been looking at when I was in the roadway. I winced as he grabbed my hand, still half-convinced he would fall backwards with a fair portion of human material stuck in his grasp. My body popped and snapped as I stood, but I felt like a caterpillar shedding its old cocoon and becoming a butterfly. Okay…so that really isn’t a manly enough metaphor, let’s go with a snake shedding its old skin, that works much better and probably a lot closer to the truth considering what I was now. Half, half of what I am. I had to hold onto that other half with everything I had now. I picked up my glass and took a large swallow, the liquid alternating between burning and soothing my throat.
“How did the government know I was here?” Bearded Man asked.
I gripped the edge of a small table as a serious case of vertigo swooned by me. “Whoa, cheap high,” I said, harkening back to a reference I had used since my youth whenever I got light-headed from rising too quickly.
“There is nothing cheap about my highs,” Bearded Man said indignantly.
I thought I had crazy cornered, shit was I wrong. “No one sent me, definitely not the government. I was trying to get away.”
“From her?” he asked.
The swoon struck again, I tried not to let him see it.
Then he moved on. “I once ate a Snickers bar on a dare.”
“Can we start again?” I asked.
“When did we finish?” he asked back.
“My name is Michael Talbot,” I said as I extended my hand, thinking he would shake it, then tell me his name. He looked at my proffered hand like it was a claw.
“No way, man,” he said.
I understood not shaking hands; he could be a fellow germaphobe. But that didn’t make any sense considering that he had just helped me to stand.
“Okay,” I said, pulling my hand back in, unconsciously rubbing it against my side. Blue jean material fell way like dried sand. I began to brush my legs. More fried clothing fell to the ground.
“Dude, you’re messing with my high man,” Bearded Man said as he backed up.
I stopped what I was doing, realizing that if I kept it up I would be naked in front of another man real soon. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it just isn’t my cup of tea. Okay, so tea doesn’t seem masculine enough, let’s go with lager, yeah it’s not my stein of lager, much better).
“Are you melting?” he asked, still backing up.
“Molting more like it.” I gulped down my apprehension as I began to ask him my next question. “Do you have any clothes I could borrow?” As it was, I had to wash store bought clothes twice before I would ever wear them, and now I was asking this unkempt stranger if I could borrow some of his stuff.
His eyes glazed for half a second then some lucidity popped in for a quick respite. “Sure I’ll be right back.”
He came back a few moments later with a heavy woolen poncho, white socks with yellow stripes—I hadn’t seen anything like those since grade school—a pair of pants that looked fashionable during the Nixon era, and some tightie-whities.
I gladly accepted just about everything except the underwear. They could have been brand new, but the mere fact that he had touched them made them soiled in my eyes. And these were far from Inspector Number 5’s hands; the elastic waistband was all stretched and worn out and there was a small hole in the seat.
“I was going to toss those soon,” he said as he watched me looking at the underwear.
“Well I’m glad you found it in your heart to hold onto them until you bequeathed them to me.”
“You’re welcome, want some french fries?”
“Thank you and yes.” What the hell else could I say? Who turns down french fries? Plus, I thought it would give me an opportunity to stash the underwear while he went into the other room to gather the mythical fried spuds.
I manically brushed the remainder of my singed digs off of me as Bearded Man made quite a show of preparing our side dish. The poncho which was scratchy actually felt surprisingly wonderful on my new itchy skin; the polyester pants were on the tight side and about two inches too short, but it beat naked any day. I hid the underwear in the poncho’s oversized front pocket. I was putting on the socks when he came in with a tray of steaming french fries.
“Who are you?” he asked stopping a few feet from me.
At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but he just kept staring at me. “Michael Talbot remember? You just got me some new clothes? And thank you by the way.”
“Oh right, I thought I was imagining you. Whoa french fries!” he exclaimed, like he just realized what he was carrying. He started popping the steaming starch sticks into his mouth. “Mmmmm, these are so good,” he said with his eyes closed. He opened them and peered at me for a moment as if he was sifting through his memory trying to figure out who I was again. When he came up with a satisfactory answer, once more he asked if I wanted some.
He put the tray down and I ate some. They actually had some spices on them and were delicious.
“I used to be chef for a five star resort,” he said as he watched me obviously enjoying his cuisine.
“These are fantastic,” I said as I stuffed some more in my face. Apparently almost dying by fire and meeting God take their toll on one’s appetite.
“Nice poncho I’ve got one just like it, I wish I knew where I’d put it.”
“What’s your name?” I asked again as I sat down, wanting to get closer to the addictive food. Bearded Man seemed to have forgotten about them completely; this was fine with me, I was famished.
“John the Tripper,” he said with a faraway look.
“Excuse me?” I asked almost wrongly swallowing a half chewed potato strip.
“John the Tripper,” he reiterated.
I had to ask, but I already knew the answer. “Because you fall over things?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” he asked back.
“You said John the Tripper.”
“What?”
“John the Tripper.”
“What?”
“Your name.”
“What about it?”
“I figured it might mean you fall over things, apparently not though.”
“I toured for twelve years with the Grateful Dead,” he told me.
“Of course you did. Any chance you filled in some of the down time with some serious karate and weapons training?”
“I watched a Bruce Lee film once, didn’t understand it though.”
“John the Tripper...”
He said “What?” again before I could finish.
“Shit,” I said, rubbing my hand over the top of my head where my hair should have been. “Do you have a mirror?” I asked as I patted down my entire head. I was pretty alarmed at this point.
He pulled open a drawer in the small table that I had used previously to support myself. It was overflowing with handheld mirrors of varying size and shape.
He looked up at me a little sheepishly. “Sometimes I just need to see myself to know that I still exist.”
“I can actually relate,” I told him as he handed me one. My right eyebrow, along with all of the hair on my head was gone, burnt to a crisp much like my clothes had been, three-quarters of my goatee was gone. I looked pretty sketchy to say the least. I’m not sure if I would have gone close enough to this person in the mirror to drop a quarter in a cup. I looked like I was suffering some serious malady. I just hoped it wasn’t catchy.
“Do you have cancer?” he asked as he rubbed my smooth head.
