The One Way (Changes Book 1) Read online

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Don’t stress, man. It’s over.”

  But for Danny it wasn’t over. He had found himself facing the wrong end of a gun, again. He could feel himself shaking violently. He was losing consciousness. His vision began to tunnel, and he heard a loud ringing in his ears. His balance wavered. Mike’s voice was muffled, and he couldn’t understand what he was saying. He hit the ground hard, even though Mike grabbed his arm on the way down.

  “Danny. You okay? Fuck, man…wake up!”

  Danny opened his eyes, and saw Mike kneeling over him. Behind him, he could see several Cambodians craning their necks to look at him. He sat up quickly.

  “Stay there a second. Get yourself together.”

  “I’m okay, let me up,” Danny was saying, already pushing against the ground. Mike took his arm and helped him up. Danny was still shaking, but getting his strength back.

  “You okay? What happened?”

  “Dunno…dunno…”

  “Was worried I’d have to do some CPR or something!” Mike said with a laugh.

  Two young men ran up, one with a pink plastic bucket of water, and a dirty white rag swimming in it.

  “Fo you, fo you,” the first one said, reaching into the bucket and wringing out the rag. He tried to put the rag to Danny’s face.

  “No, no, thank you…no” Danny said, pulling away from the young man.

  “Fo you! Feel betteh!” but Danny was already walking away.

  Danny’s shoulders were tense and his head was slunk down between his shoulders. He started to walk briskly. Mike caught up to him.

  “Hey man, so where are we going.”

  “I need to walk, man. I need to walk.” He didn’t look up, only down. Mike slowed a bit, and as Danny pulled farther ahead, he let him go, shaking his head a bit.

  And he needed to walk. He walked down along the river. He hardly looked at anything but his feet and the pavement in front of him. He walked into a nearby cement neighborhood, hearing dogs bark and people moving about behind their barred doorways and chicken-wired windows. They were not used to Westerners walking in their neighborhood, but they were more worried for him than they were of him. But nobody bothered him that night.

  And he walked. He could feel his sandals digging into his toes and rocks hitting his heels. But walking was what was important. One leg forward, then the next. Opposing arm swing. Sweat on brow. Hair damp. Squeak of sweaty feet on rubber sandals. Steady but rapid breathing. Though he was committed to a single action, in his head was a riot of competing thoughts. Raging winds blew in his valleys. Fire burned his grasslands. All was fury inside him. His head pounded, but still he walked.

  As the sun rose, he found himself in a tuk tuk, heading to his home. He noted indifferently that his feet were bleeding from three different spots, and the one between his toes on his right foot was deep. He couldn’t feel the pain, but he knew he would later.

  As he climbed up the steps to his apartment, he heard the morning sounds, and smelled the morning smells. Breakfast cooking. Rattle of pans. People readying themselves for the day. He heard a baby crying. He could smell the food and the garbage and the mold and the car exhaust. As he opened his apartment door, he heard his telephone ringing. He answered it.

  XXVIII

  La brought them two Tiger beers, and she did so with her customary bright smile. Scott smiled back at her. Danny watched a group of six Buddhist monks walk by outside. With one hand, they held together their saffron robes, some new, some weathered and stained…in the other hand they held the alms bowl. Some wore the smile of a mind at peace. Some wore the consternation of the world’s worries. Their feet were filthy. They were walking to the temple for their evening prayers.

  “So great to see you, Danny. I’ve missed you, my friend. Thanks so much for letting me come visit you.”

  “Of course, man. You’re my oldest friend.”

  They clinked bottlenecks and took a soft pull. Scott let out a soft burp, and then looked around.

  “So this is where you spend your time here?”

  “Well, not all the time. I’ve done some traveling around Asia…probably spending too much on it. I do other things all the time…but yeah, I do love it here. This club has a ‘feel’ to it. You know, the war correspondents during the Vietnam War used to drink here and share their stories. You can feel this place’s bones.”

  “Well, bones or not, I like the waitresses. They’re beautiful.” He again looked around, taking a second to take in each of the girls.

