,
the ex-wife , and Tara, the daughter?THIS IS WORK IN PROCESS
THE CRYSTAL TIGHT ROPE
THE
(a work in progress)
© copyright, January 1, 2009
Synopsis
|
F |
or Santiago—Everything goes wrong and then ultimately everything goes right –
Santiago’s first two books become international best sellers. He is miraculously
cured of disease, and finds a large bank account can make him happy – buys
a house in the hills above
In Corsica, Martina wants back in the picture. Santiago, says to her, “You know
I already paid the price of admission to you more than once…I just don’t feel
like seeing the movie again."
He discovers the truth of Dark Eyes.
Yes, he knew there was something very odd about the sex he had with Dark Eyes.
My God, he had no idea they could do that to a penus.
My God. The other puzzlement, Dark Eyes was the half brother of Martina. Had it
just been an accident their paths had crossed in Paris or was it orchestrated?
Also, there was the brutally murdered dirty old grandpa, the Corsican Sheep
herder…what was that story?
As for Neil, his life long friend who had been his savior in Vietnam and
co-partner in lust with Martina, why was he back in Corsica?
The very strange coincidence of hearing about the “odd bloke who wore no
underwear under his kilt” also had been connected to Yokomi, but never made an
appearance…instead she arrived with a Frog,
Who does he wind up with – Neil, Martina, Dark Eyes, Yokomi or someone not even seen yet?
,
the ex-wife , and Tara, the daughter?
Santiago discovers having everything can be nothing too and starts the third
book of his life.
NOTES:
1.
The Mural Olympics
2.
The Tribal Arts Festival
3.
The End-Time-Ark and who helps build it
Santiago
had a pastis. It would be his last pastis in France. He had completed the
journey begun more than thirty years before. He did not remember anything about
it. Even his own name, Santiago McBoil seemed like it belonged to a stranger.
His mind was almost a perfect blank.
He was sitting in AU LONG COURS, a small corner bistro on the pedestrian
precinct near the old town of Nice. It was Monday morning, misty rain was
falling while antique vendors set up their usual stalls filled with every kind
of trinket treasure the world had regurgitated since the beginning of the 20th
century---a very astute shopper might discover an article from earlier
centuries, but nothing as a bargain---the collectors had emptied these rare
finds long before in the bountiful years of Scot Fitzgerald and Hemingway. The
beautiful and the damned now were a form of Euro-flotsam that permeated every
square meter of Nice's fashionable streets. The time of American Bohemians
had long passed. Santiago was just another tourist.
Corsica flashed in his mind earlier in the morning when he stopped to look at a
painting of the sun rising above a Mediterranean coastline. Just for a moment
the urge to weep like a baby swept over his soul.
Santiago tightened his lips and walked back into the din of busy browsers.
The feeling left him, but the craving for a pastis emerged.
In a few more hours he would be on a plane sitting next to Thaana, returning to
America. She knew who he was and
where he was supposed to go. She didn’t know she was leaving his daughter, Tara,
stranded in Corsica.
June
1, 2008
Hey! Do you know who is writing this book? It’s me, Santiago. I get to do
everything here. I get to be me. I get to be the big-eye-in-the-sky that sees
everything. I get to be all the dogs, cats and weird-ass populace that pops
across these pages.
I like it like that and this is my story and I’m not going to change---not for
you, not for them or any big shot publisher that wants to squeeze a dollar out.
The fact is, I get to be God and that is damned powerful. You want proof? I can
even put you in this story if I wanted to, because there you are, sitting or
walking or laying down. It doesn’t matter. Your eye is on this spot. Right here,
right now.
For
instance look at this. It is a big black period. Some people might call it a
spot, but it ain’t. It’s a period, period. Don’t confuse the two.
I’m going to say it again, the thing about a crystal tight rope.
Hey, you say, how can there be a crystal tight rope?
To tell you the truth, that is a good question. The answer is this: it’s as
dangerous to walk on as it is to fall off.
That is the real damned mystery.
So anyway, the Big-Eye-In-The-Sky was talking about old times, France, Corsica and a thousand threads that came together once.
I am the carpet woven out of it.
To tell you another thing, if I ever meet the real Big-Eye-In-The-Sky, (abbreviated hence to B.E.I.T.S.), I’m going to punch it in the N.O.S.E. I don’t care.
I might even knock a few T.E.E.T.H. loose.
You know why?
Because I’m one pissed-off S.O.B., that’s why.
But this is how it goes.
I bet you if I met the B.E.I.T.S. he will say this, “Hey Dude, who is writing
this story?”
Why would he be any different from 99.9% of the rest of the mess walking around
denying any responsibility to the pickle we are all in?
No one wants to admit responsibility.
General Westmoreland didn’t want to admit responsibility, nor few generals
before or after him. Grant did, then drank himself to death.
There is only one thing to do. Admit complete responsibility and take charge of
your actions. Do it now.
All right. This where the F.U.N. begins.
B.E.I.T.S. is hereafter renamed The Beat. One gets tired of placing all those
damn periods, period.
The Beat thinks this: See all of those
wiggly things down there? No, I don’t mean your toes or those strange little
electrical pulsations going around in Santiago’s mind.
It
is something so obvious and endless in the infinite multitudes of chaos. It is
all those two-armed, two-legged, one-headed mutations from a source that has no
definition of time or space.
It is the human crust of bubbles, never failing to make its ring of skin-scum
around the perimeters of the observable bath-tub.
Homo-erectus, the plague and plateau of chemistry gone bonkers---the work of
Merlin’s Merlin.
That is the wiggly
thing one must consider, if you read
past this page.
For instance, Santiago is a wiggly thing.
In the course of his life, he actually touched seven million. Two hundred fifty
one thousand other wiggly things
either on purpose or by accidental bumpings.
He passed some kind of communicating such as words or lustful humpings with five
hundred, twenty two thousand wiggly things.
Roughly half were male, the other half female, spending on the average three
minutes of shared consciousness of being in some space.
Santiago had some kind of human relationship such as family members, lovers or
enemies with two hundred fourteen wiggly things which hence will be known as
wigglibump(s).
Santiago knew one hundred and eleven by name and sometimes thought about their
personal history and occasionally considered their welfare.
In the course of his experience, he was on intimate terms with twenty-one.
Seven of that group he loved.
Out of the entire mass of wigglibump interaction he killed six in 2.1 seconds in
1968.
He did not know them or their names or even touched them other than through the
trajectory of metal in linear space.
After all the wigglibumps had encountered in his 64 years of existence, the six
who had briefly breathed in front of him for 5 seconds, before he stopped their
breathing in 2.1 seconds, affected him more than all of the combined time of all
the wigglibumps he had ever seen, knew or heard of including the seven loves who
had shared most of his adult passage as a fellow
wigglibump.
2.1
seconds
of wigglibump-off was longer than
64 years.
This is a phenomena that is created only through the power of me, The Beat.
I take the responsibility as well as the credit for creating the
completely cursed and blessed wigglibump known as Santiago McBoil.
June 2. 2008
Thaana knew Santiago was nuts the first time she saw him but she just couldn’t
stop herself.
He looked so good dressed up in those black leathers and motorcycle boots, even
if it was only a 50 cc MoPed he was on.
There was something so familiar about him, all she could think, was Peter Fonda
on that big hog in Easy Rider.
Somewhere
deep down in her, she knew instantly she was going to take Santiago to her bed,
and he was going to be the best wigglibump in her life.
It is also true that Thaana was completely nuts.
They were made for each other.
This
is how they met. It was an accident. They were both lost in the same
spot at the same time, and I don’t mean period. It is the arrow to the octagon,
it is the whisper to the heart. Who can tell why so much comes from so little?
A spot is different than a period because a period may come again and again,
period.
But a spot, I should say a true spot, only happens once, period.
|
A |
bove the city of Ajaccio is the valley of the Gravone. The valley runs north to
south.
La Gravone, one of the biggest rivers in
Corsica, flows more or less down the middle of the valley into the bay of
Ajaccio.
There are many little villages scattered on the slopes of the valley such as,
Boccagio, Tavara, Carbuccio and Pére on the east slope, and Vero and Sarrola on
the west slope.
On one particular day Thaana and Santiago both got lost in the Gravone Valley,
and through the gold-almighty-power of me, the Beat wound up in the same village
at the same time.
Thaana had rented a car and was trying to get to the village called Sari
D’orcino which was in the next valley to the west, above the Gulf of Sagan.
She was looking for an old lover remembered from her wild young wigglibump years
in New York.
Her lover had been a Corsican playwright who had his first play presented by a
small company in Greenwich Village.
They
had a hot night of wine, pot and sex together and said goodbye in the morning.
She returned to her Jewish brain surgeon husband and the playwright returned to
Corsica.
Twenty-five years passed when one day Thaana bought a ticket to Ajaccio and
rented the car.
That is the rhythm of The Beat.
Santiago had been on the island of Corsica for over two months. He had once
lived on the island. There, he was tested in the fires of lust and love more
than once.
It was Corsica where he lost his wife and ran off with a jezebel Corsican who
broke his heart not once but twice.
Twenty-five years had passed since the Corsican hussy had first burnt his bridges and scalded his soul.
Santiago had returned to find her one more time. He planned to murder her and then shoot himself.
She lived in the small mountain village of Pére which the Corsicans pronounced
“Parr”.
Somehow is an overused word, for the meeting of Santiago and Thaana was not
somehow, it was providence, but even so, somehow they both arrived in a nearby
village of Carbuccio at the same spot, which began a new period in their lives.
* *
*
|
T |
haana got out of her rented car, when she realized she was in the wrong valley.
It didn’t really matter much because she didn’t know why she was in Corsica in
the first place.
The
lover from 25 years before had only been a springboard in her mind that had
bounced her out of the deep rut, that life had become in New York City.
The
village of Carbuccio was a beautiful spot to stop and smell the proverbial
roses.
As she walked between two stone houses on the narrow road, she saw an old man
dressed in the flat brimmed hat and hunting costume of old days, stop and watch
another man approaching on a 50cc MoPed.
The man was dressed in motorcycle gear, black leathers and all, but on his head
was a ridiculous bicycle helmet, the kind that looks like an elongated ostrich
egg.
The black leathered ostrich-egg-head man slowed and came to a halt in front of
the old man.
At this spot in time, the three wigglibumps stood within a small circle of only
ten feet. The old man was the center. Thaana was fascinated, knowing something
unique was going to happen.
The black leathered Santiago slowly released the chin strap of his ostrich-egg
helmet, pulled it off his head and said to the old man, “Bon jour.” He did not
seem to notice Thaana.
“Où Paris?” Santiago said quite clearly ooo-wee pear-ree.
What he was trying to ask was, “Where is Pére?”
Santiago was not good with languages. After years of living in a French speaking
country, the tongue still escaped him.
The old man scratched his chin in bewilderment, shook his pointed finger in to the northern sky, then said in broken English, “Paris? It is far away, across the sea…a boat…a plane is better. Too long on this little machine…”
Santiago now looked puzzled. “Merci,” he said while starting the MoPed and
turned back in the direction he had come.
The old man went to the local tavern in Carbuccio and told the other old men that the tourists coming to the island were crazier than ever. Imagine trying to get to Paris on a MoPed?
Thaana went back to the rented car and caught up with Santiago a kilometer down
the road.
Pére lies on the upper road going to or from Carbuccio. Thaana had gone through
it on her way. Her understanding of French was as bad as Santiago’s, but she
knew what he was asking.
What the old man said went over her head, but not the other old men he told the
story. The tale of the mad American tourist on a MoPed would circulate around
Corsica for years until it was manifested into The MoPed Rally, Paris to Pére in
2012. That is the power of the Beat.
Meanwhile
back to Santiago, just as he was coming to the “Y” in the mountain road, one
being the high road to Pére and the other the low road to Vero, Thaana caught up
in the rented car.
She honked the horn and cut in front of him. He slammed on the brakes hitting a
patch of gravel that sent him somersaulting ostrich-egg-head first into a large
granite boulder knocking him out, cold as mackerel.
The loaded 38 pistol tucked inside his leather jacket skidded on down the
mountain was found in 2012 by Henri Trousseau, one of the Paris to Pére MoPed
Rally racers who had stopped to have a pee in the brush. Henri shot himself in
the head after learning he had come in last. The destiny of that pistol was at
work.
At the precise moment Santiago was knocked out as cold as a Mackerel, Martina
the woman who had broke his heart twice, was seducing the 79 year old mayor of
the small village of Pére.
The mayor was senile, rich and madly in love with Martina, promising to murder
his legal wife with arsenic so they might be married.
Martina
would be the first woman mayor of Pére in 2012, give the first gold, silver and
bronze trophies for the Paris to Pére MoPed Rally.
Several months later, Martina would succumb to her own madness and complete
belief in a Mayan legend by shooting herself on December 20, 2012 with the
pistol found next to Henri Trousseau’s body. She believed the End Time was the
next day, December 21st. She was wrong, but the pistol at last
completed Santiago’s dark desire.
The Mayans were wrong too, but not by much. The End Time came slowly in the first week of 2013.
As everyone knows the number 13 has a bad reputation. Yet in the whole world only 13 people survived which gave a whole new story to the bad-assed number.
But I am getting ahead of my story. The Beat knows when to spill the proverbial
beans.
|
H |
ello, my name is Thaana Over Would you believe it? I ran off just like some kind of
lunatic to France---well not really France being Corsica is like a state---you
know, like New Jersey is a state even though it’s a pit---but there you are. I
mean, there I was. You know what I’m saying? Go figure.
I can’t even remember how I got there I was in such a state leaving that jerk
husband of mine in Manhattan. 30 years I live with that schnook and he has the
nerve to tell me he is in love with our maid. The nerve!
So what do I do you ask?
I say goodbye Harvey, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out‘a
here.
He was gone only ten minutes when I go to the bank and transferred 300 grand to my personal account. Hey, that’s all he had left.
I find out from his secretary Mabel-what’s-her-face, he had three other floozies
he was spending his brain surgeon payola on. The guy should’a transplanted his
own brain. Go figure.
I mean, last I knew, we had over three million stashed away for our retirement
in Florida and there we are down to peanuts. Hear what I’m saying?
So I take the 300 K, put the apartment up for sale, sell the Lexus to Charley,
Mabel-what’s-her-face’s boyfriend and the next thing I know I’m on a plane to an
island in the Mediterranean thinking I might see a guy I nailed when I was a hot
young thing. Go figure.
I was nuts.
And then for no reason at all I chase a stranger I meet when he falls off his
motor scooter.
A lot can happen in a week. You know what I mean?
|
T |
haana didn’t mean to run Santiago off the road. She turned in front of him just as he was turning to take the high road to Pére where he hoped to find his old heart break, shoot five holes in her and with the last slug put it through the roof of his mouth. One rarely fails at termination from that placement of lead, unlike Santiago’s old army buddy Pete, from Mylai.
Pete managed to miss with a 12 gauge shotgun and blew off the right half of his
face as well as performing a superb lobotomy. The good thing about it was Pete
never again remembered Vietnam or what he did in Mylai.
Thaana was horrified when she saw the man in black leathers tumble off the MoPed
and fly into the bush far below the road. “Oh my God,” she said with the hush of
New York understatement.
