This is the story of our detailed and shafted encounters with life.
Our first encounter was on a Thursday.
Ace, Mak, Xavier, and I took a trip to Sunol one familiarly hot Thursday. It was about a thirty minute hike to reach the waterfall; so naturally, we lazily found a trail that led to the stream after just ten minutes of our scorching walk. We stumbled upon our first problem when we reached the stream. Water shoes come in handy when wading through water and mossy rocks. Ace wore a pair of her gray kicks but refused to wear it in the water. She wobbled through the stream, like goddamned Bambi was learning to take her first steps again under water. Xavier had the same problem. So Mak and I walked several hundreds of yards ahead of them because I had my water shoes and Mak wore her torn up moccasins. “Ace, just wear your shoes underwater. This is gonna be dick for you,” I recall telling her. Typically, she refused and protested, telling us about the inconvenience of having wet, dusty shoes. I saw Xavier surrender his shoes to the water, but in attempt to save his socks from the wetness, he accidentally flung one sock right into the water because his clumsiness would inevitably give him the shaft. Finally, we were all equally tripping over rocks, branches, and the flow of the water. When we reached an open and calm body of water, we took a seat on each of the rocks big enough to be part of our smoke session. We regrouped and talked about the weather and how often we should do this and how water shoes are such a great idea and how they all thought I was a bumbling genius and how they wanted to throw a party in honor of my genius. Ace sat beside Xavier who spotted a bee intruding our peace. Just as I knew she would, Ace screamed and panicked. I told them to be still, and I recall stifling an inside giggle in reference to Ace’s tattoo. They were still. But impatience took hold of the situation. Xavier said, “Fuck this shit,” and began to hastily walk out of the water and onto to dry land. We all slowly and semi-carefully waded to dry land. But we panicked as it buzzed around us. And goddamn, that bee was resentful. We stood on dry rocks for a few minutes then returned back to the water when the coast was clear. Before we even reached our previous spot, the bee appeared out of nowhere and continued to harass us with its buzzing and hovering. We created a scattering of screams and splashes. Entirely out of panic, we ran. We weren’t slow or even semi-careful anymore. We ran. Ace found land first, then Xavier. Mak was right in front of me, and with the heavy hulking force of her irrational fear for insects, her arm swung to her side where her elbow lands right on my fucking face. Heavy, hulking force. My vision blurred and as I took a step forward without even a slight regard for the fucking bee anymore, I tripped on a rock as tall as my knees. And there I laid still; face down looking at the flow of the cold water that I fell on, refusing to get up because I decided to give up. I looked up and saw Ace with her hands on her knees, her mouth wide with what frighteningly looked like a roaring laugh. Xavier was nowhere in my sight of vision and Mak was just ascending to safety on the dry land. She asked, “What the fuck just happened?” But Ace didn’t respond. She continued to laugh until she felt the need to respond, which led to a choke of laughter and response. I didn’t move because my body was screaming at me not to move or else it threatened to be paralyzed (or so that’s what it felt like). I was still face down, belly down on the water and rocks, elbows slightly holding me up, my legs straight and just barely floating, and I felt the formation of bruises distinctly greeting me from both of my shins.
Our second encounter was on a Sunday.
Ace, Mak, and I expected to do nothing on that Sunday. In her room, Mak and I woke up around noon, just as we did every day. I began to get myself dressed and ready which meant that I was slowly peeling off my clothes as I danced in front of her mirror. Mak was sitting on her bed, paying me no mind because I did this every day. Ace walks in her room, greets us, then begins to ramble. I was still dancing around the room, rolling around the bed, and getting myself ready for the day. I then struck a pose so inappropriate that I was on my hands and knees with my mouth forming a duck face and the desire to capture the moment. “Ace take a picture of me,” I demanded. “What no, you’re hurt,” she responded. “Just fucking do it!!” So she unwillingly snapped a shot in her phone and I continued getting ready. I sat down on the edge of the bed looking at myself in the mirror. Ace stood over me and immediately took notice of the black, purple, yellow, green, and grotesque bruises up and down both of my legs. “What the hell happened to your legs?” she asked just barely choking on a laugh. I looked at her with the dead seriousness of a PTA meeting. “What happened to my legs? Oh you wanna know what happened to my fucking legs?” I responded. Mak laughed and told her that it was from our first shafted encounter in Sunol. Between disbelief and laughter, she said, “Let me take a picture of them.” I grabbed both of my legs and yelled, “What, fuck no!” None of us understood why I refused a picture considering that we all just witnessed my very inappropriately posed snapshot on the bed. I dodged her attempts to capture my legs until she left the room. I knew she wasn’t about to give up so while she was gone, I looked around the room to find something to cover the bruises on my legs. Mak looked at me, puzzled. “What are you doing?” she said. “I’m trying to find something to cover my bruises so she won’t take a picture,” I responded. “Why don’t you just put pants on?” she insisted. And of course, I ignored her and stubbornly looked around the room. On the bedside table, I saw a black glittery bottle of nail polish sitting next to a clutter of things. Impulsively, I grabbed the bottle, twisted it open, then began to paint up and down my legs. I painted fast and covered all the bruises before Ace returned. When she walked back in, Mak and Ace shared their laughter and I was satisfied that they were unseen.
