Chapter 30: Palm Canyon Dr.

Daylight hours gradually became more social and therefore sane. Slightly. I mostly spent those hours in the public library. Not only it was a place to escape the heat, but a strange zoo of “sociable weirdos”. Of course, I'd be happy to include myself in that definition. Partially: in the “weirdo” part. In a world full of mediocrity, natural weirdness may be of value —although the case of the mediocre eccentric isn't really uncommon.

Even the sight of the permanently plastered priest brought a smile, always. To an atheist. He and his self-proclaimed mastery of seven dialects of Mandarin. He was what he was —and even when he wanted to become more to people surrounding him, he was nothing but. He was beautiful, yet never for the reasons that made him strive for respect.

We were always roughly the same weirdos. None of them displayed a life I'd have wanted to imitate. If all of the options were being laid in front of me, I'd rather not lose my identity.

Yet, some interactions were hysterical. It was a pity that Baariq the Calcite Recluse was never there to witness. I kept visiting him on Tuesdays, telling him whatever happened in the library.

I thought I saw Roberto in that library. Maybe for the first time —albeit I felt that he had always been with me in some ways. Memory is frail when it comes to desire. It was a strange day: a Wednesday —which I remember because they opened the library at noon, something practical to deal with the cyclical hungover on the days after visiting Baariq.

Roberto —or his doppelgänger, or my memory glitch— arrived driving a white van, as some sort of Portuguese version of Quixote riding his Rocinante. I only peeked out of the corner of my eye —yet I can swear it was him. Wouldn't be the first time I sworn for a made up memory. I only wish I had talked to him back then: no time lost, no lingering doubt.

Not surprisingly, as summer arrived, a lot of weirdos started leaving. They had another life: one that wasn't facing the soul-drying canicular days to come. The night winds were becoming friendly, as long as I avoided listening.

After a while I started missing computers and their bleeding edge of human development and degeneration. The malfunctioning 3D printer in the half-empty library didn't suffice —as much as they were proud of that investment, the pioneers of the desert's DIY.

As the itch for technology came back, I realized that I still expected to find a meaningful goal within that field. Something meaningful and new. Without steps back.

I, feeling like a puzzle half done, unrealizable, went on to an interview for a mediocre IT job in Los Angeles. A job offer that I had received through one of those spammy recruiters.

I looked back. I always looked back. As much as the desert had given me an unnerving view on the pointlessness of life, as much as it had pushed my sanity and patience in a diagonal direction, I was going to miss those morning coffees in the Christmas Circle, those relatively predictable conversations with Tania about the relative unpredictability of life, and even those weirdos hitting on me —never the weirdo I wanted.