She would have been more correct to have said, “Look what the Beat has done.”
Only five minutes later when she brought Santiago back to consciousness would
she be marginally close to personal clarity.
Santiago opened his eyes and said, “Where did you come from?”
“Beats me,” she said.
Santiago
McBoil was wearing a thin bicycle helmet when he landed on his head in the maqui
of Corsica.
He
was lucky he was wearing it otherwise the pointed granite rock that split the
bicycle helmet would have split his skull. If he had not been killed, most
certainly he would have achieved the lobotomy his grunt-in-the-mud Mylai buddy,
Pete, had done with a shotgun.
As it was Santiago got a severe concussion resulting in general amnesia that would last for over six months. He did not know his name, or the name of the woman he had been intent on murdering. He did not even remember her. He no idea of where he was although it seemed vaguely familiar.
In fact, he did not remember a thing. How cool is that?
He was like a brand new wigglibump---a clean slate without a blemish.
He was born again, with everything seen for the first time except for a strange
string of words that kept echoing inside his head. T.S. Eliot wrote the words
many years before even though Santiago did not know who T.S. Eliot was or what
the words meant.
The words were, “…and the end of exploration…”
Santiago’s mind turned white as the words dribbled away so faint he could not
hear them at all. They were like drips of water on a flat rock at the edge of
recognition.
Being The Beat, I can have a lot of fun, screwing with wigglibump certainties.
|
H |
ey, it’s me again Santiago. Don’t listen to the other guy, The Beat. He should be called The Beast because he’s a God-damned thug the way he screws with people.
He treats humanity like a little kid blowing through a soap ring, watching the bubbles glitter for a second before he sticks his finger in them or laugh as they crash and pop. Yeah. He’s a beast and all he wants are death bubbles and killing things.
Family and friends and the government wanted me to kill. One at a time, they took me to their killing rituals.
My dad Jose gave me a rifle made in 1906. He bought it from another Mexican who
stole it from a pawn shop. It was a 33 Winchester. Very few people even
know about them, but the slug is like a freight train when he goes through
something.
I was 11 years old the only time I went deer hunting with my old man and buddy
Pete. Pete was a year or two older than me and he’d been hunting before. When we
got older he got good at killing.
But this time was October 1955—the mountains were full of maniacs and the aspen trees were golden. We set off before sunrise and started walking up a valley.
My old man yelled, "Santiago, you stay up on the south side of the hill. I'll walk down through the middle, and Pete can walk up on the north side— so if something comes your way, you just point that thing at it and pull the trigger."
The explosion of the rifle and the way it slammed into my shoulder with that instant acrid smell of gun powder—all of that thrilled me. I didn’t think about what the gun was supposed to do—what it would be like when I killed.
* *
*
I was seven or eight years old the first time I killed with the Johnson boys who moved in next door. Jackie, Ray and Lee. They loved killing things. They would invite me to come along to watch them kill. I didn't know what they were going to do. I didn’t know killing.
Ray the oldest,13, took one of the pigeons out of the coupe his father had built. He laid the sacrificial bird out on a board. Jackie and Lee held the bird, pulling its wings out to the side. Ray took a hammer and nailed the bird's wings down. I was fascinated by the pigeon's black eyes and his beak as it opened and closed. A puff of sound was all it made. “Look at this,” Ray said. He took a knife out of his pocket. It was a switchblade that he was very proud of slinging open.
Jackie, Lee and me watched Ray as he put the point of the blade on the breast of the bird and laughed. He looked up at us, and there was something strange in his eyes. He raised the knife up two inches and put it back down poking the blade into the bird's breast just a little. I gasped and Ray laughed again. He raised the knife again this time six inches and looked at it greedily.
“Come on Ray, kill the fucker,” Jackie said.
“Yeah, kill him, kill him!” Lee chimed in.
I looked at Jackie and Lee. They were smiling, the same smile as Ray. They seemed to feel some kind of excitement that I wanted to feel, but I felt nothing. I just stood there watching, wondering if Ray was going to do it.
Without warning his hand shot up 12 inches then slammed knife down. I expected the bird to scream something like, “Don't kill me,” but the black eyes of the bird just got really big and its beak went wide-open. Silence came out. Its eyes fell like skin curtains—the lids slowly dropped over the glassy black as if the bird was going to sleep. It was almost peaceful, almost a dream. I was fascinated. So that's what death is, like going to sleep.
I couldn't stop thinking about the bird going to sleep, how peaceful, how quiet, how beautiful it was. I wanted to kill something. I wanted to see what it was like to send something quietly to sleep, so instantly. I thought about my lizard. He was a pet I kept in a box. I caught flies and worms and even gave him spaghetti once in a while. I wanted to see if I could send him to sleep. I went into the kitchen and took a knife from the cupboard and came back into my room and caught the lizard. I held him down on my table, but the knife was bigger than the body width. If I stabbed the lizard it would slice him in half. That didn't seem like the thing to do. I put the lizard back into the box and went looking for something a little bit smaller.
On my mother’s is sewing machine there was a big pin cushion with a long needle pin that had a fake pearl on the end of it. It was perfect. It was like a fencing sword in comparison to the size of the lizard.
“Right lizard, this is it,” I said, “you're going to go to sleep buddy.”
I took the pin and placed it the same way Ray had done on the pigeon. I pushed down just a little bit. The lizard nearly jumped out of my hand, and I had to hold a lot harder. It was difficult to raise the pin up and down the way Ray had done the knife, so I decided just to put the point of the pin on the lizard’s chest and push down very slowly to see if I could see him go to sleep. I pushed and the lizard thrashed in my fingers. He didn't want to go to sleep at all.
I pushed a little bit harder but the pin was so dull it wasn't going through the lizard’s skin. The lizard was making funny little kissing sounds and its tongue was licking around its mouth. I didn't know whether to stop or push harder. Suddenly the pin went down through the skin and blood spurt out onto my hand. The lizard twisted violently for a few seconds then went completely limp. It was not the same as the pigeon. There was nothing peaceful about what happened in my fingers. I began to feel very bad.
* *
*
I heard my old man scream in the trees at the bottom mountainside below me. His voice echoed across the valley.
“He's coming your way Santiago.”
I didn't know what he meant. I thought maybe it was Pete coming up so I stood there not doing anything. I heard limbs and branches cracking. I looked down through the aspen trees and saw something earth colored moving through the white bark.
I didn't think. I raised the rifle and pulled the trigger without aiming. I heard the explosion of the rifle, I smelled the cordite and I could feel a muscle spasm in my shoulder. I was amazed when the deer fell on its front legs only 10 feet from me. There was a bright red gash, like bloody lips the size of a quarter on its shoulders. I stood just looking at the deer as it kept trying to get up on its legs while making a grotesque wheezing sound. It kept falling down on its front legs while its rear legs spread out like it was doing the splints.
“Good going Santiago. Ya’got the son of a bitch,” Pete yelled as he came running up through the aspen trees. My old man was a little further down the hill yelling, “Did he get him, did he get him?”
Pete walked around the deer and said “You sure fucked up this hamburger.”
I was bewildered---kind of shocked. It was too easy to knock down a huge deer by squeezing your finger on a little piece of metal. The wheezing sound continued while my old man ran up to the deer.
“Good Fuck’n shot Santiago! You blew his ass out of the woods!” Pete said.
He had that smile of the Johnson brothers. So did my old man. I didn’t like the look.
I became aware of the rifle in my hands. It weighed a hundred pounds. I saw my old man lips moving but the sound of rasping breath was all I could hear. I slowly walked up to the deer. Pink frothed death bubbles were coming out its nose and mouth. I walked to the other side of the deer and was hit in the eyes like a hand slapping my face.
The bullet hole, the size of a quarter on one side had turned into the size of a dinner plate on the other, smashing bones through the lungs of the deer. The Vesuvius exit of the bullet left a blown-out swamp of bloody dripping meat. The breathing of the deer was gurgled drowning. It was not going to sleep— it was dying a miserable death. I felt bad.
* *
*
Thaana had never killed anything bigger than a mosquito either on purpose or by
accident in her life. The site of any creature suffering made her deathly ill,
and if she saw blood she became faint.
When Santiago tumbled off the road, she ran down to where his twisted body lay
crumpled on the ground. Blood was trickling down his forehead from the small tap
the pointed boulder made just under his skin. For a dizzying split second the
sky swirled in a spiral above her and it was all she could do to force herself
to look away from the blood.
She focused on Santiago’s crotch and noticed the zipper had fallen open where
below she could see ragged underwear looking like filigreed lace from the
holes.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe this,” she said then began patting his face trying
to get a response. “Hey buddy, buddy, I’m sorry. Hey wake up Mr.”
Santiago lay on the ground imitating 150 pounds of thawed out freezer hamburger.
Even his black leathers began to feel like slippery wrapping paper under
Thaana’s hands.
Thaana’s light taps on his face began to become ferocious slaps that sent tiny skin thud echoes across the valley. “Come on Mr., don’t you dare die on me. You can’t do this…hey are you even breathing?”
She was so terrified her own hyperventilation obscured any sound or movement
that came from the limp body under her. It occurred to her the leathery figure
would soon become a corpse without CPR, so she knelt over Santiago’s face,
squeezed his nose like a mechanic’s vise and began to blow hot puffs down
Santiago’s throat.
Instantly Santiago coughed and his body jerked convulsively as he sat up with
one eye squeezed shut and the other full of tears and dust. He had no idea what
kind of animal was attacking him, except it had very curly long black hair and
smelled pleasantly of lavender.
“Mr., Mr., God I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run you off the road,” Thaana
screeched.
“Who are you?” Santiago said as he slowly opened his shut eye and the face of
some kind of woman materialized in front of him.
“Beats me,” Thaana said in the predestined checkmate game that was about to
unfold. “But who are you Mr.?”
“I am…” Santiago began before the
great void of nothing rolled over him, and all he could do was to repeat her
refrain, “…uh, beats me too.”
For some unfathomable reason, Thaana and Santiago locked eyes and both began to
laugh like village idiots. This was their beginning…
* * *
There are many reasons men and women get together, of which in the thousand of
years human kind has wondered around the earth over a ten trillion combinations
have been experimented, counting body positions, vocal renditions, philosophical
puzzle plans and just plain rape and pillage variations.
Santiago and Thaana did not create any new technique or curiosity spark. He
liked the deep brown color of her eyes and sugary bouquet that wafted off her
hair. She liked his shiny black leathers and sharp angled nose hanging over a
long bushy beard. But there was one thing they intuitively responded to—they
liked the taste of each other. I don’t mean style, I mean the juices they shared
when Thaana blew the kiss of life slurping down Santiago’s mouth and he
unconsciously gargled back into hers. Love at first sip.
Another odd phenomena occurred. Being his brain had been bonked on the granite rock, Santiago’s mind was somewhat similar to a baby duck coming out of the shell. His first compulsion in seeing Thaana was to follow her where ever she waddled.
She on the other hand, had never given birth to a child, although her entire
female spirit was designed to nurture something, although thus far she had only
care-taken homeless cats and dogs. If Santiago wanted to follow her home that
was all right by her. He was just another innocent creature she could protect
from the calamities of the world.
This where it all started; the taste of a mouth and following the leader. Also this is where it all ended; the life they knew before.
Because of a fork in the road and a little gravel, Santiago and Thaana were
welded in destiny to become two of the last 13 people on earth who would survive
The End Time.
It is true that both Santiago and Thaana were eccentric if not down right crazy
before they met each other. But on one hand
Santiago became like Einstein’s equation, in which the fundamental force of
gravitation is described as a curved
spacetime caused by
matter and
energy…uh, that is the equation
determines the metric tensor of spacetime for a given arrangement of
stress-energy in spacetime…oh screw it, in other words,
something in Santiago’s brain was not disappeared, it
was just transformed. Santiago began believing the voices and dreams that came
in the next six months, were the direct messages of me, The Beat. Screw
Einstein. Santiago’s brains were scrambled and he needed my help.
That’s right, God in the control tower, was directing traffic.
Thaana just wanted to believe in something, in fact almost anything would do, if
it was real. I mean really real, not just in the flesh real. She wanted a dream
to believe. Santiago would in reverse activity show Thaana the way by in fact
following her.
* *
*
When Santiago stopped laughing, the first thing he noticed about lying in the
dirt looking at a woman with very beautiful warm dark eyes, was there was a
sweet fruity and booze taste in his mouth. He liked it.
The second thing he noticed was the woman was fiddling with his fly zipper
trying to pull it up, except his ragged underwear was caught in it. What was odd
about this was he knew what a zipper was and what it was supposed to do. He also
knew what was under the torn shorts, but he had no idea why he was sitting on
the ground with a woman he had never seen before.
At first it was peculiar but not frightening. In fact it seemed completely
natural, and quite possibly he had always been there with her. She smiled at him
and kept asking if he was all right.
“Sure, sure, I’m fine. No problems, uh, mam…”
“Who are you?” she asked again.
That is when the whole thing became a little scary if not just weird. He started
to answer her again, but the problem was he did not have a clue who he was, or
for that matter, where he was. He was on the ground, sitting in the bushes with
an odd woman fussing over him. The sky was blue, the air was warm and he could
see down to the foot of a valley where there appeared to be a shoreline and some
kind of big lake or ocean shining to the horizon.
“I’m…I’m…I’m…”
“That’s okay honey, you just sit here for a moment and then I’ll take you to a
doctor…oh my God, I hope I haven’t hurt you,” Thaana said.
“No, I’m…uh, I’m…okay, kind of...” Santiago wasn’t sure what was wrong with him
but something was different. He saw the leather chaps and coat. He saw the split
bicycle helmet and the bent up MoPed laying a few feet away. The road sign poked
up over the woman’s head and he could read the name Pére. It all seemed
familiar.
That is when he heard the voice. It was me The Beat. I said, “Shut up you moron
and follow this woman where ever she goes.”
“Okay,” Santiago and looked at Thaana like a baby duck.
* *
*
Thaana managed to get Santiago up on his feet and supported him as she walked him up to the rented car.
She drove to the village. A black-haired attractive mature woman was standing in
the door of what looked like the village community center. Thaana asked her if
there was a doctor near.
Thaana did not ask in French, nor did she think it peculiar when the woman
answered in English, that the closest doctor was in Ajaccio, twenty kilometers
away. The woman never took her eyes off Santiago, while he sat in the car
looking like a blank black-board.
Thaana looking in the rearview mirror saw the woman come out into the street and
watch as she sped off in the direction of
In Ajaccio at the emergency room in the hospital, Santiago was examined by an
indifferent intern who found nothing wrong with him other than a large goose egg
on his head. The intern mumbled in French to watch out for prolonged head-aches
or any other abnormal condition which might occur. He gave Santiago a small
packet of aspirin.
It was at the hospital when Santiago took off his leather jacket, an envelope
fell on the floor. Thaana picked it up and discovered it contained a return
Delta airline ticket to Nice, going on to London then Atlanta and ended in
Albuquerque, dated for 7:00 PM on this day. There was also ten thousand Euros,
his passport and a tagged key to a locker.
