I kept myself awake on the road by wearing my tambourine around my neck, like a collar, and drumming the off-beats directly into my ears, the drum sticks sometimes grazing my cheeks or my glasses, if I wore them. I had been practicing driving without my glasses, had discovered that I didn’t need them as I had believed for almost all of my 33 years. In fact, by not wearing them, I extended my energies by a hundred miles or so because my eyes were allowed to unfocus enough to rest. Especially in the night, when the flicks of reflective pavement guided my focus more efficiently than traffic in broad daylight, I became meditative on the human capacity to compensate senses, to achieve the somatic equilibrium to survive, even when hurtling down the highway at 96 mph with three adolescent chickens sleeping peacefully in the backseat through the crash of percussion.
I decided that, to justify a decision to invite a total stranger into my motel room for a fleeting, unsatisfying fuck, I would engage them first in a three-part “test.” The first part would determine whether I could stomach their cis-manhood at all: an intellectual riddle whose only parameter was, theoretically, honesty. I didn’t care what the answer was, per se, but how genuinely they considered it. The question: “Knowing that I do not identify as a woman, would you fuck me differently than a woman?” I took pleasure in their brief surprise, their careful silence. The second part I would preface with the question, “Do you know Bruce Lee?” And then, “Have you heard of the two-inch punch?” With their consent, I would measure a hand-width back from their sternum and hit them flatly with my fist. If they toppled, the deal was off. If they stood their ground, I would conclude the test with an often practical question, such as, “How many people have you slept with in the past three months?” Not that that mattered, either.
I was smoking a joint outside my room while on the phone, standing against the railing overlooking the parking lot when a man passed by. He seemed agitated, and so I offered the stranger a hit. He introduced himself as a demon, and it wasn’t until filing the police report days later that I learned his name was Daniel. Daniel was keeping his young lover—“The Goddess,” as I referred to her—under his spell in their room down the hall, and over the next few nights, I would learn of their immature, toxic, and conspiratorial relationship as they played me out of $500 of my dwindling safety net. The Demon and the Goddess tried to persuade me out of my nonexistent love affair (I would continue to insist on its validity for many months) with a former friend while I mediated their tired arguments. We would smoke, complain about money (our lack of it), and I would perform songs in exchange for kisses from the Goddess.
I met Terrance at the Tesla charging station near a Red Lobster outside Ashland. After rolling him a joint from my frunk, we made plans to fuck at my charming suite at the Spring Hotel, where I was able to believe I was meeting my destiny. What other small town could fit my fringe proclivities so well? A crystal shop across from the hotel carried a slab of labradorite that I couldn’t pass up. Next door, a handsome ginger served up a chocolate malt on the house. Down the street, a fiber store and game shop boasted all the supplies I would need to initiate my pleasure revolution. I read my tarot decks in the breakfast parlor, made friends with whomever would meet my eye, envisioned a life as a guest entertainer, as if the hotel were a cruise ship, or better yet, the space station Deep Space 9. I could be the ferengi bar keep, peddling truth instead of latinum. Terrance, a black man 17 years my senior, fucked me generously. After, he detailed his strategy to take advantage of the tax breaks and incentives recently passed by Biden that would allow him to rake in millions through solar projects over the next decade. I interpreted all this as divine intervention, of course: I had found the flip-side to my coin. Where I drove a black Model 3, Terrance drove a white Y. Where I was a brand new trans boi, he was an experienced hetero cis daddy that seemed both willing and able to carry me into the next phase of my world-changing plans. He accompanied me to the adult store, where I planned to cut a deal with the regional manager to prostitute myself out to whatever exclusive shmucks passing through town. “Fifty-fifty,” I told her. “I haven’t done anything like this before,” she said. “Me neither,” I said. We smiled.
