The Reasons Dolores Left Tucson to Go to Kolob to Find Fox: It Was the Karma and it Was the Love

It was an accident. Or, not really. Dolores doesn’t believe in “accidents”. Or “coincidences”. Crystal Vision shows the deeper pattern, see? “Coincidence” is what the ignorant call it when two or more things happen together without them seeing that the things are interdependent. They say “coincidence” and the Crystal Vision says No, it’s not. C.V. says: These two or more things happened together because they caused each other. It’s Karma. So. And “accidents”? Same thing. Obscure Vision is all about saying It was an accident, but it wasn't. No. It happened because of Karma, which in C.V. is interdependence. Attaining C.V. is when you go, like, You are here and I am here and that is not a coincidence and you are here and I am here and you hit me and that is not an accident. That’s why she left Tucson.

It was also for this other reason, which is: Fox. So: She had this nice house she shared right north of the U of A campus. It was really nice, and her roommate was really sweet. Her roommate was this Poli Sci major and was hardly ever home because she was always studying with this guy. So Dolores had the house pretty much to herself. And there was this guy she had fallen in love with, Fox, who had left, but he had been coming here lots when her roommate was out. That is his totally patched up flannel short he left hanging on her chair there in the corner.

She also has this good job that is only three days a week doing reception at the massage and P.T. place. It iss filing and phones and showing clients in the waiting room how to do the hot water thing for tea and she does the Pandora mix and a little cleanup. It's chill. It pays her half of the rent, and her half of the food, and stuff. And, but, she also has this other source of income? Which, it is grass, "gifting it to her list of friends", which, to be honest, is how the supplier says "selling it to her list of customers". Like, for money. Which, right? She just bikes up to Campbell every Monday to this little house with palm trees in a yard with a wall and the guy with these great dolphin tats on his inner biceps, called Minoan dolphins, always gives her a hug and says Hi, gorgeous, and gives her the twenty bags in a gallon Ziploc, and he weighs each one on the scale and enters the weight in his laptop and she signs and she bikes back to her neighborhood and makes the calls and delivers and gets the money. It is so easy. She has to do the reception thing to avoid suspicion, right? But the real money is the weed. It is such a phat job. She really can make lots of money this way. It is like, another two grand a month, for, honestly? no work at all.

This is the part that was not an accident: so, one Monday she was doing her usual morning thing, which was make a big jar of tea and go back to the courtyard and get some sun. It was one of those old Tucson houses with the walled courtyard in the back, and all these yummy fruit trees around a little patio that was sunny in the mornings. Pomegranate, orange, guava, tamarind. It was this little private garden, like paradise. She would take her shirt and pants off and water the trees in her underwear, getting some sun. Sipping the tea, maybe listening to some tunes. Maybe lie on the chair and work on a Pandora mix. If her roommate was at school she would sometimes take off the panties too, to get sun down there. It felt just delicious. It also made her hot. So: that Monday she got lots of sun, and then decided to bike over to Campbell and get her supply. It was hot. She went in and checked out her tan. No lines on top, almost no lines down there. She had a great tan. Golden. So she put on some oil, and then pulled on her favorite cutoffs and a white tank top and her Chacos and tied this piece of purple 6-mil rope around her dreads to keep them from falling in her face as she rode, and she got her cash, and set aside her take, and pocketed the rest and biked over to the guy’s house.

She knocked. Three, pause, three, pause, three. She saw the shadow in the peephole, and then the guy opened the door. He smiled and said Hi, gorgeous, like always. He stood in the door, then he said Dayum, girl, you are extra gorgeous today. And she smiled and went to step in, and he didn’t stand back and then he hugged her, and then she went in and he closed the door behind her. He invited her to sit. Always it had been, like, down to business? And now he was all, like, Take a load off, dollface. Have some lemonade. Which, why not? It was hot out. So she sat with him in the kitchen. Really nice in there. It was a small house, but really nice stuff. Really neat and clean. Big flat screen. These nice silver appliances. Art. Real paintings, not just posters. She really liked the furniture, all hand-carved or something, like from Mexico, all uneven and rough and painted with bright colors. Plus he had parrots and these other tropical birds in big cages in the yard, and a fountain you could hear in the house. It was really nice and the things he had were really interesting.

