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."
     

oasis

        Artie pushed the Indian and Leah walked along, straightening herself. A tortoise shell hairbrush magically appeared in her hand, commencing an age-old womanly ritual. One hundred strokes. They found themselves in a fairybook meadow. A cistern, a pig pen, a log pile, and an ancient American-International pickup truck stood in the yard. A scene worthy of John Curry. Artie smiled, noticing two large gas cans in the back of the truck.
         Leah approached the front door, which was open.
         "Hello?" Her voice like a cowbell. "Hello?"
         A scent of barley and yeast touched her nose.
         "Guten Morgen. Guten Tag," came a man's reply. "Kommen sie herein! Bitte."
         A sturdy man of maybe sixty years emerged. Faded blue bib overalls, faded blue chambray workshirt, scuffed brown lace-up boots with thick tartan laces. Bright blue eyes. White bushy brows and beard. Clean of moustache, reminding Leah of Quaker and Mormon men from long ago.
         Softly from a radio: "Tannhauser."
         Leah shook his hand. "Good morning to you, sir."
         Artie came in. "This is my wife Leah. We are travellers."
         "Sit down. Here." Tannhauser motioned toward a dinner table and three chairs. Blue checkerboard oil cloth and a vase of lilac.
          Without asking, the Old World gentleman went to a reserved larder and brought forth three amber bottles of warm home-brewed beer.
           It was only nine in the morning.


                                                                                      
        


       

on the road again

        The blood orange sun awoke, stretching and yawning. It caressed rosy cirrus clouds as they floated over eastern Oregon. Artie was cleaning the Indian. Rubbing it as if it were a woman. Leah loved that.
        "The house sold well," she said. "I was surprised."
        "Me too. Not much equity, but we'll be fine. After all, we ARE gypsies!"
        "Nomads!"
        "Nomads!"
        "You don't mind going back to Utah?"
        "Not in the least. Dipshit is dead."
        "Settled, then." Leah amazed Artie with an impromptu cartwheel.


                                                                                   *


          A line storm swept up from the prairie and shook the timberland. Artie was running on empty. He never worried Leah about such matters. Civilization had ebbed for miles. It was a dirt road now. Leah was not an idiot. She was sure he was lost. Red cedar and white pine obscured their path, boughs plunging and soaring. Hillsides were brown and loamy with Threebear topsoil..
          "Stop! Stop right now," she shouted into his ear.
          "What?"
          "It's getting worse and we need to talk!"
          He pulled beside a pine and quickly hoisted a tarp. Lightning struck a nearby tree. Leah screamed.
           "Easy, Darling. We'll be fine." He hugged her and set her down.
           "We're out of gas, aren't we?"
           "'Fraid so."


                                                                                       *


            In the morning the world smiled. Leah walked into the woods to make her toilet. From the loamy soil rose shoots of Ute Ladies Tresses. Rare now, except in deep country.
             Her anxiety suddenly evaporated.
             Something told her they would be all right.
             Artie did his business too.
             When they were mounted up he kick-started the Indian and they found an improved trail.
             Soon the woods cleared and there was a pasture and a log cabin covered in wild lilac.
             "Oh, Heavenly Father," Leah sighed. "Thank you for that last drop of gas."
            

spirit unbound

        As the roots of the great sugar pine probed the brain in Hyram Pratt's severed head he was thinking: I need not stay here. Between lofty branches he observed the phases of the moon and the circuit of stars around Polaris.
         It is time.
        A dust devil tickled his ribs and lifted him from the earth.
        His lucid shadow traversed the face of the moon.


                                                                                     *


        Leah shivered. Someone had walked across her grave.
        The hoot owl summoned his woodland mate.
        In the bedroll beside her Artie argued Talmud in his sleep. His slumber was an enormous beard. Hassidic, black. Profound.
        She kissed his bald spot. My special Jew.
        Morning dew collected on the Indian.
        "What time is it?" He asked, rubbing his eyes.
        "Oh, Darling. We have all the time in the world."

scoop drops in

        Sight of the Skell Van misted Artie's eyes. He pressed his hand upon the radiator.
        Hello, old friend.
        So, all he had to do was climb the steps and knock on the door. A frog materialized in his throat. Much had transpired since they parted ways. Ziggy was now a charismatic motivational speaker who looked like Jesus. A soapbox minister in no need of a Crystal Cathedral. His cathedral was the great outdoors. Folks had testified to his healing powers.
         First Artie would hug his old friend and then Scoop would get the story. The Pentax was loaded and ready to shoot.
         From above: "Hey, asshole! Get away from there!"
         Sonya Chekov. On her balcony, feeding Mugsy.
         "Hey, Pretty Thing. It's me, Artie Hoffman."
         "Scoop! Sorry. Didn't recognize you."
         "Yeah, yeah. Mind if I come up?"
         "Suit yourself. I'm not home."


