River of Dreams #35: Into The Storm

Posted on November 4, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 18

III

South Into the Storm

Ominous black clouds loomed in the southern sky and a chill wind blew. Random went to the back of the car and pulled out his jacket. He got in and roared off for the freeway south. He found an apple in the jacket pocket and realized he had hardly eaten. He ate the apple while negotiating the freeway onramp and on around past Daly City. A feeling of panic was rising in him little by little. He tried to examine it, but he could not get too close without it vanishing like smoke, drifting away staying just out of reach.  As he passed Millbrae he began going through all that had happened in the past four days and trying to make some sense of the dreams and real life weirdness. By the time he reached Burlingame he had thought about how it all had to do with the black bird and dreams and little visions. As he passed the off ramp east to San Mateo, he passed by the thought that he was being manipulated by some power, but his love for Essie was more important than the feeling of annoyance at being used like a pawn in some game of spiritual chess. He passed the City reservoir, Crystal Springs, and realized he was driving along the San Andreas Fault. Golf courses sprang up to the left. He was passing Stanford University and a sign for The Veterans Memorial Cemetary and Page-Mill Rd. He realized the engine was straining and looked at the speedometer. He was doing 90 and coming up on cars very fast. He slowed to 60 as he started to hit the afternoon traffic around Sunnyvale and Silicon Valley.

Chapter 19

I

The Cowgirl Princess Meets The Prince of Darkness

Maddie bounced and swayed and rattled with the rhythm of creaking bus. The dark clouds gathered in the sky among the white puff sheep of the morning and a wind began to bring the smell of electricity and damp bluster. The bus stopped with a whoosh and squeak of the air breaks. Maddie was the first one out flying off the second step landing on the toe of her clunky combat style black boots. The first large drops of rain hit as she landed, big plashing drops that thudded to earth, but widely spaced like water bombs.

She wore cow spot tights and a leopard print skirt topped off with a bright pink t-shirt and baby blue cowgirl vest covered in plastic gems and sparkles that spelled princess across the back. She made this herself. She carried a man’s gray overcoat. Even after Essie’s description this outfit took Jered by surprise.

Maddie had her hair in short pipi longstocking braids tied at the ends with mirror ball hair ties.

As she ran the sun peaked out from the gathering clouds and touched the ends of her braids with sparks. She was almost as tall as Jered but thin. She looked like a combination of a cowgirl princess and Olive Oil from the Popeye cartoons. She clumped gracefully up to Essie.

“Who’s the guy? He looks like Beezlebub hisself.”

Essie looked at Jered with his handsome,  but rough around the edges look and stylish Italian driving shades.

“Dees is my friend de dark prince.” Essie laughed, “Otherwise known as Jered Trolleski, my ex-husband.”

Jered laughed and held out his hand, “And you must be the cowgirl princess.”

“Otherwise known as Maddie Bolter.” Maddie finished taking his hand and nodding.

“Well shall we go?” Essie motioned toward the car.


”In this, Sweeet. Is this a real Porsche?”

“Yeah, real italian very small so good luck squeezing in the back.”

“I’ll squeeze in the back,” Essie said “I’m more the right size.”

“This is a whole lot better than that ol’ crappy bug without the headlights. That is for sure.” Maddie emphasized.

“It’s actually my father’s car, officially. I just drive it a lot.”

“What does your father do? Mine drinks and fights a lot.”

“Mine makes clandestine deals in the black heart of the corporate conspiracy.”

“So you are the prince of darkness,” Maddie said casually “And I am the cowgirl princess because my life is like a sad country-western song,” Maddie continued working it out as she went and then exploding into laughter as all the pieces fit.

The rain came down a little closer and the dark clouds herded their lighter cousins on across the sky.

Jered pulled the Porsche out on the highway and roared through town, but ran into the bus about 3 miles down the road with its stop sign out and had to wait another 2 miles to pass. Finally Jered whipped the Porsche out on a straight piece of road and passed the bus just getting back before a Christian school van ran headlong into them because the driver was looking around behind him. He looked up just in time to see the black blurr of the car shifting out of his way and a spray of water hit the side of his windshield.

