calliope

           Calliope leaned close to Sonya and whispered, "Come on. Let's go somewhere."
           The hospital room had become a boy's clubhouse. Reefer talk, newspaper talk, and a garden-variety guy talk loaded with the storm-seeds of a pissing contest.
            Silently, like ninjas they departed: sleek winds blowing down the corridor.
            Two counter-culture chicks bonding with every step.
            In the shade of an elm there was a pushcart falafel vendor on the sidewalk corner.
             Aromas were over-powering.
             The women smiled and walked up to the man with a red bandana tied around his head.
            "Doud, how's it going?" Calliope asked.
            "Very fine! Give me a hug!"
            They hugged, and he squeezed her ass. Old friends.
             Sonya grinned, thinking, This is a very sexy man!
             "Doud, this is Sonya."
             "M'lady--"
             She shook his offered hand, discovering a delicate, almost mincing grip.  Wow! This is so cool!
              "We need two falafel supreme, and two sides of feta and black olive salad," Calliope said.
              "Coming right up!"
              Sonya had never eaten falafel, and was relieved to see it served on pita bread. Like a gyro.
              They took the food over to a bench on the grass.
              A little park bordered a pond with Canadian geese.
              "My new friend!" Sonya gushed. "Calliope!"

apache

          Macomber fixed a mug of what he called Café con Leche, using Pet Milk and Instant Maxwell House. Radio: "Good Morning, Vietnam!" and then it was the Animals, We Gotta Get Outta This Place! He lit a Lucky and opened the new Stars and Stripes.
           Fucking Erskine Brown walked in and sat down with him at the card table. Face registering shock.
           "No Freedom Bird for Morrison," he said.
           "What are you talking about, Douche Bag?"
           "The dude's dead."
           "I saw him leave this morning."
           "Never made it. He was standing in line at departure when  rockets hit Tan Son Nhut. One came through the ceiling and took him out."
            "Christ--! Say, where'd you hear this?
            "Spider Monkey down at the mess."
            "Oh, man. Can anything suck more than that?"
            "That's how Charlie is gonna win this war," Jones stated. "One thousand cuts and a little bit of terror--"
             "Break our resolve--"
             "Whose resolve? I want outta here."

                                                                                          *

              Macomber often took work home with him. He sat now on his cot, cropping pictures. Hated cropping pictures. Why? he asked himself. There was nothing to it.
              Most people hated proof-reading. For some reason he found it painless.
              Same with writing headlines.
              His boss, Master Sergeant Kwilecki frowned upon this after-hours activity, but, knowing how flakey Macomber  was, and figuring it would ensure making deadline, he said OK.  "But, the first time you lose something, Son,you're ass is grass, and I'm the fucking lawn-mower!"
              Beer.
              All work required beer, and so he was on the third one.
              Radio was playing I'm a Girl-Watcher when Erskine Jones flapped in wearing a Hawaiian shirt with his fatigue pants. "Hi Guy," he grinned, bucktoothed fool. "Not gonna get any Am Dao sweating in here!"
              Am Dao. Pussy.
              "Nope," Macomber clucked. "Right about that."
              And that got him thinking about Nguyen, and her platinum blond blushing-pink-slit beaver.
              "Hey, Mac, ya got a brewsky for me?"
              "Help y'self."

                                                                                          *

               Brown drank all the remaining beer, three of them, belched, farted, and then bummed a Lucky. Macomber smirked and shook his head. "You're a real piece of work, Ersky."
               Off came the Hawaiian shirt, then the fatigue pants, then the GI skivvies.
               "Well," Brown stated. "It's time for Long Dong to hit the shower."
   
                                                                                           *

                By the time Brown returned, wearing soapy shower clogs, Macomber was putting his work away, filed in a manila accordion folder.
                "Hey, Mac, what do you know about that gook girl they called Apache?"
                "The sniper who could capture guys, slice off their eyelids during interrogation, making sure everybody on Hill 55 could hear them screaming?"
                 "Yeah, that's the one."
                 "Story's bullshit."






             

Look where a bad attitude will get you

                    Blinding Texas sun reflected from the tarmac as if the ground were covered with snow. Macomber wore wire rim shades similar to those worn by Donald Sutherland in M*A*S*H , standing outside the hanger where an F4 Phantom was parked. He sucked on a breath mint. Lunch at the NCO club consisted of two whiskeys and a Slim Jim. Now he was managing the information booth for the Thunderbirds' Air Show at Randolph AFB, once famed as Westpoint of the Air. He hated public relations. He hated bullshit. He hated Tech Sergeant Timothy McSween, a dumb fuck who could give anybody a bad attitude.
                      "Macomber! I thought I told you to remove those sunglasses!"
                      "Indeed, Sergeant. And I explained these are prescription specs. I need them to see what I'm doing."
                      "Macomber, I don't see you doing anything!"
                      "Fuck you."
                      "I'll have one of your stripes!"
                      "Oh, gee. Well, I'm glad you're not gonna have me sent to Vietnam."
                      "Now that's a thought."


                                                                                              *

                       "Well, here I am in 'Nam," he said to himself for the millionth time, stropping a straight razor.
                       After a Barbasol shave and a splash of Lilac Vegetal  he would be a new man, hanging to the customary left once he had his skivvies on.
                        "Hey, pervert! Put some damn pants on!"
                        Erskine Brown popped him with a wet towel.
                        "Ersky, you're in the know. Are they going to unlock the armory anytime soon, or are they going to wait until Charlie delivers a telegram?"
                        "All I know is you and I each have an M-16 assigned to us and kept under lock and key. Master Sergeant Massey has the key."
                        "Massey carries an old M-14 and an even older Colt 1911."
                        "Which he owns personally."
                       
