One of the things I miss about Colorado is the air at night, that mix of warm and cold, the rush of cool sweeping down from the front range and across the plains. It is like opening a window by a radiator on a first spring day and watching the curtains rustle, but that is a comparison made in Ohio that falls far short of the real thing.

I remember specific times: Sitting, sometimes for hours, on the concrete back stoop of my little house in Colorado Springs, feeling the air and maybe only getting another sweater to keep feeling the air and watching the Peak as the night got deeper. The Peak might be saying something, brooding and glistening, if I could only hear it.

Or the air in the park by the apartment in Lakewood where I lived during the dark year when I was afraid to drive or talk to people and would walk the dogs at 3 or 4 a.m. We would walk in silence and Grace or Picasso would seize a scent on the cold air and try to follow, lunging forward and side to side. I would listen to their panting and my feet crunching resolutely on the gravel and, at one point on the trail, it would turn and face Denver, laid out beneath like a glowing ember.

I'm on the road that bobs and darts with the stream through a shallow canyon, driving from Boulder up, back, forth. West to Nederland. It is the end of September and we haven't slept much in days. The mountain air rushes into the car as Elliot Smith strums his guitar and sings in his reedy voice above heavy bass.

"Hey," says my friend, slouched on the passenger side of the car, so tall his knees crunch into the dashboard. He reaches for the console and turns the volume down.

Hey I say back because it seemed like he was going to start a sentence and then didn't.

"I'm in a weird mood," he says. "The weirdest. Like I don't know if I can explain it. The Festival. It was a success and now it's over. It's like looking at the sky and seeing the blue sky and it looks so solid -- but then, you know, the sky doesn't stop, it's not solid, it keeps on going into space.

A day or two ago I was rushing around freaking out about the cameras, the sound, would everyone get their films in and would they make it to the airport and stuff on time, or sitting around at Breakfast King with Brenda and Kethan and you and everyone and now here I am sitting in a car driving into the mountains, like it never happened."

"Looked to me like this was the most successful one yet. It's catching on."

"Yeah. It's this thing I've been working on for the last six or seven years and it's been that and nothing else, and that's OK, I wanted it to be my life, even with all the drama. And I'm looking around, and I see what the Festival is, what it's become; it's established now, it runs on its own. And then I deal with all these filmmakers and they're so young and I think, for the first time, that the Festival will go on without me; that it could change, you know? That it doesn't need me anymore. I feel so weird."

"Geez - where's my Walker? You're not giving up the Festival, are you?"

"'Where's my Walker', hah! No, I don't want to do that - but it's almost getting more than I can handle. All the people, all the items I had to do, maybe I should hand it over to someone else, a new generation of people will give it a new direction, some fresh ideas. That would be good, too."

The walls of red rock have fallen back and the road is flattening out. Ahead, Nederland twinkles around the black of the reservoir. "You're the Boss, meaning you can do whatever you want, I mean if it's too much then it's too much. But I guess I didn't think it was too much, I've been there all along, I've watched how you handled yourself, it's just as well as you always have, better even. If you were going to turn over the reins, I was thinking you wouldn't do something like that for years yet."

My friend doesn't say anything, just hooking one arm in the window.

"Man, am I coked up on that Matte. Maybe you just need a vacation."

Hey, I'm sorry I missed you, but I have to tell you I won't be able to make the party tonight. No.

(Uhm)

Yeah, it's my-- I'm so sorry. I know it will be an awesome time. Maybe we can hang out next weekend. Okay. Bye.

---

She is lying down and I am standing above her, holding her hand. The blankets are up to her chin. There is a tiny black vein in her forehead up by the hairline that was never there before, like the leg of a fly. She is looking at me.

"The doctor says I need to go to a psychiatrist."
"Yeah, maybe that's not so bad. It sounds like everything is anxiety-related; they can't find anything actually wrong with you."
"And they've given me these pills. Please don't call them 'Happy Pills'."
"How about 'Attitude Adjustment'?"

She snorts heh!

"What did they give you? You know I was on something for awhile, when I needed it. It was good for awhile."
"And then did you decide you didn't need them anymore?"
"Yup, something like that. After awhile. I needed to take care of it myself. But for awhile it was ba-a-aaad. I couldn't drive. My circcadian rhythms or whatever those things are called were all messed up. I'd be up and walk to the store at 3 in the morning so I could avoid people."
"It sounds perfectly horrible."
"I got to see a lot of cool late night movies with subtitles."
"Was it because of The Minister?"
"It was a few things. It was that, and the end of law school and not knowing what would come next - like walking into a tunnel."
"Huh. Like walking into a tunnel."

---

She is downstairs, delicately eating soup.

"I wonder what happened to The Minister."
"I did a search on the BIPC database once. After he got defrocked, he went back and got another divinity degree and he's now a chaplain for a hospital. In Florida."
"I bet he would be good at that."
"Oh yeah. I don't wish him ill. But I also don't know if I want to see him again. I could probably be civil."

With each sip, she holds the spoon at her mouth before lowering it. I am watching and considering.

"Maybe I should make an attempt to see him at least once more in life. It was quite a shock when I learned about Len."

The spoon pauses.

"Len."
"Yeah. That guy in Philadelphia. The one who tried to kill himself in front of me. I mean, maybe he was eventually successful and I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was a shock when I came across the Obit."

A moment of silence.

"What made you look for that?"
"I don't know. A hunch I guess. We had been writing and then I didn't hear from him. Not in years."

The spoon dips into the soup.