  “Yeah, they’re easy on the eyes.”

  “And how great is it that you can use US dollars here?”

  “Yeah, that makes it handy…don’t have to exchange and pay fees for the pleasure.”

  “But they have their own money?”

  “Yeah, but they prefer greenbacks. You get a better deal when you use dollars”

  “That is pretty handy.”

  “Yep!” Outside, a large group of chopped Harleys roared by. Fake motorcycle gang patches adorned the leather jackets of the riders.

  “So when do you think you’ll return home?” He realized it was too early to talk of Danny’s return, and felt stupid for asking it now.

  “Returning? You’re not here to try to bring me back, are you?”

  “No…no,” he stammered, “but it’s just that we all miss you in Sac. Jim and I talk about you often, and my wife of course…” he let that fall flat.

  “Are you worried about saying ‘wife’ around me?” Danny had a twist of a smile on the corner of his mouth.

  “Well, it’s just…well, you know.”

  “Because my wife was murdered you can’t say the word wife? I’m not that far away.”

  “Well, it’s great to see you picking up, anyway. You look great. Still too skinny, but much improved.”

  “Well, thanks. I’m definitely feeling a lot better than I did a few months ago. I think I’m going to take some time to get over it. Hell, I don’t think I’ll ever really be over it, but I mean it’s still gonna take some time to get my head moving forward where I want it.”

  “Yeah, I totally understand. I really do. I can’t wait until you get it sorted. We have missed you so much in Sac.”

  “Scott, I don’t think I’m returning to Sac…no matter how soon I get this sorted out.” Danny was now looking Scott squarely. “You must think that this trip over here was just temporary. But it’s not.”

  “Permanent?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You are going to permanently live in fucking Cambodia?”

  “Well…maybe…dunno. But I am on a single path. A one-way. I’m going forward, not going back. Sacramento is back. I want to move forward.”

  They both sipped their beers, perhaps with a bit more tension in their swallows.

  “A one-way? I really don’t know what you mean by that. Going forward?”

  “Scott, I’m facing forward and moving. Where that takes me, I don’t know. I won’t know until I find myself there. I loved Sacramento. It was a great place to grow up. I love all my friends and family. But returning is not in the cards. Perhaps for a visit, but not to live. Sacramento is in my past. It’s not about the city. It’s about me choosing to keep going forward in my life. I want to find new things. New places. New ideas. I’m a new me in each place I go. If I go back to Sacramento, I’d be returning to a ‘me’ that doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “That just doesn’t make sense, Danny. We change. I’m not the same person I was a year ago.”

  “That’s you, Scott, and Sacramento is part of you.”

  “It’s part of you too…you’re a Californian.”

  “No, not anymore…it’s hard to explain. Let’s not talk about it. I don’t want you to get hurt by anything I say.”

  “We can talk about something else if you want…but I do want you back there near me and Linda and little Jason, so that you can have a normal life again. This vacation in Cambodia is fun—make some great memori
es, man. But it’s only temporary. Come back, get a job…and before you know it you’ll be ready to meet someone else again.”

  “Normal? I don’t even know what you mean by that. I will never have a normal life again. Part of that is purposeful. I don’t want a normal life anymore. I had normal. That normal is gone…buried. I now need to keep moving in new directions. When I was back in Sacramento to sell my house, I was not who I wanted to be. It wasn’t me…it was what Sacramento is to me. It’s what my life is there. My life there was a job I hated and a wife I loved. It was a mortgage, a car payment, and working out to stay in shape. It was watering the lawn and reading the newspaper. I am not that person. I probably never was, but I did those things because I wanted the life Melissa and I were building. But you have to understand, Scott, I am both free and dead at the same time.” He took a sip, and looked out to the street.

  “Dead and free? That’s horrible poetry, Danny.” Scott laughed.

  “My life with Melissa is dead, as surely as she is. I’m free, though, also…”

  “Free?”

