This is an excerpt from Part Four of my unpublished first novel EDGE OF CALIFORNIA. Tim Saybrook, the "hero" of the novel, is featured prominently here, as is my Kerouac-inspired use of italics, parentheses, and the "em dash." Publishers interested in my novel, contact me.

Saturday evening is perfect for downtown all-too-familiar sights, but for my friend and fellow writer, Timothy B. Saybrook, all being so new to him, since he’d been gone nearly five years (or more than). It was only to be Tim, Ally, and I. Katie hadn’t yet met Tim—their first meeting was to be the following day. Charlie couldn’t go—term paper due Monday, 8 a.m. Jay was gone—up to Fresno for the weekend. First off, Ally came over to meet Tim (early afternoon); the sun was still out. She was floored by his presence, well-informed though weary of my tales about him. We had an early dinner; they casually flirted; Tim, though, knew of my love for her and backed off enough, later guffawing, “Jazz tune, maestro!”—they danced; the crazy bum even dipped her! I snapped away with my Nikon, then Ally stole it, so Tim and I magically reproduced that classic photo of Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac on the cover of (some editions of) On the Road, where their hands are in their pockets and Neal’s head’s tilted 45° to the right in mock ennui. Afterward, everything felt fine.
     Then it was time to treat Tim to a trek Downtown, with Ally and (reluctant) me as tour guides; no Charlie, Katie, or Jay. On to Rob’s. Tim’s eyes lit up. We had to pass his old neighborhood (El Cajon, Grossmont, that area) to get there; he was all pent-up in nostalgic happiness. We walked up the flight of rock-studded steps to the front and rung the bell for Rob and Jessica’s place; the bitch of bitches answered—“Hello?” Tim replied, “Hi, you don’t know me, but I’m Rob’s boyfriend and I gotta tell him about my doctor’s appointment…”—which screwed her up, ’til finally Rob came huffing up to the other side of the metal gate, down four flights of stairs rapidly down just to meet us.
     “Press the button,” he said, barely breathing, then spoke loudly into the intercom, “It’s okay, honey! Let ’em in.” Came the buzz, we pushed ourselves in, Tim grabbing Rob by the collar and saying hello, reintroducing themselves. Ally grabbed my keys and headed back to the car, to avoid the bitchy Jessica Kailo, they being enemies since our college days. Pudgy deadbeat Rob had to keep up with spry Tim and was dragged up the stairs (lone elevator at opposite end of inner courtyard out of order) with me close behind. We couldn’t even go inside; we had to wait in the hall for ten minutes while Rob and Jess argued within. See, Jessica Kailo, the wench, would be alone in the apartment if Rob was to be out with us all night. She acted frustrated, always is; they must be together at all times; also, we’d be having loads of fun in downtown and she didn’t want to go; we asked her to come along but she complained of cramps. Cramps! Real women never complain of cramps.
     Rob, defeated in a forlorn cowpoke way, said he couldn’t go. It was another sweet victory for Jessica Kailo, who said to me that early evening, while Tim made use of their bathroom, “Rob spends enough time in Downtown studying to be a lawyer; he has no time to be cavorting with that thug in there.” You don’t even know Tim, you bitch! I wanted to scream out, but didn’t. “Did you guys keep him out last night?” she went on. “He didn’t come home ’til well past two.” I said no, I’d no idea where he was last night; we had zero time for each other on Friday nights; that’s my night with Katie (“Katie Matheson,” I stated even though they’ve met). “He has no time to be out late at two a.m. getting drunk with y’all, okay? I’m serious.” It was clear that she was; I was silent. Tim appeared. We bid the lovebirds adieu; Tim chuckled as soon as we were down the hall. He pulled out a pair of pretty pink panties—Jessica Kailo’s—and shoved them in my face; I reared back and nearly decked him. He laughed, pulling at the elastic edges and stretching the thin cotton material into a huge parachute—finally tossing the thing atop some rosebushes in the courtyard, laying it out sweet for someone to find them even in the coming darkness.
     We drove away, took the freeway (I-8), parked in Mission Valley, hoping to take the trolley Downtown (the station near Starbucks on Camino Del Rio N.). The place would be buzzing, that was certain; we’d have to make sure not to lose each other in the crowd. The red trolley floated down the track into the station. I was no trolley regular, but with Tim, it was okay—his folks took the trolley sometimes when he was a kid. Tim’s made for train transportation: right way to sit (or stand, in our case), right volume of speaking, right way to talk (respecting the elderly passengers), right way to look at people (or out the window). An older businessman offered his seat to Ally; she thanked him, giving me a wink in the process. I gazed out the window, curious about downtown nightlife, at least this night anyway, with two of my favorite people on their first night out together, me as observer. Downtown from a distance was amazing.
     We got off at Broadway and managed the streets fine. Tim began telling us about life on the road, visiting and experiencing all the wild out-of-the-way places of America, downtown San Diego being (apparently) one of them—it is America, a deep-down willowing urban industrialized vision of it, different from what you and I see, but America nevertheless. He’s America too; so am I; Ally, of course. “You’re a part of America once you step onto its soil and behold its hills and valleys and skyscrapers,” he noted, maybe quoting someone. I nodded; Ally smiled sweetly. “Home, meanwhile, ain’t living breathing heaven. This is,” he added. I agreed. Home is our prison; I asked him so; he said no. “Nah, America’s a poem, our souls working in unison for fulfillment.” I peered into the window of a bakery: loaves and loaves of all possible bread species lay inside. There was something very middle America about Downtown that evening.
