Orange Buffalo

In 2004 I sat down and began writing a book. Scribbling on blank paper with a pen, I finished in a matter of weeks.

In my youthful arrogance and isolation, I had composed a story of my life as I saw it. I threw in some embellishments here and there, as well as pure points of fiction-- some parts that happened seem unbelievable, and other simpler things never happened. In the end, this story turned into a speculation on life paths, and perspectives on choices and destiny.

As youth is inclined to do, I produced my novel as an art piece, believing that anything else would be selling out. It was designed with the first part printed on the left pages and the second on the right—turning an already complicated concept into a head-spinning read. While I remain proud of that first published edition, what you will read here is the re-adapted version. My vision for the book has changed, but the story is still the same.

Much like the moral of the novel found inside this novel, we must all understand the reality of our desires or we’ll find ourselves hunting for the fabled, non-existent Orange Buffalo.

Part 1: The Hunt

Chapter 1: The Buddhist Monk Starts a War

Let’s start a war. It’ll happen eventually and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Someone’s toes will get stepped on; or their feelings hurt, then badda-bing-badda-boom, everything blows up. We’ll be just like Mad Max, fighting to survive while rebuilding civilization.

Do you know what we’ll end up doing next?

We’ll build it all like it used to be.

Civilized society has been around for hundreds of years and we’re still doing the same old thing: Killing for power and dominance. Sure, we have all these great little gizmos and gadgets. My tooth talks, my laptop computes, and I can retrieve ones & zeroes at one hundred kilobytes a second. With all these great hand-held devices, you’d think someone would have figured out a way to get people to stop killing each other.

Ah, but that’s free will, isn’t it?

The ability to choose between right and wrong.

Or the ability to choose what is right and wrong. Thinking about it like that, I’m not so sure I’m for free will. Give me an Orwell-like society anytime. Tell people exactly what they can and can’t do. We could go on forever like that, not killing each other in a cycle with no progress. But the idea of progress implies that we’re going somewhere.

Where are we going?

Is humanity going to turn into electronic signals inside a computer?

No matter how you exist— as long as there is the ability to choose, someone will choose to do something you don’t like.

Is that bad?

Or are you bad?

Who is right and who is wrong?

To punish someone for their actions, no matter what those actions, takes away their free will. So maybe, just maybe, we aren’t free after all. There are rules to this life. Rules you must obey or suffer the consequences. I don’t know what is worse. Pretending to be free, being free, or having no freedom.

Hell, why is it any of my concern?

I’m twenty-six, with maybe fifty years left in me, and the only things worth accomplishing will take ten lifetimes. I have a late start, I haven’t hit the ground running, and the running I am doing is on a little hamster wheel.

Look at my cute furry cheeks.

Chapter 2: Emperor Degenerate

All I’m trying to do is shave. I have an interview for this ‘job’. Something that I haven’t done in years. The shaving cream smells like my father because it is my father’s. I’ll admit it. I’m living at home again. It’s embarrassing, but it’s not like my generation has garnered much respect from those oh-so-judgmental Baby Boomers.

In my defense, it’s not my fault. I’ve been lied to all my life. First it was, Blow out all the candles and your wish will come true. Then it was, Santa Claus is coming. But the most insidious lies were taught in school.

You can grow up to be anything you want, they said.

They failed to mention the restrictions. See, being an astronaut requires a healthy physique, good eyesight, an aptitude for math, a couple doctorates in various sciences and being genetically resistant to extreme g-forces. Okay, yeah. I could apply myself and have a couple PhD’s under my belt. Provided I had the money for college. Now if only there was something I could do about bad eyes or a bad heart.

Next on the list of career goals.

I want to be president. Aside from the standard degree in political science, a possible military record and a charming personality, you’re going to need money and to be from the right family. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get choose my family. Though we all wish we could have.

Let’s go ahead and acknowledge that all these kindergarten choices are glorious and well-paid careers. No one says they want to grow up and be an insurance adjuster. No one says they want to be a junky when they grow up. These are the lots in life that the world has provided for us.

I wasn’t sitting in class dreaming of this day.

When I grow up, I want to be headed out the door to a job interview. A job that I highly suspect is a scam. Something run by some guy who has rented a low-budget office. It turns out the job is door-to-door, cold-calling sales work. The pay is pure commission, and the truth is that there is no future in it.