                                                                              *

         Years of celibacy had not been a requirement from God. Brother Ambrose felt so close to Cherry Blossom that he needed nothing more. Bonded forever.
         He put a lot of dirt on that old van. Travelling many miles. In Eugene he hooked up with a widow woman named Summer Rain, fifty years old, living in an Airstream trailerpark. Lattice arbor and canvas carport. Winter garden in back.
          "What a lovely mural," she said as he parked the Skell Van close beside her trailer.
          "My late wife painted it." He smiled without knowing it.
          Summer Rain was large and round. Shaped like the Venus of Willendorf.
          She wore black teeshirts and black denim overalls.
          "Are you in mourning?" he asked her.
          "Naw. These are my skinny clothes."
          They laughed and she served him iced tea. Two folding deck chairs. A card table.
          "You are welcome to anything I have," she said.
          "Thank you kindly."
          She visited his van and smoked weed. He shared his TM mantra and they meditated together. He shared her bathroom and kitchen. Pretty soon they were showering together. Saving water.
          One afternoon as hawks cried in the sky he told her he would be moving on.
          Her enormous tears broke his heart.


                                                                               *


         Now he was lounging in Sonya's apartment. Her wallposter of Bjork scrutinized him.
         A Sugarcubes CD played while he waited.
         Resting upon a window sill, where most people would put a pot of philadendron, was a feminine alabaster jar with nothing in it. Her Mary Magdalene.
         Knock knock.
         He looked up and saw Artie Hoffman, grinning like a thief.
         "Hello, Kemo Sabe."

        

a door to everything

         The doorway framed her like the one that framed John Wayne in "The Searchers." Lilacs were blooming in the dooryard. Cherry Blossom wore her mauve gingham grannydress. A string of cowry shells overlapped a string of lapis lazuli stones around her Audrey Hepburn throat. Her silhouette accented the arch of her slim hips. Brother Ambrose crooked his finger in bidding and she strode forth, into the owl light. 

         He was adept at this. Accomplishing what a million widowed men desired. A golden necromancy, available only to soul mates. 

         "How have you been, darling?" he asked, offering her a mug of chai.
         She smiled lovingly. "The same as you."


                                                                                 *


          A gossimer touch, his finger rested upon the wound in her breast. Bloodlessly he found her dead heart.
          "How does that feel?"
          "Sweet as one of your kisses."
        
           Oh, this was beyond belief!

           Night had fallen beyond the door. A whipoorwill called to them.
           By then they were making profound love.
           In the cabin deep in Oregon so long ago.





                                                                                   

sweet creek falls

         It was  remote viewing. Maxine lay heavily upon the bedsheet, her wide hips writhing like an engorged serpent. She had been invaded. Brother Ambrose could not look away. For he was drawn to her anguish like a moth to a flame.
        His viewing technique was self-developed. He  practiced Transcendental Meditation  and was initiated in Sidhi-TM. Though he meditated quite succussfully inside the comforts of his van, nevertheless,  he sought out meditation centers. The energy shared within a group was mind boggling. Sidhi-TM eventually led him to "flying" groups.
         A TM friend introduced him to the Monroe Institute and astral travel.
         Double whammy.
        


                                                                           *


         Scoop drove over to the Totem Pole Lodge and parked behind Sonya's apartment. The next door apartment had an old van up on blocks. The Skell Van.
         "Well, I'll be damned!"


                                                                           *


           Ziggy lost his mind soon after splitting from Artie and Leah. Cherry Blossom was gone forever.
           He drove as far as Sweet Creek Falls.
           By then he was raving mad.
           Leah had told him what had happened. She described the obscene mortuary rites. The vision of Ernst Mueller bathing Cherry Blossom's poor dead body with rosewater was too much. Simply too much. 
          He found himself wading into deep water. The falls were crashing above. He was screaming.
          "Cherry! Cherry, my love!"
          People gathered around. A preacher from the God Fearers baptised him.
          Full emersion.


                                                                          *


            Each ensuing year he made holy pilgrmage to Sweet Creek Falls.
            Driving the Skell Van.