I lived in a cave in the Cascades while I was in my forties. If it
hadn't been for the alien weeds on the mountainside, I could have survived for
years. On my way down the mountain, I took a wrong turn and lost my shoe in the
muck south of downtown Tigard. I couldn't stop the weeds there any more than I
could on the mountainside. There were too many. The woods of Tigard, though,
were much worse. My feet bled and my ankles swelled to the size of softballs.
I was riding with my friend Amit from Eugene to Portland. He was
taking me to a clinic to see what they could do for me after the emergency room
in Eugene refused to admit me because they didn’t think I was crazy. It was a
long drive up I-5 so I appreciated that he was going out of his way to help me.
Until I didn’t appreciate him. Just south of Salem I became
convinced that he was taking me to an undisclosed location for nefarious
purposes. I kept seeing large black SUVs with blacked out windows. Obviously,
military or intelligence agencies making sure Amit didn’t veer from the agreed
upon route. I tried to open the car door to escape but the force of the wind
from driving 70 mph forced it shut. I gathered myself for a few seconds and prepared
to really put my shoulder into it so I could fall out, roll, then get up and
make my way to the mountains. I was invincible and didn't trust that Amit was
transporting me to a good location.
I figured I could find a good cave in the mountains. I’d already
done it. If it wasn’t for those weeds I wouldn’t have even been in this mess. I
couldn’t take the chance then, but I had to this time. It's not what I wanted,
but what I wanted doesn't matter.
By the time I tried to open the door again, Amit had engaged the
child locks. Appropriate. I kept unlocking and he kept locking again. It went
on for at least a minute while cars and trucks barreled past us as Amit
had inadvertently slowed down while locked into this life-and-death struggle.
I finally gave up and laughed as I remembered that my brother worked for the Air Force. He was undoubtedly higher up than he could
allow anyone on the outside to know, even his family—maybe especially his
family. I had other friends who worked for the federal government and realized
they were likely working clandestinely for one of the intelligence agencies.
My thoughts changed. I realized they weren’t there to catch me and
lock me up. Yes, the black SUVs were part of the military and intelligence
agencies, but they were there to escort me to safety, maybe even inform me of
the details of my mission: to index the Internet for Google while Nike attached
nodes to my body to activate my muscles so I could achieve perfect fitness to enable me to work 24 hours a
day every day for as long as needed, years or even decades. The fate of the planet depended on it.
But what I really wanted to do and had been trying to do for weeks
was to see Karen again. A month earlier at a poetry event called Word Out at
Star e Rose café, a woman I didn’t know read a poem about having never fallen
in love. We spoke during the intermission. Her eyes were lit like candles,
mesmerizing. I said to her, “You sure know a lot about love for someone who’s
never been in love.” She sparkled and I marveled. Two weeks later I was living
in a cave.
I felt as if we had been intentionally separated for a month. That turned out to be true. Close friends had been trying to isolate me to keep me from being out in public to protect me from the police and the mental health institutions. What were they gonna do? Let me live in a cave, run from alien weeds, jump out of moving cars, and hunt down a woman who probably didn’t even remember who I was? Friends don’t let friends follow their delusions, but they also try to keep them out of the hospital if possible. It’s scarier inside those places than within psychosis.
