I Believe in Sebastian Gold

To build is to not only provide, but to establish something.

The Bodhisattva is unsure if children are in his future.  He has a fear sometimes that some may already be and he just doesn't know it yet–as a being who exists past the bounds of sexual orientation, and as someone who had a ‘love them and leave them’ attitude for a number of years, he knows the chances are greater than zero.  But that’s the sort of thing he can ostrich.  Besides, by his mathematics, surely someone would have come forward by now.

He’s on television.  He’s got an online presence.  He does not barrier himself from the common man, he embraces them.  So if someone wants to serve him papers, he wouldn't be hard to track down.

But something of a legacy, that’s the new obsession.

That’s Rancho Mundo–where he’s been during most of his free time.  And amongst these bucolic trees and the sounds of a world untouched by the encroaching spread of city cancer, Sage has found himself feeling as grounded as the roots he drags from the earth.  He ends his days filthy, covered in dirt and sweat and sawdust, his beard and dreadlocks taking with them small twigs and dead leaves until he dunks himself nude in the wide creek that runs through his section of Michigan wilderness.  He rarely bothers to wear clothing on this walk, preferring the breeze of nature on his skin–some might see this as the man attempting to enforce his particular brand of hedonism on the surroundings, but there’s nothing prurient in these strides.  The air on his skin makes him feel baptized.  The worries of the world turn to dust and disappear into the breeze.

There’s a worry in his head though.

He comes here.

He clears space.  Works on the cabin.  It’s more than he can handle on his own, he knows–so Cliff and Jake are on the way, the only two people that he can really see himself calling on, given that he’s giving Pax his necessary space.  But he doesn't just need their brawn and their dexterity–he needs them to remind him of his purpose here.

He can feel himself burrowing.

He can feel himself taking more and more pleasure from the isolation.  Its the flip side of how his disease manifests–just as he struggles being left alone in places where he has ample opportunities to experience violence, the over correction is just as bad.  He will isolate, he will focus on the pleasures of the simplicity of this life, then he’ll blink, then it will have been 20 years.  Jake has done wonders with alleviating his fears about fighting, but he’s found the black tar of anxiety is just looking for new places to shellac itself.  This has been the most recent.  That his vision for the land is compromised because he’s loving the isolation, loving what it does for his bearing.  But that’s not why he bought the land.

He bought the land for him and Cliff, sure.  But he also bought it for everyone.  For the world, for people like himself who have witnessed all the pain this world provides and have questioned if they fit within it at all.  There’s so much hopelessness and dread in the psychosphere…there has to be a place for them.  For him.  For the dreamer and the disaffected.

And frankly, even now, even with the cool creek water drying on his naked form in the sanctuary of his own design, he’s struck by an intrusive thought.

How the fuck do I do that?  What are the methods by which you achieve it?  What are the steps to take?  Do you build homes?  Do you establish agriculture so the land can sustain itself?  Rotation?  What’s the terroir favor?  What the fuck is a terroir?  He feels like he’ll make himself sick with all this worry.

Then he hears it.  The sound that any other time would make his hair raise up with combat readiness, but here means the answer to his problems.

Truck tires.

His people are here.

—

“Well?”

Sage has posed the question to Jake, the man who for lack of a better term appears to be something of a guru to The Bodhisattva as it pertains to navigating sobriety.  The three of them are a descendant in height mishmash of ages and builds, almost to a comical degree–Sage is a beanpole, recently more cut than lanked out due to his hobby of yardwork and building, perpetually 23 in the face no matter how much he bleeds or ages.  Cliff Pike is shorter than sage, sporting the light grey in his stubble of a man who wears concerns of the world on his shoulder–good then that he’s almost as wide as he is tall, a truly brawny presence, a human body stapled to the neck and shoulders of a Goliath.  Jake is the shortest among them, perpetually dressed like he works IT at a mid level supplier of widgets, his eternal long sleeved polo shirt rolled up to the elbows and showing off his sinewy brown skin and litany of gang-related ink work. The latter of these fires up a Marlboro red and adjusts his glasses, looking around.  When he finally speaks, it’s not even to Sage–it’s to the mountain that The Bodhisattva has fallen for.

