The End Game
His shift at the gift shop ended at 6:00 that evening, still plenty of time for a walk in one of the most beautiful National Parks in North America. His arthritis and his bad disc made it mildly painful, but he still relished this time of the evening. This was his life now, the small pleasures of living in or on the spectacular landscapes of the nation. Walks in the evening or early mornings, hikes and little adventures on his days off as much as he was still capable of. Solitary and profound moments of silence at a sand dune or a red rock canyon or a seashore. He was nearing the decision.
He had a reliable vehicle and a comfortable little travel trailer that he pulled behind it, following the pleasant weather around the U.S. with the seasons. The desert southwest in the winters, the Northwest coast or up and down the Rockies during the summers. Occasionally he even traveled to the parks in the east, the cannonball parks, but he preferred the west. He had become part of a little vagabond subculture of good-natured gypsies, people who had decided to forego, or cash out of the suburban dream. They had sold houses or never acquired them, used the proceeds to purchase some variant of a motor home or travel trailer and sturdy truck and hit the road. They followed the tourist seasons of the national parks, taking jobs as campground hosts, cashiers, motel clerks, maintenance workers. The pay was modest, but the rent was even less, a couple of hundred bucks a month for full hook-ups for their traveling apartments. The payoff was spending their lives in the glorious outdoors during the prime seasons. No mortgage, no traffic, little crime, zero parking hassles, an endless stream of relationship possibilities for the young, a predictable and safe routine for the older gypsies.
He had not aspired to this life, but he had ended up here. In his youth in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s he had plunged head long into the hippie phenomenon. Like many, he had believed it was a new order, that this was the way to live your life. It had not occurred to him then that it was simply one more of an endless stream of societal trends, that by the mid 70’s it would be replaced by the incredibly cheesy disco culture, and that mischievous drug usage would turn mean and dangerous. He had lived the life long after many others had moved on, keeping his long hair and becoming a Dead Head, following the band around in the requisite VW van for a couple of years, attending several dozen of their concerts. He had once actually shaken Jerry Garcia's hand.
He held onto the dream until he realized that it was no longer a dream, that it had turned into work. By his mid-thirties he was aware that he was an anachronism, his old friends were gone; married, joining corporations, buying houses, laughing about the good old days. But for him it was not a dream, it was life, and he was silently contemptuous of those who had given up; who had cut their hair, settled down and had kids, and become exactly what they had all laughed at when they were younger. In his forties he was still at it, smoking weed and carrying on, though he could not help but notice that he was by far the oldest person in most situations. The younger girls seemed grossed out by the possibility of coupling with him, though occasionally one still did. No matter, he had had enough sexual encounters and partners by then that he could go with or without someone else. He was fine on his own, at least most of the time.
The counter-culture finally withered away completely and was replaced by.. what? He held a series of jobs earning decent money, traveled the world when he wanted to, and could feel himself changing, finally. His graying hair no longer mattered. Any clothes that were practical would do. Old friends now had children in college. He had never really been poor, but had not acquired much wealth, and he began to think about that. He also began to think about religion, and the possibility of God.
He read the Bible, at least the New Testament. The Old Testament had proven to be tedious and mostly meaningless to him, so he dismissed it after a few dozen pages. The New Testament was better, and he liked the message of hope and the promise of a secure and happy afterlife. He took a look at Buddhism and the Hindus and the Muslims, but eventually decided that they were not of his culture, and so did not seem applicable. Maybe God gave each culture a religion that was relevant to them? Or, did each culture create a religion that was culturally relevant? This was one of many troubling questions he had about God and religion, especially His Christian variety. Such as, If there is a God, why does it need to be worshipped and praised 24/7? It’s God, after all, was it also an infinite ego? And why didn’t it make just one, undeniable, verifiable appearance, and settle the debate? Why this hide-and-seek game called faith? If it wanted better behavior from the human race all it had to do was just show up once, I mean really show up, and most sin would probably be greatly diminished.