It was 3:00 PM. Thaana gave him the envelope and its contents. She wasn’t sure if the man on the passport photograph was him. The man was clean shaven and appeared years younger. The man in front of her had the beard of Methuselah and was apparently 20 lbs lighter and a lot older.
“Is all of this yours? I mean, hey is that really you?”
Santiago looked at the passport and the money. He did not remember a thing about either but he knew the key was his and instantly saw a bundle of books and bound manuscripts in a wall locker.
“Well? Is it you?” She asked again.
“Gee, I don’t know…I mean, the key is mine and something is mine in a locker,
but I don’t know who that guy is…”
“Have you got a wallet?”
“A wallet?”
“Yeah, you know, where guys keep their rubbers in their back pocket.”
Santiago reached in his pocket and pulled out a folded brown leather wallet. He
handed it to Thaana like it was a bomb about to blow.
Thaana flipped it open, finding a social security card, a
“You’re Santiago McBoil?”
Santiago looked at her blankly. “I don’t know.”
“Whadda ya mean you don’t know? You hiding from the law?”
“Honest…I don’t know. I just fucking don’t know,” he said as though he was
walking on quicksand, and would be swallowed at any moment. His body tensed and
his eyes closed to small slits.
“Ah come on honey, its all right…everything is going to be okay,” Thaana said
seeing he was upset. “It was just that bang on the knob you got baby…probably
just a simple case of temporary amnesia.”
“But I am somebody!” Santiago wheezed.
“Yeah sure you’re somebody. You’re Santiago McBoil unless that is an alias on
the cards.” She put the driver’s license and debit card in front of Santiago.
“That’s what I look like?”
“Baby it’s either you or your twin bearded brother. The question is, what do you
know? What about the ticket and the dough and the key?”
“Fuck knows. I have no idea except for one thing,” he said digging his fingers
into the strands of his beard. ‘The key, its mine and I put some papers in a
locker…they’re mine.”
“Where are they?”
“They’re…uh, I don’t know…”
“Why hey, they gotta be at the airport, cause look that’s the airport here isn’t
it,” Thaana said holding Ajaccio’s Campo del Oro airport tag attached to the
key.
“I guess, I don’t know. God it seems right but why?”
“Baby, one way to find out. We go to the airport and get what’s in the locker,
then you will probably just flash and remember everything, right”
Santiago looked at her. Deep down there was something in him that did not want
to know what was in the locker, or remember who and what he was. All he really
wanted was how he felt when he first saw Thaana and they were laughing on the
hillside.
“Anyway baby, it looks like you’re leaving the island in just a few hours…the
ticket you know, it’s got your name on it too.”
“Yeah, maybe that is the thing to do…yeah lets go.”
* *
*
It was only a few minutes in Ajaccio’s afternoon traffic to get to the airport.
When they found the locker, Thaana opened it dreading a chopped up body would
fall out on the floor.
Inside the locker was nothing except a yellow copy of a document for freight
shipped to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It was shipped express two days before,
weighed twenty kilos and was in a box 25 X 40 X 30 centimeters.
They checked luggage to be sure it was shipped out. It was gone. They asked the
clerk if he could track it. He looked at them pitifully and made the hand
gesture of rigid fingers wiggling on a rubbery wrist, which in
“Putain de merde, it coood bee eenywherruh… perhaps it ees steel in
Nice…normally they wait until the plane load theen sheep eet,” the clerk said.
“You mean it could still be in Nice,” Thaana asked.
“Why not?” the clerk said and turned away.
Santiago and Thaana stood looking at each other for a moment.
“Shit,” Santiago said. “Who in the fuck am I?”
“Look, I have an idea. Why don’t I come with you to Nice, and maybe then we can
find out who you are and what you are supposed to be or whatever…I mean, I am
sick of Corsica anyway and was thinking a big city would be more fun…hey I even
have my bags in the car, and this is where I rented the car…hey baby,
it’s almost like I’m supposed to go with you, you hear what I’m saying…”
* *
*
There is a theatrical game, called WHO’S TO MOVE NEXT. At this point in time Thaana and Santiago began their version of the game. There was no script, and no consequence of what ever choice one made but to continue the game until its natural conclusion.
One either ran out of guessing, or guessed at a
junction of crossed paths which one was supposed to follow. Thaana
decided for
His memory did not come back in Nice, so Thaana chose to travel with him to
Meanwhile 5 miles in the sky Thaana was quizzing
Thaana rationalized that once they were in
The flight was uneventful, other than
Ten hours later, somewhere between
***
Hah, you know I am fucking with you if you notice there are five periods in the
paragraph ending above
instead of three which technically is nonsense.................
Don't count, but seventeen periods, do not make technical sense either.
Fuck you. I don't care.
I am God. I can do what I want to do.
What I want to do is to tell a story that will make you laugh because you
deserve to laugh. Why not? LIFE IS UGLY. I quit. God.......
There we go, suffer, suffer. Hey this is Santiago McBoil and who is surprised
that life is ugly? Life is also more shit than you can swallow. Too bad huh?
***
Hello, helloooooh out there. This is Thaana Over and I just can't figure why we
just don't like each other.
***
Okay, okay, can nobody take a joke? So I didn't quit. God speaking here. Over?
Jesus, you'd think it was their blood they are spilling when you know as well as me, I am the only One who really suffers around this joint.
These wiggly bumps and their whining just pisses me off. Just yesterday I was talking with my old nemesis and alter-ego Lucifer about the quality of this human-pity-putty and he agreed with me. It just ain't the same as say back in the time of the Greeks and Romans. I mean those wiggly bumps really knew the pure quality of refined suffering. Hitler is the only jerk since Caligula that almost raised the ante...
Well, what do I know? I'm only God, God dammit.
***
Howdy, it's me again,
I met Thaana Over and although I don't know why, I am sure I knew her some other
place, some other time. In fact the other night I had one of those weird ass
dreams where it is really detailed and it's just like the real thing and then in
the morning you remember everything. The remembering is the weird part.
This is how it went...it was me, but I was like another guy. Thaana Over was
talking to me.
She said, "Nothing is linear in the observable vastness, there is nothing but
infinite meandering, especially memory, so what I tell you are the points of a
cog on a giant wheel that rolls for no reason at all...you know, like the time
my lunatic husband 's pistol went off when it dropped out of his jacket in the
bathroom..."
She told me the bullet missed her and bounced around the bathroom walls before
it rolled to a full stop on the red carpet in the door to the hallway.
"It just lay there, a little shiny lump of hot bent metal." She spoke to it.
"You missed me, hah, hah."
"Yeah, that's a coincidence," I told her. "The first bullet I knew, whizzed
right in front of my nose. The second bullet was somewhere out in front of my
face. The third one kissed the back of my neck. You missed me," I said. "I don't
know if I went hah, hah, but those bastards were looking for me."
That was the dream. I woke up at
It was this: If there had not been a flood, a big flood, the bridge over highway
10 may still be there where it was built on 8 huge concrete abutments, each 3
feet thick, 28 feet wide and 22 feet high. But there had been a flood, a big
flood, so the wooden bridge 300 feet long was picked up off the 8 concrete
abutments and carried 25 miles down river to the Gotchasnapee dam.
My cat Snowball, doesn't give a damn the bridge wound up on a dam. He dreams of
hallucigenic lizards with blue bellies.
The little town of
But when I found out the river had swept the bridge away, I happened to be the
owner of the 8 huge motherdunking concrete abutments, that reached into the
puffy little cloud sky of New Mexico for no apparent reason at all.
It was when Penelope, our local postmistress, told me she saw the river pick up
the bridge like it was a banana leaf, I heard an burning voice deep in me say,
"Build a Mighty Ark." I didn't pay much attention to it as I had just smoked
some reefer and anyway, it had already been done. Once was enough.
Of course that was a few years before I met Thaana Over who seems to be a spirit
with art and is much madder than me. But since she has come into my life, I keep
hearing that burning voice. It is a chant now. Build a boat, build a boat.
On the other hand, if the bridge was still there, I would not be the owner of 8
colossal motherhumping concrete architectural lumps, and I would not be thinking
about building a
mother-scooter-cybernetic-space-age-celluloid-multiple-split-apart-make-your-own-life-boat-Mighty
Well, one thing leads to another and like in the dream nothing is linear in my
infinite meandering mind, and so I came up with a plan here in the last few
months with Thaana Over.
THE PLAN
Build a giant pod-like Mamaship made up of 14 independent Babyships on top of
the 8 huge concrete thingamabobbies.
After the worst scenario of the worst possibility, that is when the BIG BLAST*
comes, and the whole damn motherwhumping Mamaship gets tidal waved off the 8
concrete docking pillars, the main idea is that at least ONE of the Babyships
might survive...
*THE BIG BLAST
Scenario: It is late spring of 2013. The worst winter in the entire
recorded history of winters. Five times more snow pack than ever known before
has accumulated in all regions of the northern world, while unbelievable drought
and floods have racked the southern hemisphere.
On April 1, snow has been falling for 24 hours, 30 miles directly east of
In the Locorado basin, 40 miles due south, southeast of
At precisely
At exactly
The small nuclear war head they have smuggled into the center of
All of it blows. Tornado winds carry the energy and heat directly into the
Sangre de Christos snow packed mountains. Everything melts in 1.7 minutes.
A giant wall of water roars down the
300 feet of water roars at 70 MPH down the Locorado River towards the 8 huge
concrete motherthumping pylons the Mamaship sits on with 14 Babyships loaded
with 280 squabbling terrified people, 24 dogs, 17 cats and a secret population
of 300 pack-rats, and 4,000 mice.
***
Hi there, Thaana Over here. The funny thing is Santiago thinks he met me
someplace before and for a while I thought, yeah, life is small, and like maybe
he was that hippy friend of my ex I fucked one night.
But when we picked up that package in
So then I read on about
***
MASSACRE
AT HAPPY VALLEY
This
is my story or at least my version even if other people who survived are going
to tell it another way.
My name is Thaana. I’m so embarrassed how I got into this condition.
I haven’t always been baldheaded and fat even if I always have been much taller
than most people including men. But I don’t know where to begin to tell you how
I got stranded outside of my trailer standing with no clothes on. It just all
happened so fast.
If it hadn’t been for that mean old man Elmer Retro, it wouldn’t have gotten so
bad.
Of course there was Elmer’s son, Worthless Jimmy Retro, but everyone around here
knew he was absolutely no good. The way he was carrying on with that bitch
Harriet, it’s no wonder it turned out the way it did.
Well, to be truthful it was my big mouth that couldn’t keep shut that is to
blame, but probably what was going to happen was written in the stars and my
mouth just made it come a little sooner. Still, I do wonder what happened to
that weird artist guy with his Mexican gal and that dog they took away.
Well, this all is so confusing isn’t it? I guess I should just tell you how it
all started. The problem is, in a place like this, who knows how things
began to unravel. It was a tragedy from the beginning.
One thing for sure, it is a complete mess now and I expect the police will be
arriving soon. Boy, are they going to be surprised to find the Deputy Sheriff
buried with that slut Harriet and Worthless Jimmy Retro. They will have to take
my word for what happened.
I seem to be the only one still here with my eyes wide open. Me and the
Mexican’s mobile home are the only trailers still left standing. Of course the
Mexicans just disappeared because they knew the cops would be here pronto, and
them with no papers and all them kids, no wonder they’re gone.
One thing for sure, Harriet’s husband Wilbur sure flattened most the whole damn
trailer park.
I moved into the place about a year ago. At first I was depressed as hell about
moving into a trailer park. I was in my trailer number 10 for about a week
before I noticed the manufacturer’s model name. You know what? They called it
the “Pontiac Chief.” At first I laughed at the ridiculousness of such a name,
but then oddly enough somehow it made me feel better. The name made the
trailer park seem kind of glamorous even though it is the worst place I ever
lived. I knew I had hit the bottom one morning when I looked out the
window and saw for the first time what it looked like -- what it really was – a
white trash trailer ghetto.
There were only ten trailers. All of them were built in the early fifties. That
was before they called them mobile homes. That lying pig, Elmer Retro lived in
number 1. He owned the place and he called it the
It sat next to the intersection of Mud and Water Streets where the traffic
roared 24 hours a day. To add to the volume there was the Interstate 10
which was only another hundred feet to the west. On the south side, right across
the street was the truck stop. Generally about 20 to 40 big rigs were
parked there and at least a dozen were moving all the time. But that
doesn’t matter much being those damn truckers kept their trucks running 24 hours
a day. There was the noise from those clicking diesel engines but worse were
those angry little generator motors that cooled the cargo down.
Of course all of that seemed comparably quiet to when the train rolled through a
dozen times a day. The train track was between me and the truck stop.
The trains blew their whistles for miles away to warn the truckers at the
crossings. By the time they passed the trailer court they shook the
pictures off the wall. Once I was in the bathtub and the train caused so
much vibration the water had waves like the Pacific. It was scary.
But the trains were kind of enjoyable because they just sliced through time like
a big noisy cleaning machine.
The noise and that really bothered me was the slamming and banging that came
from the beer bottling factory just on the north side of the trailer court.
For some reason the delivery trucks loaded up between
I wouldn’t have lived here at all except for two things. I didn’t make
enough money to live anywhere else and I work as a waitress over at the Travel
Inn Restaurant at the truck stop, or that is, I used to work there because I
expect things will change now. The truckers were nice enough but they
don’t tip worth a damn.
Still the convenience was something. I could just walk across the street
and be at work. I don’t really like walking since I gained all of this
weight, but I didn’t really have any choice. My little red
I haven’t always been a waitress. Like I said, I haven’t always been fat and
baldheaded. In fact back a few years ago I still retained some beauty and
charm. That was before the treatment started and I lost all my hair. I was
good looking, I had a career and I was going places. As far as I could
see, my freelance work as a photographer was something that would never change.
My work had actually fulfilled a childhood curiosity. You see from the
very early age I was kind of a paparazzo. Of course when I was a child I
didn’t have a camera, but I had a photographic memory, or at least I imagined
every time I saw something really interesting my brain would go click, and I
stored the image in there somewhere. It’s because of that ability that
started me at a very early age being what some people call a “peeping
Tom,” or in my case a “peeping Thaana.”
I guess I was that sure enough. I don’t even know when it started. I
might have been five when I used to go to my parents’ bedroom door when I heard
all the noise and banging of their bed hitting the wall. I would stand in
at the door and look through the keyhole and just see the top of daddy’s butt as
he pumped away on mama. I had no idea what they were up to, but it made me laugh
and I couldn’t stop from watching. Later on I was so curious I even cracked the
door open to get a better look. That is, until the old man caught me one time
and beat the living hell out of me. I better explain something. He
wasn't really my daddy. He was just an old man that took to my mama and he
stayed around so long I started calling him daddy.
But I’m not telling you how
If Steinbeck was alive and young he would have found
Everybody at
It is probably easier just to explain trailer by trailer and describe the
contents that fill each of those dismal cavities. I can’t think how I can
do this and not mess with your mind, but what the hell. If you want to know
about a bunch of sick and hateful people just hang with me for a while longer.
I’m exaggerating just a little bit for the effect of drama, but some people make
me wonder how humans get through life. I guess it is because there are some
people that make you believe life is worthwhile.
