i fly like paper, get high like planes Who: Kal & Gabe. What: Kal and Gabe meet after a career info session. Where: UCLA campus, then The Wayfarer. When: April 13, evening.
The one thing Kal found himself thinking repeatedly after speaking to a bunch of UCLA students, the one thing that he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around, was when the hell did college students start looking like children?
He knew he wasn’t ancient, a mere thirty years old which was sure as hell not old at all, but it still baffled them. Their baby faces, still with the childhood fat on their cheeks, the guys barely having a hang on growing beards, all of them so youthful. It was hard for Kal to comprehend for the simple fact that college did not feel that long ago for him and he certainly felt full grown when he was in college but now, looking at all those eager faces staring up at him while he stood on the stage, he realized that he really didn’t know shit at that age.
Nat Geo had picked Kal as the talking point for the UCLA event and he happily complied. Was there anything better than being paid to talk about yourself and the job you loved? So he did it, he just didn’t realize he’d be coming out of it with such a new perspective of the grand old age of college students. No wonder he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to do when he was in college, he had just been a kid. Still, it worked out rather well.
As he grabbed his bag with all the fun odds and ends he brought to show the kids--and he was going to stick with calling them kids--he paused by a vending machine to get a water. If he had to drive all the way back to his apartment, he wanted the water to go. The other presenters mulled around, talking to one another, but Kal remained oblivious. He arrived late, presented last, and hadn’t the chance to meet everyone else.
Gabe was one of the lingering crowd. He hadn't been a presenter; merely a listener, having caught the tail end of the presentations after completing his own lecture in a History of Science Fiction in Literature course on the upper side of the campus. He had nothing else scheduled for the rest of the evening, and the signs pointing to the halls where the Nat Geo presenters were sounded interesting, so he'd swung by and leaned on a doorway near the back of the room. Now he did the network shuffle through the remaining stragglers, shaking hands, recognizing a few faces. One of those faces was not Kal's, though Gabe didn't hesitate to present himself.
"So, Costa Rica, huh?" He patted Kal's upper arm, clearly not at all disconcerted by the fact that the other man had well over a foot on him. Kal looked like something out of a Nat Geo magazine; Gabe looked like he should've been in a classroom somewhere, teaching students. "I love Guatemala, but I haven't been to the Rain Forest yet. Your job sounds incredibly exciting, so I gotta ask, is this stuff old hat by now? Or does it stay fresh?"
Kal turned to the man, water bottle in hand, and seemed to size him up. He was gruff looking and serious, the happy exterior that was on the stage no longer present as he looked the smaller man over, wondering as to why the man patted his arm in the first place. But then he smiled and it was like a break through stormy clouds. “It’s both old hat and fresh. All the travel shit--getting vaccines, boarding planes, fighting with airlines, not always knowing what your transportation is going to be--all that is old hat. What stays fresh is seeing the new location. Hell, even returning to old ones is still nice. You get that element of returning somewhere and seeing it twice, which is always a new experience than only seeing it once. You get to see if your memory holds up to expectation.”
Kal’s brows knit together for only a space of a moment, a finger raised off the clutched water bottle and pointed at the man. “So, you came to the talk but you’re not a student, I’m guessing.”
"Ha, no," Gabe replied, laughing a touch with his answer. "Was actually giving a lecture of my own -- much smaller than this, believe me -- on the disappearance of the Mexican voice in science fiction between the genre's golden age in the 30s to the 50s. And then I saw this advertised, and I like to travel a bit myself -- I get to, a little, for my work -- so I decided to see what was on tap." He took a step back, as if recognizing that he was a touch too close, a touch too excited. "I gotta say, I haven't done much of that, though. The vaccinations, fighting with airlines, but then again, I'm usually going to more populated places. What's the most remote location you've been to?"
Kal blinked rapidly and leaned back. “Wow you aren’t one to hold back on the deep questions, huh?” He pressed his lips together as he thought, his eyes moving over the scene around them before returning to the man’s face. “Depends on what you mean by remote. If you mean an utter lack of life, of other people, then certainly the Amazon. I had to go on a rafting and hiking trip with a team a few years ago. It was one of those places that I realized, well shit, if I broke a leg out here, I don’t know how the hell I would appropriate medical attention.
“Granted, we had a medic with us, but it’s not quite the same as being able to call in a medical helicopter or even hop into the back of a pickup truck to take us to a hospital.”
