Whip it away! The rancid array of mediocrity’s quay — built sans display, refined with dismay, discarded to lay along the path of decay forgotten, displaced and abandoned. Forgive them ceaseless swooning. For they care not, my friends, for Hedonist pens, for wild denizens estranged from Platonian men who decree that they are the chosen. Assured, you can be, of their vain gallantry, of their cheap valiantry, and paled by the fee that they ask for their leading. An offer made for mooning. They ask you stay straight, your hormones abate, your ideals desecrate, your beliefs concentrate, your life stipulate to a mild, temperate gate, and calmly await the requiem of your passing. A bane, simple gesture guise booning Thus is my call, to stout heathens all, to all witches and warlocks and that folderol — “we party tonight! By ordeal and fight. We take what we want and leave others to plight. To pillage! To plunder! To forage! To delve. To break out the whiskey and breakdown the shelves. To tear up the tables and burn all the clocks, to wreak all that’s maudlin, to pelt it with rocks.” And yet bade drunken minstrels keep crooning. It resounds passe’ , a violence that gay, a suggestion affray, equating nobility with the savage. The idea seems odd, to sequestrations plod, to rail on their god, their misery applaud, their institutions defraud, their authority mock, rake and ravage. Still, what can one do? They chase after you. They force you two vote for some bloated old goats, to hammer your brain and tighten your straight-jacket-coat, then seize you for your baggage. They force you to work, they decree you to pay, they demand you to live in the style which they say. And if you demure, opt for life in a blur, in a word: cynosure, you’re labeled insane, by the dull and the tame, and they jail you to rot like a cabbage. An existence worth eschewing. WHOOP UP so inclined! Touch direct the divine! Run regal with time! Retrieve the sublime, stone-sheathed in fired-lime and behold it for the taking. Drink deep the dead power, which bades you devour all the vile and the rancid decline. I digress. To quote words of choice, dramatic and moist from Anthony Keidis’ Chili Pepperian voice: “ Glory of the warrior is my must, erotic shock is a functional lust. Temporarily blind, dimension to discover, in time, each into the other. Uncontrollable notes from her Snow White flow, in the space in which two bodies flow. Operatic by voice or fanatic choice, aromatic is the flower-ship, must be voiced.” — The Red Hot Chili Peppers. * * * You’re in link mano-a-mano with the station where the big boys jam: Station K-T-H-O-R, dug deep into the digs at party central. We now slap you back to “Duct-tapped boots and Jesus Suits.” Have a nice flight. * * * Ted throws the television first. We’re sitting in the living room, party banter skittering about, and Ted breezes down the hallway with the old television from his bedroom hoisted over his head, sails through the open door and heaves the thing off the porch onto the sidewalk, about fifteen feet down. The television shatter-explodes with a giant hiss as the cathode ray tube looses integrity and releases noble gas to the cosmos. It will never reassemble itself, even if the Universe begins contracting. Even if time turned around. Ted hops up on the cement ledge and howls at the neighborhood. Somebody up the way tells him to“shut the fuck up.” “Ted, cool it. If somebody calls Edgar, we’re out of here.” “Fuck it then. We’ll move. I’m tired of this fuckhead telling us what to do. If we want to have a party, we’re going to have a fucking party. We pay our rent. If they don’t like it they can damn well move to Sausilito. EEEEYOW!” “Hey, god damn it! I’m serious! You punks shut up!” “Kiss my ass, dude. It’s a free neighborhood.” “You little bastard!” And the guy slams his window. “Ted,” says André, “Let’s go inside. This fuckhead’s going to call the cops.” “It’s that gay real estate guy. I’ve seen him. He’s a fucking loopy old priss.” “Precisely my point, Ted. And now he’s a pissed-off loopy old priss.” “Yeah, he’s liable to come out here with his fucking knitting needles, or HIS BIG BLACK DILDO!” “Come on, Ted.” Ted bolts from the stoop, bounds up the stairs, nearly knuckle-walking. He is primed and primal. The party moves back inside. Yes, power here for sure. Ted is incarnate. I can feel it. I wonder if he knows. I remember when Kamper told me. To this day and forever, I recall the moment I found out I was a deity incarnate. We were just beginning to accelerate. It was good acid, too. Things were moving along, we sat in Kamper’s small bedroom, dusk. No incandescent light, just Kamper and I and he tells me that he’s Bacchus. I laugh. He just looks at me quizzically. “I never lie,” he says, with a strong look. I catch a chill up my back. Acid shakes. “And I know who you are,” he says with a vague grin. You’re Thor.” And we just stared at each other, gazing, locking eyes, beyond the retina, beyond the cones and rods, beyond the neurons and synapses, beyond the cells, beyond dionucleicacid, to the soul. There we exchanged wispy tales of adventure, of standing on the mountain, of knowing the one truth, of rebirth, realizing omniscience, awakening the potential immortal. Calling it to life. And the things he told you in that glance you remember today, and forever. You are Thor. And your sitting here in San Francisco five-years later and finding the gods in the budding for yourself. Now it is the time to flip the switch inside him and see what happens. Time to tell him he’s incarnate. “Owen, do you have the keys to my place? I’m moving out at the end of the month and I need to give the keys to Barry. I found a place on Haight and Masonic, did I tell you? Well, it’s simply the most beautiful apartment I’ve ever seen. You’ll have to come see it. Hey, look, I’m sorry I was such a bitch. I didn’t mean it towards you personally. I’m just having some trouble now and I needed to let off some steam. You’re a good friend I know you understand.” “I do. But I think kicking me out of your place was a little extreme.” “Oh, if you wouldn’t have found anywhere to go I would have let you stay. You know that. But I knew you would find something.” “With a little good timing, things have worked out. I accept your apology.” “But you still shouldn’t have done her in my bed.” “I didn’t do her.” “Well, let’s just forget it. Alright? Can we just go on and be buddies again?” “I suppose.” Kristin fumbles with a tape, finds the tape deck, inserts the tape. She is cute. ‘Rambling Man’ chimes in. “Lord I was born a ramblin’ man, trying to make a living and doing the best I can. And when it’s time for leaving, I hope you’ll understand, that I was born a ramblin’ man.” Kara and Kristin singing harmony, Betty sitting back in the big circular chair. She is quiet tonight, curled up like a cat in that chair, wearing sunglasses. Might as well join the singing. Owen sings along with Kristin and Kara and the Allman Brothers, bouncing along, enjoying the party, when Ted runs by with a drum set. It’s a small kit: kick bass, two rack toms. Nothing special. Good fodder for sacrifice. Ted already has the kit hoisted and he’s not even out the door. “Dude, think about it,” says André, running up from behind, “Owen’s going to come home and you’re going to have to tell him you tossed his kit.” “He won’t give a shit.” “Oh, I think he will.” Ted stands there for a second or two, thinking. “Fuck it. EEIIIYEEEEE!” Ted hurls the drum kit off the porch, it hangs in the air, the kick bass catching wind, the swirling toms lending eccentricity to the spin. It floats for an extended moment, then falls flat. There’s a crumpling sound, but the kit holds together. Ted is estatic, standing on the ledge in frozen ecstasy. Turning to André, smiling, his eyes aglow with life, his face fully brimming with delight “André,” he says, ”This is what it’s all about.” He sounds almost flabbergasted, awestruck with wonder. He appears childlike, but very old. Ancient. In complete adoration he raises his arms, fully extended, lifts his head to the city in memoriam. He appears quite grand for a moment. Dignified. Then they all see the police car coming up Scott street. Ted begins laughing like a banshee, turns and makes for the apartment. André and Owen duck inside, André hits the lights and sprints the length of the long hallway towards the back. He runs like a lizard. The rest of the party joins him, save for Kara, who hides on the floor of the living room, peeking up above the window sill. Ted lays on the floor in a fit of giggling lunacy. The car stops in front of the house and Owen backs away from the window, hiding in the shadows. He can’t see the cop as he walks up the stairs and knocks on the door. Ted continues giggling, Owen answers the door. “Good evening.” “Good evening,” says the cop. He’s a small, rather mild-mannered older black gentleman with graying curly hair. “How you doing this evening?” “Fine, thank you. Is there a problem?” The only sound emitting from the apartment is Ted’s lunatic laughter. He is completely out-of-control. “Well, we had a noise complaint. I just wanted to make sure everything was alright. Is everything alright?” “Yes, sir. We’re having a few friends over and a couple of them have had too much to drink. Sorry about the complaint. I promise we’ll keep it down.” “I would appreciate that. Thank you.” And he turns and walks back down the stairs, slowly, relaxed. The cop looks more like a parking lot attendant. He’s not even wearing a gun. Owen watches him, amazed. He closes the door. “If this were Lincoln we’d be fucked. Totally fucked. They would’ve stormed in searched the place, found the plants and we’d all be in jail right now.” “This is not Nebraska,” says Kara, standing up and turning the lights back on. Betty had not moved during the entire ordeal. She sat there, cool as a corpse. “You handled that well,” she said, “you’re smooth. And so amiable.” “Well, I figure it’s better to be pleasant and snow them, rather than piss them off. If you’re nice they usually go away.” She nods and gives him a half-smile, half-sneer. Ted finally stops laughing picks himself up off the floor. “Fuck that old clone,” he says, turns for the stereo, the party slowly begins to make its way towards the front, emerging slowly, stupified, like gophers after a torrential rain. “You looked just like Bill when you ran down the hallway, André,” says Owen, “if I didn’t know better I’d say you were part iguana.” André laughs, but he’s a little shook up. He thought they had been fucked, too. He’s sweating. “Dude, I thought we were in for it.” “So did I.” “That old butthead ain’t going to do nothing. He’s a hired security guard. He wasn’t even a cop.” “How would you know? You were laying on the floor laughing like a goon.” “Dude, I totally knew nothing was going to happen.” He cues up N.W.A.’s ‘Fuck the Police’, cranks the stereo. Rap. It had to be rap. Rap bites. Still, it does have a beat, a certain urgent appeal. Look at them dancing, lost in the rhythms of war. That’s what attracts people to rap: it’s a war dance. A declaration of independence. Homage to the cause. It’s the music you heard from the village before wandering out into the jungles to kick ass. Rhythm’s the oldest form of music. The stories are strong and defiant. They call thunder and lightning. You hear the call. You feel the hair rising on your arms and nape. Your balls tightening up into your groin. They want thunder and lightning. They want to rock. They want to war. Give it to them. Give them the full show. Why hold back at all. Why are you always so damned reserved? You’ve got more power than these foolish drug-adled mortals. Give them want they want. Give them something to remember. The music vibrates the entire building, the throbbing bass reverberations beat at the shrine on the mantel. A stand-up Michael Jackson falls down. Kara, Betty, Ted, André, Kristin and Tim grind away, consumed. Fuck the police. Leaping from the hallway to the fireplace, Owen joins the dance. The hair-tie whips from his ponytail, his long, fine blonde hair taking sail, he performs his war dance. They all stop dancing and watch. Head aflail, hips gyrating, staying on the balls of his feet. Total commitment to action. They watch him, surprised as hell. His hands closed tight, arms in a whorl, the energy inside him building. The anger and frustration melding into one massive lump of electrochemical angst. And he builds it inside and when he can no longer keep it within himself he releases it to the world. And fire spits from the left-hand tweeter as the speaker seemingly explodes. Everyone jumps back, André turns the music off, begins inspecting the speaker. Ted stares gape-jawed at Owen, sporting a Cheshire cat grin. “Who the fuck are you, dude.” Owen places his hands on Ted shoulders, pulls them face to face, looks him in the eyes, focuses on the shining iris. Fate decrees we meet, brother. I bring you a wakeup call from Fate. You are a god, brother, are you not? Do you not feel the burning beneath your flesh? Do you not feel the weight of the world lain upon you shoulders? Does the burden of humanity not drag you to the deepest depths of mortal scum? Do you not see the visions of the future, of the past? Do you not harbor the rage of a thousand men within a fingernail? Have you not built an enshrined throne in honor of yourself? You lead, brother. The indolent mortals have respect for you. Are you not a king of white trash? Do you not lead the wretched? Do you not remember when we stood on the mountains of a distant sun together? Alas, together — only to separate and roam the universe. You remember that mountain? Do you remember me? I am Thor, god of thunder, master of oak. I lifted you from the shroud. Do you remember? I know that you do. I see it in your eyes. I see it in your crazy prophet eyes. You recall our youth. Ah, our foolish youth. You were there when we spoke the One Truth — the only time it was ever properly worded. The song of songs we created, the stories told for the first time, the febrile dances, sublime pictures. The games. Oh! Brother, the games. I cannot tell you how I miss the god games. And, now, a few billion years later, we meet, brother. Clan! We are progeny of the universe, you and I. Spewed out billions of years ago alongside the constellations. We expand with the heavens. We gather soon. But for now we have the show. Let us give them a show. From one god to another. We both understand the method, means and outcome. I see you aligned with the nodes of genius. Don’t hide them, they emit pure beauty. But you are shy. I understand. Fear not, god child. We are not alone. A handful wander the planet. I know of Bacchus. He is well. Who have you seen? Elvis? Odin? Bes? Shiva? Bes is out there somewhere. Somewhere near. Osiris, as well. Did you catch the gag they pulled with Narakajapa? I heard but a moment ago. Scalawag gods, those two. Brother be happy, your soul spawns from the divine, you draw from the sacred wellspring of the First Thought, you drink from depthless ladle of eternity. Let me buy you a libation. They separate. Ted is smiling but he looks disoriented. “You and I,” he says, still out-of-it, “we’re the same.” Owen smiles a paternal smile, nods. “What the hell.” “Come on, Ted, let’s talk.” Owen takes Ted out of the living room, leads him to the dark kitchen. Ted still looks stunned. “What the hell happened in there?” “We exchanged a few stories. I told you a couple things. Do you remember?” “Yeah. I got these images of mountains and of these dudes dancing around saying something in an old language. Swahili, maybe. I don’t know. It was familiar, but I don’t remember when it happened.” “A long time ago, that’s when it happened.” “Who the fuck are you dude?” “I told you, I am Thor incarnate.” “And who am I?” “You, my friend, remind me of Jesus, or Loki perhaps. Your mannerisms and beliefs. You’re incarnate, you know that, don’t you?” “I’ve always wondered. I’ve always thought there was something different about me.” “Well, you are special. Indeed. I’ve met Bacchus. Damn I wish he were here now. He’s good at this. But he’s not here. I could call him, I suppose, let you talk to him for a moment. I don’t know if a disembodied voice over a phone will produce another catharsis, but we could try.” Owen dials Kamper’s phone number, gets the answering machine. “Damn you anyway, Kamper.” Look, Ted, the point is you and I can have some fun together. We can do great things and share all that we reap.” “What do you mean? What, you want Betty or something?” “No. Nothing like that. I’m not here to steal your woman, Ted. