SWIMMING IN CIRCLES

It was after 1 am when we silently escaped the cabin with the remaining case of beer and a worn plastic case of cassette tapes scrawled simply with the word “SPARTACUS!” and headed out into the night. It was just the four of us – Steve, Leslie, Laura and me. The tapes were Steve's and we were taking his car because he was the only one sober enough to drive and was the only one who knew the way.

We left all our friends behind passed out in a sprawl upon worn couches, plastic mattresses or in the errant sleeping bag. There were maybe a dozen of us there that weekend and quiet puppy-like snores sounded from somewhere beneath the varnished pine beams of the wooded cabin. We had just closed the run of a community theater show a week before. Got great reviews and Leslie's uncle owned this place up in the mountains not far from Pittsburgh and it seemed only natural that we should celebrate by escaping to the woods for a couple of days to drink beer and play Scrabble. Which we did...along with Clue and Battleship, Trivia Pursuit and an assortment of card games that lie unfinished on scuffed Formica tables still littered with near empty chip bags with the sad crumbles still lonesome at the bottom. All of that was nice I guess but it suddenly wasn't enough. Not nearly enough.

Not for this night. Not once the decision was made. I don't remember whose idea this was initially but once the notion sparked alive it was unanimously decided upon with wide eyes and fervent nods. So with that, we were now collectively on a mission that was vitally and existentially important.

Like amateur latter-day pirates we stealthed giggling past our derelict companions towards the front door whispering loudly to ourselves, “Quiet, just be QUIET!” I grabbed the beer but the door screeched open sounding like a vampire bat hit with a .22. We all froze and stared back into the cabin waiting. Across the room the head of one of our companions bobbed up half-lidded but then mercifully plopped back down again unawares. Okay, we're safe for now. That could've ruined everything.

Steve's Suzuki Sidekick sat jack-eyed beneath a great fir tree where he had skidded in days before. The ruts were still there, dead leaves splayed in a trail behind it. The thing was red with rusted fenders but equipped with a shiny new cassette player so this was the perfect combo for the undertaking ahead. Not that we had a choice anymore because we were now committed. Besides, this was a job for professionals.

Leslie sprawled long across the backseat since Laura chose to perch on my lap in the passenger seat, knees pressed against the dashboard with the case of beer wedged under my feet like some wrinkled footstool. Why we were so front heavy in the vehicle I don't know, but logic and load balance had little to do with this night.

The engine roared alive, startling in the silence as the headlights blasted across the forest. And in the light everything looked so suddenly ancient – Thick, crusted trunks of oak and pine ascended into the dark and patched in moss. Moss, deep dull green and having spread incrementally over decades, lifetimes maybe. A kind of patient timekeeping unknown and unfathomable to us. Not to us who were still young and infinite. Kids with beer in their hands and an open-top jeep that we trusted will go fast yet never catch up with its headlights. It was the kind of time when everything felt electric and the world hummed with adventure. This adventure. Our adventure. This night which was still to be written ahead of us by some prophet of the air...or by chance...or fate. Should time or moss judge our naive hubris? Perhaps they will. Perhaps they should. Just not tonight. Just not now.

The tires screamed and caught the earth as the jeep shot forward down the dirt path that snaked downward a hundred yards or so out to the main logging road, the back tires kicking sideways for a moment in the wet leaves, then righting themselves again. From here it was dry asphalt and then right towards the lake. Because that's precisely where we were headed...the lake.

The road opened up before us like some beckoning lover for the night ahead. The purr of tires on pavement, the mountain trees blurring by us in the speeding headlights while beer crushed warming under my feet. Leslie was still sprawled, her arms folded behind her head, Laura shifted on my lap while Steve grinned in utter confidence, leaning toward the windshield searching as the jeep sped up bearing forward. This was it. Go! It doesn't even have to be the lake anymore...just GO. The slurring night-view races past with growing intensity, the jeep now dangerously fast but the wind smells like lilac and bark.

“Kev, how long again?” Leslie asks at me as she leans over. “And, Steve you might want to slow down...” Steve waves her off and squints forward.
“How long what?” I yell over the sound of the tires. “What's how long?”
“Till you leave.” Then she grabs the back of the driver's seat, “Steve!”
“Okay, okay,” he mutters. “Fine! Fine...” He slows down a bit but not much and the wind is almost deafening.
“Leave?” I think.
Till I leave....till I leave....Oh yeah, that's right.
I'm leaving.