  “Yes. I don’t mean that Melissa made me a prisoner. Not at all. I loved her every day we were married. Even when I hated her, I loved her. But we were tied together. Shackled with love and marriage and future plans and house and car and everything. When she died, the chain was cut. I’m free now.”

  “But you’ll meet someone else.”

  “Don’t you understand, Scott? I don’t want to meet someone else. I don’t want the house or the two-point-three kids or the mortgage anymore. Those were fine with her…I relished all those things when I had her…but that’s not who I am anymore.”

  “And this is who you are?” He made a broad gesture with his arms, sweeping the room.

  “Yes, for today. Tomorrow I might be someone different. I’m Danny-in-Cambodia…I’m the person I am now with this barely cold beer, talking to my friend in a bar overlooking the river. Yes. Tomorrow, I might be backpacking in China, or smoking hash in Laos. I don’t know. I am on a one-way journey, and I find myself again at each stop. I am reinvented at each stop. Reincarnated into a new life. I am a new me every day in many ways. I’m water, not earth.”

  “So I’m earth?” Scott said with a laugh, taking another drink.

  “Sure! You have roots in that earth; you stay put.”

  “I’m here aren’t I?”

  “Sure! You maybe came to bring me back, maybe at my brother’s behest…dunno. But yeah, you’re here.”

  “So earth can change. Maybe water can too?”

  “Well, or maybe you’ll find this little trip changes you, and you want to be more like water and less like earth?”

  “Mud?”

  “Ha ha! Nice one. Okay, Mister Mud, let’s get another beer.”

  After a few more rounds of beers, both were feeling no pain. They left the bar and grabbed a tuk tuk to the Karma Restaurant. They arrived, soaked in sweat. As they finished their meal, Danny asked, “So are you too jet-lagged for a pub crawl?”

  “Hitting some pubs?”

  “Well, having a beer at each of several pubs.”

  “I’ll drink as long as I can…probably won’t be able to sleep tonight unless I get some booze in me.”

  They set out, stopping at the first few pubs they came across. They ordered a different Asian beer at each location. Leo. Chang. Angkor. Singha. By midnight, after seven stops, they were legless, wandering aimlessly and laughing at silly jokes and tourists.

  Wandering, they found themselves back where they started…at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club. As they walked by the front, Danny spotted La leaving. Having changed out of her work clothes, she was wearing jeans, and a white t-shirt with a yellow sweater pulled over.

  “La! La!” he called.

  She turned and smiled. “Danny. You an’ frien’ come back. Bar open. Go up.” She motioned to the stairs.

  “La, why don’t you join us?”

  Scott joined in, “Yeah, join us! Where are we going?”

  “La, join us…let’s go to another bar for a drink.”

  La noticed Danny’s unsure balance. “You have many drink already, Danny…maybe you go home.”

  “Home? I’m not going home…the night is young. Join us?”

  Though her better judgment warned her, her attraction for Danny convinced her to ignore these warnings.

  “Okay, Danny, I go wit you.”

  They were in a tuk tuk but nobody knew where they were going. As they rode, the wind from their motion cooled them and dried their sweat. Danny hung his head out the side…eyes closed, face upwards. Had he ever felt so good? He took in the moment…let it enter him. He was part of this world. He was living in this world and it was in him. Sharp turns and near misses from cars and other tuk tuks could not take him out of this very instant. He breathed in this moment of his life. Let it run through him. This instance was his life. All else was illusion. Every other moment was a lie. Only this second mattered.

  When he opened his eyes, he saw the Tacqueria Corona ahead. “Let’s stop here! They have Patrón!” And they did.

  Soon they were inside and drinking. Tequila. Expensive. Scott was buying with his tourist money, and Danny and La were drinking. Shots, with lime and salt. Soon they were laughing at nothing. Danny felt the room spinning but didn’t care. He was going ‘all in’ tonight. Tonight was not a night for an early bedtime and hangover cures in the morning. Tonight was a night for experiencing it all. Walk to the edge and look over.