“You let him buy this?”

“‘Let’ never was part of the equation, man.  Pontiff is gonna do what Pontiff is gonna do, even if that means buyin’ a buncha land without talking to me about it first.”  Cliff rubs the cheese grater of his stubble and chuckles.  “But it has been growin’ on me.”  Jake nods, taking another hit.

“There’s a lot of potential.”  He begins a slow walk, moving from the clearing around the disused cabin into the treeline.  “Land’s actually not terribly hilly, either–you could build here with some ease.  If that’s the plan.”  He eyes Sage with his gaze, which does not penetrate in any sort of negative way, but still has a way of digging to the penetrated truth.  “Is that the plan?”  Pontiff, shirtless and always standing in the most dramatic way possible, strides towards his sobriety mentor, hands in his pockets almost sheepishly.

“I think the plan is bigger than that.”

“Define bigger.  Condos?  Townhouses?  Mixed-use commercial and residential multiplex?”

“Ha.  Be serious.”

“I am.  You’ve invited me out here with zero information, Sage.  If you want me to see your vision, you first have to give it a name, y’know?”  He pauses, then affixes The Bodhisattva with a sympathetic furrow of his brow.  “You have a name.  You’re just fuzzy on the vision.  Is that it?”  Cliff clears his throat, piping up in his gruff Midwestern fashion.

“‘Rancho Mundo’.  ‘Bout the dumbest shit you ever heard, right?”

“That’s stupid.  I love it.”

“Seem t’be the consensus.”  Sage chuckles, waving his hands to get both of their attention.

“If you two are good on the mocking, let me explain.  I left home young, right?  And in all that time I’ve been extended a lot of grace.  Farm land that was owned by hippies, communes that were purchased with collective money, couches to surf on, garages to shack up in, from creaking old Victorian mansions that are two sends from collapsing to squats in an underpass.  All of these people, and it may have been just 8 hours where I could sleep, but they made a difference in my life.  In the lives of others.  And they give and give and give…”  He trails off, his voice somewhat caught.  “They give and give and never ask for anything.  Because there are certain things that aren't truths, but should be.  Like ‘everyone deserves somewhere warm and dry to sleep’, and ‘we should help each other through whatever storms we are experiencing.’  And maybe I just want to give back to that energy, to make this place a place just like Bandana’s farm or Ghost Cat or any of the other intentional communities that have a dream and the fucking guts to pursue it.”  Sage is quiet after this, letting a long pause hang before speaking again.  “I’m just struggling with the part of it where I have a game plan to make that happen.”  With a big exhale, we can see the stiffness drain from Sage.  Cliff walks over to him, extending a reassuring hand to rub at his shoulder.

Jake shrugs, pulls out his phone, and begins tapping away.

Cliff is the first to be annoyed by this, withdrawing his hand from his partner and placing them both on his hips, his lower lip setting.  But Pontiff holds up his own hand, more curious about what the man will do.  With a few more furtive taps, the older Asian man hits the last one–send, most likely–and pockets his phone smoothly.  Looking over to the couple, he notices their gazes of confusion and annoyance and shrugs in his plain way, a wry smile on his lips.

“Just getting a hold of a friend of mine with a caterpillar and a mulcher.  This land has potential, but we have to clear a lot of it, and speaking frankly, Sage…you and Cliff can’t do this by hand.  Not if you want this to be a sanctuary in your lifetimes, at least.”  He walks over to the couple, taking another drag of his ever-present cigarette.  “We’ll make this match what you’ve got in your head.  It’s just gonna take time.”  This hushes the three of them.  Cliff’s gaze softens, even looks a little misty in the eyes.  Sage reaches out and pulls Jake into a hasty hug, his frame towering over his friend.  Finally, he breaks it, and Cliff speaks up.

