I was eating cereal mixed with milk, unsoured. I had a nice kitchen in a nice apartment, only a year old. It had taken a year to save for the deposit. My foot tapped the ground as I went through my day. I was meeting him today, my Paul. He is a good man, a terrible man, a great man. I remember the day I met him.

He had pointed at a girl and said he’d been in bed with her the night before. I had laughed, thinking it a foolish man’s desperate brag. (I didn’t know anything back then.) He had bought her another drink and lit her cigarette. (I never smoke the damn things.) They'd left together, and I'd thought that was the last time I'd see the saint.

We were going to talk about art and her. I don't like mentioning her name because it has some greater meaning I can't describe. It'd be sacrilege, profaning God's Grace.

When I next opened my bleary eyes, I was brushing my teeth. (I had stumbled down the hallway with my eyes closed, lost between dreams and reality.) I was just meeting Paul, so why brush my teeth? Maybe it was some societal norm carved into my bones by parents who had it hammered into them by their parents. That's how society captures us.

Well, anyway, I'm not sure if I've mentioned it yet, but I was meeting him today at Sixth Street, Blue Cafe. Yesterday, we met there as well. I think we had coffee the day before that.

I put on a shirt; it was a button-down, crumpled. I couldn't afford the time or money to iron things. My pants were wrinkled as well. My whole life was falling apart. The apartment smelled damp, probably mold. The kitchen was a mess, and I had found a cockroach this morning. The milk was soiled. I hated my life. Why did I live like this? Why couldn’t I be responsible? I was the decomposing waste left after civilization rolled toward new annexed lands.

What had become of the world? It was like the end of days had come, the great desolation, the purging of sins. I was hurtling through life at terminal velocity, desperately trying to brake because a Newton more, and boom! I’d writhe in the pits of Tartarus. Freedom approached.

I was outside now. I walked down Main Street. I was going somewhere, Blue Cafe, to meet Paul. Yes, he is my model, and I, the plagiarizer. A jogger passed me. I looked at the cheap blue plastic on my wrist. I remembered it was six minutes off at the cafe yesterday, so probably seven today. 10:43. I had ten minutes until my meeting. I hum. This was the life: a nice home, a meal, a friend.

I turned onto Sixth Street, double checking how I looked in a store's window. (Why do I care about appearances with Paul?) When I passed the glass doors, I saw Paul leaning back in a chair, casually waving at me. He was wearing sports clothes, clearly unwashed based on the stares. When I got closer, I saw frayed edges and food stains, but he was still Happy Paul. People can't help but look at him, for he has the aura of a great man, of a man going somewhere. Compared to him, everyone else is a sheep.

With a grand flourish, he relished the stares, yelling "Judas, come here!"

I'm pulled over, a puppet to his voice. I looked at him, really looked at him, ignoring the superficial trappings that strain against his great soul to bind him to our society, our world. Screw all that tames and civilizes. He had a wide grin. "I haven't seen you in years, Ma-hn."

He did that, emphasizing words because he was talking to you and only you while the whole world jealously eavesdropped. "I got so many things to tell you, Judas! Life's awaiting, and we gotta go!"

He gulped down the coffee, pointing at a mug across him. "You're paying." He winked.

He looked normal with cut brown hair, a tanned face, a lean body. You wouldn't know he was a MAN, not some gym addict who worked out to bundle his fragile self-esteem. He knew what he had and what he wanted.

I pulled out a twenty. He smiled. "I see you're supporting the proletariat in their conquest against the bourgeoisie!" He looked at me in concern. "I can smell the odor of its aura! You have the trinkets of the bourgeoisie swirling about you."

I spoke for the first time in this conversation. I had been so awed by his presence that I had forgotten to speak. "I had a dream."

He jested, "What? Of the Girl? It's always a girl."

I said, "No, I dreamt of spiders crawling up my spine and clotting my blood vessels with venom. My heart was a dark cave filled with webs and dried carcasses and giant cancerous tumors."

I didn't tell him about my other dreams.

He looked at me seriously. "You've caught it, Ma-hn! We need to work on that. You're finally seeing how they chain you! You're in the greatest city of the greatest country on the greatest world, and you're stuck having nightmares!"

Paul is crazy. Paul is wise. Paul is right.

He patted my hand from across the table. "Get up. I want to take you somewhere."

I dully followed him as he pushed his chair out with a bang, dodging between waiters and tables toward the back. I only realized we had walked into the employee's section when a waiter exited the kitchen carrying a platter. He glanced at us before shrugging his shoulders. Paul laughed. "Look! The man's on our side! He's our agent, spying on them. Everyone's a sheep. If you walk around with enough stuff in you, they'll all give way."

As if to refute him, the waiter returned, tray now empty. "This is the employee-only section. Sir, were you looking for the restrooms?"