                                                                                           *

                         Macomber dropped off a roll of Tri-X at the photo shack.
                         "Expedite, OK?"
                         Mister Tran looked up from his paperwork and frowned. He glanced back at Tech Sergeant Morrison behind him, holding fresh glossies. "Rush rush rush, all the time rush."
                          "Like it's the Hindenberg," Morrison groaned. "All right Ace, leave 'em here and come back in an hour."
                           "Thanks, Sarge. Tran."
                           Macomber had snapped a batch showing Vietnamese kids kicking up water in a rice paddy.
                           "Lemme see your piece for a moment," Morrison asked. "Your stuff isn't as good as it used to be."
                           Macomber handed over his trusty Mamiya-Sekor 1000 DTL, a 35mm single lens reflex he had bought in San Antonio.
                            "And that extra lens too. Wanna check 'em both."
                            Macomber dug into his camera bag and took out a Vivatar 85-205 mm zoom lens, also bought Stateside.
                            Morrison had the bedside manner of a Flight Surgeon with a cancer patient.
                            Few moments later, the verdict was in.
                            "All fucked up with mildew. It's all over the mirror inside. The lens is shoddy. Sorry, Ace. Did anybody ever tell you, with those hippie glasses you look like that guy in The Doors?"

Macomber

               A wisp of ash from his Lucky Strike fell onto his olive drab undershirt. Macomber flicked it off and sat up. His cot stank of monsoon. Fungus between his toes, congo creeping crud, itched damnation. "Fuck it," he said. Dousing the immolation with Jack Daniel's: "I baptize thee in the name of unholy revelation."
                The jungle sat upon his hootch. He could hear the beating of its green heart. Words from the Rig Veda: there was neither non-existence nor existence; there was neither the realm of space nor the sky which is beyond.
                 The sky above the rain throbbed with the bruising of the air: chopper blades. The Huey, gray as a dragon's foreskin, its snout daubed with a huge Day-Glo vagina, clambered down Jacob's Ladder with Intel that could not wait.
                 Macomber tried to meditate. His mind closed in on a flamingo lily, or boy flower, hermaphrodite and poisonous to eat. Penis on a platter, the botonist from Hue had called it. Her name was Nuyen, and it had been a month since they kissed behind the bamboo in a small garden where she worshipped her ancestors. Beneath the shade of a green papaya he kissed her almond eyes and then, lifting the gauzy blouse slightly, her brown belly-button.
                  "Wake up, Macomber." Erskine Brown, the cowboy from Flatbush smirked. Floral boxers and dogtags.
                  "I wasn't sleeping."
                  "Whatever. Your eyes were closed."
                  "The hell you want?"
                  "Peace and Love."

                                                                                            *

                   Dusky slats of light fell from French Colonial shutters across Nuyen's belly, guiding his hands and then, slowly, his lips. She had bleached her hair platinum. The thatch excited him. Her inspiration came from either a Japanese art film or a whore she had seen in Saigon. Either way, he didn't care. She rolled over upon her breasts and began to croon his favorite song. By the time I get to Phoenix she'll be rising--
                    "Play with me," she commanded.
                    Macomber stroked his guitar and it sang. Just like Glen Campbell.
                 

Smash-up

                   Sycamore leaf, maybe maple, gummed together with sap, cluttered the dirt road out of Gresham's Wood like origami landcrabs, scattering beneath the tread of the Skell Van. Brother Ambrose drove as rapidly as the route permitted. There were few curves. Lumber czar James "Mess Hall" Gresham had carved it straight as a plumbline through the wilderness. A crepuscule light gradually dimmed. Orc-like tree shadows shifted like phantoms. Headlights fired weak yellow cones of illumination into the deepening gloom. Suddenly between them stood Gresham's great elk. Massive, immobile as cold cement, barring further trespass.
                       The driver skidded the Skell Van into tanglewood, climaxing abruptly in the lap of a giant spruce. He smacked the windshield with his forehead just above the third eye and a shroud of darkness fell upon him like a guillotine blade.

                                                                                  *

                    Innuit intuition told her something terrible had happened to her man and the Skell Van. She put down the paint brush and stepped back from the mural, which was growing quite well in a surreal state of mind. Brother Ambrose had spoken of his late wife Cherry Blossom, whose mural enhanced the van. Sonya shivered, rushed headlong from the church, up the greenwood trail, into the night.  The Skell Van was totalled. From all the blood, as if streaming from a Crown of Thorns, on his face, she thought Brother Ambrose  was also totalled. She knelt by his side and keened into the night.

