Las Palmas

A young man with a beanie over his long hair sat against a statue of a stalwart surfer and his board overlooking the ocean. The ocean waters that day were especially calm, the sky cloudless, the sun fair, the breeze, oh, about medium, according to the slacker weathermen littering every other street corner. The young man drew a line in his sketchbook representing the horizon, and was unsure how to proceed. Soon a friend approached on a skateboard.

“Yo Treehouse! What’s up?” said the friend, with his mouth full.

“Please stop calling me that,” said the young man, keeping his defeated gaze on the charcoal line. He began to doubt his ability to render an ocean from charcoal.

The friend rode circles around the young man and the statue.

“F’real, man. Zapp’nin’?”

“I’m drawing. It is very important.” He closed his eyes and wished the wind would stir up a wave or something. “What have you been up to?”

“Just ridin’ my skateboard, diggin’ on some chicken nuggs.”

“What, simultaneously?”

“Yeah.”

The young man looked up to witness such a blatantly absurd feat of coordination. The friend had dipping sauce and everything, he was triumphant.

“Want one?”

“No thanks, man, you’ve earned the whole carton.”

“Respeck.”

The friend finished his meal with a flourish and sat down.

“Looks like the picture is off to a good start.”

“No, it’s done. It’s a, uh, minimalist piece.”

“Oh, shit mang, I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” The friend continued feigning an overly apologetic air.

“Don’t sweat it.” He closed his sketchbook and put it in his backpack. He leaned back and stared at the horizon as if it should be doing his laundry. His friend shared this moment with him impatiently for a bit, then got up.

“I’m'a keep rollin’, but I’ll see you later. You goin’ to the show at Jerry’s place tonight?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Jerry’s always got some good tunes and Jones soda at his place, I’ll be there.”

“Word. OUT.”

“Keep it real, Yurt,” said the young man as his friend sped off, yelling obscenities at passing beach-bound families.

After a few more minutes of sitting and pondering his unshakable malaise, and scolding himself for falling into this terrible sand pit of angst that so many of his unbearable colleagues revel in, the young man stood, stretched, and started walking home through the lagoon. He felt that a late afternoon nap of frustration was in order. The smell of ducks and reeds and the sunny, still air softened his mood a bit, but he was still feeling the effects of the existential crisis brought on by his burrito the night before, and walked a steady pace, hunched over. “Your loss,” the catfish seemed to say.

That night, he left early from Jerry’s party, his Jones soda only half finished. The band’s lead singer had lost his voice, but the show must go on so he held up a laptop with the lyrics, pleading the fans to sing along. The place was crowded, sweaty, and Yurt didn’t show up so there was no one familiar around. Even Jerry was nowhere to be found. The final straw came when the young man went looking for him. He was about to knock on his bedroom door when he heard a woman’s voice.

“Jerry, this mask doesn’t fit”

“Too bad”

After shoving his way through the oppressive, undulating mass of strangers, the young man was attacked by the night air. The room had guarded its climate vigilantly; even through an open door the chill had no hope of stealing the rank, sticky warmth of the crowd inside and taking it home, up and out through the street lights and power lines to dash it to pieces against the ionosphere. Its cool tendrils and chapping thumbs were stoppered, reflected by invisible walls and drastic gradients. The chill was immensely refreshing for a moment, but soon urged the young man into his car.

Free of the party but still not satisfied with going home, the young man drove aimlessly around town, gradually deciding to aim somewhere toward the mountains. A piece of a siren with some flickering red and blue lights decided to stop his car for a moment. He rolled down his window and convinced himself that he could play it cool.

“How’s it going, officer?”

“License and registration, please.”

“Uh, sure. What’s the problem?”

The officer examined the documents, keeping half of his flashlight’s spot on the young man’s face.

“…Sycamore Cabins, do you realize that one of your tail lights is out, smashed?”

“Oh, no. Damn. Must have been some punks, I didn’t notice. I guess I was in kind of a hurry to leave the, uh, place I was at.” He wondered if he should have just said “party” and not sounded ridiculous.

“Mm hmm. I see you have an open container there in the cup holder, would you mind telling me how many drinks you’ve had tonight at this place you were at?”

“Oh, no, uh, that’s just a soda. Jones soda, you ever drink those? They’re good.” Sycamore cursed himself for sounding so flustered.

“Please step out of the car, sir.”

Sycamore brushed his teeth lazily. The apartment was empty when he got back, by that time officially Not A Drunk Person, determined after extensive testing. He felt like a clown in the mirror, a clown being graded on his performance according to a strict set of criteria organized in a series of rubrics.

He fell into a bed and lay awake; by this time he had learned not to bother fighting the state of antisomnia that would persist for however long it damn well pleased. Eventually he drifted into a place, then had a nightmare about a burrito falling apart.