For instance, there was that weird artist,
People like Elmer shouldn’t be allowed to own animals. It used to break my
heart to see that poor dog on that short chain out there in the rain and the
snow and the sun and whatever could punish him from the world. Elmer, and
his ugly wife, just didn’t care. To the Retro’s, that dog was just a beast
that was born to suffer.
All that is over now of course, and who knows where
I might as well start at the beginning.
You see, it was Elvira, that was Elmer Retro’s wife, who met that fat slob
husband somewhere back in the fifties I am told. Elmer and Elvira, what a
combination -- with names like that they were bound to meet each other and they
were so mean and spiteful I guess it was natural they found each other.
People are always saying the longer someone is married the more they look like
each other. Elmer and Elvira both look nasty from the beginning I bet.
They just deserved each other and with names like that it’s no wonder they
wound up looking like a couple of matched cracked old marbled bowling balls.
All ten trailers was laid out in a long skinny kind of “U” shape. Five on
one side and five just kind of opposite. Elvira and Elmer, they owned of
Next to their trailer was number 2, the trailer of the truck-driver Wilbur.
I never did know him very well, even though he used to take most of his meals at
the Travel Inn when he came back off the road. He was gone most of the time and
when he did come back it was only for a day or so. It was a funny
arrangement, but his wife who lived in number 3, the trailer next in line, which
was right next to the deputy sheriff’s trailer, number 4.
From my position at number ten, which was right across from number 1, I
could pretty much keep tabs on and the coming and going those who visited her.
When Wilbur the truck driver came home, I used to watch the ritual between that
weird pair. He would stand at the door and knock for a few minutes before
she would answer. Then I would hear him begging and pleading to let him in. The
poor man would almost be in tears before she would open the door, and that was
always after he had taken out his pay envelope from his shirt pocket and showed
her as she peeked through the window. It was pitiful. She would
crack the door open and he would pass it through.
Sometimes she would just slam the door and tell him to come back when his pay
was a little bigger. I would hear him say that he had bills to pay and
that was all he had. Usually he would keep begging until she would open up
the door. But sometimes she would just go back to her bedroom and turn
music on real loud and ignore the poor man. After an hour or so I would see him
slump his shoulders and he would go back to his own trailer.
I have no idea what gets into the head of some men that they could love such a
nasty human being, but he sure did have something for that wife of his. I
know one thing though; she was absolutely no good.
It wouldn’t be an hour after the truck driver had driven away, that I would see
Worthless Jimmy Retro shambling down from his parents’ trailer and just step
into Harriet’s trailer like he was the rightful husband, and sometimes the
deputy sheriff would just walk in. It didn’t even matter, if Worthless Jimmy
Retro was there. He would go in and damn if I wouldn’t hear sounds like monkeys
in a zoo for the next hour or so. They would start playing music and get
drunk and make more noise than the whole damn truck park, beer warehouse and
railroad put together.
Worthless Jimmy Retro would keep visiting Harriet until the truck driver’s
paycheck ran out then he’d go back up and sponge off his parents again.
Worthless Jimmy Retro was one despicable little bastard. I saw him kick that dog
more than once. Some people just aren’t worth the time of day. As far as
the deputy, I sure think he had a few kinks in the his head, cause he only would
drop in Harriet’s whorehouse if Worthless Jimmy Retro was there.
On the other side of the deputy was number 5, were the illegal aliens, the
Mexican immigrant family. They had six kids and all of them were boys
except for Gypsy Queen. She was the oldest so she had to watch after the whole
pack. The family seemed to be nice enough, and I think it was all her
father could do to keep them alive with the money he made at his construction
job. I expect he was a common laborer by the amount of dirt I would see on
his clothes every day. I think Gypsy Queen must have had to wash all of
their clothes by hand, because her hands always looked so red and she was
everyday hanging the laundry on the clothesline in the front yard.
I used to watch her out my bedroom window and I saw the first time that
Number 7 had already melted into the ground and I guess nobody lived there but
rats and crack-heads.
Next in line was number 8 and it must have had some problem, cause people would
move in, be there a day or two then move out. I bet you the Retro's never gave
them their rent back.
Then there was the crazy old man who lived in number nine. He had all of
the shades pulled down, so I could never see inside the trailer but there sure
strange noises would come out of the place late at night, like rubber squeaking
and hippopotamuses humping. He had a little work shed in front of his
yard and every once in awhile I would see him grinding on some kind of machine
in there that looked a like a cross between a motorcycle and a sailing boat. The
thing was painted all orange green and purple. He came to the Travel
Inn to have his breakfast and once I asked him what it was he was building.
He said it was a portable sculpture he was going race in
Well after he said that I figured sure enough he must be crazy as they come. He
told me the biggest problem he was trying to figure out with the machine was how
he could get the music to play as it rolled down the street. I figured it
was better just to agree with him and say that’s nice. I didn’t ask him
about the machine after that, but it was hard not to watch him when he was out
there working on that thing in the yard. I have to admit I got pretty
curious about it, and actually it started looking kind of interesting although I
hated the colors. I would see
The deputy sheriff worked the night shift, so his deputy sheriff car was parked
out front of the trailer all day long. Usually about
It is amazing what can go on in one little incestuous white trash trailer park.
Oh my god, this story is more than I can bear and I don’t even know how one can
explain the circumstance of so many hateful people coming together in the same
space and time. But it is better for me not to think about it at all and
just tell you what I know and what I have seen. In fact, everything
becomes totally confusing to me because there are several ways I see the
details. It’s like a million particles of dust in the air swirling and mingling
but no way can you find anything that is connected.
Whatever Elma and Elvira wanted in the beginning no one can tell for sure.
What is obvious is what they created in the end. The
You could tell just by looking at it. That was because Elmer and Elvira hated
each other. Their son, Worthless Jimmy Retro hated them. The dog they kept
on a chain hated its masters. The Mexicans hated anyone who wasn’t a
Mexican. Harriet hated her truck driving husband. Her husband hated
anyone who paid attention to his unfaithful wife. The dope peddler hated
the Law or anyone who tried to interfere with his illegal trade.
Everything just happened like a small pebble that starts rolling down a mountain
because a mouse bumped it, and the next thing you know it has turned into a darn
full scale avalanche and half the mountain just comes rolling over you. I was
there and I heard the first whispers of disaster and saw the thing get started.
It was that Worthless Jimmy Retro that brought the mountain down on us all.
It started at lunch time when Worthless Jimmy Retro came over to the Travel Inn
to have a greasy hamburger for his breakfast. He must have just got out of bed
with that tramp Harriet, because when I happened to walk past him he said to a
truck driver he knew, “Yup, makes you mighty hungry pumping a long distance
truck drivers wife all night, cause they are on a diet, if you know what I
mean…”
Well the truck driver he was talking to thought that was funny. I don’t think he
was married, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have thought it so humorous.
So this driver turns and tells the little joke to the driver next him and the
guy laughed because that was what he was supposed to do, or maybe the first
driver improved the joke and it was funny.
Anyway, whatever from there on it was like that old game they used to call
Chinese whispers, because I kept hearing variations of the little piece all
afternoon long until about four, which was the end of my shift, when one of the
regular drivers, Bubba, who calls me Cutie, came over, took my elbow and
whispers, “Hey Cutie, you know why a truck drivers wife never gets skinny?” He
didn’t wait for my utter bewilderment. “Cause they always get pumped up when
their husbands are away—har, har, har…”
Well I just smiled at him and gave him my most tip-getting tone of voice and
said, “Oh, Bubba, that is just so darn funny, honey.”
Wouldn’t you know it but it was also just then when Wilbur, Harriet’s long
distance truck driving husband walks in, and damn, I don’t know what got in me,
but I turned back to Bubba and said, “Honey, that is just a scream. Why don’t
you tell that sad looking driver over there that story? I bet it will just cheer
him up a bunch.” He said he thought he would, and I went into the office to
punch out and put all my waitress stuff away. I hadn’t been in the office a
minute when I heard the commotion out in the restaurant. By then I had my coat
on and was preparing myself for the long distance shuttle of 100 feet to get
back to my Pontiac Chief trailer home.
My God, I walked out and there was Wilbur just beating poor old Bubba all over
the head. I don’t know why, but I just panicked and ran like a scared chicken.
Before I knew it I was back in my trailer peeping out the windows as usual. That
was about
I figured Worthless Jimmy Retro must be at Harriet’s hole again otherwise the
deputy wouldn’t be going there. I watched and sure enough that Worthless
Jimmy Retro opens up Harriet’s door and in prances the deputy. By this time I am
beginning to get a gloomy feeling because I know what I just left in the Travel
Inn and some how I know it won’t be long before poor old Wilbur might just show
up…the thing is I didn’t reckon on how he’d arrive.
I guess it was about
Well that noise over at the truck stop just kept getting noisier and noisier.
Even though I had the shower on full blast I kept hearing all this crunching and
crashing sound over there. Sirens seemed to be going around and around over
there in the parking lot as well. I tried to ignore it all by shampooing my wig,
but finally curiosity just got the best of me and I stepped out of the shower to
peep out of the little bathroom window which I had to wipe the steam off. What I
could see was kind of weird. A big truck was going real fast with a whole bunch
of cop cars all around it. Well, you know what I was thinking. Wilbur had done
lost it and it didn’t look good. “Oh my God,” I said as I watched the big rig
turn sharp and run right over a cop car. Worse than that, those evil headlights
on the truck seemed to be just looking at me, and they kept getting bigger.
Well, I just stood there looking at them lights like I was hypnotized and they
just kept getting bigger. It wasn’t until I realized they were getting bigger
and that damn truck was busting through the hedges on the opposite side of the
road from the
Yep, I was there in the back corner of the park, huddling behind a big tree,
nude as all nature when I saw that 18-wheeler come roaring by the Pontiac Chief,
missing it by a couple feet. But he sure didn’t miss Harriet’s Trailer. He
nailed it dead on, and boy, shit flew everywhere. Wilbur just kept making a big
turn and then that big old truck came straight on down the line and wiped out
5, 4 and what was left of 3, then he got his own number 2, and rammed right
across Elmer and Elvira’s hacienda. He had made another turn and some how missed
the Mexicans trailer by an inch or two and was plowing his way down the line
towards the Pontiac Chief when the clapping noise of guns seemed to just happen
everywhere. The truck came to a dead stop with its front bumper just kind of
stuck into the side of the Pontiac Chief like a French kiss. And there I was
standing behind this tree, with no clothes and me without my wig.
I don’t know how I’m going to explain, how this all happened, when the cops get
here.
***
Nobody here. I'm nobody because I can't remember who I'm supposed to be. I don't
remember writing the piece called Happy Valley Massacre or any of that stuff the
lady and I found in the package. As far as the publisher who was writing;
I didn't remember a thing about agents in
One thing I can tell you. I was more than confused when the agent wrote,
as soon as this guy Santiago sent the corrected proofs back, there would be a
money transfer of $100,000 put into the bank account they had for him in Santa
Barbara, California. I was convinced it was a mistake. The lady seems to think I
am
***
Hey, it's me God again. I think
I liked the Mercedes Benz coupe he bought, but then he drove it off
The house he rented up on the hills overlooking downtown
She got off track too and filled up the house with 47 cats, 13 dogs, 3 pigmy
goats, 1 pot bellied pig and a pen of bunny rabbits that ate all of their
neighbor’s fancy
So that is why I started the new series of dreams with
I had to do it naturally because I never agreed that I wouldn't cheat too.
To begin with, for seven nights, I whispered into
The second thing I mantra chanted for 13 weeks was, "The hole in the pole will
be the Earth's last goal."
***
Yeah, roger God. I gotta tell you, I think that bump on
"Thaana Over," he says, "I have this theory." Yeah, I says, I already know cause
he's been telling me now for two or three months. He tells me all about it until
I think I'm going to turn blue, you hear what I'm saying?
He called it his Black-Shadow-Door theory. Said he thought God was giving him
messages the world needed to know before it was too late.
What's too late I say.
He says, "Before the earth gets sucked up its own asshole."
What do you mean I say and that's when he says again for the thousandth time,
"Well, there are four parts to my theory about the Black-Shadow-Door."
“Yeah, what are they?” I ask just to make him happy, cause you know it's my
fault he's a little bit nuts.
"To begin with," he says, "One; the Black-Shadow-Door ain't a door, it's a Black
Hole, but it ain't round."
“It isn't round,” I correct him, wondering how he got to be such a famous writer
with such lousy grammar.
“Two; It's triangular shaped entrance into the new world."
"New world, huh?" I reply like I've never heard this stuff before.
"Three; the Black Hole is plugged up at the moment with a great big
mother-humping chunk of ice."
“Plugged up? I thought a black hole is supposed to suck-up everything that gets
near it,” I says.
"Well, yes they sure do,"
"Oh yeah, that'll plug the crap out'a things," I say thinking how does he come
up with this stuff, but then that's just me being so logical and all. Go figure.
"Four; when the earth's temperature raises dynamically because of a global
nuclear war, the entire North Pole melts and the Black Hole becomes the last
unplugged concert of humanity as we know it."
“Fascinating,” I say. “So how do we get out of this predicament?” I ask and
that's when
"I see a Great Flood and we have prepared for it, by building a Giant Mothership
that is made up of 8 Babyships where 13 humans will gather. They bring with them
3 ducks. 2 hens, 1 rooster, 1 gander, 2 peahens, 1 peacock, 3 cats, 3 dogs and
without permission come 47 mice, 1 packrat, 1 rattlesnake, 2 bullsnakes and a
multitude of spiders. Only the all, of the above, will survive the Great Flood
and find land which was the top of a mountain, once the center of an island
somewhere in the
I says to him , “Could that be
"
“Never mind Baby,” I says , “so what happens next?”
"As my last act as an artist in this life I will write stories for children,
even though there are no more children in this world, and there are no
publishers to make a book. It will be the last thing I do before this earth is
sucked into the Black Hole and a
“Yeah, sure, right,” I always say to
But you know what? People drive me crazier than
The first one was that bitch Martina. She even flew in from
The biggest surprising part was
***
God here.
Thaana Over used my name again in her charming way, so I have to explain the
whirlwind I put her and
She had no idea the Pandora's Box she had taken him to, even though it was him,
who had put everything in it, and mailed it to himself on the instructions of
his agents in
That bump on his head had leveled off a lot of detailed history for several
months.
The Big Thing was the finished manuscript.
He promised the Big House Publishers it was coming. But it was the two Agents,
James T. Schnook and Michael B. Scudd who were really bananas.
They had no idea where he and the manuscripts were, but more important, the
hefty commission they were looking towards, had disappeared.
It was 100,000 words of self indulgent blubbering the Big House Publisher knew
the public was dying to read...you know, humans love the pathetic underdog who
climbs to the top of the wretched human dog-pile.
***
Nobody here again and I say god-dammit
and fuck it, and there too, is
WHY?
Because I lost faith
"What?" said Thaana Over.
"I lost faith, god-dammit, I lost faith!"
"Whuddaya mean?"
"What the fuck, what do I mean? I lost god-dam fucking faith
in any thing anyone can believe in. Are you stupid or do you know what I mean?"