                                                                                   *

                       Artie Hoffman eased open the door to Semi-private Room 226 and peered inside. He saw a stunning olive-skinned young woman with dark Mediterranean hair sitting at a bedside. Her black Nirvana tee-shirt had been sheared just below her breasts. Intricate jade tattoos covered her arms from shoulder to wrist,  leafy Amazon rain forest. The guy in the bed looked like a pickup truck pot vendor. Artie saw a resemblance to Kurt Cobain, but figured it was something subliminal generated by the woman's tee-shirt. A paperback book lay on the bed. "The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross" by John Allegro.
                          "Excuse me," Artie said. "Looking for Brother Ambrose."
                          "Mister Zig-Zag. Yeah, in the other bed. Hi, name's Macomber, and this is Calliope."
                          "Artie Hoffman."
                          "Newspaper man."
                          Artie sighed. "Yep."
                          "Used to be in the wordsmith trade myself. Well, look. Everything's cool. Your friend is sleeping. I think."
                          "Say, how did you come to calling him Mister Zig-Zag?"
                          "By his own admission."
                          From behind the privacy curtain a raggedy voice: "Artie. Is that you?"
                          "Yeah man, it's me."
                          "Come on over."
                          Ziggy looked like the Mummy, or maybe The Invisible Man, wrapped in gauze and self-adhesive stretch tape.
                           "How're you doin', Lazarus?"
                           "Back from the dead. That's right."
                           "So you're Mister Zig-Zag again."
                           "I can explain."
                           Artie pulled up a chair. "Indulge me."
                            "Macomber over there is reading a book about amanita muscana mushroom. I let it out that I knew something about it."
                            "What about it?"
                            "It grows real well during the winter in California. You can find it among bishop and monterey pine."
                             Artie clasped his friend's gnarly hand. "Good to have you back, Ziggy."
                             Someone else had come into the room. It was like a disturbace in the air.
                              They heard Macomber say, "Hi. Can I help you?"
                               A small voice. "Looking for my old man."
                               "Mister Zig-Zag, there's a young Eskimo lady here to see you!"
                               "Sonya! Come here, babe."
                               Sonya stood by Ziggy's bed. She said, "You're not the same person."

Bee's Wax

                Felicity McBride loved to talk about people, but never about her father, the lighthouse keeper who blew out his brains when she was eight. He had been a morose reclusive man suiting himself in raw solitude, leaving a seldom-visited wife and daughter in a coastal shantytown not far from land's end. Actually, it was the sky that killed him. Observing his actions night and day, it was an all-seeing eye much like the one on a dollar bill. It ruled the limitless void beyond his jumbled mind, and yet, it hovered so close behind the right ear lobe that the man could feel a pressure of beating wings. When the existential horror became too great, Captain Wescott removed his Webley service revolver from its desk drawer and ended eveything. Of this Felicity was dead certain.
                 

                                                                                   *

                   Not long after Brother Ambrose and Sonya Chekov departed in the Skell Van, Mary Jane the greengrocer saw Felicity approaching the tent, and noted how advanced the splotches on the old widow's face had become, looking like nipple-sized pink crabs. A gaunt crone in a black gown with stained armpits smelling like wilted roses.
                    "Morning, Mary Jane."
                    "Felicity."
                    "Well guess who came knocking yesterday."
                    "Haven't a clue."
                    "That Jew newspaperman. Asked me what it was exactly I saw going on at that hippy church down near Gresham's Wood, the one that used to be a barn. It seems he gets news from the sherrif's blotter."
                     "Yah--yeah, folks like to read stuff like that, especially the way Scoop slants it. Petty crime, domestic disputes. Arrests. All from the record. It's like reading good gossip."
                      "That's what worries me. He's liable to make me sound like a jackass. Instead of taking that preacher to task."
                      "Felicity, you're the one who ratted, instead of minding your own bee's wax."
                      "You offend me, Mary Jane."
                      "I'm sorry. But you are such a nosy person. What in God's name were you doing down there anyway? That's quite a walk from your--"
                       Felicity whirled like a black-robed dervish, losing her balance in a moment of lightheadedness, and strode off as if a bee had stung her in the ass. If Mary Jane's tent had sported a door, Felicity would have slammed it shut.

                                                                              *

                         Kirkland McBride had left Felicity with modest income, a 401K and an 1890 house, painted pearly white, with two gables and a gingerbread front porch. At the end of the porch was a parlor window. The elegant little room waiting inside, forever in breathless gloom, had a mahogany mantel where a clock's stentorian tick-tock suggested the passage of time. Kirkland McBride's ashes were treasured in a brass urn.

                                                                            *

                            Scoop found Sheriff Ito Tanaka in freshly starched khakies at his desk closely observing the hesitation waltz of a Mexican jumping bean. His black hair was pasted to a porcelain scalp showing male-pattern baldness, giving him a samurai look.
                             "What the hell, Ito?"
                             "Look how it moves. Isn't that something?"
                             "Yeah. Magic, I guess."
                             "Moth larva, inside, moving around."
                             "I gather this is not a busy day."
                             Although the Mexican jumping bean had given him an occult insight toward solving a cold-case murder, the sheriff blushed like a schoolboy caught peeking down a girl's blouse. Then, annoyed, he crooked an eyebrow.
                              "What can I do for you, Hoffman?"
                              "Tell me what Widow McBride saw out at Gresham's Wood."
                              Ito cracked a grin. "An orgy. A satanic orgy. Naked people fucking and hollering and having a damn good time."
                              "You're kidding."
                              "I'm kidding. She's got a screw loose somewhere. What she actually saw was an old fashion baptism. Full immersion. Blub blub."
                               Scoop smiled wistfully. "I see. My late wife was a Mormon. They do the same thing."

                                                                                *

                                That afternoon Scoop visited Mary Jane and they shared some Green River herbal tea. He told her about Ito Tanaka's Mexican jumping bean.
                                 "That Jap cheechako. What a card!"
                                 "He's a clever little guy. What's a cheechako?"
                                 "Tenderfoot."

