Strolling across the immaculate campus at BYU on any given day Leah could spot four score or more fair-skinned golden-haired young women, like herself. Men folk included a few darker hued individuals with course crow-black hair, possibly Utes on scholarship. Once she joked about the inclusion of Lamanites, following the Civil Rights Movement. Word got back to the bishop of her ward and she was roundly scolded. Never make light of scripture, he fumed.
Pooh!
Leah skipped going to the Aces And Eights this day. She dropped by the Pigs Flying bike shop where Artie spent his nine-to-five. Dirty Bob paid him fifteen dollars a day to straighten out the attic parts storage. No tax forms, No going to OSHA for anything. Just money from fist to fist. The beer-bellied treetrunk-chested old Renegade had a soft spot for bikers down on their luck. He sold parts to Artie wholesale and allowed Artie use of the machine shop.
"Hi," Leah greeted Dirty Bob, sitting at a greasy desk next to the Pepsi vendor.
"Well hello, Sunshine."
"Where's my Man?"
"Upstairs sweating his balls off."
"Oh, my."
*
The Indian gleamed, it rumbled like a jungle cat.
"When are you going to take me for a ride."
Artie grinned with pride. "How about tomorrow?"
They were drinking Pepsis.
"How are you doing here?" Leah asked.
"Great. I'm fixed pretty good. A bunk, hot-plate. Crapper. Dirty Bob is a swell dude."
"It's so hot up there."
"Not at night. Got me a lttle fan."
Leah gushed into tears and hugged him. Artie squeezed her hand and said, "You best be shoving off. I'll come by your place tonight."
"I love you, Artie."
"Oh gosh--"
The sky above Monument Valley was a sheer dome of ice crystals the color of turnpike bluebonnets. High on a windy mesa, Leah smoked her first joint. Medicinal, of course. There was a little pain. She used Uncle Nathan's Vietnam Zippo. He watched her inhale. She made a comical cross-eyed face and he erupted with his cleanest laughter in years. Like Chinese rockets and gongs.
"You are such a sport." He grinned supremely.
"Not a Bozo?"
"Not a Bozo."
This costly goldbud, air-freighted from Durango, took her jumbled thoughts and, like God's rolling-pin, it flattened them into a crazy quilt cookie dough.
"Oh, Uncle Nathan. What am I going to do?"
Sunday, April 24, 2011
salt in the wound 1
On the morning of her twenty-first Summer Solstice Leah Cartwright commenced an untimely issue of blood. She was out on Antelope Island, sitting crosslegged some distance from the others, when the floodgate opened. Instinctively she strode fully clothed (bluejeans, calico blouse, canvas shoes) into the Great Salt Lake. Waders from the nearby state park frolicked in patty-splash coveys. She smiled hello to an elder from her Church stake in Bountiful and progressed into deeper waters.
With each step she retreated into a pleasant compartment of her mind. A false memory of blissful childhood. She could hear herself singing from far away: "The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning."
Salt seeped into her and she felt a divine cleansing.
Jesus met her half way. His hair was snow white.
She understood stigmata. This was not stigmata. Nor was it an aberration of menses. No doctor was needed to confirm what she already knew. And whenever the blood frightened her, Jesus would place His hand into her core.
*
Her Uncle Nathan was holding court at the Aces And Eights bar downtown.
A spiritual nomad, he gloried in apostacy.
Friends called him Azul because his eyes glittered like gemstones. Gaunt, with all flesh burnt away, his body resembled desert greasewood.
Today he was wearing his "boony-rat" floppy hat as a badge of something. Blithely spending his VA disability check on Slim Jims, Vienna Sausages and Olympia beer, he was a certified barfly.
Rays of the three o'clock sun were streaming like gold sluice down the concrete canyon outside. Office windows blank as Little Orphan Annie's eyeballs radiated the heat of a blast furnace. The sidewalk in front of the bar could vulcanize the rubber from a pair of gym shoes.
Yet the barroom was dark as a planetarium. Velvety coolness kept a man alive.
Uncle Nathan had been pontificating to a buzzcut punk, pierced and tatted like a South Seas cannibal: "I know where you're coming from, lad. This is a divided city. With a place for Saints and a place for Dark Ones."
"Yup." The youth nodded and departed. "S'long, dude."
That left Uncle Nathan with no one of substance to talk to. A biscuit-eared geezer sat three stools away, absorbed in a Las Vegas gaming tabloid.
"Reminds me of the Second International," Uncle Nathan said loudly. "The Moscow Trials."
The barman rolled his eyes and uncapped a Coors.
Uncle Nathan droned on. "The way those BYU professors are being purged. Yessir. It's a darkness at noon, if ya get me. The bright boys are escorted from their classrooms by Church goons in suits and taken to a secret basement and shot in the head."
"Thas turrible," said the geezer. Eyes not leaving his page.
*
A glare intruded upon the barroom. It's transit told time as accurately as a sundial.
Leah would be coming by soon. This he dearly anticipated. She read and interpreted scripture for herself. Yet she never testified, never confided personal truths, for these were treasures of the soul.
To only one person would she confess her sins of prophesy.
Uncle Nathan. Free thinker.
With each step she retreated into a pleasant compartment of her mind. A false memory of blissful childhood. She could hear herself singing from far away: "The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning."
Salt seeped into her and she felt a divine cleansing.
Jesus met her half way. His hair was snow white.
She understood stigmata. This was not stigmata. Nor was it an aberration of menses. No doctor was needed to confirm what she already knew. And whenever the blood frightened her, Jesus would place His hand into her core.
*
Her Uncle Nathan was holding court at the Aces And Eights bar downtown.
A spiritual nomad, he gloried in apostacy.
Friends called him Azul because his eyes glittered like gemstones. Gaunt, with all flesh burnt away, his body resembled desert greasewood.
Today he was wearing his "boony-rat" floppy hat as a badge of something. Blithely spending his VA disability check on Slim Jims, Vienna Sausages and Olympia beer, he was a certified barfly.
Rays of the three o'clock sun were streaming like gold sluice down the concrete canyon outside. Office windows blank as Little Orphan Annie's eyeballs radiated the heat of a blast furnace. The sidewalk in front of the bar could vulcanize the rubber from a pair of gym shoes.
Yet the barroom was dark as a planetarium. Velvety coolness kept a man alive.
Uncle Nathan had been pontificating to a buzzcut punk, pierced and tatted like a South Seas cannibal: "I know where you're coming from, lad. This is a divided city. With a place for Saints and a place for Dark Ones."
"Yup." The youth nodded and departed. "S'long, dude."
That left Uncle Nathan with no one of substance to talk to. A biscuit-eared geezer sat three stools away, absorbed in a Las Vegas gaming tabloid.
"Reminds me of the Second International," Uncle Nathan said loudly. "The Moscow Trials."
The barman rolled his eyes and uncapped a Coors.
Uncle Nathan droned on. "The way those BYU professors are being purged. Yessir. It's a darkness at noon, if ya get me. The bright boys are escorted from their classrooms by Church goons in suits and taken to a secret basement and shot in the head."
"Thas turrible," said the geezer. Eyes not leaving his page.
*
A glare intruded upon the barroom. It's transit told time as accurately as a sundial.
Leah would be coming by soon. This he dearly anticipated. She read and interpreted scripture for herself. Yet she never testified, never confided personal truths, for these were treasures of the soul.
To only one person would she confess her sins of prophesy.
Uncle Nathan. Free thinker.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
artie 2
The Indian was dying. It gasped and wheezed like a TB patient in a New Mexico sanitarium. Artie had been determined to cross over the Sierras before snowfall. Like the Donner Party. Yet a mindful lethargy was slowing all progress.
As the sun sank beyond the purple Divide he wheeled through a melange of juniper and pinion, climbing toward the Pleiades.
He pitched camp upon a ledge several thousand feet above the sandy escarpment. As more stars appeared, the firmament pressed down upon him. Gazing into the Great Spiral he felt a mild vertigo. He feared the breaking of tether and whirling off into deep space.
A wind imp stole a handful of sparks from his campfire.
Artie watched them swirl away, just as an owl called out one of God's many names.
*
In case of rain he had a neoprine igloo. For warmth he had a sleeping bag.
For a while he subsisted on boxed raisons and canned nuts.
He read his William Cullen Bryant. And Walt Whitman too.
Two witchy days passed without a desire to move. The spell Endor had put on him was stronger now. He had not fled far enough from that enchanted hollow and the thing that dwelled there.
*
Downhill, a stone chalice collected crystal water from an underground rill. This was Eden.
First the booze and pills gave out. Then the food.
Not to worry. I will fast for forty days and become purified.
Each day as he went down to drink he felt increasingly light-headed. Strength ebbed as the sun rose to its zenith. Nights were spent howling into the bonfire. A vision grew lucid and he began seeing a woman tied to a stake amid a roaring holocaust. Her comely hair singed away. Blisters burst with blood. As her face blackened with char he recognized the archetype.
Morning would find him curled like a fetus, his bluejeans greasy from slumber in ashes and dew.
*
Voices were coming up the trail. Laughing like snow-melt streams.
The first one had a soft furry rasp. "Oh, yes, in the desert air at night you can see for miles. I remember driving south toward the Chisos Mountains in Texas. A light began shining ahead like the Christmas Star on high. A half hour and ten or fifteen miles later, I arrived where the road had risen a thousand or more feet. Guess what I found."
"A spacecraft from Area 51." The second one had a lilting choir-girl giggle.
"No, silly! It was a Coke machine."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. That tiny fluorescent tube had shown me the way."
Artie opened his eyes and saw two golden-haired angels in hiking boots.
He heard the choir-girl say: Oh, look! There's a man on the ground."
"Must be hurt," replied the one who was called Leah.
"I'm all right," groaned Artie, smelling of starvation.
As the sun sank beyond the purple Divide he wheeled through a melange of juniper and pinion, climbing toward the Pleiades.
He pitched camp upon a ledge several thousand feet above the sandy escarpment. As more stars appeared, the firmament pressed down upon him. Gazing into the Great Spiral he felt a mild vertigo. He feared the breaking of tether and whirling off into deep space.
A wind imp stole a handful of sparks from his campfire.
Artie watched them swirl away, just as an owl called out one of God's many names.
*
In case of rain he had a neoprine igloo. For warmth he had a sleeping bag.
For a while he subsisted on boxed raisons and canned nuts.
He read his William Cullen Bryant. And Walt Whitman too.
Two witchy days passed without a desire to move. The spell Endor had put on him was stronger now. He had not fled far enough from that enchanted hollow and the thing that dwelled there.
*
Downhill, a stone chalice collected crystal water from an underground rill. This was Eden.
First the booze and pills gave out. Then the food.
Not to worry. I will fast for forty days and become purified.
Each day as he went down to drink he felt increasingly light-headed. Strength ebbed as the sun rose to its zenith. Nights were spent howling into the bonfire. A vision grew lucid and he began seeing a woman tied to a stake amid a roaring holocaust. Her comely hair singed away. Blisters burst with blood. As her face blackened with char he recognized the archetype.
Morning would find him curled like a fetus, his bluejeans greasy from slumber in ashes and dew.
*
Voices were coming up the trail. Laughing like snow-melt streams.
The first one had a soft furry rasp. "Oh, yes, in the desert air at night you can see for miles. I remember driving south toward the Chisos Mountains in Texas. A light began shining ahead like the Christmas Star on high. A half hour and ten or fifteen miles later, I arrived where the road had risen a thousand or more feet. Guess what I found."
"A spacecraft from Area 51." The second one had a lilting choir-girl giggle.
"No, silly! It was a Coke machine."
"You're kidding."
"No, I'm not. That tiny fluorescent tube had shown me the way."
