Rock All Night(82)

All except for one scrawny little guy, who kept circling back and staring at us until we caught up. Then he would race on ahead… disappear around a corner… and circle back, waiting patiently for us all over again.

Truthfully, if it hadn’t been for that dog, we might have really gotten lost out there. The light was quickly waning. The pinks and oranges turned to dark purple and indigo. Stars came out over the far horizon, and began appearing further and further up in the sky as the deep, rich colors gave way to the darkness of infinite space. It would have been so easy to get off the dirt road in the shadows and wind up on some footpath, and then find ourselves out in the middle of nowhere, with no idea how to get back.

But the scrawny little dog kept showing up, nudging us along, showing us the way.

This is how far gone I was: in my zonked-out state, I wasn’t completely sure if I was alive and walking upright, or dead and lying in the dirt the next morning… but I was convinced of a couple of things beyond any doubt.

One: Bob was God.

As in the Creator of the Universe.

He just looked like Santa Claus in a short-sleeve flannel shirt, that was all.

Two: his dogs were angels.

Literally.

Just with fur instead of wings.

Three: Bob/God knew we would get lost, and he had sent his angels with us to guide us back.

This I was absolutely sure of.

Oh, wait, it gets better.

When I was a kid, my mom went through a holy roller phase, and read a whole bunch of Christian books. One of the ones she passed on to me was called Hinds’ Feet On High Places. It was a spiritual allegory like Pilgrim’s Progress, all about a character called Much-Afraid who travels with two companions named Sorrow and Suffering through a barren landscape. They follow the Shepherd – a.k.a. Jesus – who leads them through trials and tribulations until they reach a place of happiness and love.


I didn’t remember much beyond that… but that was enough.

In my mind, I was Much-Afraid, and Killian and Derek were two angels of death – not evil destroyers, just two messengers of the eventual end all mortals must come to. And Ryan was the Shepherd, guiding me on the path. And the dog was an angel, and Bob was God, and we were all marching onwards to my final resting place, where I would spend the rest of eternity in the dark and cold, but at least I would have Ryan’s warm arms around me.

Like I said: f*cked UP.

Maybe the most f*cked-up thing of all was that I was depending on Ryan to keep me safe, and warm, and sane…

…and Derek was an afterthought.

An angel of death.

A dark shadow, of no comfort to me whatsoever when the End finally came.





66




We finally reached the cabins.

And Bob.

He was outside in the dark, surrounded by the dogs, who were running around him and yapping.

“You guys okay?” he asked.

In reality, his tone of voice was probably just concerned. Solicitous. Wanting to make sure we were alright.

But remember, at this stage of the game, I was still convinced he was God.

I believe I now have some insight about how Adam and Eve must have felt when their Maker showed up in the Garden of Eden and asked, Hey, have you two crazy kids been eating any apples?

I felt like my soul was laid naked before him, and he could see all my sins. All I wanted to do was run and hide.

Not Derek.

“Never better, Bob!” he crowed.

Killian just giggled uncontrollably as he kept playing his weird, atonal guitar solos.

As the lone sober person, Ryan stepped in as ambassador for the rest of us druggies. “We’re good, thanks.”

“Okay,” Bob said. “If you need anything, just holler.”

And then God and his angels retreated to Heaven, leaving us mere mortals alone in the void.

By this point, my teeth were chattering, I was so cold.

“We should get you a jacket,” Ryan said.

I nodded.

“Derek and I are going in the other cabin, spark up a joint,” Killian announced. “Want to join us?”

“Not for the joint, but we’ll be over in a minute,” Ryan told him.

And Derek and Killian walked off to the other cabin, chatting and laughing madly.

Ryan walked me into my cabin. “Do you want to – uh, Kaitlyn, what are you doing?”

I was running into the kitchen, is what I was doing.

I had only seen the cabin during the daylight. Now that it was dark, I was not entirely convinced that this was actually the right cabin.

‘Not entirely convinced’?

Hell, I was pretty damn sure that I was in the wrong place.

But I knew that if there was orange juice in the fridge, then this was the right place. That I hadn’t been duped.

That I wasn’t irretrievably lost.

And so I raced into the kitchen in the darkness and flung open the refrigerator door –

And there, in the dim light of the weak little bulb, sat the orange juice container.

I was safe.





67




Ryan and I joined Derek and Killian a few minutes later. They were lounging separately on two twin beds, passing a joint back and forth between them. A candle sat on an inn table between the beds, its single flame the only thing illuminating the room.