Jered did not even blink, but took the road as if he had driven it many times. They got to the gravel road and had to creep along due to the extra weight of Maddie in the car the bottom was just about on the road.

“The suspension is shot. It will be a miracle if we don’t put a hole in something down there.” Jered said but not complaining.

By the time they got to the gate and the heavens had opened and cats and dogs and buckets too poured down on them.

The gate was open and they slipped and slid a little down the dirt drive to the house that had turned into a stream of chocolate milky looking liquid.

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River of Dreams #34: Driving

Posted on November 3, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 18

I

A Slow Drive in the Hills

Jered and Essie took back Rick’s car and left the keys in it as the rusted bug did not seem a likely target for a car thief. She wrote a nice note to Rick thanking him and telling him to check the headlights.

Rick’s old man came out with a shotgun and pointed it at them and said, “Whatchoo want with that ol’ piece a crap. git outta here for I blow a hole in ya.”

“I’m jes’ leaving a note for Reek.”

“Well, he’s down at the market affer school. You can jus’ stop in an’ tell him, now git afore my patience give out.”

Jered was already in the car and starting it up when Essie jumped in.

“Hey, thanks for the support back there.”

“I thought I otta just get the car going just in case he started shooting.”

They decided to go up and find the ranch and come back for Maddie later.

They drove up along the golden grass hills and forest winding up onto the ridge of mountains that is the spine of the peninsula on one side the rocky coast of the Pacific on the other the mud flats of the south bay and silicon valley. The terrain is wild and rugged covered with thick scrub and crumbling outcrops of dark gray stone. It is the end of the range of the coast redwood more spreading pines, cedar, and cyprus, bay laurel, and madrone as well as scrubby oaks, birches and aspen trees all tangled with berries, manzanita, and poison oak with large plush green leaves. It was a pleasant drive, and Essie was beginning to relax into old easy friendship with Jered. They found the turnoff to the gravel road and the Porsche clunked and chunked over the rocks. Jered winced with every rattle and clunk, but nothing broke. He creeped the car along caustiously, and it took them quite a while to reach the gate with the sign.

“Yep, this looks to be the place I saw. I guess we should go back and find that wild girl photographer of yours and come back. It won’t hurt to be a little early back in town. We could get something to eat and make a few plans.”

‘Sounds right to me. You have really changed honey. No more crazy boy in you that used to drive me crazy.”

“Yeah, I guess I have matured a little. I actually make plans and attend meetings. Kinda weird. Random was the one I expected to go this way not me.”

They talked as they drove back into town, Two old friends who used to be lovers.

II

A Winding Road into Afternoon

Random had studied the map before he left and knew the roads he wanted to take. They retraced their drive from Mendocino through Booneville to Cloverdale. The last 10 miles of that road was curving up and over a ridge and down into Sonoma County. They stopped for milk shakes and French fries at the Frosty Freeze in Cloverdale it was 10 O’clock am, and Random was ready to go so they ate and drank in the car. Lin loved milk shakes, wasn’t as fond of French fries greasiness and kept wiping her hands and wrinkling her doll-like nose.

Random drove south to Geyserville and cut off onto 128 through the heart of wine country. They blew threw Calistoga and ST. Helena. Random had not said much. Lin and Steve dozed.

“Jack London lived around here and died about 5 miles east of here.”

“White Fang that was a great book, and Call of the Wild, I loved that one when I was kid.” Steve said.

“Did you know he was a socialist?” Random said.

“There you go bringing politics into it again,” Steve said shaking his head. “Tha man could write. Yeah, he could write.”

“He wrote a book about being a hobo and riding the rails, before Woody Guthrie and Kerouac were born.”

“Yeah, and he worked a Yukon claim too. He lived a life, Man!”

They headed on south through Napa and Vallejo and over the bridge to Martinez and Concord and up to a little town called Clayton and up a gravel road onto the mountain.

“This is Mount Diablo. When we get to the top you should be able to see at least 100 miles in every direction.” Random said as they bounced and rumbled up the rough road.
When they reached the top. They looked out over the great valley and Sacramento River delta to the north and the patchwork hills fading into flat valley to the east and south and to west hills and then The City in a shroud of fog.

