My Wild Love

How did I end up here?

I’d already asked myself that question several times before finally deciding that it was due to Jim’s charm. That was the only reason I would have followed a strange man I had just met away from the public and up onto a secluded rooftop.

The view was spectacular. A few hours had passed and sunset was painted in crude brushstrokes across the Los Angeles skyline. Buildings stood tall and stationary like soldiers as the little ant figures of people bustled around town below. Life could be so simple sometimes…

I was laying back on the concrete roof watching the sunset color show floating above my head. The wisps of colors blended like a perfectly harmonized chord. Jim sat on the building's edge, one leg hanging off the side. Every now and then the scraping of his shoes could be heard hitting against the building’s bricks.

Cutting my day dreaming out of my head, I tuned back into what Jim was saying.

His eyes were closed and he was quoting The Dharma Bums from memory in a slow, rhythmic enchanting voice while I followed the script in the actual book. His voice held so much emotion as he recited the lines that it made Kerouac’s work sound like the Bible.

“Colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets is each living room…”

Taking a gulp of oxygen which was mostly smut due to the city's pollution, I listened to Jim praying Kerouac’s words.

“… with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness to hear the voice crying in the wilderness, to find the ecstasy of the stars, to find the dark mysterious secret of the origin of faceless wonderless crapulous civilization.”

Feeling a natural buzz from the atmosphere, I let the warmth of the setting sun glisten on my skin and play off my words, “Mmm… simply beautiful, Jim. Really, the best reciting of Kerouac I've heard.”

“You think so?” Jim questioned quietly as if there was any doubt after that performance.

“Of course.” I told him sitting up now, hair hanging over one tanned shoulder. “I think of Kerouac as a poet, not just a writer. His words flow together with passion and rhythm. Almost as good as Whitman.” I sly smile took over my face. “Almost.”

Jim laughed slightly, “Poetry sings to your heart?”

I shook my head and corrected him, “To my soul.”

* * *

It was night now. Though the exact timing was a little questionable.

Poised like gargoyles, Jim and I were cross-legged facing each other still on the rooftop. He was talking animatedly and rapidly about his time in desert after having just taken peyote. It seemed to me like he was describing passionate words to a lover rather than a traveling experience.

“And that’s what I want to do.” Jim was in the middle of saying. “Have experiences that test my mind… my emotions. I want to completely derange my senses. I want no bound untouched. You can't really say you've been alive until you've done it all.”

I nodded thoughtfully, “And if you die?”

His grin blinded me, “You only die once, so why not make it interesting?”

I couldn’t argue with his logic. But I did find one fault. “What if you’re reincarnated?”

Jim laughed. “Then I’ll do it again.”

“It wouldn’t be so interesting anymore if you were reincarnated as a fly or some animal though.”

“Why not?”

For that I did not have an answer.

Standing up, Jim walked along the building ledge like tight-rope walker.

“What would you do if I jumped?”

“Let you fall.” I answered immediately.

The possibility of him jumping to his death held more of a psychlogical interest to me rather than a frightening feeling.

“Would you?” He asked.

Jim hung his leg off the side. Keeping still, I just watched at him and didn’t react. Somewhere in my head I wondered if Jim was actually insane.

If he was, I would welcome it. Insanity would be a great relief from the zombies walking the earth pretending to be alive. It made a person question a lot; Were the clinically insane really handicapped, or the ones to truly be among the living?

He hung his leg off farther, testing me. Still I didn’t move even as his body shook slightly off balance.

After a moment, Jim placed his leg safely back on the ledge again. The short scene over, he looked at me with some strange emotion in his eyes that I didn’t quite recognize. It almost looked like pride, or maybe relief.

Either way, he studied me as if I were an equal now.

He jumped towards safety, landing only a few feet in front of me. Just like in the bookstore before, all he said was, “Hmm… interesting.”