Regression

          Mary Jane the green grocer sold her locally grown produce from a tent with perfect location. She owned a vacant lot in the heart of town. Cedar Crossroads, where rush hour traffic clotted for only fifteen minutes, was a nexus for zoning misfits The Wicker Man and Andes Bean Company, a homecrafted furniture store specializing in wicker peacock thrones and a gourmet coffee bar catering to unpublished poets, unemployed grad students and underdressed telemarketers. Mary Jane was a rich heiress free to be a counter-culture Mother Jones. Her fortune had been made by a spruce logging empire supplying that special wood needed for World War One aircraft, chiefly the S.P.A.D. pursuit fighter flown by Captain Eddy Rickenbacker and crew. Mary Jane was one fifth Oregonian Chinook, white complected, with high cheekbones and tanned crowsfeet. She wore her silver hair in a long french braid. Her gray eyes danced with clandestine mirth. Always clad in denim longsleeves and jeans, railroad engineer gloves, scuffed wellington boots, and a floppy straw sombrero tricked out with a bluebonnet scarf. A familiar sight, she garnered a continuous parade of honking motorists. Everybody loved Mary Jane. Especially Sonya Chekov.
            The Skell Van parked in the dirt outside the tent and Sonya lumbered down from the shotgun seat, alarmingly rotund for such a strap of a woman. Mary Jane fancied that gravity would haul the baby out, dropping it like a little Buddha at mother's feet. Sonya's buzzcut whitewalls had sprouted lustrous raven plumage, tips flashing electric amethyst hues of purple and violet. She wore a brown paisley burnoose with the hood gaily thrown back. Her elfin face glowing.
              "Hello, darling," Mary Jane said, waving to Brother Ambrose behind the steering wheel. He returned the wave.
               "Hi, yourself," Sonya smiled.
               "How did he like your arugula?"
               "He ate it all up!"

                                                                           *

                 Mary Jane offered Sonya a puffy sofa seat next to a potbelly stove in the "office."
                 "Take a load off," she said. "And tell me what's on your mind. Something's troubling you."
                 "No. No trouble. Just--"
                 "Just what?"
                 "I wish he would tell me about his dead wife."
                 "The one who visits him in the spirit?"
                 "She used to do that. I sense she has truly passed on."
                 "And you want to know what she was like."
                 "Uh-huh."
                 "Well, why don't you ask him?"
                 "Oh--"
                 "Pick a good time and tell him flat out you'd like him to share her with you."
                 "Yes. That sounds right."
                 "I think so."

                                                                 *

                  "Her name was Cherry Blossom and I was called Ziggy. Short for Mister Zig-Zag because I smoked a lot of grass. We made love all the time. She painted the crazy mural on my old van. What can I say? I don't know where to begin."
                   He forced back a sob, stood up and walked out to the patio balcony. Beneath his checkerboard flannel shirt shoulder blades jutted like wings of a gargoyle.
                   Sonya sat with a ringing in her ears.

Eyewitness

          At sundown great hunter Orion strode above the western trees, in his left foot ever bright Rigel dominating a sky of pastel vermillion. This singular hue reminded Brother Ambrose of tulip pastures he had seen last Spring while driving the Skell Van near Washington's Mt. Vernon. He was sitting on Sonya's patio balcony and sipping her mulled winter cider, homemade from San Juan island apples, with cinnamon, allspice and juniper berries. He envisioned her picking fat heavy apples from fragile low-hanging branches and hoarding them in a wide blue apron. Behind him, back in the kitchen as she washed dishes, there came a clinking of glass. An odd memory: opening a box of custom retorts shipped by UPS when he himself cooked experimental fermentations.
           Mugsy pounced into his lap, causing him to spill a dram of precious cider. She curled up and closed her devil eyes and began to purr. "Whoah, cat! I thought you hated me."
           He shouted to Sonya, "Hey, Babe! Come and check this out!
           Sonya was astonished. "She is onto a new game. So, tell me what's going on at the church?"
           "Oh, some Tam O'Shanter dropped by during evening services, peeked through a window, and then reported to the sheriff that she had seen a mad cabal of witches and demons making merry."
           "Good grief--"
           "It was you and me she saw."


            Through the Tudor-paned window Old Widow McBride saw but a still-life in mosaic. Flesh-tone pixels. Yet she positively recognized Brother Ambrose and his half-breed whore in the midst of an unholy quorum, twelve men and women, cavorting in a frenzied dance of unspeakable carnality.


             "You spoke on Goethe's Urpflanze, the idea that Nature is God's living garment. That all plants evolved from one Original Plant. I must tell you, that is such bullshit!"
              "I wasn't arguing on Goethe's behalf."
              "Where did she get the notion we were naked?"
              "Most likely, our clinging ecru vestments enhanced what she desired to see."
              "She's a fucking liar!"
              "All right. Now come sit with me."
              Sonya drew up an adjacent chair and they sat side by side, able to hug one another. Mugsy woke from twitching slumber and crossed over to Sonya's lap.
               "Clinging ecru vestments, my ass!"

