Vision Quest

35. Life in a Song 2011-2022 Part 1 My Friend John

POV: Roger

    Ritu insisted we needed a chapter to explain what we did between 2011 when she graduated University and the fateful day in 2022 when this story climaxes. Farley insisted we needed more parts that shared titles with pop music. Did you know, every chapter title in his Sharing Afflictions Trilogy is a pop music title? Don't ask me why. It is just his thing. This chapter should make everyone happy.

In 2011 they began cutting back our forces and I had an attack of sanity. My extended four-year enlistment was almost up. I applied to get out. I went back to the San Francisco Bay area where my father got me a job as an apartment manager in San Jose. I supplemented my income using the acquisition and distribution skills I had learned in the army. Yeah, I sold pot.

I sold other things too. Perhaps my most unusual acquisition was the anteater I got for my friend John. John was one of my tenants. We were chilling out on his couch and discussing his ant problem and yes, we were enjoying a joint or two or more. I lost count. The smoke was pretty thick, and it may have been clouding our thinking as well as our vision. We were talking about ants when he said, "speaking of which, I have an aunt you should meet." He was always trying to set me up with some girl, but I thought we were still talking about ants so I told him I had some ant bait we could put out.

He laughed at that because he thought I was talking about his aunt. "No, don't bait her, date her. Get her to go out. You should get her..." he was fading fast. Apparently, he was a sleeper when it came to marijuana.

"Get who?" I asked. I also was not as alert as I should have been.

"Get my aunt. Meet her," he answered and fell asleep.

All I heard was, "Get my anteater." I knew he was very environmentally conscious and was opposed to ant poison. Since he was currently unconscious, I couldn't get clarification; so, I decided to get an anteater instead. I actually found one on the dark web. An illegal private zoo was getting rid of its inhabitants. I was getting really good at this procurement business.