2.5

The soft running of the river pulled a thin strand of my consciousness back into the real world and I woke with a start. The hair on the back of my head was mashed flat by the cycling gloves underneath, and my forearm was tingly where it had laid on my forehead. Book? Still under my back. Bike? Still against the bench behind me. Brain? Screwed on, I think, but a little screwy too. I flipped my legs over the
Okay
And I stand
I stood up, not quite confident on my wavery legs, and I pull everything together to ride the seven miles home. Blinking, I pull my watch up to vision, and try very hard to slap my brain back into shape for a few simple calculations. And if I arrived at, what, noon? Noonish? And I read for an indulgent forty minutes? I slept for an hour on a park bench with my kindle and phone and wallet just in my pockets.
I would prefer to trust humanity. I would prefer to live well, and happily, and be disappointed only when I must. I would prefer to never be pleasantly surprised--because I expected the best of everyone.

I was parked in a very sketchy lot in Victorville. I had the door open to my RV and I was trying to make supper on my camping stove when he walked by. We started a conversation. He had a few shopping bags, he was black, he was alone. I asked him if he wanted any of my beans and rice, and I got him a bowl, and he ate with me inside my home. He tried to sell me a radio he promised was brand new. It occurs to me now that his price was suspiciously low. He was polite when he asked if he could smoke. We talked (actually, he talked, mostly, and I listened and chimed in with almost nothing of value. He and I are from very different worlds, and honestly? I think he just enjoyed having someone listen and be kind.
Through the blinds, he saw a woman he knew, and without asking, he called her in. They had a conversation about the people they knew, about the places they were going (nowhere. Victorville. This place or that house.) They laughed about things I didn't understand. They talked and talked, like they hadn't seen anybody else all day and all the words were pent up inside them and just struggling to get out. He told her I didn't smoke. She was incredulous. He tried to sell her the radio. She was nonplussed. He told her I was the best looking guy he knew. She didn't respond.
When she left, he asked if I knew any women. We should get women and bring them back here. No thanks from me, man. Of course, this wasn't the end of it. If I was hard-pressed to end the night without a very questionably cheap radio (his price dropped from sixty to twenty as we talked), it was like talking down a man from a ledge to get his phone back in his pocket, to keep women out of my house, to convince him I didn't want to have sex with someone I had never met and would prefer to never meet. He said goodbye, but not after talking for so long I have forgotten every word of what he said.
I locked the door sometime after he left.
In the middle of the night, I think sometime after one in the morning, two men parked their car with the headlights pointed at my vehicle and shouted and banged on the door. They called a name--Andrew, maybe, or Dayton, perhaps, or Tejon. They knew he was in there. Just open up, man. I dripped a terrified sweat. I wasn't sure what I should do, so I sat still and didn't.
Long after they left, I checked my phone. I didn't tell anyone. I fell asleep.
In the morning, I rode my scooter to IHOP where dozens of parishioners were tanking up in their Sunday clothes. I looked around and saw no two people alike, and no one like me. I ate three pancakes and I felt at home.

Today, I reaffirmed my life's story, and I felt healthy and whole. Today, just like every day, I felt at home.