Continued from previous weeks…
Ritchie shakes the wino off. “You one fay idiot!” Ritchie storms off, kicking tree trunks again.
Gary and Mona are still seated between the trees. He’s buried his face in his knees; she’s still staring at the ground vacantly.
Ritchie storms back, gives Gary and Mona a look of disgust, and shoves the wino’s chest. “We stuck out here in prehistory, and you gots to be goin’ on ’bout that white Reverend? He died saving my life so long ago that’s almost prehistory.”
The wino struggles to steady himself from Ritchie’s shove. “That car accident? It was terrible.”
Ritchie: “What all that wine has done to your brains is terrible!” He kneels next to Mona. “How we gonna get outta’ here, Mona?”
Mona fights back a sob. “Gary’s not high anymore. We can’t.”
Ritchie leans over to smack Gary’s back. “You one useless white boy!”
Gary, jolted forward, lifts his head. “Maybe…”
Ritchie and Mona each grab one of Gary’s arms and ask in unison: “Maybe?”
Gary: “If all of us together…”
Ritchie and Mona: “What?”
Gary: “But you’ve all got to understand.”
Ritchie rolls his eyes.
Mona: “Understand what?”
Gary: “See that tree over there?”
Mona: “Yeah?”
Ritchie smirks. “Which one?”
Gary: “Do you want to know why there’s a tree over there?”
Ritchie: “No.”
Mona: “Yes.”
Gary: “Because we’ve closed our minds to all the other things that could be there instead of that tree.”
Ritchie groans and kicks the tree.
Mona: “I don’t understand.”
Gary: “When I was high, first I saw all the things I knew of that could possibly occupy the space occupied by our beach in 1968.”
Ritchie: “Cut the jive, New York intellectual! Just get us back to 1968!”
Gary springs to his feet, glaring at Ritchie. “Whaddaya want me to do? Hail a cab?” Anger gone, Gary continues to Mona, who’s also on her feet now. “Then I started seeing all the things I didn’t know of that could possibly occupy that space instead of our beach.”
Ritchie’s voice drips sarcasm. “You so smart you can see shit that doesn’t exist, and you don’t know about?”
Gary shrugs. “I don’t know quite how I did it, but I was seeing everything. There were objects, shapes, colors I could never imagine or describe. Everything that could possibly exist. In other words, I was seeing…infinity.”
Ritchie’s voice is even more sarcastic. “And seeing…infinity…will get us back to our beach in 1968?”
Mona: “Patience, Ritchie! Gary got us here; he’s our only hope for getting back. Go on, Gary. Tell us more.”
Gary: “Reality equals infinity minus one. Or…really…reality is the one you choose to take away from infinity. All you have to do to change reality is accept the whole infinity of things that could possibly occupy the same space and pick a different one.”
All the rest of them groan. Even the wino. Mona kicks a tree.
To be continued next week…