Weed Salad

            Her belly round and full as a British dirigible and taut as a shaman's drum beneath his honeyed lips felt vaguely seismic, her own personal moon entering a new phase. She trilled like a  musky woodland beast, rutting while enormously pregnant. Brother Ambrose loved her dearly. Sonya, his Russo-Innuit bride-to-be. Asian eyes in a snow-white Sitka face, flushed and sweaty now.
             He rolled her onto her side and gently entered her moss pit. 
              "Baby Cakes!" she gasped as her breasts leaked milk from all her arousal. Brother Ambrose looked upon her blackberry nipples in awe.
              "God damn, woman!"
              "Oh, Baby Cakes--"


                                                                                                *

              Sonya's wanton filigreed kimono had lost its obi. Her pregnant belly poked out like the harvest moon, its pugnosed button nuzzling the kitchen counter where she was fixing an arugula salad. Meanwhile, Brother Ambrose snaked into a pair of jeans he had bleached threadbare, ridding them of winedark motor oil stains. He felt such a love for her it was beyond passion. Together they had created a baby, something he and Cherry Blossom never managed to do. Theirs was a marriage of musical rebellion, buttucks flat on the floor as they perfected yab-yum, bodies locked within a yoga of crossed legs, a hookah bowl richly burning not far away. Her yoni wept honey, and it spilled over when he climaxed. Shiva's lingam, he called his prick. Dozing on the sofa he had just dreamed of how Cherry Blossom must have looked in death, with that cruel hunting arrow in her throat. Oh, dear sweet wife--
                 He hoisted himself, pulling invisible strings, like a wooden Pinocchio, to a spindly standstill. Not as limber as you used to be, old man! Sonya was slitting two bell peppers, one yellow, the other red, and never sensed his approaching hand. He grasped her naked belly as if it were a Hammond Atlas globe, the hand cupping Australia, just above her feral pubic pelt. He could smell the goat cheese she had brought out for the toasted baguette croutons.
                 "Oh, baby--" she gushed. There were cruets of balsamic vinegar and virgin olive oil.
                 "I see we're having weed salad tonight."
                 "Wild arugula, fresh from Washington."
                 "Mmm--so nutty."

New Church

        It had been maryjane barn. The weed was long gone and the dudes were down in Roswell, New Mexico. Summer afternoons, it looked like an oil painting, with golden sunlight and mauve shadows. The timber had succumbed to verdigris and would reflect a ghastly palor during a full moon. No one visited it, as it was full of bats.
         Brother Ambrose bought it for a song. The real-estate woman was astonished with the way he crooned Donovan's "Fat Angel." 
         Fly Jefferson Airplane. It get's you there on time.
         Before he left her office he had taken advantage of her brazen decolletage.
         He parked the Skell Van at the great barn door. Got out and released the bats. They flushed into the trees, never to return. Kerosene lanterns illuminated the guano. He groaned.
         He rolled a dub of his favorite apphrodesiac: Haze Plum.
         "Ziggy," his dead wife whispered. "The time has come for me to leave you."
         "No! You must remain with me always!"
         "I can't."
        

                                                                                      *


        Oh, there were grand things he wished to do with his barn. (It was to become First Church of Saint Pelagius. "You are governed by nothing but your Free Will!") First the altar, then creating a facsimile of Robert Smithson's "Feet of Christ" on the wall behind it. There was a Russian-Inuit goth chick in town who could do it, if he asked her right.
        What a combination, he thought. Russian mysticism and Innuit shamanism.
        Now, what was her name?
        Sonya something.
     

inuit magic

       The moonlit globes of her ass rose up and she left the bed. She switched on the bathroom light so that he could watch her. It did not take long. On the wall beside the door hung a framed lithograph by Inuit artist Kenojuak Ashevak. It showed a totem-like figure with a woman's head atop an human-sized owl, its eyes located as such to become her breasts. Flanking her were running polar bears. Sonya switched off the bathroom light and prowled toward the bed. He could hear the hunger in her throat. She was like a dream. It was a dream. She seized him anew. All mouth.
        "I told you I have familiar spirits," she purred. "Torngaks!"
        "Torngaks. I'm doomed."
        Sometimes like now her youthful energy overwhelmed him. She moaned and wept. Riding him spectacularly in the moonlight,  she resembled a tremendous cat. He felt the coarse fur of its belly upon his. Indeed, this was a dream.


                                                                               *


        Brother Ambrose awoke in his own bed. Being alone, he felt relaxed. An erection pressed against the fly of his plaid boxer briefs. That felt good. He lay there with a mind roiling with forgotten dreams. Across his bare chest were scratches, fresh and livid.
        Impossible!
        His alarm clock announced the eighth hour. It rang like a breakfast bell. A bowl of cinnamon oatmeal awaited him.
        It was Sunday, the only day he set the alarm. He sprang into action. Routinely,  he shaved and brushed his teeth while the warm water sluiced. Shampoo last.
        He donned a mother-of-pearl cotton shirt with fluted sleeves.
        On the way out he espied Sonya sitting on her balcony-patio with Mugsy in her lap. Cat people.
        "Hey, sweet-lay!"
        "Good morning, sweet prince."
        "Coming to church? Services at eleven."
        "Yup." Nothing more. Laconic Goth Chick.
        Suddenly he remembered the dream.
        She was upon him, breathing hotly in his face. Her cunt absorbing his cock like molten magma. Teeth laughing, breasts laughing.
         Instead of calling out his question, he descended his flight of stairs and climbed hers, entering her cramped retreat. Mugsy spat and fled. He knelt beside Sonya, noticing her black tube-top and nipples. He asked: "What were you telling me about familiar spirits? The Torngaks? Something like that."
         "Torngaks. I would never speak of them to you."
         "Surely you did."
         "No!"
         Perplexed, he smiled graciously. "All right. See you at Church."
         Sonya reached over and hugged him.  "If you are good, someday I will tell you the story of Senda, the Sea Mother."
         "Tell me now." Determined to charm it out of her.
         "All right. Sedna was a beautiful Inuit girl with many suitors. She refused every one. Then a hunter paddled his canoe up to her hut and sang to her. He offered her ivory necklaces and a tent covered with beautuful furs.  Enchanted, she climbed into his canoe. Oh, but then, she discovered he was not a man but a spirit from the land of birds."
          Brother Ambrose interrupted: "I know this story. You told it to me last night in a dream."
          "No way."
          "Sedna. Also known as the Old Woman Who Lived Under The Sea."
          Sonya's Inuit eyebrows knitted above the bridge of her nubby nose.
          "What are you saying?"
          "That you came to me in a dream last night. A very physical dream."
          He unbuttoned his shirt and showed her the scratches.
          "Christ!" Sonya stripped him and daubbed him with aloe. "This is freaking me out!"
          "How so?"
          "Grandmother, back in Sitka, told me of things, things that happened between her and her first lover. Only she came to his bed as a polar bear."
           Re-buttoning his shirt: "Good grief."
           "Yeah. He fucking died."