Artie opened his eyes and saw two golden-haired angels in hiking boots.
He heard the choir-girl say: Oh, look! There's a man on the ground."
"Must be hurt," replied the one who was called Leah.
"I'm all right," groaned Artie, smelling of starvation.
Friday, April 22, 2011
artie 1
As soon as October rolled around Artie's mother began asking if he was still planning to perform a mikvah on the eve of Yom Kippur. In her mind the purification rite was obligatory. Artie replied: "Yes, Momma. But listen to this. I am going to perform it outdoors!"
"That's crazy. You'll catch your death with cold."
"Nah."
"Might I ask where?"
"Somewhere up the Hudson."
"Oy, veh."
His heart still felt like roadkill. Solange had hinted many times that she was not satisfied, and now she was gone. He realized now how thick-headed he had been. Once she suggested they visit Times Square for a night of porno. He did not understand then. Now he understood, woefully too late.
*
His idea was to commune with Nature.
Most Jews immersed themselves indoors. He was obsessed with finding a place much like that pictured in the 1849 painting "Kindred Spirits" by Asher Durand. The poet William Cullen Bryant stood upon a stone shelf above a waterfall in the midst of primeval forest. The vista of pristine America showed the romance of the age.
Artie had seen a rendering of it on a page devoted to the poem "Thanatopsis." Both the art and the poem had resonated within him since the Tenth Grade.
I want to immerse myself in Nature. The Nature of William Cullen Bryant and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I want to sing my Niggun loud!
*
On the way to the place chosen for his mikvah Artie rode beneath the boughs of a splendid sycamore. A crude sign was nailed to the trunk. The rustic calligrapher had woodburned an iconic finger beneath the word ENDOR. Intrigued, Artie resolved to explore the matter upon his return.
*
It was late afternoon when he halted his 1953 80cc Indian safely off the road. The geezer bike had belonged to his late uncle Izzy, who maintained it religiously and stored it in a dark private garage. Whenever Artie took off on it he heard Steppenwolf. He parked it in a blind behind the sycamore. A faint woodland trace led from there into a purple and gold forest said to be haunted by whistling spirits of the old Knickerbockers.
He had walked a hundred yards when he heard a raucous chittering above his head. Two frenzied squirrels were zigzagging up the trunk of a tall elm. Whisking out to the end of a single branch. Like a Stukka bomber, the hawk came diving. It snatched up the screaming male and climbed with mighty strokes into the forest canopy.
Artie's mind, filled with thoughts of Goethe and Emerson and Thoreau and Transcendental Bliss, was horribly awakened. Nature's guise fell away and for a brief moment Artie beheld a portion of the world shed of Glamour. Then, like a spider, Maya, the Hindu goddess of Nature, spun a stitch to repair the worldwide web of illusion.
*
He passed through a coppice of newgrowth chestnut. Rough symmetry belied a planter's hand. From the heart of this matrix a footpath led forth into a smokey hollow. Nestled in the shade of a great oak, the cabin grew like an enormous mushroom. Squat and mottled, with blond timber seemingly blotched with burgundy wine, it commanded the crest of a bald hillock, furrowed for legumes, carrots and Queen Anne's lace. Off to one side stood the white lattice of a concord grape arbor. Smoke curled from a fieldstone chimney.
Artie knew the tale of King Saul and the witch who conjured forth the ghost of Samuel the Prophet.
He pictured a dusky copper-eyed woman garbed in a leopard pelt apron and a mauve tunic open to bare her right breast.
A breeze coiled among the beech boughs.
Suddenly a wicker ewer skittered across the lawn, issuing a riot of scarlet ribbons. A jack-o-lantern carved from a humongous turnip strung from a porch rafter grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
Already the enchantment had begun.
"That's crazy. You'll catch your death with cold."
"Nah."
"Might I ask where?"
"Somewhere up the Hudson."
"Oy, veh."
His heart still felt like roadkill. Solange had hinted many times that she was not satisfied, and now she was gone. He realized now how thick-headed he had been. Once she suggested they visit Times Square for a night of porno. He did not understand then. Now he understood, woefully too late.
*
His idea was to commune with Nature.
Most Jews immersed themselves indoors. He was obsessed with finding a place much like that pictured in the 1849 painting "Kindred Spirits" by Asher Durand. The poet William Cullen Bryant stood upon a stone shelf above a waterfall in the midst of primeval forest. The vista of pristine America showed the romance of the age.
Artie had seen a rendering of it on a page devoted to the poem "Thanatopsis." Both the art and the poem had resonated within him since the Tenth Grade.
I want to immerse myself in Nature. The Nature of William Cullen Bryant and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I want to sing my Niggun loud!
*
On the way to the place chosen for his mikvah Artie rode beneath the boughs of a splendid sycamore. A crude sign was nailed to the trunk. The rustic calligrapher had woodburned an iconic finger beneath the word ENDOR. Intrigued, Artie resolved to explore the matter upon his return.
*
It was late afternoon when he halted his 1953 80cc Indian safely off the road. The geezer bike had belonged to his late uncle Izzy, who maintained it religiously and stored it in a dark private garage. Whenever Artie took off on it he heard Steppenwolf. He parked it in a blind behind the sycamore. A faint woodland trace led from there into a purple and gold forest said to be haunted by whistling spirits of the old Knickerbockers.
He had walked a hundred yards when he heard a raucous chittering above his head. Two frenzied squirrels were zigzagging up the trunk of a tall elm. Whisking out to the end of a single branch. Like a Stukka bomber, the hawk came diving. It snatched up the screaming male and climbed with mighty strokes into the forest canopy.
Artie's mind, filled with thoughts of Goethe and Emerson and Thoreau and Transcendental Bliss, was horribly awakened. Nature's guise fell away and for a brief moment Artie beheld a portion of the world shed of Glamour. Then, like a spider, Maya, the Hindu goddess of Nature, spun a stitch to repair the worldwide web of illusion.
*
He passed through a coppice of newgrowth chestnut. Rough symmetry belied a planter's hand. From the heart of this matrix a footpath led forth into a smokey hollow. Nestled in the shade of a great oak, the cabin grew like an enormous mushroom. Squat and mottled, with blond timber seemingly blotched with burgundy wine, it commanded the crest of a bald hillock, furrowed for legumes, carrots and Queen Anne's lace. Off to one side stood the white lattice of a concord grape arbor. Smoke curled from a fieldstone chimney.
Artie knew the tale of King Saul and the witch who conjured forth the ghost of Samuel the Prophet.
He pictured a dusky copper-eyed woman garbed in a leopard pelt apron and a mauve tunic open to bare her right breast.
A breeze coiled among the beech boughs.
Suddenly a wicker ewer skittered across the lawn, issuing a riot of scarlet ribbons. A jack-o-lantern carved from a humongous turnip strung from a porch rafter grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
Already the enchantment had begun.
Monday, April 18, 2011
k'lid k'iyass
No white man was certain of its age.
The K'lid K'iass had been revered among the Haida people for generations. It was a Sitka spruce devoid of chlorophyll, hence its boughs of gold. Believed to be the only one of its kind in the forest, the Old Tree was a thing of divine mystery. So the elders taught.
Its spirit resided in all of them. Sacred in thought, word, and deed.
Then one night someone murdered it.
Word of the crime reached Lotus Land school. Artie heard one story.
A crazed jobless logger motored his outboard toward tribal land. His mind seethed with hatred for all things Eco Green. Fuck the Indians, fuck the Hippies, fuck the Communists, and fuck the RCMP in their Smokey Bear hats! He beached upon the island and stole into the woods. Within a few hours the K'lid K'iass had been cut down.
On the way back he polished off a pint of Canadian Mist and tossed the bottle into the ebon waters, all the while shouting obscenties to the dark moon.
*
Kelly found him shirtless and shoeless, weeping upon the Emerald Lea.
"Mister Artie, please. Please be all right."
His soul had been sundered with the force of a well-tempered axe. He sobbed, "Oh, my poor Haida."
(Ironically, the Haida had for ages been a scourge from the primeval Queen Charlotte Islands. Slave traders whose Viking-swift raids ranged from California to Asia, they were by no means pitied by less aggresive tribes in British Columbia.)
Artie's lean rugged body reminded Kelly of aspen logs, white with odd blemishes. She wondered if he bruised easily.
Supine with an arm draped across his face, he grieved, unaware of her presence. She placed a small simian hand upon his left nipple. Smooth and flat as river stones his chest galvanized at her touch.
"Kelly. Dear Kelly."
His eyes were whirlpools of uncertainty and they frightened her.
Tugging mightily, she brought him to his feet. After a deep breath he said, "I'm all right."
Once again he stood as her stalwart defender. Her teacher.
Yet he smiled painfully as his spirit hemorraged. Gazing upon her through lidded eyes he appeared to her like dying Lord Jesus in a Russian Icon. Dew glistened in his monkish beard.
She led him by the hand toward his domicile, with its little square Tibetan prayer flags.
*
Kelly sat crosslegged on his futon. "So this where you crash."
He handed her a mug of hot cider. The alcohol caused her to wrinkle her elfin nose. Suddenly she bolted up and began touring his private room, touching mementos and scrutinizing each and every photograph.
"Who is this woman?"
"Someone from long ago. When I worked at the Whitney. We both loved art, and we were quite close."
"What happened?"
"She went back to France."
"Why?"
Kelly could be persistant as a child. With a sigh he surrendered the truth. "For a while we were lovers. Then she grew bored."
*
"Ooh, this you?" Pointing at a snapshot of Schwartzbart.
"Ho ho. Yeah, that's me. I was a Sikh."
"You were sick?"
Did he really wish to explain it all?
About Kirpal Singh. Naam. The Ruhani Satsang. And the day the Master visited New York.
Passing with entourage, Master Singh glanced into the crowd of selects and captured Artie's
eyes in a divine moment. A darshan. It healed mind and soul. Inexplicable.
"What about some coffee?" Artie hoped to redirect Kelly from his past lives.
"Just had cider."
"Oh, that's right."
She picked up the can of Chock-Full-Of-Nuts. "Look, it still shows the World Trade Center."
*
A lone cicada whirred beneath a sylvan moon.
Artie sat on the verandah in a hickory rocking chair. His thoughts drifted aloft like faceless seraphim.
Kelly Alabama sat beside him like a Kickapoo hausfrau. Crosslegged upon the planking.
What more could he ask for?
*
Then God explained to Artie exactly what had happened.
There was this college boy on summer furlough. His job was to climb a tree and saw off its top. After the boughs fell crashing to the forest floor, he surveyed things from his perch.
An axe man below shook his head and muttered, "Damn dreamy chucklehead is gonna get one of us killed."
One day it occured to the dreamy college boy that a fresh clearing resembled the epicenter of that meteor strike in Siberia.
A Pauline conversion took place.
With a Pentacostal flame burning within his skull, he walked off the job. His mission: save the woodlands of Britsh Columbia.
And his name now was Elijah Hazzard.
His vision was true.
The Golden Spruce was everybody's pet plant. A mutant tree. Sacred now as the cow in India. Not to be touched. Thus it would be the perfect sacrifice. Slain upon the altar of environmental conservation. Its death would ignite a firestorm of outrage. The logging industry would finally reap the whirlwind!
Ottersplash. Elijah Hazzard slipped into the cold water and left the boat at anchor. He abided the cold shock to his system. Even in a wetsuit his genitals shrank into absentia. He swam toward the island. Bound in a watertight black plastic sheath was a lightweight chainsaw, strapped to his back like a broadsword.
He cut the tree badly, but did not saw through it.
Mortally wounded, the K'lid K'iyass fell three days later.
