Filling In The Blanks: Egyptian Royalty

We ran, and it wasn't because someone was chasing us. We ran because we didn't want to think. I had grabbed my sleeping bag and my shoes and just started running. I wasn't drunk, but I laughed as if I was and I stumbled over my own feet in the slippery mud. Every so often a rock would get stuck in my toes and I’d have to bend down and dig it out. Shanley would think I was turning around and she'd start to say, "You're serious right now?" The first few times I'd get offended and really think about being serious, but then it became apparent that she, like me, was afraid to be alone. The further we ran, the more I felt in control. I felt like we were back in the woods and she was holding the crease in my arm as I lead her through the dark spots and swatted the cobwebs down from their resting places. We made it to the road outside the ranch property the commune was on and finally slowed our pace. Raindrops and the echoes of thunder bouncing off the northern tip of the Pacific Ocean had drowned the music out. The only familiarity that remained was the glow of the bonfires and that too would fade. We ran again, as protestors run towards the police, unsure of what to do once the confrontation begins. It wasn't about confrontation though, it was about change, and we both wanted change so we turned our backs to the bonfires and left.

Once outside the property, I began to see Shanley in a different light. Each moment, she showed me something new about herself, something more real and less bohemian, less fictitious and more attainable. It was almost as if a magazine was coming to life. The characters, pictured in clothes and situations so different than that of our own lives, so superior, but in this issue they were stripped down. They were back in their faded Levi’s and shitty apartments trying harder to seem deep and interesting than actually being so. I found myself acting like this many times at the commune, but it never occurred to me that other people may have been too. The whole experience of the commune could have been one huge lie, everyone in competition with everyone for who could push it further. Who could smell worse, or release their humanoid ways more. Who could become like an animal, live in their filth and convince others to live there with them. The process was never ending, the process was shit. In the big picture, I was the fly that hovered around the shit, taking from it what I needed, but Shanley, Shanley was the steam, Shanley was the depth. Shanley was the lumpy mass of brown fecal matter than became thin and spread itself over grass and gravel when it rained. Here was this hippie girl, the queen hippie to me, who was now digging through her tote bag looking for the keys to this immaculate Chevelle hidden in the bushes a few miles down the road. "Who's is this? It's beautiful." It was a metallic gold with light tan interior. The raindrops beaded up on the hood and roof, accentuating the sparkles in the paint. "It was a gift from my father, but I helped him with the down payment." I had heard that many times before. It's what rich kids say when they're ashamed of their affluence.

We sped down the road in silence. I stayed focused on the landscape outside of the passenger window even when my neck began to cramp. I wanted to seem, comfortable, oblivious. Shanley sat stoic, gripped to the steering wheel, her chin was angled down and she was viewing the road from the tops of her eyes. Our wet clothes and body heat cast fog on the windows. Condensation built up around the edges of interior and drips of water would run down the seams and land on the leather armrests to our sides. The empty highway and hypnotic movement of the car offered me a chance to reflect on other girls I had fallen for. I placed them all on pedestals, swearing up and down that they were flawless. I'd often too soon, but sometimes not soon enough, uncover the truth and end up turning away. I'm not sure if it was her smell, or the perception of her pursuing me that changed this, but with Shanley it didn't matter who she was, I just wanted to be with her. Even though we weren’t speaking, we were communicating. I could feel that denseness between the two of us that comes around when new lovers are near, radiating and sending messages from one side of the car to the other. I smiled and saw my reflection in the window as we passed under a streetlight. We drove until the night became silent. The rain had dissipated and the people slept, our world was quiet. We headed north on the Yellow Head highway and then cut inland on the 16. I don’t think she knew where she was headed, and neither did I, but we kept moving just to move. The velocity of choices propelled us further into the night and we didn't stop for two hours more. I began to see signs for Kamloop. 75 miles outside of Kamloop we finally pulled off the freeway. We needed gas, but I didn't have any money, Shanley did. When the attendant began to fill the tank, I headed for the general store. I stepped into the crisp night and watched my breath rise and then fade into the fluorescent glow of the lights above. I shuffled through the aisles looking at candy and beef jerky. I picked up some sunglasses and tried them on. I looked stupid. I hated the way they fit my face. I lifted my head to look out the window and noticed Shanley in the front seat wiping her eyes. She could have just been tired, but I knew she was crying. I felt guilty, like I was the one that caused her to run away. This wasn't true of course, but over the next few weeks I became very familiar with this undeserved feeling of guilt. Everything had happened so quickly and I hadn't even reflected on the oddness of the situation. It had been 3 weeks since Shanley last spoke to me and now here we were, somewhere in Canada, on the road running away from feelings. I felt satisfied yet disgusted at the same time. I kept telling myself that this was because I was nervous but the disgust didn't disappear for a long while after this rationalization.