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not talking about chump change, Ted. Not that there’s anything wrong with Betty, but I’m talking about revolution. About pillaging. About taking authority by the balls and squeezing. Together you and I could do that. With my strength-of-character and your charisma. We can take them nonstop to Paganland.” Ted doesn’t say anything for a moment. He looks shell-shocked-numb. Tugging at his hair, long, brown and scraggly, staring at the floor, hardly moving, finally he speaks. “I’ve got to think about all this.” And he walks out of the kitchen, down the hallway, and out the front door with a gate more subdued than when he carried the drum set. Walking back up to the living room, Owen sees Ted sitting on the porch, quite, reflective, removed. “What the fuck did you say to him?” “Oh, nothing. I just confronted him with his worst fear.” “What’s that?” “That he might be a god.” “Oh. Well that sounds like a fear Ted would have. Looks like you did a fine job on him.” “I’m afraid I blew Ted up. He’s no longer with us this evening.” “That’s alright. Maybe we can have some fun without destroying the house and getting evicted in the same sweep.” “That would be nice, considering I just kicked out seven-hundred dollars to move in.” “No doubt.” Kara sits in one of the comfy chairs, staring at Owen with a wry grin on her face. “Owen, come here for a second.” “What you need there, Sancho?” “You gave Ted quite a wallop.” “He was asking for it. He challenged me. I may have gone a little overboard, but la-dee-da, I got carried away.” “You think he’ll be okay?” “We’ll see. I laid a hefty spin on it. He’s got a killer ricochet in progress. If he’s as strong as he claims, he’ll be fine. If not, it’ll wreak him and he’ll find out he isn’t who he thinks he is.” “Who’s that?” “Oh, Ted has a Christ Complex the size of Texas. You see Christ incarnates all the time, usually they’re fakes. All insanity and compassion, no guts. Takes a lot of guts to be a god.” “I’m sure you know.” “Hey now, I’m just making observations. Does it or does it not take courage to stand up and tell people, with conviction, that you house the spirit of an incarnate idyll prophet. If you tell them wrong you wind up in a rubber room. Tricky stuff, prophecy. Painful, often brutal, lonely, misunderstood, crazy with omniscience — no fun being a god. It’s a hard life.” “Yeah, but you could find ways to have a good time. Look at Elvis.” “Oh, sure, Elvis had a ball on his last wing around. He had so much fun that he had to take Percodan constantly to keep himself from wigging and revealing his true nature. He had so much fun that he literally puked-up his guts. What the hell could he do? He was a god. He had to die young to remain immortal, to remain forever young. He was on the way down and rather than allow his parish to behold the decline, he left the building. It was best for his career.” “That’s nothing new.” “Oh, hell no. But it’s the truth. It’s human nature: vulturing. Picking the remains when the struggler dies. Retaining relics. A lock of hair, finger nail clippings, cum-stained underwear, urine, the head if you get there first.” “You’re disgusting.” “Ah, but I cite historical examples. What about St. Cuthbert? He died and they cut him up and scattered him all over England.” “That was a long time ago.” “No. Not so long ago. Not so different. People are the same. They live for relics. They live to hold out someone else’s past in reverence. Procreate a purposely unattainable ideal. Gives them a reason to get out of bed.” “What, to get up and kill their god?” “No. To rise and serve their god. But over time they become disenchanted because they fail to reap the benefits of servitude. Then, if they happen to worship a living prophet, rather than a dead one, they up and kill them, then worship them happily ever after. That is the nature of infantile humans: they are pigs. They take whatever they can get their hands on. They are cattle, they want only that which they cannot have. They are sheep, they need to be tended and told what to do. That’s a typical human for you. Greedy, selfish, ignorant.” “Pretty much sums it up.” “There are others, of course, but to find them in pure form is truly rare. Truly a work to behold.” “You really think he’s a god? Or were you just fucking with his head?” “We’ll see. I gave him a pretty good whomping. Maybe I was just fucking with him. Maybe I needed to let off a little steam. He was receptive, but that could just be sensitivity. Too soon to tell. I wasn’t much good the first night I found out. I was rattled, but I went with it. I didn’t fight it. I accepted my Fate.” “I know. But Ted’s not as strong.” “Strong enough to ask for it, he is. Strong enough to take it, he must be. If not, waste my time, he shouldn’t. He’s got a shine, this one, but that doesn’t mean anything. We’ll see what kind of god Ted makes.” * * * Morning comes around after noon. Owen rises first, makes coffee. The apartment’s a wreck. André stumbles out next, plops down in the comfy orange chair, opposite Owen, drinking coffee, the sludge-like blood in his veins slowly thinning. They are all quite hungover. “Good party, huh.” “I had fun.” “Yeah, but I wish I were dead,” André says, lights a cigarette, takes a sip of coffee. “I know the feeling, and wish that happiness were my own.” “You have a bong hit yet?” “I was getting around to it.” “Well, let me help you out. Jesus, we smoked a lot last night. This dish was full.” “Not any more.” “No doubt.” “Should we survey the aftermath.” “Yeah, I suppose.” Outside on the porch, the sun over the yardarm, André and Owen behold the sidewalk. All three motorcycles are parked on the sidewalk, all are ticketed. The drum set is gone, the television splayed out in front of the house, scattered down the sidewalk, beer bottles laid slain along the steps. A bottle of Jim Beam®, with just a swig or two left in it sits on the top step near the front door. “Looks like somebody had a party.” “Yep.” “I suppose we ought to clean up Ted’s mess,” André says, grabbing the beer cans off the bushes.” “Why don’t we let Ted do it.” “Because he won’t.” “Act of Defiance?” “Remnants of the feast.” “Yeah, I suppose. Sure does start to pile up after awhile, though.” “Street kids take care of the cans and bottles, they probably won’t haul the television away, though.” “I wouldn’t figure.” “Let’s set it on top of the Papa Wheelie van,” André says. Owen grabs the carcass and carries it, with André in the lead, up the street and around the corner onto Folsom. The beat-up burnt orange 76 Chevy conversion van with two flat tires and eight or ten parking tickets sits in the stall just around the corner. The Papa Wheelie van. Owen hoists the television onto the roof, the TV resting like a crown. And a broken crown, at that. It blends well with the van. “Maybe we should think about fastening it to the top.” “Not a bad idea. What would you use?” “Pipe.” “Pipe?” “Four three-quarter inch pipes bolted to the roof. Waterproofed, of course.” “Well, that goes without saying.” “Of course. Shall we retire to the living room and die?” “Sounds like a plan to me.” The two walk back to the house, feeling fatigued, drained and delirious. “I’m feeling knapped out.” “I feel a little chapped, myself. I have to work tonight. That’s going to suck.” “A little coffee, maybe head up to Sam’s later for a little grub, we’ll be set straight.” Back around the corner to the apartment, walking down the sidewalk, up the stairs, Ted standing on the porch, with a serious bed head. “You look a little chapped, their party monster.” “Chaffed, Ang, a wee chaffed.” Ted says. He avoids looking at Owen. “Hey, dude.” “Ted. Feeling a little fuzzy?” “Hell yes. Dude, I was fucking out of it.” “I hadn’t noticed.” “Yeah, right.” Andréwalks on up the stairs, Owen takes a deep breath and looks to the sky. Clouds from the bay roll in with the dying of the day. The wind is cool and moist. Owen goes inside to shower, leaving Ted, now calm, standing on the porch staring at the scarce remnants of a shattered television scattered on the sidewalk. And in the cosmos an idea once telewhispered to a long lost friend decays in quiet agony. Peace. * * * We pause for a moment for a message from the author. “Throughout the eons gods connect, perhaps via elective affinity, perhaps by collision. Sometimes an incredible genesis occurs. Sometimes it turns ugly. “Gods have monestrous egos. “And I, Thor, God of Thunder, God of War, Master of Oak, admit that, although well-intentioned, I sometimes show too much zeal. That, however, is my nature. In any case, when greeting a long lost brother I like to display my affection with a big bear hug. Sometimes, I am told, I hug too hard. I guess I just don’t know my own strength. And in the purest sense of the word — strength — no dimensions should be drawn, no boundaries imposed, no limitations conceived, nothing held back. Nothing in the universe is as potentially powerful as strength of spirit. Nothing. Well, there it is, then. To the lame prophets, I demure, perhaps next time I will offer a simple handshake Or maybe a passive nod. I wouldn’t want to mar your dainty deified spirit. It is not always fun to be a god. It is not always grapes and babes and Babylon. It is not always savory nectar. No sir. And I might say to you, were I so inclined, that raw strength of will creates the foundation on which gods stand over the cowering mortals. Strength is the stage on which desire cries out for bigger and better life-styles. Without it, you might as well speak to a rock. Rocks make good listeners, and they can teach you how to grow very old, but they can’t help you become immortal. Not everyone gets to be a god. Most spirits flee in the presence of omniscience. Most who hold the potential go insane after reaching out and touching the ethereal nebula of omnipotence. Hard to handle, indeed. Albeit, tailor-made for the right spirit. Some spirits, however, just don’t fit the suit. Thank you for your attention. We now return you to our eternally scheduled illusion, “Duct-taped Boots and Jesus Suits.” * * * “Touching her skin where the needles poked, I counted thirteen. Baker’s dozen, I say. She fingertips mine, red — last night’s; pink — last week. But watch, she whispers. It’ll go white, mine won’t. This won’t, I hope . . . stroking her slit. And she takes me in hand, opens herself’s black skin. Push it here, we’ll both be crimson. “I put five in her homeless hand. She lets it trace over the side of my face. I’m 62, she says. You wouldn’t remember the nights I did this, letting my fingers skim someone’s skin, touching men’s chests, making nipples stiff. No I say. So, she does it, taking dirty mittens off, cracked fingers easy inside my shirt, breath as bad as my crotch’s smell where her lips are rough on me.” “What you think man? Two dollars. This is some kick ass shit. I know this guy. He’s a fucking genius. Out of his white-ass head” Owen looks at the thin pamphlet entitled Suck Cock White Boy!, by some whacko poet named Paul Weinman. The meter runs alright. Not as smooth as Bukowski, though. No one is as smooth as Bukowski. “Buck fifty.” “Ah, man. I got to have two dollars. Boy needs the money.” “It says on the back that the book was printed with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. He’s got a fucking grant. He doesn’t need the money. I wish I had a fucking grant so I could just hang out and write dirty poems. I wish I could hang out and write all the time. But I can’t. I’ve got to work. And that detracts from my writing time. Look, sell it to me for a buck fifty and I’ll see if I can’t get some of them published.” “And he’ll get the credit?” “He’ll get the credit. Hey there, what’s up. You guys got ID?” The Lebanese boys take their passports out one-by-one, show them to Owen. “World beat?” “World beat.” “Women?” “Plenty of women. Pay there at the window. So what’s the scam, dude. You going to let me have it?” “Ah, shit, I suppose. Since you’re a writer and all.” “Here’s a buck. I owe you fifty cents.” “I catch you for it. I work this street at night. I don’t have to, I work in a beauty salon down in lower haight. Just want to keep the brothers informed.” “Somebody’s got to do it.” “Alright, brother. We’ll catch you next Sunday,” says the rotund black dude. Owen doesn’t quite know what to make of him. Donned in camouflage jacket and beige bell-bottom corduroys, head shaped like a Anjou pear. He walks very fast and talks to himself while he paces Divisidero, selling homelessness newspapers and putrid poetry and preaching street gospel. He speaks well, but very fast. He seems in touch. But then he walks away and it’s like the radio in his head flips to another frequency. Listening to a different station than most. Owen wonders what station. Then he sees Heather coming down the sidewalk, a couple blocks away, and all thoughts of the street preacher lift like fog and reveal the beauty of the bay area before him, only a block away. Her long brown hair is down tonight. She looks beautiful. Owen feels his face flush watching her draw near the club. She’s wearing another baggy sweatshirt. Always trying to hide what she’s got, he thinks, but not afraid to show it off once she’s inside the club. “Hello,” she says. “Morning,” Owen says, hands her a ticket. She smiles, feigns a pinch at his cheek. “You’re sweet.” “Don’t tell anyone. It’ll ruin my reputation.” “Your secret is safe with me. You protecting me tonight?” “I’ll keep my eye on you.” “Good,” she says, spins off with a hair whip into the club. Harry comes out, watches her go in, winks at Owen. “I think she’s got it for you.” “Ah, she’s just covering her ass.” “I’d like to cover her ass.” “You just stay away from her ass.” Harry hands him a drink. “Don’t worry. She’s not my type. She’s cute, though. “Told her I’d watch her dance. Better get on with it. I’ll take back door for awhile.” “Do it up.” Queen Latifa yammers away inside the club, gaudy and overweight and gigantic on the ten foot screen “ . . . I don’t know you from a can of paint.” A can of paint? What the fuck kind of an analogy is that? Nice try, bitch. Step down. Next. But she’s still there. The club brimming with ethnic eclectics swaying, grinding and spinning, exhilarated by Queen Latifa. Heather wiggles away on one of the four raised spotlight platforms. She’s lost her sweatshirt and her huge breasts hardly move as she dances. Firm. Large firm breasts, big nose, tight ass, soft brown eyes, thick lips. She’s one for the chasing. “Hi.” It’s April, out of nowhere. Owen whips back from a from the platform, a little flushed. “Hey, how are you doing.” “I’m Alright. Excited, really. I’m going to Hawaii tomorrow.” “No kidding. For what?” “Well, one of my brothers lives out there and he said I could come out and sell my jewelry.” “What do you make?” “Bracelets, rings, earrings, nose rings, that ilk.” “You’ll have to show me sometime.” “I’ll bring you something from Hawaii. Do you need another drink? I’ll get it for you.” “Alright.” April walks over to the bar, Owen watches her sway, admiring her body. She’s a looker. No doubt about that. Her butt looks a tad wide, maybe she’s got birthing hips. Heather kneels down on the platform talking to a sandy haired dude in a woven serape. She’s almost falling out of her leotards. “Here you go.” “Thanks, April. You’re very kind.” “Oh, I’m just sweet on you,” she says, pats his knee and walks away, coy, like a gentle ghost. Black leather night! Rapt, I stand. Behold the splendor of your velvet groin, the feel of your silken breasts, my tongue over your mulatto skin, your thick lips succulent in my mouth, swollen labia warm and moist against my nose. Your musk anointing my hard palate, my gullet. Take me inside you and we mingle with divinity. Lady Luna, show me the bridge. Where the hell is that bridge? “Where’s the bridge?” Owen says aloud, the phrase swirls into the music like spice — lost to sight, immortal in taste. He is tired. The alcohol is making him drowsy. Perhaps some juice. Perhaps another drink. Lighting a cigarette, he looks back over at Heather writhing to the soweto funk in healing ecstasy. Watching her dance, Owen knows he could fall for her. He will not, however. He will walk away before that happens. He always walks away. Indeed. Turn and walk and don’t look back. Never look back. If you look back you lose. And you can never take a mate. Never. If you take a mate, you lose. That’s just the way it is being a god. You could try and find a female goddess, but the chances of that are slim, to be sure. Better to surround yourself with women who just want to fuck and pour the wine. Women like that are easy to find. Goddesses, well that’s an altogether more difficult proposition. Rare, it is, to find a women with the soul of a deity. Best to stick with the pristine whores. Running the infinite chase of the Yin-Yang — Yin the white, the male, the light, the gaseous spirit, weightlessness trailed endlessly by the grounding Yang. Yang, the black, the female, the dark, the fecund soul earthen and fertile, luring the soaring male, carefree and happy, down through the ionosphere and shackling him to the planet and sucking him for all his flesh will bare before expiring. This dichotomy exists as one of the funniest of the cruel jokes played on mortals by the gods. Another eternally cruel joke orchestrated by the gods would be the human brain. Enough power to realize immortality, not enough to attain it. Yet. You sense the presence, think about the presence, feel the presence, crave the presence, define the precepts of the presence, draw daliesque interpretations of the presence, behold the presence, revere and revel and bask in the afterglow of passionate presence, of the genesis, the avatar, cynosure, the rank blossoming nexus, decaying as fast as it blooms. You can realize that, but most cannot become it. And between those two jokes alone, the human plight stands to suffer a great deal. You might say lives are built around the suffering experienced. One finds intermittent happiness, but for most mortals it’s just another shitty day in paradise. Just another day on planet earth. Unless you’re immortal. * * * “You’re not eating your burrito.” “I’m not hungry,” Owen says, sitting on the beach staring out at the ocean. “Maybe I’ll never eat again.” The anger inside him churns like piss in a bladder. “Oh, stop it,” Rochelle says, draping her hand on his shoulder. It doesn’t feel the least bit comforting. The powerfully cold wind tinged with salt feels comforting, but her hand on his shoulder is like a gnat you can’t kill. “I wasn’t kidding myself. Harcourt’s a large, conservative publishing company. I didn’t expect it to get published there.” He feels it rising within. “The point is it went through the door, Owen. And he liked it. Right? He said it was brilliant. That’s the word he used. Right? Brilliant. You’re brilliant.” “That doesn’t mean anything.” He senses the strange pressure. “He gave you a list of publishers, liberal houses. I’ll bet they take it. He said they would take it.” “It’s too scatterbrained.” He feels them first crack in the dyke. “Nobody will touch it. I’ll have to write another one. A better one. More focused,” Owen says, draws deep on his cigarette, pulls a long chug of wine from the bottle. Rising like a phoenix. “No problem. I’ll write a hundred novels and I don’t care if they publish one of them.” “They will. I know. I’m your best critic.” “I just met you.” “Kara gave me some stuff you wrote along time ago, like I said. Short stories mostly. I think you’re an excellent writer.” “I’ve got a lot to learn.” It swells within him. The night sky looks clear, starless from the glare of the city. Owen feels the gumption leaking like a sprung hose. It sucks. Life sucks. “Life sucks.” “Oh, it’s not that bad.” Overflow. “You think you’ve paid your dues, you know? I traveled to hell and back to get the fodder for that book and what the hell do they do with it? Throw it on the scrap heap. Pretentious bastards. They’d rather print trash. I could make millions if I wrote trashy smut novels for disenchanted suburban housewives and widows. Kick out four or five a year, live high, own a harem.” “Fuck your harem,” she says, trying to sound like a bad girl. She does not. She sounds like a little girl trying to swear. It seems unbecoming given her natural innocence. “You shouldn’t swear. It doesn’t suit you.” It controls his words now. “I swear when I damn well please, thank you.” “Well you shouldn’t. You sound silly.” “I