                                                                                      



       





         




                                                                                       *

inside sonya

       He set the stage, dropping a red gauze over the lamp and lighting a stick of sandlewood. She had spread the byzantine sweat-cloth in the middle of the floor. Her music was playing. A mesmerizing instrumental by Dead Can Dance. Drums, electronic keyboard, eerie chanting.
       Sonya  smiled and ate a pomegranite. Brother Ambrose toked on a new strain of weed being distributed around town. They kissed like feral children.
        He helped her out of her black denim jeans. She tossed her Nine Inch Nails tee shirt across the room. It fluttered like a bat into a dark corner. She wore just bra and panties and felt groovy as warm honey on a muffin.
        Brother Ambrose felt like his old self. Ziggy, aka Mister Zig-Zag. He could not describe the mood he was in. The pain of losing his wife had dimmed. There was only the movie in his mind. Cherry Blossom lay upon the bare dinng table,  clothed like a San Francisco flower-child  with garlands in her hair. In the owlight he could hear her weeping somewhere up in the rafters.
        "Hey, boy-o. Why the far-away stare?"
        "Sorry, babe."
        And what did he have here? A palefaced Russian-Innuit goth chick half his age.
        Sonya began ab-crunches, wriggling like a serpent. Muscles beneath taut skin were glowing hot.
         Brother Ambrose watched, enthralled. Soon she was sweating, exhaling. This was like sex to her. His arousal began as her lips parted like a Bernini Theresa.
         He knelt beside her and placed the palm of his hand upon her belly. He felt her constrictions and could stand it no more. She gasped, and then they were entwined as planned.


                                                                               *


         "This is so kinky," she said. Feeling his seed within her.
         "Howzat?" Dreamily.
         "Me doing a work-out before we do it."
         "Eh."
         He gazed upon her with renewed intensity. Her black bush glistened. He combed it and placed a moist finger upon her tongue. "This is what you wanted?"
         "Yes."
         "Well, then."
         "Well, then."
         Brother Ambrose felt a sermon blooming in his head.  Sunday he would deliver it and it would be good he told himself.
   

mango pickle

        Solar winds licked the stratosphere.  An aurora soared above the dark treeline in hues of crimson, scarlett and california poppy. To Brother Ambrose it resembled a fantastic native thunderbird. He was standing on Sonya Chekov's little patio balcony. There was a new chia pet. It looked like a gay troll with green hair. Sonya was cooking chickpea dal with spices imported from India. Ghee and rice added  simple aromas.  It all smelled good, and he was glad that Artie had introduced her the cuisine.
        Mugsy snoozed on the ledge. Stretched sinfully to the ends of the earth.
        "How much longer, Babe?" 
        "Another hour."  She trilled.  "Must let everything simmer."
        His stomach was growling. He was unbearably hungry now. He ducked inside to see if he could speed things up.
        "Hellzapoppin! Babe, ya gotta feed me!"
        "Oh, you're being Ziggy again. Here, have a chipati."
        The chipati was fried heaven. He grabbed a bunch and a jar of Bedakar's Mango Pickle and sat on the sofa, almost giddy.
         "Oh, man.  This is so good."  Tears welled in his eyes.  The bastards were spicey hot.
         "You old hippy."
         "You know, I still have that tee-shirt you gave me."
         "Which one is that?"
         "Laughing Jesus."

     
       
      

dos hombres

        Brother Ambrose tackled Scoop and they crashed onto Sonya Chekov's black shellacked Japanese teatable. The newsman was heavier than the preacher, so he was able to roll on top and pin his friend to the carpet. Both widowers laughing like magpies.
        "Ziggy!"
        "Artie!"
        "Motherfuckers!" Sonya shouted from the doorway. "The fuck ya done to my table?"
        Sheepishly they surveyed the damage.
        Like a doofus ER intern giving prognosis on roadkill, Brother Ambrose replied, "Oh, it'll be fine. Gorilla Glue can fix it."
        "Goddamn it, Ambro! That's classic furniture!"
        Scoop straightened up, knees popping. "The two of us will take care of it."
        Sonya began to cry.
        "Oh, babe," Brother Ambrose cooed. "I'm sorry. Real sorry. We'll make good on it."
        "Get out! The two of you. Get out!"


                                                                                         *


         Coffee and apple pie at Frenchie's. Old friends. Just like Simon and Garfunkle.
         Scoop asked first, "What brought you here?"
         "Wandering. Just wandering. My new life began at Sweet Creek Falls. Left Ziggy behind and ended up in Eugene. Met a fine old woman there. Then the Skell Van began to whinney and knicker, telling me it was time to hit the road. Wow, far out, this is too much!"
         "Yeah man." Scoop paused, wondering how to begin his story. All the years at Lotus Land, the K'lid K'iyass, Kelly Alabama, Leah. "Many years, many trails."
         Saddle pals.