The meek will not inherit the earth. Someone is always going to take advantage, and let’s face it; the meek are good targets. Being kind kills. This I learned in preschool. Catholic preschool.

Picture a young boy. Cute, happy, cheery, friendly and all those other positive adjectives. This is purity. He looks at the world through bright eyes. There’s a natural excitement about what life has to offer. His school schedule consists of finger painting at nine, playground at noon, and then a nap.

It’s on the playground where children first learn the laws of society. The girls and boys segregate. Amongst them, there are the leaders and followers. Outside of these circles are the abnormal kids. The little girl with red hair or the fat boy.

This is where the bully emerges. When you first meet the bully, you can’t quite comprehend why you all can’t play foursquare together.

In my case, I wanted to know why he couldn’t play Star Wars with us. I asked. He punched me in the face. End kindness here.

California traffic isn’t as terrifying as stories would have you believe. Most everyone seems to move along fine in the sea of cars. They’re going where they’re going. You’re going where you’re going. You have to accept that every once in awhile, someone is going to cut you off or blow by at Mach five. There’s nothing you can do about it other than scream. And in the end, you’re the only one that can hear yourself. So whoever this guy is that cut me off, he’s going to drive on, exit at some ramp along the way, and I’ll never see him again. End of story. Now, if only life were like that.

If I could only get over a punch in the face and move along.

The thing about driving in a car is that it offers separation and anonymity from the world. You aren’t looking into the eyes of the perpetrator or victim.

On that fateful preschool day, after he punched me, I ran and hid. I was afraid of getting in trouble for fighting. Oh, how nice and innocent I was. Little did I know that when a rule is broken, a third party takes control. They administer arbitrary judgment and the next day the punished takes out his frustration on another.

Whose grand idea was it to get involved in another person’s problem?

If left alone, I would have steered clear of the kid and he would have been satisfied with my bloody nose. What’s worse is that you come to rely on this third party to be just and fair, while never overlooking a single incident. The reality of it is, they can’t. They can’t always be there to protect you, and someone will always be able to get away with murder.

I understood this with full clarity. If I can’t count on being one hundred percent defended, then I can count one hundred percent on attacking. If you’re smart enough and fast enough, you can take whatever you want no matter the rules. The bully was in control and that put him on top. I wasn’t going to be on the bottom if I had anything to do with it.

That was the line in the sand and from there on in, I was a hellion, bordering on an ego-maniacal sociopath. That little punch in the face may not have been the crux. There could be other factors, but that isn’t the point.

This is my generation, where it’s perfectly acceptable to jump around without any purpose, idea or anything. We aren’t living like our parents anymore. No more childhood, school, marriage, kids. We have no predetermined paths or social requirements.

How could we?

The world is nothing like it was thirty years ago.

The world we inherited has already been worked over.

This is where everything falls apart for us. We were raised to be guided along the paths that our parents took, but the trail has been worn out by too much travel.

How can you expect us to go out and make you proud when there’s nothing to do?

Look at me, I can do a cartwheel. Look at me, I can do a cartwheel. Look at me, I can do a cartwheel. Look at me, I can do a cartwheel.

Enough already, I’ve seen the goddamn cartwheel. Do something else. Diversify.

There is nothing else. Mom. Dad. You’ve done it already. You’ve explored Earth, founded new countries, built cities, fought wars, won freedom, laid down social equality, protested for the right to speak your mind and now you’re handing us the keys to the car.

What the hell do you want me to do?

Wash it?

Maintain it?

Gee, sounds like fun.

Know what?

I don’t care for the structure and rules you’ve created. They aren’t mine. I don’t care for them whatsoever. They aren’t me. I will grow up to be a junky. Give me apathy.

Give me a hit of that, a tab of this. I need a pill.

I take a pill.

New Year’s Eve, Las Vegas. Drunk and wasted.

It was yesterday, or the day before that, when I left my parent’s house under a fog of information.

Where are you going?

I’m not sure yet, I say, but I am sure. And the less they know, the freer I feel. The less they know about what I’m doing, the more I feel like my own person.

My mother, who asked me the question, looks at me knowingly. Knowingly in the way that says she’s well aware that I’m not saying everything, but that if she pushes the subject, I’ll lie straight to her face.

I don’t know what it is about parents, but they hate to be lied to. Hate. Maybe it has to do with subverting their authority. The best way to take advantage of this flaw is to make them think they know more than they’re supposed to.

Superiority complex.