"I suspected as much."
"What do you mean?"
"Well his father contacted us."
"What? Len's father? Len's father contacted you? When was this?"
"I don't know for sure, about ten years ago."
"Mom - ten years ago was when he died. What did he say?"
"You'd have to ask your father."
"I didn't know this - why didn't I know this?"
"It was a tough time, it was all around the same time."
"You can't remember anything about it?"
"I remember it was unpleasant; that's all I remember."

The bowl is empty and she looks up at the clock.

"Ok, mom. That's ok."

"Not too many western-dressed people at this western-themed party," I say, looking around the kitchen, "except for you."
The man with the blue eyes giggles. He is wearing a cowboy hat and an Indian blanket shirt. "This is all how I used to dress back home." He says.
"Back home?"
"I grew up on a ranch in northeast Wyoming. Near Devils' Tower."
"Oh yeah? I never made it up there but I meant to. I lived in Colorado for a while myself - Denver."
"Aw, I didn't much like it there. I lived in that place called Aurora, worked there for a summer, stayed with my girlfriends' grandparents mowing lawns. It was right when they were starting to fix up the downtown, you know, the way downtown, by the railroad station, what was it called?"
"You mean Union Station? Larimer Square?"
"Yeah, Larimer Square. I was just out of high school and then I got drafted, but I was lucky. Not a lot of people know this but even in 1971 they were winding down the war."
"Yeah, you were lucky. So where did they put you?"
"Most of my year got shipped to Germany, but I was shipped here."
"To Dayton? You've been here that long?"
"Almost. I've been with my Lover for 27 years - it's that guy over there."
"The guy that made the venison chili? Wow. Cute."
"Yeah, my roommate brought him home, ha ha. He thought he was going to trick, but all my guy wanted was to get high. I took one look and said that's it. And at first he said no. But then later that week he came over and we've been together ever since."
"Huh. That. Is. Something."
The guy is grinning, very pleased.
"So are you going to the movie?"
"No, I saw it last night - loved it. It captured all the reasons I left the place."
"...Oh. Well. Heh heh heh."

---

"This is Hugshyhermit, he's our neighbor--"
"Oh yeah, yeah, I've heard all about you--"
"huh?"
"--Yeah! Your tenant's my nephew." He is eagerly shaking my hand, a shock of white hair and goatee. Santa's skinnier brother.
"No way - and you know these guys? What a small world. I bet Tenant will love that."
"Oh yeah. And his kids..." ("Spoiled" he mouths.)
"He calls them the 'Screaming Mimis' and that's a good choice. I hear them nonstop running back and forth and up and down the stairs." I laugh, "Nonstop." Is there a family resemblance? "Better than the alternative." Maybe the eyes.
"Oh yeah, people screaming and yelling--"
"--That was the last tenants."
"So he tell you about my neice, his sister?"
"Oh yeah, he's mentioned her - He would party with her up in Toledo I guess."
"Uh huh. She's one of us. Or... maybe I should say was..."
"(huh?)"
"She killed herself. It was rough."
"Well, yeah,"
"He took it quite rough."
"When did that happen?"
"Oh, years ago now. She had moved out to the Bay area but she still couldn't deal with It."
"I didn't know. He's mentioned her a couple times -- but not that."
"Yeah, it was sad."
"No. I didn't know."

---

After the movie, we go to a bar. A bar I've never been to before. It is in an old house on a side street in an abandoned industrial neighborhood, like something out of Fight Club. There are paintings of naked cowboys on the walls. Original oil paintings. But maybe they are prints. It's kinda tough to tell after six beers. Mixed with Leatherman posters and rainbow flags.
The man with the french accent is telling me about his divorce.
"So where you from? Kentucky?"
"Oh ho ho, no. ho ho, no. I am Quebecois."
"Oh yeah? What brings you here?"
"I get on to the internet and I ask 'Where is there to go out in Day-ton?' and they say 'here' and so I come -- only one other time -- and I sit over there and then I meet D and J..."
"My neighbors. I see."
"...this is only my second time here. But look, those people over there want to talk to you I think,"
"Ya, I saw them wiggling their fingers at me. If they so hot to meet they can come over here and introduce themselves."
But a moment later, I am grabbed by the elbow, "What are you doing? These guys want to meet you." So long, Frenchie.

"My friend thinks you're cute," says the guy with the mullet and dangling earring.
"Oh yeah, well tell your friend I think he's cute too." His friend is just shorter than me, with a shaved head of red stubble and some kind of uniform, but I can't figure out what. His pants are tucked into black boots almost to his knees, and he has epaulets and wings on his shoulders and a brass name-plate on the pocket of a black shirt.
"Thank you," says the shave-headed friend.
"My friend is the owner of this bar."
"The owner, huh? Cool." I take a swig from the bottle Frenchie had bought me, "Nice place."
"Thanks," says Shaved-head.
He is suddenly interrupted by the bartender, a tall lean guy dressed as a ranch-hand with black hair and a black cowboy hat, who pulls him back with a hand on his shoulder. He begins whispering in his ear.
"Excuse me," shaved-head says, "I won't be long."
That leaves me with Mullet-head, who is looking at me, blinking as if he's startled. "So are you also an owner of the bar?"
Now the rest of my party including my neighbors interrupt. "We're leaving, but you - you can stay."
"I don't know if I want to stay."
"No no, you're talking and all you're doing is talking. If you're not interested you say you're not interested and then you can walk out of here."
"I think I already know I'm not interested," I try to say in a low voice.
Mullet-head's eyes are ping-ponging and his earing is glinting as his head twists around, "Let me go see where my friend is..."
"Cool," I say, calling after him as he is flipping up the movable wooden panel to get behind the bar, "You have a good night."