I'm moving to Los Angeles. I had shoved the notion to the back of my mind for the weekend not wanting to think about it. It was a perilous choice, terrifying even. A year ago I wouldn't have even considered such a thing, but soon my situation became painfully obvious.

I was a fledgling Pittsburgh artist and had just won a major award here thinking my city would open her arms to me. Turns out Pittsburgh didn't care. At all. It's an art industry thing. A perception thing. A gallery thing. If you weren't from New York or LA you were basically out of luck. No one took you seriously. “Oh, a local artist? Isn't that quaint.” The irony was that in order for me to have any potential future in my home city...I had to leave my city.

And just like the decision to escape the cabin this night, once that choice is made, you're now fully committed. Besides, I had already put a deposit down on a loft and a lease signed 2,700 miles away in a city I had never even seen. What you'll discover is that most roads only point in one direction at some point. I lean back over the seat to look at Leslie.

“Not quite yet,” I say.
“Not quite yet? What's that mean, not quite yet? How soon?”
I turn back around and say just to myself, “It means not quite yet.” Laura puts her hand on my knee.
“Well, just come back,” Leslie huffs. “That's all I'm sayin'.”

Yeah, I would, I think to myself. Of course I would, but what I didn't know was that this would be the last time we would all be together. And the wind still smells like lilac.

Steve brakes suddenly as Laura braces straight-armed against the dashboard.
“The hell, Steve?!” she screams as everything that was loose in the vehicle flies forward.
“Just wait! It's here. Just hang on! Everyone relax...” he laughs as he creeps the jeep forward. “There! See? I told you. Amateurs...”

Just up ahead and to our left, a faded brown sign with an arrow appears in the headlights. It's practically hidden among scrub brush and I'm not sure how Steve even saw it. We were doing 80. Steve slows even more then suddenly banks left, careening the car down the gravel road, then punches the gas spitting tiny rocks behind us.

The red dashboard clock reads 3:22 am and I imagine that no one in the entire world is awake except for us. No one. Because we are the only ones alive right now and every beautiful thing that was ever created should sing.

I can see the water in the half moonlight as Steve halts the car in the grass. We unfold from the car and run to the waters edge. However, we didn't have a plan for what we would do once we got here. So Leslie shrugs and starts stripping off her clothes. Well, I guess that's now the plan. I had never been skinny dipping before. It's strange seeing your friends naked for the first time. Granted it was dark but you unconsciously take note of people's bits. Not in any kind of weird sexual way...but you notice these details regardless. Leslie is of course first in the water with her arms raised in the air and like hesitant lemmings, we plunge one by one after her.

The water was shockingly, numbingly cold. This changes the metrics immediately. This was a good idea, but yeah no. I don't know if the others thought this because screams and peeling laughter erupt as they hurl water in dim blue arcs over their heads, at each other and all in a fearless abandon that only the stars witness...but there was no way we were going to be in here for long. So in my mind's eye I take an imaginary photo while I hold still and shivering - These faces and the white moon stark in the sky as the fierce waves of our carousing spread dimming outwards to the farther shores where even the sand will feel the echo of our fleeting disturbances.

So.

Alive.

As predicted, we weren't in long. Just long enough. Long enough to say we did it. Rushing out now, the rough gravel sticks painful beneath our feet, the cold night air tightening our skin. Where are our clothes? No towels or flashlights even. No foresight for such things. We ouch about and eventually find them in dark strewn piles haphazardly discarded among the brush. Still freezing wet, we struggled them on grunting. We would dry eventually I guess.

We crushed back into the car shaking and voltaic and just took off again. It didn't matter where to now. Anywhere as long as Steve didn't get us all killed. We drove for miles, the lake still visible to our left but slowly vanishing behind encroaching trees and eventually disappearing entirely. I had no idea where we were and I suspected Steve didn't either.

Then at the edge of the forest, to our right, just ahead, there was a small but conspicuous break in the treeline. Steve slows to a crawl, then to a stop right in the middle of the road. Maybe a path? It looked like a path. I don't know. It certainly wasn't a road but it looked promising. We should just be able to fit the jeep through. Maybe.

“Should I try it?” Steve asks looking over to us, his eyebrows raised.
“Do it...” Leslie says with hesitant confidence. “Yeah, do it. It's your insurance anyways not mine.”