“On a clear day you can see the Sierras off that way, and the Pacific Ocean on the west,” Random sat down on the hood of the car and moped a little remembering the fine blue day, though the wind was bitterly cold for their summer clothes, They could see what seemed like the whole state. It was a great feeling to be alone in such vastness with someone who filled your soul and emptied it with simple gestures of her hands, movements of her lips, they way her body showed him how she felt.

“Lin’s cold, Man. she wants some lunch. That girl is always hungry.”

“Thank you for taking me here. This whole trip has been quite interesting.” Lin said as she came back to the car.
”Your welcome, I kinda found it enlightening too,” Random said climbing into the driver’s seat.

“And I am always up for a good weird road trip, and this was no slouch, no sir.” Steve finished off the commentary as they all climbed into the car and headed back to Steve’s place.

Random dropped them and headed back over the bridge. He walked into to his apartment at 2:15 in the afternoon and hit his message machine on his way to the fridge for a beer.

There was Emmylou’s message and a message from Bianca. He was so unraveled by the first message he did not hear what Bianca said.

3:30, thought Random I might make it if I jam down the 280. He was moving out the door toward the car. Bianca would have to wait.

Posted in California, conversations, Dreamtime, Fiction, mindworks, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, Of the Road and The River, River of Dreams, Telling Stories | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

River of Dreams #33: Coffee Shop Enlightenment II

Posted on November 2, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 17

Coffee Shop of Enlightenment II

“I stayed with the Talagi a year with nothing better to do than to learn their language, hunt and fish. I got pretty good at all three.”

“They talked a lot about ‘the last child of the water people’. She was only part water person and part human or ‘people with hair only on their heads’ as they called us, ‘like him,’ they would always point me out being the only one around.”

“Anyway after a year of living among them, they came to me and said they had a way I could repay my debt to them. I said I would be willing to do anything within my power that did not involve killing people including their kind. They said all I had to do was make sure ‘the child of the water people’ was safe and in a place were she could grow strong for many years. I thought it sounded reasonable.”

“So you wan’ me to believe Iyam the queen of de mermaids?”

“No, the water people were mostly human with a little bit of a race that the Talagi say came out of the dream world, Tegethnot, long ago, and somehow managed to live in the waking world and have since died out. You have a small part of that inheritance, but it is very important in being able to travel with purpose in the dream world.”

“Then why would Random have thees skeel?”

“I don’t know. I’m just telling you what I know.”

“Who sent you here now?’

“I got a message sent from Venezuela by cable. It just gave today’s date and said this exactly: ‘Somewhere east of Santa Cruz and West of Los Gatos, California. Esmeralda needs to know’. So I drove up from LA where I was staying with friends and stayed last night in San Jose. I started this morning at Los Gatos. And, here we are.”

“Thees ees why youwar not surprised to see me here.”

“I figured it had to do with you and all that stuff they told me you were supposed to get strong for.”

“So you took me to the USA because dat ees where you could keep me safe and geev me help to become strong.”

“That’s right.”

“And you have fun along the way weeth a girl you don’ really love.”

“I said I loved you, and I mean it, and I did then.”

“But, you leave me as soon as you can, when I get my papers,” she could still feel the pain of that day when she read his note. It said: Sorry, I wish I was strong enough for you, but you are strong enough for yourself. She knew those words by heart. She had not felt so strong, but Random helped her to see it.

“We just weren’t working out. You gotta know that. We were not good for each other, and I still could not tell you about the Talagi and all that, because you still wouldn’t believe me.”

“You was always lying to me.”

“I was trying to hang in there until you could make it on your own.”

“Random, he loves me, I know. He don’ lie to me,” tears were leaking out of Essie’s eyes and running down her cheeks as she said this softly, but not to Jered.

“I’m glad to hear that. Man is a good guy.” Jarrod said gently and smiled and chuckled a little, “Of course his plans were always gone astray, but still he kept us on the map. And that old wild man Steve. It has been longer than I expected.” He was silent for a while and then continued as if he hadn’t been sidetracked.

