Part 2: Baja Leai & the Road to New York
Jesus has a fire nightmare with Rodrigo's apparition; he excels academically, befriends Carlos, and solves the garden's rabbit problem with Rufus; Justin initiates a philosophical conversation.
The house was aflame, every board burning, returning to whence it came. There were faces inside—faces of children Jesus didn’t recognize, faces gaping in terror. They must have cried out in mortal fear, but the inferno swallowed up their shouts in a churning, burning maelstrom, like it soon would their fragile, weak bodies. They were so far away—seemingly miles in the distance—but Jesus could make out every horrifying detail of their twisted, agonized features. As the blaze enveloped the house and reached into the sky, a tower of fire, the embers and spouts of flames formed Rodrigo’s gaunt, hollow-eyed face, the way that he had appeared mere days before the fire, looking for Andrea. His visage, too, could not escape the destination. It was swallowed up with an even more potent violence. The ground opened a mighty fissure, and the apparition sank into its hellish depths. Down there, Rodrigo would pray for their sweet release of death. In the pit, there would be nothing but eternal retribution. Nature was the unrelenting sanctifier.
That day, Jesus finally found a solution to the rabbit problem that had plagued the garden since his arrival in Baja Leai. Rufus, as was his habit, had joined Jesus and Andrea in one of their semi-nightly excursions. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to appear from thin air, plodding down the beach or following from the trail they would use. It was probably the smell that drew him, Jesus postulated. He would follow them down the deserted, dark streets to Layla’s porch step, but wouldn’t attempt to enter.
The dog somehow had some concept of boundaries, a division between what was free territory for him to roam as he pleased, and what was restricted ground. On that particular day, Andrea and Jesus had elected to enter through the unlocked back door, as to not draw unwarranted attention to their excursion. When Rufus followed them into the back yard, he suddenly tore through the garden in pursuit of the furry pests.
After that, Jesus began to feed the mutt to encourage him to hang around the back yard, which he gladly did. At first, Layla was dismayed at the strange animal’s sudden appearance on her property, but after Jesus explained his reasoning, and she became acquainted with the good-natured animal, she became fond of him, even going so far as to buy him a collar, which he managed to scratch off his neck and lose on the first night. The dog wasn’t to be tamed. Like Layla’s guests, he was a traveler, a welcome temporary visitor.
He did a fine job of keeping away the rabbits. After a few days, the rodents kept away, and Layla’s plants stopped appearing chewed up and half eaten in the morning time. Now, Jesus had tilled and planted a sizeable portion of the land he had set out for, and as spring time and its nurturing shower and fair weather blessed the coastal city, the plants grew readily, visibly healthier and stronger by the day.
Jesus’ hard work was paying off in more ways than one. As midterms approached, his grasp of English and Spanish accelerated at a startling pace. He found that he had a strong natural aptitude for the written word. Essays and coursework were challenging, but never overwhelming for him. He maintained a near perfect GPA, even in the more difficult subjects of History and Mathematics. His social life left something to be desired. He lacked Andrea’s natural way of making friends wherever she went despite her cold disposition. His work left little time to spend going out, but he did make friends in his classes.
One boy in his creative writing class, Carlos, had lived in Nueva Casa for some time before moving to another coastal city farther up the peninsula. They bonded over the fact and quickly became close friends. Carlos had a distinctly different writing style than Jesus. Whereas Carlos made a conscious attempt to be meticulously precise and verbose in his work, Jesus had a more free-flowing, creative style.
The two students’ distinct styles complimented each other when they worked together and compared work. Carlos admired Jesus’ natural poetic flow and sense of rhythm, and Jesus admired Carlos’s mastery of the Spanish language and ability to exact specific articulation. Both students were novice writers in English, and would often talk to each other in the foreign language.
Back at home, Alfred was as quiet as ever. Justin moved like an alcoholic ghost. He would usually be passed out drunk as a sewer rat any time before the early afternoon, and would disappear off to god-knows-where, toting his guitar and cigarettes. Jesus never saw him eat, and rarely saw him awake at all. He was as stealthy and reclusive as a cat.
“You’re not one of those religious nutcases, are you?” Justin had surprised Jesus with the sudden question. He had stepped outside on the front porch for a breath of fresh air in the evening. “I don’t mean to offend,” Justin continued, “I just think with a name like that, it would be hard to avoid.”
“No, I guess not,” Jesus replied, caught off guard.
“Well, what do you believe in?”
Jesus considered this for a moment. He wasn’t used to the direct line of questioning. He had gone to church his entire life, accepting the protestant teachings, but secretly harboring the understanding that the truth differed from what he was taught.
“What kind of higher power? God, Allah, Yaweh, the universe?”