Gabe raised his hands, palms out, a peace-offering gesture. "That sounds amazing, but I apologize if I'm being forward. I just... It sounds amazing, and I'd love to pick your brain about it. I'm Gabe, by the way. Gabe Bautista." He offered his hand out for a shake. "Do you maybe wanna get a drink and talk, or were you headed out?"
Kal grinned and gave a shake of his head. “I’m always down for drinks. But now that I’m prepared, hit me with all the questions you’ve got.” He accepted Gabe’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “Kal Weber. Just moved back to the area; I’ve been traveling too much to really get a permanent place but I wanted to be closer to my grandmother.”
"Same!" Gabe replied. "Well, moving back to the area, not being close to my grandmother. She lives in NorCal." He gestured toward the exit, walking with Kal toward the parking lot. "I'm in Newport Beach; it's a bit of a drive up here, but I think it's worth it. I grew up here; more Los Angeles proper, but yeah. What about you, if you don't mind me asking?" He held the door open, allowing the mountainous man to walk through first before joining him in the cool night air.
Kal blinked and leaned back a little, eyeing the man but smiling. “Same. Like, literally. Grew up in LA, live in Newport Beach, and yeah, it’s a drive up here. Why don’t we head to a bar closer to Newport Beach then? Bit of a drive but then we’re a hell of a lot closer to home.”
Gabe nodded. "My thoughts exactly. Here, I know just the place. Can I see your phone? I'll type the address in."
Gabe was familiar with The Wayfarer, though another location closer to the interior hub of Los Angeles; still, this establishment looked much like its sibling. Leather-lined booths ringed the walls, tall, thin tables surrounded by stools made islands in the ocean of the restaurant's open space, and the clean line of the bar itself took up one small corner in front of the kitchen. The walls were covered with photos donated to the bar by various patrons over the years; faceless images, people grinning into the camera, landscapes. If one ever needed an ice-breaker, the walls here had loads of stories.
Once they were there, Gabe put in an order for a mojito for himself, and a double serving of their infamous avocado fries. Due to the slightly mid-week placement of their meeting, the bar was only half full, and they were able to find a spot at a table in the middle of it all.
"So, you realize that at some point I'm going to ask to see your writing." He put one hand on the table, cradling his mojito in the other as he remained standing while grinning at the other man.
Kal held up a finger, staring down at the menu for the place with obvious hunger. “Animal tots? You ever have these? I’m getting two orders beside the beer.” He already had a pint of beer sitting on the table and fully intended to get more. He looked up, his eyes bright with the future of greasy bar food so near he could smell it. “And stalk away, all my writing is online. It’s all there. But what about you? You were giving a lecture on books, right? You’re a writer too?”
"They're just a couple of things deep fried and cut to look like animals," he explained, answering Kal's earlier question. "And yeah, a screenwriter anyway. Short story and one book under my belt, hopefully working on more. Pretty much the reason why I moved down to Newport; looking for somewhere quiet to get some writing done. But I still like to get out, where I can, hence the lecture. It's not like flying down to Costa Rica," he amended, grinning, "but I just finished a US marketing tour for my autobiography, which I don't think is too bad." Gabe sipped his mojito. "Do I just go on the Nat Geo site and type in Kal Weber?"
“Kahale Weber, actually. They publish my full first name. But my instagram account is Kal Weber, underscore in the middle,” Kal replied with a laugh. “I keep being urged on different fronts to start a travel journal, which Nat Geo definitely supports, but I feel like I would be awful at keeping it up to date. And hey, you picked a pretty good place to work on a novel. Newport is pretty damn quiet. At least, my apartment is quiet. There’s a number of people who live on my floor but we have floors that are basically empty.”
Gabe's brow furrowed. "Yeah, mine too. You're not at Pax Letale, are you?"
A barking laugh escaped Kal’s lips and he gave a nod, bringing the beer to his lips and taking a good long sip. “This keeps happening,” he said with a laugh. “Meeting random people who all seem to live at the same apartment as me, and yet the place isn’t filled. Yeah, I live there and you are too, huh? Small fucking world.”
"Very," Gabe agreed. His order of avocado fries arrived, and the waitress took Kal's food order as well. Gabe waited until she was gone. "So I take it you've been there awhile? A friend of mine -- Aurora Nasseri, you know her? -- suggested the place because it's pretty empty. I'm the only one on the eighth floor, which wasn't entirely what I was expecting."
