieved
chuckle escaped him.  He was glad that the silence he had felt
had not been in his soul, but rather in his environment.
     "Well," he said outloud to himself, "I think I'll just turn
the damn thing over."  He wondered vaguely if it was true that
only crazy people talked to themselves, but before he had a
chance to dwell on it there was a knock on the door.
     Who could that be? he wondered.  Derek always felt terribly
vulnerable when he was stoned.  He felt like people could see
right through him, right to the spot in his heart where his
deepest fears lay.  Anything he said or did only made those fears
more obvious, so Derek usually clammed up.  He hated going to
parties unless he knew everybody, and he felt most uncomfortable
in the presence of people who were not stoned.  Most likely the
person at the door wasn't.  Derek began to feel pangs of guilt,
and did not even realize that he was standing motionless in the
room, his head down and his arms keeping the record in his hands
away from his body, like a mannequin poised to groove.
     There was a second series of knocks, harder this time, and a
familiar voice called out, "Hey Derek!  Hey tortiose, you in your
shell?"  Derek didn't say anything, but he smiled widely, put the
record on and turned the volume way up.  As he opened the door,
giggling mischeviously, the music burst out, flooding the room
with noise.
     It was Arthur, of course, and right now Derek felt like he
needed a dose of Arthur's unquenchable energy.  Arthur took one
look at Derek and shrieked with raucous laughter, which Derek
could barely hear.
     "You crazy guy!  Look at you, just look!  Your eyeballs are
flaming scarlet.  Your nose is dripping, you're drooling like a
retard, you look terrible, ha ha!"  Arthur poked at Derek's ribs
exhibiting a license for physical abuse which only good friends
display.  Derek tried in vain to fend him off.  His silly grin
spread across his face and became choking laughter.  "Hey, do you
have any more?"  Arthur shouted over the music and continued to
ply his abuse.
     "Not for you, you...you..."  Derek forgot what he was going
to say.  But he realized that the door was still open and here
they were shouting about illegal substances and playing music far
too loudly.  Derek's beaming face suddenly clouded over.  He
pushed Arthur aside impatiently and unceremoniously, closed the
door and locked it.
     "Aww, man, don't be so paranoid.  Your neighbors are cool."
     Derek shrugged.  A swirl of feelings engulfed him.  He felt
stupid for not having noticed the door, and he wished that Arthur
had more sense.  Whether his neighbors were cool or not was not
really the point; Derek was a private person and did not like to
feel that his comings, goings, and doings were known to just
anyone.  Oddly enough, Derek could justify the volume of his
music because it served to mask his personal actions.  He looked
at Arthur who was eyeing him, fists on hips, with a sardonic
grin.  Derek ignored it.  "You want some?" he said.  It was more
of a statement than a question; Arthur was an avid smoker of "the
Herb".
     "Sure, if you haven't already smoked it all."  Arthur was
trying to joke, but Derek suddenly did not feel like responding.
He was vaguely aware that he was not being very friendly, but
Arthur's exhuberance was suddenly bothering him.  Only a couple
of minutes ago Derek felt excited about Arthur.  But now Arthur's
energy, as much of it as there was, seemed stale.
     Derek disappeared into his darkened bedroom and pretended to
root around, trying to clear his head.  I'm just being moody, he
thought.  I can't relate to him 'cause he's not stoned...yet!
Derek soon emerged carrying a bag of green powder and a packet of
rolling papers.  He did not look at Arthur, but went into the
livingroom and turned on the lamp in the corner.  He left the
candle burning and turned down the music a touch.  Then he set
about rolling a joint.
     Arthur surveyed Derek's livingroom with his permanently
curious eye.  It was rather bare:  there were only a few prints
hanging up to take away the starkness of the white walls, and the
furniture was limited to a coffee table, a few chairs and a
beanbag scattered over the cheap indoor/outdoor carpeting on the
floor.  Hasn't changed since the last time I was here, he
thought.  Arthur liked to spend a lot of time making his place as
homey as possible.  When he saw the lighted candle, Arthur raised
an eyebrow, and he began to wonder.
     To Arthur, the use of marijuana was a social thing, an
experience to be shared with others.  He did not understand how
Derek could sit all by himself in the dark, alone with his
swirling and scattered thoughts.  That was because, though he
would never have admitted it, Arthur was afraid of his thoughts.
Despite his boisterous, energetic and positive front, deep down
Arthur did not trust himself, and his thoughts and desires often
haunted him.  He tried to drown them out with constant movement
and action, and the idea that Derek was doing what he dared not
do made him worried.  He did not realize that Derek was even more
uncomfortable among his peers, when stoned, than when he was
alone.
     Arthur crossed the room and turned down the music so he
could talk to his friend.  He was trying to think of what to say
to get Derek to leave with him, to get out of these oppressive
surroundings.
     "So what's new, Bud?" he asked.  Derek did not look up from
the floor where he was carefully rolling the joint.
     "Not much," he said in an uncommunicative tone.  Derek held
the joint up to the light and eyed his handiwork critically.
Satisfied, he set about rolling another.  He was preparing to be
in a better mood, but he wanted a few moments to think about
something else entirely.  Arthur, knowing his friend well,
recognized this and kept silent.  Scanning the room he noticed a
pencil and notepad on the coffee table in front of him.  Curious
as always, Arthur reached for it and saw that it was covered with
wandering doodles and almost illegible scrawls.
     Derek was aware of Arthur's movements.  He said nothing, but
wondered what Arthur would say, and waited in anticipation.
Often when high Derek would try to write down some of the random
thoughts which occured to him, thoughts which at the time seemed
