I’m putting together a new page on my website with my fiction; as WordPress has gotten completely user-UN-friendly!
Try the Fiction category at the bottom of the page, a few more stories
In the meantime…
Some short stories are on Google:
My Little Town (memoir)
https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dd6wvxhq_5c9f56b&revision=_latest
Have Buddha, Will Travel (fictional memoir):
https://docs.google.com/View?docID=dd6wvxhq_13fv2jt2&revision=_latest
My Little Town
August 22, 2007
MY LITTLE TOWN
T hough some twenty-five years ago, the memories that I have of upstate New York still have such piercing intensity…
I began high school in 1968, the year of the student riots and strikes in Paris, France, yet, in my isolation, those events, and the rest of the super-mythical Sixties, were as if occurring in another universe. My hometown was a small, depressed rural town. Most of my classmates were the sons and daughters of hard-working, struggling-not-to-go-under, farming families. Many had been further reduced to “weekenders” with the Eisenhower-era “social engineering” arrival of an IBM “think tank.”; the Great Corporate Father had acquiesced to the wish to escape into some kind of pastoral fantasy of city folk like my foster-family. So not only had these new, mostly urban arrivals doubled the size of the town—greatly changing it’s cultural makeup—but too, many of the original population of a couple thousand had found work in the accompanying chipboard manufacturing plant.
The hubbub beginning of my tenth grade I decided— having shot up to 6’2”— that I was going to play basketball for our school team. I wheedled out of my folks a hoop and net from the mail-order catalog of Sears & Roebuck, my annual fall clothing lifeline as well, and, out of the various pieces of scrap lumber haven fallen about our once-functional farm, mounted the hoop on a backboard and raised it onto a wooden platform. In the middle of the hayfield that, after the summer cuttings by neighboring farmers, doubled as my archery range.
Given the fall chill the ball of course would not bounce. The act of shooting, too, was made difficult when the frosts caused moisture to glaze up the ball. My practice time was the steadily diminishing light remaining after my hour-plus ride home on the Football players “team bus”; after zig-zagging through the district’s dilapidated farms—most acrid with ammonia from chicken manure—our driver Mr. Whalen would hand crank the door open, bid me, the last one, a good night and head back to the bus garage…
When the oak’s brilliant red and gold plumage had faded into darkness for my ride home Basketball season had arrived. Our coach was the inimitable Mr. Murphy—not the drinking kind of Irish but an ex-Marine drill sergeant and here to tell you all about it.
Our first practice Mr. Murphy—failure to address him as Mister got you ten wind sprints right away—held a basketball in his hands and said, “Gentlemen, this is the ball. Take a good long look, as you men won’t be seeing another for two weeks.” No smile broke his face, no sardonic grin, just straightforward imparting of the news.
After all these years, I’m one of the few proud ones who was able to say, At least I didn’t phewck my guts…We did nothing but conditioning exercises for two-and-one-half hours, with pathetically short “wind breaks,” during which absolutely nothing but breathing hard and harsh was allowed, as the theory was that water would bloat us and make us sick.
Most of those trying out for the team dropped, as the locals had a habit of saying, like flies on manure. Primary culprit was the dreaded wind sprints, gentlemen!…toes touch the foul line, turn back to the baseline, toes touch the mid court line, turn back to the baseline, toes touch the over-and-back line, turn back to the baseline, toes touch the opposite foul line, turn back to the baseline, toes touch the three-feet line, turn back to the baseline, toes touch the far baseline, turn back and finish baseline…last one in the group runs with the next…
Or if you missed a line with your toes—or if Mr. Murphy thought you needed an attitude correction—you’re up again son…Now!
So engrained were the protocols of the drill routine into my consciousness that just three years later, when I tried out for the State University of New York at Buffalo team as a freshman (all teams together) I had a coach tell us, the first day, to run “the weave” and everybody but me, with practiced ease, lined up to run the drill…
I’d already felt a bit intimidated, as most of the kids were from New York City—a tight clique that already knew and had played against each; furthermore, my flat, neutral accent gave me away as a despised upstater (said like hinterlands).
As my turn among the 100 or so assembled approached, my brain went on standby; I asked, “Coach, how exactly do you want me to run?”
Immediate raucous laughter broke through the ranks.
Coach said, “The weave, son. You never did this drill in High School?”
“No sir,” I blurted. “Our coach was long on windsprints and conditioning.”
With a slightly incredulous look on his face, he then told me, “Pass, cut outside and around; receive inside, take a dribble, turn and hit the cutter, continue, and, if you’re in the position, take the lay-up. Got it?”
I said Yes and, managing to calm myself, ran the drill. Towards the end of the court I could see that I’d be doing the lay-up so I mentally readied for a show-off dunk (my growth had continued to 6’4”, 185 pounds with weight training).
Then, with a look in his eyes that I’ll never forget—an icy-blue spiraling of sorts—a beefy, crew-cut, football player deliberately stumbled into me with a forearm shiver. So, just as I’d begun focusing on my redeeming slam-dunk, I was instead knocked asprawl to the shiny wood…
I was used to this kind of hostility. My senior year in High School I’d gone from looking, in my yearbook picture, like the president of the Young Republican’s Club to having (perhaps) become the Fifth Beatle—stodgy, black-framed glasses replaced by cool new “wireframes,” my short “Princeton” haircut grown out as long wavy hair…Though white and straight, I was thus tagged in my rural area as Spearchucker ; when my “long-haired hip-pii freak” friends went to the few clubs playing “our music,” we were often in danger of being jumped by the greaser gangs—always nearby, mulling around the fast-food joints looking for some female hawg banging.
So, that tryout day, I picked myself up off the floor and stayed cool. Nobody said anything.
Upon arriving to the next day’s practice, my gut tightening, I checked the cut list. My name wasn’t there…
I threw myself into the workouts, recovering my poise, shining on defense when I picked clean a couple of the hotshots…At week’s end, the Coach and an assistant motioned me over after practice.
Where’d you go to High School, son? the Coach asked, telling me, too, that he’d never heard of a Coach that didn’t run the weave. I told him the school was tiny, “Class C,” but that we’d been a powerhouse in the State Sectionals. He chuckled and told me that I was the best natural defender he’d ever seen, and that’s something you just can’t teach, you either have it or you don’t…I was to report for special weight raining session to an assistant and start eating 10,000 calories a day, son…
Riding a bus, a big yellow “Blue Bird” school bus, on our way to Cincinnatus, a tiny little town the farthest distance from my little high school in our athletic conference, almost to Syracuse. Scrunched into the dark green seat, smelling of new car—bus #50, brand new, the biggest in our fleet, even equipped (the only one) with a cassette tape deck…My knees pebbling from the protuberated metal seat back directly before me as I awaited my music…(Mr. Whalen, our driver, had said he’d play the cassette I’d brought as soon as we got rolling; our new coach, Mr. Ryder, had said we could listen to music as long as we won…)
Then the plaintive flute and lamenting voices of “Simon and Garfunkel,”…I’d rather be a sparrow than a snail…Yes I would…. If I only could…I surely would…”
As I quietly sang along, lying low in the seat, a teammate popped his head over the seat in front of me. “Tom, you are singing. Is this the tape you said you were going to bring?” Joey, our good-natured off-guard, my best ally on the team.
“Yeah,” I said, made self-conscious. Joey and I usually played one-on-one to warm up before practice; he was the only teammate who’d still play me, as I always won and the others grumbled about my taking everything too seriously.
I mumbled something to him about the singing loosening me up for the game; his broad-faced easy grin only grew wider…
“La-dee-dah” crashed the sounds of the new song’s chorus, as the duo sang of a “boxer in the clearing all alone…la-dee-dah-da-dah-da-da-la-dee-da-da-dah…”
At the school we were to play awaited my old Boy Scout summer camp friend Jeff. For both of us, the month that we’d spend along the shores of Cayuga Lake as young boys was just the escape we needed. Both of our families qualified as what is now called “dysfunctional,” but in those days that wasn’t considered “the norm,” like now; most adults we encountered—never talking about one’s homefront difficulties—truly wished to see one succeed. Just as at my first winter campout, when, a mere lad of eleven, I went out with my patrol into a 13-degree-below-zero snowfall and returned after the weekend—guided by our kindly Scoutmaster Mr. Sibley in such manhood matters as building a pine branch lean-to—I’d gush Neat!
Camp was the same way—shale creek-beds, long ago cut by glaciers, to explore, the archery rang,. waterfront and sailboats. Thick green Army “surplus” tents, treated with moisture repellent that smelled strangely when warmed by the sun, that were erected on wooden platforms equipped with four metal-tubed bunks—the kind one always had to check to see if a prankster had set the ends hanging on platform edge for a bang of a surprise…All kinds of “merit badges” to earn that were actually a lot of fun…
I was one of the youngest in our state to earn the highest rank—“Eagle Scout.” I never missed a Monday night meeting; held in the basement of the large, made beautiful with stained glass windows, Presbyterian Church, it was where I attended Sunday School as well. We were in transition, from bubbling kids rushing to the nearby Italian Deli for Cream sodas and licorice to more measured young adults. “Community Service” was not only a required merit badge but too a quality now expected of us…
As such I became the “Flower Power” Patrol Leader for my local troop—despite the adult leaders’ trepidation at the choice of name—then the “Owl” Patrol Leader for the 13th World Jamboree, an international gathering in Japan, where we camped for a month, at the base of Fujijama…
At our game, on the sidelines, pre-game, I managed to talk a bit with Jeff. We mostly joked about how we almost became the first Boy Scouts “86’ed” from a World Jamboree—you see, we were both 16 and already tall, so one night we scaled the Tokyo Olympic compound’s fence—after tossing over bags with out “civilian gear”—and went exploring in the night districts; the few places we tried had no difficulty with serving us beer and soon we were wandering miles away from our compound…Some fascinated locals—down one of those very clean residential streets—ventured “Hello” to us, and, trading bits and pieces of language back and forth, we managed to talk well into the morning…Our new hosts even called a cab for us and pre-paid the driver—with a wagging admonition to him not to cheat us…
Upon our return, however, not more than fifty feet after rescaling the fence, two security guards nailed us. Our absence had been noticed during bed-checks, we were hauled off to a high-level interrogation…
Courtside, that night in Cinncinatus, the memory—as well as the flush of glee at how neither of us “cracked” in our separate interrogations—brought such laughter that each of our Coaches frowned our way, each motioning for us to rejoin the team warm-ups…
During the game I exploded into action. By halftime I had 18 points, most of our production and pretty good given the slow pace of our games—patterned offense, deliberate play.
In the locker room our Coach was upset—despite our double-digit lead—and was holding forth like a country preacher “You all think you’ve got this game won; well I’ve got news for you: only one man is playing with intensity and carrying the load for the rest of you and that’s Tom.”
His words surprised me as much as they did Joey, sitting next to me on the uncomfortably narrow wooden benches. I was known as the team rebel and shunned for my aloofness…
In fact later that season I would quit the team, allegedly over my refusal to cut my hair—in those days we had to wear suits and ties as well to away games—but in reality over what I felt was shabby treatment for the team’s best producer. My specialty was those all important “boards” or “rebounds” of missed shots; when we were allowed to open things up, my snagging and whipping out the outlet pass often meant an easy bucket on the other end…
Something that I could not help but notice lacking when I watched—from the stands, as a spectator—our team lose in the state sectionals to a team we’d beaten when I was still playing earlier in the season. Enraged, our Coach punched Joey in the locker room after the loss—yelling at him, “I don’t want to see you ever hanging out with that traitor out there again!”
