Scribbles

You don't know what you've had until it's gone.

Things were immensely different. Most noticably, the group's volume had halfed. The dynamic of me, Scrib and Fernweh had resulted in a semi-permanent state of belligerence as we deafened innocent children,  squawking profanely down city streets. Hades, while talkative, was by no means loud, and Squanch hardly spoke at all. When she did, she brought nothing interesting to the table. Why I gauged her worthy of being a travel partner, I never figured out. Fernweh's suspicions soon became well justified.

Anyway, with Fern being physically crippled, (and mentally crippled due to taking too many percocets) the group was on a fairly low vibrational level. Hades relaxed with Fern, enjoying one of the only two stable days the two ever spent together. Hades didn't want to squeegee - having just quit his job to come travel with us, he was still loaded with cash - and had another cheque coming. We'd decided we were going to leave once we'd collected his last paycheque.

To remedy our own bankruptcy, Squanch and I hit the corner. She was great to squeegee with - she could hold her own and was quick, but we decided to tag team cars and split the cash. Squeegeeing's way more fun as a duo (or a trio - or, for that matter, any number of squeegee kids. Last year, same spot, we'd had a crew of a half dozen people who'd storm the intersection, obstruct traffic and give cars the "god damn, MOTHA FUCKIN SUPREME SPECIAL," as Marcellus called it. Whether or not they liked it, every window and mirror on their vehicle was getting washed.)

We made what we needed quickly, which gave us some downtime to rest. This gave me time to think on our separation with Scrib. I missed him already - his grin, hidden behind a grizzled beard; his endless wealth of wisdom, his intricately improvised freestyle poetry, the ease of which conversation flowed with him. Particularly, I longed for his lack of prejudice and negative judgement - a positive reinforcement that had helped me lots when Fernweh had grown too aggressive. It would have come in more than useful in the following week.

Things were settled, in an unsettling way. It was going to take time to adjust to a lost family member. Even during the moments in which visions of Scrib weren't floating about in my head,his silhouette always seemed to saunter a few feet behind me; a lonely ghost trying to communicate with an entrapped mortal soul.

Oh well. This was necesary for him, for Fernweh, for me. Besides, you can't expect anyone to take the same path as you for your entire relationship. That, and we had new relationships to attend to: Hades and Squanch had passed our two day travel-buddy trial (though two days is hardly enough time to gauge someone's character well enough - especially if you're planning to hitchhike with them) and were now officially part of our group. 

We were ready to hit the road. We'd planned on getting a rideshare with another Habeeb tomorrow after Hades picked up his paycheque, and in the meantime we decided to try something new. Me and Fern had grown tired of sleeping under bridges, so we followed Hades' recommendation of having a beach fire. A bus ride took us to a beautiful beach that overlooked the calm waters of Lake Whatever-the-fuck. The stillness of the water washed over us, a manifested metaphor to the silence instilled since Scrib's vacation from the group. We were quick to set up a bonfire, marinate a meal of scallops, potatoes and other delights before the sound of waves breaking on the shore cooed us to sleep.