I woke up feeling restless and damp. We pulled the car over somewhere in Kamloop and slept behind a bank. I remember thinking this was a good idea because they wouldn't be open on Sunday's. I looked to the back seat and Shanley was still sleeping. Besides the discussion of where to sleep, we hadn't spoken a word to each other since running. I didn't know if she was mad at me, or mad at herself or simply didn’t have anything to say, but I was getting a little fed up with it. I yawned intentionally loud and long and made more movements than necessary while stretching my cramped limbs. I looked back and could see the tension in her eyelids. She was awake, but she didn't want me to know. I got out of the car and took a walk. The ground was still wet from last night's rain and the smell of Maple trees floated through the streets. It was still early, right around seven, and the only people out were joggers and the homeless. As I walked by a newsstand I found a quarter on the ground. I used it to grab a cup of coffee from a donut store three blocks away. I sat there, inside a plastic booth, holding the cup with both hands and letting the steam warm my sinuses. I thought about the commune and wondered if Jeff or Skip had noticed I was gone yet. I was the only one who'd been sleeping in the van on a regular basis, so it could be days before they suspecting anything. I headed back towards the car. I had the shakes from too much coffee and my body felt empty. My eyes were dry, my head pounded, and if I wasn’t acutely aware of how poor I was, I’d have thought this was the morning after a wild night on the town. It was at this moment that I got homesick for the first time. Up until this point I was glad to be away. Sure I had rough times on the road and felt lonely at the commune, but I had treated it all as an experience that was keeping me busy. On the walk through this foreign Canadian city I felt miserable though. It might have been the lack of food, but I just wanted to go home. I found solace in the rising sun. Its rays warmed my body and I purposely looked into it as I headed back to the bank. I noticed Shanley sitting on the hood of her car wearing boots, jeans and a jacket with fur around the neck. She was smiling, and looked refreshed. "Hey! Where have you been? I didn't even hear you get up." I knew this was a lie. "It’s a beautiful day, are you hungry?" I told her I was, but that I didn’t have any money. She insisted on paying and we drove to a small cafe we had spotted on the way into town. We were seated at a 4 top. The waitress took away two of the settings and left the other two settings that laid across from each other. I took a seat and Shanley moved her setting next to mine. She then sat to my right. She combed her fingers once through her hair, and the smell came back. I tried to fight it, but I felt it slide inside of my body and sensually infect my brain. My heart began to flutter and all I could do was smile. She made me feel better, but only in the way a sedative makes you sleep. She started talking about how handsome I was, how my jaw line was symmetrical and defined. She said she liked things to be defined so I asked her what we were doing. "What are we doing? Well, we're on an adventure. The commune was getting boring don't you think? Those people there were starting to bug me. I wanted to just get away." I asked her why she brought me along. "I knew you wanted to get away too. I kept my eye on you even though we weren't talking; it was obvious you were miserable. I did this for you." She smiled as she said that, titling her head and resting her hand on top of mine. It was so blatantly a lie, I felt offended that she thought of me as being that dense. She was still touching me though and I kept thinking I'd be able to change her. I'd be able to show her who I really was, and she'd fall in love with me once she knew. I breathed in deeply and ate my food.

On the road I learned that Shanley was from Nevada. Turns out that Julian was also dodging the draft and she didn't want to be left out in the desert alone so she tagged along. I had always pictured her as the leader. Dragging Julian around with her wherever she decided was suitable for the two of them, but I soon realized it was me that was being dragged around. It’s so strange the truths you come across everyday yet refuse to recognize. In my loneliness, I rationalized the way Shanley used me. Not so much for companionship, rather so she wouldn't be alone. She knew the power she held over me and took full advantage. Naive and like a fool, I played along. I recognized her control, but found it easier to simply give in. To smile at her snide remarks about society. To laugh at her unintelligent comments on the war and how the Nixon administration was handling it. I didn't know much about politics myself, but I wasn't one to preach on subjects I failed to grasp. Shanley had no problem spouting off for hours about utter nonsense. She’d move her body violently when she spoke, flicking her arms in every direction. She'd scoff too. She'd scoff before every sentence to convince me of her passion. I hated how she scoffed. It became quite clear who Shanley was. She was insecure, she was young, much younger than I had originally thought, and she was ignorant. She also had a loud mouth, abused people verbally with her unnecessary use of large words and waved her hands around so much when she'd talk, you'd forget what she was saying, but figure that anyone putting this much effort into conversation, must be right. Oh yeah, there was also that smell, and the thighs and the long hair, but luckily I stopped seeing all that stuff. The more time I spent with her the more I noticed her imperfections. The purple veins that scattered through her fair skin, the light yellow hair that grew from the corners of her mouth, the way her eyes bulged just a little too far out of their sockets and worst of all her breath. I hadn’t realized it before, but her breath smelled terrible. I'd never look at her when she talked now. Before it was because I felt inferior, but now it's because I didn’t want to risk a foul smelling facial. Yet, even with the realizations of all these imperfections, there was still something about her that drove me crazy. She knew how to play the game, and I didn't even know the game existed.