And what I did not know at that time were two developments of major import. Just up the road from where we were playing was Syracuse University—with a new Head coach, Jim Boeheim, who’d been hired from a junior college close to my little town. The other matter was that my real parents—a matter unknown to me then—were sitting in the stands, right next to Coach-to-be Boeheim…
That night, all that mattered to me—what I remember still—is that sheer immediacy that just seems to go on and on… Just like the when I ran those most-difficult-to-master 120-yard High Hurdles for Varsity Track season. That following spring, after a half-dozen races in which I’d lost concentration and broken stride, I finally ran a perfect race. We were at our arch-rival Spencer Van-Etten, and, before my race, were behind. My three strides over the ten yards between hurdles had never before found such degree and order as I glided over each black-and-white striped barrier; I was bereft of time, space, distance—even sound. My time, 15.6 seconds, was a school record—still not beaten—though some grumbled that it was “Wind-aided’ and therefore didn’t count.
The first of many times since I’ve found some kind of grace, that state of just being. On the court, not only becoming beyond an opponent’s anticipation but too alive with this panoramic awareness expanding and sharpening details with astoundingly subtle clarity. No end, no beginning…
Every once in a while some guttural roar from the crowd or screech of sneakers
making a sudden halt. Other than those interruptions, one long smooth flow. Hands
arched around the ball with fingertips as points of light guiding the shot…all net…
T hose hoop drills that our Coach had us do, over and over again in practice, came to life that night. One in particular—where you had to drive to the hoop, from one sideline first, then the other, and, at about eight feet from the hoop, take off, twist to the right around one stationary teammate, then twist to the left around the other positioned teammate…finishing with a full extension of the ball hand to gently make the hoop…
Driving through the lane that game, threading the defenders, seemed effortless. As a big man I was not expected to shoot the ball—especially in our patterned offense, where the other low post man and myself would cut to the high post/ shooting guard area on either side only for the sake of making a pass to the cutter down the middle. But the other team had started out collapsing and leaving me open, so I’d taken the shot, as we’d been instructed, to draw out the defenders and free the lane. When they came out on me I spontaneously went into the drive…That sudden half-step quicker, no matter who defended…
So at half-time that night I’d been very surprised not to be criticized by Coach Ryder. He had a habit of calling “time-out” during our games for the express purpose of hitting a numbskull over the head with a clipboard for being a hot dog. Joey was his favorite target—the clipboard often breaking, causing him to reach for a courtside stack of reserves he always brought.
When we took the court again, after our warm-up shots, I readied myself to win the jump ball tap. I never lost, our Assistant Coach had taught me to start really low in a cat’s crouch before springing, then reaching to flick the ball at the last moment to one of my guards I’d sense behind me.
The crowd booed me as I entered the tap circle. I was used to this treatment, as well; for holding a rival star to just two buckets the whole game an opposing coach, quoted in our local paper, termed me, The Animal.
On offense I was confronted with a “box-and-one.” One defender was assigned to me, man-to-man, wherever I went, while the rest played a rectangular zone. I was playing “team ball,” making my passes in our set plays disguised and crisp…
Yet, at one point, my teammates not hitting, our point guard dribbled down towards the baseline corner where I was posted for the play we were supposed to run, and swung a half-pivot for screening my defender, tossed me the ball and implored me to shoot!…One of my only two buckets that half.
Years later now, I still have such perfect memory of that moment…You see, I never even got to meet Coach Boeheim—let alone my real parents—the matter tossed away by my foster father, a mean drunk who muttered to Boeheim something about the kid’s not worth your effort and forbade him from contacting me—the “rules” in those days followed very strictly…The old man had tried the same stunt with my Varsity Track coach in High School. My track Coach, a devout Catholic who believed heavily in the concept that not living up to your potential was a sin against God, had shown up at his place of work, and—not intimidated by all the suits and ties in the old man’s engineering department—had picked him up and put him against the wall, saying, Your kid’s got God-given talent and he’s going out for my team, understand?
These matters all gone in the swirl of memory…would have’s and could have’s and should have’s all signifying nothing now…
I still play hoop, even at age 43. My right leg aches a bit from the compression plate I still have from a career-ending accident my college freshman summer.
I was riding a motorcycle from my one job as a lifeguard to swing-shift at the IBM circuit-board manufacturing factory—nice humid, late summer richness of a day—when a woman in an old station wagon broadsided me, dead in her sights, at a crossing in a county road…
Back at Buffalo that fall, hobbled still by crutches, my College hoop Coach went ballistic when he saw me: What in the world were you doing on a motorcycle?
Getting a good run in these days is often difficult. The younger crowd all style themselves after the pro thug ball game—trash-talking, trying to intimidate. Though few have the talent, let alone rep with those necessary referees, to get away with it. Most wonder What are you doing on the court?, especially given how I’ve regrown my hair long, into a yogin’s ponytail.
As one ages, you learn to make up for the decrease in your kinesthetic output with an increase in court sense. Though I don’t have the time or inclination to explain the matter, I could tell the youngsta’s how I’ve beaten such pro players as Michael Cooper—who played with “Los Angeles Lakers.” When we played he’d just finished at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. My college sweetheart and I were visiting her sister. While they caught up on old times, I’d wandered off looking for a game. Finding the University’s big athletic fieldhouse, I’d walked onto the game court and called Winners. The first looks of disbelief were dispelled when but then my three beat Cooper and his teammates, first game. Second game, him yelling at his teammates not to fuck up, they won. Rubber match, game point, I faked a drive down the lane—with which I’d been scoring, then drove left and faded away, just out of reach of Cooper’s attempted block, a fifteen footer. All net.
In the silence he’d angrily said to me, You ain’t from around here, are you, Well this is my court, so don’t dome back…
Too, I’ve bested players from the local team “Golden State Warriors” in pick-up games—some on the very same court on which we play, right next to the new “Haas Pavilion” built for our Cal team. I miss the old “Harmon Gym,” though. For a period of about ten years you could not get a better game anywhere in the Bay Area. Despite the court time being limited to lunch hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (sometimes an extra hour) everybody who was anybody would show. The picking of teams was so competitive that often somebody would call Winners and, instead of picking up an asking newcomer, would wait and snag ringers off the losing team on court. Thus, the joke became—when three or four players mulling around had all the next games locked up—So where’s your team, coming in on the bus from Sacramento or something?
Games were fought hard—usually the first one lasting a half-hour or more—and any “calls” hotly disputed. One time a guy, nicknamed “Crazy Dave,” who could leap for days but had absolutely no touch on his shot, walked off the court in rage after having his version challenged. After stopping at his ‘Stang illegally parked outside to pick up his “45,” he walked nonchalantly back onto the floor, right up to the guy who’d made the call on him, and put the piece upside his head, asking, Who right now?
The very surprised guy—a Cal student—blurting and raising his hands with the others in unison, You the man, Dave, you the man…
So, like everybody who’s ever played the game, I suppose instead of playing I could tell ya all about it. (Crazy Dave met his demise by the same ploy in a playground argument a few years later, by the way). Instead, I just try and get a good run in—making sure that I get the ball at the point guard position, the source of most difficulties in casual games, and demonstrate How to pass the ball. Especially in to the big man, a trick of disguise requiring dexterity and quickness; for some reason, most guards in pick-up games assume the big man is “slow” or something and telegraph the pass inside with such woeful obviousness that “my grandmother could steal it,” as the court banter goes. And, as even the supertanker pro centers like to show—especially during the All-Star games, there’s a point guard inside every big man just waiting for the chance to play…
Of course, when I return to working the paint, the big man’s turf, I still never get the ball…
But no one can take away or screw up that feeling, standing on the foul line, all alone, just like on the court that day in my High School game…My buddy Joey on one side, the point guard Bobby on the other…Two great teammates (Bob’s the High School Principal now) the likes of whom, like those days, I’ll never see again…
A couple of bounces of the ball…Shake out the looseness in the feet, set them shoulder width for stability, then, just like our Assistant Coach Hinell used to say—you gotta make yourself tough, give yourself a rock-solid foundation. Gathering the ball at your solar plexus, where your breath is centered, make your shot all one motion, ball leaving your hands and arcing from the graceful wrist snap—perfectly into the hoop, a sound never forgotten,
swish…
1
An Irish Tale… (after Dick Farina)  Though we were all several generation American, our family reunions were typically Irish. My siblings and I wouldcommiserate about our dysfunctional family by immersing ourselves in it. Generous amounts of alcohol were imbibed, and wild driving on the country roads and various escapades were almost always involved. On one such occasion my brother said he’d seen an ad for “Jim Morrison” night at our favorite Even my buddy the bartender thought that went a wee bit too far, and we were escorted out the door. Down the street was one of the 21 watering holes in a town of 5,000–and a stone-cold redneck hangout. Nobody quite knew what to make of us when we One night we all took magic mushrooms and walked all over the little town–finding overlooked At the boarded-up station we found an old sign indicating "Owego." With the rotting wood But usually in that area somebody would find a way to turn One afternoon we were coming back from an afternoon in We were doing the back, scenic dirt roads and encountered But, later that eve, Jim–he’s got a Navy buddy along, we’re all drinking beer– His buddy had led a rather sheltered suburban life and was We picked the Some recon from an old friend still local had given us a I had the Mossberg, Jim a Smith & Wesson 357 pistol, and Clouds have pretty much bocked out the moon–just faint pink and blue swirls–but we know the land very well. The old man never used the farm for anything–he just liked the notion of being a country squire–and the roads and fences are in the state of entropic decay all too typical of the region. I tell Jim’s friend to watch his step and we head for the far southwest ridge. Soon enough we cross a rusty old barbed wire fence marking off our land from the neighbor’s to the north. From the safety of brush on the crest Jim’s friend, excited, starts giggling. Down in the hollow a dog–big-looking, in the back yard–barks and growls. It makes a run towards us and the hill,a chain rattles than snaps the beast into the air at its end I’ve got both barrels loaded with M-80’s and I launch the first towards After a momentary silence–as “incoming” these M-80’s are While we’re hiding out and moving about, we see several I think that was the night that, after a few more celebratory As we were on an “expedition,” we were talking about how Too, John At various stages, each of us had gotten the “that’s it for you!” trip. Yet, we’d managed to counteract, all having made a solemn vow to make a four-way split no matter what the damn words on paper said at the old man’s demise… Though at our school I was the All-American Kid, when it came to John I was very much an early-on given to be written off. The worst came while I was a student at SUNY Buffalo, for my refusing I’d also John’s ultimate temporal machination, however, was his refusal to allow a lawyer to represent me So that night, perhaps remembering all these things, we jump up, grab guns again, go into our big side yard and fire all kinds of volleys into the hapless and most innocent canoe. … Over even more congratulatory beers, Jim’s buddy is highly impressed. “Wow, do you guys do That sad look of Irish recognition arises between Jim and me, as we Yes, I’m afraid so… TaMo, a.k.a. Tom (not the actor) Noonan… |
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| Electric Acorn 15: Short Stories: |
| Tom Noonan |
The Bitter Gall of Heaven
-in homage to Homer’s Iliad
Vaulting towards Heaven, the Sun emerged from the deep, slow currents and still depths of Oceanus. In the cool of cypress trees, tented next to sleek black warships, oars at rest amidst the heating sand, lay- luxuriant with pillows- Achilleus and Briseis.