The K'lid K'iass had been revered among the Haida people for generations. It was a Sitka spruce devoid of chlorophyll, hence its boughs of gold. Believed to be the only one of its kind in the forest, the Old Tree was a thing of divine mystery. So the elders taught.
Its spirit resided in all of them. Sacred in thought, word, and deed.
Then one night someone murdered it.
Word of the crime reached Lotus Land school. Artie heard one story.
A crazed jobless logger motored his outboard toward tribal land. His mind seethed with hatred for all things Eco Green. Fuck the Indians, fuck the Hippies, fuck the Communists, and fuck the RCMP in their Smokey Bear hats! He beached upon the island and stole into the woods. Within a few hours the K'lid K'iass had been cut down.
On the way back he polished off a pint of Canadian Mist and tossed the bottle into the ebon waters, all the while shouting obscenties to the dark moon.
*
Kelly found him shirtless and shoeless, weeping upon the Emerald Lea.
"Mister Artie, please. Please be all right."
His soul had been sundered with the force of a well-tempered axe. He sobbed, "Oh, my poor Haida."
(Ironically, the Haida had for ages been a scourge from the primeval Queen Charlotte Islands. Slave traders whose Viking-swift raids ranged from California to Asia, they were by no means pitied by less aggresive tribes in British Columbia.)
Artie's lean rugged body reminded Kelly of aspen logs, white with odd blemishes. She wondered if he bruised easily.
Supine with an arm draped across his face, he grieved, unaware of her presence. She placed a small simian hand upon his left nipple. Smooth and flat as river stones his chest galvanized at her touch.
"Kelly. Dear Kelly."
His eyes were whirlpools of uncertainty and they frightened her.
Tugging mightily, she brought him to his feet. After a deep breath he said, "I'm all right."
Once again he stood as her stalwart defender. Her teacher.
Yet he smiled painfully as his spirit hemorraged. Gazing upon her through lidded eyes he appeared to her like dying Lord Jesus in a Russian Icon. Dew glistened in his monkish beard.
She led him by the hand toward his domicile, with its little square Tibetan prayer flags.
*
Kelly sat crosslegged on his futon. "So this where you crash."
He handed her a mug of hot cider. The alcohol caused her to wrinkle her elfin nose. Suddenly she bolted up and began touring his private room, touching mementos and scrutinizing each and every photograph.
"Who is this woman?"
"Someone from long ago. When I worked at the Whitney. We both loved art, and we were quite close."
"What happened?"
"She went back to France."
"Why?"
Kelly could be persistant as a child. With a sigh he surrendered the truth. "For a while we were lovers. Then she grew bored."
*
"Ooh, this you?" Pointing at a snapshot of Schwartzbart.
"Ho ho. Yeah, that's me. I was a Sikh."
"You were sick?"
Did he really wish to explain it all?
About Kirpal Singh. Naam. The Ruhani Satsang. And the day the Master visited New York.
Passing with entourage, Master Singh glanced into the crowd of selects and captured Artie's
eyes in a divine moment. A darshan. It healed mind and soul. Inexplicable.
"What about some coffee?" Artie hoped to redirect Kelly from his past lives.
"Just had cider."
"Oh, that's right."
She picked up the can of Chock-Full-Of-Nuts. "Look, it still shows the World Trade Center."
*
A lone cicada whirred beneath a sylvan moon.
Artie sat on the verandah in a hickory rocking chair. His thoughts drifted aloft like faceless seraphim.
Kelly Alabama sat beside him like a Kickapoo hausfrau. Crosslegged upon the planking.
What more could he ask for?
*
Then God explained to Artie exactly what had happened.
There was this college boy on summer furlough. His job was to climb a tree and saw off its top. After the boughs fell crashing to the forest floor, he surveyed things from his perch.
An axe man below shook his head and muttered, "Damn dreamy chucklehead is gonna get one of us killed."
One day it occured to the dreamy college boy that a fresh clearing resembled the epicenter of that meteor strike in Siberia.
A Pauline conversion took place.
With a Pentacostal flame burning within his skull, he walked off the job. His mission: save the woodlands of Britsh Columbia.
And his name now was Elijah Hazzard.
His vision was true.
The Golden Spruce was everybody's pet plant. A mutant tree. Sacred now as the cow in India. Not to be touched. Thus it would be the perfect sacrifice. Slain upon the altar of environmental conservation. Its death would ignite a firestorm of outrage. The logging industry would finally reap the whirlwind!
Ottersplash. Elijah Hazzard slipped into the cold water and left the boat at anchor. He abided the cold shock to his system. Even in a wetsuit his genitals shrank into absentia. He swam toward the island. Bound in a watertight black plastic sheath was a lightweight chainsaw, strapped to his back like a broadsword.
He cut the tree badly, but did not saw through it.
Mortally wounded, the K'lid K'iyass fell three days later.
conifer hearts 5
An atonishing mantle of scarlet, purple and indigo, all layered like Neapolitan ice cream, fell gently to earth. The Dog Star guided Artie and Kelly homeward. A grassy quadrangle lay illuminated by a sodium lamp. Bungalows for resident students stood in stark bas-relief.
Arriving at the pebbled promenade, Artie asked, "What happened to you, Kelly?"
"Beginning when?" Anger bubbled up like gas from a tar pit. Her Kickapoo eyes were black as a nun's rosary beads. Evidently he had pushed the wrong button.
"At the beginning."
"You want to know why I'm so small. So deformed."
Artie Hoffman. Peace Corps teacher who introduced PVC to fledgling engineers up in Lahore. Tour guide at the Whitney Museum. Humble leader of a Ruhani Satsang. Motorcycle gypsy, once married to a Morman prophetess. Now teacher at Lotus Land special school. Was fixed speechless.
"Of course you do, Mister Artie!" Her fury lanced into his unprotected soul. "My momma kept me from growing up tall and straight."
He offered his hands, palms up, in supplication. She hissed, all knotwood and knifefight. "Hear me, damn you! We lived in this li'l ol' Airstream trailer with iddy-biddy windows. Daddy drove us from one place to another so's he could pick tobacco. I 'member pineywood trailerparks where I came by all kinds of bogus aunts and uncles. Get what I mean? Momma and Daddy drank t'gether and would get stupid as turnips a'watchin' TV. When I was a baby going to hollerin' Momma shut me up with paregoric."
"Tincture of opium. I used to get just a drop with Milk of Magnesia."
"Well, Momma didn't fool around with no magnesia! She wanted to knock me out."
"Stunted your growth."
"Stunted my everything, Mister Artie."
"What about the scars on your back?"
"Foster daddy. Sumbitch Ed Fletcher whipped me with a 'lectrical cord 'cause I told his wife Lucy he diddled me. Got me knocked up, s'what he did. Please, Mister Artie, I don't want to talk anymore."
She gave him a soft hug. Her fury spent.
He watched her go. Feral, silent, becoming one with the night.
Kelly finished the Third Grade, able to read and write.
The school hired her as groundskeeper. Her wages paid for tuition, room and board. Staff people called her "Porcupine" (spikey hair) and "Half Pint" (short stature). But to Artie Hoffman she would forever be Kelly Alabama.
Fondness for her grew in their hearts. Some saw her as a mascot. Others saw her as a unique person. Always the wild child, she continued to mature along tangents that surprised everyone. The night sky with its constellations and the occasional aurora borealis fascinated her, speaking to her and giving her uncommon spirituality.
Artie presented her with a primer on astronomy and it became her new Bible. She learned the name and motion of each star that she could see, and within a year she was reading celestial omens.
One evening as they sat on his verandah she asked, "Mister Artie, how do you explain change in the world?"
Arriving at the pebbled promenade, Artie asked, "What happened to you, Kelly?"
"Beginning when?" Anger bubbled up like gas from a tar pit. Her Kickapoo eyes were black as a nun's rosary beads. Evidently he had pushed the wrong button.
"At the beginning."
"You want to know why I'm so small. So deformed."
Artie Hoffman. Peace Corps teacher who introduced PVC to fledgling engineers up in Lahore. Tour guide at the Whitney Museum. Humble leader of a Ruhani Satsang. Motorcycle gypsy, once married to a Morman prophetess. Now teacher at Lotus Land special school. Was fixed speechless.
"Of course you do, Mister Artie!" Her fury lanced into his unprotected soul. "My momma kept me from growing up tall and straight."
He offered his hands, palms up, in supplication. She hissed, all knotwood and knifefight. "Hear me, damn you! We lived in this li'l ol' Airstream trailer with iddy-biddy windows. Daddy drove us from one place to another so's he could pick tobacco. I 'member pineywood trailerparks where I came by all kinds of bogus aunts and uncles. Get what I mean? Momma and Daddy drank t'gether and would get stupid as turnips a'watchin' TV. When I was a baby going to hollerin' Momma shut me up with paregoric."
"Tincture of opium. I used to get just a drop with Milk of Magnesia."
"Well, Momma didn't fool around with no magnesia! She wanted to knock me out."
"Stunted your growth."
"Stunted my everything, Mister Artie."
"What about the scars on your back?"
"Foster daddy. Sumbitch Ed Fletcher whipped me with a 'lectrical cord 'cause I told his wife Lucy he diddled me. Got me knocked up, s'what he did. Please, Mister Artie, I don't want to talk anymore."
She gave him a soft hug. Her fury spent.
He watched her go. Feral, silent, becoming one with the night.
Kelly finished the Third Grade, able to read and write.
The school hired her as groundskeeper. Her wages paid for tuition, room and board. Staff people called her "Porcupine" (spikey hair) and "Half Pint" (short stature). But to Artie Hoffman she would forever be Kelly Alabama.
Fondness for her grew in their hearts. Some saw her as a mascot. Others saw her as a unique person. Always the wild child, she continued to mature along tangents that surprised everyone. The night sky with its constellations and the occasional aurora borealis fascinated her, speaking to her and giving her uncommon spirituality.
Artie presented her with a primer on astronomy and it became her new Bible. She learned the name and motion of each star that she could see, and within a year she was reading celestial omens.
One evening as they sat on his verandah she asked, "Mister Artie, how do you explain change in the world?"
conifer hearts 4
What could he find in the footlocker? Artie wanted to share something with his newest Third-grader. But what?
There were books. Two his father had given him. Artie was about to depart for India and his father thought they would be somehow instructive as well as entertaining. Talbot Mundy's "King of the Khyber Rifles" and Louis Bromfield's "The Rains Came." Zev Hoffman had enjoyed them long ago. Maybe his son would also.
Artie pictured his father reading by lamplight after closing the tailor shop. Escaping into fabled lands far, far away. Transported from the sooty brownstone life in the Lower East Side.
"Thanks, Pop."
He never read them.
The footlocker contained a trove of wisdom books. Rumi and Kabir. The Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. D.T. Zuzuki on Zen and an odd little work by Paul Reps, "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones." There was Momma Hoffman's Tanakh.
Eureka!
There was his boyhood Duncan championship yo-yo, its edges chafed down to bare wood from "walking the dog." He stuffed it into his jeans, feeling a parable taking bloom in his head.
*
He found her practicing his Tai Chi on the downy turf of the Emerald Lea. Sleeves of her oversized Hawaiian shirt flapped like the wings of a ruptured box-kite. Breasts jiggled within the loose tube top. The elasticity of her gym shorts had been laundered to death. They would not stay up.
That was how he saw the scars.
Cords of raised white flesh stretched across her lower back. Artie was certain she had been flogged.
As in Cat O' Nine Tails.
God damn Alabama!
"Namaste, Kelly."
"Mister Artie!" She paused in her dance of winds. "How'm I doing?"
"How do you think you are doing?"
"Not so good."
"It may be that you have not found your true center."
"Where is it?"
He placed the palm of his hand upon her belly. The node of her navel found his life line. He replied, "Somewhere within you."