     Ally wanted to walk into an old opium den to get buzzed, but we were her big brothers for the night, hoping not to see her leave with some potential date-rapist in tan khakis. We decided to walk along the Embarcadero and see the ocean. I gazed at Ally in the moonlight of the big dark blue sky and realized we were grown-up children in this desolate place, on the brink of insanity, confused about our young lives, even Tim, but it was mostly between Ally and myself. What does she want?
     It rained for thirty minutes or so; in mid-June! We stood under a hotel awning for a while, contemplating what to do. I felt sick of life; I told Tim about it; he comforted me with a few careful caring words, his cigarette glowing faint red under his nose. We went into a bar; Vic (the suave Mexican) was there trying to pick up chicks. We talked awhile, then we had to go. Ally suggested we sit outside Café Lulu on F Street and talk. Near us were these butt-ugly Spaniards in black biting on cigarette butts; if only Charlie had been there to settle things! Through the window, the interior of the café seemed bright and velvety. Tim jerked his head in the air and picked up the soft wails of music from the next block—the New Orleans jazz bluesy music of Redfish Cajun Grille (which is always crowded on magical nights, so we didn’t bother; Tim, anyway, was used to Louisiana food because of a nympho LSU Tiger cheerleader). Here was Tim—doing, knowing, and learning more about America than most people ever will. Tim and I discussed this very issue later that night, listening to music in my apartment at two in the morning—just because you live here doesn’t make you America, therefore, not only must you behold the hills and valleys of America, you must also climb them. Visit a national park. Watch the sky. Admire life, be it your girlfriend or a blade of grass. Essential “things to do.” Within the next five years. Wherever we end up, whether it’s the jazzy jazz place or the green grassy park or mountaintops under the big blue sky, we’ll all be fine by the time we’re through.
     Ally began discussing African American literature for some reason, considering she’s white (from Utah!)—Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man author, and James Baldwin, homosexual writer and photographer—tangent—that James Baldwin and James Baldwin, veteran pitcher—tangent—baseball—tangent—corporations buying naming rights of ballparks, stadiums, and arenas—tangent—those same corporations turning on everything else. 7UP Medical Center. Playtex Elementary. Highway AOL. Mount 3COM. The Statue of Liberty, brought to you by Bell Atlantic. Ally was very vocal about that. “Really, if it doesn’t move, someone’s going to name it.”
     While Tim was in the bathroom, Ally reminded me about a writing conference at the Convention Center near the end of June. She really wanted me to go, saying it was the catalyst of my getting published. “After this, you’ll be fine,” she said assuredly.
     Tim returned and we left; we walked around the Gaslamp Quarter, and Tim said, “Now this is what life’s about…”, and went on a whole new topic that wasn’t wholly philosophical, in fact, it was a jumbled mess, maybe because he just wanted to waste our time. He discussed how baseball’s bullshit (organization-wise); he’d be better off pitching for a recreational softball league. Ally kept beaming at him; it annoyed me. To finish the night, we walked through Seaport Village. We saw a shirtless old bum with wild white hair sleeping in a cardboard coffin. Tim felt sorry for him (“There’s a real man”) and gave him a ten; admirable on Tim’s part. The bum had a sign that read, “Almost homeless, always hungry”; Tim said he’d get more handouts if it read, “Almost homeless, always horny.” We smiled at this, Tim showing charity and compassion, our Don Pedro, how life shouldn’t be taken seriously; the bum knew more about it than we ever would.
     Ally had to drive up to LA for a concert her roommate wanted to attend (later that evening), so she left, but promised to hang out with us upon her return.
     Back at my place, we talked into the night—Tim wanted to be a respectable writer with a Grace Slick hippie chick following him around—then into morning, we ate up my Hi-fi. We drank and banged our heads on the wall staring outside at pretty coeds jogging (5 a.m.); BFF songs about breaking up made you want to hurt yourself. Meanwhile my mind was on realizing it was all therapeutic; the way Ben pounds on those walrus-tooth piano keys, getting his aggression out (repressed anger), each key/note representing a certain someone who had once inflicted pain on him; kicking serious ass. (Ben and I are essentially the same: the guy who loses that wonderful girl when the relationship commits suicide; we feel we’ll die any minute, feeling a particular loss in the chest cavity, a sense of something missing.)
     Like that final November, late at night, when I saw Connie’s distinct green SDSU backpack with the sunflower, and she walking away from me, that was it. I tried to stop her, but she wouldn’t stop. BFF had just broken up, so I was distraught. And seeing her again, maybe for the last time, I was a little…off. I tried to attain that closure but failed. All I have is the back of her head and her voice telling me to “please leave me alone.” The side of her frightened face in the moonglow, her peripheral green-eyed vision telling me to fuck off.
     I’d wanted to tell her: Sure, Connie, we’ve never kissed or fucked or shared intimate lover moments, but I love you. My life—one long sad mantra of Connie, Connie, Connie. It made no sense to me at all the way I felt (feel!) about her.