Paul gazed at the other man, before shaking the man's shoulders. The man jerked in surprise, about to yell, when Paul, with his brown soulful eyes, spoke with the power of God. "Ma-hn! Ah'm telling you of the Word! Find freedom! What are you here for?"

Trapped in Paul's vibrations, the waiter stuttered. "I-I'm going to, to, t- call the Police, S-Sir! Let me go!" There was some primal desperation in his voice denying Paul's truth. I was a mere observer, watching, always watching. I am the sheep, and Paul, the shepherd.

Paul grabbed my hand and solemnly spoke, "The poor sod's lost. Come, Judas! I want to take you somewhere."

He entered the kitchen, pointing at a boiling soup. "That's tomato basil. 3.99 a cup here. Costs the owner thirty cents a cup."

"We shouldn't be here. Can we go to your car?"

He stopped, turning to face me. "Ma-hn! Don't be scared. We'll be out of here before they even notice us. I'm showing you the sordid underside of the food industry. We're on a Gonzo adventure. We are the fearless adventurers Lewis and Clark, exploring the great unknown."

He walked through. The chefs didn't even glance at us, lost in their struggle to finish meals. “Just put a mask on like everyone else, and you'll be fine.”

He mocked, "Look at them! They're lost in their servitude to the bourgeoisie."

He opened a cabinet and pulled out a packet labeled "Baking Soda." The vibrations told me this was most certainly not his first time coming here. He put his finger to his lips, and when the chef's back was turned, poured the whole bag into a container labeled "Salt." Then, he dragged me out of the place, leaving the clashing pots and boiling water.

We pushed open a door, letting it slam into a wall. He huffed, "Did you see? They're robots. Imagine some rich thief who writes fates on paychecks eating his spaghetti and choking on baking soda. The lizard's head might burst like a fifth grader's volcano science project."

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The chef is going to be fired. Oh my God, we just made a man lose his job. The Police will hunt me down with massive Dobermanns and hang me by my toenails outside Wall Street as a symbol to the crazy folk.

I muttered, "It takes acid: acetic; LSD might suffice."

"Hey, Judas! I'm teaching you something here. Listen. Stop worrying. They can just pretend they weren't in-the-know."

He walked over to a beat-up car, fishing out a keyring from his pocket. Unlocking the doors, he yelled, "Get in! I'm going to show you the last remnants of the Great Society. What did you think of Lila's art gallery?"

I struggled to remember what he was talking about. Lila was an acquaintance, the most successful of the sort we associated with. She made a living selling modern art. We'd attended her show the night before, so long ago in our manic existences as amorphous amoeba.

"Stop messing around, Paul. You've got nothing to teach anyone."

I tested him, trying to figure out what made him a man, uncaring and wild and free.

He coolly glanced at me. "You really believe that, Judas? I know you know that that's all bull. You're just opening your eyes. You are the initiate."

He revved the engine, zooming forty out of the parking lot.

"What are you doing? Do you want to be arrested?"

"Chill, ma-hn. There's no police ‘round here. They run from crime."

Paul is the eternal satirist, the eternal doubter, the eternal sinner. May his soul soar to heaven.

Paul honked his horn as he roared down Main Street, cutting cars off as he raced past a red light. A young punk in a Bugatti, bought with his dad's money, had his car's speakers in overdrive, the rhythm rocking the whole street. He watched us. The lights turned green. GO! It was the great American dream. He chased behind: he wanted to be alive too.

I was suddenly struck by how empty my life was. How empty our lives were. We've got thirty-three years and were racing teens down streets. The light ahead turned red. Paul ran through, but the boy slammed the brakes, whooping and waving.

Paul glanced at me. "If a man had a gun to your head, would you walk away?"

"What's the scenario?"

"Pew! You're dead." He let go of the wheel and finger gunned at my head.

"Eyes on the street!"

He chuckled. "No one's going to hit me. They're too yellow."

"Catcher in the Rye?"

"No, the main cultural mindstream. You can sense the true culture if you keep your eyes closed and listen to the radio waves riding the wind." Paul doesn't even need drinks to get high. He's confided that he can get high off dreams and moonlight. "You've got nothing you're looking for. You can catch the machine's shadow, but you haven't found the Source, the fountain of eternal youth. You're trapped in between, in the hinterland. Able to see but unable to reach."

Somehow, I felt angry. Why am I not good enough? "At least I've got an apartment; I have friends-"

He interrupted, "I'm your only friend."

"No, no! There's Jack and Adam and Ian..." I trailed off.

"Your co-worker isn't your friend. Your boss isn't your friend. The man you drink with isn't your friend."

"Well, at least I have a home and a girl."

"Rachel sent you a video of her cheating. Yeah, sure; she's your girl."

I hate car rides. I wish I was driving. I'd go at 100 and slam into a wall or someone else. At least, someone else would care. Would I go back to where I'm from, that warm, dark womb, or sink in some unknown hellish fire, tortured for my sins of thirty-three years? It's crazy what technology can make. A mobile prison where only Paul is free.