can be as-good-a smut mouth as the best of them. You’re not the only one who grew up on the street, you know.” “Oh what the hell do you know about the street. Little miss muffit in her fashionable apartment on the Haight, with your steady moot job with a fucking oil company, of all places. What the hell could you know about what it’s like to wander with the wicked and the filthy? All you know is the dance, sister. You talk the talk, know what I mean?” He is hurting her. Owen sees the tears, backs off. “You’re a fucking ingrateful bastard,” she says, crying freely. “Look, I’m sorry. You’re fine. I’m just feeling sorry for myself. I’m depressed. I’m pissed off. I didn’t mean it. I was venting steam.” “My life hasn’t been so sheltered. I just pretend.” “You do well.” Owen lays his arm across her back, pulls her into him. “Have some more wine. We’ll set here on the beach and drink this wine and not talk about the shitty things. Let’s talk about the good things.” “Like what?” “Like the fact that I think you’re cute.” “Well I think your damn good looking.” “What are we going to do about that?” “Finish the wine, I suppose, see what happens next,” she says, leans her head back, looks at him, they kiss. Soft, at first. Lips together, nipping, nibbling, pulling the lower lip down, making room for the tongue. Slip her the tongue. The wind seems to blow stronger, gusting at each lick. His hand on her breast, her hand rubbing his thigh. Owen pulls back. “Nice kiss.” “I liked it.” “You want more wine.” “Yes.” “I’ve got some Jim Beam®, would you like a shot?” “Maybe just one” The bottle is half-empty, Owen removes the cap, drinks a swig, hands it to Rochelle. “This’ll put hair on your chest.” “But I don’t want hair on my chest.” “It’ll keep you warm.” “That’s what I want you for.” “We’ll take care of that later.” Rochelle takes the shot like a pro, depressing a cough from her burning esophagus. “Smooth,” she says. “Smooth as gasoline.” “You drink gasoline?” “Hell yes. I live on gasoline. Ten or twenty gallons a week. High octane, that’s what appeals to me. Nothing under 92 proof.” “Uh-huh.” “Should we go for a ride?” “Sounds good to me.” “Where do you want to go?” “Back to my apartment.” “What’s there?” “A glass for the wine, a warm bed.” “It is a might nippy out tonight.” “I’m a little nippy.” “I noticed. We better get you in bed before you catch your death.” “I already did.” “Oh, you’re sweet. No one’s ever called me death before. I take it as a compliment.” “You should.” Owen fires up Rocinante. He boards, she boards and they roar off down Folsom St. towards the Haight, scrunched close together. Rochelle’s arm’s locked around Owen’s chest, hugging, the bike moving swift. Owen is aroused. Finally, he thinks, a decent score. About time. What the hell takes you so long anyway? Shy? You should walk into town and take one. That would be bad karma, but who gives a hell about karma anymore? Karma didn’t help you get your book published. Karma hasn’t sweetened the pot with rose petals and frankincense. Karma, in fact, has been quite hard on you. Karma always asks for more in return than what it offers, does it not? Do you not have to bust your ass to remain karmically even? Do you not have to turn everything over to fate and let it knock you down and down and down before it picks you up at the final moment and throws you a foul-smelling bone of reckoning. A silver lining, if you please. And if you’re not happy with it, that’s bad karma. Karma is the ultimate authoritarian. A demagogue in a prophets haik. You don’t owe karma anything. Fuck karma. Quest forth and conquer, that’s the attitude from here on out. Search and retrieve, be yourself, have a good time all the time. Don’t let the bastards get to you. Don’t let a low tolerance for ignorance rule against the Tao. An unstately grim course, indeed. Winnie the Pooh was a Taoist and look what it did to him. Fuck the Tao. The search for inner peace is over. There is no inner peace. There is only survival. The Ironman reigns. There is focus and luminosity and strength of character. That’s all it takes. Everything else is indulgent hob-knob. You find a lass, you take her. You find a party, you drink your fill. You’ve got this lass now, strapped to your chest with her own soft arms for shackles, she’s not the most beautiful creature on the planet, but what the hell. She’ll do. Out in front of her apartment he kisses her again. “Yeah, you’ll do.” “Oh, thanks.” “I’m just being facetious.” She holds his hand, pulling him up the stairs to her apartment, right next door to the embryo which he’d so recently departed. Good riddance to used rubbish, on to bigger and better adventures, he thinks, grabs her butt. “Hey now.” “You want to do it out here in the hall?” “What about Kara?” “Fuck her.” “No, fuck me. Inside my place, not in the hall. Not tonight.” “There you go talking dirty again.” “I don’t usually. You bring it out in me.” She unlocks the door, Owen grabs her around the waist and hoists her into the apartment, onto the bed. “Lay right there, don’t move,” he says, getting up off the bed, going to her small kitchen, taking a paring knife from the drawer, walking back over to the bed. “You want to feel dirty? Spread you legs.” Her skirt is Guatemalan, brightly colored. He throws it back, revealing her black nylons. “Black nylons. I love black nylons. I don’t want you to take them off. I want you to leave them on.” He pulls himself out of his cutoffs, fondles it in front of her. She leans down, kisses it. Owen moves back, takes the paring knife and slits the nylons in the groin. “Crotchless. That’s pretty. Lay there like that. Take your sweater off. Rub your tits. I don’t know why I like to watch women rub their breasts, but I do. You want me inside you?” he asks, bends down, buries his face in her warm, thick patch of pubic hair. It smells clean. Fresh and clean and wholesome, his tongue working her over, her fleshy mound swelling, opening, blossoming before him. “Put it in,” she says, breathing erratic, laden like the dying cries of an impaled princess. “That’s it,” Owen says, lifting his head from her crotch, “that’s a good girl. You want some of me? A little piece of my soul, perhaps. You’re a woman, you need a man inside you. That’s just the way it is. I’m inside you, now. Let me make you whole.” Karma me. Oh, yes, karma me, baby. Let me lap up that juice you ooze from your untarnished glands. Let me suck the secretion from your flowering petals. This is karma with rose buds and frankincense. Take this, the musk of the divine rising from your tasty crotch. Take this, the killing — the good kind of killing that takes away your fears. Take this, the grunting grind of lovelock, to realize the big bang again and again. The era pre-aging. The never-ending black. What happened before the big bang? You were there. I was there. We were all there before the big bang. The Big Bang. I remember you to be a gnat I couldn’t kill. We were one back then. Way Back Then. We were one and then we had that party. We threw parties all the time, and it was good, because we were one, never chaotic, never diffuse, never an incohesive mass. Timeless. Take this, there was this incredible rub at that party. Do you remember? Can you remember back that far? This rub. Yes that was it. We rubbed one another in the whole, and it was okay because we were one and everyone received the feeling from the rubbing. It continued. Take this, the heat and the pressure from the rubbing, we wiggle inside the embryo, pressing together, one piece feeling the weight of the other, tighter, tighter still. Closer than ever before. One unit condensed to critical mass. One Rub. One Wiggle. Take this, one perfect timeless moment suspended before eternity. Take this, and this and this. BANG! BANG! BANG! Bang, bang, bang-bang-bang . . . bang . . . bang . . . bang. The Big Bang revisited. This universe, our universe the only verse that’s uni, spawned from the perfect rub. The king of the one night stands, haunted for eternity. Things would be fine and timeless, now, without that damn bang. Look at all the trouble it caused. Time, Fate and Irony, to name three. The henchmen of dissent. Keepers of the crap until the Great Contraction. That’s where karma came from: keepers of the crap. Work hard, be good and it’ll all come back to you. Hooey. “Do you believe in Karma?” “Sure I do.” “Does it always work for you?” “It’s worked for me so far.” “Well, I wouldn’t count on it forever. Karma has a way of tricking you out of your spirit. Karma keeps you mortal.” “What are you talking about?” “Show no fear, ‘A’ for anarchy? No ‘A’ for peace. I’m talking about taking the bastards, the fat stogie-chomping buttheads who think they know what’s best for anyone with an I.Q of six or better, and dumping them in the lake. I’m talking about reaching out and plucking what you want without asking if it’s alright. Anarchic Zen, if you will. Deviant Taoism. Denying karma creating anthropomorphic entropy isolated from the actual whole. A single, autonomous object, pulling away from the center causing friction in the whole and you know what happens when the friction of the whole reaches a certain level. It grinds against itself until it explodes, then contracts, starts the grind again.” “What? Are you still horny?” “No. That’s not what I was talking about. That’s not what I was talking about at all.” * * * In the morning, dawn, she dreams of being a street chick while he dresses. She is restless, he doesn’t wake her before he leaves. Simply closes the door and is done with it. “Better this way,” he says to himself, slumps down the stairs out into the cold morning air. He doesn’t want to work. He doesn’t want to ride down into the shit another day and get hassled by contractors and home-repair weekend warriors, but he rides down anyway because he knows in the end it will get him to Spain. What’s another day in paradise, eh? What the hell. Ignore the buttheads. They are extras in a play composed by a few thousand incarnates. They are grips and stage hands for the gods, demagogues, prophets, saints and martyrs, actors and rock stars and talk show hosts. They should be taken with a placebo cyanide pill and promptly dismissed as irrelevant. Oh! Were it that simple. Were it nothing more than folly. If it were nothing more than a carefree romp in the hay with no chance of AIDS or physical mutilation, well, I guess it wouldn’t be interesting would it? Remove all the peaks and troughs, snip out the nasties and what would you have left? A themepark. Life is not a themepark. This is not Disneyland. A frazzled drag-queen stands at the intersection of Market and Mission, waiting to cross the street. He looks ridden-hard and put-away-wet. Taking it up the butt and in the mouth all night for forty bucks a whack, if he’s lucky. “I guess it’s sort of a disneyland,” Owen says, smiles, the light turns green and he heads on down to Whitey’s U-Rent. Another day in paradise. Jim is there alone, only the office is open and three guys stand at the desk waiting to rent. Jim is swearing under his breath. “Marcus won’t be in today,” he grumbles as Owen walks in office and behind the counter, takes off his jacket, dives in. Same old shit: floor sanders, Rug Doctors®, Bobcats®, jackhammer-compressor rigs, emergency saws, generators, tile cutters, hammer drills, pipe cutters, Titan® airless sprayers, metal detectors, sewer snakes, forklifts, chain saws, power bull-floats, Hilti® concrete nail guns, roofing nailers, reciprocating saws, carpet stretchers, hydraulic scaffolds, roto-tillers, power augers, conveyor belts, buffers, power grinding wheels, portable lights, backhoes, diamond-blade stone cutters, house jacks, wallpaper steamers, high-pressure hot water sprayers, come-alongs, block and tackle, weed whackers, belt sanders, pneumatic rivet guns, concrete mixers, wheelbarrows, ladders, front-end loaders and on and on. He had learned the brunt of the inventory in two-weeks time. The operating system, bookkeeping, assorted adhesives, abrasives, solvents, cleaners, stains, blades, grits and grinds. Everything. It bored him now. That was why he would never be able to work in the ‘real world’ at a ‘real job’, as it were, because it bored him beyond death. The idea, he thinks, renting a sander to an Irish carpenter, is to learn everything. To never satisfy your desire to gain knowledge. Once satisfied, stagnation sets in. And stagnation gets you nowhere. Nowhere at all. “Would you like a coarse or a fine grit?” “An assortment. Two sixties, four one-twenties, and what, oh, eight two-twenties.” “Is this cash or charge?” “Charge.” “We require a fifty-dollar deposit, we normally just make two slips.” “Fine.” The ‘Real World’, day after day for the duration? I think not. * * * The traffic flows heavy on 101, Owen rides home feeling tired and filthy. He has money in his pocket, and a strong proclivity towards an Anchor Steam®. Several, perhaps. The sun sets in the ocean again spraying the purple mist of evening over everything. Owen turns right onto Scott St. Up the hill past the park, past the old Russian embassy, down the hill to 833. The house stands out like a cheap fast food place in the hallowed halls of the Louvre, like a broken thorn in the wreath of Christ. Owen grins, parks Rocinante on the sidewalk. His face and hands and blue work pants are covered with dirt, grease and oil. Only his worn black-leather jacket is clean. Walking down the street to MacAllister, turning left, Owen makes his way to Sam’s market, caddy-corner from the Transfer market. The store is small and packed to the gills with ethnic and domestic foods. The Lebanese owner is there, he recognizes Owen and smiles at him, greets him. Owen thinks about how much he likes all the small market owners, rather than high-volume super grocers. Roaming the store, bargain shopping, buying a can of hash, an onion, a Calistoga® sparkling juice spritzer, a six-pack of Anchor Steam®, and a pack of Camels®, Owen thinks about a shower. How good it will feel. Feeling good. Yes, that’s it. Spontaneously glancing over the assortment of porn-videos and liquor along the back of the store wall behind the counter, he buys a bottle of Bushmill’s®. What the hell. “What the hell. A guy’s got to have a little fun, don’t you think?” Owen says to the grocer. “Oh, sure. That is why you work, is it not? So you can enjoy yourself, eh?” “You got it. Thank you, sir.” “Thank you, my friend. You have a pleasant evening.” “I plan to.” Near dark now, strolling back to the apartment armed with supplies, Owen passes a guy working on a surfboard in his shop-garage. Surfboards line the walls of the shop. He sands away at the board laid out on sawhorses, absorbed in his work. Laboring love for wont of the tide. He looks happy, there in the city, in his Victorian flat, waxing his boards, fucking his wife, surfing on the weekends. Owen passes the man in his world, reflects on his own inability to stay in one spot. “Fuck it,” he says to himself, rounds the corner. Across the street a midnight-blue Victorian sports a sign in the bay window that says: “JESUS WAS WAY COOL.” Indeed, he thinks. Jesus was, in fact, a hippie street- preaching carpenter. He began, a prophet on the side. Moonlighting as a healing-theosoph. Beat the shit out of selling pottery or pulling tricks at the steam baths. Chump change. Jesus pulled off one of the greatest tricks within the realm of human capability — he convinced people he was a prophet, an immortal, and a direct descendent of the Big Banger himself. A tough gig, without a doubt, but he managed. Came on the scene, spat out his rap, gained a following, died, just like he said he would. And came back? Yes, he did. I was there then. It was Odin and I who lifted his body from the shroud and called him back. Buddha stopped by to wish him well, then we all went out and drank wine. I remember it as though it were yesterday. He, obviously, does not. So be it. Maybe he remembers, but wishes to forget. Maybe he just wants mortality. Who could blame him. I wish I were happy staying in one spot, with one job, one short life, with a wife and children, with a simple hobby, and a childish happiness for my lot. “Return to the life I never knew.” That’s the idea. Feel the vile crutch of age arthritic in my joints, the fountain of youth running dry in my heart and my head, but the wonder of the child remains. This strange fascination with birthing and dying and all the crap that happens in the interim. That crap between, it is, plaguing my spirit, tethering me to the planet. Without it I would be free. Guiltless and unshackled. I would wont for not one thing. As it stands now, I wont for everything. Good food, and water and liquor and women and adventure, a superb sense of well-being. Is that too much to ask? Dare I say — yes? Our psyche is built to suffer. Built to hoard. Built to survive. Built to dream of building a Tajmahal just for shits and giggles. To carve the Sphinx out of boredom? Or inspiration? I want to be inspired. If you don’t live to fight and fuck, if you don’t live for money, you live to be inspired. You sound throughout the cosmos in search of a talkative muse. You seek the divine in its deepest chasm. Crave the nectar of the immortals. Is immortality too much to ask? Television, he hears, walking through the front door, groceries in hand. “André.” “Dude, what’s happening?” “Oh, I got paid, went out bought some food and some beer. You need one?” “Sure.” “Are you hungry?” “Oh, dude, I’m famished. What’s on the menu?” “Roast beef hash.” “Sounds killer.” Owen hands André a beer, walks back into the kitchen and starts the hash. A little onion, corn, three eggs, pepper, garlic, curry and a touch of soy. Cook for ten to fifteen minutes. Owen pops the cap on the beers, goes up to the living room. “Bong hit, dude?” “That’s what I’ve been waiting for.” André loads him a stout hit, Owen takes it. “You going out tonight?” “No. I’m broke. Besides, I’ve been running around all week setting up gigs for Field Trip, I think I’m going to hang. Yourself?” “I’m here for the duration. I could use a quiet night.” “How’s that hash?” “Coming along. You want bread?” “Sure.” Owen runs back into the kitchen and puts fours slices of wheat bread into the oven, stirs the hash. It is done. Owen brings the meal out on plates, with the bread buttered and the hash in a mound. The meal tastes good, considering the source — a can — and the two tear at the plates, ravenous. “This is the best hash I’ve ever had,” André says, stopping to breathe. “It’s the curry. Brings out the flavor, I