It’s more than apparent that I’ll be gone for a couple of days, because I’m shoving clothes into a backpack. I turn to finish my packing while my mother continues to look at me. Whether she shook her head at me or not, I’ll never know but that’s what the air felt like. Moments later, my friend pulls into the driveway and honks the horn. With my things in hand, I charge out of the door. My mother calls after me, halting my escape.

No matter how much it hurts to admit, parents will always have over-powering authority over you.

I almost do one of those cartoon skids to a halt, hopping on one foot. I spin around to see she’s holding a wad of cash.

It’s all I have, she says when I take it. Be careful, she says when I walk away.

It’s hard to point the finger of blame at my mother, You always…., It’s because you… Mine probably gave me far more latitude than she should have. This would have been happy-skippy except that it came along with a basket full of neurosis.

I hop into the car, and before I can get the door closed, we’re going. Seconds later we’re out of sight, so I roll down the window to light up a cigarette. Another of my faults my mother never knew.

For anyone who has driven to Vegas, you know how it works. You leave in the early afternoon filled with excitement. The music is turned up and you beat on the dashboard, wanting to go faster. You’re flying down the highway at eighty-miles-per-hour, not really caring if you get pulled over. Three hours later, your friends in the car have fallen asleep, and you’re not even listening to what’s blasting out of your speakers. You’re thinking about how much your ass hurts.

You’re wondering if you wake up your friends, can you get them to drive? Or will they fall asleep?

There’s an hour more to go. You’re coming over the last hill. One hour. You’ve driven five, so one hour more is nothing. Except that it is. There’s nothing left in you, and if you keep driving, you’re going to fall asleep. The thought reverberates in your head. We’re all going to die. Almost like a panic attack. The first exit you see, the first fast food joint you come upon, you pull over. Your friends, like little babies, rub the sleep from their eyes.

Where are we? I ask. I ask this because I wasn’t the poor bastard driving though I understand the miserable situation.

We’re here, my friend says. I don’t bother to acknowledge the joke because there’s bitterness at the core. A very tempting and inviting bitterness that I can’t resist.

Looking at the restaurant, I say, I hate this place, then look longingly across the street at another place.

Fuck off, my friend says, and then storms off towards the bathroom. My other comrade-in-car climbs out and stretches.

How much longer? He asks. Curiously enough, I don’t know this guy. I met him the night before when I was talked into this trip. I was drunk at the time, and I’d be hard pressed now to remember his name.

I figure another hour, I say.

Arrr, he moans. Good thing we stopped though. That way I can get some food in my stomach before I start drinking.

Want to go across the street and get something? I ask.

Uh, he shrugs. Jay will probably take off without us.

Probably. I really do hate this place, but I go inside anyway and order carefully. Can’t go wrong with french fries and a soda.

We take a seat on the hard plastic benches.

Is that all you’re going to eat? Jay asks. He looks exhausted, irritated, and he’s spoiling for a fight.

This way I can absorb the alcohol more efficiently, I say smiling.

He shakes his head at me, and the other guy laughs.

Relax, I say. I thought this was supposed to be fun. Fuck, dude, I’ll buy you a drink when we get there.

Jay grumbles.

Two, I say.

I’ll get you one, too, the other guy says.

Jay can’t resist my wily charms, and I mean that in a strictly non-homo erotic way. Although… Then later tonight, I’ll let you cuddle with me, I say. Jay breaks with a chuckle.

I’m getting so shit-faced tonight that you guys are going to have to carry me back to the hotel. Jay says.

What hotel are we staying at anyway? The other guy asks.

I don’t know, Jay says. Something on the strip. Eric got a good deal on it.

My feet are going to kill by the end of this trip, I say.

We should take taxis, the other guy says.

That’s for pussies, I say.

Jay shakes his head at me, and we finish our food.

I watch Jay get back into the car with a look of dread on his face. We’re good friends. I’d do just about anything for him, but I don’t want to drive. So I say nothing and get into the passenger seat.

Thirty minutes later, the excitement builds up again as the Las Vegas lights shine on the horizon.

We get to the hotel and meet up with another group of friends who say that we have to meet up with another group of friends. Within minutes, we’re on the strip and all eight of us are raring to go.

Earlier in the hotel room, while we were trying to figure out where to go, someone pulled out a small plastic bag. Three pills, one up for grabs. I pipe up. There I was, standing in a hotel room surrounded by a group of people. Some were friends and some were strangers. I popped the ecstasy in my mouth.