“You don’t look so fierce now,” she said, curling a finger in his chest hairs.
“Too hard to be so around one so charming as you,” he replied, easing his head deeper into the sweet valley of her breasts.
“Tell me what it’s like,” she said. “In battle. As women all we get to do is pray for our men. Even when alive you never talk about it.”
His eyes rolled up, amused yet dispassionate. “You wish to hear of the threshing-floor of battle? Men winnowed like wheat? The hooves of war-horses thrashing one and all, whitening with dust, like aged bones left in the whirling to Heaven’s firmament?” His face grew tender as he gazed into her widened eyes. “Not much to say.”
Chin dropping, she looked away and said, "You are indeed as arrogant as they say. When we were captured I feared the worst." Her eyes misted, silken-lined, like the Doe-Eyes of Hera. "Our men are not like you. Simple and plain-speaking; most of the time good but sometimes coarsened, calloused, no matter how many oblations and cleansings.
Your hands are strong but gentle. Alive with tenderness.” Her chin still dropped, cheeks weighted with tears, she added, “I suppose that makes me lucky…”
The canopy’s entrance stirred and in walked Patroclus. "Are you two planning to lay about all day?"
"What do you propose we do?" Achilleus eased hands behind his head. "You wish to help old Dog-Faced One? No thanks-to you or that cowardly idiot…Last night at council Diomed spoke truly; Agememnon is jinxed-whether by scheming Saturn or not. For some reason given Jove’s honour and aegis to rule us, but how bereft of valour…"
At those words Patroclus assumed a stoop, squinted his eyes and bobbed his neck."H-H-How dare you!" he stammered in a high pitch of outrage, thrusting feet at half-angles outward in waddling walk.
"Ooo-oh!" Briseis jumped upright and clapped her hands, "Yes, Agememnon the Mum-mer!" Glee shone full in her eyes. "Do Nestor! Patroclus; or Odysseus!"
At her side Achilleus raised an eyebrow. "Friend I do indeed think she favors you better than me…"
"Now, now," noble Patroclus gently chided, "Play you your lute, why even your savage heart is thus calmed; yes, do your complaining with fanciful notes…"
On Achilleus the trace of a scowl broke the heightened smoothness of his cheeks, "No, I think not-though that pleasure be most pleasant and without conflict; I’ve no use today; as most hateful to me is the arrogance of Agememnon the two-faced-the grievance has soured me, too deeply."
Though Patroclus knew how poorly their council had gone, he could tell that Achilleus had not told his dear Briseis…
When he and Achilleus had captured her home city, the poor woman had been shrieking with madness upon the sight of her dead husband and three brothers returned to her; blood having barely dried upon the wounds, cooled forever now, faces fixed in the death mask of agony.
When she was brought to the presence of Achilleus and Patroclus, with fierce beauty she’d hurled insults at them, Yes, I know all about you, heartless Achaean, do you wish to slake your lust and kill me too?
Patroclus had watched as for the first time ever, he saw his good friend taken aback by a woman. It even seemed as if he were to cry-at least it looked as if his eyes had grown moist beneath the metalwork of his war helmet, which he removed and set aside. With both hands outstretched, he then reached down to the huddled Briseis, and, beckoning for her hands, helped her rise. I am most sorry, he murmered, I vow I will care for you now…
Patroclus had then said, And I will be your brother…
Now as Achilleus rose from his bed and gazed down upon Briseis, Patroclus saw the same sorrow.
"Friend, please entertain our dear lady, I will be back," Achilleus said. Bowing deeply, he backed through the curtained entrance and was gone…
Waves gently loamed upon the sands before him-the sounds as soothing as his mother’s voice.
"Oh Thetis," he murmered, "What am I to do? How is it I am to have no wife? I swear Briseis is an honourable woman and she is my choice…"
A full moon hung in all soft glory off the horizon. Across the sea-all molten, deep midnight blue. The skiffs of waves spangled as if silver.
"To be first among the foremost-this matter have I always been taught…For what, mother? To die an early death for the sake of that skulking dogface who now steals my wife after having stolen my honor? He was to be only our principal chief, how is it none of the other Acheans can see the error of his ways? Why, Mother? Why has our Heavenly Father Zeus forsaken me so?…"
His voice faded to a whisper. Before him the slow roll of waves lulled him as low, steady thunder…
"Yes, I truly see your rides, kind mother," spoke Achilleus, as he drifted off to sleep…
When the mighty chariot of Phoebus again pulled the sun’s constant globe all ablaze from the depths of Oceanus, Achilleus woke with a start. In front of him was a smoothly rounded, polished cedar chest.
He lifted the lid-stiff with finely-crafted hinges-and found inside, wrapped in silken cloth, a chalise of exquiste beauty. Silver embroidered with a ring of delicate leaves, the body inlaid with rubies…
Outside the tent now sounded footsteps through the sun-hardened earth. Standards announced Agememnon’s emissaries and waited, ill at ease, for response. "Yes, yes, come in," said Achilleus, gesturing both with eyes and hands. "We’ve been expecting you." Wary and tense, the king’s heralds advanced. "Orders from the king," clipped one, "The oracle predicts victory from Zeus upon return of the daughter of Apollo’s priest and award of Briseis to our king."
Hands neared swords as Achilleus widened eyes-flashing sparks of rage before softening like embers.
“Come, come,” he gestured, overly gracious, “Enjoy a good feast, good cohorts, before your dictum falls.”
Patroclus, made suddenly humble, laid cuts. Briseis, whom Achilleus had told, as best he could, upon his return that morning, emerged from the rear room of the tent in full fury. "Are you a coward?" she screamed at Achilleus. "Defend me if you are indeed a man!"
Achilleus averted her eyes, unable to speak. "Dear Sister," Patroclus said, gently taking her arm, "He can do nothing right now, he is powerless to go against our war council. I told you, by all and utmost sacred vow, when he is able to secure your rescue and return he will…"
Made deeply uncomfortable, out of respect for their great warrior, the standards proffered excuse to decline the feast table. Achilleus shrugged, gestured for them to gather the chests of Briseis in the rear of the tent. When he walked to Briseis, palms outstretched, beseeching forgiveness, none was granted-she strode to the standards, departed, her head held tremoringly high, not looking back.
Void of utterance, the night sky- imperturbable Heaven-radiated stars…Not a breath of air…While a thousand watch-fires gleamed down upon the plain; gesturing men gathered round each, their war-horses, cleansed of the day’s hardened blood and mud, coats spangling anew, crunching oats and corn beside the darkly gleaming war chariots…
Inside the gently rustling canopy of his tent, Achilleus, his newly found chalice in hand, sat drinking the mead of Zeus…Sipping, careful not to unman himself…
They shall seek and they shall not find.
Tom Noonan is a Bay Area (US) multimedia artist.This piece’s title comes from the wisdom of the ancients, who believed that the nourishing milk of the Heavenly Mother,Hera, would–through misuse of “the feminine principle”– turn into “the bitter gall of Heaven.” A karmic transmutation perhaps akin to the ancient Chinese saying of “may your life be interesting.”
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| Electric Acorn 12 : Short Stories: |
| Tom Noonan |
Against a Falling Fabric
(after Shakespeare, Coriolanus)
Even the doe nuzzling the old Chinese man—seated upon a rock in the tree-lined shelter of a cool glade—was of no consolation to him.
“Ah, I am just an old man now,” he sighed, the muscles in his broad chest shaking with grief. “Nobody pays me any mind any more.”
Several squirrels who’d scampered in from the forest shook tails like plumes, then, with soft, almondine eyes, resumed watching him. The monkeys who’d swung down from the branches regarded him too—tipping heads first one way, then the other, holding feet in hands and gently rocking. The doe went back to grazing.
The chin of his big bald head nodded inwards as the large luminous eyes that used to sparkle with mirth when he was teaching softly teared.
He’d taken to coming here for respite when he could no longer handle the camp of monks and nuns. Too often he found himself distracted, unable to pay attention to his pupils—or even to the mundane matters of seeing that the supplies were properly gathered, the meals cooked. Though his eyesight was failing (his hearing, too, getting even worse) he knew that his troubles lay elsewhere.
Perhaps he no longer knew what to do…
He remembered how at one time he would lecture to 1,000 people on Vulture Peak, with people traveling from far provinces just to hear him discourse on the Dharma. How in the world had things become so different?
In front of him one of the monkeys stood, did a backflip, then reseated himself to the chattering approval of the others. Usually said tricks made his eyes grow wide with wonder, his belly shake with amusement. But not today. Another tear slowly ran down his cheek.
For too long now he’d found that, no matter which way he led the camp, they could find no monasteries remaining. Perhaps, he thought, that when Emperor Wu’s troops had arrived at their own monastery he should have done things differently. Yet he could not believe his ears when the captain had confronted him—as the senior teacher—and demanded that, according to new proclamation, they renounce Buddhism as a foreign superstition and convert the monastery to a center for studies of native Confucianism. He’d been sewing a rip in one of his robes, and, not wishing to be distracted, had simply nodded his head No.
The troops had brandished swords and lances and prodded everyone out of the buildings and courtyard. Then they had gathered all the religious statues, thangka paintings and other sacred objects forming the shrine’s alter and, denouncing it all as demonic idolatry, smashed everything into a pile of rubble.
Next, as all watched in astonishment, the buildings were torched. Flames leaping high behind them, the troops then left—coarse laughter resounding among the hoof beats…
Since that time—six years that have seemed like an eternity—they trekked to Lung Hsing Monastery, then K’ai Yuan and a dozen others outlying their region. At each one, rubble. His scouts would return—eager with news of one in an area not yet plagued by the mad Emperor and his cadres of Confucian court scribes—and each time, with high spirits, they’d set out as if seeking the promised land of Heaven.
Yet too many times now they’d crest a hill and discover, in the distance, columns of billowing black smoke. As if the troops had awaited their arrival before destroying. Still more crying refugees followed with tales of fresh destruction.
They had even had to take on groups of nuns—wandering in utter bewilderment. The older ones wide-eyed with fear, unable to speak of the savagings the younger ones had had to endure as each was bounced roughly along from one soldier to another.
Of course he knew that monks and nuns in the same camp was not a wise idea, but what choice had he had?
In the branches above him birds chirruped, startling him. The squirrels and monkeys before him still sat, regarding him.
“So, you are my pupils now. Hmmn, yes, I see,” he chuckled.
His thoughts returned to the source of their plague—Langdarma the heretic! The heretic’s brother, who’d administered the province before him, had been most favorably disposed towards Buddhism.
He himself had been invited to the capital to discourse the Dharma and had delivered one of his best and sharpest sermons. He’d told the tale of mountains and rivers: at first in practice, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Then one begins to notice mountains in everything. Rivers in everything. If one looks, for example, at a peak when the sun is just right, it glimmers like a river. When one gazes into a stream, seeing the cool deep rockbed beneath the spangling surface, then relaxing the eyes with mushin, no gaze, no concepts, no form, no emptiness, one sees the surface of the water as being as solid and of great form as a mountain. Then mountains become rivers and rivers become mountains…
The governor had then asked, But then what happens?