"Oh yeah, I always know what you mean any way you say it
cause I lov'ya baby."
"Thas my gal," I said just before I had this weird ass dream.
I was driving down a street, somehow I had seen a thousand
million times before, all so known.
I knew it was the aftermath. I knew I was alive.
I looked at empty houses, I remembered empty days.
What the fuck?
Why care? If it is all a joke, I mean, if the observable
fucking universe does not give a wink about your fucking life, why should you be
bothered? That's what I said to myself.
And do you know what? I felt kind of relieved.
Isn't that fucking weird?
I mean, actually, if this fucking gizmo universe keeps
inventing itself for whatever reason, and you are seeing it, isn't that good
enough?
***
Thaana Over looked at
Suddenly she clicked her eyes and said, "That is exactly what
I was a saying."
***
Nobody again. I just woke up this morning and a weird voice
said to me, "You know who you are! You're the Zen Cowboy!"
I got so puzzled I went up to
the village where I knew straight thinking was not a problem. And as days go, I
have no idea but I thought I was going to be doing one thing but had to do the
other, so I talked with Pete and Liz and took notes listening to them make a
declaration for a new nation.
They came up with their motto
in English;
AT OUR BEST
WE EQUAL EARTH WORMS
ERGO EQUALUS MONDO HERMATRA SPIRALUS
Hence a pseudo Latin motto. They had no idea if this was close to real Latin but
they made a flag anyway, with a spiral earth worm, their mascot.
I found the proper Latin translation on Google:
DEMIRATUS NOSTRUM OPTIMUS
NOSTRI AEQUAPARATUS HUMI WORMICIAE
It was just one of those kind of days.
But there you are, I mean no matter where you go.
So no sooner do I hear the voice that I am the Zen Cowboy
than I Write down a list of stories I had to tell. They were all same in most
ways but each one had a special point. It was an idea I had to follow, so I
began to write.
***
I guess I was in my mother's womb the first time I went for a ride. I don't
remember it...
What I remember the first time I went ridin' wasn't exactly a ride, but every
time I think about it, it seems like it was a ride, a very wonderful, beautiful,
flowing ride. I was just a baby. But I remember it very well. I am almost old
now, but like they say, I remember that first ride. It was 65 years ago...There
was sun coming down through the leaves of the big old cottonwoods. The water was
warm, and I was in my mother's arms, and we were in the river, the
***
That's how those stories went. What I want to get to, is how I came up with the
other weird idea to build a Mighty Ark.
I get back to
Well, the truth is, I could see it, like no
Each little pod was connected to other little pod with what looked like long
thread-like suspension bridges. at each pod, there was an elaborate balcony with
a stair case that led down to a grotto below.
The whole thing looked kind of like this:
INSERT DRAWING
***
Zen Cowboy here, and this is a flash of the past:
Pig, Fish Guts and Big Fat Thaana, is not an exotic dish unless you are on the
road to adventure and romance.
I once had a friend who said, "There are only two things
necessary in life and you can't have one without the other." What's that? I
said. "Romance and Adventure," he said and held his hand over a lit candle. I
sat there waiting for him to pull his hand off the candle and he just sits there
and looked at the light. Smoke started to come off his hand and he pulled his
hand casually away from the flame, turning to look at the big black smudge on
his palm. "Getting used to loneliness is like holding your hand over a flame.
You can't have romance without danger, and you can't have adventure without
beauty, because then, you are living a lie."
A year later I happened to be at the
College Artists Ball held in an old factory warehouse. There was a 250 gallon
wine cask and maybe 200 college students at the ball. About
At six in the morning, I was being
thrown half way to the ceiling in her bedroom and I was having the time of my
life. About
The smell in the car was how I felt. I had no idea what I was
going to say to my beautiful young hippy girlfriend. I decided truth was the
only road, so I said to her when she saw me looking like shit and smelling like
what my dog Pig had dragged into the car, "I can not lie. I slept with Big Fat
Thaana last night."
She just dropped her mouth and said, " I can understand if
you had been with a beautiful woman, but why did you sleep with a big fat ugly
slob?" I looked at her and knew the answer. There are only two things necessary
in life, and you can't have one without the other.
***
Los Angeles Agent M. Scudd here. Like if it wasn't for me, no
one would have ever thought of that great pseudo name, Phil LeGree. It was
my idea. You know? What a name! A name like Santiago McBoil would never sell a
book and that weird promo idea of his building a big boat was interesting but
Phil Le Gree is genius. Filigree, get it? Yeah right, that is this genius
thinking! The promo idea I improved as well.
I'm the man. I'm an agent for Chrise-sakes. I get paid big
commissions cause it took me years to get here, you know, I have got combined
years of wisdom.
So you see, it is all my idea. I'm an Events Artist Agent.
That's what I am supposed to do.
The promo deal needed work, so I improved it with 12 great
ideas:
1. There are 8 basic pillars see? So that makes 16
walls, and 1 and 6 make 7. So see? We will create seven sacred shrines and put
up a website called,
7sacredshrines@naturaltherapy.com
INSERT DRAWING
Okay, so see, I'm not an artist. But that above is the master plan for the 7
sacred shrines.
3. In each Sacred Shrine we will have tables and benches and rocks and mud and
plants and projects directed by a Master Class Teacher (MCT) who will take 12
students for 1, 3, 5 and 7 day workshops to create collective installations
combining earth, air, fire and water.
4. Each participant of the Master Class Workshop (MCW) will pay in advance, $400
and/or $100 extra per day. For example:
one day__________ $400
three days________ $700
five days_________ $900
seven days______ $1,100
5. There will be community camping and co-operative cooking and attending
grounds and gardens.
6. Each MCW will add at something* to one (1) form in the grid within the Seven
Sacred Shrines (SSS). *leaving it better than they found it.
For example the visualization of Eight Pillars of Wisdom with seven forms of 21
areas:
INSERT DRAWING
7. 7SACREDSHRINESNATURALTHERAPY.COM is the original web site of participants
worldwide who contribute to the notion of ONE PEACEFUL WORLD by building seven
sacred shrines with eight pillars of wisdom in a community park devoted to a
special day,
8. Eight, of course is the power number of our community pillars. The world may
not end
9. Nine is three times three. Of course the world does not end
10. Phil LeGree obviously will not go through a black hole, so I, Agent M. Scudd
will direct the best PARTY LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW event in all of human
history.
11. I, Agent M. Scudd will bring a few seeds just in case.
12. Whoever is left standing after the PARTY LIKE THERE IS NO TOMORROW event
will be given free volumes of Phil LeGree’s Harlequin Moon Trilogy, and of
course I will get the media there to hype it as far as possible. We should do
another few weeks on the best seller list and…
INTERUPTION MAJOR
Hl, God here. This Agent M. Scudd is an asshole, but then I designed him so what
can I say. He’s doing what he is supposed to do.
Anyway I am interrupting his bullshit because I want to tell you something
weird, which I know is coming from Lucy. The Devil is doing what he is
supposed to do too. This is the weirdness he inserted into the brain of my boy:
it gave
TITLE: VAN GOGH YOU STUPID SHIT
sub-title: PITY THY BROTHER, BROTHER
INSIDE FIRST PAGE QUOTE;
mindlessness over matterlessness
Okay, if I am so smart, how come it's taken me so long to come to this moment to
try to say how I would do it differently?
Yes, it is life that I refer to---past---present---future.
There is no question...only to act as if I know, as if I have always known
and accept this gracious gift of living for what it is.
So what, if Van Gogh lost control of his poetry---so what if humanity made a
mockery of his pain in a San Francisco art museum---it doesn't matter.
So what if I am supposed to be dead, but I’m very much alive? So what if the
people I killed are supposed to be alive?
I am alive.
I am fighting.
I am learning to give and to give in.
Van Gogh was then yet as you are with us this moment.
Vincent still lives, still feels.
That is the difference of what matters. Spirits don't evaporate like farts in
the wind.
Van Gogh you stupid shit! Could you not
see the sun? Hey! I hear a voice…
“Who are you, who are you?”
Fuck! I don’t believe it…
"Who are you to say these things of me? Such impertinence! You are nobody."
I know, I know! I'm hardly anybody at all. I know, yeah? I've got a long way to
go. Listen! I don't mean to put you down. You really tried hard. I might have
murdered myself if I'd been you---but that was your mistake. I don't equate it
any other way. Sure it's a pain in the ass to be an artist---you, me and John
Lennon know all about that. But you know what?
"What?"
You gave up!
"I gave up! You fool! You do not know the first thing of giving up! What
suffering have you had?"
Oh for Chrise sake! What makes you think you are the only one who has suffered?
If you're gonna talk to me don't get so high and mighty indignant---you think
I'm insensitive to suffering? Get off your fuck'n high horse. You're not the
only one who did something important and nobody noticed.
Listen. I'm not just say'n nasty things about you, Vincent, cause I'm jealous.
For one, you probably disserve a lot more---really I'm on your side. Look! I'm
trying to help you, as well as myself. But you! You got yourself in this crazy
limbo because you bumped your self off.
Part of me helping you and myself is to know why you did it. Now come on---tell
me why?
Silence. There is only silence in the room now. The spirit is removed. Shadows
fall from the candlelight and the fireplace squeaks popping sparks, but not a
word from Van Gogh. Honestly, I wonder if that man will ever grow up.
I know he is here, only he does not to play anyone's game but his own. Crap.
What a bad sport!
"Have you only foul names to call me?"
So. You came back heh? Well, how about it? Do you want to answer my question or
do you just want to talk? Really though, I 'm not interested in idle cit-chat. I
would like it if you told me why you had to kill yourself.
"You would not understand if I told you."
That's a possibility all right.
"I find it ridiculous to speak to such a man as you to begin with...but...I
suppose it may do you a bit of good."
Oh brother! You're so damned righteous Vincent! Why can't you face the fact that
maybe my life has not been any easier than yours? For that matter there
have been a whole lot of people that gave all they had and know one knows about
them. There's probably a lot of those people that didn't even get a smile for
all they gave.
"You are such an idealistic fool."
All right. Get back at me and call me names, but it's true, people have given a
lot of things...you are not alone.
"Trifling trash. The lot of humanity has been nothing but greed infested vermin.
Mankind has never had an ounce of benevolence in it's twisted existence except
to save it's own rotted heart."
Vincent, you know you are just fucking unbelievable. After all this time you are
still so bitter.
"Bitter! You imbecile! You have no idea of the essence of my passion. You are
misguided in the depths of buffoonery. What you think of life is nothing but a
juvenile dream of romance."
Boy, you like to hit back don't you? Okay, so I'm a romantic. Big deal. I
admit it. At least I still have both my ears.
Vincent? Vincent, where are you? What's the matter, I strike a nerve? Holy
mackerel, this is nuts. Look. I don't want to get into a name calling game with
you. I want to understand you. I just want to be friends so we both can be
better...come on, Vincent?
Okay, I just said that because I thought cutting off your ear and sending it to
your girlfriend was a terribly romantic thing to do. I'm not making fun of you,
honest...
Oh for crying out loud! What a kid. I say one thing and off you go into a silent
pout. Okay. I'm sorry. I apologize. That was mean and unjustified.
"What do you want of me?"
Oh, back again? Thanks Vincent. I thought you'd gone for good. Really, I'm
sorry, but I already told you what I want to know---why did you commit suicide?
"I do not want to talk about it."
Okay...what do you want to talk about?
"Nothing."
Come on, I know you want to talk of otherwise you wouldn't have stuck around.
Hey, you want to talk art?
"Please, do not say a word of painting nonsense, I never want to think of it
again."
Yeah, well, I can understand that, especially after seeing that exhibit your
descendents were showing all over the states. I mean, not because it was not
good or anything like that. You know I love your stuff. I just thought all of
those fat heads that came to ogle your work were jerks. It was one of the
biggest crimes I ever saw.
"And you were not involved I suppose?"
Vincent you know I am one of your biggest fans. You were the first artist that
ever inspired me. Sure, I have more to learn about it, but I wasn't like the
rest of those bird brains.
"What makes you so positive of that? Were you not goggle-eyed and blabbing your
foolish mind just as much as they? No one has ever understood my work except for
Theo. You and the lot are fools of the worst kind."
"Hey I don't get it. How can you say such stupid shit? I cried the day I saw
your exhibit. I felt so much pain for you, for your work, your life. It was all
a crime---and damn you. You know I felt for you. But no, you act the idiot and a
cold hearted one at that. Fuck you. Why should I even think about you? You don't
give a damn for anyone but old persecuted Van Gogh. Yeah, none understand you.
You disserve to be crucified...
Silence. Again with the silence. I guess we're having an argument. The fucker
finally pissed me off. Yeah, I lost my compassion. God, what a dope he is. Now I
don't want to talk to him. I can't think straight about what's going on. We are
just making each other sicker. This is what lovers fight about. Bullshit.
Friends don't do this crap to each other. The son-of-a-bitch. Who does he think
he is? Yeah, lovers leap and friends find. I feel better just saying it like it
is. Anyway...it's a fucked up curse to identify with such a jerk. I should bury
him again. He never disserved resurrection, or a friend or compassion or
anything. Come on man, get yourself together and stop talking to the wind...
Cool down to sifted moments and let time pass. Let it go...remembering when you
hurt more than you want to remember...
Where am I this moment. Always this moment. Surfaces. So many surfaces laced
together into one body, one time.
The army, the nut house… Van Gogh.
How do they fit together?
Pete in the Presidio nut house. Little Angel scratching my back yowling like a
tomcat while the lights went on the high rise apartments around the roof top.
The Stripper in
The lock-up of Presidio. Am I still insane? Was I ever sane? Tide pool.
Reflections of time eternal.
Was it 1968 or 1970? I can't remember. The Van Gogh exhibition. The rotating
exhibition old Vincent Van Gogh had. Maybe that wasn't his name. It doesn't
matter.
We got up early. We didn't want to stand in line. That's right. Three hours
before the museum opened its doors. It was a beautiful
People fuse into the green and mist. Down the shafts of light the sun glitters
like lint in a dusty room.
It was a day of invitation and Zen balance. The faces blur. Who was with me?
I remember the feeling of being alone, and yet I know there was somebody
cruising with me. Yes oh yes, cruising for burgers. Lally-gagging into the mood
of seeing serious art. Art done by the madman genius, Vincent Van Gogh. Vincent
the maligned, Vincent the misunderstood.
It was a special day for me. I had only seen one original, years before in
I was prepared to have my head cracked open and filled with divine measurement.
After all, he was my hero. On top of that, I even resembled Van Gogh. All of my
friends told me so, sooner or later.
Moving past the
I start to walk away. No, I can't. The little white dog chases the black
one and the magnets join tail to tail. The line is full of talk and clumsy
anticipation. One hour, two hours, three. The crowd has grown to four or five
blocks long. How is this possible?
Yes, Van Gogh, they want to see you. Factory workers, taxi cab drivers,
suburbanites, teachers, students, whores, evangelists---they are here to see Van
Gogh, the loser of losers.
The doors open and the crowd like sand at the top of the hour clock begins to
fall into the museum, past the relics of time, past the refined art of old
masters, past rich art for rich people.
