(a short story)

1. TEENAGE DHARMA BUM

Armohn scratched at his newly shaved head, finding the places he’d missed; using a mirror was limited after all. The sun shone as usual. He leaned back, feet on the book bag, arms stretched sideways, opening up to the heat of a new day.

It was time to go. He hated school and dreamed of running away but the question of where to stumped him. His dad lived here. Armohn lived here. And where was here? Socorro, another small town in New Mexico, one of the many he’d lived in, following his itinerant dad all over the country, chasing the fire season. He didn’t know much more about the place than that another wildland fire had swept through the canyon up north of them only weeks ago. All he really knew with any kind of certainty was that that his friend, well, a crush, had laughed at him in the playground when he’d said seriously, I’d like to buy you a cup of something.

He’d meant a coffee, or an ice cream soda, or even a beer stolen from his dad’s ever overflowing stock in the fridge at home. He’d dreamt of sitting on this bench with Elu, chatting and drinking as if they were in LA or something, a place where he didn’t stand out for the color of his skin, where girls didn’t ask to touch his hair, where they could both fit in. Although Elu did. He belonged. He’d grown up in the pueblo nearby, born and raised there, he had an attachment to the land, the sky, and the ancestors, in a way Armohn couldn’t grasp. He was jealous of it but didn’t question why. Normally, Elu accepted him, usually, not asking about runners from Kenya or writers from Nigeria or anything else his peers had seen on FB. No, Elu asked about who his family was, apparently honestly curious about his mom (divorced and newlywed in Ohio), his grandparents (both sets in New Jersey). ‘Who are your people’ meant something softer from him.

But then Armohn’d said that stupid line about getting a drink and blew it. Elu had backed away, eyes shadowed in discomfort. Armohn hadn’t been able to explain. To Elu or himself.

Armohn closed his eyes and pictured Elu and him watching a sunset. They’d drink tequila and eat at a fancy restaurant on a warm smooth evening in California surrounded by friends and acquaintances who knew them both for the movies they’d created, Armohn and Elu. A handsome couple. A storyteller and a photographer. Together.

He’d not leave though, Elu wouldn’t.

Armohn would. Some day. Somehow. Soon too.

However, Spring in New Mexico was all he had. Rattlesnakes and 45 mph gusts and those damn wildfires. A solitary place. A lonely place. It was not like his first and only home in Baltimore. Or even like any of the others over the last few years along the Rockies. Although it did remind Armohn of Bend in Oregon. His dad worked for the Hotshots as a traveling firefighter, a man to be proud of. Dad was a physically strong and community minded single parent, who had no patience for this teenage angst. Get off the computer and out into the world, he’d say to his son. Every day. And night.

The bench sat behind the rented adobe home, facing the I25 and in the distance lurked the Gallinas Mountains that he had yet to explore, not that he was much of an outdoor teenager. He noticed a low cloud of smoke lingering in the morning light. Another fire. Another week at school. Only one more year and then he’d be free to leave, and he couldn’t wait.

Armohn shrugged. His phone vibrated, and upon seeing Elu’s name, he shoved it deeper in baggy shorts and stood. He still didn’t have the words to explain. He wrote a note to himself: You are not alone.

He wrote it on a receipt from Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque. He read it aloud to the rattler on the rock some ten feet away, stretched out for the day’s warmth. Armohn dreamed of a road trip around the country, alone, no one else allowed, no dad to push at him, only him and his pet snake. If he had one, that is.

– Want to come with me?

The snake didn’t blink. It was four feet long, thick as his fist, and the diamond back pattern kept him captivated. The silent threat of that rattle was mind-blowing, to be so close and unafraid.

– I’ll take that as a no. Your loss. We could’ve gone down the Route 66 all the way to Santa Monica. A beach. We could’ve stuck our feet in the ocean and started again in a new city as a new man. I’ll go. One day I’ll go. And I’ll drop this note in a bottle and send it out to sea for another kid in another town and it’ll make a difference, for them, it will, you’ll see. Maybe I’ll hitch a ride on the train, all on my own. I’ll be a teenage dharma bum, a drunk, a van-lifer, a puppy-dragger, dressed in black, a seasonal worker, or a street performer, a poet! I don’t care. I’m going. I will too. You’ll see.

Armohn picked up one of the empties lying at his feet and stuck the note inside. Grabbing his school bag, he shoved the brown beer bottle in amongst the books and walked to school. He didn’t want to be late for class.

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Sarah Leamy (me) has over ten books published including Van Life, an award-winning travel memoir from months on the road with two dogs and a cat in a small and old Dodge half-ton van. You’ll find artwork, books, essays, cartoons, travel stories, short fiction and more on the website.

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