In the hospital, I met a fairy. She spent most of her time drawing maps of unusual planets and stars and vampire creatures, and when I shared with her my theory of my godliness, my Cupid inheritances, she informed me of her magical nature, including her undetectable pregnancy with none other than Satan’s child. A part of me fell in love with her then: the brazen confidence and unfaltering commitment to such otherworldly responsibility. I tried my best to honor that confidence. She liked to smoke menthols, and I promised to procure a pack for her on the day of our mutual release. She was dropped off at a safe house; it was the last time I saw her. I still have her menthols.
The night warden came into my room and sat on my bed. He reached under the covers and lifted my waistband. Terrified and bewildered, I did nothing. I said, “No.” I may have choked on it.
After inspecting my palm and adjusting my spine with a vision-clarifying crack, the wizard at the Griffith Park drum circle informed me that I had six spirits residing within me. “Six?” I asked. He wore a tie-dye t-shirt, a long, white beard that tapered past his pot belly, and glasses. “Six,” he confirmed, incredulous himself. At the drum circle weeks later, I would fend off three men with my drumsticks—my unicorn horns—which splintered on their kneecaps. Instinctively, as my body realized their intention to harm me, I drove my sticks at the knees of one and exclaimed an apology—so shocked I was at my violent reaction. Then, acknowledging fully the situation I found myself in, I repeated the motion, like an exercise repeated in Kung Fu class. The men retreated. I’d keep the drumsticks with me on the road, over a year later, as talismen of my self-defense abilities.
How do I discern the will of the gods from mania-induced fable? How have prophets ever done so? The most difficult lesson learned in adulthood came a year after my beloved Abuela’s death. I agreed to drive my brother home from the airport. He interrupted my lunch to ask me whether I’d allow him to fuck me. “If that’s a no, just don’t tell Mom or Dad,” he said. I looked out the window, waiting to wake up from the nightmare. He interpreted the silence as consideration. “How long have you been thinking about this?” I asked. “Two years,” he said. After he retreated upstairs, I drove myself to the local park, crawled under the steering wheel, and wished for death. I eventually concluded that many realities could exist at the same time, and that it was folly to believe in yours alone. If a fantastical thought could spring to mind, could ring true at a given moment, then yes, it could be true. One merely needed to believe. Isn’t that what all religions asked of us? Faith. Why not be your own god, your own prophet? Why not choose yourself? The philosopher Byron Katie poses the question, “Can you ever really know is anything is essentially true?” No, I find that nothing is essentially true, but we all define the truth on our own. The truth is that I perceive the unperceiveable because I believe what others simply do not. I find the evidence of my truths as much as you might prove the existence of God. This does not make me a prophet, no, but it does make me as rare as one.
According to my birth chart described by Chani Nichols, my destiny is to bridge the dead and the living. May 25, 1989, 9:08 AM (?). Who am I to say the stars are misaligned, that the life’s work of a contemporary goddess misguides all her acolytes?
I have a memory of being carried down the stairs by an angel. I was a toddler standing at the top of the stairway calling for my mother who was occupied in the kitchen. I remember my neophyte brain gauging my imminent test. I hated crawling on my knees; I preferred to scoot on my butt. Could I simply step out onto the step below like my parents did? Like The Fool? I tried. I didn’t move—I was suspended in the air. I turned my head to the right. There was a stoic face glowing faintly gold of an angel. I called out for my mother with increasing excitement: “Mom! Mom! Mom!” By the time she reached the steps, the angel had dropped me unceremoniously at the bottom. I could not articulate what had happened, and I understood how unbelievable and unlikely it would sound, even at that age. I promised myself that I would never allow myself to forget it—not a dream, but a lived experience—for as long as I lived.