think.” “Oh, definitely. Where’d you learn to cook?” “Well, I’ve cooked since I was eight, but I didn’t get really good until I had this woman in Alaska, who was in fact from San Francisco, taught me the in’s and out’s of spices, roots, herbs and extracts. She would hate it if she knew I used her knowledge for canned roast beef hash, or any other meat, but what the hell, eh? Knowledge is a tool.” “Word up,” André says, still eating. “She was a whiskey drinking fireball, that woman, Daniella. We were fond of each other, but always opted for friendship, rather than sex.” “Saves you a lot of heartache. I’m pretty much celibate right now, and I like it. I don’t have to worry about diseases, I don’t have to worry about anything where women are concerned. I mean, I’m looking, I guess, in a nonchalant way, but I’m not worried about it that much.” “Low sex drive, huh.” “Yeah, it doesn’t bother me at all. I have a slow metabolism.” “You’re lucky.” “I don’t mind it. I’m kind of like an iguana. I move slow until I sit out in the sun and warm up and then I can move fast.” “Cold-blooded?” “Something like that,” André says, takes the last smidgen of hash from the plate. “That was unbelievable.” “Thanks.” “Let’s get stoned.” “Sounds like a plan. You want another beer?” “Hell yes.” Owen gets two more beers, returns to the living room. “So where is everybody tonight?” “Ted’s over at the Papa Wheelie house, Owen’s out with Kelly again, like a moron, letting her use him.” “How’s that?” “Oh, Owen’s totally out of his head for this chick Kelly, who’s not bad looking, but flighty. He wants her, she wants whatever the hell it is a woman wants.” “Who the hell can know what a women wants.” “A woman.” “I don’t know many women who know what they want. Not that all men know, but I’ll god-damned say right here and now that men know what they want more than women. Women are fickle.” “That’s an old story.” “All truisms are old.” “Is that a truism? It sounds old.” “You fucking-a.” “To hell with women,” André says, “let them rot,” he holds up his beer for a toast. “Bugger them all,” Owen says, clinks his bottle against André’s. “André,” Owen says, drinking a deep chug of beer then lighting a cigarette, the pause is long and André allows it to happen for dramatic effect, “I’m at a low point in my life right now, and I’m comforted by the fact that you guys are here. This is what I needed, this element. Harcourt dumped my novel, now I’ve got to start all over again and I’m traveling and don’t have any of my resources available. It’s kind of a drag.” “No doubt, dude. When did you hear about it?” “Last night.” “Bummer.” “Well, I’m not whining. I won’t say anything more. I just wanted to say thanks.” “Well, we’re glad to have you living here. You give us kind of a ground. I’m glad someone’s come along and put Ted in his place, he was getting hard to live with. Just out-of-control, you know? He can be a real primadonna. So anyway, I’m happy you’ve moved in.” “Well, things will work out for the best. I know they will. Things always work out for the best.” “Either that, or you die a swift death.” “A swift death is a good way to die, second only to dying in your sleep.” “Beats the hell out of being old and bitter and dying a slow painful death.” “That is not an option. I’ll end it when I’m finished living, or if it ends me. But I will not live within the parameters of a wheelchair and colostomy bag. No way. No-fucking-way. Life or death, nothing in between. Except for having fun, of course.” “Have a good time all the time.” “Party ‘til you puke, that’s what Elvis says.” “Elvis was the King, dude. A rock prophet,” André says, lighting a the bowl, his eyes beginning to sparkle with intensity. “He wasn’t religious, albeit he said the word ‘God’. He wasn’t a prophet in a Christesque sense, though. Like I said, he was a rock prophet. Elvis made sex, drugs and rock-and-roll an acceptable pastime.” “It’s always been that way.” “With the sex and the drugs, true. But Elvis added the rock part, gave it an allure nobody with any sense of adventure could resist. It feeds the rebel. You need to listen to music while having sex and using drugs, and rock compliments those two activities better than any other music.” “What about disco?” “Disco is rock-based. It’s all in the back beat. The thing about disco is that it’s overproduced. No edge to it. I’m mean, there’s nothing better than a really tight three-piece. ZZ-Top, Rush, Meat Puppets — in a three-piece, everyone has to carry their own weight. You can’t have one member of the band sluffing off, or everything fucks up. That’s what I’m looking for, the perfect three piece.” “Elvis wasn’t a three-piece.” “Elvis was a one-man show.” “That’s the best show. That’s when you’re really something special.” “Oh, it’s every rockers dream. The solo career.” “That’s what I like about being a novelist — it’s all one big solo.” “Kind of lonely though.” “Oh, not so bad. You don’t have to cart a guitar around, merely pen and paper. But it’s not as spontaneously gratifying — hard to sell on the street.” “You can’t just open up and play.” “No. You keep it all inside you until it bursts, then you find a hole, crawl in, write it down. Creative impetus precedes the writing. The tough part is finding a good story, or a clandestine idea.” “Same with music.” “How true, how true.” “Which do you think came first,” André says, lighting another cigarette, looking out the bay window into the night, “Which one is older?” “I suppose people have be telling and singing stories for eons. They were both always there. The best storytellers always sing and dance a little in their story anyway.” “Part of the show, eh?” “You know it. Showbusiness, dude, that’s where it’s at.” André raises his beer again, in toast. “To the entertainment industry,” he says, “to the only industry in the world that will never drug test.” “I’ll drink to that.” “Shall we smoke to that?” “With pleasure.” “Pleasure is what it’s all about.” * * * You’re in link mind for mind with station K-T-H-O-R, thundering to you live from the Asgard pantheon. K-T-H-O-R: Direct from the birthplace of the pleasure principle. * * * Sixth and Mission flows thick with transients. Nearly swelling. The wretched gala moves in shoulder-jerk swaggers and footfalls laden with monkeys and dragons and vultures perched and waiting for death. Turning their days and nights combing the streets and alleys searching for a cheap fix. It’s all they know. Homeboy sells crack outside a little smut parlor on the corner. Owen cruises by, opts for the cinema on Market. It’s nice to have a selection. Different films, different dancers; identical theme. Sex. Sex, the gifted-curse, the eternal joke, a carnal staple — like oxygen. Testosterone drives you to these parlors. It’s more safe without contact, without commitment or exchange of fluids. Just grease him up and pump the fluid out and get on with it. Why risk AIDS laying some lying bitch, just for the taste of jisim feel of flesh? Keep your flesh to yourself. You want adventure? Fine. Climb a mountain, sail the ocean, stalk the Yhetti, but keep your fluids to yourself. Sex is not an adventure. It’s a ploy. A lure. A way to tie you down. A way to kill you off. Better to kill yourself, than be slain by sex. On the other hand, there’s the drive . . . that’s what brings you here. Oh! To be with Henry Miller in Paris — roaming the streets, bedding down the whores, catching an occasional case of the clap. But that was it. Syphilis was around, sure, but you could take care of it. Here at the turn of the century, sex is the difference between life and death. And in that sense, sex is an adventure, but the price is nowhere near worth the portage. You’d rather run guns, the odds are better. So for now you have the parlors. You have women behind thick glass, and selection of 35 different porn movies in progress. No talk, very little money, no hurt feelings, no incurable diseases. It’s no wonder the pornography business is booming. Who the hell wants to risk it? There was Rochelle, sure, but she’s an innocent. And a lame lay to boot. Better to take matters into your own hands. Better to take care of it yourself. It would be better if it didn’t have to be this way, if it were all musky juices and passionate kisses and biting and sucking and warm, swollen rubs. But that’s not the way it is. It is dark black boxes and a lone souls apanting. That’s sex in the nineties. Watching each other masturbate, that’s where we’re going. Shangri-la, Tralfamamdor Masturbation is very Tralfamadorian. And Tralfamador was way ahead of its time. Whorling in a sea of swollen clits and throbbing cocks, flipping the channels, trying to find one that really trips the trigger. Ah, here’s one. Madison. Madison the raven. Madison the black haired nymphomaniac with dark night eyes glistening sensual allure. Her voice is annoying, but you’re not taking her home. All you have to do is watch and enjoy. Enjoy her buxom silicone boob job, her tucked ass, well-worn crotch, her nose ring, sepentine tongue. Enjoy the way she bobs with zeal and vigor along the shaft and the head, balls in hand, then turns to slurp on the groin of a bouncy little redhead. She is the queen whore of the decade. She gives a licking and keeps on pricking. She is the ideal pincushion. She is Roboslut. And in the days when death lurks behind each and every penetration, Roboslut is, in many circles, the wisest option. One porn queen can handle many men, they, handling themselves in her honor. Because it beats the hell out of reality. It beats the hell out of HIV. It beats the hell out of marriage. And betwixt those two you set the course, never to collide with either, never take the dive, never take the needle, keep the ground beneath your feet and your nose to the wind. You are the wind. Observe: you blow through town, tell a few stories, depart the moment you feel the wane. Give only the best of the show, that’s the secret. And you’ve got a secret. You were given this secret several millennia back by a passing muse, by wind, if you will. It handed you this secret and said: “Here, this will give you great wealth of understanding. But there’s a catch, there’s always a catch. You can never say this secret aloud, lest the secret burn of its own volition. Take it, create your progeny as you see it from the well of the pure, but never utter it aloud. Never even whisper it. Keep it inside you. Internalize, focus, luminate. And when you luminate shine with such intensity that you blind the audience. That is true power. But that’s not the secret. Owen leaves the parlor feeling sweaty, relaxed, and very, very distant. Rocinante is parked on a back street behind the building. He hardly remembers parking the bike. It’s amazing, he thinks, what a few minutes in a black box can do for your outlook on life. He mounts the bike and heads back towards Scott St. It’s Sunday, the sky overcast, the city in a haze. Everyone strolling around in delirium, seemingly lost. He feels alone, very alone. Despondent. Listless, like a plague. Like the grim keeper of the reaper. For the first time he feels the wanderlust stirring. Finally, the urge to purge. The ground ripe for planting. His Tabla Rosa beginning to surge with black thoughts and an understanding of their power. Why be peaceful? The streets are uncrowded and his belly drops and dips with each hill. Owen wants to crawl in bed and die. But he cannot. He is working tonight, at the Kennel, at the one place keeping him alive. Things are alright at the Kennel. Relaxation, he finds, only at the Kennel. Free liquor, music, drunk women, something to smoke, life awaits in the bar. The bar: the only happy place around. “Misery, you insist that the weight of the world should be on your shoulders.” Metallica throbs away in his head. “Never used to like Metallica,” he thinks, nearing the apartment. “They weren’t what I was looking for. Now I find myself attracted by the passionate classical rage. What the hell?” The Scott St. place is empty and quiet. Happy to have the place to himself, he grabs a beer, sticks Metallica in to the tapedeck. Enter Sandman. “Tonight at the Kennel I’ll relax,” he says, drifting off for a nap in the afternoon. “Tonight I’ll have a little peace.” * * * “YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! I WIIILL KIIILLLL YOU! I SPIT ON YOUR MOTHER’S CUNT!” says the drunken Greek. He looks way out-of-it. Glossy-eyes, slack-jawed, yes sir, this boy needs some help. “That’s it,” Owen says, grabs him by the coat and hoists him over the chain. “Get the fuck out of here if you don’t want to go to jail. Owen turns to Sam, sitting in the ticket booth, “World Beat night, eh? Not! Bunch of pseudo-cosmopolitans. Bastards.” “Oh, take it easy.” “That’s easy for you to say, you’re behind the glass.” “Hey I get hassled too.” “Yes, but you’ve got me and the glass.” “Oh, I don’t need your help.” “Oh, get real. You’d be lost without me.” “Yeah, right. Not!” She smiles her white-toothed smile. Cute, indeed. If only she didn’t have a boyfriend. “ID?” Owen says to a beautiful lady from . . . where? “You’re from Yemen?” “Yes.” “I dated a woman from Yemen once.” “Really,” she says, with a husky English accent. She makes him tingle. “I don’t know if you’d know her. She lives in Alaska now.” “I don’t know anyone from Yemen living in Alaska. She sounds intriguing, though.” “I thought she was an excellent woman.” “That’s right, love,” she says, gently patting his arm. Owen reaches into his pocket and hands her a ticket. “Have fun.” “Thanks, love.” And she sways into the club as only a woman with class can sway and swing and not look cheap. “Woof.” “I saw that,” says Sam, “pervert.” “Just admiring a beautiful woman.” “Oh, you were ogling.” “Like hell.” “Liar.” “Just admiring the aesthetics.” “I know how men admire.” “I’m not like all men.” “Yeah, I know, you’re Thor.” “That’s right. And I do not ogle. I admire.” “Yeah, right. Not!” “Uh-huh. You want a drink?” “No. I’m not drinking tonight. I’m tired.” “Do you see Harry inside?” She looks into the club. “He’s over at the bar.” “Get his attention.” “He’s not looking this way. Wait.” Sam waves. “Here he comes.” “What’s up” “You want to take the door for a second? Or do you want to run and get us a couple drinks?” “What do you want?” “Captain Morgan’s® and Seven-up®.” “I’ll go get it.” Owen stands at the door, waiting to see if Heather will show. He wants to feel her soft presence, if only as she passes through the door. Strange, it is, the desire for flesh. Irresistible. Like a gnawing at the base of your skull. A craving so strong that only a mountain top can deny the drive. Otherwise it makes you crazy. The night rolls along, smooth, Owen waits for Heather but she never shows up. So be it. And as he walks home from the club at three in the morning, walking past the little man lying beneath the ‘No Parking’ sign, buried under a hundred blankets with his shopping cart for a wind break, walking past the freshly paint Victorians for sale — starting at $100, 000 each, past the hilly park with a grand view of the city, past the old Russian embassy, past the gay real estate guy’s flat, past Rocinante parked on the sidewalk, awaiting the next run, past the altar in the unlit living room, past the Dinosaur Jr. poster in the hallway, into his bedroom. The room is filled with the stench of death from the backbone he found in the desert. It makes him nauseous. Opening his window, lighting incense, turning out the light and lighting two small camping candles, Owen sits on the floor of his bedroom and stares into the wavering flame. Yes sir, things are definitely out of control. I feel the winding tail spinning eccentric from the phenomenal plane. I think I can pull it out, but it’s going to be a fine effort. I’m going to need to hole-up soon and start writing. The images are flickering again. I’ve made contact with the source. Or, rather, it is making contact with me. I am no longer in control of the images. They are directing me. I fit into their scenery. I dance at their whim. I die at their beckoning. I will find no peace until I am writing, until I have written this thing down. Every last word. But how does the story go? What’s the catch? Who’s telling the story? I don’t want to tell the story. I want this story to go away. This story is disturbing. But it needs telling. For once and for all, it needs to be spoken. Better yet, it needs to be written. Who else is capable of writing it? No one. You’re on your own with this one. Owen falls asleep, troubled, and dreams of a woman he will never know. She tries to comfort him, but the air in the dream is so heavy that he cannot breathe, no matter how hard he tries. The harder he struggles, the heavier the air pressure, until he can no longer breathe at all. Owen wakes at dawn, bolt upright, sweating, regretting his decision to stay in San Francisco. He grimaces at the long road ahead of him. So it happens, he thinks, when one fancies the life of a traveller. “I’d rather be traveling disturbed than blissfully ignorant,” he says to himself, sitting on the edge of the mattresses, rubbing his face, his gut. Scratching his balls, Owen rises from his bed, makes coffee, prepares to work through another day in paradise. Look for the black man with yellow eyes. A downtrodden lord with the eyes of the sun. Take his kindness. Shake his hand. He will show you the way. He will point out the path to Shangri-la. * * * Whip it away! The evil-twin feign, the aphrodite swain with long, slender frame, the whoop of the cranes in travel detains, and the boy lets his shoes sink in quicksand. A fate no worse than dying. Fling it aside! The fat-father pride, a whim under guide of plasticene tied to limitations defied by the universe wide and the fodder of tales, myths and legends. A life to leave one crying. Jump from the train! The curse of the slain, is said to remain in hallowed refrain for the meek and the lame, for the pawns in the game, singing the fame of the Masters who claim a privy by name to the faith, and the hope and the wisdom. Their bogus banter flying. They knock you around, they storm in your doors, they call you the useless, they label you whores. They wrack you with taxes, they bribe you with checks, they play on your poverty and goad you to hex. They’re evil, they’re vile, they’re heartless and plain. They’re nervous and uptight and normally vain. They think that they know what is best for the lot, who ought to have all and who ought to have not. They pick and they choose from the best to the worst, then slap you and whap you until completely coerced. And if you should fight