He’d flashed his famous inscrutable smile and said, The ox returns home of itself…
Out of jealousy, however, Langdarma had murdered his brother—claiming in secret it was necessary because as governor he’d gotten out of control. Shrewdly, to ensure protection, he’d then sent a scholar, Han Tse, to the Emporer Wu with this nonsense of return to native Confucianism, expel the foreign devils. The propaganda was quite elaborate: the Chinese in their innate wisdom should have known better when this tall, gaunt figure Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch of Buddhism in China, had appeared from India several generations ago. Wrong body style for the more corpulent and sensual Chinese. One too aggressive as well—this light-skinned devil Bodhidharma was possessed of unnatural abilities and unnatural quickness and strength and had taught his demonic martial arts to so many since that the very security of the nation-state was threatened! Too, this devil’s gaze—piercing with intensity—would enter the softly-focused, unsuspecting eyes of the Chinese and subtly brainwash them with sorcery! Before one knew it, one would wind up in Hell! Under the new Confucian Mandate from Heaven, one would then face a bureaucratic scribe, who’d hold a long list of sins allegedly committed… The scribe’s face would affect sadness as he’d enumerate; any help, of course, unavailable now…
Never had he heard such claptrap! Such perversion of the Dharma! Why, the monkeys when they chattered made more sense! Cannily the right idea had been stolen from holy writ and dissembled in the false piety of another!
Still that part had not been the worst. Cloaked words can always be brought to the light of Truth by the subtle use of dialectics in debate. No, this Langdharma had become the very embodiment of depravity. Palace orgies went on for days—and he was especially fond of despoiling young Buddhist women, thinking himself thus empowered of the poor woman’s good karma. Mad Emporer Wu did not seem to care—if he even noticed at all, it was said that when messengers from the Court visited Langdharma he was the very model of uprightness…
The squirrels and monkeys were chattering in alarm now. He was sobbing mightily. Ah, it was all so intolerable. And he could do nothing to stop it. Langdharma would send spies, posing as refugees, into his camp, and like a subtle poison, they’d be too difficult to detect until the damage was done. Stooped with humility around him or the senior monks and nuns, these spies would then turn licentious in private, seducing the unsuspecting with tales of how much better life was at a place nearby—of which he, whom they called the Old Fool, was oblivious. Supposedly he was being punished by Heaven for his youthful arrogance and other such alleged shortcomings—their script accompanying each one varied with the latest disasters. Tales of Heavenly Consorting that brought instant enlightenment were snake-tongued into the ears of the young females—who would disappear with the spies to face sexual slavery under Langdharma.
At least that was what his scouts loyal still reported. This dog fattens itself by feeding on our human flesh! But perhaps not. Perhaps he indeed existed in complete delusion, perhaps his dislike of Langdharma was misfounded. Maybe he was an old fool who’d failed his people. One thing he did know for certain—it would be better if the dog simply killed him off instead of having him wander in abject misery as an object lesson to all…
A branch overladen with monkeys crashed suddenly to the ground—sending them leaping and howling into space, scampering away upon landing.
Yes, he thought, Manjushri stood before Gautama with a drawn sword!
He closed his eyes and the whole plan became clear. In the nearby village a farmer sympathetic to them had a sturdy white mare. He would put Young Grasshopper in charge of the camp—telling him to move only if necessary—and go to this farmer and borrow his pony. He would gather some garments to disguise himself as a beggar and outfit a bag with fresh clothes and some black dye. His folding bow and an arrow, too. Then he would ride like the wind to Langdharma’s capital; reportedly the little fool’s arrogance had reached such heights that he strolled about without a care, as his subjects either obsequiously flattered him or hid in stark terror.
So when he crossed the last river before the capital, he would dye the mare black—upon his return the river crossing would wash her white again.
Then, with the bow and arrow in the folds of his robe, he would reach the capital, tether the mare and sit and beg alms. It would be just a matter of time before the opportunity presented itself.
Deep, deep within his mind’s eye he saw himself stealthily click the bow into place, rise to his full height and with the strength with which he once practiced hitting the target draw his great bow until the string was taut against his straining chest and stilled chin…
When he released the bowstring he could not tell if it was the arrow or him speeding to its destiny with such strength. No matter. When it hit the heart of the heretic the grief in his own heart burst. Void and emptiness…
Leaves gently rustled as a cool breeze stirred, brushing his cheeks, bringing him back into awareness. Standing, he opened his eyes, turned and set about.
Mountains would again be mountains…
Biography
This story is historical, circa 8th & 9th century China—the legend is performed and celebrated annually by the Tibetan-in-Exile community. Different elements from that period have been conjoined here as a work of fiction.
Tom Noonan, though he lives in the States, is "an untrainable Irishman." (from Cromwell’s failed experiment of enslaving the Irish to work on the Jamaican sugar plantations—the poor devils refused to grunt and sweat under a weary life; most were beat to death!)
—”For, wondrous though the gift of knowledge is,
it has little moving power over the happening…”
Arthur Koestler, The Gladiators
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| Electric Acorn 10 : Short Stories: |
| Tom Noonan |
The Judean Terror
For one-hundreth of the price that had been paid by the freeman Atilus to bring this gladiator into his ludi, another man would fatally betray him…
Yet, this time was still to come–in another land, far away from this ampitheater, filled with munera fans having made the short journey from Rome to see the games the Emporer Tiberius had neglected.
As he wrapped the long linen straps to pad his ankles and calves, the other’s of his ludi watched. In a very short time this one had become the featured performer. Outside, up the dreaded ramp to the hot, shifting sands of the arena–always burning the soles of one’s feet at contest’s beginning– cries of impatience jeered the preliminary event’s contestants.
This one’s tenure had almost been short-lived; in his very first victory he’d refused the crowd’s insistent iugula!, iugula!, iugula!
The editor had been furious, standing upon his seat he’d repeated the dreaded thumbs up! In all directions the crowd continued to respond. This one, billed as The Judean Terror, had just delivered what looked like the death blow! The stacked rings of the wooden scaffoldings–weaving and shaking with the surges of the tightly packed crowd–had oo’ed habet!, habet!, then shrieked with displeasure when they realized that he’d not jammed his trident into the neck of his fallen foe, but had merely pinned his right sword arm to the sand instead.
The man had stood, calmly gazing upon the waves of spectators groaning the stands this way, then that, the faces in the crowd one blur of bloodlusting froth, then had dropped to his knees and bowed his head. There he’d remained, awaiting the editor’s hand to motion the stadium guards to behead him. Yet the editor had feared this one. Not only was his prowess supernatural but too many stories had accompanied him. He’d sat in his box, trembling, not wishing to upset Atilius but aware as well that the freedman’s greed too often clouded his wisdom. Then, as if the gods really existed, the crowd had settled into silence. The murmers of missum, missum, had rippled here and there. Soon all were waving their hems of togas and cloaks in approval. At this call for mercy the editor jumped to his feet again and gave the thumb’s down signal to have the contest ended, both gladiators escorted back to their barracks.
Thus had this man become their leader. Though his face held the features of a Roman patrician he indeed was from Judea. He’d grown up with his brothers, family and friends as a Jew under Roman rule. Sometimes the centurians and other Roman soldiers could be cruel–treating the Jews as dogs, donkeys, beasts of burden. A childhood game they’d played with the fishermen’s nets had turned into more–together with tridents, an unusual form of self-defense. When their mother Mary–cursed with gleaming cheeks of beauty–had been insulted by a particularly savage centurian, they had hunted him down. As their forebearer, that sun of Judgement, Samson, had done in firebranding the foxes, they awaited opportunity. Their presence was already becoming known to the occupying army–whose soldier’s issue of shield and short sword proved no match for the swirling skills of distracting nets, the sharp swing of a blow to the helmet by the trident’s butt leaving the transgressor’s head ringing for days.
That night, though, James, his brother, had gone too far. He’d pierced the cringing fool’s throat with his trident and left it as a warning.
The slain soldier’s commander was a shrewd military man. Bribery had gotten him the identity of the renegade young men; he’d had them all rounded up and threatened with execution unless the one who’d done the deed identified himself.
The man now known as The Judean Terror had stepped forward, said, “I am the one you seek.”
Seeking to make him an object lesson, the commander had sentenced him ad gladium. He’d arrived in Rome, and the fat jolly man running the gladiator school had given him net and trident, as a jest, and pitted him against one of Rome’s best. Though later the ludi-master would claim that the sun had gotten in his man’s eyes–perhaps Rome’s gods wished to humble his prize gladiator a bit, as well, for his recent boastful behavior–those in the stands that day saw a man enchant another with jaguar-like stealth and suddenness, the swirls of the net hypnotic before an unseen swoop and capture of the feet, sudden tumble into the burning sand. Rome’s fans had whooped with laughter, the Judean had stood upon his foe’s chest, awaiting his instructions. The fat jolly man had squealed in protest and managed to save his best. When the profitable sum was offered for the Judean he was only too glad to be rid of him…
Now The Judean Terror picked up each greave, fastened tight the criss-crosses of leather behind his calves and ankles. He hooked the leather-lined, broad strip of bronze around his corded-muscle mid-section. Massaging his torso with his fingers he breathed deeply, let his eyes soft gaze. Past the wooden ceiling–already acrid with dry rot. Past the guards at the square of light at the entrance to the arena…
One day soon–unknown to him, unknown to all–disaster would strike here. The slapdashed together ampitheater–overfilled for the sake of profits to Atilius and his backers–would collapse one sultry dog day of summer and leave 50,000 bodies lying dead, gape-mouthed in astonishment. He, too, in the arena, would drop his shield and sword to the sand in amazement. The Senate in Rome would investigate, Atilius would be put into exile. The mysterious gladiator known as The Judean Terror would be sent back to Judea. Though a patrician benefactor would purchase his wooden sword of freedom the man would never receive it; his skill had earned him enemies, as a final joke from Rome’s hidden quarters he’d be sent to Judea as a war-galley slave.
Still, the very network that had gotten him into this matter would get him out. His mentor, a white-haired man from the Essene Therapeut colony in Alexandria known as Philo, would arrange a surprise freeing of him when the galley reached Judea. Not hard, as the guards, glad to be ashore again, were soused to the gills.
After some time in retreat at their desert fortress at Qumran, where the aches and wounds and memories of savage blows landed, endless pulling of drum-cadenced oars, would be washed away beneath the hidden spring’s waterworks cascading upon him, he would be safely able to reenter day-to-day Judean life. And for a time the news of the ampitheater’s collapse–a fear that the Jew’s god had caused it–would keep the Roman jackels at bay. When mysterious mishaps would happen, he would be the first interrogated. Raising his palms to the centurians, he would tell them that he was a man of peace now, surely they’ve heard that he’d retired? Grunting, they’d insist that he help them–reminding him of the official favor he’d once received in Rome. He’d roll his eyes heavenward, sigh in his act of exasperation, and tell them that it must be my kid brother Philo. A description of Philo as a wild-eyed, dark-haired irrepressible youth would follow, with the man’s confession that he’d been unable to restrain him of late and that he’d slipped somewhere into the desert, avoiding the man’s admonition to become–as himself– peaceful, a man of Heaven.
With all the sincerity he could muster he would assure the centurions that once he caught up with him he would indeed turn him over to their custody. Eyes glinting at him, mistrusting, but not really having anything to use against him, they would disperse to his goodbyes of friendship…
All this, and, sad to say, too much more, still awaited the Judean Terror as he readied himself for combat. They’d told him today he’d be atop a bridge, to be attacked from each end by threax. As he’d refused to fight his own school, barbarians–from lands where he’d not yet been heard about–were imported.
Heavy footsteps came down the ramp towards him. “Now Jew!” the guard barked. “Remember, no net and trident until you knock each one off the bridge first with swordplay.”