       
   

celestial marriage 3

        A prairie moon opened like a Spanish abanico. Tannhauser sat close to Artie's campfire, thumbing through an old book. Artie had draped his bedroll upon the dry earth and stretched out, boot toes describing a lazy dihedral.
        "He was an angel." Artie said. "A flesh and blood angel."
        "Jah. I haf heard of such."
        "If we'd not been witness, I'd say nonsense!"
        "Jah, nonsense." Absorbed in his reading.
        "What book is that?"
        "Enoch."
    

        The transfiguration of Leah's corpse defied everything in Artie's  known world. Within moments she became a thing of pure light, and as she passed on, the strange young man with raven hair and eyes of burning obsidian stood guard. It was so Bibical.  A hallucination of some sort, Artie thought all the while.


         


                                                                                      *


           Celestial Brother handed Artie his beloved Engagement Stone. A relic left behind.  "Keep this while you live."
           Artie blinked. Hoarsely he replied, "I will."
           Tannhauser announced from the doorway. "Mein Gott! This is sorcery!"
           "It is that," agreed Leah's guardian. Packing his brawn,  he strode into the crashing night.


                                                                               *


            There would be no return to Bountiful.
          
        

celestial marriage 2

         Artie captured a room on the verge of combustion. Ozone and the coppery scent of ventilated blood slammed him backward. Leah's eyes gazed forth from a petrified face, contorted in death. Evidently she had suffered a stroke during one of her Mystery Bleeds.
           "NO-o-o-o!" The howl of a thousand suns breaking.
           The beatific  man grappled with Artie with the strength of many. "Don't touch her! Not yet!"
            "You monster! What have you done?"
            Once more Artie moved toward the bed, and once more the man in the frontier butternut shirt prevailed, throwing Artie to the floor. A heavy boot slammed down.
            Tannhauser clubbed Artie's adversary with a split log. "Verdamnt!"
            Then he helped his young friend and they went outside to the truck.
            "Oh, my God, Otto! She's dead!"
            "Jah." Suddenly Tannhauser seemed winded. He sat down in the grass. Ashen.
            Artie handed him a beer. "Hang tough, old timer. I'm going back in."
             Inside the room, he felt composed. The man with raven hair and eyes of burning obsidian stood akimbo, full of sorrow.
              "Who are you?" Artie's voice steeled his own mind.
              "I am her Celestial Brother."
              "I don't quite understand."
              "You knew she was different. You must have!"
              Leah's body subtly grew illuminated with an inner light, her flesh the delicate hue of the hibiscus rose of sharon.



   

celestial marriage 1

         A peyote sun spun like a Fatima event behind Tannhauser's truck. Artie was anxious to reach lilac home. It was pink twilight as they pulled close. The last rays caused the field stone house to gleam like a gold tooth. Artie suddenly felt deep love for old spread.
         "You know, Mister Geist. I don't know your first name."
         "Oh jah. It's Otto."
         "Pleased to know you, Otto."
         "Schon!"
         Artie leaped from the truck. He could hardly contain himself, shouting, "Leah! We're here!"
          It was like meeting a shade from the Underworld. The young man strode from the doorway and grasped Artie's hand. Long raven hair, burning obsidian eyes. Reminding Artie of an angelic Jim Morrison.
          "Who are you? Where is my wife?"
          Frozen behind the steering wheel, Tannhauser watched wordlessly.
          "Come inside," commanded the beatific man garbed like a teamster from Nauvoo.
          Artie followed, passing through the lilac. "I ASKED you WHERE is my WIFE?"


           Loading the Indian for their ride from Bountiful, Artie noticed that Leah had chosen only three books to take with her into the unknown.
           Most prized was an edition of combined scripture leather-bound with a zipper. It contained the King James and the Book of Mormon, along with Doctrine and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price. A hefty tome, well-worn and rain-stained. Then there was Parley Pratt's "Key to the Science of Theology." And for entertainment: a paperback "Dune."
          "That's it?"
          "Travelling light, my love.
          "I was afraid you'd want to take along everything you owned."
          "Saints are practical and willing to sacrefice. Remember what I told you of Nauvoo."
          "I do."
          " Parley Pratt was one of the original Quorum of Twelve Apostles. My copy is old and unrevised. It contains his thoughts on polygamy. Eventually he was murdered by an Arkansas man who swore Parley had stolen his family."
           "He was at Nauvoo?"
           "Yes. When Brigham said they must leave behind their earthly fortunes, the Saints did so. Parley Pratt led his party along the Mormon Trail."
            Artie embraced her and she felt his arousal.
            "Oh, now we're getting horny," Leah laughed. "Buy me a Pepsi."
            "Mormons aren't allowed Pepsi."




           





           


                                                                                              


 

sightings

         Artie filled the gas cans. As the fuel spurted, its fragrance reminded him of Papa telling him never to inhale fumes. The antique glass-walled pump refracted the tall sunlight. Overhead the sky appeared to be a limitless eggshell dome. He wondered what Leah was up to.
          Inside the bar he found the Geist brothers seated at Friedrich's office table discussing the latest UFO sightings. They seemed to know just what the phenomena truly was. Word was that MUFON had dispatched a field investigator. They were getting their stories straight. He was amazed how quickly he had sobered up.
         "Jah, Artie," Tannhauser said. "Sit down. Setzin!"
         "You guys are serious about this stuff?"
         "It is all true," Friedrich affirmed. "People all around here have seen things."
         "What people? You're out in the middle of nowhere."
         "We think it is the Tesla," Tannhauser announced. "Little gray men? Nein!"
         "Well, I have to admit," Artie replied. "That light bulb was pretty amazing. Earth energy. Far  fucking out."
          They all laughed.
          "Vell, vee must roll if vee get back by nightfall," Tannhauser grunted.
          "Yeah," Artie agreed. To Friedrich he said, "Nice meeting you, Sir."
          The Cowboy Kraut grinned, and to Artie it almost seemed that the old man's boots clicked together in salute.