like indisputable Truth.  He took his time rolling the joint and
cleaned up thoroughly afterwords.  Then he carefully re-rolled
his bag of pot and sat back watching Arthur's expressions as he
read.
     Unfortunately for Derek, Arthur's face remained impassive
and he finally threw the notepad down without a comment.  Derek
was disappointed and stared at his friend, feeling lost.  He had
thought that the few lines he had scrawled were quite good, and
he wondered that Arthur could remain unmoved by them.
     Not that this was anything new.  Derek often felt frustrated
by what he saw as the insensitivity of others to what he
considered Truth.  Statements like "The Oneness of All", were too
easily seen as being corny, or even meaningless.  But Derek
thought he felt the full meaning of such a statement.  Consider:
your entire body replaces all the molecules in it about once
every three months, then they become part of something else; the
air you breathe today was breathed in Hong Kong a month ago; even
the electrons around the atomic nucleus had only a given
probability of being where they should be--they could be as far
away as Pluto at any given moment.  And there was more to it than
that, something that Derek could not quite put his finger on, but
felt in the depths of his soul.  So he was disappointed by
Arthur's response.
     Arthur could sense Derek's frustration but he had no
inclination to say anything and so avoided looking Derek in the
eye.  To Arthur it was all hogwash.  Well, it might be true, but
so what?  To Arthur, philosophy (which is what he termed any
intellectual speculation with which he was confronted) was for
people who had too much time on their hands and could not face
living in the real world.  Although he would not have expressed
his conception of his existence in this way, as far as he was
concerned, he, Arthur, was a distinct entity coexisting,
cooperating, and competing with other distinct entities.  This he
took for granted because his eyes and ears told him so.  How this
was so, or why, did not concern him at all, although if pressed
he might have conceeded that the responsibility probably rested
with "God".  Seeing Derek's feeble attempts at capturing
something intangible made Arthur more worried.  When he finally
did look at Derek, his eyes and a twist of his mouth seemed to be
making an apology.
     Derek stared at the wall, tapping his foot to the beat of
the music, seemingly oblivious and content.  He was wondering,
however, why he continued to hang around with a guy like Arthur.
It was so obvious that they were on completely different
"wavelengths".  While they enjoyed doing similar things on a
physical level, Derek and Arthur rarely communicated at a deep
one.  Derek supposed that it was because he had known Arthur for
six or seven years that he continued to see Arthur at all.
     Arthur could not abide the silence any longer and he
conquered it in his usual fashion.
     "So are you going to light that thing, or what?" he asked
jovially, as if there was no tension between them.  Derek had to
laugh.  Arthur was just unquenchable, and suddenly the
realization that Arthur was Arthur and Derek was Derek and
neither had to change for the other made Derek feel warm inside.
     "Yes, I am," he said, smiling.  "But be careful.  This stuff
will knock your socks off."
     "Right on."
     They smoked in silence, and Arthur, his lungs full and his
cheeks puffed out, nodded his appreciation for the quality of the
herb.
     Derek felt the familiar rush of sensation through his torso
and down his legs, but it was not the same as before when he had
been clear headed to begin with.  It was muddier, less intense
and paralyzing, and he knew that the euphoria would be short-
lived.
     The joint was finished and Derek popped the tar-blackened
end into an old film canister--his "rainy day toke dump".  They
began an animated conversation, now and then bursting into
hysterical laughter, sometimes for just any reason at all.  After
a while Arthur managed to convince Derek to get outside.  "For
some fresh air," he said.  They cruised around for a while in
Arthur's big blue battered Plymouth, smoked the second joint, and
eventually ended up at the local pool hall/video arcade.  Arthur
parked in the lane behind it, but Derek did not want to go in.
     "I don't feel like it," he said, not explaining why.
     "Fuck," said Arthur mentally rolling his eyes.  Did this
always have to be so hard?  He continued, "Why not?  There's a
new high score on KILLER ROBOT SERENADE and I want to try to
break it."
     "So try tomorrow.  Why now?"
     "Because we're stoned, man.  We have the advantage of
'heightened awarenesses', so let's make the best of it."
     "Well, that's exactly why I don't want to go in.  I'm
stoned.  What if..."  Derek trailed off, not wishing to admit
that he was petrified at the thought of going inside and facing
the cold perusal of the pool hall crowd.  Everybody in there was
"cool".  They knew their places and they fit in.  Derek, on the
other hand, knew he wasn't "cool", did not have a place and knew
that he did not fit in.  They'll see through me like Saran Wrap,
he thought.
     If he had not been so high, Derek would probably have had
the confidence to appear quite comfortable, or even to mildly
imitate the role which he felt was required here.  But his
natural feelings of transparency (which in everyday life he
managed to cover with an act), along with the disorientation
caused by the drug, loomed so large that Derek could not
understand where to begin acting.
     Arthur thought he understood.  "Look, man, everybody in
there is stoned," he said gently.  "Just act natural.  And
besides, nobody cares, anyway."
     Arthur continued pushing and prodding, and slowly Derek let
himself be convinced (although he did not know what Arthur meant
by "act natural").  He got out of the car, trying to relax.  He
felt disoriented, uncomfortable and depressed (like he usually
did after being stoned for a few hours) and would rather have
gone home and gone to bed.  Arthur, on the other hand, was quite
cheery feeling that he had done his duty in getting Derek into a
more sociable setting.  Together, Arthur slightly in the lead,
they walked around to the front of the arcade.