Steve turns the wheels right as we creep towards the opening. Yeah, we'll fit. Barely, but we'll fit. Technically at least. Steve crawls forward tentatively passing between the first two fir trees as the path opens ahead. Then came the sound of small twigs snapping beneath the wheels. If people had driven this before, they hadn't for a while. More snapping as Steve inches forward, the rest of us now strangely silent. Then it became obvious where we had arrived and Steve puts it into park.

It was a small clearing in a thicket teaming with vines as the canopy of branches arch inky and silhouetted above. We all clamber out and step into the wooded cathedral and stand for a long time. A very long time. The previous scent of lilac was now replaced by loam and sage brush, rich and earthy. All about us was cricket sound as we instinctively stand close. No one says anything. Then there was a gentle hiss in the trees as a light wind picks up. I knew the sound, the feel of it. I grew up in the country for too long.

It was going to rain.

Steve's jeep has no top and maybe we should get back before it gets bad. After all, it could be argued this had been a full evening. I was about to suggest this but before I could, Steve slyly grins, raises a finger and dashes back to his car as I hear him fumbling in the distance swearing at something in the backseat. So we stay in place waiting for whatever he has in mind. Besides, he was driving and we really didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

Then we hear music. That's not what I was expecting. A woman's voice rises from the car as Steve turns the volume up and rushes back to us.

“I'm watching fish swimming in circles...
Leather bag I grip tightly
Makes a wrinkle in your brow
My friend now you've tried it and what do you know that's new?” **

It's a song I've never heard before. Something that in any other context would almost be forgettable but in this moment it holds us in place. Sometimes you need to recognize something for what it is before you even know what it is. This is one of those moments...something ordained for you and only you in all the universe. That thing written in the air with a signature.

“Eyes got smaller and you waited
I didn't even know that today was the day
Smells of summer much too much
To stop, not wait, your forgone conclusion..."

Leslie wraps her arm around Steve's neck, grinning then reaches out for my hand. We form a circle, arms around shoulders, still in wet in our clothes, squeezing inwards.

The sound starts in the leaves first. The first spattering of rain. Then striking the ground as the leaves around us chatter in the dark and grow louder, then louder. It is coming down now. Forget the jeep, forget everything. Then as if in spontaneous ritual we all begin to sway together, rocking side to side. Laura leans her head against mine as both Leslie and Steve lift their beaming faces upwards to the downpour and squeeze their eyes shut.

“Loss of some life and frailty on the edges
I'm thinking in small pieces
To keep rough waves from swelling
No accident for me to know you
No accident for you to push me out... ”

And then we all begin to weep.

Maybe because it was simply beautiful and pure, but maybe it was because, in some sad prescience, we knew the lyrics would one day become true.

“Sparing small change for bigger days
My heart my feet my legs my body
They all will need new housing
But no hilltop manors, no milk and honey
No small words flying or promises to my baby
My baby...”

We forgot time while the lush scent of wet leaves rise up in the dark. Drenched, everything drenched.

The tape plays out and eventually stops. Silence again because the rain had ceased a while back. Take this gift because it's now over now that you've received it. There you go, kiddos. That's yours now. It won't happen again and that's the acceptance you accept. Few get this kind of thing, anyways. Just bank it into memory for the time when you grow old.

And old we all became. I also did move to Los Angeles. It was two months later but it was years before I could find my voice, have exhibitions let alone make a living. Strangely, once I did, I never even bothered to have a show in Pittsburgh. In fact it didn't even occur to me. The reverse irony of why I left in the first place.

I did come back to visit however, but it's true we four never all saw each other again. Not all at once anyways. It's not that reunions didn't happen, they did, but they were in fragments of passing convenience or necessity – Marriages and funerals mostly. But never us all together again. Some people just forget in time. What's precious to your memory does not necessarily hold true for others. That's the simple sad truth of it.

The other sad truth is - you don't get to relive the rain in forests of music and moss. Not this arrangement of them at least...and that's okay too. Some things happen only once.

We stumbled back to the cabin just before dawn in that electric hum in which it all began. We didn't say a word to anyone.

But it happened. It did happen.

We never even drank the beer.

**
Lyrics and vocals by Pam Barger of "Two Nice Girls" from the album "Chloe Liked Olivia" 1991