He signaled his acknowledgement, reached down for his helmet. A fierce griffin rose in a crest from the bronze bowl, white feathers adorned each side–at the hinges for the cheek-guards, a primary target, yet, in his case, the feathers never touched. He put it on, swung down from the sides the cheek-guards, fastened the metal latch tightly. The soft gaze of his eyes vanished as they adjusted to the metal grates prisoning and protecting his eyeholes. With one long exhale his visage became as rock-solid as his muscled mid-section.
Vir fortis! He turned to acknowledge the salute of his school–each pounding right fist of combat to heart. One day one had ventured forth to ask the source of his mysterious strength, as his body, though supple, seemingly was no match for some of the hulks thrown at him. He’d rolled eyes and pointed to Heaven, saying his God was a merciful one, that no matter what was taken from him or done to him, all that was ever asked of him was never to lose heart. Dignity, he’d explained, can never be taken from one, only surrendered. Die upright, he’d said, like a man.
He raised himself to full height, bowed his head in gratitude to his comrades, turned and walked up, into the light.
Tom Noonan is midway through two historical novels, The Day John Lennon Died and Shakespeare Learns His Lesson. His feature screenplay, City of Nights, based upon his nights as a cabbie hacking the mean streets of Oaktown, CA, has been optioned for production several times but is still tied up and held hostage by the federales in court. In a similar manner (through his friend Maxine Hong Kingston) he’s currently marketing: a twenty-year collection of poetry; a fiction volume of short epiphanies; & a stageplay set in prison. A former investigative reporter and film critic, his work has appeared in such journals as Film Quarterly. His work has appeared in previous issues of Electric Acorn.
THE LAST NIGHT
One never believes the last night, even as it’s happening…
I’d met her through a friend—a man who was the cook at the resort where I was working as well. Both he and I were featured readers at a poetry workshop that first night; in those days our resort’s motto was time out—for not only special writing weekends and artist exhibitions but too massages, nude sunbathing and other sensual feasts for body and mind.
Afterwards I’d wandered, and she’d found me, on a moonlit “Grasshopper Bridge.” The day’s faineant heat hung still. I was leaned against the newly oiled redwood rail, listening to the stream’s lambent murmur below.
For the way the new footbridge pierced midway into the other bank—the criss-crossing span some twenty feet above the streambed, looking like a railroad trestle, its scale far more vast than the rope and plank crossing it’d replaced—the staff had taken to calling it The Bridge Too Far…
She’d found that bit of info funny. I was fairly sure that my friend had kept her apprised of the resort politics; the owner had gone from a Sixties’s peace & love Esalan-Big-Sur-style guru to a born-again capitalist—just as clichéd with his grandiose new schemes for the place. It was billed as a “modern mega-European spa.” It was fueled by the overnight success of his “addiction therapy” once-a-month program—catering to well-to-do, stressed-out casualties of Silicon Valley. What it would mean was that our sleepy, turn-of the-century hotel, with its thick, cool stone and stucco walls, sweeping verandas, kerosene lanterns and wood-burning stoves for the bone-drenching winter night downpours, would be razed and replaced.
Sycophantic former clients of the good doctor, no lack of Iagoian iniquity in the sportive devising of each, now surrounded him as constant coterie; the resort’s history of artists-in-residence, bohemians, naturalists all to be swept into some sanitized future with such a shaky financial basis as to cast the entire matter, in the minds of those who lived and worked there, as ambition destined to be gain which darkens.
So that night, curiosity unwisely peeking forth from my stoic’s countenance, I asked her what her connection with the good doctor was. Her face assumed that demure, smooth-cheeked visage I would come to find impenetrable. Then a smile, the smoothness of her lips parting over the teeth ‘s even beauty. Quite frankly you’re the one who worries me… I’m told you’re the dangerous kind…
I shrugged, said I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.
Another smile, her eyes—crystalline, deeply azure—twinkling as she panned her gaze unto the stream…
T ruth be known, I did know what she meant. I’d been part of the resort’s outdoor staff for two years now. Three days on, four days off. On weekends I was the relief shift—the resort’s on call emergency man. Our grounds were part of an old Ohlone Native American powerspot on the Central Valley side of the Mendocino Coastal foothills. We advertised in all the New Age journals circulating the San Francisco Bay Area as a nice, gentle place to unwind. Big redwood decks by the tubs for “clothing optional” sunbathing, miles of surrounding open space for hiking …
Breathe! as the owner’s constant mantra went.
A very unique place, but, too, very isolating. So at least once a month most of the staff would see fit to visit such former stomping grounds as Berkeley—the favorite target for sarcasm among the addicted yup’s, who’d sneer, Oh, I see— still living in Berkeley…
On summery weekends, those seeking us out as a nice, gentle place to unwind would pass—opposing lanes on the same curving two-lane canyon road, in some counterpointed yet correlative way—those seeking a little Peet’s coffee in Berkeley while perusing the Bay Area’s weekly rags offering way too many choices of things to do.
Winter, of course, was another story. Not a single storm passed in which I wouldn’t have to get the big ¾ ton four wheel drive truck and, at some besieged point of our seven mile dirt access road, pull some guest out of the ditch. Poor guy and his wife or girlfriend he was seeking to impress would show up at our lobby—soaked, muddy, shivering to the point of speechlessness after trekking miles in a darkly whipping storm–and nod with sheer gratitude when I’d ask, So, looks like you got stuck. Made me more popular than our guru of an owner himself…
That it was my other duties piquing perhaps too much interest in me has become all too plain to me since my exodus. On the weekends, when our three, twenty-foot long concrete tubs filled with mineral glistening bodies, checking tub temperatures three times a day became crucial. Gravity flowed the 140 degree springs water down a pipeline into a holding tank and then through the tubs in sequence, the water cooling along the way. A flow-valve from the holding tank regulated the rate at which the water would circulate through each tub in turn before draining into the creek. Too fast a flow and those sunburned would really feel scorched; too slow and the lukewarm waters would never loosen those bunched and corded muscles.
While waiting for the thermometer to register in each tub, one could not help but notice its occupants. As this was the early 1980’s, before those obnoxious sexually-transmitted diseases reared ugly heads, we were host to a number of single women who, while professionally secure, seemed, nonetheless, unable to find a decent guy for companionship.
At least that line was what I was told. When the coolness of the evening arrived in the summer—the fine dust of the road, browned hills all around still shimmering heat—off in the distance the coyotes would wail. While doing the evening temp check, I loved to walk onto the rear deck and await them. Sometimes all that stirred were the tall stalks of bamboo, from the bank below, beneath an immense ink-blotted sky; at other times a touch gentle as a breeze would manifest to my side and a towel-wrapped woman still exultant from her bath would ask why do the coyotes cry so?…
Still, that night with my curious new woman, I told her that I was afraid she’d heard wrong. The last six months or so I’d been holing up like a hermit on my days off—I had a great room off the main veranda, and I’d built a custom desk out of the antique bits and pieces remaining on the resort from years before. My little battery-powered LCD typewriter hummed away one sweetly silent hour after another. A kerosene lamp flickering in the hints of breeze, the ever-present sound of crickets outside, I was finally writing the way I’d envisioned—as if the hills cradling our resort had granted me infinite support as well…
Not that night, but the summer she and I spent together. Her schedule as an RN at a local hospital was hectic, but we escaped whenever we could. Hiking among huge sun-heated boulders, with her two sons who’d visit glistening like salmon in the Sierra stream; climbing fire lookout towers…Camping where our only neighbors were bears.
At our resort, what had once been Paradise had now become overrun with huge grasshoppers. Among ourselves we joked (in protective whispers, of course) that it was a Heavenly sent plague of locusts due to the good doctor’s born-again greed. But the fact remained that these whirling clouds of winged furies were, day after day, descending, covering everything—countless tiny mandibles chewing up the entire grounds…
The good doctor flipped out. From a “no chemicals” hip and cool policy we’d had suddenly he was ready to call in an army of exterminators—big trucks to roll all over everything with huge, rear-mounted spraying nozzles…
A musician Resident Artist made a wooden, lacquered plaque of a huge grasshopper, with Japanese B-movie multifaceted, eerie looking eyes, and we rechristened our new trestle as Grasshopper Bridge. When one of the good doctor’s entourage, now present with his obnoxious clients two weeks a month, made discovery of the new plaque the good doctor was infuriated. During a marathon staff meeting he demanded to know who was behind this bit of treachery. We all expressed wide-eyed innocence. Afterwards the tensions at our once peaceful little sanctuary remained at a low boil…
All these newly unfortunate matters were forgotten when I was with her. Backpacking brought a certain luminescence to her eyes. She wasn’t one for a lot of conversation—you’re the word person, she’d say, that faint, inaccessible amusement dawning, for just a brief gleaming moment, on her cheeks.
As I learned to read her gestures—more reliable, I found, than our collection of trail maps we’d transverse—she managed to take apart, chink by unnoticeable chink, my big tough guy armor. Bits and pieces I’d tossed together along the way , after Id bailed out of the academic hothouse of graduate school…
One day, mired in the existential angst perquisite to grad students, I’d seen a flyer on my mentor’s bulletin board for the Naropa Institute’s Twenty-Five Years of On the Road celebration of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation. Though my mentor had managed to break me of my journalism—do you want to write puffery or do you really want to write?—this one looked too good to pass up, so I wangled a press pass from one of my former editors and headed to Boulder, Colorado. Afterwards, I never made it back to the East Coast—instead I traveled on, through the Southwest and into Mexico before making my return to the Bay Area.
Times were tough, the big chill of the early ‘80’s had hit hard; the only journalists left from my old crowd were sportswriters. A friend told me about the resort’s Artist-in-Residence program; when I completed that three-month residency another artist—the plaque maker—and I managed to wangle a staff position into two three-fifth’s ones. Like the Randy Newman song we loved to sing, My life is good…
And then one day, as if woe had been forerun with woe, all came to change. A wan look keening her brow, she announced that no longer would she nurse the sick, the dying, the monstrously ungrateful. She’d found she no longer had any time for her painting—so she was moving to Homer, Alaska, where she’d been accepted into an artist’s colony.