Coquettishly: "I favor a man with a slow dry hand."
Immediately he thought, I'll reserve the yo-yo for someone else.
*
In the late afternoon of the same day he sat with her beneath a Douglas fir. He had spread a bluebonnet tablecloth, and there were books and a bottle of Boone's Farm. Two silhouettes wrapped in the sun's ochre glow, they listened in silence to the gurgling of a rill that nosed down from the forest.
And he asked her if she believed in the enchantment of things.
After a long time she replied, "Sometimes things touch me in the spirit."
"Such as?"
"Oh, beautiful things. Like all this." She gestured with an all-encompassing wave of the hand.
"I feel the same way, Kelly."
In a raspy low voice she said, "Sometimes things afflict me in the spirit as well. Demons in the dark. When I'm not sure of things."
"Do you have medicine?"
"I have Lord Jesus."
There were books. Two his father had given him. Artie was about to depart for India and his father thought they would be somehow instructive as well as entertaining. Talbot Mundy's "King of the Khyber Rifles" and Louis Bromfield's "The Rains Came." Zev Hoffman had enjoyed them long ago. Maybe his son would also.
Artie pictured his father reading by lamplight after closing the tailor shop. Escaping into fabled lands far, far away. Transported from the sooty brownstone life in the Lower East Side.
"Thanks, Pop."
He never read them.
The footlocker contained a trove of wisdom books. Rumi and Kabir. The Vedas and Bhagavad Gita. D.T. Zuzuki on Zen and an odd little work by Paul Reps, "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones." There was Momma Hoffman's Tanakh.
Eureka!
There was his boyhood Duncan championship yo-yo, its edges chafed down to bare wood from "walking the dog." He stuffed it into his jeans, feeling a parable taking bloom in his head.
*
He found her practicing his Tai Chi on the downy turf of the Emerald Lea. Sleeves of her oversized Hawaiian shirt flapped like the wings of a ruptured box-kite. Breasts jiggled within the loose tube top. The elasticity of her gym shorts had been laundered to death. They would not stay up.
That was how he saw the scars.
Cords of raised white flesh stretched across her lower back. Artie was certain she had been flogged.
As in Cat O' Nine Tails.
God damn Alabama!
"Namaste, Kelly."
"Mister Artie!" She paused in her dance of winds. "How'm I doing?"
"How do you think you are doing?"
"Not so good."
"It may be that you have not found your true center."
"Where is it?"
He placed the palm of his hand upon her belly. The node of her navel found his life line. He replied, "Somewhere within you."
Coquettishly: "I favor a man with a slow dry hand."
Immediately he thought, I'll reserve the yo-yo for someone else.
*
In the late afternoon of the same day he sat with her beneath a Douglas fir. He had spread a bluebonnet tablecloth, and there were books and a bottle of Boone's Farm. Two silhouettes wrapped in the sun's ochre glow, they listened in silence to the gurgling of a rill that nosed down from the forest.
And he asked her if she believed in the enchantment of things.
After a long time she replied, "Sometimes things touch me in the spirit."
"Such as?"
"Oh, beautiful things. Like all this." She gestured with an all-encompassing wave of the hand.
"I feel the same way, Kelly."
In a raspy low voice she said, "Sometimes things afflict me in the spirit as well. Demons in the dark. When I'm not sure of things."
"Do you have medicine?"
"I have Lord Jesus."
Sunday, April 17, 2011
conifer hearts 3
Chock-Full-Of-Nuts could be either the First Circle of Hell or the Seventh Heaven depending upon your personal atomic clock. For Artie Hoffman it was home turf. He could relax and expand there. A gum-chewing chickadee cleared away his mess and poured him a fresh cup of that most excellent coffee. A Spartan breakfast of one egg over easy atop whole wheat toast would fuel him for most of the day.
Eyeing his sheaf of job applications, the waitress chummied up a bit. "Good luck wid doze, Soljah."
Hair shorn in the fashion of a Zen monk and his beard shaven so close his chin shone like porcelain, he could very well be mistaken for a GI. "Thanks. I'm looking to get on with the Whitney."
"Should be a snap fah you, Handsome."
He watched her go. Her behind had rhumba to it.
A Goya showing was scheduled for the Whitney. So with his resume he had included an early college paper on "Saturn Devours Children." In it he called to mind seeing a homeless man gobbling a bean burrito scrounged from a dumpster late one night. Under the glare of a streetlamp the man's flesh shared hue and color of a freshly slopped pig sty.
*
It was one of those pricy lithographs often purchased by a scholar living on a small pension in the East Village. Something to be gazed at in quiet awe, it possessed a cruel frisson. Colliding flesh tones. Almost homoerotic, Artie thought. It showed an elderly man, robust and solidly built, stripped to his loins, being nailed to a cross.
A mute frame of acacia wood enhanced the lithograph and its brute force. Just imagine seeing the original, Artie thought. Buying this article was out of the question. His funds for discretionary spending were depleted. Viewing it was one of the several things that uplifted him during his lunch hour.
"Enjoy it while you can, young man," the shopkeeper advised. "A buyer came in yesterday and put down a retainer."
"Some musty old curmudgeon on fixed income from NYU, I bet."
"Wrong. An investment banker," the shopkeeper clucked.
"Oh."
Artie knew he would miss seeing it tremendously. "The Crucifixion of Saint Peter" by Michelangelo Buonarrori.
*
Ten minutes remained of his lunch hour.
"I've got to run."
"Wait. Here she comes." The shopkeeper was wearing a green cellophane visor.
"Who?"
"This French dame. Gorgeous. Kind of sullen, no, pouty."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, walked in and asked me how much for the Feininger print I just wrapped."
"Halle Cathedral."
"Paid me in Traveler's Cheques."
Artie gasped. She could have walked off a movie set.
Tall with slender legs in clingy denim jeans, faded to salty azure. White longsleeved business shirt with a high crisp collar. Black jodhpur boots. Auburn hair woven into a thick braid. Long narrow nose, the kind Artie associated with Verscingetorix, chisled between wide-set gray eyes. High cheeks, and flawless skin in radient blush, possibly from recent sex.
She passed by him, giving him the briefest of nods.
"Good day," she said to Green Shade. "Regrettably I must ask a large favor of you."
"Hold it. I've seen this a million times. You don't want the item but you want your money back. Now whadda you take me for, Lady?"
"Oh, you are mistaken. Allow me to explain."
Green Shade gestured. "Go ahead. I won't interrupt."
Artie pretended to examine several things in the store while closely listening to her dulcet voice. He learned that her name was Solange and that her friend in New York was Kit Pico.
She had purchased "Halle Cathedral" as a surprise gift.
Kit Pico already possessed such a lithograph. Had had it since college.
"Well, Lady," Green Shade grinned. "You're in luck. I can swap you with a Feininger's 'Gaborndorf 2.' How's that?"
"Oh, merci, Monsieur!" she gushed. The jiggle within her two-button decolletage did not go unnoticed.
Artie's lunch hour expired.
Eyeing his sheaf of job applications, the waitress chummied up a bit. "Good luck wid doze, Soljah."
Hair shorn in the fashion of a Zen monk and his beard shaven so close his chin shone like porcelain, he could very well be mistaken for a GI. "Thanks. I'm looking to get on with the Whitney."
"Should be a snap fah you, Handsome."
He watched her go. Her behind had rhumba to it.
A Goya showing was scheduled for the Whitney. So with his resume he had included an early college paper on "Saturn Devours Children." In it he called to mind seeing a homeless man gobbling a bean burrito scrounged from a dumpster late one night. Under the glare of a streetlamp the man's flesh shared hue and color of a freshly slopped pig sty.
*
It was one of those pricy lithographs often purchased by a scholar living on a small pension in the East Village. Something to be gazed at in quiet awe, it possessed a cruel frisson. Colliding flesh tones. Almost homoerotic, Artie thought. It showed an elderly man, robust and solidly built, stripped to his loins, being nailed to a cross.
A mute frame of acacia wood enhanced the lithograph and its brute force. Just imagine seeing the original, Artie thought. Buying this article was out of the question. His funds for discretionary spending were depleted. Viewing it was one of the several things that uplifted him during his lunch hour.
"Enjoy it while you can, young man," the shopkeeper advised. "A buyer came in yesterday and put down a retainer."
"Some musty old curmudgeon on fixed income from NYU, I bet."
"Wrong. An investment banker," the shopkeeper clucked.
"Oh."
Artie knew he would miss seeing it tremendously. "The Crucifixion of Saint Peter" by Michelangelo Buonarrori.
*
Ten minutes remained of his lunch hour.
"I've got to run."
"Wait. Here she comes." The shopkeeper was wearing a green cellophane visor.
"Who?"
"This French dame. Gorgeous. Kind of sullen, no, pouty."
"Huh?"
"Yeah, walked in and asked me how much for the Feininger print I just wrapped."
"Halle Cathedral."
"Paid me in Traveler's Cheques."
Artie gasped. She could have walked off a movie set.
Tall with slender legs in clingy denim jeans, faded to salty azure. White longsleeved business shirt with a high crisp collar. Black jodhpur boots. Auburn hair woven into a thick braid. Long narrow nose, the kind Artie associated with Verscingetorix, chisled between wide-set gray eyes. High cheeks, and flawless skin in radient blush, possibly from recent sex.
She passed by him, giving him the briefest of nods.
"Good day," she said to Green Shade. "Regrettably I must ask a large favor of you."
"Hold it. I've seen this a million times. You don't want the item but you want your money back. Now whadda you take me for, Lady?"
"Oh, you are mistaken. Allow me to explain."
Green Shade gestured. "Go ahead. I won't interrupt."
Artie pretended to examine several things in the store while closely listening to her dulcet voice. He learned that her name was Solange and that her friend in New York was Kit Pico.
She had purchased "Halle Cathedral" as a surprise gift.
Kit Pico already possessed such a lithograph. Had had it since college.
"Well, Lady," Green Shade grinned. "You're in luck. I can swap you with a Feininger's 'Gaborndorf 2.' How's that?"
"Oh, merci, Monsieur!" she gushed. The jiggle within her two-button decolletage did not go unnoticed.
Artie's lunch hour expired.
conifer hearts 2
The artifacts of his life were collected in a footlocker. Catalogues from the Omega Institute and Esalen. Issues of Ramparts magazine. A maintenance manual for the Indian motorcycle. Political buttons for Eugene and Bobby. A scrolled poster from the New York Arthur Murray studio where he had taught ballroom dancing.
Even some ticket stubs from Hindi movies. Snapshots filled a shoebox, most of them taken by Sunil "Sonny" Patel with his trusty Instamatic. One showed the chubby hotelier laughing at Artie's Nehru jacket. Sonny's crabby wife steadfastly believed all Peace Corps people were CIA spies. Artie and his friends called their chintzy abode the Hostel of Mango Pickle.
Three months In-Country and he was wearing a dohti.
*
What a sight years later he had been, jouncing on his Huffy ten-speed along the Willamette Bikeway in a white gauze dohti. His magnificent Sikh beard bifurtaing in the slipstream. Folks pulled over to watch him whiz past. He was mad with joy.
"Who was that? Rasputin?"
"Maybe Gurdjieff."
Sweet air and wildflowers, the river below, glowing like copper in the slanting rays of the sun. He craved it all. His ecstacy was boundless. He became known as Schwartzbart. In time his dohti wore thin, then fell away into pure essence.
While his neighbors cultivated marijuana in lean-to greenhouses, he tended a garden of snow peas, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, peppers and chilies, all to benefit his India cuisine. In town he bought imported garam masala and mango pickle.