                              II

     Arthur honked once and drove off into the night, the big
engine of the Plymouth chugging roughly.  Derek watched as the
car floated under the dim streetlights and changed colors:  now a
blue blacker than black, shimmering at the edges; now reflecting
the yellow streetlight glare like whole galaxies passing across
the empty face of space; now a murky grey-green, but shiny like a
shellacked mushroom.  The left taillight was brighter than the
other.  Derek watched until they seemed to rise into the air,
then disappeared over the bridge.
     He looked up.  The sky was almost clear, the half-Moon
falling towards the hidden Sun.  Derek stared at it a while
letting his eyes adjust to the brightness.  Amazing how bright
the Moon is, he mused.  He could almost feel its pulsing rays,
the rays of a creature nearly living, nearly stirring and warm.
Either that, or powerful and quiescent.  If I was a Celt, I'd
make the Moon my God, he thought.  Goddess, he corrected.  A slow
contented grin appeared on his face with the first peaceful
feeling he had had all evening.  He turned and went in to bed.

          *         *         *         *         *

     Going into the pool hall had not been as bad as Derek had
feared (it never was, but the FEAR was always so dibilitating),
and Derek was privately grateful to Arthur for having shown him
that.  At first Derek felt intimidated by his sense of having
violated the "pool-hall clique", having introduced his not-so-
cool presence into the murky, smoky depths of the arcade.  To
Derek's meandering mind, these people had "the Knowledge", that
priceless sense of who they were and where they fit.  It was
something that Derek had been striving and straining for for so
long now that he was beginning to get desperate.  But he realized
quite soon that none, none of these goofballs had the slightest
clue what they were doing there either.  Sure, they were having
fun, maybe, but were they completely comfortable?  Definitely
not, thought Derek.  All of them were so concerned with posturing
and posing in their jeans and leather jackets, black tee-shirts
with the promise of DEATH displayed so starkly that they were
confined to this one place on Earth, this one place where they
could feel that they were a part of the scene, that they were a
part of what was happening...
     It gave Derek a sense of unwarrented superiority that he,
uncool as he was, could barge in on this scene, even though he
did not belong, and feel somewhat at ease.  And that was the
secret wasn't it?  To be a genuine Human Being, able to move
freely among all manner of men and women?  For that was what it
was all about, wasn't it?
     Derek found himself on the verge of Truth for the second
time that night, only to become aware that he was the subject of
laughter and jests, led by Arthur who was saying:
     "...kind of spaced out.  Look at him!  Where are you, man?"
he taunted, snapping his fingers under Derek's nose.  Derek's
reverie and rapture fled.  He grinned a good-natured grin at
Arthur and the others, but his eyes glared at his friend saying,
"How could you dare to subject me, your friend, to such awful
humiliation, you shit?!"
     And Arthur's mischevious eyes twinkled back, "Get your spine
up, you wimp.  Life's no piece of pie ala mode, and if you want
to be cool you have to be on your guard.  If you slip up, you
have to cover your ass all by yourself."
     To cover his embarrassment Derek mumbled something about
being "ripped just right out of my mind", but nobody understood
him, and nobody asked him what it was he said.
     Feeling ignored, Derek went to inspect the various video
games to see if there were any new ones.  There weren't, and he
knew all the old ones well.  He felt bored.  He felt like leaving
and he wished Arthur would hurry up.  Finally Arthur came over.
They played KILLER ROBOT SERENADE, but Arthur could not beat the
high score.  Arthur cursed and shook the machine until he was
reprimanded by the owner.
     Derek let himself be carried away by a fantasy where he was