Fall, fall, down to the savage art of the wretched one; the one who painted for
the poor.
My God, at last I was surrounded by him, the Vincent. I stood amazed.
Yes, of course the paintings are beautiful.
What is that noise?
People. So many people the room is a sardine can.
There is a red velvet rope around the perimeter. The curators answer questions
of how come, when, where, why, who and whatever. "Yes, Van Gogh was very
miserable at this point in his life..."and blah, blah, blah. "He was so
despondent at this place that he..." blah, blah and blahed... "Vincent was
progressively more...." yet blah de blah blahed.... "Of course his brother Theo
was very aware that..."blah, blah and cambam blayhehah...
The room was shrinking. It was getting difficult to walk. Still the sand poured
in. Where were all of those people coming from? More. Yet more. The museum
officials had not anticipated such a crush. The guards and curators began to see
an emergency situation was occurring in front of their eyes. Noise rippled
through the echoic salon. Guards demand lines formed. Hop, one two three, march
people, eyes right and see your Van Gogh. Click, see, move. Tromp, tromp tromp.
Eyes right, Yes Starry Starry Night. Move on people.
The middle of the gallery is full of people anxious to form a new line. Insect
lines close to the velvet rope 6 feet from the walls of hung Van Gogh joyful
miseries.
The insects continue to march, Tromp, tromp, tromp. Such big bugs, they block
the view to anyone not exactly in front of a painting. If you are not in the bug
line, tough luck. You can watch the ceiling.
There they go. I stand in the center and watch unbelieving of what is happening
this day to poor, poor Van Gogh, who no one but his brother, in his own time,
thought he was any kind of an artist.
Oh, Vincent, the poor pitiful son-of-a-bitch. You see what they are doing?
Tromp, tromp, tromp, eyes right, and you have exactly three, point five seconds
to see genius in front of you. Ho. people march! Tromp, tromp, tromp, eyes
right.
Oh the multitudes, they are so merciless.
Van Gogh, you are spinning out there, aren't you? I can hear you groaning. You
didn't want it this way did you? Look at them Vincent. Blessed are the meek.
Look. They are an army of ants. peering, sputtering for a few seconds at a time
at each piece of your pain.
They are wasting no time. They make quick work of you my friend. That's real
gratitude for you.
Abundantly rewarded. So many of them Vincent. At last your art is beheld by
mankind. Blessed abundantly. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Oh Vincent, I feel like crying. Poor, poor Van Gogh. Van Gogh, you stupid shit!
CHAPTER TWO
notes: Operation
Americal Division/ 11th Brigade/the coast of Quangngai Province in central
Vietnam // obey a blind ideology of destruction/ Collateral Damage/During the
period of 16-19 March 1968, troops of Task Force Barker massacred a large number
of Vietnamese nationals in the villages of Son My / My Lai
One them was Michael Terry in Utah: "They just marched through shooting
everybody ... they had them in a group standing in front of a ditch, just like a
Nazi-type thing. One officer ordered a kid to machine gun everybody down. But
the kid just couldn't do it. He threw the machine gun down and the officer
picked it up ... I don't remember seeing many men in the ditch, mostly women and
kids."
DREAMS, LOVE AND HOPE
43 years ago I got married to a 26 year old Go-Go dancer. She had been married 6
times before. A day later I joined the U.S. Army. I was about to be drafted. I
joined so I wouldn't be put in the infantry, or worse, be made a medic in the
infantry in
Today I was listening to the old WHITE Beatles album. It bumped me backwards and
I saw the whole movie of myself during that weird ass time of the 60's.
Early on, say back in 63, 64, I had innocent dreams...what the world was and is,
like William Blake with a twist of Vincent Van Gogh, a sprinkle of Gully Jemson.
But here now, I sit wanting to cry, cry cry baby...yet wanting to laugh, wanting
to go back and find the peaceful sleep, the guiltless joy I believed must exist.
Here is reality. The Beatles cut into these words as I write and sing, "...boy,
you're going to carry that weight carry that weight for a long time..."
I'm wondering how greedy I've been and why is it I wanted to run off to
Circles of humanity, circles of thought...Pete, My Lai, The Stripper, a cast of
thousands...Vonnegut's Korass...a journey of a million miles...
Van Gogh are you real? Do I feel the spirit? I can't quiet the voices whispering
inside my head...I can't slow the river of urgency rippling through me...
What is it I am still looking for? Is it magic? God is magic. Magic lives. God
lives.
Yes, the excitement. Yes, the adventure.
Dollars and cents make no sense. I can't measure my life into so many life
insurance policies. I can't fall into an existence where I am a gray spirit
surrounded by gray people. Yet...how can I live my life without the magic of
believing in a God? A magic God. God the great adventurer and the one romantic
tale. That is the story I want to find, I want to follow. I wait for the moment
and yet I must search for the perfect moment...
Where am I?
Are we here, together, a place called Earth?
No, no, it is just one of many illusions. We are in the eternal now, the eternal
here. We are always tempted like Ulysious---Sirens call from the rocky imaginary
coastline. Our ship, so fragile, the shore ragged with mirage dangers. The sweet
voices keep calling lies. Why should they stop? It is their duty. Some of the
voices even sound like friends or family.
Oh Magic God, save me from my swirling mind---a recorder of the bazaar, yet so
beautifully mixed with conglomerate devils, angels, evil, goodness, strings of
adventurous tragic romantic moments.
If I reach out and try to tell someone what it is that haunts me, they say, "Hey
buddy, it ain't nothing."
Yeah, it is just a mundane little world, full of little mundane people. You are
safe. Don't say things that make you feel insecure. It is all a lie in every
direction but what is. Perceive what is. Who said that?
Okay. I am secure. I am standing on the Rock of the Great Messiah. Yeah, help me
Jesus.
Why do my eyes reach out? I see distant lands. Am I trying to escape here? Am I
irresponsible not wanting to stay in one place, one time? Will romantic notions
make me wither and die? Blood runs over my eyes. William Blake painted Angels
with wings on fire. Van Gogh's heart burst with want. Gully Jemson is the
lunatic in the corner laughing at everyone. Where is the pity?
I am thinking how long it is between dreams and things that should happen
because there is magic. These things that float around in the back of the
minds---they are real, yet the child, I am caught between wants. I want you. I
want him. I want her. I want that. I find one-sided conversations on both side
of me. I look for help but I hear myself laughing. Yes it is part of my paranoid
insanity. Yes it is part of the magic. It, forever it, is reality beyond
fantasy.
Still, I think the dream, real. Why else would I have gone on?
I come to loving. Love. Such a splendid plot I am always falling in. Charlie
Chaplin's manhole cover. Love. I love you. It is a phrase I know. It is just a
dream. it is multiple choice. Pick one.
Okay, I love all of you. Him, her, that.
Shallow though. It is only a brotherhood fad.
I'm in one mind and out the other.
If only I could hold on. Love is magic. Magic is God. God is alive.
I am alive and slowly the first meaning of love is coming to me.
Vincent?
I have drifted away Vincent. But you are still there, aren't you Vincent?
Vincent, I have never said I love you.
I do. You were the lover that I wanted, too much, like me. Vincent I need help
too. Please talk to me. Help!
"I can't help you. There is nothing to be helped to."
You're wrong Vincent. That's not true. We can help each other---maybe only in
small, unnoticeable way---but we help each other. you know, we can talk to each
other. That's help.
Look! You should know you are stuck and you need help. It's a game, but God,
it's such a game---it's a beautiful game. Vincent try! Tell me about love,
Vincent!
"Love? Is there love beyond blood? Theo loved me but now he is gone. I am left
alone. I have looked for him...it is so dark here...dark like
But you don't see, do you? It only takes one Theo, or two, or if you are lucky,
three. I mean love is love. What has numbers of people or who, got to do with
it?
"I tried to love humanity. I tried to give a gift of love to all of man.
They were dogs. The ones I loved the most, were the ones who spat on me. Gauguin
was a womanizing idiot. an arrogant fool. Theo knew. I know how much I gave. I
tried to love."
Vincent, you don't have to try to love, you just love. What is there to expect?
"To expect? You ask me such meaningless questions. There is everything to
expect. They had no vision. All, that any of them could see, was what some
mimicking headmaster had shown them to see. Their eyes were dead. I could
see. I could paint life as no one had ever dreamed. Their souls were dimmed in a
drunken civilization of a thousand years. I disserved to expect something.
I disserved respect. They only saw what they were told was art. I was the only
artist. Gauguin was a whoring drunk, but I thought at times he could see. He was
only guessing. He refused to listen to me. He doesn't matter. Love doesn't
matter. It is so dark here."
Van Gogh, you're locked in a prison you keep making for yourself.
"It has always been a prison. There is no liberty because there is no escape."
That's a lie. There's liberty. I know there's liberty! I almost have it from
time to time. We have choices to make. We can want or we can not want---you
know, find or not find and stuff like that.
"Bah! You are an imbecile. What you say is complete nonsense. Our only
choice is to keep making up ridiculous rituals between being born and a
graceless exit into the living dead."
You're just talking bitter Vincent. You have to work for respect---but that's
not really what I mean to say. Vincent you did great things. You were
years ahead of everybody. You didn't have patience for them to catch up with
you. They would have maybe, then you wouldn't had that thing in
Vincent, did you ever really love a woman? A real woman? Did you ever totally
love just one woman?
"I don't know. This word love is much too vague, too many opposite
meanings."
That's what I was afraid of---you missed the whole damn point of being a man---I
guessed as much cause you never did paint women worth a rat's ass. That's why
you're pissed of with Gauguin, isn't it?
"I painted what I saw. Gauguin was an obsessed sex-maniac. It would not surprise
me if he painted with his penus in his hand."
He could paint Vincent and he did it beautifully. He did justice to women even
if he did hold his dick. Have you ever taken a close look at the women in your
paintings? They are distant, cold and crazed. Even your mother looks like a
space martian.
Vincent, women were made for men. How could you miss it all? Love? Women?
"You are no different than Gauguin. My art was important than satisfying lustful
desires."
Boy, you're really nuts. Women are art and I don't know how you could think that
whacking on a canvass isn't lustful. You're bent Vincent. Didn't you ever
see the poetry in women? Couldn't you see the grace? My God, what kind of
man are you?
"I am not an ordinary man. Few will ever understand what I meant to this
world---least of all, you!"
Right Vincent, get on your high-horse again. What was the problem with women?
You impotent in bed?
"You are a vulgar man! Gauguin was vulgar. You will make fine company because it
is obvious you will go where he is, hell!"
Why do you resent Gauguin so much?
"I do not resent him!"
You do! You know you do. You are such a liar Vincent---a liar to yourself. When
are you going to quit being such a big phony with a chip on your shoulder?
"You are the one to call me a liar. You, a hypocrite full of impossible
questions and idiotic ponderations. I beg you, leave me alone. Ask yourself
these insane riddles. Good day!"
Vincent, don't go. I want to be your friend. I'm sorry, I'm not used to talking
with ghosts. I don't even know if I'm talking to you. Maybe I'm only making this
all up. Vincent? Vincent, where are you?
God, where has time taken me? Have I always been sitting in a vapor of thoughts
talking to myself, or am I really talking to the Vincent Van Gogh?
I don't know anymore. I think I must be mad.
No, I'm not mad.
I know I have heard music played by the spheres. I know God has talked to me. I
saw Jesus standing there saying "yes" .
I am not mad.
Indeed!
The world is mad. Van Gogh comes and goes. His soul lives. Words.
Van Gogh, come back, come back.
Oh, this is insanity. There's no Van Gogh. He is dead. Time is dead. Yet,
there is time passing. I hear the soft breath of madmen and saints. I can't
deny. Spirit lives.
High hopes! That's what I have to remember. A moment before I was sitting in a
quiet room next to a fireplace that sparked magic clicks. A veil of time slipped
over me and highways flowed by miraculously with city faces and country corners
laced into cosmic cartoons shaping a new stage. The lights fell green blue to
fog gray. Christmas came and I packed a bag for next year. The season to be
jolly.
I can't keep track. Has it always been this way?
Now it is a day after bonanza bonus day, Christmas and 5 more days before the
tick tock big clock sticks another year up your kazoos'. Five more days to
rectify a bad situation getting worse.
What is the use of trying to talk to Van Gogh? he can't help me anymore than I
can get him unstuck from his own private purgatory---hole in in time I am trying
to escape too.
Two sides of my soul---always bickering up and down. I remember a poet writing
about descending the ascending staircase. I am beginning to understand. I can
walk up; I can walk down. The sin is not to walk at all. It doesn't matter if I
am right or wrong or matter what I believe is not real at all. Believing is what
makes anything real. I think, therefore I am. Believing is what counts.
Believing in What? It doesn't matter.
High hopes and cheerio Van Gogh. You're alive and I know why.
CHAPTER THREE
LIFE IS LIKE A SNOWFLAKE
It is very interesting how I got on the cargo ship, Eurysthenes, in
Not every Greek ship goes to
It's also interesting because I'm not going to
The ship's departure was two weeks late and I was ten years behind schedule.
But mostly it's interesting because it is a Greek ship. Naturally, this is all
diagonally obscure to you and doesn't mean a thing. Just let me say this: all of
the works of life are interconnected, woven into a tight blanket of time.
It's like what I used to say to my buddy Pete, "Hey dude, life is like a
snowflake." That was when I was very young, very philosophical, before pulled
triggers in
But the snowflake theory; I had an amazing rational. It had to do with parallel
lines intersecting out in infinity. It had a lot to do with geometric stuff,
triangles and the cosmic symphony. It had a lot to do with The Stripper I
married, who was married six times before. She had hair like an ashtray full of
cigarette buttes.
The theory had a lot to do with me being a medic in the army and being on a boat
going to
Hey, listen Van Gogh! Life is like a snowflake. It begins with structural order
of intersecting lines that form arms and legs that move in a multitude of
directions. Chaos. Then they balance in symmetry. Order. Each snowflake is
different as they fall. Chaos. But as they fall, wind gently whispers through
them. Order. They cover the earth and mingle in mass. Chaos. The sun comes out
and they melt and cabbage grows, Order. Yes, life is like a snowflake.
Being philosophical sure is tiring. It's a strain. How I got myself on this
Greek ship philosophical miracle. It being Greek is the connection to my ex-wife
the stripper. She used to tell me to never trust a Greek. She was Italian. She
was five feet, ten, bare foot naked. When she put on her beehive wig and
here Go-Go high heels, she was about twelve feet tall.
She had a thing about buying wigs and giving them haircuts. she used to buy one
a week. I don't know why she didn't trust Greeks. "Honey, never, never, ever
trust a Greek," she said about once a month.
Well, I think it is pretty obvious, how believing in snowflakes and being on a
Greek ship, why it was interesting but I might be concerned.
Vincent, is it true about Greeks?
"No, it is not true at all. Never trust a Scot."
What?
"Never trust a Scot."
Oh come on. You're pulling my leg.
"Very well, believe what you want."
Why shouldn't I trust Scots?
"You figure it out Socrates. Remember, life is like a snowflake."
Quit being a smart ass and tell me.
"No."
Vincent, you're a real Child.
Vincent? Vincent!
