REKT - Chapter 4
Bizerte
Maybe Deacon Joe was right, but maybe I've lost track of time. Those aren't mutually exclusive. This sunset has gone on forever, the reds running from high sky orange to deep disappearing purple. The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills. I read that once, there's a copy of it inside on the bookshelf. If I ever get off this couch, if I ever leave the balcony again, I should pick it up and thumb through it. This place is great. Some sort of a hipster homage to bad boys on retreat in North Africa. The Stones, Bukowski - no not him - Kerouac yes Kerouac, the Black Panthers stranded in Algeria. Now us, the numbnuts of crypto decamped to the edge of the desert, our jet set caravan come crashing down to Earth for some much-needed R&R.
Our attraction always brings us to the edges. What strange atomic configuration charges us? Was it the same that compelled the man who built this place? There's a kinship out here, this colony for the lost. I dig his style dude. Strange ceramic geometries tiled on the walls, magic carpets, stained glass panes in low lit lanterns. The sound system is simply extraordinary. Miles man. Miles fucking Davis. Sketches of Spain. He did his best work with Gil Evans. All that orchestral stuff, expansive, so much air to breathe. Not like the rapid staccato of hard bop or his electric work, those echoes that carry you off in dark directions.
Will O' the Wisp, that sly call and response of the horns. The clack of the beat, this song so in tune with the moment, with the call of the night on the sands of time. Dust devils, steam devils, djinns play in the sands, swirling, seducing, trying their best to trick me off this couch, away from our retreat. I know better than to answer them. There's nothing out there for a boy like me. I'd be alone, wandering between the dunes without water or direction. Saint-Exupéry warned me about the desert at night. Vol de Nuit. Lost among the wind, sand, and stars dependent on a chance encounter with Bedouins for survival.
I wonder if they are still out there, those nomads of the night sands. Do they still wander free, or have they been turned into house cats like so many of us? The Mongolians might be the only ones who refuse to have a fixed home, wait there are still Gypsies, Tinkerers, circus folk, and there are us. Cryptopian fools, digital nomads, idiots trying to overthrow all the conventions. Who says governments should control money? What gave them the right to mint? Why should they deny that to us? Value is a determination made between two parties, two private parties. Get these official ogres out of there. Toss those doofus dodos in the dumpster.
"I almost don't want to disturb you. You look content for once."
I hear Andy. He’s right. I am content for once. After the drama in Barcelona, I popped a double dose of Klonopin. Then there was that hookah Joe packed on arrival here. It was more hashish than flavored tobacco. I am biblically stoned and letting my mind run free. Andy’s close, but he sounds so far away. I could open my eyes, sort this out, but I'm enjoying the inside of my eyeballs. There's this great gradient of light flickering through the windmills of my mind.
"I am so content. Think I'm just going to fall asleep out here. Call this place home for the night. Do you ever miss home?"
"No man. I make myself at home. Wherever I go, there I am."
Ha, he's as stoned as me. That's great. Andy needs to chill out a bit. Deacon Joe was right. This is good. This is so fucking good after Barcelona. Just a bit of a recharge, check out for a bit while the brain hits reset, and then we are all as good as new.
"So, that thing with the plovers...what was up with that?"
"I don’t know Ryan. I took something. It didn't go off right. Call it a Peruvian hotshot."
"What's in a Peruvian hotshot?"
"Ayahuasca and speed."
I open my eyes to get a look at Andy, to read his face and see if he's serious.
"There's no such thing as a Peruvian hotshot. You're fucking with me, taking advantage of my weakened mental condition."
"Didn't I call an Uber out to the airport and try to take Joe's plane to Peru to check in on birds?"
"You did."
"Doesn't that sound like the sort of thing a Peruvian hotshot would make you do?"
"It does, but you're fucking with me Andy. It's okay to tell me you've been feeling manic. I'm here for you. I got you. We're a team bro."