almost convinced that the game itself was sentient and had an
evil will.  It cleverly led them on, let them think that they had
it figured out and that the illusory glory of getting "High
Score" would soon be theirs.  Then they would reach the dreaded
"Panel 9".  "Panel 9" was more than the sum of all the screens
before; "Panel 9" had cunning beyond a mere machine, and it
showed a true mastery of psychological manipulation; "Panel 9"
lived!  And to get high score you had to defeat "Panel 9".
     Several times they came close, fighting furiously down to
the last man the "Beasts of Panel 9".  But each time they were
repulsed.  Hot and sweating in the dim, overheated hall, they
removed their jackets and plugged more coins into the greedy,
gaping maw of KILLER ROBOT SERENADE.  Finally they were
disgusted.
     "Last game?" asked a sweaty Arthur, holding a quarter poised
to feed the demon to whom they were selling their...selling what?
 Derek frowned.
     "C'mon, last game."
     "...sure..." and they plunged into the battle again.  This
time they almost made it.  Almost, but Derek's hands slipped on
the controls and his last man was ripped apart.  Derek was sure
that the controls had jumped in his hands, and so far gone was he
in his fantasy that he felt an irrational, cold rage, and a
determination to defeat this evil creation, to show it its place
like an avenging paladin.  He went and got more quarters.
     They played a few more games, but it was pointless.  They
finally left in disgust, donned their jackets and stepped out
into the cool of the night.  They breathed deeply, trying to rid
their lungs of the smoke and filth from inside.  Derek blinked,
and his eyelids displayed scenes from the game.  That perturbed
him since he was trying hard not to think about it anymore.  He
felt manipulated and cheated, led on by some foggy promise of
glory.
     And how would you have felt if you had gotten High Score?
asked an unbidden voice in his head.  Derek blinked, surprised.
He realized that, while he might have felt some sensation of
pride, it would not have lasted very long, and he might very well
have poked fun at himself for feeling that way.
     So it was a waste, not only of time, but money and your own
energy as well.  What was gained?  Nothing but an illusion, and a
masturbation of your imagination.  Derek digested this and
thought it over.  Then he realized that he was making thinking
noises--like "hmm"--and that Arthur was looking at him funny.
     Derek cleared his throat and gave Arthur a sidelong glance
that said "Go ahead, say it, I dare ya".
     Arthur laughed.  "C'mon," he said.  "I'll drive you home."

                              III

     Asleep Derek lay in the darkest part of the room where the
patterns cast by the streetlamp did not fall.  His breathing,
once slow and deep, came more swiftly and shallower.  He turned
on his side, opened his eyes briefly without seeing, sighed, and
was quiet once again.

          *         *         *         *         *

     ...It should have been obvious to him at the time, but it's
hard to tell in a crowd.  She was no longer visible, but that
wouldn't stop him from trying.  He pushed deeper into the
swirling chasm, sometimes helped along, but most times, it seemed
to him, hindered.  He began to despair, and, on waking, sobbed.
I need to go for a walk, he decided.  He wiped a tear away, blew
his nose, and pulled on his faded jeans.  He didn't put on a
shirt; it was too cold, and a shirt wouldn't help.  He shuddered
as he stepped out into the snowy night.  The huge flakes hissed
and steamed as they touched his vibrant skin, and soon his back
was running with cool, clear water which pooled in the waistline
of his jeans; it collected there, inexorably soaking downward,
loosening their inherent tightness, until they began to sag.
This is stupid, he thought.
     A passerby sneered and muttered, "Disgusting!"  That brought
him to an abrupt halt, and he stared at the receding back of his
slanderer, wishing to look fierce, so fierce tha