Why does he do that? Pout, pout! First he talks then this aggravating silence.
What does he mean never trust a Scot? The too, what does it mean, never trust a
Greek? I feel paranoid.
The Eurysthenes is still sitting at the dock. So far, there are three English
passengers and myself. I don't know who they don't trust. we are all waiting for
the ship to leave, but it's raining and the stevedores don't work when it's
raining. I don't trust stevedores.
Today is the first time I thought this journey to
This bad. I made a promise to myself I would be out of the
"You are a hopeless liar!"
Shut up Vincent. I'm not talking to you.
Then who are you talking to?"
I don't care, but I'm not talking to you. Why don't you go back to your silent
corner and let me finish my thoughts?
The ship is purring its mechanical song. Outside the city sounds blur into night
clutter. The
Oh! Right! I was in the middle of a paranoiac thought which is the misfortune of
this ship, the Eurysthenes. Today we got another passenger who slipped
immediately into the cast. He reminded of one of the characters in the story,
SHIP OF FOOLS.
I boarded the ship back on its original departure date, being I had no other
place to stay or eat. I felt very uncomfortable during our evening meal,
believing this old cargo hulk is bound to sink. The new guy that came yakked his
head off and the more he talked, the more I was convinced we would all drown.
I thought about a conversation I had earlier in the day with guard at the dock
gate. He was spouting off how you should carry a gun when you go into a black
neighborhood, except he said niggerhood. He said an officer friend of his
carries three guns. One on his belt, another next to his belly, and one strapped
onto his ankle. He then joked about how the Eurysthenes was still docked but
ended by saying. "Beware of Greeks." The funny thing was he looked Greek to me.
Of course that is different than, "Never trust a Greek," but it didn't add to my
confidence about this sailing, especially with the addition of the new
passenger.
Between the strange things he kept saying at the evening meal, like, "I hear
this ship is being scrapped in Holland," and "The captain says we have enough
oil to get to the middle of the Atlantic," I began to think doom was soon. The
ship will sink. I should never trust a Greek and we have a Greek Captain on a
Greek ship. I am sure too, the gate guard was Greek and him and the Captain know
what is coming.
The thing is, I am sure of my importance. It is too early for me to die. The
ship can't sink because I have to complete my "Snowflake" theory. I have to put
together the loose ends of too many mistakes. I didn't survive the army so I
could sink to the bottom of the
Maybe I will get killed in
But so many people tell me not to trust this or that, I'm beginning to get
suspicious.
This is insanity. Why am I thinking thoughts like this when I have time to think
about anything I want to think about? Even if the Eurysthenes sinks and I die, I
still have time to think anything I please.
Yes, it is time. I can dream anything I want. I am driving the boat of my soul.
I am not a fool. Dream on, dream on. Time is a gift. Life is a blessing. My mind
is my journey.
Life is like a snowflake. Crystalline beauty spun into a cobweb of diamonds. In
the center begins the cross of order. Fingers of destiny dance out into the
fringeland of experience. Each new pattern begins another pattern, surface over
surface, life becomes layered with harmony and madness. Strangers walk into the
middle of living with silent sentences, then drift off into the fog of dying,
melting, never to be seen again.
Each soul counts. All experiences begin and end in one celebration of life.
Wisdom is ours to possess but only for a moment and then it scuttles off to its
next appointment. Each time we learn new the same old bag of tricks. Crystalline
beauty adorns our lives in the faces of humanity.
We are explorers of time and light. Some find darkness, and death in their
days lived. The secrets are underfoot. The truth is painted on our foreheads. We
learn to simplify in the mirror of self reflection.
BEHOLD, THOU DESIREST TRUTH IN THE INWARD PARTS: AND IN THE HIDDEN PART THOU
SHALT MAKE ME TO KNOW WISDOM.
I'm not afraid now Vincent. I don't mean to be cold. I get afraid. It seems big
to me...all of it. I get afraid Vincent...Vincent?
" I know. I understand my friend, I know."
CHAPTER FOUR
THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL
The captain of the Eurysthenes had dinner with us passengers tonight. I feel
better about the sinking of the ship now. He relieved my fears with his
belligerent strength. No, the ship will not sink. Are all Greeks like Zorba?
The captain has two eyebrows that are like two planks of wood; one wedged over
the other, while he looks you straight in the eye and acts like he knows what he
is talking about. His hair wiggles on his head when he relaxes his forehead. He
is convinced that
One of the English passengers knows almost as much as the other English
passenger. These two seem to be walking dictionaries of information everyone
else forgets. They were bound to have a confrontation with the captain.
His eyebrows wrinkled and the hands flew lambently...
The Turks marched through the Empire and fair haired Greeks ran to the highlands
and never, no never, a Turk touched the
The captain pulled out a small plastic toy and pulled a string, as he looked at
us considering whether he should continue. He continued, but democracy was
brought up and quartered and he belittled the Queen. Old crazy Fredericka
charges 100 percent tax on cars!
I said, yeah, it’s the same all over.
Cigarettes were smoked. I felt somewhat abstract. The English men brought up the
point, “What will become of
The captain said
One English man felt there were too many interpretations of democracy.
I began to fade away and noticed the lights of the
There is no incentive, said the other English man.
The captain sawed his wood plank eyebrows down to a concern.
I gathered from the mixture of flying words, there were one too many commies out
there screwing up the works. The captain said, “Who needs the Yankees in
The English man said, “How can the working man continue with 40% tax?”
I began to feel sea-sick and desperate. The damn ship was going to sink after
all.
There is some kind of game I keep seeing but never have understanding.
There is some sort of path that is painted in front of me that I am never
able to walk on. The chess game is played out with flamboyance and strategy. The
War Lords of words and worlds like a mad television melodrama make me a victim
and a spectator of egos and honors and nothing to say.
Nothing to say in the hallway of memory. I wake with fear sweating from every
corner of me. Who is that screaming? Why can’t that man sleep at night?
Night fog and slowly I can see the psychiatric ward of
Earlier that I was sitting in the lawn looking at a blade of grass. Down in the
stem I saw how each blade peeled off to find its share of sunshine. It made me
feel afraid. The grass began to squirm in my hand and the hourglass of the
universe was draining the last grain.
I jumped up dizzy and crazy, not wanting to think, not wanting to feel. The word
NO was giant in my brain. The human experiment was a complete and utter flop.
I heard the nurse say, “Your picnic lunch is ready.” I thought, yes I will eat
and that will make me feel better. Nervous lopsided steps took me to the table.
“Don’t think, don’t think,” I thought. Eat and all of this nonsense will go
away.
I sat at the table looking down discovering paper plates, plastic spoons as
hopelessness poured
I reached for a pinkish hot dog thinking eat eat. My eyes held down, paranoid to
look up to see anything. The was
dividing, then sub dividing. I couldn’t hang on. Count numbers! 100, 99, 98, 97,
96, 95, eat the hot dog.
It tasted flat, worthless, lifeless.
My eyes broke away from my determined down stare. The table drifted up and
floated around the room. I couldn’t stand to look t the hot dog another moment.
Up my eyes roared and in front of me sat a black man who somehow began to turn
purple.
No, he did not know he was turning purple, nor anyone else. But I knew. I jumped
off the seat losing control. I had to run. I had to run from the crushing weight
of a million realities.
My legs belonged to another man, another body. My mind hung on like octopus
tentacles. The road of the park came under me and
the eucalyptus reached with jabs to tear my soul out. The whole earth was
booby-trapped. Life was only the threat of foreclosure, to forever cease to
exist.
Then the voice came inside again, “Count numbers, don’t think about this. Count
numbers. You are creating this madness.”
The numbers came out like machine gun bullets, 100, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94 and
on to 0, then to start all over again, for three days and three nights. When I
at last fell into an exhausted sleep I was awakened into a nightmare of the
screaming medic. At other times my eyes would blast open into complete
wakefulness and the catatonic of the ward stood at the foot of my bed staring at
me. What did he want?
During the day I looked at my fellow patients and sometimes they looked at me.
The nurses passed out hundreds of thorazine tablets, checking under the tongues
to be sure they were swallowed, "like a good boy you are," but for some reason I
was not given any pills, nor ever experienced the zombie like dream world most
of the patients lived in...no, they left me to my own mind to drive me crazy.
Such shrewd manipulation on their part.
The screaming medic continued on and on. One of the troops that came in with him
told me there was twenty of them near their hooch's when the shit came down.
Bombs, mortars, whatever the Cong could shit their way. When it was over the
screaming medic was the only one standing in the middle of all their mutilated
bodies. His mind short circuited; his brains blown by bloody helplessness; his
only relief in the Presidio nut house screaming through the nights and days. His
screaming scared me more than the bullets that had flown by my face.
Oh, but that was so long ago. Now is different.
"Dear me. Is this the only anguish you have ever had? It appears to me, you
punish yourself more, than anyone else."
You're catching on Vincent. But nah, that's not the only anguish I've ever had.
Outside the starboard porthole of the Eurysthenes, slush songs of the Atlantic
plays through the night. The horizon goes up and down. One moment there is
nothing but the blue black ocean---the ship tips and the porthole is filled with
sky.
Down in the lounge, sitting in the perpetual pose of passengers, the weaves of
living are threading one by one. The battle between the English and the Greeks
has changed to the seduction of the poor ignored wife of the man who never
listens. She has got a handsome Greek captain. The captain has another pair of
tits to caress. Both the tapestries will be well woven but regret the morning.
You know Vincent, I know what it is like to be crazy. I know what it is like to
see things no one else sees. I have much anguish.
"What makes you think such a thing?"
Well...I was thinking about parlor games and nut houses and you being stuck in
the dark and me going to
"I am not stuck in the dark. I am merely delayed. Man kind is yet to learn the
lesson of my existence. It is then I shall be released."
Listen Vincent. I hate to spoil it for you, but you're stuck and you know it!
That's what happens when you bump yourself off. I want to help you, really. I
need some help too.
So you think we can talk about our problems without resorting to our usual
nastiness?
"I am willing."
Okay me too. What do you want to talk about?
"What do you think you can see that other people can't?"
If I tell you, will you tell me why you killed yourself?
"No, no, no, you have no right."
Oh my God! We're starting all over again!
We have to come to the same sort of trust Vincent, or we'll never get anywhere
in this story.
Anyway, why should I tell you my secrets if you won't tell me yours?
"You will not understand."
Try me.
"You will misinterpret everything. You ask me to spill blood to you?"
Van Gogh there isn't any difference if I understand or not. The thing is I might
be able to help you. No one else is helping, right?
"Yes, I am alone. Theo is gone. He would help me if he could, I know. He is
somewhere better. He helped all of his life but not now. I am sure no one can
help me now---how can you do anything for me? You have got yourself in one
problem after the other. Look at you now. You are no better off. You are
crazy sailing off to the unknown, leaving everything you achieved behind."
It's true. Vincent, you are right. Here now, only a half hour away from January
1st, my 29th year, I am on a cartoon ship full of cartoon characters and my mind
crammed with ideas that make no sense.
Oh yeah, intervals come where I am convinced God has it in for me, his patience
finished. My end is near. All I see is suffering and tribulation. The reward for
it all is a miserable slow death---pointless directions covered with futile
understandings. I am talking to myself and the ghost of a madman who could not
see the nose on his face.
But I look in the mirror and I see the haggard conceited face that no longer
believes the answers will be known. I am leaving love. land and all my lessons
behind. I am leaving a brilliant career as an original American artist in the
dust of yesterdays dream.
How can I help? How can I understand anyone's pain?
My soul is tossed around as this ship is rolled in an Atlantic winter. Everybody
gets seasick.
So many blunders I have committed, yet I have miraculous fortune. I have lived
through death penalties well disserved. I am still here waiting for the
divine mystery to be revealed.
Is it possible for me to control my own madness? Is it possible to reach out and
help? Help what? Help how? Who?
Van Gogh, you are right. I can't help you. It is pointless. I'm lost. There is
no use to bother you in your place. I mean, we might as well stop talking. I am
depressed. I quit.
"Do not go! Stay here and talk. Think or talk. I can hear you either way. Do not
leave me here alone."
But I can't help you. I am a lost child. I have nothing to say and if I do say
anything it will be a lie.
"You can help me! I did not want to come here. Damn such stupid mistakes. I do
not know why I should be punished so. When I first came, Rembrandt was here, but
he left shortly afterward. he was not such good company in any case, but he was
someone to talk to. I should not be here. It is all a mistake."
What? You mean you're sorry you whacked yourself? What's this about Rembrandt?
You mean the Rembrandt, the painter?
Of course I regret killing myself. I did not mean for it to happen that way. I
too was very depressed. As for Rembrandt, he was more depressing. He told me he
had been waiting for me to take his place. He said he was so tired of the whole
affair. The old fool laughed at me and said, 'Anticipate if you must, but
participate and trust,' then he simply vanished."
What do you think he meant by that?
"I have not the faintest idea. Do you?"
It sounds like something for both of us. I'm stuck. You're stuck. But Rembrandt
is free. It's a clue Vincent.
"But what does it mean?"
Fuck knows.
The ship vibrates its mechanical song. The New Year has come and gone and we are
afloat, alive and
CHAPTER FIVE
THE NUT HOUSE DOCUMENTATION
CLINICAL RECORD NARRATIVE SUMMARY (S/F 666)
Santiago J. McBoil, Spl-4 RA 189669973, a 23 year old Caucasian male was
admitted to the psychiatric service of
Military History: The patient joined the US Army in February 1967, received
basic training at
Past History: The patient was born in
The patient enlisted in the US Army in February 1967, believing he was to be
trained as Art Specialist in Cartography, but says he was deceived by the
enlistment sergeant who signed him up as a Combat Medic. There is no history of
previous psychiatric contact.
PRESENT ILLNESS: He was a Combat Medic, found unconscious during
MENTAL STATUS: the patient presented as a well developed, well nourished,
somewhat anxious and pale young man with red hair and a mustache, he related
easily in the interview and was cooperative throughout. he was well oriented to
time, place, person and mood was unremarkable. Affect appeared slightly
flattened but was appropriate throughout most of the interview. At one point he
flushed, blocked in his speech and appeared on the verge of tears when he began
talking about the returns of feelings he had when he took LSD and again just
prior to being admitted to the hospital. His thinking appeared to be logical,
coherent and goal directed, although he tended to be slightly concrete and
absorbed in details at times. He is obviously much confused, and his feelings
are wrapped up in his concerns about what really life was and what was real. He
attempted to explain his confused and somewhat frightening feelings by stating
that every person has a similar religious experience just as he had when taking
LSD. Although his affect tended to be flat most of the time, as noted above,
there were occasions when he was more labile. Memory and judgment felt to be
good and there was no evidence of hallucinations at the time of examination.
Although his thoughts were expressed in terms of strict feelings of
philosophical speculations it appeared that some of them had a slightly
delusional quality.
PHYSICAL EXAMINATION: Head, eyes, ears, nose and throat: with normal limits.
Chest: clear to percussion and auscultation. Cardiovascular: normal sinus
rhythm, no evidence of murmurs. Abdomen: soft and none tender, without masses or
organomegaly. A large appendectomy scar on right lower quadrant. Genitalia:
normal male without hernias. Extremities: within normal limits. Neurological:
coordination, motor and sensory systems intact, no pathological or neurological
findings.