this villianesque might and with a pen or brush or an instrument cite they may not be so bright, that much of their knowledge is worthless and trite, that most of their theories and standards lack bite, their dogma thinking untight — afail like a kite in a thunderstorm, then they knock you, defrock you, in mockery clock you, and lock you away for the night. In short, my friend, they’re lying. For they fear change, you see, an arrangement decreed by the powers that be out of fearing the free, out of loathing for those in the cerulean clothes be they a mystic, or prophet or martyr. They fear the heavens sighing. So prick up your ears, flog and rail fleeting years. Mock the crock tears, the leering and jeers, the good-doggy cheers from the stale-brained peers, their wrath for the queer, their wont for the near, and their disgust for the genius unshaven. Their karma’s up for buying. And though you may crash, unto the solid earth smash, unto the bushy hills bash, and fail in your dash for the win, remember the story of no guts then no glory and with vigor stand up and begin. It’s better than not trying. A “stately pleasure dome,” indeed. * * * We pause for a word from the author. Listen: The rumor that in omnipotence all things succeed needs to be put to rest right now. Chaos and order exist at all levels of phenomenal reality. I use the word ‘reality’ in only the most vague context. Reality, I have come to find, is sketchy, at best. And the notion that everything is perfect if you exist on an omniscent plane of being should be considered hoopla. Ballyhoo. A utopian daydream popularized out of laziness; or, rather, the strong desire to be lazy. There’s nothing lazy about immortality. To know everything and be a part of everything, all at once, I find quite draining. I could use a vacation. I would like to leave the great hall of Valhala and go for a romp through the cosmos. I cannot, however, because of my godlike custodial duties. Someone needs to watch the hall. But you can be sure that the first deity who wanders by here will wind up with my job. I, for example, was suckered into this gig by Bacchus, the wily bastard. And you know where he is right now? Do you? Well I do. The butthead is hanging out in the suburbs, living a life of mediocrity. Why? Because he grew weary of being a god. I was passing by the hall, he asked if he might step out for a moment. I obliged, like a fool. As I said, moments can be infinite. I digress. So I sit here for who knows how long, writing the story of one of my biggest failures. What fun. But I will right this failure, find my flaw, and get the hell out of Valhala. So when your life sucks, and you’re pissed off because you can feel all the joints in your body complain in simultaneous symphony, when your gut aches and your back slipped a disk, and the rent is due, and death is at the door and you can feel your helpless mortality berating you in the silence, remember this: That immortality isn’t any better, just a different set of hells. It’s not always fun to be a god, either. Have fun with your life. Savor the simplicity. Revel in happiness. Because you never know. One day you might wake up and find out you’re a god. That’s when things get difficult. Thank you. I now return you to the story. * * * You’re in link mano-a-mano with the station of the eternal chosen: station K-T-H-O-R. Thundering to you live from the great hall of Valhala. We now return to our story Duct Tapped Boots and Jesus Suits. * * * “Dude, I just got a postcard from Carlos!” says Ted, bounding in the door with the mail. “He’s going to be here in two days.” “Fucking-A, dude, killer,” André says. “Dude, he’s my soul brother. I can’t wait to see him. Shit, it’s been three years!” “How are you going to pick him up? Ride him home on your bike?” “Hell yes!” “Oh, I’ll bet he’s going to dig that.” “Oh, he’ll be sweet on it. He’ll fucking love it.” “Where’s he going to sleep?” says Owen, the other Owen. “He can have my room,” André says, “I’ll shack up with Owen, the other Owen” “Dude you are totally welcome to share my room and all its infamy and prestige.” “It’ll be a pleasure.” “We’re going to have a party for him, aren’t we?” “I don’t know. Do you think we can make it through another party? We’ll probably get evicted.” “Fuck that shit. We can have a party if we want one. Fuck the landlord,” Ted says, he doesn’t look at Owen as he speaks. He speaks to André and the other Owen.” “Who’s Carlos,” Owen asks, trying to enter the conversation. “He’s my buddy from Spain. I met him when I was over there three years ago. His family ended up taking me in. Carlos showed me more of Madrid than I ever would have seen otherwise. He’s way cool.” Owen senses the tension from Ted as he speaks, tries to ignore it. “Dude, we’ll have to ride him up to Sausilito, they’ve got a killer micro-brewery over there. Fuck it. Maybe we’ll just take a ride to Yosemite.” “That’s quite a ways.” “Oh, hell, you can make it in about four-hours, no problem. All we need is a little smoke, some killer mushrooms and money for gas. Let’s do it,” Ted is staring him down, challenging him, “Let’s fucking pull him out of the airport and ride straight the fuck to Yosemite. We won’t even let him unpack. Oh, that would rock. Carlos has never been here before. He would lose it. Totally. He would flip out. We’d have him giddy to the marrow in no time. He would freak. He would bust a fucking gasket!” “Maybe he just wants to relax, first, Ted.” “Fuck that. He’ll want to party.” “Great. Ted’s going to drink him to death.” “Carlos is a drinker. He drank plenty when we went to the clubs in Madrid and Barcelona. He’ll be killer.” “He’ll be killer or Ted will kill him,” Owen, the other Owen says, they all laugh, except Ted. “Nobody forces anybody. People always have a choice. Carlos has freewill. If he doesn’t want to go, he can take cab.” “Oh, that would be cruel — ‘Hey-how’s-it-going-catch-a-cab.’ — That would suck.” “Oh you know damn well that if he’s beat I’ll bring him back here. It’s up to him. I wouldn’t drag him 300 miles if he didn’t want to go.” “I wouldn’t put it past you Ted.” “I wouldn’t do it dude, I swear.” * * * The wind snaps in your face ranting like a wildman. It’s mid-July and yet this ocean wind still stings cool and nippy, like spring. Spring here, it is, most of the time. A constant blossom. A perpetual Begonia field, all shapes and sizes and colors eternally blooming in a never-ending equinoctial climax. Carlos sits on Rocinante’s touring seat, the rumbler, as it were, tired, drunk, jet-lagged, weary as hell as we trail through the aisles of traffic along Golden Gate, heading toward the bridge, heading towards the mainland. Sausilito. The Muir Woods. The Marin Highlands. Ted is in the lead, with his biker babe, Betty on back. Piece of shit. He should have let me ride Betty. It’s his fucking friend. I’d take his women over this guy any day, for a passenger. Crossing the bridge, the traffic is not heavy now. People on the sidewalks jogging and sight seeing tourists taking pictures, as usual. How could no one have jumped from this bridge? This would be an excellent jumping point, without question. Ted takes a quick left and we’re heading off towards the Marin Highlands. Well, there it is then. Ted hath decreeth thine holy destination. Obstinate bastard. . . falling in along the ocean on a peak now. A grand view. One of the best in the area. Struck on an ocean cliffside, you see for a hundred miles, maybe more. Carlos is trying desperately to enjoy the scenery, but he’s too wasted. Majestic, mystifying, primeval, indeed; but still too fucked up. “Why are we driving here. Ted tells me he lives in the city.” “I guess he wanted to show you some sights right off the mark.” “I would like to take a shower, maybe drink a beer and sleep.” “We’ll be home soon.” “Ted, he can be crazy sometimes, eh?” “From what I’ve seen, yes.” “It is what I like about him. He is crazy in an interesting fashion.” “He does have an air about him, but then again he doesn’t always shower.” “He thinks he’s a prophet.” “I know.” Cruising the peak, Ted turns into an old lookout post from World War II. It sets low into the rocks and can not be seen from the ocean. Abandoned now, it serves as a playhouse for the local hooligans, hob-knobs and hell-raisers who leave the city to come up here and fight, fuck, do drugs and sacrifice animals to Satan. That’s just what some people are into these days. It doesn’t mean anything. Satan is nothing too special. The satanic icon was derived from the pagan god, Pan, a stout-hearted spirit who certainly means no harm. Pan gets a bad rap from the Satan thing. But they are two entirely separate entities. ‘Satan’ doesn’t really mean anything, has no real history outside the bible. ‘Politician’, now there’s an evil icon. There’s a word evoking images of the decline evokes images of their forked-tongues of silver, these babbling devils all. And worse for them to actually have charisma. Power and charisma is the most dangerous combination. Decadence, on the other hand, the fighting and fucking and drugs, that is pure. The illegality of drugs acts to remove the walls between Pagans, Hedonists and that ilk. Bonded in criminality, they are, since many of the rituals cross over the limited confines of ‘the Law of the Land’, though allegedly protected by the First Amendment. Labeled as gangsters, thugs, druggies, stoners, junkies, malcontents, they find themselves lumped in a group and out here in the Marin Highlands living life in a blur. Traveling a little nearer the speed of light, though not quite. Actually, you trust the Pagans before a Christian. Most Pagans have a good deal of gumption, if they’re worth their weight. Christians you find so often to be gutless guilt-addled wonders. They travel below the speed of sound, if you will. “What do you think, Carlos. Isn’t this a killer view. Viddy on droogies. What the hell. Who’s got the whiskey?” Owen, the tall, skinny Owen, hands Ted the bottle. “This is great, Ted. Superb. Can we go home now,” Betty snarls “I like this very much, Ted,” Carlos says, takes a sip from the bottle.” “What do you think, dude?” “I came up here with Kara a month or so ago. I think it looks killer.” Ted spins and knuckle-walks up the side of the structure to the roof. He faces west and extends his arms out to the ocean. Owen and André walk inside, Betty kicks an old tail pipe off to the side. “Hellfire,” she says, subdued. “AAAAHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOO! HELLFIRE! DAMN DROOGIES! VIDDY THIS FUCKING SPLENDOR!” “We are, Ted.” “Well, you don’t act like you’re getting off on it.” “We’ve all been up here before, Ted. It’s cool. But I don’t feel like giving a primal scream,” says the tall, skinny Owen. He’s sporting a fine Cheshire cat grin. “Pustuous lump.” “Quivering hole.” They square off, shadow boxing, and pass the bottle around. Carlos looks very tired. “Shall we head for the flat?” “That’s the best idea I’ve heard yet,” says Carlos. “Dude, you should have said something. We could have gone straight home.” “It’s okay Eduardo. This is a good way to begin.” “I thought you’d be impressed.” “I am impressed. From what I’ve seen so far, this place looks amazing.” “You haven’t seen anything yet. This place is a fucking freak show.” * * * Fat Tuesday, everyday. That’s the idea. Is it more noble to suffer the bitter wrath of monkey suits or subsist in the pits as a grease monkey? Or is it best yet to remain a drunken artist. Is it truly beneficial to harbor an undying work ethic? Or is life best left to laughter and forgetting. Work through the process of unlearning work. Here it is, 6 a.m., another fucking morning shot to hell because you have committed yourself to 70 hours-a-week of work. Work, work, work — sleep — and then work some more. Your life traded away — bought and sold — for a lousy nine-bucks-an-hour. This sucks. You don’t feel like working today. You don’t feel like working tomorrow, or the next day or the next. To hell with the work ethic. Let it always be Fat Tuesday. It was only supposed to be for a couple weeks. Three, maybe four at the most. And now, what the hell. Six weeks. Six weeks wasted. You should have been focusing on the work, living at the shop, fucked off the socializing and concentrated on saving money and getting out of this asylum. You can’t take this job or this city much longer. You need space. You need your tent. You haven’t even set up the tent yet. That sucks, too. Here you are, subconsciously burrowing yourself a niche’ in a place you know you’re not going to stay. Why become attached to this place? Why now? Why this time? Maybe return someday, but this particular quest remains incomplete. It hath yet to round full circle. It remains Black Monday. And you must rise now, wash your face, comb your hair, brush your teeth and don those damn blue dungarees for another day. One day closer to the last. One more day wasted turning screws and changing oil and filling orders. One more day delivering fork lifts and Bobcats®. One day closer to death traded for $90, less taxes. “Misery is not my friend, but I’ll break before I bend.” That’s it. Get up, laugh it off and persevere and blow this cornball colony of cackling cons — the creepy concierge’ rents you the room with no toilet and seats you by the swinging kitchen door when you eat and you know you are not wanted. It is hopeless. You will eat your meal with the noise of the waiting staff clanking plates and silverware against the stainless-steel countertops. You will overhear their insults and innuendo whispered in vicious undercurrents. It will be an unpleasant meal and yet you will still pay for it. In blood. And you will still have to trek all the way down the hall in the middle-of-the-night to puke up the meal you never enjoyed. With blood. With blood because of the bad liquor. With blood because of the sex of others before you. With blood because Sheba wants her revenge. With blood because Fata Morgana prefers everything in blood, the vicious bitch. If you don’t feel the surge of the crimson essence released you’re not striking a vein, merely sucking up capillaries. Chump change. It’s worth nothing if you spare the aorta, the vena cava, the jugulars, the carotid, the corpus callosum, nothing at all. You suck the nectar. Sheeba takes her fill, walks away with a mouth of frothy crimson down to the lake, laps down the remnants like a sanguine aperitif’. Like an after dinner martini. Paid for in blood. At least it’s warm and sunny today. That’s a nice thing. Unusual. It’ll be hot in Bay View by this afternoon. That’s one good thing about Bay View: it’s always warmer than the rest of the city. Maybe you should move out of the flat and down into the ghettos of Bay View. This is supposed to be a sociological survey of deviance and collective behavior and here you are hanging around with the kind of people you know all about. Nothing to learn here. Old hat, every last bit of it. You need some stimulus, lad. Living with these boys is an escape. A hideaway. You’re running away from Fate and hiding in the hallowed corners of Decay, where you feel safe. Living what you know. That will get you nowhere fast, indeed. You can hide no longer, young warrior. There comes a time when at last you must stand and charge Fate and let it beat you down and down and down and every time you stand it will knock you down again, but you must continue to stand up and ask for more. It’s when you stop asking for more that your spirit is broken and you are dead. Dead in youthful vitality, dead in the quest for passion and quality and the true nature of creativity. You must always stand and wrestle. Don’t let the bitches and bastards get you down. If you don’t make it in this life, you’ll try again in another. The important thing is a desire to try and the fortitude to continue. Painful as hell, it is, on the path to immortality, very few people can comprehend the pain, the burning drive that sends men walking the streets late at night unable to sleep. Very few empathize with the frustration felt by hypersensitives, burrowed in the bars laughing and joking with sad glints in the corners of their eyes. Very few relate to questioning mortality. If you ask them: “When did you first realize your mortality,” they look at you as though you popped a gasket. So you stop asking, but the question and the secret remains constant — the question: what is the purpose of existence? The secret: There exists a tapable source of spiritual energy somewhere/everywhere outside the phenomenal plane. Slap the doctrine of Maya over the whole kit and kaboodle, just to make it run smooth and presto! What is the purpose of mortality? The purpose of mortality is to create the immortal. Plato is on the right track, butthead though he may be. Nietchtze has it pretty much hammered out, but he takes everything too seriously. Wilde, though he recants much of what he wrote, nails it : “Like Emerson, I write over the door of my library the word whim.” and “The final revelation is that lying, the telling of beautiful untrue things, is the proper aim of art.” Thus the truth I speak is a lie, and the lies I speak the truth. Verification lies in the minds of the readers whom these words might cross. Reality is a waking dream and I create it as I speak. Abracadabra. And that’s the truth. * * * Owen opens the gate, brings Rocinante through into the yard. It is quiet, the clear sky yellow and red and blue in the fading twilight. Unlocking the door to the shop, he enters and finds it gone. Vanished. The tool benches remain, but the storage shelves have disappeared. “What the hell.” The two big locks to the office let loose their grip on the overhead door. The phone is ringing, he dashes for it. “Whitey’s.” “Owen this is Marcus. I’m going to be late. Can you handle it until noon by yourself?” “Yes. What happened to the shop? I thought I was shop manager.” “Well, you are. But I’m the owner. I’ve decided we need to get organized out there, so I moved all the supplies over into the old garage. You’ll need to go through and label all the boxes, but don’t worry about it this morning. I’ve got a meeting with some gentlemen from Kuwait today about building some high-pressure washers for cleaning the walls in Kuwait city. I tell you Owen, this could be big. You’re in on the ground floor of it all and I think your work is great so stick around and I’ll make it worth your while.” “Well thanks, Marcus. I appreciate that. I wish I would have been here when you did it though. I’m not going to know where anything is.” “You’ll do fine. Just make it