Once he hosted a feast, to the delight of his stoner friends. They sated their munchies with chickpea chipatis and other fingerfood. All was going splendidly well until he decided to douse everybody with Easter Egg dye. It happened to be Holi.
Earth Mamas shrieked and freaked.
A fellow who looked like Mangus Colorado with John Lennon wire-rims, said, "You're one crazy dude, Artie. How 'bout you coming with us over to Mount Shasta."
"Be delighted, man. I've heard it's beautiful."
"Morn' that. You can hear God speak."
"I don't understand."
"Yeah, man. His voice comes up from under the ground."
"Sounds to me like some ergot got into your granola."
*
One of the Mamas had dusted the van with spraypaint pastels and then fashioned a mural in primary colors. Not terribly original. It was a Zeitgeist sort of thing. The Who had their Magic Bus. Ken Kesey had his Pranksters bus. Everybody was Wavy Gravy. However, this Mama was so ate up with R. Crumb that she felt compelled to channel the guru of underground comics.
Her Old Man fired up a Mister Zig-Zag and watched her work. He was especially keen on watching her buttocks grow taut within the confines of her white overalls as she stretched high above her head.
"Y'know, Cherry Blossom. I'd like to see you do a whole wall full o'stuff."
"Oh, like Diego Rivera?"
His face was blank. So she decided it need a dab of color.
*
They were loading for the trip to Mount Shasta when Artie jangled up on his bike.
"Whassup, Dude?"
"I'm afraid I can't go. Just got a telegram. My Pop died yesterday. Gotta go to New York and be with Momma."
"Bummer. No, really. I'm sorry to hear that."
"Put a word in for me to the Ascended Masters."
"Wilco."
Even some ticket stubs from Hindi movies. Snapshots filled a shoebox, most of them taken by Sunil "Sonny" Patel with his trusty Instamatic. One showed the chubby hotelier laughing at Artie's Nehru jacket. Sonny's crabby wife steadfastly believed all Peace Corps people were CIA spies. Artie and his friends called their chintzy abode the Hostel of Mango Pickle.
Three months In-Country and he was wearing a dohti.
*
What a sight years later he had been, jouncing on his Huffy ten-speed along the Willamette Bikeway in a white gauze dohti. His magnificent Sikh beard bifurtaing in the slipstream. Folks pulled over to watch him whiz past. He was mad with joy.
"Who was that? Rasputin?"
"Maybe Gurdjieff."
Sweet air and wildflowers, the river below, glowing like copper in the slanting rays of the sun. He craved it all. His ecstacy was boundless. He became known as Schwartzbart. In time his dohti wore thin, then fell away into pure essence.
While his neighbors cultivated marijuana in lean-to greenhouses, he tended a garden of snow peas, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, peppers and chilies, all to benefit his India cuisine. In town he bought imported garam masala and mango pickle.
Once he hosted a feast, to the delight of his stoner friends. They sated their munchies with chickpea chipatis and other fingerfood. All was going splendidly well until he decided to douse everybody with Easter Egg dye. It happened to be Holi.
Earth Mamas shrieked and freaked.
A fellow who looked like Mangus Colorado with John Lennon wire-rims, said, "You're one crazy dude, Artie. How 'bout you coming with us over to Mount Shasta."
"Be delighted, man. I've heard it's beautiful."
"Morn' that. You can hear God speak."
"I don't understand."
"Yeah, man. His voice comes up from under the ground."
"Sounds to me like some ergot got into your granola."
*
One of the Mamas had dusted the van with spraypaint pastels and then fashioned a mural in primary colors. Not terribly original. It was a Zeitgeist sort of thing. The Who had their Magic Bus. Ken Kesey had his Pranksters bus. Everybody was Wavy Gravy. However, this Mama was so ate up with R. Crumb that she felt compelled to channel the guru of underground comics.
Her Old Man fired up a Mister Zig-Zag and watched her work. He was especially keen on watching her buttocks grow taut within the confines of her white overalls as she stretched high above her head.
"Y'know, Cherry Blossom. I'd like to see you do a whole wall full o'stuff."
"Oh, like Diego Rivera?"
His face was blank. So she decided it need a dab of color.
*
They were loading for the trip to Mount Shasta when Artie jangled up on his bike.
"Whassup, Dude?"
"I'm afraid I can't go. Just got a telegram. My Pop died yesterday. Gotta go to New York and be with Momma."
"Bummer. No, really. I'm sorry to hear that."
"Put a word in for me to the Ascended Masters."
"Wilco."
conifer hearts 1
They were the children of children he had taught, and they were playing a game he had not noticed before. Using only their legs and feet, they exchanged a hackysack ball between them. He saw hook shots off insteps, slap shots off ankles. Saves by working knees and thighs. Evidently no hands were permitted. Exchanges continued until the ball hit the ground. A winner was declared amid gales of laughter. Forthwith a new game began. The ball seemed to be made of compressed rags. It had no bounce. Nobody had to chase it far.
A boy of about fifteen, wearing a floppy Rastafarian tam, scooted up on an X-treme Skateboard and joined the game.
After years of witnessing playground evil, Artie Hoffman found himself astounded and amazed by this display of good sportsmanship and love of the game. Humble as it was. Indeed, these lads were the children of children he had taught. Loudly playing in the parking lot of the Mutual Aid co-operative food store not far from Victoria, British Columbia.
*
One of the children he had taught was a woman of forty-two.
Kelly Alabama.
No one seemed to know her real name or care to know. She stood four feet ten inches. She violated his notion of symmetry. Suspended like gourds from her birdlike frame, her breasts were too large. Enormous pendulous things that sagged in defeat against her concave belly.
When she first darkened his office doorway he saw only fleeting wrinkles in time. Like cloud shadows scudding over a meadow. She was the wraith fortold in a dream.
"Mister Hoffman?"
"Call me Artie. Come in."
She wore an oversized Lynyrd Skynyrd tee-shirt. Black with Dixie Stars and Bars emblazoned across the back. A checkered flannel shirt was tied by the sleeves around her waist. Her bluejean shorts had been bleached threadbare across the buttocks. As she approached his desk her sandals clap-clapped like chalk erasers in the amber late afternoon.
Up close he saw the first stages of crow's feet, etchings upon a pinched waxen face. And either she was balding or someone had cut her Kickapoo hair with a weed-whacker.
"What's your name, young lady?"
"Kelly. I was born in Alabama."
"How did you come all this way?"
"I would really love to tell you, Mister Artie. But right now I need your permission to join your third-grade class."
The school was one for applied individual learning and was organized like a commune.
She pushed an official document across his blotter.
"I'd be honored to be your teacher, Miss Kelly from Alabama.
A boy of about fifteen, wearing a floppy Rastafarian tam, scooted up on an X-treme Skateboard and joined the game.
After years of witnessing playground evil, Artie Hoffman found himself astounded and amazed by this display of good sportsmanship and love of the game. Humble as it was. Indeed, these lads were the children of children he had taught. Loudly playing in the parking lot of the Mutual Aid co-operative food store not far from Victoria, British Columbia.
*
One of the children he had taught was a woman of forty-two.
Kelly Alabama.
No one seemed to know her real name or care to know. She stood four feet ten inches. She violated his notion of symmetry. Suspended like gourds from her birdlike frame, her breasts were too large. Enormous pendulous things that sagged in defeat against her concave belly.
When she first darkened his office doorway he saw only fleeting wrinkles in time. Like cloud shadows scudding over a meadow. She was the wraith fortold in a dream.
"Mister Hoffman?"
"Call me Artie. Come in."
She wore an oversized Lynyrd Skynyrd tee-shirt. Black with Dixie Stars and Bars emblazoned across the back. A checkered flannel shirt was tied by the sleeves around her waist. Her bluejean shorts had been bleached threadbare across the buttocks. As she approached his desk her sandals clap-clapped like chalk erasers in the amber late afternoon.
Up close he saw the first stages of crow's feet, etchings upon a pinched waxen face. And either she was balding or someone had cut her Kickapoo hair with a weed-whacker.
"What's your name, young lady?"
"Kelly. I was born in Alabama."
"How did you come all this way?"
"I would really love to tell you, Mister Artie. But right now I need your permission to join your third-grade class."
The school was one for applied individual learning and was organized like a commune.
She pushed an official document across his blotter.
"I'd be honored to be your teacher, Miss Kelly from Alabama.
salome unveiled 3
Salome's strip scene axed Tom between his blue peepers. He ogled the woman, eyes drawn to the pubic delta. His pituitary gland fired electric sparks. Everything around him began to pulse. Inflating, deflating. Colors deepened and grew warm. He was sweating through a panic attack.
Damn that faggot Kit Pico. I never should have listened to him and taken that crazy herb!
Then his glans betrayed him with a small seepage of semen. Not since he was sixteen, slouching like Holden Caufield, low in that tubercular Times Square den of iniquity, watching a Johnny Wad flick, had he experienced such an Oops! Moment.
"Are you all right, Mon Cher?"
"I'm fine."
The playwright had handed him a hefty bag of raw damiana. A massive dose, Tom was told, would activate a part of the brain never before experienced. And he could then control anyone for whom he felt lust.
"Dude, you will be hearing the person's thoughts! While seducing that person you will have total mind control! You won't be creating a love zombie. You will be creating a warm, vibrant lover. Dig it!"
*
It was clear to Tom that she was no svelte ingenue. He marveled at her unabashed revelations. Her body was a garden of earthly delights. She gyrated with feral abandon. A doomed seductress, writhing in mental torment. Opera! Bravo! The full-throated voice mesmerized him with an opiate tongue.
Solange sat enthralled.
She moved with Salome. They together were two mermaids in synchronized swim. Her soul ascended with each swell of music. Bodily she rose up, arching her spine. Then a subtle force propelled her toward Tom, and she collided with his roiling aura. Two quanta of energy melded, golden and sublime.
*
In the hall of her hotel Tom stood brain-bashed while Solange rummaged through her purse for the room key. Freud be damned! he was thinking. He lusted for this woman, ancient enough to be his dear old grandmother. He could almost feel his tongue removing surgical pins from her brittle bones. His cock stiffened like a phallic effigy at the Tiberian bath on the Isle of Capri. He would fuck the crone within an inch of her life!
Solange retrieved the key. "Voilla!"
Hoarsely he echoed: "Vwallah, eh."
He closed in, nose to ear. Beneath the Chanel #5 lurked something acrid, like stale caviar.
He touched her tiny elbow with the force of eider down dusting a snowdrift.
Summoning all he was good for, he searched her eyes for guidance.
Nothing. Nada.
Demurely she hugged him and kissed his earlobe. "I have had a wonderful time, Squire Tom. Bon soir."
Her door closed quietly and he stood alone in the hall.
*
Solange peeled off her clothes. She inspected her gams and thought they were still quite nice. Cyd Charisse in "Silk Stockings"!
Then in a blush of elation she performed for the closet mirror.
Truly this had been an evening of enchantment. The glorious music had given her that extended orgasm. At her age! Even that craven young man had been stimulating!
Standing naked she scrunched her toes, making divots in the shag carpet.
She donned a blue chemise and opened a cold Perrier. She sat crosslegged upon the wide bed.
A magazine lay open and there was an article on Susan Sontag. A ghastly photograph showed Sontag lying in state, no longer the quick-faced luminary with a white streak through the black bouffant. Solange found this too depressing. She clicked the TV and found Yo Yo Ma in concert.
Damn that faggot Kit Pico. I never should have listened to him and taken that crazy herb!
Then his glans betrayed him with a small seepage of semen. Not since he was sixteen, slouching like Holden Caufield, low in that tubercular Times Square den of iniquity, watching a Johnny Wad flick, had he experienced such an Oops! Moment.
"Are you all right, Mon Cher?"
"I'm fine."