“Thanks, Jake.  Thanks for understanding this guy.”  Jake smiles his soft uncle’s smile and nods.

“You talked a lot about people extending you grace.  So I’m going to do some of that myself.  Because I agree with your vision, if not the way you mapped it out.”

“Well, to disagree with how he mapped it out, there woulda had to have been a map in the first place.”

“He’s not wrong, warrior.”  Sage chuckles and clasps them both by their shoulders–friend and lover, confidant and partner, sponsor and boyfriend.

“He may not be wrong, and I may have bought this on an impulse and a dream.  But with us working it like I know we can?  It’s going to go past any dream I’ve had.”

—

I can’t really muster much, Sebastian.  I’m man enough to admit that.  For a while I wanted to blame these environs, this place I’ve crafted, that I’ve put all my energy into this thing that seems so much more important than winning a match against you or the belt you hold.  And I think there’s a dignity to that.  “He’s distracted, but look what by!”.  It almost feels noble. But nobility is just you worrying about how others perceive you.  It’s not something that you engage in on your own, for the sake of itself.  It’s something purely motivated by your desire to be seen and understood to be better than someone who is doing it for a more selfish purpose.  Facts are, there’s a nihilism in you that I find myself envying, because you clearly don’t care whether you’re perceived as the noble man most of us wish we were or the selfish person you so blatantly are.  I don’t mean to judge, mind you.  Perception is a cursed gift in the best of times, though.  You’ve gotten a new lease on life–what have you done with it?  All I see is a man building idols to his own virtuosity.  A man building idols to his own greatness, with a veneer of ‘aw shucks, I’m just happy to be here’.  Does that mask something more profound?  Do you care if it does? Really think about that question.  We’ve all been where you are, where I am, where people who don’t have a disease to contend with have been.  Regret for one’s past isn't something that folks like me, like us, have a monopoly on.  It’s part of the human condition, for those of us human enough to want to change things.  Some people, sure, they hurt people and they know they hurt people and they lose not one ounce of rest about it.  Is that what you want?  Or do you want to drop the pretense, the mirage of a person you’ve created around your trauma, and actually begin doing the work? A human life is full of crossroads.  Moments where your decision will drastically alter your path.  And we almost always come to that realization far after it’s happened, because we are not prescient, because our spirits have been locked into these clumsy things called brains and bodies.  But my third eye is open, Sebastian.  And while the powers of my spiritual vision do not show me my own path, I see those of others so fucking clearly.  Which means you get the rarest gift of all.  You get to know that you’re approaching a crossroad.  You get to know that how you decide to approach this match, how you decide to approach me, will set you on one of two paths.  To the west?  You keep being who you are, but every day that charade becomes harder and harder to stomach, until you finally lash out and bend and start the dance all over again.  You return to the comfort of your poison.  And trust me when I say, I’m not demeaning you for that.  Because there isn't a day that goes by that I don’t think of my own poison and how good it would feel to bury myself in it.  Just one more time.   To the east?  You finally begin living.  Authenticity is difficult.  It’s scary.  So maybe you take the path that has less resistance.  But either way, no matter the path you take, I will do my best to break the person free from the facade.  I will do my best to drag you through such hell that I strip away the persona you’ve armored yourself with.  Bit by bit, piece by piece, bone by bone if I have to.  And unlike a lot of people who you’ve crossed in your career, I know you understand that my words aren’t an idle bluff.  But I can’t force you, man.  No one can.  You have to make that decision.  You have to be ready for that sacrifice. That’s the perspective that I’ve gotten from life.  I can;t make anyone do anything just as you couldn't make me do anything.  We all have to choose.  So now you have to choose.  Left or right? East or west?  Illusion or cold, unforgiving reality? I believe in you.  I hope you believe in yourself.  Namaste.