until I get back from this meeting.” “No problem. Well, I need to open up.” “See you at noon.” “Bye,” he says, hangs up the phone, “you son-of-a-bitch. You worthless coot. What the hell am I going to do with a shop all torn to shit.” “Hey there, can I get a power float by lunchtime, or what’s the skinny, lad?” “No problem. I need to open yet, so it’ll be just a moment.” “Well take your time, preferably in this decade, though.” “That gives me nine years. I’ll be right with you.” “What’d that dumb son-of-a-whore do now?” It’s Jim, making his usual morning entrance. “Did you do that?” Owen shakes his head. “I didn’t think so. That bastard Pelcherer, he’s always sticking his slimy fingers in the shop and fucking things up. Where the hell are all the parts?” “The old garage. He came in on Sunday and stuffed the whole rig into the garage.” “Said he was ‘getting organized’, didn’t he.” “Yep, that’s what he said.” Jim shakes his head, picks up the delivery orders and walks out of the shop, cursing none to softly to himself. “Is he always in that good of a mood?” “That’s about normal.” “He must like his job, eh,” and the old Irish carpenter winks at him. He has friendly, Irish blue eyes and wrinkling paternal features with burnt blonde hair turning gray. Owen likes him. He’s a rugged individualist. Owen smiles back. “Let me get that float for you.” “Today, eh? That’s what I like.” They walk out into the shop, the tools are all still in the same place, down to the Bobcat® motor sitting on a palate in the way of everything. Owen had been trying to get it out of the way for three weeks. If he wanted to be productive, he could have moved the fucking motor. Owen sets the old contractor up with the float, rents a couple rug doctors and a floor sander, changes the bucket on a Bobcat®, pulls a 26-foot conveyor belt from the two-story storage racks with a forklift, oils it, rents a jackhammer-compressor rig to a steady contractor whom he dislikes, rents an emergency saw to Andy — Andy’s an everyday kind of guy. Always renting something, and today he desperately needs the emergency saw to cut concrete, but the saw won’t start, and Owen can’t find the carb kits because they’re lost in the old garage. He manages to get the saw going, rents it, then rents a weed-whacker, a belt sander, power-pipe-threader, carpet stretcher, tile cutter, floor buffer, floor sander, a shop vac, a Titan® airless, he races, frantic, renting, trying to keep up, but they just keep coming in and wanting tools and rigging and abrasives and advice and Andy’s back in with the saw, dead to the world, and the weed-whacker needs blades, and the floor sander’s out of adjustment, and some bitchy old man wants a chainsaw immediately. They continue, undigressing until 12:30 when the rush finally subsides. Everyone’s eating lunch. Marcus whisks in from out of nowhere. “Wow, this place is a mess. You must have really been busy.” Owen just looks at him. “You need to take a break?” “If you don’t mind.” “Go ahead, go sit down. Go get something to eat.” “Thanks.” Bay View supports several restaurants and markets, none of which Owen finds special. The Hof Brau being the best, then the markets, and then the Kentucky Fried Chicken® on Industrial Ave. Craving grease, Owen makes for the chicken shop. Something about the crunchy crust, nothing about the meat. Simply the greasy crust. It’s bad habit — the grease, the steroid-adeld flesh, the booze, cigarettes, soda pop, potato chips — it’s all one interconnected bad habit. But who the hell cares? Who the hell wants to live when all you’ve got to look forward to is work and death and bureaucracy? Who the hell wants to live under the morality of government? Who the hell wants to live for nine-dollars-an-hour? It’s just not worth it. It’s not worth fifty-dollars an hour for the heartburn and the weary joints and the oppression of creativity. You want Death, insanity or infamy by middle-age. Nothing less than excellence. Nothing mediocre. Nothing profane or mundane. Nothing routine, save for routing. Nothing ontological, save for wordcraft. Nothing unsung, save for singing. Nothing redundant, save for dunning. Nothing critical, save for critical thinking. Nothing by the book, save for writing the book itself. Nothing short of a doctrine. And all the mediocre will say is: ”It can’t be done. It’s all thought out. There’s nothing you could say that would be original, so why don’t you come to work for me?” I reply to that offer with a word of unknown origin, yet a word that evokes one of the highest truths in the wealth of human understanding: Hooey. We know nearly nothing. We, as a race over the last ten-thousand years, have come up with a few metaphysical strands scattered here and there across the realms and dimensions other than the fleshy sensual prisons in which we reside, to our chagrin. We understand very little. Even the mystics, prophets and sages lack complete understanding, thus far. They preach happiness, love, war, etcetra; yet they are often unhappy, themselves, as martyrs. They realize they are not that special. Nothing is special, everything is simply necessary. Everything is precisely as it should be. But to date we’ve secured only the rudimental periphery. Metaphysically speaking, we have yet to invent the wheel. Metaphysically speaking, we’re still hammering stone. If we had invented it, things would be different. Guaranteed. The big trick, of course, would be an extrasensual emancipation. Some people spend their days and nights trying to figure a way to ditch the flesh and head for the ethereal, and yet all they come up with are psychedelics, alcohol and sex. And art, of course. Organized religion is quaint, but it is conceived for following. Art is the only path leading anywhere. If organized religion reveals anything it is this: Be an artist. Binge, rock out, go wild. But if you’re not creating something outside your body — continually birthing your spirit in order to transcend — then you might just as well slit you throat, because you have given up and are merely awaiting death. Creation is all that matters. Everyday life, daily routine, stability, political correctness, conservative revisionists, capitalists, communists, authoritarian bureaucrats with visions of the never-ending hierarchy, guilty catholic child molesting priests, whore-mongering television evangelists, game show hosts, civic pillars of decency, the moral kiosks of the church, the redundant junkie bondsman and the melodrama of Wallstreet, the wailings of the middle class — nothing but grandiose globules of dogma oozing with gentrifying ballyhoo. Art is all the matters. Everything else is an homage to dying. Owen drives through the fast-food pit, orders a chicken sandwich and fries, pulls into a stall in the parking lot, begins to eat. He unwraps the foil, takes a bite. It tastes like cardboard. Caddy corner from KFC® is the Green Tortoise. Owen remembers hearing of the bus line from travelers he met in Alaska. Who was it? Kay? Todd the ogre? Terry? Maybe it was all of them. It doesn’t matter. They all spoke highly of the line. They praised it as a well-kept secret. Ranted about it as though they’d found a rare gem in a pile of dog shit. And here it was — this rare gem in a pile of shit. “Ironic to find it down here in the scum,” he says to himself. “I wonder if they need a mechanic?” The sandwich finished, feeling frustrated with the food and his job, Owen fires-up Rocinante and cruises over to the gate of the Green Tortoise. An older, beige and green bus hangs over an old pit. Owen has never seen a mechanic’s pit before. He likes the look of it. The yard is packed to the gills with metal and tires and barrels of oil and bus parts. He likes the ambiance, the character of it immediately. It feels right. This is the place you should be. The face of the building looks dilapidated, yet with character. Oak-slat siding with highly-ornate gabled facade Antiquated, yet animated. Indeed. Theatrical. Comic. A harlequin in pauper’s rags. Opening the solid oak door, entering the office, aclutter with papers and books, three people on the left-hand side taking reservations on the telephone, a man with grey-curly hair, balding, sits at a desk in the back on the right hand side. “May I help you?” says a man with soft brown skin and a red-felt paisley fezz. “I was wondering if you could use any help in your shop.” “You need to talk to Wade. Go outside, down into the yard. I think he’s down there.” “Thanks.” Alongside the pit and the bus, a driveway drops into the yard. Along the back, stacked three tiers high, about twenty feet, Differentials, fenders, tubes and hoses, tires and transmission pullers, sheets of aluminum and channel iron, exist in a state of aesthetic bliss. An industrial washing machine, a front loader, churns away and next to it two large commercial dryers, behind that the skeleton of a bus like the one sitting on the pit. Over all of this a sundeck, complete with shower built off what appears to be a kitchen. Behind the decaying dignity of the facade, the Green Tortoise vaguely resembles a clubhouse. Owen smiles. This is where you should be. This is something worth discovering. “Hello. What can I do for you.” Owen turns to behold a burly man with a big red-greying bushy bears. Beneath the edges of the beard he can see the pock marks in the man’s face. The scars, too. But his eyes are bright and shining, like those of a child. Owen knows he’s home. “Hello. Well, I’m looking to change jobs. I have one now, but the stress is getting to me. I’ve heard of your company and I’m working in the area so I thought I’d come by and see if you needed help.” “Where are you working at?” “Whitey’s.” “Oh. Sure. Well we do things a little differently around here. We like to have a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere. It gets a little hairy around here on Fridays, when all the buses go out, but other than that we try to get things done with good sense of humor. What’s your name?” “Owen Dunum. And yours?” “Wade Laughter.” “Really?” “I shit you not, my friend. Where are you from?” “I’m from Nebraska. Lincoln. I went to college there, but grew up on a farm south of there. That’s where I learned the fine art of Jerry-rigging.” “The art of keeping things running.” “It’s a challenge.” “Are you any good at fabrication?” “No problem.” “Well, I’ll tell you what, Owen, I like your style and I think we can work you in, though we probably can’t pay you what your getting at Whitey’s.” “I’ll trade the money for the reduction in stress.” “When do you want to start.” “Well, let me go back to work and talk to my boss and I’ll give you a call tomorrow morning.” “Great. Welcome aboard, Owen.” “Thanks, I’m excited about it. This job is driving me up a tree.” “We’ll talk to you in the morning, then?” “First thing.” “Well, I don’t get in here until ten, so not before that.” “Okay. Thanks for the opportunity, Wade.” “No problem.” he says, smiles that excellent smile of his that makes his eyes sparkle. Owen smiles back. They part company, Owen heads back to work, thinking about whether or not he should take the job. What can you make of this ramshakle palace Fate lays at your feet? A trick, perhaps? A lure? A hidden snare? To good to be true, it would seem, Fata Morgana handing you this little gem in the dung, this emerald in the landfill. Should you take it? Or runaway screaming. Can’t tell anymore . . . it’s like chasing wild boar through the brush. Better yet, fox. Fox with the footfalls of an elephant stampede and the wispiness of a gaggle of spooks. Crashing on this side and that and you hear only the dropping steps — the underbrush gnashed and torn root from limb and all you hear is the damage, the proverbial tree falling in the forest, and then the horizon before you, but you’re never sure if its a trail or a trick. You never can tell. All you hold in your favor is instinct, opposable thumbs, and a brain dumb enough to get you into trouble, yet wily enough to get you out. Sniffing at the wind, scanning the horizon, clawing at the dirt, your olfactory, ocular and other ontological senses take you only so far. Beyond that lay the oracle of instinct. Instinct. Bah. Instinct was stupid once. Instinct, too, needed to learn. Imagine a universe before instinct. When molecules knew nothing at all. The only true time of the Tabla Rosa, the Great Blank Tablet, the pure moron. Back when the elder gods were pups. Nothing knew how to react. Action occurred at random. Things ‘became’ by coincidence. No prior data existed. Blind Baby Instinct. Instinct exists on the genetic level, on the molecular plane, but there was a time when the molecules carried an unfathomed, unlearned valance — given that knowledge boils down to electrochemical charges arranged just so. Given that intelligence depends on an enzyme. An enzyme like the one found in Einstein’s brain. Given that. Otherwise, Billions of years, it took, to educate the molecule. Eons passing, learning instinct, permutating metachemical entropy with visions of immortality. Perpetuating the kingdom. Splitting personalities to promote strength. A healed break is stronger than the original. Cleaving identity from entity. Covering all facets of understanding. Searching for the perfect blend. Mastering adaption and expansion via elective affinity, survival and reproduction — all the primal functions harnessed, the base hierarchy covered, instinct seeks higher ground. Instinct seeks terra incognita. Instinct transcends the atom. That’s its nature. Seeking pure congruency. Instinct made mass, then dinosaurs, then humans. No good. Moving right along, rising up from an undefinable mass to a definable whole — creating, destroying, failing, succeeding — Instinct seeks theosophy. The level beyond the phenomenal plane. Humans are better than dinosaurs, but they’re not there yet. No sir. Instinctually, Fate recognizes Humanity as inferior, for the most part. Humans are not perfect, though they think of themselves as conceived from a perfect image. Perfect image, indeed, but it had nothing to do with anthropomorphic composition, it had something to do with the spirit with which humans were endowed. Dolphins are cool, to be sure. And in many ways waggish, our betters — but they lack the desire to soar. They swim, content with their surroundings. Humans desire to climb. Rise to the sky ablaze, like a Phoenix. Not humans individually, mind you; rather ; the gesselschaft weltanschuang. Instinctually, humans grew up from the mud out of a concentrated transmolecular desire to avatar and exodus. The substance of the universe is organic. Existence comprises untethered energy, or free agents, and harnessed energy in matter form and the only thing in the universe procreating matter is the universe itself. Given that the universe is an organism of no slight magnitude. The universe is expanding. Or is that stretching? There’s a difference. But if it expands it produces matter as it expands, procreating, as it were. Attempting to get so big it no longer requires matter to grow. Finite matter, then whoosh, off into bigger realms. That’s a perfect being for you: one who can dump the fleshy matter and zip out beyond the cosmos. That’s living life. Albeit, omniscience isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be . . . The freedom of extraneous existence is the only goal truly worth acquiring, according to the nature, to the instinct, of the universe. It’s best to be a free agent. Take the job, you can always leave. * * * When Owen returns, Whitey’s is a madhouse, as usual. Potential renters mill about the office impatiently, awaiting service. Marcus is a mess — hopping to and fro between the three terminals, running out to the shop for the equipment, selling the accessories — it’s too much for a mere man. Owen dives in and helps him finish the rush, whipping back and forth between the counter and the equipment area until things calm down. The rush runs most of the afternoon. The sun begins to hang heavy, and Owen goes out into the shop to sort through the mess Marcus made the day before. He can’t find anything. Nothing makes sense. There are no parts, save for the obscure, anywhere in the shop proper. They’ve all been shanghaied over into the dingy garage. Senseless. The tools are there, but they’ve been rearranged. The fixed equipment pushed against the rear, mixed in with the equipment awaiting parts, and those awaiting troubleshooting or repair. One week prior, Owen had them all sorted out. And that god-damned Bobcat® engine still sits on the floor in the middle of everything. Owen feels his gumption hissing away faster than ever, like a hose about to blow. He begins reordering the shop. Tools first, then the equipment. Discovering the parts shelves in the old garage, he hauls them back out to the shop and begins sorting through the eschewed pile of gaskets and plugs and hoses and magnets and filters, taking the most-often-used parts back out to the shop. He looks at that damn motor. Directly above the motor, a three-tier shelf stands and on the top of the third-shelf, a space perfect for the palatized Bobcat engine. “I’m shop manager. I say where things go. He said this was my shop.” Owen mutters to himself, goes to fetch a forklift. Marcus stands behind the counter, speaking with a Spanish-looking gentleman. The forklifts are buried in Bobcats®, Owen starts them up one by one, depressing the button for the glowplug, then firing them up and backing them out until he can get to a forklift. It’s tight, as usual, all the big-rigs are stashed in a broken-down, wooden barn-style warehouse. They fit in there just so. But he gets the lift out, and drives it into the main warehouse. He brings the lift in slow, easing the two large prongs into the slats of the palate, and hoists the motor into the air. Bringing the load back a bit, raising it a little higher, he sets the palate on the third shelf. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING! I TOLD YOU I WANTED THAT MOTOR RIGHT THERE. THIS IS MY SHOP AND MY YARD AND MY BUSINESS! I AM THE OWNER AND YOU WILL DO AS I TELL YOU TO DO! NOW SET THAT FUCKING MOTOR DOWN AND STOP FUCKING AROUND AND GET SOME FUCKING WORK DONE. THIS PLACE IS A FUCKING MESS! WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE PARTS DOING OUT HERE? I WANT THEM BACK IN THE GARAGE RIGHT THIS MINUTE. THIS IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS, OWEN, THIS IS MY BUSINESS AND YOU DO AS I SAY!” says Marcus, and turns and walks back into the office. Lowering the motor back to the ground, feeling the anger rising up inside him, engulfing the feeling of humiliation at having been scolded, setting the motor gently on the ground, Owen shuts the lift off, stands by it a moment, thinking, then walks in the office where Marcus and the gentleman still stand at the counter gabbing, and begins removing his keys from the ring. “Owen, this is the man I’ve been waiting to talk to about the motor. That’s why I wanted it on the ground. This is my shop manager, Owen Dunum.” The man nods at Owen, Owen nods back, continues removing his keys. “Owen I’ve got to finish speaking with him, can you wait just a moment so we can talk?” “Good-bye,” says Owen and walks out the door. Walking through the shop, realizing that he’s wearing the Whitey’s-issue navy-blue work pants, he pulls his belt from the oversized pants, stripping down to his gymshort underwear, throws the pants on the floor of the shop and leaves the building, feeling exhilarated. Rocinante awaits, ready to go. He fires her up, pulls away from the yard as Jim drives in, stops. “You walking?” “Yep.” “Well, I’ll tell you what: a lot of people have walked out of this yard because of that asshole, and every one of them I’ve talked to later found something better.” “Well, I’ve found something better, too. Good working with you, Jim. A pleasure. You taught me a helluva lot.” “That’s what I get the big money for.” “You know it. See you around.” “Keep your nose in the wind.” “You don’t have to worry about that. Adios.” “Via condios.” And it’s like a weight lifted from you shoulders. A feeling of victory. Fuck the establishment. I cow-towe to no man. It’s just not worth it. I’ve got the Green Tortoise. Owen drives back over to the Green Tortoise, Wade is out back in the yard. “Hello,” says Owen, “Well I just went through a bit of a row with my boss and I quit so I’ll be available whenever you need me.” “How about Friday morning.” “Tomorrow? Of course. What time?” “Oh, about ten or so. Come in then and we’ll get you set up.” “Sounds great. See you in the morning.” Back on Rocinante, Owen takes the high road to Scott Street, directly through San Francisco. A spectacle, he is, with his black leather jacket and gymshorts and his burly white legs in worn work boots. He looks funny, he thinks, but women in passing cars continue to shower him with howls and wolf whistles. Owen likes the attention. It adds intensity to the moment. A fanfare, of sorts, for walking off the job. Owen experiences a perfect moment waiting for the light at the intersection of Folsom and Van Ness. An epiphany of no slight magnitude. Universal, you might say. He can barely balance the bike, feeling as though he might just up and fly away. The light turns green. On with the show. André, Carlos and Ted and Owen are all sitting on the porch sunning themselves and drinking coffee when Owen pulls up. They look quizzically down upon him, scantly-clad in his gymshorts. “Did you quit, road warrior?” André asks. “Yep.” And they all stand up, applauding and cheering. “Well it’s about time, dude,” Owen says, “That guy was working you to death.” “I feel a certain amount of vindication.” Owen says, parks Rocinante on the sidewalk, walks up the stairs. “What are you going to do now?” “I got a job at the Green Tortoise.” “Hey, I’ve heard of that place. It’s a bus line or something, right? I hear they’re really cool.” “You should see this place. It’s incredible. Shitloads of character. I think I’ll be much happier. Less money, but what the fuck. It’s worth the trade.” “I’ll take working conditions over money anytime,” says the unemployed André. “Dude, you don’t even work,” says the tall, skinny Owen. “I’ve worked. I just got sick of it. I was working sixty hours-a-week at that Ad agency, but it sucks. Work sucks.” They all nod in unison, rubbing their chins with their thumbs and forefingers. “So when do you start?” “Tomorrow.” “That was quick.” “I do so love it when things move along well.” “I suppose we ought to go out and celebrate your quitting.” “I think that would be a good call.” “Dude, you should come with us to the Meat Puppets. They open at the Warfield tonight. I’m heading down there for tickets pretty soon here, you want to go?” Ted says, in his typical challenging tone.” “Sounds killer.” “You got twenty bucks.” “Here.” “It’ll be way cool, and then we’ll head down to this place on Market that’s supposed to be happening.” “What time are we going down?” “About seven-thirty.” “So we have time to grab a beer down at Toronado’s, then, this afternoon.” “Hell yes.” “Let me catch a shower and we’ll go.” * * * The Toronado, in lower Haight, sports the post-nuclear-holocaust look, the look of the fringe, and yet it is small, simple a beer bar. Taps line the wall behind the bar proper, thirty or better, and old bearded fools sit at the bar and sample beers from Northern California, and the rest of the world. Beer sampling is a hobby many men take pride in. And now the two Owens, André, Ted and Carlos sit at the bar in the Toronado, sampling beer. “Dude, there is no finer beer than Anderson Valley Boont Amber. It’s nectar.” “Owen, Red Tail Ale’s ‘Eye of the Hawk’, dude, that’s all I have to say.” “What about Anchor’s ‘Old Foghorn’,” says André. “You can’t take it out of the brewery, dude, it’s too frail. It doesn’t have the same kick. It loses something in transport. They don’t even have it here. There’s one place in town where you can get it, that shit bar over on 22nd. It sucks at night, but during the day when nobody’s there, you have the place to yourself and you can play pool and drink Old Foghorn. We’ll get a tour of Anchor. I want to take Carlos there, we’ll all just go sometime and we’ll try the Old Foghorn there and then go to that pub, what the fucks its name — Wreckless, or some shit like that — it sucks. But we’ll go there after we hit Anchor brewery and you’ll see the difference. That’s the only way to see how the beer doesn’t transport.” “At least now I’ll be able to get off work so I can go.” “No doubt.” “I like this beer, but most American beers suck. We have Budweiser in Madrid and all the ‘hip’ people drink it, but I think it tastes like piss.” “It’s like the old joke.” “What’s that?” “What do having sex in a canoe and American beer have in common?” “What.” “They’re both fucking close to water.” “That jokes always good for a laugh,” says Owen, “because it’s true. Americans water everything down: Their coffee, beer, religion, sex, everything. Everything’s dilute.” “That’s no lie.” “Everything but our music, dude. We got rock and roll.” “That becomes more dilute everyday.” “No way. Never happen.” “Oh, it happens all the time and you damn well know it. You just avoid it, like a curse.” “Sure, there’s crap. There’s always crap. But some bands hold true.” “Well, I’ll give you that, I guess.” “Oh, you know it. There are some good bands on the rise — Butthole Surfers, Dinosaur Jr., Pearl Jam, Meat Puppets, Chili Peppers — dude, your going to see some fucking killer music coming out here in the nineties. With all this crap that’s come to call — the artists will be dropping left and right, but out of the rubbish arise the super bands of our generation. The thirteenth generation. The damned generation. And we’re all right here witnessing it happen. That’s what I like about living in the Bay Area. You feel like you’re right there as the icons plop from placental sacks. You get to behold the actual avatar of a prophet.” “Or, more likely, another flunkey on the road to ruin.” “Well, they can’t all be Elvis.” “Oh, yeah, Elvis really hung in there. Dead before forty. Way cool.” “Live fast, die young, leave a good looking corpse.” “Didn’t Blondie say that?” “Who gives a shit. It fits the life-style.” “Young death helps your career, but you need to produce like hell.” “The best ones live to be very old.” “That’s debatable.” “Look at Henry Miller, look at Picasso, Mark Twain, Hemmingway, sort of, hell, Bukowski’s no swadlin’ babe. He’s dead in fact, but he lived to a ripe old age drinking and fucking and writing.” “Yeah, but you look better if you die young.” “You look like a punk, who couldn’t control his or her fun.” “What’s control got to do with it.” “Control is everything. Focus. Without it, you’re fucked.” “Fuck that shit. Instinct. React. Intellect only bogs you down. You droogs want another round? What should we have . . . Devil Mountain?” “What about Pete’s?” “That’s it. Pete’s Wicked Ale all around, Terry,” says Ted to the bartender. Ted in his element. What rot. “Dude,” he says, looks to Owen, “What’s best intuition or intellect?” “A functional mix of both. I answer that intuitively. I could have thought about it, but in the end I would have come up with the same conclusion. I think reaction’s best, but reaction is based on instinct and instinct, at some level, is learned, which requires intellect. You need both.” “Okay, Doc Dunum.” “Well, you asked.” “Drink your fucking beer.” “Oh, Ted, don’t be such a wuss.” “Fuck intellect. It gets you nowhere. I mean, I read. I read a lot. But creation comes from the primal forces.” “That works for music, but not for writing. Music expresses intellect through intuitive means; writing expresses the intuitive via intellect.” “I’ve written a couple stories, nothing incredible. I mean, their incredible in my head, but they don’t come out right.” “It take a lot of practice. That’s why I started writing in the first place, because I knew it would take years to learn to do well.” “It takes years to learn to do anything well.” “Anything worth doing.” “Word up.” “Do you like this Pete’s?” “I think it’s too bitter.” “It’s not bad.” “It’s not nectar.” “Not much is.” “I’ll drink to that.” “You’ll drink to anything.” “Shut up and drink. A toast,” says Ted, “to Owen’s leaving the sweatshop.” “Salud.’ “Broscht.” “Here’s to mud in your butt.” * * * Cami rides on the back of Rocinante, as the group heads down to the Warfield to catch the Meath Puppets. Cami is cute, but nothing special. Mousey, pale, flat-chested — he’d take her on a bet, but that’s about it. She doesn’t care for him much either, by the way she’s hanging back in the touring seat, so everything’s mutual. It’s best that way. It’s evening and the chill is coming in with the clouds off the ocean and the city bustles with people running here and there, relaxing, living, dying. Business as usual. Always on the verge of drag racing, they make their way downtown. It’s always a race between Owen and Ted. A continual challenge of mental prowess. A constant exchange. And Owen has never been one to turn a challenge away, so he races and rants and performs right alongside Ted, making him work, making him sweat. Ted seems to like it that way. They park the bikes on the sidewalk, directly in front on the Warfield. “Curb service,” Owen says to Cami, smiling. She returns a banal smile. “Thanks for the ride.” There’s a crowd in front of the theater, kids in the majority, most of them here to see the headliner band, the Violent Femmes. “The Femmes. Shit.” Andre says, looking at the marquis. “They haven’t produced anything worthwhile in eight years.” “Nothing since ‘Blister in the Sun’. “Well hellfire! We’ll stay and watch the Puppets and then split if the Femmes are a drag. Let’s get in there and get a drink. I’m parched.” “You’re always parched.” “Hellfire!” They walk into the crowd and up through to the security guards. They pat Owen down for bottles and let him pass. They never search him because he always looks them politely in the eyes and smiles and they pat him down and they let him through every time. Without fail, thus far. And he’s usually carrying something. “Our seats are in the Balcony,” Ted says and heads for the stairs. The Warfield is grand inside, with a massive chandelier and two wide widening staircases, decorated in plush gay 20s theater red. Indeed, breathtaking. It would make a fine living room. “Bill Graham’s kid owns the place. Bill bought it for him for a pet, basically.” “Nice pet.” “I’d like to have something like it. You want a beer?” “Sure, here’s some cash. I’m going for the bathroom.” Owen says, handing André a ten-dollar bill, and walking for the bathroom. Beautiful, skanky, underage rocker sluts permeate the hallway. They’re everywhere. Done up in black leather and black nylon and black lace and black silk and black fuck-me pumps, with magenta lips. Their fecundity, their budding fertility, moist, dark and swollen, their supple bodies still fresh to the feel of a man. Nubile, but not for long. And his olfactory senses pick up their scent. Their scented musk. Each one individually. Each is different, most smell divine. Owen begins to get an erection, walks into the men’s room and goes limp. “Shitload o’ babes,” says André, handing Owen his beer as he emerges from the head. “Here in force, that’s for sure. It’s all jail-bait, though.” “Yeah. It’s not worth the time.” “It’s nice to look at.” “Makes me feel old.” “Yes, there’s that.” “I mean, they come here across one of the bridges in their daddy’s car and the two-hundred-dollar outfits. It’s like a fashion show.” “That’s precisely what it is.” “No. It’s a fucking concert.” “That’s where it all happens.” “I suppose that’s the entertainment industry. But it still makes me feel old.” “We’re just a couple old rocker perverts, André” “Here’s to that. Fuck them if they can’t take a joke.” They toast and head inside for the show. The Meat Puppets . . . saw them once long ago at the Drumstick. Didn’t care that much for them. Those were suicide music days. Joy Division, Christian Death, The Damned, Certain General, Tones on Tail. Death, death, death. You were consumed with death in those early days when you saw the Puppets, and they weren’t preaching death, and you were in a suicide mood, so you’d have nothing to do with them. They’re all still there, the three piece, albeit much older. We’re all much older. But they sound good. Sounds like their lead guitar player finally learned to use his MIDI. About time. He doesn’t look as giddy as he had at the stick. He had a perm, back then, and it made him look like a big rag doll. I suppose that’s the look he was going for, but he looks much better this way. His hair is still long, but straight, and just a little bit gray. His face has thinned, wrinkled a little, but it adds to the validity of his character. Lends stature to his frame. He gives off the impression of a stately madman. That’s the look were all going for. The drummer keeps the time quick, steady, with an eccentric twist to a traditional backbeat — adding baps, bops, bings and bangs from out of nowhere, but they fit. They fit the music. They fit the timbre. It does not subtract from the narrative of the song. The beauty of a tight three-piece. André understands, he’s here, bouncing away to ‘Pop Skull’. The Femmes fans aren’t enjoying it a bit. They’re looking at each other, stupid, wondering what the hell it is they’re listening to. But it doesn’t matter, either. The Puppets aren’t here for them. The kids aren’t ready yet. Just like you weren’t ready back then. They just came to dance. Owen pulls the pipe from his boot and passes it down the line to be filled. “Killer, eh?” “They sound good.” “The Femmes fans hate it.” “Let them go screw.” A simple, semi-funky groove is all they want to hear. Nothing eclectic, nothing complex. Nothing tutorial. And they’ll get that from the Violent Femmes, but not the Meat Puppets. Frankly, the straight, commercial backbeat gets old. There’s so much in rhythm. Rhythm pulls the soul from the dark depths consciousness — crammed into some dead- memory oubliette — whips it out and plays with it. That’s a good drummer for you. Fuck the lead guitar. If you don’t have a good drummer, you have nothing. Elvis would have worked the bars for life, without the aid of a few funky drummers. Without percussion, without time, music breaks apart to chaos. Then comes the bass. Probably the most unsung of any musical instrument. The bass acts as a go-between for rhythm and tone. Threading them together. Allowing the drummer to ease into a grove without losing the thumping low end. And rhythm guitar? The rhythm guitar is an excuse for not knowing how to play single notes. Any guitar player worth their board and booze plays either. Thus the efficiency of the well-tuned three piece. No one member slacks. And you understand this, now, listening to these boys go at it. It whangs out from the intricately-crafted stage, nearly vaudevillian. The drummer is short and squat and looks chimp-like, whirring around on his kit. The bass player now resembles a Raggedy Andy, an enormous toddler. And of course the lead. He looks grand indeed — majestic and insane. What are they’re names? Don’t know. Have to ask André later. For now, just stop thinking about it and enjoy the show. Enjoy the momentary release. Dancing is the first step towards enlightenment. If you dance well enough, when you die, you can dance right through the wrathful deities. But you need to be a damn good dancer. “What do you think?” “I think it sounds great. They’ve really improved over the years.” The puppets break into a song, oddly familiar, but he can’t place it then it occurs to him: ‘Bali Hai’. Owen looks around. Nobody in the gang knows what song it is. They standing there, looking quizzical. “IT’S ‘BALI HAI’,” Owen shouts, “FROM ‘SOUTH PACIFIC’.” They don’t understand. “Forget it.” The Puppets wind it up and the Femmes begin and get boring, as expected, so everyone stands out in the hallway, drinking, occasionally stepping into the auditorium, then stepping back out and drinking. “What was the name of that song they played at the end?” “It was ‘Bali Hai’, from the musical ‘South Pacific’. The one the fat lady sang. None of you know that?” “Oh, I had no clue,” André says, genuinely intrigued. Ted just nods, apparently disinterested. “Let’s go hit that bar. This band bums me out.” * * * Out on Market, they hit the streets, ready to party with a vengeance. The Puppets leaves them with quite a charge. They fire up the bikes, ferocious with rancor, whip into traffic. Ted races out ahead and Owen guns Rocinante hard and keeps up with him. Ted tries to pull ahead, but once Rocinante breaks 3000 RPM, there’s no keeping her down. That’s why she’s special. Sidewalk storefronts whipping by, Cami holding on to him now, clutching at his jacket as they hit 85, Market street ablur. Owen blows past Ted, then backs off, because he doesn’t know where the bar is along the street. Ted shoots through the amber light and pulls in a few blocks ahead, Owen stops for the light. The rest are way behind. The signal changes, Owen drives up beside Ted, parks the bike. “You can