Green Darkness

Mission 1. Hook up with someone as old as my mom (54) and as young as my sister (20) in a month.
Mission 2. Live a completely gay lifestyle (without the gay sex) for a month.
Mission Three: Live without an apartment for a month.

I am constantly drifting apart. The romantic and pragmatic inside me at odds with how to live my life. They bleed historic, always coming together for battle in thought. Topanga was their latest insurrection.

Entering Topanga was something my romantic self had always wanted to do. The place itself was just dirt, rocks and trees, but it was more representational of my process of deviation. Pragmatic Rob thought this was not a responsible decision. Entering these woods at night was illegal and dangerous. Pragmatic Rob thought as many of you did, that he did not need the green darkness to find himself. It could happen anywhere. But the responsible side had been the decision maker for far too long. It was time to taste the sweet from the top of my tongue. To make decisions that didn’t always make sense. It was something I had wished for my entire life, to squelch the responsible. To enlist the dreamer and unearth the soul.

So the romantic grabbed the hand of the pragmatic and lead him toward the path.

Lower Topanga is an area best represented cinematically by the dead presidents in Point Break. I don’t know why that came to mind, but it is an area of coastal beauty filled with society’s fringe. It was one of the last bastions of ramshackle seaside real estate in Southern California. This area opened wide to the Pacific Ocean and provided a majestic keyhole to a seaside village of 60’s time travelers. To them, the mansions of Malibu a mile north did not exist. Their mansions were their land. Their reward was salty sea breath.

A few years ago, the area got bought up as part of Topanga State Park, and all the ramshackle shacks were bulldozed and the residents displaced to a life of westside white shag carpet and orange peel ceilings. Gone were the funky art-carved doors and dilapidated fences. They did not matter anymore. Dump trucks carried the stained glass doors to their new home among grease-stained Styrofoam containers and corn nuts wrappers. Even their memory was erased.

I coasted my motorcycle down the dirt hill. The dust was kicking up brown clouds of black. The air was wet with ocean spray and the dust clung to me like a child. I wore the earth as a dinner jacket needed to gain admission to this place. I tasted the ground as a cost of entry.

I ditched the bike when it would silently roll no more. It was placed behind a tree, out of site of the main or dirt road. I had stripped off another layer. It was time to get my sea legs.

The sound of the lone automobiles gave way to the sounds of nature. The crunching, chirping and rustling formed a fabric of sounds that I eagerly wore alongside the dinner jacket. The dirt road gave way to a field of weeds. The absent road help shed another layer of society. I was becoming displaced, so I decided to simply turn right, counting each step in the darkness.

About 30 paces off the road, I found a spot. There were millions of places just like this, close to the creek, away from the road and relatively flat, but this was the one I chose. An oak provided a half-moon canopy. I unrolled my bag and sat down, slowly moving to flat. My mind was now coming to rest. I could go wherever I choose. I took off my watch and went to college, freshman year. I laid down with Wendy.

She was a sophomore in a hot-girl sorority. I was a freshman who shared a name with an 80’s heartthrob. When she asked me to go to a “date party” I was more than happy to oblige. At that point in my life, I was seeking access, and that was something she could provide. Her ass was a bit large, but it was hard to see with the outfits she used to wear. It is even harder to see right now, in the complete darkness, a world of years away. And actually, I didn’t really need to see it again.

I had to find something to wear. I didn’t bring a suit jacket or anything like that to school, and my roommate was a bit on the short side. So I got on my scooter and went to Goodwill, picking up a nice $4 tweed jacket to match my khakis. I am no stranger to buying my clothes secondhand. I actually prefer it for most things, but this jacket had a musty scent, and I needed to wear it that night. So, I got my roommate’s cologne, sprayed the jacket wet and hung it by the window of our dorm. I borrowed a tie and four hours later was off to the races.

The party itself was probably much better in real time than being relived through selective memory. I remember shaving. I remember her sisters who were hot, and their tits. I remember some lame sorority cheer. I remember getting drunk and stealing something, but can’t remember what it was.

And I remember the dance. The slow dance that sealed the fate of the night. The eyes and the mouth that let me know that although I was beneath her in years and social status, tonight was my night. I could have her if I chose. And she knew I would.

We walked back to her sorority house on Hilgard and she snuck me in. I was filled with anxiety, the same feeling I had at present, deviating from the road. The anxiety brought me back to this moment to help me let it go.

We sat on her bed kissing, the moonlight bouncing across us. She got up and in the relative darkness felt at ease to remove her clothing to expose what by day she worked so hard to conceal. She dropped her skirt in the anonymity of the darkness, bent over and laid bare her insecurity. I cursed the moonlight for enabling the vision. I cursed my eyes for adjusting to the light. I cursed myself for caring. And although I was an 18-year-old, near-virginal Pennsylvania boy filled with youthful vigor, even this face-beautiful California girl made it difficult for me to carry on in my present state. I excused myself and snuck to the bathroom.

Safely inside, I collapsed the walls and reached into my pocket. In it, I pulled out a small marble pipe and packed it full of pot. I intoxicated myself with the air and ate the skunky smoke. I realized that if I was caught doing this, I would get more than just kicked out. I would get expelled. The adrenaline and THC fueled my being. My mind had escaped my body in a plume of smoke. I was ready to consume this girl, and I felt terrible about it.

So I made my way back to her room and without a word, we arched and fell, filled and drained, got lost and remained. We kissed without a sound, without humanity. I never saw her again in the same light, although we passed each day. That night we were meant to dream together. The rest of our lives, we were meant to dream that night alone.

I heard a rustling in the bushes that brought me back, straightened me up. And as quickly as the sound came, it was gone with equal speed. I closed my eyes and gave her a final thought.

Tonight was meant to be dreamt alone.