In treatment, staff seem to mutter, “That’s okay, that’s good,” no matter the subject. I spend group time biting my tongue, my lips, the inside of my cheeks, my fingernails, their cuticles, and the skin at the corners of my nails. On the road, I had been too busy to bite my nails, or my nails had been too dirty, between the desert dust and the chicken shit. Krumpus, Muffin, and Gums had free range of the backseat; my unofficial part-time job was to remove their wet shits from the buttery upholstery of the Tesla I rented. If I failed, the wet shits would become hardened, car-baked shits, which were nearly impossible to remove without pre-soaking them under a wet washcloth. Otherwise, the chickens were an ideal road companion, happily chirping, patient and curious, excellent conversation starters. Typically shy, they would occasionally surprise me by climbing up onto my shoulders or head. The night they went missing, I was inconsolable. I had failed as a mother. My babies were likely dead.
Homeless, I accepted the likelihood that I would need to learn the ways of the homeless—i.e. I would need to integrate into communities I had, as you most likely have, purposefully ignored, or worse. In Ashland, I passed a small group of homeless and then circled back after most had dispersed. The remaining woman looked at me curiously, and once I had introduced myself, exclaimed that I had found the unofficial mayor of Ashland. She would give me a tour. Walking to the grill for a snack, she detailed he mission as a witch caught star-crossed with her destined love—a young musician of moderate fame and lineage. “Oh good,” I thought, “the gods provide.” A week later, after offering her a ride down to L.A. under the condition that she limit herself to one bag, and her showing up with no less than five, I abandoned her in the church parking lot. I deemed her destiny an unhealthy obsession bordering on harassment. Was this another mirror?
Passing through New Mexico, I took a room at the pet-friendly Motel 10 in Lordsburg. I smoked a joint with an Ojibwe elder who would serve as my adoptive auntie for the weeks to come. While her borderline personality and habit of interrupting conversation seemed major pitfalls for someone like me, I accepted her as my Golem-esque guide to the future in which I’d lost my friends and family to my foibles, as she had. She showed me her collection of medicine boxes, owl feathers, and moonstones, allowing me to select one. She also gifted me a turtle-rattle of fine quality procured in Alaska. After listening to her stories and exchanging contact info, she informed me that the Ojibwe confer native status on those whose character embodies the Ojibwe values, not blood percentage, and thusly, I was now Ojibwe. Eventually she would disown me via text, but I felt I had come out on the better side of the deal. I had a rattle, a tribe, a family bigger than the one I had lost, even though still estranged.
Before being carried away in my bathrobe by police sent by my then-girlfriend (who seemed to believe it appropriate to lock up a loved one versus seeking non-carceral resources), I had the pleasure of attending my first rave. Jonathan and Mike had tickets for the Shrek rave in Anaheim, and we were to dress as our favorite characters. He chose Puss in Boots, his friend Farquad, and I the Magic Mirror. I purchased a plain white face mask and two packets of Pop Rocks from the Party City. I wore the mask on the back of my head and greeted rave-goers with, “You’re the fairest of them all!” We danced and I drank pink drinks until I couldn’t see straight. I puked in a garbage bin. I was interviewed by a woman with a camera and a microphone. Blind mice were everywhere. Eventually Jon and Mike found me sitting outside—I had been escorted out by a polite security guard who must have noticed I wasn’t able to hold my liquor.
At nearly 4:00 in the morning, I pulled into the campsite in Apple Valley. The desert was pitch black and the road entirely uneven. Having taken the tiniest flake of crystal meth to keep myself awake (the tambourine trick lasted till about 2:00 AM; I had purchased $40 of “extremely clean stuff” from a Hell’s Angel in Thousand Oaks as a gift for my Ojibwe auntie), I felt unusually paranoid. The camp managers, a couple in their 40s, surprised me at the check-in sign. “Did you see the UFO?” he shouted when I slid down my window. “What?” I asked. “Where?” “A red orb was floating in the sky just over there while you were driving up!” He seemed excited and not alarmed in the least, as if this sort of thing happened from time to time, like a special holiday. After he left me at my tent, I consulted the I Ching and prayed the aliens would not visit me—I would not be able to handle it, as much as I had been trying to prepare for that eventuality. It seemed the task of a prophet, after all.