“Damn, the only one? And I don’t know her, Aurora, I’m still getting to meet the different people that are around though. I’ve been busy with moving and then work, so not as much time interacting as I’d like. I’m on the third though, the majority of the apartments are filled there but we’re definitely still not at full capacity.” He drank more of his beer thoughtfully and raised an eyebrow. “Well, I guess you got the quiet you were hoping for being alone up there.”
"That I did. But yeah, that kinda covers it for the apartment complex, unless you were in on that whole weird gift thing at the beginning of the month?" Gabe took a long sip of his mojito, his tongue catching stray drops on his lips before he spoke. "Strangest thing I've ever encountered; move into a new place and get presents, albeit I still don't know from who." He picked up an avocado fry, pointing it at Kal's direction. "Unless this is you old timer's idea of hazing the newbies. In which case... good job, I think? Because that was a pretty detailed gift." He ate the fry in one go.
“That wasn’t me. Seems everyone got random gifts from an anonymous source,” Kal replied. “No idea who sent it out. The gifts don’t necessarily make sense either. Well, not all of them. I got what seems to be a historic war club. Hawaiian made. It’d be a big deal for my family to have it, it’s a big deal I have it. What’d you get?”
"A butterfly," Gabe replied, chewing another fry before continuing. "A Blue Morpho, mounted. Which is weird, because the first screenplay I ever had adapted was called The Butterfly's Kiss, kind of my riff on the whole idea of the butterfly effect. But that was years ago; at best it only had a small cult following."
He shook his head. "Bizarre. Nearly empty apartment complex and weird gifts. I mean, I guess stuff could be worse, though, right?"
“Yeah, definitely,” Kal replied, a smile spreading across his face as the server brought the animal tots over. He thanked her and quickly plunged into the food. “I had to stay in Kaolack a year ago while I was doing a tour of the area and I slept on the dirt floor with a mosquito net over me all night. Had to piss in a pot. I’ll take weird gifts and an empty apartment complex over that. Things could definitely be worse.
“Goddamn, these are great. You want some?” He held up the basket of tots in offering, an elementary symbolic gesture of friendship.
"Not gonna lie, talking about using a hole as a toilet is not my idea of dinner conversation," Gabe replied, laughing a little as he took one that looked vaguely shaped like an elephant. When he bit into it, a deep fried dill pickle was revealed. He pushed his basket of avocado fries in Kal's direction.
"So, wait, Kaolack? I'm guessing Africa? And I'm all for traveling, but that...and no offense, but that sounds awful. Even the Holiday Inn is better than a dirt floor." He took a short sip of his drink. "What were you looking for, there?"
“Yeah, it’s in Senegal,” Kal said with a nod as he reached for an avocado fry. “We were reporting on the area. Even if it’s not a tourist destination, Nat Geo will go there. We were writing about life there and their market. Stayed with a couple people in the area. My coworker was propositioned within the first 15 minutes of going into the home she was staying in. The bathroom had no plumbing but there was a hole in the ground for your waste and the door was a slab of wood with holes in it. It wasn’t the best of situations…alas, no Holiday Inn’s anywhere nearby.”
Gabe shivered, his reaction playfully demonstrative. He stopped himself, shaking his head. "God, that sounds awful. I mean, at least in comparison to what I'm used to; it makes me feel bad for those living in that kind of situation." His eyes tracked up from the food, from the boisterous but small crowd around them, completely unaware of what life was like elsewhere in the world, at least in that moment. "How do you go do something like that, and then come back to this? It doesn't make you, I don't know, feel guilty?" His eyes landed on Kal's face, his words sincere.
“I felt guilty after the first trip like that,” Kal admitted. “People always talk about the culture shock you experience when you go abroad but they forget that it works the other way around. You can return to America and be stunned by how we live. The meal portions, the superiority, the waste. It was hard to process. But now I’m just, I don’t know, more appreciative. I’m privileged, even despite my poorer upbringing and only being half white. While I’m home, I enjoy myself. But I try to do so consciously and always keep in mind that if I lived in Senegal I wouldn’t be sitting in a bar with working toilets, sipping a beer and stuffing my face with fried goods.”
Gabe beamed, more than pleased with Kal's answer. "I can definitely toast to that," he replied, lifting his glass to tap it against Kal's. "It seems like a more positive outcome than most, anyway. Now, not to be crass with this change of topics, but you have to tell me where you're headed next, because I'm seriously in need of some vacation ideas."
“Nothing set in stone yet, but let me show you the possibilities,” Kal replied, clinking his glass to Gabe’s as his other hand reached for his phone and brought it to life. “I’ve got a list of places.”