“God, I think. I know that I’m definitely not Islamic.”
“Well that’s good. Those guys have it totally backwards. Bad news is, so does everyone else.
Wanna go on a walk with me?” Justin said.
“Sure. Where to? I have to be back pretty soon. I have class in the morning.”
“Just around the block. I like to walk, it helps me clear my head,” Justin said, starting down the block. “Speaking of clearing my head,” He pulled out a fat rolled joint.
“Uhh … ” Jesus said nervously. He hadn’t smoked with anyone except Andrea and didn’t want the secret of his drug use getting out to anyone that could endanger his scholarship or his residency at Layla’s house.
“Oh come on kid, you come back from your little walks almost every night smelling like a Bob Dylan concert.”
That made Jesus laugh. “Ok, that’s true. I thought you were asleep most nights I came back.”
“Man, that shit’s so loud you couldn’t sleep through it if you tried. I think the whole house knows what you’re doing,” Jesus thought of Layla. Did she know? “Besides, where do you think Andrea gets her supply?”
“Probably from the guys at school. People are always giving her free weed, according to what she says.”
“Those college kids don’t have nothing compared to the shit I have,” He struck a match and lit the joint. Now, they were far enough from Layla’s house that they were out of sight.
“What if someone sees us?”
“What are they going to say? We aren’t bothering anyone,” Justin said. “Besides, this could as well be a cigarette.”
“Cigarettes don’t smell like skunk,” Jesus said, taking a hit. He immediately began coughing profusely.
“Easy man, don’t kill yourself,” Justin said, plucking the joint from Jesus’ hand, “You know, the great thing about this stuff is that it gives you a different perspective on reality. It helps you really understand what’s going on in the universe.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You see that road up there?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“When we get to that road, we have to make a choice. We can either turn right, or keep going straight. The entirety of the rest of our lives are going to hinge on that decision.”
“I don’t really see how the rest of my life could change based on that. It’s just a road. Either way, we end up back at the house,” Jesus said.
“It’s like this: Every decision you make, no matter how small, leads you down a different path in life. Each of those paths are a different dimension. Every possible path exists out there in the universe.
There’s a dimension where you and I are famous rock stars in Japan. There’s a dimension where we never even existed. There’s an infinite number of dimensions out there. This shit helps you tap into that.”
“Far out, man,” Jesus said, imitating something he had heard in a similar situation. “But how do we know what path to take? I mean, if all paths exist, it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
“At some point we’re all going to experience every path out there, but this time around, we’re just trying to understand it all and find the best path.”
Justin took a deep toke and passed it. He exhaled and continued, “I’m sharing this with you because I think that you’re a bright kid, and I want to open your mind to some new ideas.”
Jesus walked alongside Justin down the street, contemplating what he had been told. They turned right.
“I see what you’re saying, but I don’t really know if any of that stuff is real. I mean, it sounds great, but you can’t just say something like that without backing it up. Why would I believe in this stuff if I can’t see it?”
“That’s a good question. That’s why I like you, kid. You’re bright,” He took another toke and continued, “You see this joint here?”
“Yes.”
“Is that real?”
“Well, yeah.”
Justin held his head in front of the joint and said, “You see the joint now?”
“No.”
“Do you still think it’s real?”
“Interesting point. But with the joint, I know it’s there because I’ve seen it before. This stuff, I’ve never seen.”
“My point,” Justin continued, “Is that you don’t have to see something to know that it’s real.
For example, I’ve never seen your friend Andrea’s tits, but I’m pretty sure they’re real.”
Jesus laughed, “That surprises me.”
“That they’re real?”
“That you haven’t seen them.”
“I live in a dorm with two other guys, and I’m pretty sure Layla would have a conniption if she found out I’d been crossing state lines.”
“She’s too good for you anyway.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“You know her last boyfriend ended up burning down our home?”
“I did not know that.”
“Well, it’s true. Guy must have went crazy when Andrea dumped him,” Jesus said.
“Luckily for us, I’m deathly afraid of fire,” He passed the joint.
“I don’t mind this kind of fire.”
“Me neither, buddy. Me neither.”
Lying in bed that night, Jesus remembered Nueva Casa. He wondered how everyone was doing.
He hoped that Senora Sophia would restore the orphanage and re-open it. It was a truly wonderful thing she had done for Jesus and the other orphans. Memories flashed through his mind of the countless selfless hours she had spent teaching them English, showing them how to bake bread, caring for them, and instructing them. He imagined her now. What was she doing? Jesus made a silent promise that he wouldn’t forget what she and Osito had done for him. If he ever became rich and successful, he would pay Sophia back for her good deeds.