Neither of us cried our last night—though if I’d finally showed some real emotion, it would have been too late. Her house let to friends, we were camped in her back yard. She gave herself to our lovemaking with such frenzy that afterwards the night air stilled into pure suchness…
Summer nights as that one sometimes I fall silent. In the quietude I see her walking a comely-curving beach amid moonbeams of gently breaking sea foam…
I see her happy…
The Message
for me blood brudder…
 T hrough the venetian blinds—noiselessly spread with an index and middle finger, just enough to peek outside—Dread could see, still, his bodyguards across the street. |
| In the beat-up Buick Cutlass about which they’d bitched, in the apartment parking lot. Just like he’d told them to do. Lately they’d been grumbling too much like those two fools he hadn’t disciplined properly—wanting to be driving around in his custom Mercedes, with the gold mags and power bubble roof, high-performance engine and exhaust system. Your brain gone to oatmeal, nigga? Damn. That car be nothing but a po-po magnet. Now don’t be no lightweight and park in the lot, not on the street, you dig?He’d checked in here yesterday, a little time and space to think. He didn’t need anybody showing up at his house at 3 A.M with some piece or another of business that the fool would swear up and down had to be taken care of right away. That little monkey business two of his lieutenants had pulled with his new bitch had made his house feel cold as a tomb to him, too, now he shivered uncontrollably every time he walked through the door. |
 When he was home he’d usually be up at the break of dawn—jogging down to and around Lake Merritt. Summertime especially he loved how the air was so fresh and clear in the morning, the day just beginning, the cars and people and machinery not yet having filled the sky with their sickass orange smog. |
| Today, though, he’d slept in on the still made bed until the early afternoon heat made the cheeks of his face trickle with sweat. |
| Despite the television before him, bolted to the ceiling, being on mute from the night before still—despite his having remembered, as well, to put the "No Maid Service" sign on the outside door knob—a bolt of panic had shot through him upon awakening and he’d jumped to his feet. In the mirror before him, the eyes in that shaved head, wiry nigga were so white around the edges that he’d had to smile, relax, be himself again maybe in spite of himself again… |
He went over to the motel room phone, dialed up his takeout food service. Damn good deal they had, you could pick from a dozen restaraunts and they’d deliver it for you for next to nothing."Yes, hello, this is Mr. Kennedy," he said, when the line answered. "Fine, I’m fine today. You know, today I’m in the mood for some Thai food, what do you recommend?"They always loved to be asked what was good. On the phone, too, he made himself sound like a white dude—was always a kick when the delivery boy showed up and asked, with surprise on his face at seeing him, "Mr. Kennedy?" |
 Was something the dude who was the only man he’d ever really considered friend had taught him. Something about when ole J. Edge Hoover and Tricky Dick Nixon were recruiting "affirmative action snitchjackets" to bring into their plantation system, why they gave the step-n-fetch-it foo’s Irish-American names, so’s if there were any leaks ever they’d be looking for some poor Mick instead of the nigga… |
| Dude—Irish-American, or, like he’d say, "Celtic," himself—had dropped this little ancedote as one of his cautionary tales, telling him to be careful, that you might think these Fed’s are stupid about black people, but they a lot more clever than they lettin’ on…Dread walked over and sat down at the crummy little motel desk, cut himself a piece of rock on the cheap veneer. Firing it up in his Pyrex beaker turned water pipe, he drew in deeply the sweet. pungent smoke. He still had about half-a dozen big, pure rocks, and he was gonna leave his mind alone, and just get high…, as the "Allman Brothers" tune went. |
 Dude and he had gone to see Gregg Allman one night over in San Francisco. His lady had wanted to see—personally he was kind of skeptical, Yeah, right, some Oaktown street nigga gonna go hear some Southern whi’ boys play, wid not only a whi woman but a blonde-haired, fine-skinned one on his arm?…Dude had said, though, it’d be cool, he was friends with the musician owner. Sure enough, they’d been given a reserved table right up front and treated like visiting royalty. |
| One thing about that Dude, he was never wrong. Dread glanced up at the television screen—same dog of a Showtime movie from the night before was on again. He clicked the remote, saw he had time for another hit before his food arrived, so he cut himself a big one and fired it up.He held the sweet euphoria as long as he could before exhaling. Some dogs did too much of their own product and got thier tweak-asses addicted, but not him. He only smoked every once in a while—when he needed to get philosophical, as he and Dude used to call it. Smoke would curl around, play tricks with your mind, get you thinking that words were being formed in answer to your questions, you just had to know how to read it.Dude would have known, too, how to read him—like that clever ass ole whi’boy, Mich Jagger, he didn’t need no whore. But the two bloods he’d put outside were too new to handling his protection, and had asked him if he wanted one; he’d said, Hell no, what I need some toss-up chattering away with fake-ass compliments when I know as soon as she out of here she gonna go and snitch me off? |
 Like the bitch he’d just tossed out of his house was probably doing. He could not for the life of him imagine what possessed her to let herself get wasted on “Ecstasy” with those two dogs and think that it’s okay to share…Like some really bad B-movie he’d walked in the door to his own house (admittedly unexpectedly) and had to see her looking like any other fool nigga toss-up—those small braids she’d dyed blonde trying to be more white (thinking, somehow, it might please him more) flying away as she sucked one of them off and was being banged from behind by the other…He’d been cool, hadn’t even gone for his piece. With his hands raised to his sides, he’d restrained his bodyguards, too. He just told them—all of yous—to get the fuck out, now. |
| He’d sensed this one coming. Dude had always said, Put Judas in the hotseat, right next to you, so you can see for yourself what’s going on. Said it was an ancient Irish warrior tradition. He’d smiled and said, Hell, dude, I got Celtic forebearers too, you know…Dude had just smiled and said, Yeah I know…Man did he need him now. With the shifting around in his organization, some of the more hotheaded bloods were saying that the treacherous foo’s and that dumb bitch needed to be smoked. Especially the way the foo’s were going around saying, Man Dread be getting weak, we gonna take over, better get down wid us… But he just knew that this one smelled like a three-day old fish, as Dude used to say. He was a real hothead himself—man when he got upset, he just got this look about him and everybody knew not to fuck around with him; he worked out, was a top marital artist but he never had to knock anybody upside the head to get them left alone or to do the right thing…The knock at the door caught him staring off into space. He stood, welcomed the delivery man, paid his tab and gave him a twenty dollar tip. |
 He gave himself another long look in the mirror. Dude this, Dude that, he thought, maybe I am getting to be a weak-ass fool. He gave himself the look in the mirror, then exulted Yes, still got it! When he’d just been really getting started, branching out into cocaine from just grass, sometimes at night he’d stand in front of the mirror at his house and practice Dude’s look. Eventually he’d gotten it down—which Dude had found pretty funny, he had this way of smiling slowly and broadly, which, if he did when somebody was giving him shit, promised trouble for the fool. So, I guess you don’t need me around anymore do you? He’d laughed back, said, Well, you tell me your nickname and I guess not. You the one who said he don’t want to be no major leaguer. But all he’d tell him was T.C., as in Too Cool. Said he got it in college cuz nobody could believe he was so hip and cool having come from such a little, old-fashioned American town. |
| Dread sat back down, clicked the tube to put on some music videos. He’d known, from word on the street, that Dude was connected with some heavy-hitting Italian-Americans, but Dude had never breathed a word about it. Subject would come up and all he’d talk about was the parameters he’d put into his life because of some philosophical paradigm he was seeking to bring into being now; this town’s getting too hot for the old days, my friend, is all he’d say.Dread went through his rituals of another hit, checked out the screen. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious five, one of his favorites. This be like it is for a black man, he thought, the white man don’t give no fuck about down here in da hood.As he exhaled, in the air he saw the perfect, delicate handwriting of his ex. The one from Stanford, with the finely-spun light gold hair. Man, they’d been engaged to be married. Dude was gonna be his best man.But she’d freaked on him. He hadn’t thought much about it, too much business he’d had to take care of. Anyway, a woman like her, why she’d never understand; street dog nigga like himself always got to be hustling for something better, he wasn’t about to sit up and beg like a good little lap dog for some of them second-hand scraps off the table. Dude was gone, too. He was kinda worried how he hadn’t heard nothing, wasn’t like him. He smiled. Maybe he’d found that paradisial tropical island, like Gaugin, he used to joke about being his next move…Some of the bloods was saying that Dude had taken up with his ex, fine-ass white bitch. Though he’d tell them, ain’t so, just ain’t so, they’d still look at him kinda funny—probably the reaosn those two dogs be thinking still they gonna get away with the way they dissed him with that new bitch… |
 From the tube now, some all too familiar words:Broken glass everywhere People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise …But now your eyes sing the sad sad song Of how you lived so fast and died so young …[Chorus:] It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder How I keep from goin’ under… |
| Dread looked away from his heroes on the screen, towards the window hot with the afternoon, summer heat. Letting his eyes gaze at nothing, soft focus—mushin eyes—he watched the specks of dust dance off the three-quarters turned, darkened blinds, in the little bars of light.He bit his tongue, hard enough to draw blood, but those fool tears just kept coming. |
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| June 19, 2001, Finn MacChumaill, a.k.a. Tom Noonan… | |
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| Lyrics to “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, 1982, SugarHill Records. | |
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| film noir images courtesy of:imagesjournal.com&moderntimes.com |
Have Buddha, Will Travel
Question:
“A monk asked Master Haryo, ‘What is the sword that can cut a hair blown against
its blade?’
Haryo said,
‘Every coral branch is supporting the moon.’”
Answer:
“A broken mirror does not reflect images again; and it is difficult for fallen
flowers to go back up the branches.”