Now, I’m bouncing down the street on the way to a club that I can’t remember the name of. I keep asking, and people keep telling me, but I don’t remember.

The line inside is long, but I’m oblivious. The beat of the music pours out of the doors, keeping me moving, keeping me charged.

I suddenly became aware of my bladder. On the way over I was taking sips from a bottle of vodka and now the alcohol has caught up with me. I check the line, and we have awhile to go. I look back to see a bathroom in the distance, lost in the din of casino traffic. I look at my friends who are lost in their own world. I look at my feet, and the twisting pattern of the carpet makes my head spin. My legs feel like springs, and I slink my way to the bathroom. I wasn’t halfway there, when a hand grabs me.

Where are you going? It’s the guy from the car. I still can’t remember his name. He looks concerned. I must surround myself with good people if this total stranger is worried about me.

Or is that the E talking?

Bathroom, I say pointing. He looks at the distance between the bathroom and me.

Want me to go with you? He asks.

I’m cool, I say.

I must have been because I made it back and forth without tragedy. After taking my place in line again, it’s a moment before I realize my friends are arguing.

It isn’t so much arguing as it is Jay yelling.

Amongst the eight of us, five are looking away and shaking their heads. One is standing toe-to-toe with Jay who is far past drunk.

His speech slurs when he says, Why the fuck are we waiting in line? I don’t even know who the fuck this guy is. He hits a poster on the wall of some no-name DJ laying records down on a turntable.

What do you want to do, Jay? This is Taka, a short Japanese guy trying to stand against Jay’s six feet of intoxication.

I don’t want to pay twenty dollars to see some guy I’ve never heard of. I bet he sucks. Jay turns to the people behind us. Do you know if this guy is any good? The people are too stunned to speak. Does anyone know if this guy sucks? He yells. This is when E intercedes.

It must have been a funny sight to see. Me, E’d off my ass, trying to manage a belligerent drunk.

Relax, I say. He isn’t much taller than me, but I pull him down to my height. Talking in a low voice in the hope that he’ll do the same. If you keep yelling, they’re going to kick us out.

I’m sorry, he says, his voice normal volume. I was looking forward to seeing a good DJ. I don’t want to waste my money on a nobody.

I hear you, I say. But I don’t have fifty bucks to see a big name. Besides, we’re way too fucked up to appreciate it.

Jay has nothing to say to that. He keeps his mouth shut, folding his arms. I’d like to say that I took control of the situation for the right reasons—to calm a friend down, to keep my friends from getting kicked out. But I did it because he was fucking up my vibe.

The general policy of nightclubs is that if they can walk and have money, let them in. I was barely managing both.

I give the guy at the door twenty out of my remaining hundred and go inside. Things get hazy here because the first thing I do is stop and stare at the flickering lights. Who knows how long I was standing in the doorway before some friend came up behind me to lead me to a table. It’s at this table that I would spend the entire night, except for one trip to the bathroom. After that, I decided to hold my bladder.

The line was ten men long, all dancing back and forth in an effort not to piss themselves. When you did get into the bathroom, it was a free-for-all. People having sex in the stalls, taking a crap in the urinals, pissing in the sink and doing lines of coke off the counters. Worst of all, you had to steer around the pools of vomit. That was the hardest challenge being as my drug-induced trance left me capable of only walking in straight lines and then only towards bright lights. I can’t say what receptacle I actually pissed in, only that I pissed.

Then lucky for me, on the return journey to the table, the crowd was moving in the right direction. Although a hand did have to reach out and grab me before I walked past.

At the table, I built myself a nice little ‘E wall’. This is the place where a fellow on E finds a nice comfortable position and refuses to move, content and happy. I was stuck behind that wall, dancing around in my chair to the music. A couple of times people suggested I go out on the dance floor, but I shook my head and that was the end of it. Every once in a while someone would give me a cup of water. My body seemed to be craving water. I would hold ice cubes in my mouth scrounging for every liquid drop.

At some point, Jay reemerged, jovial compared to his earlier outburst in line.

There were a couple of us at the table when he sat down.

I think I’m in love, he says. Everyone gives him a dismissive laugh. I’m serious. I want to marry this girl. He points but it’s at over one hundred people. I’ve met my soulmate, he goes on.

Then what are you doing talking to us? Someone asks.

"I wanted to let you guys know I might not be going back to the