So, they sat and had lemonade and he asked about her. Sort of personal, but he was really nice. She asked about him a little, too, but really, she just wanted to go but she didn’t want to look impatient or anything. Then he was like, You should come to dinner. I have this big grill. I make this vegetarian stuff on mesquite. So good. And she was like, That would be really nice. And he got up to go in the little office room for his dealing business but when he got to her end of the table he put the back of his hand on her cheek and he said it again: Dayum, girl! And then he went and got the bag and the scale and started doing his thing with the laptop. She felt pretty weird. It was not what she wanted with him. It was always all business and now it was totally shifted.

And of course C.V. says: it is not a coincidence. That does not mean it is okay. Or good, or whatevs. It just means: for good or ill, you and I here together is not a coincidence. And what will happen is not an accident. It is the Vast Web of Karma. It is everything that ever happened and even will happen playing out in the Illusion of the Here and Now.

She thought super hard to think if she could see the Vast Web and where she maybe crossed paths with the guy in the past, or in the future, out of the illusion. But she didn't know. But she felt weird. It was like it was interesting how weird she felt. In the old days it was okay if a man, like a knight or a prince or something, touched you and said You are so gorgeous, but these days those days are over. It can be totally creepy these days if a dude is like, Hi gorgeous and touches you. Maybe it’s because of porn or something. Or maybe in the old days they had valor and chivalry and now we don’t, but, anyway: creepy. Especially with an older guy like this, in this house that’s like a little Mexican museum. But she could not think of any bad Karma with the guy.

He must have noticed how nervous she was. It was probably her arms folded in front of her breasts, which she did because the white tank-top that had felt so nice on her hot skin now felt, well, pretty much transparent, what with the air conditioning blasting on her. And the cutoffs felt really tight and very short. And her legs felt very, very long. She did the breathing exercise. The mindfulness one. To be in the present moment. But she was all jangly. From the tea and sugar and now the creepiness feeling. Anyway, he must have noticed how nervous she was, ‘cause he stopped the weighing and the laptop stuff and looked up at her. He looked in a weird way. And then he went: What’s up, sister? You look all jumpy.

And she said I don’t know. Just feel weird?

He stood up and stood there looking at her and she felt like she was shrinking. He kept getting bigger or something.

Then she thought of her dreads. She pulled on the purple rope and they fell down past her shoulders. She tilted her neck forward and the big dreads fell down in front of her breasts like protection. But he took it the wrong way, the letting her hair down. He stepped up and she looked down with her arms in front of her and then there was this like bang? in her head?

Anyway, she was on the floor and he was standing over her with the scale in his hand and he was saying Oh God, oh God, it was an accident. Oh shit.

She got up and went to the door and let herself out. It was too bright. She had spots in her eyes, and little swimming stars. She went to swing her leg over the bike but she wasn't balancing right and then he was holding her arm up high really hard. Then he handed her her backpack and he started putting bags and bags of weed in it. Like ten of the gallon Ziploc bags. He just loaded it up. He was shaking really bad and she was just standing there all wobbly with the bike between her legs. Then he went in and said It was an accident. I’m so sorry, and closed the door and bolted it.

She biked home really slow. The side of her face had its own heartbeats.

Of course, in C.V. there are no accidents. So she just repeated it over and over: There are no accidents. There are no accidents. She smoked a big bowl and drank a couple beers and locked the bathroom door and took a long shower, then went to bed all stoned but still jumpy, and as she finally felt sleepy she thought: I’m so out of here. This place has bad Karma for me. And she reached to her bedside and picked up the top card and it was the Ace of Swords and she knew that her plan, which had been really foggy til now? was the answer: to go find Fox. Love is the answer. That was so clear.