It was another 3 days before we hit the US boarder. We’d been renting cheap motels on Shanley's dime and eating only one meal a day. We still hadn’t kissed. I think she knew that if we kissed I'd be able to feel her true intentions. She gave me just enough though. She'd come out of the shower in nothing but a motel towel, the ones that don't quite wrap around your entire body. She'd put lotion on her legs, propping up one at a time on the armchair in the corner of the room. She'd sleep in nothing but her underwear and ask me to lay with her to keep warm. I'd hold her, but she'd never hold me. I began to feel sorry for her. Through the night I'd notice she'd have terrible dreams. She'd make whimpering noises and even yelled "NO! STOP!" a few times. I'd ask her about it in the morning and she'd just look at me like I was stupid and change the subject. The more I saw the real her, beyond the hippie queen, the less attracted I became. I had finally acknowledged my empty infatuation and felt like a fool for it. Shanley knew this though. She knew everything and if she didn’t she’d lie and say she did. It was obvious I was regaining control of myself. She started bringing up Julian and telling me she's never going back. She'd hold my hand. She kissed me on the cheek and once on the neck, but I think she realized she went too far. It was never her intention to leave Julian.

She ended up admitting to me that she didn't even run away from the commune. This had been a planned trip back to Nevada to pick up some more money from her rich publisher dad. I just about snapped when I found this out. I had driven through Canada and back into a part of the United States I had no desire to be in for nothing. I was broke, I was dirty and I was used up. I couldn't take it anymore. Midway through Idaho we stopped for a burger and fries. She seemed to be in a hurry so I decided to take the rest of my meal to go. She exited the driveway, swinging way wide and forced a car out of their lane into oncoming traffic. The car collided with another, and then another car ran into them. Shanley drove away cackling. My face burned and I was shaking from the adrenaline. She disgusted me. I couldn't believe I had fallen for someone so rude, so evil. I still had my fries, they were cold and soggy, but I needed something to calm me down. One by one I stuffed them in my mouth, overlapping the chewing process and creating a mush of potatoes on the sides of my mouth. I felt a sneeze coming on so I chewed faster, attempting to swallow all of the soggy potato strips before forcefully releasing myself. I tried, I really did, but the sneeze came too soon and sent bits of potato all over her dashboard and windshield. It was an honest mistake; certain things are out of my control. Shanley went ballistic. "What the fuck? You can’t fucking treat my car that way. You're a fucking guest, you should be appreciative that I even let you come with me." Needless to say, I went a little ballistic too. I had so much rage built up inside of me, she’s lucky I didn’t hit her. The time on the road, the commune, the way I felt when I realized Shanley was a fake, that smell, that fucking smell, it finally repulsed me and I let her know. I let her know for approximately 30 minutes before I lost my voice and felt light headed from screaming so much. I told her to pull over and let me out. I opened the back seat and grabbed a small bag of things I had accumulated through our travels and just walked away. She screamed at me to come back. She said she was sorry and didn't know how to get home from here. I never looked back, I never gave her any insight that I even cared. The damage had already been done though. I let myself down, I compromised who I was. I'd live to regret this for the rest of my life. I continued my travels alone, with no desire to return home and no desire to meet anyone else. I needed this for myself and it was time I realized that. The adventure wasn’t just an escape from Vietnam, it was an escape from who I was becoming. I needed to live life, I needed to understand more. I grew throughout my travels, but no matter how far I was from Nevada, or Canada, or any beautiful girl, I couldn’t escape the smell. I learned that women around the world wear it, Egyptian Royalty, and it stops my heart every time it walks by.