The playwright had handed him a hefty bag of raw damiana. A massive dose, Tom was told, would activate a part of the brain never before experienced. And he could then control anyone for whom he felt lust.
"Dude, you will be hearing the person's thoughts! While seducing that person you will have total mind control! You won't be creating a love zombie. You will be creating a warm, vibrant lover. Dig it!"
*
It was clear to Tom that she was no svelte ingenue. He marveled at her unabashed revelations. Her body was a garden of earthly delights. She gyrated with feral abandon. A doomed seductress, writhing in mental torment. Opera! Bravo! The full-throated voice mesmerized him with an opiate tongue.
Solange sat enthralled.
She moved with Salome. They together were two mermaids in synchronized swim. Her soul ascended with each swell of music. Bodily she rose up, arching her spine. Then a subtle force propelled her toward Tom, and she collided with his roiling aura. Two quanta of energy melded, golden and sublime.
*
In the hall of her hotel Tom stood brain-bashed while Solange rummaged through her purse for the room key. Freud be damned! he was thinking. He lusted for this woman, ancient enough to be his dear old grandmother. He could almost feel his tongue removing surgical pins from her brittle bones. His cock stiffened like a phallic effigy at the Tiberian bath on the Isle of Capri. He would fuck the crone within an inch of her life!
Solange retrieved the key. "Voilla!"
Hoarsely he echoed: "Vwallah, eh."
He closed in, nose to ear. Beneath the Chanel #5 lurked something acrid, like stale caviar.
He touched her tiny elbow with the force of eider down dusting a snowdrift.
Summoning all he was good for, he searched her eyes for guidance.
Nothing. Nada.
Demurely she hugged him and kissed his earlobe. "I have had a wonderful time, Squire Tom. Bon soir."
Her door closed quietly and he stood alone in the hall.
*
Solange peeled off her clothes. She inspected her gams and thought they were still quite nice. Cyd Charisse in "Silk Stockings"!
Then in a blush of elation she performed for the closet mirror.
Truly this had been an evening of enchantment. The glorious music had given her that extended orgasm. At her age! Even that craven young man had been stimulating!
Standing naked she scrunched her toes, making divots in the shag carpet.
She donned a blue chemise and opened a cold Perrier. She sat crosslegged upon the wide bed.
A magazine lay open and there was an article on Susan Sontag. A ghastly photograph showed Sontag lying in state, no longer the quick-faced luminary with a white streak through the black bouffant. Solange found this too depressing. She clicked the TV and found Yo Yo Ma in concert.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
salome unveiled 2
Tom dawdled at the elevator, uncertain of himself. On the surface this Benoit dame was arid as the Mojave. It was her scent that hinted her secret moisture. He met her on the way out and they rode down together. The confines of the steel cube increased her attraction.
Immediately he engaged her with small talk. His tongue acting as flipper, the bon mots rolled like pinballs inside his brain. He found himself talking more than listening, and she was telling him something.
It will have to be today, Squire Tom.
"Why?"
"Because I am leaving New York tomorrow. Where should we meet?"
He told her Washington Square, a place any cabby could find.
*
There was a tony sidewalk cafe with a view of the Arch. A raggedy-andy vagabond dressed in army surplus olive and khaki played a banjo, actually riffing the melody made popular by the Village Stompers. He was no Bela Fleck, but folks tossed coins into his open banjo case.
Tom arrived early and took a ringside seat.
Meanwhile, Solange was sitting in a Starbucks, peering over rimless reading glasses at the postmodern self-absorbed ambulatory denizens of Greenwich Village. Her Tazo tea tasted of pomegranite and made her think of her young squire. Why she did not know. He actually smelled of the gymnasium and manly deodorant.
This place reminded her of her of another java hut. It too had been jammed with New Yorkers obsessed with their elusive goals. Instead of Starbucks lincoln green that one sported linoleum, chrome and Formica. Its brew was rich and smooth and proletarian, costing less than a buck.
Chock-Full-Of-Nuts.
She was in New York to visit her old lover Kit Pico, whose play "Zafra" was to be staged inside a rat cellar vamping as a theatre. A gift would be appropriate. Kit loved Lyonel Feininger. She had been told of an art shop owned by an orgre who delighted in haggling. She would see who could strike the best deal! It was there she met that achingly intense mystical Jew, Artie Hoffman. Amateur art historian and part-time guide at the Whitney.
Moody brown-eyed Artie Hoffman. Siddartha wearing an NYU sweatshirt.
*
The first time Artie Hoffman showed her around, he took her to the miniature Arch of Triumph and she thought it was cute. At a bookshop he bought her a copy of the love letters between Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir. Such a quaint and sentimental lover, her Artie.
She was late for her date with Squire Tom!
Climbing breathlessly into the cab, she gasped, "Washington Square!"
They crossed the Avenue of Americas, and she recalled the Bristol Hotel and her room there, with a window she could open to the snappy fall breeze. Looking out, she inhaled a scent like no other. Manhattan. Below she saw a crowded street unrolling into the distance like a slick black carpet. Her block retained a 1950s neon glow. Brownstone niches and oblong glass facades. Jackson Pollack had flung his paint upon sidewalk and curb.
On that first night in New York she took a solitary stroll and found a jazz club with an open door. She glimpsed a black man gleaming in purple light. Like Shiva with multiple arms flailing the air, he beat drums with the rhythms of a thousand hearts.
Retracing her way home she lost her bearings. Finally she saw a man loafing in a doorway. She asked him, "Do you know where the Bristol Hotel might be, Monsieur?"
He cocked his head and laughed, and thumbed upward to the overhead sign.
Bristol Hotel.
They laughed together.
By the next night she knew her turf well enough to lead Artie Hoffman up to the room. Later, but not too much later, the snappy fall breeze lifted the bedside curtains.
*
Tom had never known a woman to be early. Some had been on time, but never early. That was how his mind worked.
Slats of his chair pressed into warm flesh, and he asked himself: what the hell was he doing? what was it about this older-than-the-hills Benoit woman?
A few yards away three college girls sat at a similar table, sharing a carafe of white wine. Each had a copy of the same textbook. Open to the same page. To the same illustration of a set of healthy breasts. One girl fingered her breasts just forward of her armpits. Tracing over the cotton wale of her Abercrombie & Fitch tee-top. The other girls spoke in low conspiratoral voices. Tom sought for a metaphor.
"Cherchez la femme, Squire Tom?"
"Madam Benoit!"
"C'est moi."
To hide her crow's feet she wore aviator shades from Michael Kors. That anti-aging glycolic peel kit had not done the job. It had been a long time since she was forty, adorning herself with kohl, in the manner of Nazimova in "Salome" to lure young men. Tom noticed everything. Her firm ivory calves when she crossed her legs. The flatness of her tummy and the wonder of her Wonder Bra.
She handed Tom an envelope. "Would you care to escort me to the opera tonight?"
Tom looked at the tickets. "Sure--"
He hated opera. And his knowlege of Richard Strauss was limited to the music in "2001: A Space Odyssey." However, he had seen a review of this one. And the prospect of seeing Karita Mattila naked at the conclusion of Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils was most alluring.
"This ought to be great," Tom said. "I love Strauss."
Tom's idea of a blue ribbon date was taking a babe to Radio City for a show and a movie, then to a smart bistro for a light bite and a micro-brew. From that point, who knew? Once he had landed a babe in the sack by chancing upon a tattoo parlor and talking her into being inked below the bikini line.
"I study the Kabbala," she had said. So she chose a miniscule Chesed. For Tom, viewing that shiny shaved pussy was the perfect aperitif to mad monkey love.
Immediately he engaged her with small talk. His tongue acting as flipper, the bon mots rolled like pinballs inside his brain. He found himself talking more than listening, and she was telling him something.
It will have to be today, Squire Tom.
"Why?"
"Because I am leaving New York tomorrow. Where should we meet?"
He told her Washington Square, a place any cabby could find.
*
There was a tony sidewalk cafe with a view of the Arch. A raggedy-andy vagabond dressed in army surplus olive and khaki played a banjo, actually riffing the melody made popular by the Village Stompers. He was no Bela Fleck, but folks tossed coins into his open banjo case.
Tom arrived early and took a ringside seat.
Meanwhile, Solange was sitting in a Starbucks, peering over rimless reading glasses at the postmodern self-absorbed ambulatory denizens of Greenwich Village. Her Tazo tea tasted of pomegranite and made her think of her young squire. Why she did not know. He actually smelled of the gymnasium and manly deodorant.
This place reminded her of her of another java hut. It too had been jammed with New Yorkers obsessed with their elusive goals. Instead of Starbucks lincoln green that one sported linoleum, chrome and Formica. Its brew was rich and smooth and proletarian, costing less than a buck.
Chock-Full-Of-Nuts.
She was in New York to visit her old lover Kit Pico, whose play "Zafra" was to be staged inside a rat cellar vamping as a theatre. A gift would be appropriate. Kit loved Lyonel Feininger. She had been told of an art shop owned by an orgre who delighted in haggling. She would see who could strike the best deal! It was there she met that achingly intense mystical Jew, Artie Hoffman. Amateur art historian and part-time guide at the Whitney.
Moody brown-eyed Artie Hoffman. Siddartha wearing an NYU sweatshirt.
*
The first time Artie Hoffman showed her around, he took her to the miniature Arch of Triumph and she thought it was cute. At a bookshop he bought her a copy of the love letters between Nelson Algren and Simone de Beauvoir. Such a quaint and sentimental lover, her Artie.
She was late for her date with Squire Tom!
Climbing breathlessly into the cab, she gasped, "Washington Square!"
They crossed the Avenue of Americas, and she recalled the Bristol Hotel and her room there, with a window she could open to the snappy fall breeze. Looking out, she inhaled a scent like no other. Manhattan. Below she saw a crowded street unrolling into the distance like a slick black carpet. Her block retained a 1950s neon glow. Brownstone niches and oblong glass facades. Jackson Pollack had flung his paint upon sidewalk and curb.
On that first night in New York she took a solitary stroll and found a jazz club with an open door. She glimpsed a black man gleaming in purple light. Like Shiva with multiple arms flailing the air, he beat drums with the rhythms of a thousand hearts.
Retracing her way home she lost her bearings. Finally she saw a man loafing in a doorway. She asked him, "Do you know where the Bristol Hotel might be, Monsieur?"
He cocked his head and laughed, and thumbed upward to the overhead sign.
Bristol Hotel.
They laughed together.
By the next night she knew her turf well enough to lead Artie Hoffman up to the room. Later, but not too much later, the snappy fall breeze lifted the bedside curtains.
*
Tom had never known a woman to be early. Some had been on time, but never early. That was how his mind worked.
Slats of his chair pressed into warm flesh, and he asked himself: what the hell was he doing? what was it about this older-than-the-hills Benoit woman?
A few yards away three college girls sat at a similar table, sharing a carafe of white wine. Each had a copy of the same textbook. Open to the same page. To the same illustration of a set of healthy breasts. One girl fingered her breasts just forward of her armpits. Tracing over the cotton wale of her Abercrombie & Fitch tee-top. The other girls spoke in low conspiratoral voices. Tom sought for a metaphor.
"Cherchez la femme, Squire Tom?"
"Madam Benoit!"
"C'est moi."
To hide her crow's feet she wore aviator shades from Michael Kors. That anti-aging glycolic peel kit had not done the job. It had been a long time since she was forty, adorning herself with kohl, in the manner of Nazimova in "Salome" to lure young men. Tom noticed everything. Her firm ivory calves when she crossed her legs. The flatness of her tummy and the wonder of her Wonder Bra.
She handed Tom an envelope. "Would you care to escort me to the opera tonight?"