OR
Answer:
“To rage at the moon and sleep in the clouds…”
|
A |
lone, by the side
of the road I stand. Nameless, universal faceless, you’ve seen me many times
before…As for my physical form, I’m as tall and lean as an Achillean lion, my long dark ringlets of hair falling onto well-muscled shoulders, atop sinewy glory—yet, having learned from sly Odysseus, I’m crafty in my loose-fitting disguise, my beard full to hide my patrician chin and noble cheekbones…so that I’m nearly invisible to most who pass by—as each projects what is feared most onto myself, none ever see me and give me wide berth…
So, here in the cold moonlit night I stamp barren cinders for warmth; about me shards of corn, gleaming as metal, jut from rough earth. Two headlights pierce towards me, then are gone—faint oil gleams upon the battered macadam…
(Now, dear listener, I doubt very much that you will believe what I have to say, but a short while ago I left a warm bed and a very fine woman—one engaged, as I am, in battle with words; so let me run the Situation through your ears and I’ll let you be the Judge , you make the Choice—remembering, as Jean Paul Sartre once said, that you always have One…Herein lies the Scene: a King-sized bed, replete with a down comforter and plenty of pillows, in mon amour’s basement apartment
beneath a huge Gothic Victorian high on the hillside overlooking the sleepy little town of Ithaca, New York, nestled at the end of Cayuga Lake—the house just past a cemetery, through which my lover and I stroll full moon evenings, pausing at quaint head markers, composing story lines for the long deceased, reveling in our broad quietus, as so many fear the dead…These walks most often taking place after long ecstatic hours of drenched-with-sweat-dancing, our favorite pastime…
(Now again, dear listener, one must take pause, as the Situation demands that you recall and imagine said ecstatic dancing, waves of universal shabda vibrating your very essence as you and your partner recreate mystery—and if you’ve never felt said matter, why leave right now and experience, as said Evidence is most essential to understanding your Koan of Choice…)
As for my partner and myself, we have nearly perfected the Art of Movement through the New Wave chordals of our favorite band, one-from-somewhere-else-but-now-local, like us—our being together again after self-imposed absence having inspired us to further
endeavors, mon amour and I have arrived at said bedside having said little,
this time, on the way, and as her cat purrs between my legs she remarks ,
“well, I see my Familiar likes you, as usual” (Furthering my puzzlement, Does she think herself a Wicked Witch from whom I should draw back? Or is she
jealous at my communication, an envy ill-founded, and mistaken in Nature?) Still, I dismiss the remark as nothing but loose ends since our last meeting several weeks back, both of us having been awash in brooding work, myself seemingly chained to my workbench, spot-lamp on a silent typewriter; aside from a basketball league my only respite having been a very boring Graduate School Drinking Party, our Teacher-Host drunk-elephantly holding forth, the hunch-shouldered, rat-eared skewed-eyed Students hugging the walls in nervous clusters, occasionally rising to dart an annoyed glance at said Teacher-Host’s back, then bobbing
back amongst the safety of the herd to discuss the latest in academic writers (i.e., how So and So is far superior to say, Julio Cortazar, who’s become simply outmoded, his stories all Deconstructed now and Signifying Nothing), the type of party that, despite the Mandatory Nature of its attendance, makes
myself—stepping into Character, that is—makes me almost wish I were
some misanthrope like Mark Twain, maneuvering one’s Cast of Characters into bottomless woodchuck holes…
Obviously, then, not the most romantic mode to bring to mon amour for our Encounter; my complete and thorough disenchantment with said infamous Graduate School having troughed, so to speak, so that now, with Her, I’m at pains to make amends, tugging her back onto the bed, her head upon my arm, in the way I love to watch my woman sleep, such peaceful breathing, her cheeks glowing with our lovemaking…But now,
seeing her distracted moodiness, her eyes twitching away from me, the intimacy of our dancing replaced by Something Else…I tease her with kisses; she resists, annoyed, until I trace her breasts with my tongue, feeling the taste of her sweat, her long nipples tensing for release beneath the cumbersome bra—at her asking now, her soft breasts falling free (Cuchulainn’s reminder, after his war fury, of what’s really important in life)…finally her hands gripping my hair in spastic rhythm, urging me lower; as kisses rain upon her sweet stomach she begs pause and quickly strips jeans and panties…taking my time, I kiss the smooth insides of her wonderful dancer’s legs, her long thighs loosening corded muscles, my tasting her magnificent, lotus-shaped cunt spreading gentle joy, her skin tensing and fluttering, like doves taking flight…then again, and a mystical
third…My hands, cupping her Parisian derriere, feeling her satiation through her skin, made thick and impervious as an elephant’s through our tantric orgasm…
(And then, dear listener, to mine eyes’ despair, seeing her eyes open and (perhaps to my overworked and fevered imagination) register a slight startlement at seeing my head between her legs—i.e., not her supposed Ex, a precious wimp of a puer always conniving to steal my comfort—then, in that Look maddening in a Woman to a Man, her shrugging, as if to say, Well, have at it…
(Now, here, one must ask, and as a Man—or a Woman imagining herself as a Man—answer honestly: What would you do?…Take your
pleasure?…If so my heart grieves for you, as pleasure cannot be taken, only granted—and only the Fool knows otherwise…No, dear listener, with nary a kiss on her cheek I arise, dressing in haste, seeing her drift off to sleep as I lock the door behind me and hike the hill leaving town to where I have a good clear view… The hour and the distance give me little hope for a ride to my house…)
|
A |
lone by the side
of the road I stand. Nameless, universal faceless, you’ve seen me many times before…
Yet, as two new headlights race towards me, you hit the high beams and roar off in your Fire Chariot, drawing back in disgust upon identifying me and my outstretched hand; inside your truck the heat blasts beneath the pressed cardboard dash, a puffy, curled hand turns up the radio, blaring that music peculiar to our area, C & W, i.e., If you don’t leave me I’ll find somebody who will…, then you reach for that-there flask of Jack Daniels whiskey to further besottle your woodchuck-fat-cheeks and weasel-squinty eyes…
Again, two new headlights approach me…Nearer, you see that my hand is not held in the traditional hitch-hiker’s mudra…Instead, my damaged-index finger points…Now remember that whether one oil spot or all on the tarmac reflects, the moon shines, and, I ask you, for the last time, quick before you think, Do you see the finger or the moon?
Originally written 1980-82, Thomas Francis
Noonan, revised 4/98
“Waylon & Willie & the Boys…”(1)
You walk into the “Texas Tux Lounge”—all Halloween theme-decorated (a month early) with sprayed cobwebs thick in every corner.
You’ve heard all the jokes—how being “deep in the heart of Texas” is an oxymoron, how down yonder here the good ole boys think that “Deliverance” is a luv story…
At least that’s the way the current lover of your lady’s mother has been spinning it over here, during the car ride—in a Cadillac, what else? Now, seated at a bar table, you’re approached by a big bubba; he’s the Karaoke and music DJ, his wife’s the manager. You’re asked to play pool in their tournament…It’s just an itty bitty thing, he aw shucks, but we like it….
They all know that you’re a Yankee. Beneath the façade of broad grins, heads tipped to one side then the other, the “Ahm jus a sheetkicker” pose of false modesty, you know there’s this pain-in-the-neck pique, some unspoken bitterness each has picked-up along the way and now share in sullen camaraderie. Too many times some deal just didn’t go down. Just didn’t have the clout of all that downtown Dallas big oil money….
Most of these men married now to some sarcastic reminder of each and every one of those setbacks along the way…From once-upon-a-time-just-cute-as-all-get-out blonde little honey—to, of late, being broke down, with no spare, no gas, way out on some deserted, potholed, dusty road….
Like what’s going on just to the left of you now—the sweet young thing putting her high heel on the top rung of the barstool, letting the lingerie she’s modeling slip, silk rustling away, to reveal a spa-toned, tanned thigh gleaming pearl like in the bar lights…The garter belt, slid to that man-maddening darkness of her crotch, stuffed with fives and tens…
Or the blonde behind the bar, wondering which one of the misanthropes she’s serving booze to now she’s gonna wind up paired off with—when her looks, along with her dreams, fade into that flat plain of a sunset….
So when Bubba, whom you drew for the first round, says in that good-natured way, “Now, don’t beat me too badly, ya’ll hear,” you smile, say, “Not to worry….”
Your play is nothing fancy—you leave one of your balls on the table so he can make a short run and win …It’s double elimination, you see…
Next game you win the coin flip and right to break. As you manage to clear out the couple of cowboys managing to stand—storm-dumb as cattle—directly behind you, taking up your maneuvering room, you notice that your lady is watching you from the rail. With that one quick strong stroke that, unlike most people you’ve ever known, has never managed to fail you, the pack breaks. The sharp crack momentarily distracts the bar from its karaoke…
You step up, look, fire…
But before you’re too far back in the days—with a pal taking bets on the bar and keeping your Johnny Walker Black flowing—you remember where you are and leave one of your balls and the eight near corner pockets.
Your opponent—made soft spoken, and, you feel, respectful— compliments you and sets about the task of clearing the table for a comeback. You stand in the shadows, try your best aw shucks, but it ain’t flying with the pretending not to watch good ole boys. The sound system plays something about Hank Williams pain songs and somebody else’s train songs…
You can feel the constant smoldering—only partially quelled by the bottles of Bud, shots of Jack. They’re all thinking how the hell did this tall drink of northern water wind up with one of our fine fillies; your lady having made forty without the fate of too many women in this land of down yonder—torn up all too early in the truck stops and honky tonks by rough-handed rednecks rutting in the trough…
Now you step up to the table… An easy roll on that eight awaits you and it really is back in the days again…You’re in this little rice-growing paddie in Northern California, in town playing pool with the locals. You’re the staff member of a nearby health sanctuary—one that used to be a hippie commune.
Suspicious per se—and not exactly the type that the local Sheriff’s Association would accuse of being a ringer when they lose this charity fundraising basketball game. Which they did, just an hour or two before. But, like a hot knife melting butter, you’d been on, driving the lane with impunity. Side bets were lost and, as you left the gym, you’d been fingered…Plenty of hostile glares, too—at the guy who’d recruited you, one of the few Messkins tolerated ‘round here.
To complicate matters further, you’ve going through one of those bad breakups with, as Sir Mick liked to sing, a woman of wealth and means…The type that somehow, back in the days, you were always bumping into, a woman with a siren’s call as dangerous as the Symplegades themselves. Breakups like boulders, clashing—but through the grace of the Argos dove’s tail feathers, perhaps, made survivable…Matters maybe not easily translatable to C & W parlance, but something to which you could attest the pain being the same damn thing…
One night, at your resort, you were looking up at the pure, perfect full moon—and a huge black sky pricked only by distant starlight. Coyotes, padding the old mining roads, wailed in the distance. So you drove the twenty or so miles into this town, the closest sign of life to your resort. Perhaps in some cosmic balance to your resort’s health food regimen, you wandered into one of the four dives keeping the local population of several hundred happy and started tossing down double Scotches…
So on this night you’re in a good mood—that male victory thing of still being young and oh so cocky. Your amigo, who’s amazed at not only your court play but too how you match his cerveza’s with Scotch, is even having a good time.
When this guy appears at your side, breaking into your conversation, and challenges you to a game of pool, you accept.
I hear you’re good, he sneers. Nearly a foot shorter than you, nonetheless he’s got quite the swagger on (maybe military, fly boy?) As it’s always the little lapdog types barking the loudest you look to the bar, where four of his buddies—corn-fed and beefy, hard little eyes in those puffy cheeks—are sucking down longnecks.
Wanna play for a twenty? His voice pipes like a banged-up flute. And he’s twirling the quarter for the break flip over and over in his left hand, in his right, lightly bouncing the cue.
You tell him, Sure. As bar tables go, it’s not bad, so you can shoot softly, trust the table to roll fairly straight. You call heads, win the break.
Before you know it you’re looking at an easy corner shot on the eight. He’s been kind of prancing about in your field of vision as you shoot, pretending to compliment you but seeking to distract. He pulls a twenty-dollar bill out of his jeans, lays it down on the table and snarls, Make it yer dead…
That night, maybe you were fueled by one too many Scotches. You step up and look down, out past the cue, then up at his jagged blue eyes and scruffy blonde hair glowering at you. But you focus on that one pure point shining for you, on the black curve of the eight ball, then tap the cue—soundlessly it rolls, as if on a rail, over the bill, the eight dropping dead center into the pocket.
You pick up the bill, stash it in your shirt pocket. Your eyes and arm raise in time to catch the pool cue suddenly swinging your way.
When he launches himself at you, a half turn of your body, grab and assist to the back of his plaid Pendleton sends him sprawling. But the two goons, pile on you from behind, knock you down to the dank stench of the dark, dirty floor…Before they can grapple a hold you stand, feeling just a few scrapes and nicks, as an angry Mars breathing heavenly fire.
Even your amigo—slinking into his beer at the bar—is afraid to look at you. You dust yourself off, sling your coat over your shoulder, and, all senses forced alive, walk out the shithole’s door…
So now you’re deep in the so-called heart of Texas, and, yeah, you’re still playing bubba’s game of pool. Guess that you could tell them of your having been one bad hombre in the old days, but down here, fifteen hundred miles from any homies in either direction, you know it wouldn’t do much good…
You see, you’re really one of the ancients. You’re of the Celts, a people whom the mountain people used to kidnap, during the Roman Empire, and force to work the Halstatt salt mines. In those days most Celts traveled the old “silk routes” in small bands. Many of the men over six feet, like your self; riding in chariots drawn by star gazing horses, they feared nothing. Yet, when the narrow mountain passes were blocked—by the four-foot Lilliputians native to the xenophobic interior—their usual strategic advantages were nullified. Bound tightly with thick cord, starved and beaten, these Gullivers were put to slave labor, mining salt for trade to the Empire, until—one eventual day—they’d go berserk and were killed…
Down here in Dallas, now, with your lady, you do the tour. Through the newly burgeoning arts district, downtown—the Hard Rock Café, with all the 5’10” wannabe supermodels in hot pants, tossing teased blonde hair and pouting at the shiny new Cad’s cruising past…
You even take a look at the damned grassy knoll, where Japanese tourists have their pictures taken atop…The scratchy voice of some homeless guy with a sandwich billboard advertises the nearby JFK museum…
Then you do the sultry, long drive out of town—navigate a hodgepodge of rippling reflective mirrors, curves and triangles tossed together any which way around the octopus-drunk freeway tentacles, still under construction, at it’s center. Find some flat open country—a long two-lane road over the heat-miraged horizon to some place called Texoma. Little town—one gas station, boarded-up houses weathered permanently grey.
