How you ever thought about what it’s like to live on Mars?
Well….this is a story of what it’s like to live on Mars. Personally, I have never been to Mars. And really don’t see myself ever living on Mars but I did run into someone from Mars one afternoon many moons ago. I’ve spent the last six hours in the belly of a naval vessel. I was a journalist in the Navy at the time. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and it was time to head to the horizon. In the Navy that meant it’s time to go home. If you’ve ever been to San Diego during the summer, well it was a typical summer day with a cool breeze swirling all around and the sun was singing gospel rays that spread throughout the entire city. Not a soul dead or alive was ever mad or angry in San Diego. San Diego is God’s country. While inside the belly of the beast I didn’t bother changing clothes on the boat. My only purpose on this mission was to get off the boat as fast as possible. I didn’t want to burn anymore daylight as the sun was calling my name like a siren and the beach only blocks away was crashing my conscious repeatedly with high tide currents.
“Phillip. Phillip. Come on Phillip. We’re waiting on you, dude.”
As the rip currents drew me out of my office I knew it was doubled time hour to the quarter deck, so I rushed outside and stepped up to the officer of the deck. I raised my right hand and saluted the officer with a, “permission to go ashore.”
The officer saluted, “permission granted.”
Again I doubled time, this time I was running off the pier heading to the bus stop. Most times I took the bus from the base and headed home. I’m not really trying to save the planet, it’s just I don’t have a car. Today, I got lucky and caught the bus right on time. And as usual I found myself at the back of the bus. This was where I did a quick change of my clothes from my dungarees and into my civies (civilian clothes) because for one, we are not permitted to ware are dungarees out in the city, and two, there was no one else on the bus to pass judgement besides the bus driver. And since the bus driver had been the same driver for years he already was accustomed to my wardrobe changes. Perhaps, I could have asked for a ride but asking people for rides wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t a pride thing, it’s just I was more down for the adventure flyin’ solo than speeding through the inner city life as a passenger and missing out on all the good things the metro bus had to offer.
The bus droped me off at the corner of Garnett and Pacific Beach Drive. I lived in the heart of the Pacific Beach community. Right across the street from where the bus droped me off at was my spot, my favorite place of all of San Diego. Every day I strolled into the beer store called Home Base, which was right on the beach and grabbed me a cold one, most times the beer was a Steinlager pint. And every day at my spot was this homeless dude, Sloppy Joe. Sloppy Joe was infamous and popular around these parts. And had been popularly known for the better part of twenty-five years in the Pacfic Beach community. The spot I most frequented was a gospel spot full of angels in biknis and homeless beach bums with six pack abs. No matter the time of the year there was always a cool breeze praising the great wide open beach. And yes, there were pretty girls on roller skates or pretty girls walking their dog too. But what made my spot even more attractive was Sloppy Joe.
He always had something to talk about. In the amount of time I have known him I never did ask why the community called him Sloppy Joe. It could have been his sloppy, smelly beard with food crumbs. Or his dingy, dirty coveralls that smelled like sardines. Sloppy Joe was not only good for conversation but he always had a joint on him at all times. I tried really hard most days to not smoke, mostly because I was in the Navy and as you know I could have gotten myself into trouble if and when I got caught with drugs in my system. But every once in a while those “California Dreamin” days made a perfect setting for a toke. Today was one of those days too. It was Friday and I had a damn thing to do tomorrow. I plotted myself as always next to Sloppy Joe. And took a swig of my beer.
“So…what’s it like Sloppy Joe?”
He cleared his throat. “Well, you know. Another day in paradise.”
“You got that right, Sloppy Joe.” I paused to stare out toward the horizon. Not my apartment but the real horizon of the ocean. “This is paradise, Sloppy Joe.”
He looked over at me with his grizzly beard and his blood shot eyes. “Did I ever tell you about the story of when I lived on Mars?”
“A story about Mars? That will be a first one, Sloppy Joe.”
“Many moons ago, Phillip, I once lived on Mars. There was a whole colony of us livin’ up on Mars. Mars was no place for strange dudes. They didn’t like strange dudes up on Mars.”
“Ever lived on Mars, Phillip?”
“I don’t think so.”
“The scientist had this oxygen machine called the flex capacitor.”
“Oh, like in the movie “Back to the Future?”
He cleared his throat again. “Never seen it.” He cleared his throat again, “these machines produced oxygen to sustain life on Mars. The colony was a small colony with about two-hundred people: mostly men, women, and children. Some of us had cats and dogs and sometimes both. I didn’t have a cat or a dog, but I did have my woman and my daughter.”
“I never knew you were married.”
“Oh…I never said I was married. I said my woman.”
“My woman’s name was Margaret Claire, as in Claire cosmetics. And my daughter her name was Unique, as in unique. My daughter loved the beach.”
“I didn’t know Mars had a beach.”
“It doesn’t. But we had gotten her these virtual glasses from the scientists, and these glasses made it seemed like you were at the beach any time you wanted to be by the beach.” He paused to pass over the cigarette to me. “Man, she loved to go surfing too.
Everyday she would put on those glasses as soon as she got home from school. If she brought home good grades she could go surfing all day for all we cared. My woman, Margaret Claire, as in Claire cosmetics, she loved to go fishing. You see, Phillip, Mars doesn’t have any kind of body of water. So a lot of folks pretended there was water activities with those virtual glasses. The glasses were a means to an escape. And I suppose, those darn glasses was why we had some marital problems on Mars. She was gone fishing all the time: at work, at the dinner table, and a lot of times during sex. Even during sex she wore those fishing glasses….. Am I boring you, Phillip?”
“Not at all, Sloppy Joe. Go ahead.”