Tom looked at the tickets. "Sure--"
He hated opera. And his knowlege of Richard Strauss was limited to the music in "2001: A Space Odyssey." However, he had seen a review of this one. And the prospect of seeing Karita Mattila naked at the conclusion of Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils was most alluring.
"This ought to be great," Tom said. "I love Strauss."
Tom's idea of a blue ribbon date was taking a babe to Radio City for a show and a movie, then to a smart bistro for a light bite and a micro-brew. From that point, who knew? Once he had landed a babe in the sack by chancing upon a tattoo parlor and talking her into being inked below the bikini line.
"I study the Kabbala," she had said. So she chose a miniscule Chesed. For Tom, viewing that shiny shaved pussy was the perfect aperitif to mad monkey love.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
salome revealed 1
"Knock knock?"
Cassandra Cruz looked up and saw that her top staff writer was back from his lunch hour at Gold's Gym. Tom had been a pudgy nebbish. He lost forty pounds and hardened his abs into a meaty washboard. How did she know this? The same way everyone else did. He was a show-off. He ate salads at his desk and on dress-down-Fridays he wore half-shirts baring his midriff. Nobody complained. It was that kind of environment. Today he looked chipper in a brown Norfolk jacket and blue jeans.
"Hey, Baby Boy. What's up?"
"Dropping off my proposed expenses. You know. For that symposium on Anti-Language in British Columbia."
"It's absolutely essesntial that you cover it. Correct?"
"I thought we'd agreed."
"We did. And we also agreed that I want more than the Five Ws. I want you to corner somebody with a soul to sell. Dig up a corpse or two."
"Got it, Chief."
She watched him go, noticing, as he went, the beginning of a bald spot. She wondered how long it would be before he took to wearing hats.
*
On his way to the elevator Tom met a woman in sleek attire. Her voice was soft as marshmallow in hot cocoa. "Pardon me, kind man. Are these the offices of the magazine Semio-Stage?"
"Yes. How may I help you?"
She offered a black suede hand. "I am Solange Benoit. I am here to find the editor. A Cassandra Cruz."
"Her office is the one with the big open door."
"Merci." A pert smile erased fifty years from her parchment face.
Ever the fox after MILF, Tom began his assessment. Pearl choker upon a wizened throat. Black short-waisted flannel suit, complimented by a silk silver blouse. He fancied her ensconced in a Tudor brasserie in Hell's Kitchen, Clinton, whatever, sipping dry Plymouth martinis. She would be chit-chatting about those French dames his boss often quoted.
What could HE offer on Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray?
Maybe he could slide into homebase talking about French cinema. Agnes Varda maybe.
He had actually liked "Le Bonneur" and "Cleo From 5 to 7."
*
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Incessant rapping. Like a demented woodpecker.
Cassandra looked up, annoyed. "May I help you with something?"
The elegant woman stood with brittle formality. "Perhaps you could give me a few minutes of your time?"
"I suppose. Shoot."
The visitor took a seat with the slow grace of an aged housecat. "My name is Solange Benoit. And I saw the article on Kit Pico."
"Yes?"
"Could you tell me how to contact him?"
Cassandra paused for thought.
She set her eyes upon the lithograph of Romaine Brook's portrait of Lady Trowbridge. Unconsciously she raised an eyebrow in the manner of Lady Trowbridge. "The article clearly stated that Kit had retreated to the Island of Saint James."
"I was hoping for a mailing address." Her voice began to fail. Strangely intimidated by the magazine editor. The gray butch haircut. The flat moonface.
Suddenly it flashed to Cassandra Cruz: Somehow I know this woman.
She said to Solange Benoit, "It sounds like you've been out of touch."
Ancient eyes welled with sadness. "For many years."
The same could be said for me, the magazine editor rued.
Cassandra Cruz looked up and saw that her top staff writer was back from his lunch hour at Gold's Gym. Tom had been a pudgy nebbish. He lost forty pounds and hardened his abs into a meaty washboard. How did she know this? The same way everyone else did. He was a show-off. He ate salads at his desk and on dress-down-Fridays he wore half-shirts baring his midriff. Nobody complained. It was that kind of environment. Today he looked chipper in a brown Norfolk jacket and blue jeans.
"Hey, Baby Boy. What's up?"
"Dropping off my proposed expenses. You know. For that symposium on Anti-Language in British Columbia."
"It's absolutely essesntial that you cover it. Correct?"
"I thought we'd agreed."
"We did. And we also agreed that I want more than the Five Ws. I want you to corner somebody with a soul to sell. Dig up a corpse or two."
"Got it, Chief."
She watched him go, noticing, as he went, the beginning of a bald spot. She wondered how long it would be before he took to wearing hats.
*
On his way to the elevator Tom met a woman in sleek attire. Her voice was soft as marshmallow in hot cocoa. "Pardon me, kind man. Are these the offices of the magazine Semio-Stage?"
"Yes. How may I help you?"
She offered a black suede hand. "I am Solange Benoit. I am here to find the editor. A Cassandra Cruz."
"Her office is the one with the big open door."
"Merci." A pert smile erased fifty years from her parchment face.
Ever the fox after MILF, Tom began his assessment. Pearl choker upon a wizened throat. Black short-waisted flannel suit, complimented by a silk silver blouse. He fancied her ensconced in a Tudor brasserie in Hell's Kitchen, Clinton, whatever, sipping dry Plymouth martinis. She would be chit-chatting about those French dames his boss often quoted.
What could HE offer on Julia Kristeva or Luce Irigaray?
Maybe he could slide into homebase talking about French cinema. Agnes Varda maybe.
He had actually liked "Le Bonneur" and "Cleo From 5 to 7."
*
Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. Incessant rapping. Like a demented woodpecker.
Cassandra looked up, annoyed. "May I help you with something?"
The elegant woman stood with brittle formality. "Perhaps you could give me a few minutes of your time?"
"I suppose. Shoot."
The visitor took a seat with the slow grace of an aged housecat. "My name is Solange Benoit. And I saw the article on Kit Pico."
"Yes?"
"Could you tell me how to contact him?"
Cassandra paused for thought.
She set her eyes upon the lithograph of Romaine Brook's portrait of Lady Trowbridge. Unconsciously she raised an eyebrow in the manner of Lady Trowbridge. "The article clearly stated that Kit had retreated to the Island of Saint James."
"I was hoping for a mailing address." Her voice began to fail. Strangely intimidated by the magazine editor. The gray butch haircut. The flat moonface.
Suddenly it flashed to Cassandra Cruz: Somehow I know this woman.
She said to Solange Benoit, "It sounds like you've been out of touch."
Ancient eyes welled with sadness. "For many years."
The same could be said for me, the magazine editor rued.
Monday, April 11, 2011
may this land remain uncorrupted
Mango idled for hours sitting in the sand and scrunching his toes. Listening to the warm wind hoot in his ears. No contemplation. Grief had stolen everything.
Yesterday his father had come down to the shore and invited him to the Dutchman for lunch. He could see that Henri Bertrand was lonely.
"I hate that big house, Father."
"Yes. I know your mind."
"But you do nothing."
"What do you mean? What is it you wish me to do. Rewrite the past?"
Mango fell silent, wishing the scoundrel would go away.
"All right. I'll go."
*
The tide had risen and waves were drenching the seat of his pants. Swirling around his ankles.
His notebook was completely ruined. No loss, he thought. The one poem in it had been embossed within him before he jotted it down.
Someone was approaching him. Walking through wavering bands of heat. Hannah Ramirez.
Sight of her was like rain upon a desert flower.
"Hello, Mango."
"Sit with me."
"Let's move to dry land, darling."
They sat side-by-side holding hands.
"I really miss him, Hannah."
"Of course you do. I miss him too."
"I have no new poetry in me."
"Give it time."
Mango fell silent. Then, feeling her warmth, he asked, "How did he make love to you?"
"With his whole being."
"With me he held back. Keeping something. What was it?"
"Joy."
*
Holding her sandclogs in one hand and her straw bonnet in the other, Hannah balanced her way along the Stinger Tail like a high-wire artist.
Mango called from behind: "Cover your feet!"
"I have tough feet. It's easier barefoot. Ouch!"
On Spanish Mound amid slanted coconut palms there was a fenced grave site. Inscribed on the memorial stone: LOVED BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM. "May this land remain uncorrupted." Robert Sinclair Radcliff/1944-1999.
*
Today they would celebrate his birthday with a summer sausage and a bottle of summer wine. Bringing up the rear with the picnic basket, Mango's head brimmed with poetry.
"Hannah! Hannah!"
Yesterday his father had come down to the shore and invited him to the Dutchman for lunch. He could see that Henri Bertrand was lonely.
"I hate that big house, Father."
"Yes. I know your mind."
"But you do nothing."
"What do you mean? What is it you wish me to do. Rewrite the past?"
Mango fell silent, wishing the scoundrel would go away.
"All right. I'll go."
*
The tide had risen and waves were drenching the seat of his pants. Swirling around his ankles.
His notebook was completely ruined. No loss, he thought. The one poem in it had been embossed within him before he jotted it down.
Someone was approaching him. Walking through wavering bands of heat. Hannah Ramirez.
Sight of her was like rain upon a desert flower.
"Hello, Mango."
"Sit with me."
"Let's move to dry land, darling."
They sat side-by-side holding hands.
"I really miss him, Hannah."
"Of course you do. I miss him too."
"I have no new poetry in me."
"Give it time."
Mango fell silent. Then, feeling her warmth, he asked, "How did he make love to you?"
"With his whole being."
"With me he held back. Keeping something. What was it?"
"Joy."
*
Holding her sandclogs in one hand and her straw bonnet in the other, Hannah balanced her way along the Stinger Tail like a high-wire artist.
Mango called from behind: "Cover your feet!"
"I have tough feet. It's easier barefoot. Ouch!"
On Spanish Mound amid slanted coconut palms there was a fenced grave site. Inscribed on the memorial stone: LOVED BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM. "May this land remain uncorrupted." Robert Sinclair Radcliff/1944-1999.
*
Today they would celebrate his birthday with a summer sausage and a bottle of summer wine. Bringing up the rear with the picnic basket, Mango's head brimmed with poetry.
"Hannah! Hannah!"
happy hour
Mango and Jimmy-Scamp were sipping Whitbread Ale in the pantry.
"You know, Cap counts his Whitbread like Mister Scrooge."
"Not when he's up in his room all the time," Mango snickered. "Mooning over Hannah and Mister Radcliff. The old fart is beside himself. Calling upon his Orishas. I can't stand it."
"Don't listen then."
Bang! The side screen door of the pub.
Jimmy-Scamp chugged the last of his ale, burped, and declared, "It's happy hour!"
"Happy happy happy."
Mango hid a Red Stripe inside his tropical shirt, ice cold against his tummy.
"Hold the fort, Jaime."
*
Mango passed by people entering the pub. Fat white people. He went outside where he found Mister Radcliff and Hannah were seated at the Cinzano table.
"Sit down, lad," Mister Radcliff beamed. "I was just telling Hannah about Horseshoe Crab Key."
"OK."
"What's that under your shirt?" Hannah asked, one eyebrow arched.
Sheepishly he withdrew the stolen bottle of beer.
"Very disrespectful, Mango," she clucked.
"Well, let me reiterate about Horseshoe Crab Key," Mister Radcliff interjected, letting Mango off the hook for the moment. "The lad here was very upset with me a few months ago."
"Upset? That's not the half of it, sir."
"I know."
"You were going to sell it to some Dubai corporation. And they were going to develope the key. Tear it all up to make room for condominiums."
"Not quite. I was seeking a developer. My plan was to create another Fire Island. A hedonist's paradise where anything goes. I was prepared to spend like there is no tomorrow, which there isn't."
