IV in Languid Contentment

PAST

Jake had let me crash with him for awhile in Paradise. We both were making some good money with our art and we had quite a few shows lined up in various galleries all along the Oregon coast. Our goal was to make it to Portland, where our own personal pot of gold was waiting for us. Things were great between us, but I had a hard time with everyone around us. The girls he knew hated me, and the way they acted towards me you’d think I was a splinter embedded into their skin underneath their fake acrylic nails. They were constantly dolled up like trashy strippers and their presence reminded me of why I left Southern California in the first place. Jake always reassured me that I was better than them, but in a world like this who really can be the judge of that? I wanted to believe I was living life the way it should be lived. By being real to myself and not giving into the materialistic world. By purchasing my clothes at thrift stores and not wasting dollars on stupid brand-name crap. By letting dirt get underneath my real nails and leaving my hair unwashed for a few days because it’s natural to not be sparkling clean twenty-four-seven. By recycling because I cared about this planet. And by appreciating the beautiful, creative, old fashion art world and staying far away from the technological world. I wanted my life to be simple and pure. Not full of unnecessary gadgets and fancy expensive shit that our ancestors lived perfectly fine without. Sure it made me stand out from those other girls, but I’d rather stand out then stand next to any of them. Most of them were part of this underground west coast scene. Their main goal in life was to promote the west coast and somehow prove it better than the east coast. I never really understood it, nor did I care enough to get into any of it because frankly, the whole thing was ridiculous to me. Basically they were a crew that went up and down the west coast doing tattoos and selling shirts and other crap that had their infamous west coast logo branded onto everything. I found out most of the girls were from California, or as they liked to call it “Kalifornia”. As if spelling it with a K made them even cooler? Made sense that this crew had to gather up a group of typically viewed as hot sluts to travel around with them; it helped promote their worthless crap. Jake only associated with them because he had a pretty well established reputation in this part of Oregon, and this group paid him big bucks to help them promote stuff. I told Jake he was just being a sell-out, but he said money was money and that he wished he was me who had it so easy bumming it with random dudes for free. He said he actually had to pay rent and shit and I should keep my fucking mouth closed. And I took his advice and shut my trap. He did promise when we got to Portland he wouldn’t be associating with these people anymore, so I let it go and patiently waited until we had enough money to head up north.

Most days my mind was flying between two ends of a spectrum. Part of me loved waking up each morning not knowing what the future was going to bring. But there was this other part of me that was completely rational and longed for a sane and structured lifestyle. Waking up next to Jake every morning was never going to bring me the latter, so I pushed those thoughts aside and rode the train of spontaneity with him all the way to Portland. “Where are we going to stay?” I asked him on the train. “I don’t know.” “How can you not know? It’s kinda important. You know. Roof over head. Food. Clean water. Showers. These things are kind of essential.” “Which is why we will figure it out once we get there.” “Maybe it is something we should have figured out before packing our life into these suitcases and hopping on the train.” “Maybe you should shut up and trust me.”

Sigh.
Around two in the morning, the train pulled into the station. I glanced over at Jake and gave him this now-what-are-we-going-to-do look. He rolled his eyes at me and motioned for me to follow him. I lugged my bags over my shoulder and followed him across the street. I was so used to the quiet, dark streets of Paradise at this hour that I was shocked for a second that there were actually people awake and roaming around. It also kind of freaked me out. But I stayed close to Jake and watched the people stumbling out of bars from a distance. I was surprised at first that Jake seemed to know where he was going. I, myself, had never been to Portland and had no idea where I was. Jake was walking super fast and it was irritating me. I was tired as fuck and just wanted a place to sleep. I didn’t care if it was on a park bench at this point. As soon as I was about to stop Jake to tell him I was done walking and was going to sleep on my bags in the spacious park across the street, he told me he found our place. I glanced at the big neon sign.
“Ohhh something familiar. Awesome. Motel 6. Always there when you need it.” I muttered in an I’m-thankful-to-have-somewhere-warm-to-sleep sort of way.
Room 118. Now I was walking fast. I just wanted to change my clothes and crash. Jake opened the door and it smelled like stale cigarettes—big surprise. I opted out on changing my clothes and just jumped right into bed, letting sleep take over for another night.
I woke up to the smell of eggs and bacon.
“Hey babe. I got us some breakfast. You hungry?”
See, it was mornings like this when I knew I loved Jake. Breakfast in bed in Portland on a random Tuesday morning in a crummy but quaint motel room. I ate those eggs and bacon like it was my last meal and hopped into the shower, not knowing when exactly I’d get the chance again to take one.