“When the Talagi sent me to you. They told me that there were forces who were close to finding you that would cause you to lose that part of you that was of the water people. Choices that you would have to make to survive would destroy the part of you that came from the water. I didn’t completely understand, but when I met you and saw your struggles, I knew I had to take you back to the US with me some way.”

“And you lie to me again an’ again. Why should I beleef you now, tell me?”

“Because, like I said, I loved you from the first time I met you and now and forever. It’s not my fault we can’t live together without tearing each other to pieces.” Jered was totally unperturbed by her passion, but not disrespectful of it.

“Oh, right, so you said before.”

“So you’ve stuck with Random? I was happy that you went to him, but I thought he wouldn’t be able to handle your temper.”

“He deedn’t pees me off so much as you,” she said with naked spite.

“I know you want me to fight with you now, but I can’t, not even for old times’ sake. Time is too precious. Some one called me this morning (I don’t know how they found me.) and said whatever your task is needs to be completed by midnight tonight, and there are balancing forces to overcome in order to keep certain aspects of the whole equation viable and safe including that part of you that belongs to the dream world.”

“But, maybe I don’ want to be part of that any more. Maybe I am bedder off weeth out eet. I would steel be with my Random weeth out these stupid dreams.” The more she thought about spirits using her to fulfill some purpose she was not even let in on, the more she thought she should just go home to Random and forget the whole thing.

Jered could tell he was losing her to her anger.

“Look, your anger is a perfectly right reaction to this situation. But you have to understand that my only interest in this is to pay back an old debt. I have no idea if what you are doing is right or will make something good come about, although I get the feeling that it probably will preserve something ancient and beautiful like an artifact from an ancient civilization, only this is preserving ancient spirits and symbols. Things that you hold inside you and if you find the dreamer and wake him then you will share this and spread it enough to make it strong enough to survive at least one more generation.”

“But, you don’ know xacly what eet ees?”

“No not being of the dream world or even understanding what the fuck that means. I can only say what I have said and probably I am guessing about a lot of that.”

“You are a stupid, stupid, foolish man, and you hurt me so much, but I see you telling the truth now. Mebbe I wanted to believe someone would love me so much to do the things you deed for me. It made me feel bery eemportant.”

“You are very important to me and always will be.”

“Yes, I know always have been from the day we blah, blah de blah . . . “ she held her hand up like a puppet and moved the fingers and thumb opening and closing it like a mouth.

Jered laughed and nodded toward her hand.

“You’re friend there is not very articulate.”

“You are always so smart. But I forgive you anyway for my sanities sake.”

“Thank you. It really means a lot to me.”

“So, what zacly I gotta do to pull dees teeng off.”

“We’ve got to find a place somewhere near hear that has a stream running through it and a yellow house and cows. They showed me a picture in my head somehow, but it was kind of underdeveloped and out of focus.”

“I theenk I know jes’ de place, but I haf to wait for a friend of mine to get home from school.”

Jarrod looked puzzled.

“Eet is a long story. And she is worth waiting for I tell you sumtin’.”

She told Jarrod about Maddie and The Eagle Tree Ranch and all that had happened the last two days.

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River of Dreams #32: Coffee Shop Enlightenment I

Posted on November 1, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 17

The coffee shop of enlightenment I

The coffee shop was bustling around Jered and Essie. Dishes clanked and orders flew. The cash register chinged, rattled and zipped. People moved in and out greeting and parting. None of this penetrated the bubble of intense space around the two in their booth. The waitress took their order and brought it without intrusion. All was suspended inside the conversation. The hum and hubbub around them broke like waves around a glass wall.

“I am sorry if I caused you worry. I just got caught up on another track for a while,” Jered explained once they had settled. “My father got sick. I went to see him, and one thing led to another. And, I kinda lost track of phone numbers and addresses. You know how it goes.”

“Do you remember the day we met?” Jered asked after a short silence.

“I was on that reever taxi on my way back to Esmeralda to geev my mother the drugs for her pain.”