Hannah scolded: "There is that fatalism again."
"As I was saying. The Dubai people fled the moment Saint James Academy filed an injunction. Moral
grounds, and all that."
"What happens now?" Mango asked.
"Nothing. I own the property. Upon my passing you and Hannah will inherit lock, stock and barrel."
"Oh my god," Hannah gasped. "Mango, did you hear that?"
Mango misted over. Tearfully, he hugged Mister Radcliff and kissed the gentleman's cheek.
*
A sunburned man with wide-set pig-eyes lunged into the pub. He walked five paces and jammed on his brakes. His wife skidded into his rump. "Holy shit!" He proclaimed in a baritone Alabama drawl, "There's more jungle bunnies in here than a Tarzan movie!"
Silence dropped like an opera curtain. Jimmy-Scamp turned to see who could be stupid enough to make such a remark. He saw a middle-aged man with a flat-top haircut and dressed in a Parrot Head tropical shirt.
Pig Eyes singled out Jimmy-Scamp: "Hey boy! Look here. Me and the wife want a booth. You hear?"
For an instant Jimmy-Scamp felt like punching the bastard. Then he broke into his best Steppin Fetchit. "Yassah boss, eyes heah yuh."
"Make it snappy."
"George," whined George's wife. "Don't make a scene."
"I ain't making no goddamned scene."
There was one vacant booth in the Jolly Roger. And it was reserved for Cap.
Jimmy Scamp said, "Ain no booths, boss. Hafta fine yo place outside."
"How about that one?"
"Nawsuh."
"Look here, you black--"
"Cool it, mate." The voice slammed shut like an iron maiden. No options offered.
In Cap's hand was an antique belaying spike.
He added, "Let's all go out to Hannah's patio. You'll like it a lot better."
Pig Eyes heard the menace in Cap's voice.
"Sounds reasonable."
*
At the bar a woman wearing a crimson turban sat with a man covered in a Panama Hat. Mango went to her and said hello while ignoring the man of mystery. "May I help you?"
Her alabaster face reminded him of a theatre mask.
"Yes," she answered. "I would like a Tom Collins."
"Coming right up." He was almost gone when the man snagged Mango's arm.
"Make that two."
"Yes, sir. Two Tom Collins."
The woman smiled and said to Mango, "I have a distinct notion you don't work here."
"Correct you are." At her implied behest, he decided to linger. She was a shapely forty-something in a revealing crimson halter-top. Her culottes were tan and snug in the crotch.
"We're on holiday," she began. "A kind young colored boy told us not to miss having a drink at the Jolly Roger while in port."
"He was ribbing you, madam."
*
Not too far from them at the bar sat a statuesque young black man. He radiated joy and good will. His smile was a message from heaven. He was drinking ginger beer with a blond nordic-looking woman with an eye patch. She was telling Jimmy-Scamp to light some citronella flambeaux on the patio if the mosquitoes became a problem.
"I'm sure I can find some. Thank you, Miss Jenny."
"Do me a favor. Play this CD when you can."
He looked at the plastic case and grinned.
The woman in crimson noted the clothes worn by Eye Patch. Blue denim cut-offs and a khaki army shirt. Sun and seawind had streaked her hair without mercy. French braid.
Suddenly the sound system captured everyone's attention. Marianne Faithfull sang in a sandpaper cigarette-corrupted voice. "And the ship. The black frieghter--"
*
Seated alone on the patio, Mister Radcliff gazed serenely at the sea. Beyond the seawall breakers crunched in moonlit majesty. Cap was out of Pinch, so he donated a bottle of his best Ron Metusalem. Smokey, golden, and smooth. Cap called it Burnt Rum.
Filled with blissful serenity, Mister Radcliff thought: I have nothing more to ask. Thinking thus, he
decided to smoke his last Virginia Number 3. A nearby frangipani clattered in the breeze.
*
George's wife looked across the patio at the man in a rumpled seasucker blazer and khaki Bermuda shorts. His frayed planter's hat completed the slob Tory ensemble. Somehow she was reminded of a character in a Graham Greene novel. A burnt out case. Such was the aura of doom.
She called to him. "Good evening!"
"T'is pleasant."
His accent thrilled her. A trace of a smile trembled upon his lips. He saluted her by tipping his hat.
"Who the hell is that you're talking to, Wife?"
"A gentleman."
"Looks like a queer to me."
Suddenly she screamed, "George! Look!"
Furtively something moved in the shadows beyond the croton hedge. A man, creeping like a prowler. He sniffed the air like a hyena. A scent of carrion in his nostrils.
George's wife was beside herself in terror. "George! Everybody!"
Smelling of the sheep manure he had delivered to the groundskeeper at the academy, Raggedy Man leaped the hedge. Well practiced at his game. He strode quickly up to George.
"Gimmee money, Mon!"
"I will NOT!"
"Yes yes. Gimmee now!"
"Scram, you fucking nigger!"
"Jah-hoo-vah!" The Rastafari's expression was crazed, fierce, and merely a fright-mask.
George's wife thought of that painting of John Brown of Kansas.
At that moment, George pulled a blued snub .38 from his pants and shot twice. One bullet burned through Raggedy Man's right armpit. The other socked Mister Radcliff in the head.
"You know, Cap counts his Whitbread like Mister Scrooge."
"Not when he's up in his room all the time," Mango snickered. "Mooning over Hannah and Mister Radcliff. The old fart is beside himself. Calling upon his Orishas. I can't stand it."
"Don't listen then."
Bang! The side screen door of the pub.
Jimmy-Scamp chugged the last of his ale, burped, and declared, "It's happy hour!"
"Happy happy happy."
Mango hid a Red Stripe inside his tropical shirt, ice cold against his tummy.
"Hold the fort, Jaime."
*
Mango passed by people entering the pub. Fat white people. He went outside where he found Mister Radcliff and Hannah were seated at the Cinzano table.
"Sit down, lad," Mister Radcliff beamed. "I was just telling Hannah about Horseshoe Crab Key."
"OK."
"What's that under your shirt?" Hannah asked, one eyebrow arched.
Sheepishly he withdrew the stolen bottle of beer.
"Very disrespectful, Mango," she clucked.
"Well, let me reiterate about Horseshoe Crab Key," Mister Radcliff interjected, letting Mango off the hook for the moment. "The lad here was very upset with me a few months ago."
"Upset? That's not the half of it, sir."
"I know."
"You were going to sell it to some Dubai corporation. And they were going to develope the key. Tear it all up to make room for condominiums."
"Not quite. I was seeking a developer. My plan was to create another Fire Island. A hedonist's paradise where anything goes. I was prepared to spend like there is no tomorrow, which there isn't."
Hannah scolded: "There is that fatalism again."
"As I was saying. The Dubai people fled the moment Saint James Academy filed an injunction. Moral
grounds, and all that."
"What happens now?" Mango asked.
"Nothing. I own the property. Upon my passing you and Hannah will inherit lock, stock and barrel."
"Oh my god," Hannah gasped. "Mango, did you hear that?"
Mango misted over. Tearfully, he hugged Mister Radcliff and kissed the gentleman's cheek.
*
A sunburned man with wide-set pig-eyes lunged into the pub. He walked five paces and jammed on his brakes. His wife skidded into his rump. "Holy shit!" He proclaimed in a baritone Alabama drawl, "There's more jungle bunnies in here than a Tarzan movie!"
Silence dropped like an opera curtain. Jimmy-Scamp turned to see who could be stupid enough to make such a remark. He saw a middle-aged man with a flat-top haircut and dressed in a Parrot Head tropical shirt.
Pig Eyes singled out Jimmy-Scamp: "Hey boy! Look here. Me and the wife want a booth. You hear?"
For an instant Jimmy-Scamp felt like punching the bastard. Then he broke into his best Steppin Fetchit. "Yassah boss, eyes heah yuh."
"Make it snappy."
"George," whined George's wife. "Don't make a scene."
"I ain't making no goddamned scene."
There was one vacant booth in the Jolly Roger. And it was reserved for Cap.
Jimmy Scamp said, "Ain no booths, boss. Hafta fine yo place outside."
"How about that one?"
"Nawsuh."
"Look here, you black--"
"Cool it, mate." The voice slammed shut like an iron maiden. No options offered.
In Cap's hand was an antique belaying spike.
He added, "Let's all go out to Hannah's patio. You'll like it a lot better."
Pig Eyes heard the menace in Cap's voice.
"Sounds reasonable."
*
At the bar a woman wearing a crimson turban sat with a man covered in a Panama Hat. Mango went to her and said hello while ignoring the man of mystery. "May I help you?"
Her alabaster face reminded him of a theatre mask.
"Yes," she answered. "I would like a Tom Collins."
"Coming right up." He was almost gone when the man snagged Mango's arm.
"Make that two."
"Yes, sir. Two Tom Collins."
The woman smiled and said to Mango, "I have a distinct notion you don't work here."
"Correct you are." At her implied behest, he decided to linger. She was a shapely forty-something in a revealing crimson halter-top. Her culottes were tan and snug in the crotch.
"We're on holiday," she began. "A kind young colored boy told us not to miss having a drink at the Jolly Roger while in port."
"He was ribbing you, madam."
*
Not too far from them at the bar sat a statuesque young black man. He radiated joy and good will. His smile was a message from heaven. He was drinking ginger beer with a blond nordic-looking woman with an eye patch. She was telling Jimmy-Scamp to light some citronella flambeaux on the patio if the mosquitoes became a problem.
"I'm sure I can find some. Thank you, Miss Jenny."
"Do me a favor. Play this CD when you can."
He looked at the plastic case and grinned.
The woman in crimson noted the clothes worn by Eye Patch. Blue denim cut-offs and a khaki army shirt. Sun and seawind had streaked her hair without mercy. French braid.
Suddenly the sound system captured everyone's attention. Marianne Faithfull sang in a sandpaper cigarette-corrupted voice. "And the ship. The black frieghter--"
*
Seated alone on the patio, Mister Radcliff gazed serenely at the sea. Beyond the seawall breakers crunched in moonlit majesty. Cap was out of Pinch, so he donated a bottle of his best Ron Metusalem. Smokey, golden, and smooth. Cap called it Burnt Rum.
Filled with blissful serenity, Mister Radcliff thought: I have nothing more to ask. Thinking thus, he
decided to smoke his last Virginia Number 3. A nearby frangipani clattered in the breeze.
*
George's wife looked across the patio at the man in a rumpled seasucker blazer and khaki Bermuda shorts. His frayed planter's hat completed the slob Tory ensemble. Somehow she was reminded of a character in a Graham Greene novel. A burnt out case. Such was the aura of doom.
She called to him. "Good evening!"
"T'is pleasant."
His accent thrilled her. A trace of a smile trembled upon his lips. He saluted her by tipping his hat.
"Who the hell is that you're talking to, Wife?"
"A gentleman."
"Looks like a queer to me."
Suddenly she screamed, "George! Look!"
Furtively something moved in the shadows beyond the croton hedge. A man, creeping like a prowler. He sniffed the air like a hyena. A scent of carrion in his nostrils.
George's wife was beside herself in terror. "George! Everybody!"
Smelling of the sheep manure he had delivered to the groundskeeper at the academy, Raggedy Man leaped the hedge. Well practiced at his game. He strode quickly up to George.
"Gimmee money, Mon!"
"I will NOT!"
"Yes yes. Gimmee now!"
"Scram, you fucking nigger!"
"Jah-hoo-vah!" The Rastafari's expression was crazed, fierce, and merely a fright-mask.
George's wife thought of that painting of John Brown of Kansas.
At that moment, George pulled a blued snub .38 from his pants and shot twice. One bullet burned through Raggedy Man's right armpit. The other socked Mister Radcliff in the head.
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