Secret Identities

The water tower stood brooding over the cemetery in East Arcadia as if it resented what had transpired, without its permission, beneath it. Here Harley had lost his mask and his symbolic identity, and by extension, mine as well, thereby beginning our fool's errand of retrieval. And just beyond the bend of the horizon stood the skeletal remains of the Way Keepers Spiritual Center, where our odyssey had ended in an all-too-literal trial by fire. Surrounded by immutable reminders of our journey, it struck me that I had been guilty, as Harley had pointed out, of safely observing rather than taking an active part in the world around me.

Harley had accused me of bench-warming my way through life at the masque in Atlantic City.

"You gotta get out there and see the world," he said, "not just read about it."

Harley's easy smile hadn't changed since kindergarten, and we had been inseparable since. Our third grade teacher called us the Dynamic Duo, though I later thought the Odd Couple made more sense-Harley the extroverted white athlete and I the introverted black bookworm-but I had been grateful for her convenient color blindness, and for her open-minded acceptance, something sadly lacking in our classmates from the largely-white, conformist suburb of Arcadia.