                                                                                  *


           They had driven about a mile when Tannhauser stopped. He climbed out and looked backward toward Friedrich's place. Artie did too. Above the Last Chance were two and then three seed fluffs drifting skyward. It was plain they were not organic, but electical. Faintly visible against the sapphire sky.
            "I'll be damned," Artie said. Astonished.
            "Jah, at night you should see them!"

lilac wine

         Leah felt the presence of a man. He was sitting on the bed. The weight of him shifted toward her and a breeze touched her forehead. She opened her eyes and saw that he was quite handsome. His butternut shirt was of the ancient frontier.
         "How are you, Leah?"
         "Who are you? Oh--" Hangover pain stabbed her brain.
         "I thought so," her stranger chuckled.
         She sat up slowly and looked around the room. Oddly the first thing she noticed was the wine rack. Tannhauser's home-made lilac wine. In mason jars. The thought of wine caused her to vomit. Floor splatter.
          "Oh, God--"
          "It's fine. I'll clean it up."
          His hair was long and black as a raven's wing. His eyes were burning obsidian.
          "Who are you?"
          "A friend."
          "Please, don't hurt me."


                                                                                           *


          The dream had the sonorous power of a Bach organ. It lifted her from the bed and carried her outside where there was a garden. Wild rose, honeysuckle, wisteria and Virginia creeper. Rampant. Wind-rushed.
           She was delivered unto an abundance of sweet grass.
           In the midst of this dream her face was frozen into glass.
           Artie, my love. Help me. Help me!
          


   

prairie dogs

        By noon they were blushingly drunk, glowing with friendship. Tannhauser boasted of his beer. "It's a real elk-stopper. Can't control the alcohol. But what the hell? Eh, Leah?"
        "Um. What?"
        Artie stood up, scooting his chair, and began massaging her shoulders. Warm butter.
         "Hey, Dutch, you gotta bed for my gal? She's done in."
         "Sure thing."
         Tannhauser freshened his own bed and Artie carried Leah to it. She was out before her head hit the pillow.
          "What say we head on down to my brudder's gas station and get what you need while she sleeps it off? Today I ship my gute bier to him."
          "Sounds good. You're a real sport, Dutch."
          "Jah. Jah. Hah hah hah!"
          They shambled outside. The sunshine was fierce.
          Tannhauser inserted the key and worried the ignition, giving good choke. The truck roared to life.
          Artie noticed a rifle in the gun rack. "Whatchacallit this thing?"
           "Ach! That's my prairie dog fire stick. Hah hah hah!"
           Artie admired the Cooper varmint killer. Without handling it.
           "Jah," Tannhauser said, squinting. "I gots the Ruger .204 round in it. Plugs them gute."
           He opened a gunnysack and offered Artie a warm Beck's
           "Jesus Christ, Dutch. I'm glad we're in open country."
           "Hah hah hah!"


                                                                                   *

           Dry as a cinder, the prairie protested the truck's passage. A rooster tail of volcanic ash plumed behind Tannhauser's bomb.
            "How far?" Artie asked after thirty miles.
            "About one more round of beer."
            "You are one helluva trip, Dutch."
            Finally, up ahead, a speck beneath an enormous sky. Cobalt blue thunderheads. No guarantee of rain.
            "Dat's it, Artie. My brudder's gas station."
            They rolled up to a fieldstone house a tin-roofed portico. The antique gas pump had glass walls. Artie felt so relieved he felt like pissing.
            "Heinrich's Last Chance!" Tannhauser announced. "Sells my gute bier COLD! Best cheap gas anywhere!"
            It was a tavern in the wilderness.
            Artie wondered where it got electricity.
            "How does he keep anything cold? I don't see any power lines."
            "Jah, hah hah hah. He's got der Tesla."



                                                                                *


         The oaken bar was dark with oil, a monument to stand-up drinking. A brass foot-rail was all a man needed. Artie marvelled at the room. Oak panelling, old as the hills. Bullet holes in a poster of Teddy Roosevelt.
         One poster, pristine behind glass. Thule~Gesellschaft 1*9*1*9.
         Artie heard bootheels behind him. He turned to find he was standing to face to face with a Teutonic Knight named Heinrich Geist.  Tannhauser's elder brother and complete opposite. At least seventy.
         "And who is your friend, Little Brother?"  Like Tannhauser, his accent resembled Lawrence Welk. Crystal blue eyes. Wire-rim glasses. Skull-face carved from hickory. A Westerner, tall and lean, denim and leather.
         "My name is Artie Hoffman. I would like to buy gasoline."
         "Ah. New York!"


                                                                        *

          Artie paid in wrinkled money. Then he looked around the bar room. Many things were tacked to and hung on the walls. There was a photograph of a group of  intellectuals in suits. One astoundingly beautiful woman sat among them, wearing a cloche hat. There was something familiar about her face.
          "My mother," Heinrich chimed proudly. "And those are members of the Vril Society."