The nonsense about a scheming devil that fundamentalist types were always flailing about was the most annoying. Were we supposed to believe that every stupid action or biological impulse was the result of an evil spirit lurking around, and that it and God were involved in a daily battle over the fate and behavior of each of the billions of humans on the planet? Ridiculous, he had decided. Why didn’t God just whack this clown and be done with it? It’s God, after all. And the myriad theologians over the centuries tying themselves in philosophical knots trying to reinterpret every nuance of scripture. Millions had perished in the name of the loving Christian God, to say nothing of the Romans and the Muslims or Mongol animists or others. It simply made no sense.
He explored the sciences, and their take on God and the universe. Astronomers told provable stories of fantastic galaxies, millions of light-years away, and billions of cosmic furnaces, stars that were being born and imploding and being reborn and vanishing into black holes. He learned that we are all literally made of stardust, from elements and particles that are created in the stellar furnaces before being flung into the cosmos to meet their fate. The Biblical verse had almost gotten it right: Remember man that you are stardust and unto stardust you shall return. Every molecule of everything that has ever existed is simply in a giant recycling program, just not on a time scale that humans can grasp. The calcium in our bones or the tissue of our muscles may have had many previous lives as a volcanic boulder or a slime mold or a dinosaur or the content of a maggots gut, or all of them. Our bodies on the atomic level do indeed go on, just not as us. Recently he had taken some odd comfort in that. There really was no endgame, we just go on and on in different forms. So then what will it be like after we die? The best explanation he had heard was that it will be just like it was before we were born, a state of non-existence. He decided he could live with that.
He reconsidered these things again as he walked along, It was a lovely evening in this splendidly preserved piece of the American Southwest. He also thought about the highlights of his younger life, and the things he had done. He had climbed Kilimanjaro. He had seen Everest, from a distance. He had hiked and boated and trekked to many other of the most astounding places on earth. He had had many loves and many friends and very few real enemies. He had surfed and skied and motorcycled until he wasn’t interested anymore. He had told his stories over the years to anyone who wanted to listen, and many did, until recently. He supposed that to the young people around him now he was just another old windbag snowbird, their eyes drifting off when he began a tale about how it was in the 1960’s.
Now, in his mid 70’s with thinning white hair and a limp and almost constant back pain, he realized that his journey was nearing the end. He was generally content, but he had no children and no siblings left and no family to speak of. His friends from the old days were either dead or had lost contact and interest in him, he suspected because he continued to be “Unconventional” long after they had settled in. He had his gypsy friends, they frequently crossed paths in their migrations from park to park throughout the season. He would leave someone a note about what to do with his stuff. His life had been a long and wonderful journey, he figured he had done about everything he had wanted to. What else was there? Old age and decline and some unknown, unpleasant agency in charge of him had no appeal. His body wasn’t used up yet, but it was headed that way.
The next morning he rose early and treated himself to a big, overpriced and delicious breakfast at the tourist facility near the park entrance. He drove his sturdy truck out of the park and onto a nearby dirt road that led to a spectacular overlook on Public land. The road ended without warning or markers at a sheer cliff. Locals had named it Thelma and Louise Point, as it was quite possible for the uninformed to simply follow the road right off a 200-foot cliff. It cried out for cautionary signage or a barricade, but as was often the case the Federal Bureau of Land Management could not get around to it, at least not until someone was killed or a lawsuit was filed. It was a magnificent place, the straight walls framing a sweet little trickling stream and some greenery down below amongst the gravel and boulders. He parked his truck and walked to the edge. It was a fine day, swifts or swallows sailed by below him, busy with their affairs. The sky was cloudless, and he could already feel a little warmth from the morning sun, 93 million miles away. As good as it gets, he thought. He would miss this place, he thought, then realized that was impossible. Then he tilted forward and stepped off the edge. He experienced two or three tor three seconds of exhilaration, a brief moment of terror, an even briefer flash of pain, then it was done. Non-existence. Stardust again.