Andy tumbles onto the couch. I feel myself being pushed up as his weight presses down on the cushions. His hand grips my thigh, squeezing it, forcing my heavy lids to open and look square at him. This is truthful Andy, the one that puts all the bullshit to the side and embraces you with such totality that you feel the force of his words deep in your soul. I know that what he says next will be the honest truth because no one can muster up such conviction and not have it come from the heart. So, whatever he's going to say, I must believe it, accept it. This sanctity exists between us, a trust of looks, the not fucking around face. It's brotherhood, partnership, what we owe each other.
"It was a bad ride Ryan. The Peruvian hotshot? That's what I called it, how I gave shape to my experience. I don't know what it was. I was out with the chemistry crowd. Vilnius told me to try this pill. A couple hours later nothing had happened, so he said it was a dud. Flipped me a couple dexy. Anyway, I'm heading home about four in the morning and it all just comes on like a freight train. I'm not manic Ryan and I'm sorry for leaving you on your own with Juntos. That was some weird shit Joe did, and it was all my fault. I should have been there for you."
He's speaking to me on the level. There's no doubt about that. Thank fucking God too, because hearing he was manic would really harsh this most excellent of mellows. I collapse back into the deep cushions. A car is pulling into the courtyard below. Music, the laughter of women, a good time ready to continue into this early endless evening.
"Hey so how do I do this Nikola thing?" I ask.
"You don't know about the birds and the bees? Let me explain it to you. When a man and a woman love each other very much..."
We burst into laughter. The courtyard echoes from below, the call and response of happiness from us to them and back again. This is going to be such a good night. It's already been such an amazing afternoon. The world balances itself out like that. Every awful has an equal and opposite awesome.
"I'm serious. I got it bad for her."
"I can see the way she looks at you Ryan. You two should totally go for it."
"Yeah, but the money. She's our controller Andy. All our little schemes, the way we juice that cash and earn a bit on the side, it runs through her. We can't fall out with Nikola. We'd be fucked. You know what they say about a woman scorned."
"Bro, Ryan. You are not the type to scorn a woman. You're a good fucking dude. A really good dude. That's why you're my partner. If I were into dudes, I'd fall for you. I'd totally let you fuck me. I'd fall head over heels for you and if the time came when you didn't love me anymore, I know that you would let me down gently, that you would do it in a way where after everything was said and done, I'd have to respect you even if my heart was broken in a million billion pieces because it lost someone as perfect as you."
Whoa. What the fuck was that? Did Andy really just say that? That was some heavy heartfelt shit and he meant it.
"Thanks Andy, that's really, really nice of you to say. I mean, I don't think a man has expressed his non-sexual love of another man as beautifully as that since the Bee Gees wrote To Love Somebody. There's a light, a certain kind of light, that's never shown on me."
"I want my life to be lived with you. Lived with you."
We are up standing, singing, serenading the courtyard. Our hashish high falsettos reach up to the heavens. The group down below calling it back to us. "You don't know what it's like, baby you don't know what it's like, to love somebody, to love somebody."
Deacon Joe is out of his Crocodile Dundee costume and in his kimono. He's waving us down. We've been alone up here far too long, being bad guests holding up the party. Andy and I turn for the stairs. He grabs hold of me. We walk like old Renaissance men arm in arm. Slow and intimate, in hushed conversation.
"Go for Nikola," he advises.
"But if it all blows up?"
"This is a shot at love, real love baby. Chase that dream. You have my permission. Don't worry about the business."
"Thanks Andy. That means a lot to me."
"I know brother, I know. By the way, we closed on Kila. They are placing a huge order. Two hundred million in coins. That sort of commitment should be enough to convince First American that we are serious fucking players. We are going to crush that pitch. Absolutely fucking kill it."
The twisting stone stairwell opens into the courtyard. Miles Davis is gone and the music is pumping. I recognize some of these people from the circuit. Some of them are friends of friends. Joe wraps his arm around us. A bottle of champagne pops. Everything is so perfect. I will never die. I will never grow old.