ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS

21. A SAVIOR IN SIN CITY

★ Leonard ★

I am awestruck by what he said. I just whispered goodbye to Georgia ten minutes ago. I don't want him to think that I am losing my mind, so I leave the gas station without saying another word. I drive my truck off toward the south, then get on the highway after crossing through Santa Fe.

I wonder if I spent an entire two months with a ghost or if he was pulling a prank on me. After driving more than half an hour on the highway, I come back to my senses and look around to see where I am heading. Based on the direction of the sun, it becomes apparent that the truck is heading west. The double rows of asphalt cut the desert in half, and the road extends to eternity.

I detect a hint of yellow flame in the distance. I begin to wonder what it could be at the right edge of the road. With time, this yellow flame moves around as a mirage from the heatwave distorts my sight. I am almost a half-mile away from it. It starts to take a human shape, and I realize someone is walking along the road wearing a yellow cloth wrapped around his body.

I can't connect this figure with the landscape I am seeing. I feel that my mind is physically transported to India, even though I have never been there. The yellow cloth gets closer and closer. Now I see the back of his shaved head and braided hair from the nape of his neck to his waist.

My truck passes him, and I intend to keep driving. I look at him through the back mirror, and something makes me step on the brake pedal. I don't know what it was.

I keep on looking into the rearview mirror, and he finally sees my truck parked alongside the road and starts to run toward it. Bianco is looking at him as if he has seen a ghost. He throws his heavy bag in the bed of the truck and opens the door to the passenger seat. He looks at me and asks me with curiosity.

"Where are you going?"

Of course, I don't have any destination, so I ask him where he is heading. He tells me he is on his way to Las Vegas. So I tell him to get in the truck, and a young Hare Krishna decides my next destination. He appears to be around my age and gets into the passenger seat and thanks me.

"I am so glad that you stopped to pick me up. It is getting pretty hot along the road. Not many people are willing to give me a ride. So I have been walking for a few days."

I think his luck is worse than Juan Carlo's, who had to wait for half a day until I picked him up in Odessa. I know little about the Hare Krishna, but he is the first I have encountered in person. He suspects what is on my mind.

"You are probably wondering what you got yourself into. I look like I am from another planet. Right?"

I hesitate a little and tell him what I have in mind.

"I know that you are Hare Krishna, but I have never encountered anyone of your faith before. I am from a small town in Texas. It is at the heart of the Bible Belt, and nobody dresses like you. It is not an insult. That's how it is in Texas."

He smiles and continues to talk to me.

"Tell me about it! I am from New York City. Even there, I am a rare species. I am used to it. It's been like this since I was little. I am a third-generation Hare Krishna. Do you know anything about us?"

I shrug my shoulders a little.

"Not much!"

He gives me a brief history of the cult as I start to drive the truck.

"It is a branch of Hinduism that worships Lord Krishna, one of India's supreme gods. About five hundred years ago, Lord Krishna reappeared as Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and popularized the maha-mantra's chanting with God's name: Hare Krishna."