An elderly cowboy with shocking blue eyes sat at the table in front of the coin machines at the Apple Valley laundromat. He watched me struggle with my change and offered me his Ziplock of quarters, which I accepted. I didn’t have enough for a load anyway. We made conversation while we transferred our loads and were joined by an ex-con who proceeded to relate his life story to the cowboy (not looking at me, even though the cowboy was facing me). He explained how he studied finance during his time, and how he emerged a millionaire. He bought his mother a house and himself a sports car. He gifted me the rest of his pizza—”the best in town” (worse than Domino’s). Before leaving, we all exchanged names. “I’m Allen,” said the cowboy, “but my grandkids call me Alien.” “By the way,” he leaned in, making sure the ex-con had walked away, “I’ve learned some things over the years. People who have money tend not to talk about it.” I have his number. Maybe one day I’ll call.
Ojai, a town two hours northwest of L.A., translates to “nest” and “moon” in the land’s native language. It’s one of two unique geological valleys in that it’s surrounded completely by mountains. After my first hospitalization, during my first manic spell, I decided that the magical vortex of Ojai was where I needed to be. I found an outrageously expensive apartment (a guest house featuring a garden gate constructed for Madonna herself) that I believed would attract paying guests. It featured two clawfoot bathtubs—one indoor in the living room, one outdoor in a very charming outdoor bathing area—and an outdoor hot pink hot tub. A multi-tier fountain greeted you at the front entrance. Beyond the hot tub, an extensive yard made a peaceful meditation retreat. The property sat adjacent to the Krishnamurti Retreat Center. The perfume of pepper trees wafted through the hills. Orange trees lined its pathways. Later, when I found myself alone and heartbroken, I concluded God had gifted me paradise so that I had an honorable place to die.
The bad witch’s husband made friends with @agoodwitch, who visited our residence one day as I was practicing balancing on large stones that formed an infinity symbol around two trees in the yard. As per usual, I offered the guest a joint I had rolled, and we smoked together, enjoying the miraculous beauty and weather. We eventually became close friends. @agoodwitch skinny dipped in my hot tub and smoked doobies while I played her my music and sang songs. She had me over for Christmas, which was celebrated with her daughter and son-in-law, who took pity on me. The Christmas pageant at the church featured live barnyard animals.
They all had warned me to keep my two cats, Eartha Kitty and Esperanza, inside since the country was full of predators like coyotes and cougars, but after my hospitalization, keeping them inside while there was a beautiful world to enjoy seemed unacceptably cruel. One night I returned from the art fair, Eartha Kitty was gone—likely carried off because she was so dumb and sweet.
I started King Fu before my first hospitalization since an injury had prevented me from rock climbing. It would shape my survival. I practiced Tai Chi barefoot in the parking lot behind our apartment around our orange trees and set up targets for my trainee chain whip: a cotton cord tied to a rubber dog chew ball. I learned how to navigate blindfolded and walked on my ankles to strengthen them from potential twisting. Once my mania hit, my then-girlfriend took me to the local mental institution, Olive View, but I refused to go inside. I was wearing only pajamas—no shoes or socks. When the police and fire department were called to wrangle me in, I took to the street. I walked over sharp rocks, asphalt, and up a grated metal stairwell of a water plant, where I figured I would wait them out. Instead, they set up a perimeter around me. After hours in this standoff, I decided I’d had enough; I would try to fight my way through the crowd of police officers. I was nearly able to take out one’s eyes with my thumbs, as my sifu had taught me. They pinned me to the ground, then to a gurney, and in I went.
Lynsey had piercing aqua eyes and the rambunctious personality of a mutt. Always willing to tell a story, her laugh was the one my ears perked up for. Eleven years younger than me, I tried ignoring the heat that rose to my cheeks whenever we were left in a room together. Especially considering we were in treatment, any flirtation would need to be kept kosher. We spent the hours after lights out interviewing one another in the “sauna room”—the smallest group room of the three. Shy, we would steal glances at each other between questions.
