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Show RIVER known each other less than twenty-four hours, but we were already asking each other about the basic mechanics of our lives. Ralph confessed to being an unsuccessful playwright and I told him that I was a failed novelist. "What makes you do this?" he asked. "I don't know," I said. "There are a lot of reasons, but I suppose I'm doing it mostly because I enjoy it." I realized that was a stupid answer, and only partly true. "But I really don't know." "Is this all you do, travel around?" I thought about it. "Pretty much. I've got a shack out in California where I hole up for the winter." "What do you do for money?" "Everything and nothing. I hocked a van I had to get the money to do this. I guess I've got about forty dollars left." "So you just take it as it comes, day by day," said Ralph. "Thaf s very existential." "I'm a good existentialist. I try to keep my dues paid up." "So you don't worry about security or the future or money?" "No," I said. By now I was seeing myself in a very romantic light, the penniless wanderer, but it dawned on me that it was a lot of bullshit. I didn't know what I was doing on the river. "Wait," I said. "Thaf s not quite true. Here, take the oars." We switched places and I dug out my sack of weed and began rolling a joint. It was hard work in the wind, with the boat bobbing up and down like a cork in a hurricane. "See, I do have this get-rich quick scheme. In the bottom of that -35- |