LABORATORY DATA: Chest x-ray, CBC
Va, and serology were within normal limits.
HOSPITAL COURSE: The patient was admitted to the closed ward psychiatric service
where he related well with the staff and patients. He participated actively in
group sessions and ward activities.
DIAGNOSIS: 3006 Schizophrenic reaction, schizo-affective type, acute, moderate,
improved, manifested by paranoid ideation, delusions of grandeur, ideas of
reference, visual hallucinations, feelings of depersonalization, depression and
suicidal ideation, stress under combat, routine combat military duty, mild
predisposition, evidence by failure to complete college one semester from his
degree; marked impairment. LD: Yes.
COMMENT: This soldier led a rather unremarkable life until he quit college
because he was “tired.” At that time, however, he had been working dull time as
well as going to school and being married. He performed well on duty in the
service until the time of his admission March 17, after being evacuated from a
combat assignment on March 16, 1968, in Son My/My Lai region of Vietnam, when he
was taken to hospital where a diagnosis of schizophrenic psychosis was made.
Hospitalization and treatment have allowed him to return to the level of
function with that which he held prior to entering the service.
Maximum benefits of hospitalization have been obtained. Because of the
nature of his disease and the
possibility of recurrence, it is recommended that he be separated from the
military service for medical reasons. There is slight impairment of social and
industrial adaptability.
RECOMMENDED: That this enlisted man be presented to the Physical Evaluation
Board.
SIGNED:
Norman B. Krayze II
CPT., MC
Psychiatrist
Medical Board Proceedings:
item 16: the patient was present during the proceedings.
item 17: the patient did not present any views on his own behalf.
After Careful Consideration Of Clinical Records, Laboratory Findings, Health
Records. And Medical Examinations, The Board Finds:
item 18: the patient is medically unfit for further military service in
accordance with current medical fitness standards.
The patient is considered to be mentally competent for pay purposes and has the
capacity to understand the nature of and cooperate in the board proceedings. He
is in no danger to himself or others and can be discharged to his own care.
item 21 Brief Summary Of Medical Condition And Physical Defects In Non Technical
Language:
thinking disorder
item 7: The Board Convened At,
US Army Physical Evaluation Board
Date:
Diagnosis From Medical Board:
1. Schizophrenic reaction, other, schizo-affective type (MD BD Diag I)
Personal note here: They gave me an honorable discharge, 700 dollars severance
pay and now I get 90% compensation for being crazy. That’s over a thousand
smackers a month for the rest of my life or the
CHAPTER SIX
THE BONNY OCEAN ROLLS ON AND ON
The Eurysthenes is in the middle of the
The sailors have always called the ocean a woman and now I am beginning to
understand. At night I lay in my bed looking out the portholes into the darkness
of time knowing there is death and destruction for frail humans. The ship lunges
to one side and then the other and I want to laugh at the comfort I am
surrounded in; only a few feet of metal and technology separates me from power
of time itself, the ocean. The mighty
No man is big enough to control her, in her secret grace. No man could contain
her love. No man could caress her breast or touch her lips. Only the Gods
understand her sensuous dance.
And She.
She tolerates this insect creature that fumbles across her back. She smiles the
ageless smile of undying youth and strength and watches this arrogant little
fool man scratch paths on her liquid glass skin. The ocean tolerates and waits
her time out. She could squash us as a bug if she chose.
Yesterday the swells were short and fierce. Today they reach up at the sky and
then gently mold enormous holes for the 368 foot ship to slide down.
Everyone has become accustomed to this slanted world of rotating sky and ocean.
There much to talk and a very positive atmosphere that indeed, we will reach the
land on the other side.
My despair of the sinking of this ship seems to be nothing more than the little
boy who is about to take his first mad tea cup ride at the carnival. Only the
Devil that lives in the back of my mind begs that I listen to his fatalist
destruction.
No. Why stop the universe? It must go on. I am the center.
Soon, I will be in
Life unfolds so slowly. I reach my arm into the midst of turning and stop the
vision that is before me. Now. This now.
I am a vagabond king traveling in leisure across the blue black ocean. My eyes
in take in, try to comprehend, the pictures painted of reality; among a strange
blend of brethren, each with a personal picture painting machine.
We interpret each day in our own unique fashion.
The man from
The young girl from
The young English woman seems to be a sensible creature although, she is rarely
able to get out a thought without being interrupted by someone. It doesn’t seem
to bother her.
The Captain and crew are Greek as Greek can be.
We were talking about how many people could get together and have a similar
point of view.
The Captain said, “Only one and if you are in
There are a few Pilipino crew. They are timid in behavior but have clear eyes
and beautiful smiles full of good teeth.
There is James, our English waiter/matre ‘d/bar tender and polished to a fine
point good manners. I look at his face and listen to his voice. His face longish
and angular with wide set intelligent eyes. The lids are like half tea cups. His
mouth has the habit of bending down like the string on a hard pulled bow. His
voice has a pleasant quality agents would love for radio. I like being waited on
by James. He makes me feel like I disserve it.
Then there is Papa Hemingway or perhaps better, “Paladin, Have Gun Will Travel.”
He says his name is Frank or Francois. He portrays a man of great gravity, full
of serious knowledge and incalculable cynicism. But under it all beats a puppy
heart yelping for attention, eyes puffy, as though he just woke, with a nose, if
it had legs would look like a one-hump camel.
Francois has a habit of looking at you and as you stare back you feel he is
really trying to see something. It is not a bluff stare superior-complex people
exhibit, penetrating, searching, silently questioning. Being observed by
Francois, one feels some sort of answer should be given, or act or move.
Francois anticipates the theater of the absurd. English he is, but tuned to an
American understanding. After 18 years in
The first few days I only saw the veneer as he appeared boringly English as only
the English can be. Each day he has
morphed or reflected facet after
facet, while the other passengers remain the same, giving little reason to
search for anything more. Francois, who looks like Richard Boone and sounds like
Hemingway is interesting.
The Captain makes me laugh at his jokes while Francois makes me think. We have
something to say to each other. Camel nose is twenty years older than me, but he
regards my age as valid. Perhaps he believes his age is a lie. At a certain age,
one should not be young. At another age, one should not be old. Francois is
older than he looks, but younger than he is.
No one here knows about you Vincent. None of them believe you are still hanging
around.
"They are blind. And I am not 'hanging around'. I am simply delayed. I will see
my glory."
Well, maybe so, but none of these guys even consider a spook like you. As a
matter of fact, except for the Captain and Francis, they don't even believe in
spirits. They think the whole thing is just one big accident after the other. I
think you are probably right. They sure are short sighted if nothing else.
I don't understand how that guy from
What a nit-wit!
The women at least has an excuse. Neither one of them has had a child. If they
ever have a baby and still don't believe, then they were born without any
brains.
Really. I find it preposterous that one could believe creation of life is just a
self perpetuating happy accident. Hogwash lies of the Devil. Such fools!
"Don't lose your head,
They made me feel crazy last night.
"You should not have attempted to explain. I am afraid you lost them when you
began to tell them about your 'snowflake theory' nonsense."
Well...I thought they could understand something so simple.
"They thought you were insane. How absurd to compare all of life to a
snowflake."
It all comes to that. It's the geometry I'm talking about.
"That is quite abstract. Very few people ever think of life in terms of
geometry. You credit them too much."
I thought they could see the similarity in patterns.
"They have a difficult time seeing anything but their dream world and what they
are taught to believe from people more blind than them. Snowflakes are what fall
from the sky, not sacred messengers who will tell you the mystery of God."
I don't want to explain the mystery. I just wanted to tell them there is a
reason for everything that happens.
"What difference would it make if they believed you?"
I'm not sure. Maybe it would give them hope when life is unbearable. When there
is nothing to believe in.
"Do you believe they can be elevated from their humanness?"
Maybe not. I don't know. I just don't like feeling crazy. I'm astounded
people think so little. I try to talk to them and make sense but it is so hard
to share the Experience.
"Yes. I know too. I tried. They laughed and called me a madman. I was not
insane. All of life I saw the misery and delusion around me. I tried to
raise people from the hole their very being was deep in. They laughed. They
chose to stay in their animal lives. I could do nothing to stop them."
Is that why you killed yourself?
No! Will you please stop asking me that foolish question? It is nothing of your
concern!"
But Vincent don't you understand? I ask you that becomes at times I feel like
killing myself too. At times I feel so crazy, everything I say is confused,
senseless...I don't want to kill myself! I know it is a mistake. A real mistake.
I mean, I am going die any which way I go or do anyway. Everyone does. It's nuts
to kill yourself!
"You are quite right. Do not do it. You will be in the dark place too. I know
what I did was a mistake. I did not mean to do it."
What do you mean?...you mean?...it was a mistake?
"Yes! That is what I said you fool! A mistake! A Mistake!"
Well...what happened? What kind of a mistake?
"Leave me alone! I do not want to talk about it!"
Vincent. You got to tell me. If you tell me maybe I can get you out of the
darkness and get you home. Home free!
"No one can help me. I must wait."
All right. Punish yourself then!
On the other side of the porthole, the sea whispers past the ship. For the last
three days there has been a storm. Marching mountains set cadence to the ship
and our lives. This beautiful woman has grown tired and now she slowly rolls to
a gentle bed. Soon she will be calm and fall asleep only to rise again to dance
another death teasing ritual. Her words are only hushed murmurs for she had
stopped her tempest song.
It was another day, another year, years ago, I was walking down the beach
feeling magnificent, feeling divine, feeling as though the world belonged to me.
The clouds were multi-colored blazing diamonds. Kites flew across the sky
swirling in the wind with a life, a soul of their own. I was connected to all
that lay before me. Time present. Time past. Time future. I was a God on earth
walking in paradise. I had arrived at the moment of one.
Nothing surprised me, yet all seemed fantastic and new as never seen before. It
was as though it was the first I ever saw colors or felt wind on my face. The
ocean was pouring into itself. My eyes saw for the first time the marvelous
garden of life. I was a child, completely captured in the timelessness of one
moment.
I heard the most beautiful sound. It was a celestial chorus of millions of
foreign voices, all sweet, so lovely, mysterious. I listened, yearning that they
would not stop, and yet it seemed as though there had been no beginning to their
song, as though I had always heard this wonderful sound.
Slowly I began to understand the foreign words, the same words over and over...
People of One
People of One
People of Fortune
People of Fame
All in the Circle
All in the Game
It was the most beautiful song I had ever heard. It came again and again. I
began to understand and as I understood I became afraid and a great knot tied my
belly hard and all of a sudden the voices stopped, that is changed to the sound
of the of waves breaking. It was the roar of the surf and I was standing in
water up to my chest. I had been walking out into the ocean without even knowing
it.
How different the ocean is to me now. Now I accept that it is a living thing.
Now I call it a woman too. What a mystery woman is to man. The ocean is alive
with its own soul. Years ago I was so young, believing oceans were only salt
water, full of fish, squirmy things wiggling in the deep.
Last night I saw the moon and stars above the ocean. What jewels she wears, this
exquisite one.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE SHIP COMES TO SHORE
In talking with Francis today I realized a couple if things about you Vincent.
“You compare that man with me?”
No, not really but there are some striking similarities.
“And what might they be?”
Well, it sort of has to do with being checked in time and space—like I’ve been
saying about you being stuck. Francis is stuck too, but he’s stuck here on
Earth. I hate to think he’ll be like you stuck in darkness someday.
“I am waiting I have told you this.”
Yeah, I know, but I don’t believe you.
“Why do you think I should care you do not believe me.”
You don’t have to agree with me, just listen to my opinion and give me a fair
chance, okay?
“I will try. Go ahead, tell me.”
Well, to begin with, Francis loves to make an argument out of anything. He
rejects the very things that allow him to be what he is and…
“That does not make sense.”
Let me finish will you?
“Go on.”
He’s a skeptic. He refuses to believe there might be a positive reason for this
world to be exactly as it is…
“Now you are going to tell me this pit of existence has some value?”
Yeah, but let me say what I’m trying to say. It’s not easy talking to you, you
know Vincent?
“Get on with it.”
Well…it’s a choice…I mean we can choose our viewpoint about the meaning of this
whole experiment. So we make a choice and it is either right, wrong or somewhere
in between what we really want…
“Would you stop babbling and say something I can understand?”
I’m trying! Stop interrupting! Jesus, Vincent you are really rude. Okay? For one
thing I’ve been thinking about what Rembrandt said to you. What was it?
“Anticipate if you must, but participate and trust.”
Okay. See, Francis anticipates what lies in front of him so much that he doesn’t
participate in the actual moment of now and trust it for what it is. He is so
paranoid and convinced the world is a rip-off that he can hardly make a
statement without pouring suspicion into it.
“And how is that like me?”
Let me finish about Francis…okay, so the world is a rip-off…suspicion…distrust.
If Francis does make a positive statement about something, it is in direct
opposition to something—the positive always balanced by the inferiority of
something else. He can’t simply say something is good and stop.
“You are wrong. I have not found him that way at all. Her is quite a logical and
qualifying man. He has reason to question his fellow bed-bugs of humanity.”
Oh my God! What a pair you make. What I’m saying has a lot to do with his so
called logical mind. Yeah, he is very intelligent—his mind always building a
fantastic booby trap that he falls in himself.
“What are you talking about?”
Like this ship man! So what if it’s a bucket of bolts. It has got us this far,
hasn’t it?
“You have not got to shore yet.”
Yeah, well, that is exactly what Francis said. What difference does it make
about the ship if it doesn’t make it and we sink and die? I mean, it’s not
really in our hands. The best ships get sunk. How about the Titanic? Anyway,
there are probably a lot of floating death crates that will outlast this ship.
Remember Van Gogh, you were a missionary once. The lord shines his sun on the
just and unjust alike…
“Oh bother! You are such a simple minded Bible spouting fool. Why are you
telling me such nonsense? I have had enough, enough!
Stop being crazy and listen for a minute.
“I am not crazy!”
Okay, you’re not crazy.
“Make your point.”
All right. Righteous indignation, that what it is.
“What?”
You and Francis are both stopped at righteous indignation…
Vincent? Vincent!
No Words. I wait, but there is no reply. The light comes in through the
portholes throwing crescent shaped beams on the cabin walls reflecting diamond
cut brilliance from the afternoon sky. The portholes are like two round blue
eyes of Father Sky. God is shining the world to a warmer moment.
The ocean has been in what the Captain says is a GALE FORCE 11 for over ten
days. We barely made it to
The Captain said that didn’t solve much because he still had to get the
Eurysthenes to the
I asked, what did he mean by that?
He said, “This ship is a disaster. It leaks so much we can hardly keep the
bilges ahead…and the oil, the oil, its boilers burn three times as much oil as
new ships. This ship is nothing but a floating scrap heap and the owners will be
lucky to get ten cents on the dollar for it.”
That didn’t make me feel too good, but I felt worse later when I asked him how
high the “gale force” scale went. He said “Up to twelve, and after that we just
call it CHOAS.” He laughed, but there was a shadow in his eye.