Sloppy Joe continued, “Mars was full of weird people. Well, they all weren’t weird. They were vegetarians. Everybody on Mars was vegetarian including my family. I hated it. I’m an Angus beef hamburger lovin’ man. Being vegetarian was part of the contract so I was forced to convert. Everybody had to be vegetarians by law. I guess it had something to do with being on Mars.”
“How did everyone get around town on Mars?” I asked.
“We mostly walked. We couldn’t have cars or public transportation.” He paused to exhale. “We had to walk to stay fit. It was part of the contract.”
“It never rained on Mars. I missed the thunder storms of the Midwest and chasing tornadoes around in my Jetta. But we did have sand storms. Vicious ones too. The sand storms on Mars made Mother Teresa look like Nancy Grace. What was cool about Mars, also, was that there was never a terrorist threat. But there were the Indian Burn Taliban. These so-called terrorists would sneak up behind you, grab your wrist, and proceed to give you Indian Burns until you couldn’t handle it anymore. Most times a five dollar bill would make them go away. Other times they just wanted to hear you say, “Peace Be with You.”
“Peace Be With You?” I paused. “That’s it. That is all they would do?”
Sloppy Joe exhaled. “Yup….strange dudes. You know, Mars didn’t have homeless people up there. The government wouldn’t allow it. Mars also had universal health care. It’s a different universe up there. Strange dudes, I tell ya.”
“Can you see Earth from Mars, Sloppy Joe?”
Sloppy Joe took his eyes off of me, and looked up at the clear blue sky. You can tell he was reminiscing about his time up on Mars. I bet he could see Mars right now.
“Na, you can’t see Mars from Earth.” He swiped his hair over to the other side of his face. “You can’t and you won’t see Mars unless you’ve been up there. Nobody understands.”
I looked away for a second to glance over at the vibrant breaks of the ocean. If only I was here with Big Mike, he and I would have brought our surfboards, but Big Mike is gone for at least six months. His boat had to go on an extended deployment. And as I reminiced the strangest sound waved through the wind next to me. I heard crying.
“I miss my family.” Sloppy Joe cried. “Up there I was somebody. Here I’m nobody. I see how they look at me.”
“Where is your family, Sloppy Joe?” I exhaled.
“They’re definitely not close by.” He looked up at the sky again. “I remember a time when everything was so easy. Watching my woman and my daughter having fun on the swings was all I wanted. That was my paycheck. My vacation. My happiness. Then one day I had to come back down to Earth for work. A special project that my company assigned me up for. It had something to do with purifying water.”
The more he talked about it, the more he cried. I’ve never seen Sloppy Joe cry before. I didn’t think he could.
Then he started singing, “Love, love will tear us apart.” Each time he sang, he cried.
He looked back at me. “I’m sorry. That shit lets you know sometimes.” He cried wiping away his tears.
“Dude. Let it out, Sloppy Joe.”
“I was only supposed to be gone for a month or two at the most. Two months had turned into five. Then seven months went by. It was after nine months when my wife and my daughter stopped writing me. They even stopped calling, too. They wouldn’t answer my phone calls. I became a wreck. I started drinking. I was drinking on the job, drinking on my lunch breaks. I got fired. My company wouldn’t pay for me to get back to Mars to be with my woman and daughter. I was out of money. Not only was I desperate but I was lonely.”
“Damn, Sloppy Joe.” I exhaled.
“I know, Phillip. I was lost.” He looked out past the horizon. “Some years later I remember, I was over at Kirby’s Coffee up on Mission when Kirby handed me a letter from Mars.”
“Good luck.” Kirby said.
“I spun around off the chair and headed to the Crystal Pier. The letter ended up being from by daughter, Unique. She was twenty-two already and about to graduate from Mars Tech. It’s a great school. She talked about her good boyfriend, Harley. I couldn’t hold back the tears, Phillip. The worst part of it was when she talked about my woman, Margaret Claire.” Sloppy Joe took a big deep breath. “Apparently she remarried with my former boss a year later after I had left to Earth.” Suddenly Sloppy Joe stood up.
“Stand up with me.” Joe said pulling on my shirt.
I dusted off the sticky sand off my hands and stood next to Sloppy Joe.
“You see that out there.” He pointed out. “That right there is the horizon. That’s the ocean, and behind us is the boardwalk. That’s a pretty girl right over there on the roller skates.” He paused. “All this is going to be gone: people, buildings, oceans, mountains, you name it, gone. Whatever or whoever is left is going to be shipped to Mars.”
I was a little bit confused. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. There was a time when Earth knew how to love. A time when people knew how to love. Nothing on Earth knows how to love anymore. I’ve forgotten how to love many moons ago. All we know how to do is drill and pollute. Pollute and war.”
“That can’t be true. Look over there.” I pointed at a pretty little girl feeding a seagull. “Look over there.” Just pass one of the breaks was a dude and his chick making out on their surfboards. As he stared out toward the horizon, I scanned around the beach for something he couldn’t see on Mars. “A Sloppy Joe, check that out over there”.. I said pointing out at the beach showers. “I bet you won’t see that on Mars”.
“WOW”. Sloppy Joe exhaled.
Over at the beach showers was this homeless dude naked taking a shower and wearing a shower cap.
“I guess there are some things to live for here on Earth.”
“You got that right, Sloppy Joe.” I paused. “I understand that on Mars you had something to hold on to, and was a somebody but here on Earth in San Diego, you’re a legend, Sloppy Joe. A living legend.”
Sloppy Joe placed his arm around me. I started thinking maybe I made a difference in his life today. I was feeling kinda good about myself, until his stench started to make me gag. He had a smile on his face and he stopped crying. He scanned over to me and leaned into my ear.
“You got five bucks.”
