AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It was an olive branch and Zakk was more than willing to take it. “Hell yea.”
“Come on then.”
Dez brushed the dust from his jeans when he stood, wrapping his supplies in the soft cloth he’d been using to polish the bike, and stowing everything in the saddlebag. He pushed the bike up the path and back to the edge of the parking lot, mounted and waited for Zakk to get settled with his feet on the pegs before taking off in a rush of wind and exhilaration.
Red rock, sand, roads that twisted and turned like a snake. Zakk held on; cheek pressed to the back of Dez’s shoulder. They weren’t going extremely fast, almost like a sightseeing tour, really, which gave Zakk the opportunity to take in the colorful layers of scenery.
All too soon the ride was over. Zakk wasn’t sure if they’d left the spa’s grounds. The spot Dez stopped at was just a bend in the road, but the view, it was like the whole desert was spread out in front of them. Dez sat on the edge of the ledge with his feet hanging off, brushing the tops of a couple cacti that looked like they’d been scuffed a time or two. Judging from the toes of Dez’s boots, he’d marked up those plants a time or two.
The top half of the sun was over the horizon line, but the bottom was still hidden, leaving deep shadows in places where the light couldn’t reach.
“Don’t laugh, but that whole maze down there looks like it was made by sand worms, like the ones in tremors.”
Now that Dez had said it, Zakk couldn’t unsee the resemblance. “Nothing funny about the potential of becoming worm food.”
“True, but aren’t we all destined to become worm food some day?”
“Not me. I plan to be cremated and have my ashes turned into one of those blown glass sculptures of swirly colors and shit.”
“So someone can trip while they’re staring at it?” Dez asked. “Why not save yourself the trouble and have your ashes turned into a pattern on a black light poster?”
“Holy shit, can they do that?”
Snorting, Dez shook his head, chuckled, and pulled the small metal case from his boot that he always kept tucked there. If they were gonna smoke, then Zakk had to figure they’d be there for a little while, not that he was in any hurry to do anything more than enjoy how amazing this much needed normal felt.
“I dunno. Might be worth looking into though. My cousin says he wants to go into one of those bags wrapped around a cluster of roots so his body can nurture a tree. All I can think about is how many dogs would wind up pissing on him.”
“You would go there.”
“Meh, was the first thing that popped into my head.”
“You could try to look on the bright side,” Zakk encouraged. “A family of raccoons might live in it someday, or maybe birds will build a nest and hatch their babies there.”
“True, but then he’d have to contend with bird poop and raccoon poop to offset all the dogs that pee on it.”
“Okay, Mr. Pessimist, what do you want done with your body.”
Morbid as it was to be discussing death on a beautiful morning like this, there were kernels of a song forming in Zakk’s head, and he wondered if Dez was thinking along those same lines.
“Have you ever seen How High?”
“Seriously?”
“Why not? I’m all for cremations, but I don’t wanna be kept on a shelf in a box somewhere or displayed like some stained-glass trophy. Whoever’s still left that gives a damn can roll me up and smoke me.”
Notes swam in his head, something mid-range, low toned, dark and kinda growly.
“Where’s your notebook!” Zakk snapped far hasher than he intend the words to sound but holy shit….
“In my back pocket where it always is,” Dez replied, even as he fished it and his ever-present pen out of its denim cubby hole.
“Don’t need your tears or prayers. Just roll me up and smoke me,” Zakk muttered beneath his breath as he scrawled that line and the one Dez had given to kick start it all.
“Toast the memories of the times we shared and roll me up and smoke me.”
“Play me the songs I loved and roll me up and smoke me.”
Line after line half-sung over the brightening canyon, the rock formations standing like silent sentinels. Dez rolled them a second joint while Zakk kept scribbling. Silly lines, serious ones, some that were absolutely hilarious.