take me off the line,” Owen says, dismounting, “but give me fifty yards and interstate and all you’ll see is my taillight.” “No fucking way, dude.” “We’ll see.” First you had a couple specks of dust, and they had a good thing going. There existed an elective affinity between them, but they didn’t know why. They just felt close. They collected members. The dust speck grew into a ball, and the ball grew to a lump and the lump grew into a mass and the mass grew bigger and bigger, until it was huge. Gigantic. The massive roughly-round sphere grew until it could grow no more and then went boom. The ball went boom because of static electricity, because the affinity had become so great that a single speck could no longer withstand the affection. The boom scattered dust specks from here to never, never land. Still, billions of light-years from planet Earth, dust specks continue to scatter. And the ones who cease scattering collect new dust and become planets and moons and organisms over time. And then they go boom, too. “Yeah, we’ll see who takes who,” Owen says to Ted, looks him straight in the eye. Ted backs down. “Let’s go have a drink.” “That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all night,” says Betty, “A drink. That’s what we came out for. Wasn’t it? To drink and have fun, right, Ted?” Ted nods, the other Owen pulls up. “Jesus, you guys are fucking nuts.” “Oh, we were just having fun.” “Just fucking kicking up our heels, dude.” “You’ll be kicking up more than that if you keep driving like a fucking psycho.” “EEEEYOOWWW! They’ll never stop me.” “That’s it, Ted, keep it up, keep up the attitude.” “Dude, you need it to survive.” “Yes, yes, hellfire. Can we go have a beer now?” “Fine idea.” “What about eating? I thought we were going to eat. I’m famished” “Owen, how can you eat and eat and stay so damn skinny. You eat like a fucking goat.” “Oh, I’m always working to keep my girlish figure.” “You eat like a goat.” “Bugger it. Let’s go drink.” Market street bristles, as usual with the Oakland whores and the drunks from Berkeley and all the kids from the suburbs running rampant. The air is cold as they swagger down the sidewalk, then through the thick wooden door of the pub, past the bouncer, who cards them all, then down the stairs into what appears to have been an old English-style supper club, a long, long time ago. Everything is oak and brass, down to the toilet seats in the john. The pub brims with brassy babes and oak-hearted heathens. A fine place, indeed. Ted scores beer for all — some amber-bodied brew with no aftertaste. They stand in the hallway of the crowed pub, drinking. Owen watches the women. “You want one of these lassies?” says Ted, “Take your pick. Any one of them is there for the pillaging.” “Yeah, right.” “I’m serious, dude. You’re a fucking stud. You could have any one of them. Walk up to them, hit them with an easy question, make a joke, and ask them about themselves. Get them to follow you back to the apartment, open two beers,” he says, pausing, grinning, “and I guarantee you those two full beers will be there for drinking the next morning. It’s a piece of cake. You merely pluck it from the trees.” “Yeah, I know the routine.” “Then why don’t you go get one.” “Because I don’t feel like it.” “It’s better than doing it yourself.” “Both have their advantages.” “Cheaper,” says André. “You don’t have to tell your hand it was a good one,” says Owen, the tall Owen. “You guys are a bunch of losers.” “No, I don’t like diseases.” “Oh, André, you’re a fucking hermit. You don’t count. Your metabolism’s different than most men. You need nothing but sunshine, fresh air, and the occasional lettuce wedge.” “Oh, I need more than that. I’m just patient.” “Patience will avert you.” “Not if I wait long enough.” “Bah, patience. Leave it for the meek. Take what you want when you want it. There’s always a means, if your will is strong.” “Will averts new patience.” “Okay, Ogg. Here have another beer.” “Ogg drink more beer.” “Ogg needs a fucking stick.” “You boys hanging out talking about your dicks again. Hellfire!” “We’re talking about armament, woman.” “Oh, yes, that’s perfect. Leave it to the cave-dweller-king to start demanding weapons from his subjects. Next thing you know we’ll be out in the street mugging tourists.” “If we need the money, so be it. Serves them right for carrying a wad around in the nineties. Credit cards. Now there’s the currency for the future. Everything on computer. Nothing paper. That’s better for the tourists.” “Yeah, but what about us?” “Well, we’ll be out marauding for gold and silver, of course.” “Yes, always silver and gold.” “And convenience stores.” “Yeah, but that’ll only gets you from one store to the next and an interstate felony charge.” “Good point.” “I guess there’s always the entertainment industry.” “Thank Buddha for that.” “Word up.” “Yes, what would we do without the entertainment industry.” “Probably the same thing we’re doing now: starving, drinking, raising hell, taking drugs.” “Same old shit.” “It does get rather old at times — the constant stupor, the falling down.” “The nausea.” “Oh, yes, the nausea,” says Betty, “that’s what I like best. Waking in the morn, fresh as roadkill, making the big spit on your way to the kitchen for coffee, or a beer. Yes, it’s quite the life-style. I rather think I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” “Would you trade it for a million dollars.” “Well, yes. But only if I could spend the money for partying.” “No, you’d have to give that up.” “Well that’s not all-together fair. What the hell would you want all that money for if you couldn’t use it for anything.” “You could do something besides drink.” “What, should I take up polo or some other droll recreational trash? Hell no. White trash royalty. That’s what I like. That’s what’s real. The rest of it is hogwash.” “Hogwash, that is, until you succeed.” “Nah, even if you make it. Feels best to hang with the scum.” “Who, the rich?” “No, the poor.” “But the poor aren’t scum.” “Some are, some are not.” “Relative scum.” “Or scummy relatives.” “Same goes for the rich.” “The people who are not scum are the people who admit they are,” Owen says, lighting a cigarette. “The good ones, the unscummy, don’t feign pride. Real scums are proud of their scum. They badger you with it. Wave it like a switch in your face, ready to beat you silly if you don’t cower in awe of their scummy vulgarity.” “Yep, that’s scum,” André says. “See that type all the time” “Saw one today.” “Well, it’s a good thing not all poor people are scum, or we’d be scum.” “No, were not scum.” “Nope.” “No we have class and education.” “Educated people can still be scum.” “Scum, from the standpoint of scumminess, is way cool.” “Yeah, but a relativist view like that, what’s not.” “Deification.” “Huh?” Owen draws from his smoke, ”Becoming a god, from the perspective of the individual being deified, is not always way cool. Sometimes it’s not fun to be a god.” “But can gods be scum?” “Same rules apply. If gods play vain, they’re scum. It’s bad enough that mortals, who have little to brag about, hold sacred petty notions of vanity — but for an omniscient being, one who ought to draw from motivations far removed from vanity, to succumb to Narcissism, well sir, it’s downright pathetic.” “Can you imagine a god running around throwing a temper tantrum, or being jealous?” says the tall, skinny Owen. “Totally bogus. I mean, what more could you wont for? You’re immortal.” “Happens all the time.” says André. “Most gods are primadonnas in saintly robes. Most gods think they’re way cool.” “No, those are demagogues. There’s a difference. Any god worth his salt doesn’t give horse’s butt for what happens. It’s all supposed to happen as it does, so they know that everything is cool. All the time, cool. And even enraged, they are cool. Below the molten surface, a modicum of ice drives their action. The modicum of ice says nothing really matters. Mortality is folderol.” “How the fuck do you know?” says Ted “Who gave you access to inside information?” “My instinct tells me so.” “Bugger that. Instinct says kill or be killed.” “My Instinct believed that when it was young. Now, however, it is old and weary of worldly concerns for conquering flesh. Now my instinct tells me not to worry over such petty indulgences. My instinct tells me this is my last time around. That I will gain full omniscience upon the cessation of this body, if I am strong. Instinct says my soul luminates with enough focus and intensity to pass through the wrathful deities, and on and on and on.” “And what if you don’t make it?” “There’s always next time.” “Next time.” “Sure. I’ve gone around a hundred and seven times trying to get it right.” “Hundred and seven, huh.” says Betty, “Well I guess nobody has to tell you more than once.” “Hey, it’s not easy to attain omniscience.” “That’s for sure.” “You whore yourself out and you slave away, jailed in a cage so poetically sensing pain and grief and anger and happiness, and work through life focusing on that one moment, lasting 49 days, upon which to ply what you’ve learned against the power of the Source. It’s a painful and difficult passage availing itself to you only once or twice throughout your lifetime. There is no time to practice, yet survival depends on constant preparation. If you fuck it up, you come back and start over again — bits and pieces of former lives hanging out in your gene pool, like mountain rebels, awaiting the moment of dying, to attempt once again to pierce the thin, durable veil of mortality.” “Sounds like sex,” says Betty “Sort of.” “Well, if dying is like sex, it can’t be all that bad.” “Death isn’t bad at all. Death is the one great opportunity humans have to actually do something productive with their lives.” “Sort of like getting laid.” “Yes,” Owen says, draining his beer, “yes, sort of like that. But better. “ * * * Back out in the street, wild as hell, ready to face death, they race the dark side streets of San Francisco. Owen doesn’t feel the weather. He is one with the bike now. And if she’s runs so does he. Together, they face the whimsical trappings of Fate and the road. Winding in and out of the shadows, pushing until she blows. Owen has her rapped out in third, to keep the torque up. Ted is out of his head, pitching and diving around the turns with nearly no regard for traffic. They pull up to a red light on Scott and Oak. Both Owens ride on Rocinante, Ted and Carlos share the Suzuki. Owen turns his head and looks over to Ted, who meets his stare. Owen is the challengee now. Ted nearly froths with rage. Their eyes lock for a moment, the challenge is made, the bet is the usual: Best man wins. The light turns green. The roar ricochets off the stately Victorians, tearing the air to shreds, the sound of horsepower run scalawag, the harnessed will to fly. They come off the line with Ted out in front. Bastards got more torque off the line. Owen breaks three thousand and Rocinante tightens the gap. He pushes her harder, winds her up and shifts, throws the throttle wide open. Rocinante’s front tire lifts up off the ground. She rides smooth on one wheel. Faster. Less friction. Not like the little bikes — the 125s and 250s and even the 500s jerking and bucking. No sir. She sails along smooth as freshly-shaven cunt. Exhilarated, Owen attempts to pass Ted, but they run out of space. Ted comes in just a little ahead. “We’ll get out on the interstate and see how bad you are.” “All you’ll see is the plume of my exhaust.” “Don’t be so sure.” “God-damnit, you two,” says the tall, skinny Owen. “I knew you were going to race. Why do you always have to race? Especially with me on the back. Damnit! I’m never riding with you guys again.” “Owen, don’t be such a puss.” “I’m not. You guys are fucking out-of-it, riding wheelies down residential streets at 80 miles-an-hour, with me on the back. And that’s where I draw the line — when it’s me on the back.” “I’m sorry O, I promise I won’t ever ride a wheelie with you on back.” “You of all people. You’re the oldest one here. You’re supposed to be the grounded one.” “I’m not that grounded.” “Well that’s for damned sure. You’re out of your fucking head.” “Some say.” “I’ll say,” says André “Oh, what the hell do you know?” “I know better than to ride on the back of your bike when we go somewhere with Ted. You only drive crazy when Ted’s there.” “He just antagonizes me.” “That’s my job, bitch.” “Easy now.” “Yeah, yeah, I know, you fucking monster. I know you could beat the hell out of me if you wanted to.” “Hey, I didn’t say anything.” “No, but that’s what your about. That’s all what your about. Fucking man-of-steel. Fucking Conan. Fucking Thor.” “I just turned out this way.” “Fucking Ted, just take it easy dude.” “Fuck it. I’m just drunk and tired.” “I’ll say.” “You’ll say anything.” “Only what I feel like saying. And I feel like saying: hey, let’s just forget it and head inside and smoke” “Fine idea, André. Let’s forget about it. We’re home now. Let’s go take some bong hits.” “Yeah,” Ted says, swaying. “A bong hit. That’s what I need.” * * * Owen lays in his room, the apartment dark and quiet. It’s easiest to tune in with the static roar of silence and the endless black enveloping your being, like a womb. “To hell with this shit,” Owen says to himself, shattering the silence. Yes, to hell with it all. It gets to you after awhile. Going on seven years now, and you suppose it’s all starting to crash. The lack of sleep, decaying joints, hardening liver, collapsing lungs, mental decay. Brain box softening, not working quite as well as it used to, does it? No sir. Used to work like wildfire. Worked all the time. Even while you slept. Your head slaved away, processing and reprocessing, reordering information, creating new models, laying the rough flat and the jagged plane, then smashing it all, then building a model existing outside the phenomenal plane, because that’s where the real fun lies. It was easy back then. It was easy to handle the constant debauchery, the acid, the speed , the ideological dichotomies — whatever they set in front of you. But that’s all gone. You’re older now, maybe wiser; maybe not. Perhaps you’ve learned nothing all this time. Perhaps it would be better to scrap it and start over again. Abort the European adventure, snag your final check from Whitey’s, and blaze back to that cabana in Baja. Someplace quiet. Someplace removed from the decadence. Someplace to gain control. And then there’s the feeling about Europe — and that damn prophecy of Dug’s. “You’re going to crash,” he’d said with a Cheshire cat grin. Bastard. This is all his fault. To hell with his prophecy. To hell with him. To hell with the lot of them. What does anybody know? To hell with Fata Morgana. She can go screw. They can all go screw. To hell with the booze and the drugs and the whores and the clickey, superior numb-nuts who spurn them on. You grow weary of their lame attempts at mediocrity. And to hell with quiet dignity and grace. To hell with humility. If you’re going out , go out kicking. That’s all there is to it. You need to go out with a laugh and a howl. You need to cynosure and nexsus. You need to demand light. Let there be light. Let there be darkness. Let there be time and space, manner and place, sight and sound, smell, touch and taste, defrocked and defaced of logic encased in the guise of the noble savage. To hell with the cut of their jib. Let the feast begin. Forward never straight. Straight exists only within the linear. Only in geometric model. There is nothing linear about life and death and existential angst, save for the linearesque idylls some attempt to apply. And you know, of course, what they can do with their idylls. * * * Whip it again! The bore’s gentile swain. The meek and the lame, the sallow and tame raise not a claim to the Calliope reign, an eloquent vein, singing strong in the game, piped-organ chortle refrain, And the crowd bades they let loose the lions. The victor wins his life. And the lions attack! They circle, then WHACK, you find yourself neck-deep in trouble. Thrashing claws, gnashing teeth, snapping jaws they bequeath, your tan bones unsheathe, spilt blood apertif’ thus lapped from your wreath, while your skin and your guts turn to rubble. A scene besieged with strife. Striking slash! Feinting dodge! You assail the barrage, black death’s entourage, fighting frenzied collage with smoking mirage. Holding stout-head and will, these mighty beasts kill — raging, roaring laid still, from feline to swill, from matter to nil, from savanna to mill, their bones ground for fill, fur sold for top bill on snobbery hill, tanned and sewn to cut chill and their proud heads now tacked to the garage. And the warrior wins a knife. “Good show!” cheers the crowd, they bellow it loud. “We are so very proud of our warrior vowed! N’er hath we seen a man made so mean, killing that team of vicious brutes clean, sans sword with gleam, sans a shield or a beam, and demeaningly green. Oh! Where have you been, our warrior keen, your body so lean, your soul with a sheen, the blood in your genes must most likely glean from the clan of the Viking endowed!” A trait beyond dull rife. Then anointed, appointed, then slain and disjointed, they promptly label him savior. The trademark avatar. * * * You’re in link mind for mind with the station that rocks the Pantheon, station K-T-H-O-R. Thundering to you live from the Great Hall of Asgard. We now return you to our illusion. * * *
In the shadowed corridors of creativity, where echoes of yesterday's dreams intertwine with tomorrow's whispers, Kevin M. Cowan crafts a symphony of words and notes, a digital tapestry woven with threads of noir and nuance. His prose, a chiaroscuro of light and shadow, dances with the rhythm of a heartbeat, each sentence a note in a haunting melody that lingers long after the final page is turned. As a technologist, he navigates the labyrinth of code and circuitry, conjuring worlds where the mechanical and the mystical converge. In this twilight realm, where the boundaries of reality blur, Cowan stands as a sentinel of the soul's deepest yearnings, his creations a testament to the enduring power of art in an age
Kevin M. Cowan is a writer, technologist, and artist whose work spans novels, AI development, drumming, and filmmaking. From his fiction roots in Nebraska to experimental media projects and cutting-edge AI, Kevin blends storytelling, sound, and code into one creative continuum. Explore his world — one story, rhythm, and idea at a time.
Music. Video. Visuals arts. All composed or curated by Kevin.
Neo, Archive Guide