Far cry from downtown Dallas, from all the oil money on Turtle Creek Drive—big riverside park, elegant wrought-iron benches placed about the carefully cultivated expanses of green.
Architectural marvels of mansions well set back behind the brick walls, security-camera’d gates…
Turning down the Red River graveled road, to where a lake has been created by the Army Corps of Engineers, you’re glad to be beneath the bank’s willow trees. Out of the heat. It’s so peaceful here, you don’t even mind it when your lady asks you to bum a cigarette from three cowboys—drinking a case of beer in the cab of a nearby pickup truck.
A bit later you’re at a low slung roadhouse where your lady claims, as it’s Sunday, they give out free beer. It’s like a religion here, she says, with that easy smile of hers—the one you fall asleep in the peacefulness of night looking at, her head cradled in your arm.
Country karaoke as well. Some 200 songs in the book the waitress brings you—along with request slips. Big wide-screened television that flashes the bouncing cue ball lyrics for the cowboy-hat’d and booted guys who kind of stumble up, mid-afternoon buzzed, to the mike, plop their beer bellies down on the stool, and proceed to butcher, what you’re seeing, maybe for the first time, is some guy’s tender and eloquent words of love…
When your lady’s teenage son finds a “Beastie Boys” song, “Licensed to Ill,” and raps it out to polite applause you shoo him and her to the door, load up the Volvo—too much of a curiosity in this parking lot of pickup trucks with shotguns rear-window racked—and head on back to Dallas.
That night, back at the “Texas Tux Lounge,” your play at the table wins some fancy silk lingerie, risqué enough to make your lady blush, and you excuse yourself and retire …
When your lady’s mother wants you and your lady to go country line dancing to the break of dawn, you look at how tired your lady’s face is beginning to look, decline politely and head home…
The next day you’re back on the road again. The big reconciliation between mother, having called from her “deathbed,” and daughter never really happened. And the step-dad’s all grumpy about this, that & the other thing…
When you’d driven down, the sun danced all day along the
ribbon of tarmac stretched to the horizon. On this the return trip, a hint of fall now nips the air. Though the Volvo’s done this trip half a dozen times, the engine’s hum doesn’t seem so certain. Sure enough, in the middle of West Texas, three shipping days from the Dallas Volvo dealership, the water pump goes.
Back cruising through the night, the engine’s temp staying low, the bright carnival lights of Las Vegas—lost wages, as Steely Dan sang—appear on the horizon.
On the way down you managed to bypass this town, looking at sprawling new subdivision after subdivision carved into the desert, casino after casino honeycombed with gleaming semis, weather-beaten RV’s, cars, trucks—all like worker bees around this artificial hive, some monument to however long shot it may be, a possibility…
So you coast the Volvo past the Venetian citadels, mini-Eiffel Tower, even half of a huge Harley-Davidson, hurtling through a wall, V-twin engine hanging over the strip. Slow cruise in the midst of the tourist pack, taking in all the other bizarre icons of this baroque pastiche. At the Palms Casino you turn into the parking lot. Your lady, you see, claims it’s the best shot…
You park the car, herd your group into the rest of the crowd—all eager to pay homage to this modern Wheel of Fortuna…You’re thinking about back in the days of ancient Empire… Those Annals you’d once read come alive; you’re seeing one of the white-toga’d ruling elite—having just heard of some inferior’s ill-fortune, he shrugs, palms upward, and looks helplessly to the skies, pretending to bewail Fortuna’s beclouded wind of bad luck … Ah, what can one do about Fortuna and the Fates…
You shrug jacket tighter and head towards the big glass doors. The water pump, your lady’s necessities (French Vanilla cappuccinos and cigarettes) ate up the return You know you’ve got to win. Dumbstruck as the others milling randomly about, you clutch your last ten in your pocket as a lucky rabbit’s foot. You sit down at the blackjack table and toss that bill down for a hand.
You look around at all the bland faces drawn tight—not cool, not sophisticated, not having fun, just uptight. The dealer acts like a refugee from an Interstate truck stop—raspy voice calling everybody honey.
More than her voice grates at you. Too much on your mind, all the work you’re going to face upon your return; matters all dropped for your lady’s spur of the moment emergency trip. You’re wondering how the things once simple in your life—stuff you used to be able to take for granted, or maybe even the stuff some normal citizen does, going about that sit back and enjoy the movie! the fool’s been told is his or her life—all somehow have gotten so impossible…
First hand your two face cards beat the dealer’s eighteen. But you and your lady’s sigh of relief settle into a pattern of little up, little down…
Fatigue catches up with your lady—you can’t remember a road trip as exhausting as this one—and she goes back out to the parking lot to sleep in the car. You pace yourself with the free Scotch and settle down to get into the groove…
As you chuck the “counting cards” system a college friend showed you, back in the days, and rely on sheer instinct your chips begin to fill your well…
You’re trying not to think about a conversation you had a few nights back—sitting outside, under the stars, sipping beer with your lady’s ex. Personable guy, but one always with a con going.
He was telling stories about your lady’s used to be wilder days. One time she supposedly took off with a bunch of Hell’s Angels when she was with him in a bar—he said he had to go bang on the door of the clubhouse to, the next day, get her back. He claimed, too, that she’d ruthlessly spent all of the little chunk of oil money his daddy had given him…Yessiree, that woman goes through money and men like water…
Yeah, well that was back in her days, which didn’t mean much—hey look, a good looking southern gal deep in the land of down yonder?
By the time you’ve met her, she’s gone though a painful divorce and then to school, finally—getting her MFA in San Francisco…
Now she’s that artist you so love—hiding out behind her Wayfarers on your trips up the coast to Mendocino. Reminding you of what the gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson once said, to an aspiring writer, Son, crazy is a term applied lovingly to artists…Insanity, well, that’s a legal term…Make sure you know the fucking difference!”
And she’s the artist with such deep colors of vision—most important, the space between. The resourceful one, who, before she met you, upon having had her brushes and paints stolen by a fool mistaking more, proceeded to paint the canvas she saw in her head with sticks as brushes…
Now you look around at all the tits and ass threatening to flop out of flimsy outfits, all the squint-eyed men flashing, in grubbly little pinkie-ringed hands, clips of bills, chips, as some kind of ritualistic license to not only ogle but to purchase what obviously is new inventory and all that fatigue you haven’t been able to afford over the past few months hits you—as too many tons of cascading bricks, blows mapped and marked out by some damn little fool without a clue……
new dealer arrives. He flashes a grin of silver-capped teeth and arranges his card shoe. His eyes have that now familiar look of the dead, of having gone past the point of caring. But not to that point of being at peace.
Maybe peace is another one of those illusions in this land of tis of thee. Does anyone feel it anymore? After passing all those Marilyn look-alikes, hiking fluffy, little-girl dresses, on the neon-heated sidewalks you know that, for a price, they promise the matter, but isn’t it, or maybe, didn’t it used to be, more?
All the jumbled, overcrowded morass begging for attention out there on the main drag sweep past. You can’t help but notice that this new dealer looks like somebody you’ve seen in a movie. But not, say, Gary Cooper on a white horse. No this guy looks just like the snake-skin-cowboy booted, knuckle-tatoo’d thug in Quentin Tarantino’s Wild at Heart—the unadulterated evil that got such a kick out of tearing up Lulu & Sailor. No matter how pathetic their life already was.
Same rotted teeth and gums as the movie when he smiles, says, “Senor, how is Lady Luck treating you tonight?”
“Not bad,” you respond. Truth is that you haven’t counted your chips—old superstition.
You watch him feign clumsiness as he deals—your King and Queen lose to his blackjack. You toss in a couple of more hands without betting. Gathering your chips—they stretch from your thumb to middle finger—you do a count. $215, enough for a room and gas home. You exhale, for the first time in hours, and rise to cash-out.
But on your way to the parking lot the creep dealer turns back up like a bad penny. Five of them, actually. Four punks on BMX’s— bouncing pool cue bottom half’s off the greasy tarmac—and a fat white bubba. All early twenties, wearing T-Shirts captioned “SECURITY.”
“Where ya goin’, champ?” the fat white boy drawls.
“Home,” you yawn. “Through for the night.”
“Tha’s right you’re through. We been watching you—you must think you’re some Hollywood movie star or sumpin.”
The BMX punks chortle.
Well yer reel done ended.”
You’ve been here before too. And not just back in the days. Through your fatigue a lightning flash of a memory strikes. You’re a wee one, sitting on your Irish grandfather’s knee. In between sneaking up the back steps from the basement den to the kitchen to acquire—without your good Catholic gran taking notice—more warrior meade for him, you listen, raptly, to his Boston Brahmin brogue intone tales of King Arthur and his Round Table of Olde….
And there he stood, lad, on that promontory overlooking the eastern sea of the Motherland. Naked to the waist, midnight blue war clay streaking those high-boned cheeks. Left hand shielding his eyes—brown as the Mother earth, deeply piercing as a falcon’s—he’d watch the advance boats from yet another Saxon war galley oar in, and, when they’d catch sight of him and pause mid-stroke,
why he’d boom out , “Well, are we going to have at it or what? I don’t have all day you know!”
More times than not, the boats would put about, return to the war galley, hoist sails and disappear…
Now those were tough times, laddie. So many miles of coastline, so few able to defend. The warriors were spread so thin that their scouting was most often only solitary. So having that Celtic presence of mind—as when an old Irishman and his two sons bluffed an entire Roman legion into backing down from seizing a key pass—was most important.
Now see yourself standing your high ground in the fading light of day—not wanting to look around behind you, wondering if this time, truly, would finally be the one on which you were all alone…
But our good King Arthur never gave in to that fear…
At this point your Grandfather’s eyes would grow large with meaning, his voice would soften, drop in pitch a wee bit more…
You see, lad, he was not the type to bluff…
“Hey, this is Vegas, right?” You smile, but it’s slow and real—that of a man with nothing left to lose.
The littlest one snorts with amusement. “Dang fool don’t even know where he is!”
“You got that mayor who’s a Mafioso, right?”
The BMX’s, which have pushed themselves into a circle around you, pull up. “Yeah, so what the fuck?” Tall, dark sullen one.
"Yeah, well, I got family back in New York, ya know? The real city, not this piece of paper-mache shit you got here." Eyes warily dart to the big bubba, looking for a signal. “Diamond district, lower Manhattan, They hear I get disrespected here I’m sure your mayor gonna hear all about it, too, capiche, you motherfuckin’ little fronzio’s? ”
You’ve been in a ready position, hands with palms in, low and loose just in front of you. Big Bubba’s eyes look a little glazed–blank as an Arkansa chicken’s–he’s kind of staring at you and not at you…
You laugh—an easy deep belly release—turn and walk.
You see, like good King Arthur, you never look back…
Inside that air-conditioned sterility we in this country call a motel your lady sleeps—kind of sprawled about the covers. You’ve been up, sitting in the big, overstuffed chair and doing a little meditation. You rise, unbutton shirt and pants and drape them over the chair. You pull back the covers on the bed, slide your lady in, get in bed yourself. Tears on her cheek, she turns towards you, slides her arms around your waist, says Hold me…
and you do.
1. "Luchenbach, Texas," Waylon Jennings