We sat in silence.

"You were wrong," I said.

"’Bout what?"

When was Paul wrong?

"Yesterday, you said I fell in love with Lila."

He drawled, "Oh, so your ogling her was out of dislike?"

"No, I was admiring her artwork. You were the one trying to get in her pants."

Paul had met her and then drunk the cheap, complimentary wine until he threw up, spewing poetic nonsense across the gallery. She had left with another man. Paul had called her a cheap whore with a messed-up nose job.

"Ma-hn, I'm not into that; you know that. You're the bard of our group. Look, when I mention you to my friends, I just say a word, and they know who you are."

That irked me. His friends? Was I not part of this group?

I ignored him, looking at the city outside my window. Cities are built around highways. All the monuments sprout like weeds off grey webs of death. Highways are the vessels and monuments the organs.

He turned on the radio. There was just static. He grumbled, "Choose the channel." I tuned in to Channel 101. There was some news report about a school shooting in upstate New York.

"This fine?" I asked.

"I don't care about the world. Get off this crap."

I spun the dial. Some retro pop song with a melody from our childhood years that we'd forgotten popped up. "Change it."

I hesitated. "The song reminds me of something. You remember the title?"

He slammed the dial, and the radio cut off into static. "I don't care."

We listened to static for the next half an hour. (Neither of us could figure out how to turn it off.)

Paul is an angry saint. May I die in his holy embrace and accept his Absurd.

The car beeped. I glanced over. "We're low on gas."

He growled, "Don't need it."

We were out of the city now. There were no gas stations nearby. We continued speeding. Outside the tinted windows lay fields of yellow wheat and endless trees. The sun shone on me, but Paul's side was shaded by the car's roof.

"It's hot."

"No, it isn't," Paul said. He said it forcefully, as if the truth had been pre-decided.

I guessed that we had around thirty miles of gas left, so the place we were going to was probably less than fifteen miles away.

We stopped. He asked, "Why'd you dress up for today?"

"I dunno. Felt like it."

We stepped out of the car, parking it off the road beside the forest. It was dry outside Houston. There were miles and miles of Juniper trees, leafless in the drought like skeletons with outstretched arms, to be set alight in wildfire. The vengeful, withered dead would release their poisonous gases captured from the atmosphere and slowly strangle the Earth, either drowning everyone in little islands or melting them beneath the sun's rays. Our shoes raised a cloud of dust as we walked to a pond. It had clearly shrunken as it was barren within 10 yards of the waterline. We sat at the bank, a bit of sweat building up our brows. I took off my shirt and laid it on the ground, using it as a cover.

"Why're we here?" I asked.

"Dunno, felt like it." He tossed a pebble into the pond, watching the ripples spread, scattering a few gnats dancing on the surface. He whooped and splashed through the water with his clothes still on. He yelled, "Judas. Come on!"

I doubtfully examined the pond. It looked turbid and warm, a breeding ground for the unknown dangers of the wild. There could be water snakes with incurable venoms or mosquitoes carrying malaria or leaches that sucked my blood dry. Sighing, Paul jumped out and dragged me into the shallow depths before I could react.

My shoes soaked, I glared at him. "What was the point of this?"

"Don't you see, Ma-hn? Isn't this what you wanted? A life of no bounds, no chains, no wants."

Behind the misery of the beating sun, shrunken ponds, and devilish gnats was some spirit I had lost as a young boy, some daring, brash urge to fight this cruel world. I slapped a mosquito, observing the red and black splotch it left.

"No, I don't SEE it. We're in a pond that barely has enough water to bathe in. My clothes are muddy. I'm covered in bug bites-"

Paul laughed. "Oh, Judas. You make me laugh. Don't be cynical, accept it! Don't doubt what you know."

He took his phone and wallet from his pocket, throwing them at the dried-up beach. I did as he did, but my motions lacked his nonchalance.

He stared at a cloud. "What if we just stayed here forever, escaping that Americana Economedia? Renounce our fates as moths drawn to the light, electric God."

May Paul always remain the same Paul, his imperfections perfecting his Manhood. May I always remain the same shadow reaching for the wick's flame. May we never care and, yet, desire everything.

I walked over to my shirt, taking off my pants that had gotten drenched. I was too small to mold my mind into a vesicle for Paul's spark. After my brief venture into Paul's Wild West, I waited in the car. The heat was stifling, and my shirt would have been soaked had I put it on. Still, a sheen of sweat dripped down my chest, making my pants that I had put back on wet. There was something beautifully uncomfortable about the feeling. Misery teaches you freedom.

Paul yanked open the door. "Yo, Judas! I'm ready to go to the next place. Wanna stop for gas?"

I shrugged. What did I want?

"You're paying half then."

I nodded without protest. Paul had a way with words that left you unable to disagree.

The car pulled off the side of the road and left Desolation, returning to the city built of oil on a swamp, that monument to man's greatness, the place of fleeting lights.