When we were all finally decent and ready for the day, we headed to Mak’s car and began driving. We had no destinations for the day so we decided to go to the gazebo at the park and have a cigarette or two. We played Frisbee on the tall, dry grass of the park. It was windy and the Frisbee flopped for the most part, but Ace insisted to make this hobby our talent anyway. Eventually, we gave up our talent and sat inside the gazebo. We talked aimlessly and miscellaneously. Mak and I shared a cigarette or two, and I began playing with my lighter. There were dry leaves and branches covering the floors of the gazebo so I told them the story about how Jordan and I tried to set the gazebo on fire one winter night. I told them about my disappointment of when Jordan decided to put out the fire and be a good citizen of this country. In an unspoken agreement, we began to set our own little fires. At first with the dry leaves, then dry branches, then a pile of dried up things until we created a very small bonfire. The very small bonfire turned into a bigger bonfire and it kept enlarging until it led us to hop over the gazebo, onto the swampy area to find more dried up things to add to the fire. There we found a small trail under a bridge that we decided to one day turn into a clubhouse. We resumed back to picking up dried up leaves, branches, and kindling. Being the monkey that she is, Ace easily climbed back up on the gazebo unlike Mak and I who struggled to get our legs up. When we finally found our way back up, we continued to tend to the fire. I took 3 more trips out of the gazebo to find more kindling. The fire grew to a normal, adult-sized bonfire. We watched it without even talking anymore, and waited. Mak began kicking at the fire, and we wondered if the whole thing could really set ablaze. Some of the fire finally fell through from under the gazebo, and unexpectedly, the grass and dried branches from under the gazebo set itself on fire. It was small but it eventually grew bigger until the whole damned thing looked like an oven. Mak ended up kicking more fire under the gazebo which made it massive and made them panic. She said, “We either have to commit to stomping it out or just leave right now.” I wanted to leave. I was ready to walk away. Adrenaline found us. A rush of aspiring but failed arsons. Mak was running out of the gazebo but I was patiently standing on top of the fire. Ace was frantically looking through a trash can and found a few cups from Jamba Juice that she wanted to use to fill up with water and put out the fire. She then found a big tub of cheeseball puffs container, handed it to me, then ordered me to fill it with water from the swamp. I grabbed it and did as she said. I filled the container with water and just as I was about to walk back up, I slipped on mud, landed on my ass, with my legs soaking in the swamp, and yelling, “What the fuck!!” I walked back to the gazebo, spilled the water onto the fire and we heard it die to a sizzle. They looked at me, looked at my wet pants, and we walked out of the gazebo with smoke rising from under.
Finally.
In my car, I knew I had a pair of dry shorts to change into so I did just that. We were at the parking lot and I was just fortunate enough to be wearing a thong that day. My ass was hanging out, saying hello to mother nature when all of a sudden, a woman on a bike was passing by me. It was my art teacher from high school. She glanced my way then glanced quickly away, but I knew I recognized her so I screamed, “HI MS. S!!” She glanced back at me only to quickly glance back away again. I knew she’d thought of me strange, but now I was certain she thought I was insane. You’d think that this incident was enough dose of embarrassment for me, but it wasn’t over. A few seconds later, her husband passes by me on his bike followed by her 5-year old daughter, looking at me like with really no emotion or reactive response to my bare behind. To top off their family day at the park, I looked down and saw black glitter nail polish smothered up and down my legs. I poked my head inside the car and found Mak and Ace dying till they were dead, so I said to them, “It’s OK, Ms. S understands me.”
