Introduction
So no, this isn’t a novel. Not in the tidy sense. No arcs, no neat redemption, no moral ribbon tied to the end. This isn’t truth, or fiction, it is a journey, an adventure wrapped in surf spots, motorcycles, sex, and enough weed to kill a monster, just not this monster.
This is a map made out of ash and spilled whiskey. A collection of bruises. The stitched-together fallout of someone who once had a life, real, structured, filled with people, and chose instead to vanish just enough to stay alive.
The Loner is a fiction. But not really. It’s a reflection in a cracked mirror. It’s memory run through a typewriter soaked in surf wax and THC. It’s not therapy, but it’s close.
He moves like I wish I could. He speaks when I won’t. He fucks up more often than not. And under all that smoke, salt and sarcasm, there’s a wound that won’t close.
Maybe he’ll find something close to redemption along the way. Maybe he’ll just keep running until the road runs out.
Or maybe this whole thing’s just a long con.
Either way, you’re here now.
So light something, settle in.
And don’t trust a word he says.
Chapter One
Just another Sunday in Fuck Land
Woke up face down on a couch I didn’t recognize, in a house that smelled like bong water, incense, and regret. One of those suburban hellholes where everything’s beige except the chaos. Someone’s chihuahua was barking at me like I owed it money. I probably did.
The Loner sat up slow, spine creaking like rusted metal. Head buzzing, mouth dry. He found a half-smoked joint in his pocket, a blessing from a past life, he lit it with a gas station lighter that had a stripper silhouette on it. Classy.
The girl was gone. No note. No goodbye. Just an open box of Lucky Charms on the counter and a cracked phone charging next to a dildo. Par for the course.
Outside, the sun was too bright. One of those violent, unforgiving Southern California mornings that make you feel like God’s got a hangover and he’s taking it out on you. The ocean was a few miles away. Always close, always pulling.
He didn’t have a plan. Never did. The only goal was motion. Find coffee. Maybe a wave. Avoid cops, expectations, and anyone who wanted something he couldn’t give.
He stepped out barefoot. Shoes? Gone. Wearing last night's jeans and a T-shirt that read "EAT ACID, SEE GOD. EAT PUSSY, BE GOD." The shirt had been white once. Now it was the color of nicotine and sin.
The streets were silent except for the hum of air conditioners and the occasional lawnmower, machines trying to keep this artificial paradise from sweating through its makeup.
At the corner liquor store, he bought coffee that tasted like burnt tires. The clerk didn’t speak, just stared through him like he was a bad dream that wouldn’t end.
Flashes of the night before came back in broken pieces. A house party. Maybe in Laguna. Maybe Costa Mesa. Tequila shots, a girl with a snake tattoo, someone talking about Nietzsche and skateboarding in the same breath. He’d laughed too hard and too long, kissed someone he didn’t know, probably pissed someone off. He was good at that.
The board was still in the van. That rustbucket he drove when he wasn't riding trains or thumbing his way up the coast. He pulled it out, waxed it lazily, and headed toward the water.
The beach wasn’t crowded yet. Just a few early risers, old men with sun-leathered skin, kids pretending they weren’t afraid of the waves. He paddled out past the break, let the world go quiet. Out there, the bullshit faded.
That’s where he remembered her name. Maybe. Cassidy. Or Cassie. Or maybe that was a lie he told himself so he wouldn’t forget how she smelled.
After an hour, maybe more, he dragged himself out of the water, skin tingling from salt and sun. He lay in the sand, staring at the sky, waiting for something that wouldn’t come.
He thought about calling someone. Didn’t.
He thought about writing something down. Didn’t.
Instead, he pulled a joint out, lit it, exhaled slow.
Just another Sunday in Fuck Land.
And the world kept turning like it didn’t even notice he was there.
Later he sat in the back of the van, legs hanging out over the bumper, smoking the joint down to its last desperate ember. His eyes wandered to the pile of clothes and gear half-shoved into the corners. Under a tarp and a ragged Mexican blanket, the café racer waited.
It wasn’t pretty. Matte black paint scabbed from salt and sand, a dent in the tank that looked like it had been kicked by God himself, and the grips were duct-taped into place. But it was his. It was always his.
He rolled the van's door back and dragged the bike out with the kind of care you only give to something that tries to kill you now and then. Tires low, chain slack, but he knew it would go if he asked nicely enough. Everything in his life did, eventually.
He checked the tank. Half full. Close enough. Flipped the choke, kicked it once, nothing. Twice, still dead. Third time, a cough. Fourth, life. The engine growled awake like it was pissed to be conscious. Same.
Helmet? Nah. He kicked it aside. Grabbed his sunglasses, slid them on, and throttled into the street like it owed him something.
The wind hit his face like a reset button. Streets blurred past, palms waving their useless approval. He took the long way to nowhere, gunning it through dead stretches of town, past shuttered gas stations and half-remembered bars. This was the religion. This was the sermon. Two wheels, open throttle, and no goddamn destination.
He wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t planning. He was just moving.
And that was enough. For now.
The longer he rode, the quieter the world got. The thrum of the engine became background noise, like the beat of a heart he barely trusted. And that's when the thoughts crept in. Not loud. Just there.
He’d had a wife once. Two daughters. Real people. Real laughs. Real love. He could still hear their voices if the wind was right, if the weed didn’t hit too hard.
But the story ended somewhere back there, not in a blaze, not in a breakdown, just in the slow, quiet rot of too much distance and not enough truth. He wasn’t cruel. He just disappeared in place. Stopped showing up to his own life.
He wondered sometimes if they hated him. If they remembered the man before the unraveling. He hoped they didn’t. He wasn’t proud of who he became. Not really.
But hell, he wasn’t sorry either. Not enough to fix it. Not enough to go back. He figured that made him a bastard with a soul, or a mother fucker without one.
He rode harder.
The highway stretched like an open wound in front of him, and he opened the throttle until the engine screamed, until the road blurred, until his thoughts couldn't keep up.
That was the trick.
Outrun the memory. Out ride the guilt. Stay just ahead of the heartbreak.
The Loner didn’t know where he was going.
He just knew he couldn’t go back.