  Dance music was playing loudly, and he grabbed La’s hand and pulled her between tables and began to dance with her. Though she was embarrassed, she danced also, her lithe, slender body moving effortlessly. Sexily. He took in her movements. She was beautiful. She was alive. She was desirable. Scott gave out hoots and hollers in encouragement, and a few nearby tables clapped, laughing at the drunken foreigner on the dance floor with a local. Danny felt the music. It was in him too. It was through him, touching all of what he was. It rattled his teeth and cleared his thoughts. The bass pumped his blood and moved his organs.

  And he watched her beautiful brown body. Her hair swished like a horse’s tail. Her hips twisted. Her arms reached out to him. And they touched. Their sweat intermingled. And they danced.

  Back at the table he was taking shots again. Moments began to disappear. He would be dancing. Then he would be drinking. He found himself talking to a Brit at a nearby table, and that Brit telling him, “Ya drank too much, ya tit…go home and fack off!” And he was dancing again and laughing. And La was dancing with him and smiling at him. And she was beautiful. Was there ever a better moment in his life? He was fully alive! The moment was his, and he was not going to give it up. Caution? Fack off caution. He was moving and living. There was no past. There was no future. Only now. He was taking the world into his movements. He was breathing the air and returning tequila-soaked fumes of power. His sweat dripped off him, and he danced in the puddles. The world was sending him shockwaves of air, and he was sending back shockwaves of his motions. All was power and action and love and beauty.

  So he danced. He danced with her and he danced alone. He moved. He laughed. He drank. His heart was pumping gasoline, and his engine was on full throttle. So he danced, and turned and twisted and moved.

  As moments disappeared there was a moment that was crystalline. Frozen in time. He was dancing by himself. He turned, wondering why he was dancing alone and not with La. His unfocused gaze found their table, and he had to work hard to make his crossing eyes work together and clearly see. He focused hard, and then he saw it.

  There at the table, he saw La sitting on Scott’s lap. Their mouths were weaving together. Scott’s hand was down the front of her jeans, which were unzipped. Her arms were around his neck.

  “Scott? Scott?” Words came out in gasps. He leaned on a chair to steady himself. Though the room was spinning violently, he watched them kissing until it burned into his soul. Eyes closed. Tongues intertwined. Hand in her sex.

&
nbsp; And then he was on him. He dove onto Scott, and his weight sent La sprawling into other chairs at the next table. On the floor, his fists were pumping like pistons…down…down…smashing into the face of his friend. He was punching blindly, but finding his target. All his hate. All his rage. All his disgust. Through his fists. Into Scott’s face. Sick, wet thuds. Vibrations through his elbows and shoulders. His fists were coated in blood that splattered on him with each upstroke.

  He heard shrieking and movement. Chairs being tossed. A table was overturned. And then strong arms on his shoulders threw him back. He hit his head when he hit the floor. He jumped up to return for more, but lost his balance and fell flat on his face. He pushed with his arms and looked up. Scott was surrounded by legs, but he could see the blood flowing freely down his face. All that was inside him was flowing outside. He gurgled and spat, and tried to turn to his side.

  He heard judgment. He heard derision. But no words made sense to him. La was nowhere to be seen.

  He pushed past a crowd, smearing blood on their clothes and skin. Expletives were on his heels. He was out into the raging night air. He stumbled some paces, and then was on his knees vomiting. Hard, wrenching spasms produced hot, burning spray out of his nose and mouth. Tears ran out of his eyes and mingled with the dust and sick. He blinked out the tears and saw his bloody hands, torn knuckles. There was blood up to his elbows.

  He regained his feet and stumbled to the main boulevard, kicking loose rocks and garbage with his bleeding toes. He pulled out a twenty and waved at a tuk tuk driver.

  “You okay, man?”

  “Fine. Take me to Forian Street,” he directed, pressing the money into his hand. The driver shook the blood off his hands and the money, and then rolled on the throttle.

  Rows of apartment buildings. Bars on windows. Satellite dishes. Exposed power lines, several hanging loosely. When they arrived, the driver said, “You want me call doctor, man?”