“Do you know why I was on that boat?”

“You were on an adventure, right? Seeing de world.”

“I was sent there to find you.”

“Why? By who?”

“The Talagi,” Jarrod smiled and his pale blue eyes challenged her to believe him.
”You are jes’ trying to get me to laugh or scare me or sumtin’. Well?” Essie challenged him back with her chin, looking sideways at him her lips tight.

“Essie, you can’t scare me. I’ve been too many places and seen too much. I know I hurt you, but I stayed with you long enough for you to become a citizen and get a good start here. That was my commitment from the start.”

“What are you talkin’ about? We was married, and then you jes’ lef me and den you show up a coupla times here and there and then you are gone forever.”

“I knew you wouldn’t believe me back then. I couldn’t tell you until now, now that you need to know what really happened, so that you can go in with your eyes open.”

Essie’s face was blank with confusion and hurt.

“Our whole life together was a lie?”

“Not a lie, I still love you, Essie. You have to know that, but the marriage was to get you situated and strong here, to put you in a better place with helpers around. So that when the time came to do what you need to do, you could be strong and ready.”

“What was wrong with Esmeralda?”

“Your family was all dead and any allies you had were gone. And your benefactors could not help you anymore for fear of being discovered by lumber company workers. They had to move deep into the rainforest, but they couldn’t until they knew you were safe and growing strong, preparing for the task that they knew was coming.”

“What task, and who are these benefactors you speak of?” Essie’s voice rose a little and quickened with impatience.

“The Talagi were your benefactors. They knew the truth about you and your heritage.”

“The monkey people? They are bedtime story people not real, not someone who you talk too?”

“I did.”

“When? How? And why couldn’t you tell me then?”

“Would you have come to America with a man who talked to monkey people and told you that you were a child of the water people?”

“No, probably not. I would probably think you were crazy and not talk to you.”

“Which is why I am talking to you about it now that I am not trying to get you to do anything but know the truth and help you with your task.”

“I know Iyam supposed to do somethin’, but eet ees not clear at all. Eet has to do weetha farm and Random and a black bird and a dreamer that needs to be awake.”

“Random? I didn’t know he was involved. I knew you were living with him, but I thought he would just be on the side.”

“Hees part of the dreams Iyam having. Hees so much a part of my life. I need hees help. I need his help!” When she realized that she was almost pleading, Essie straightened up and tried not to look like the lost, little girl she felt like.

“I believe you. I’m not aware of all the nuances involved. Just that you need to know that you have special powers in the dream world, the Talagi call ‘Tegethnot’. ”  He said the last word as if it were a delicate explosive device that he did not want to trigger.

“That’s what the bird keep saying when I see heem.”

“He is the guide and messenger for the ones who want you to succeed.”

“Who are thees ones that want me to do the task, to wake the Dreamer, the Talagi?”

“No, they are just interested bystanders with a lot of information.”

“How deed you meet the Talagi? not that I believe you yet.”

“I was with a friend on a backpacking expedition. He was looking for a new species of monkey that he had heard about that lived near the Orinoco deep in the forest upriver from Esmeralda. He was from Venezuela and went to college at Stanford. I met him at a party in Berkeley. I told him about some of my experiences in survival and world travel which I exaggerated. In my youth I was a very good liar as you know.”

She kicked him under the table without changing her expression.

He smiled and shrugged, “hey, can I help it if people believe me?”

“Never again, jerk!” Essie hissed not too harshly.

Jered nodded sympathetically and continued after a slight pause.

“Well, anyway, he let me come along on his expedition, and there we were in the middle of the rainforest with 5 guides, 3 biologists and me. We were on a small tributary of the Orinoco when my boat with a guide and supplies got separated from the others in a rapid. The guide drowned. I made it to shore, banged up and water logged but not too bad off. I waited on the edge of river for 2 days. I had to drink the water or die. But, I got so sick I was feverish and hallucinating. I saw talking monkeys before I passed out and thought I was a goner. Turned out I wasn’t hallucinating. There were talking monkeys, and they saved me.”

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River of Dreams #31: Monday Morning

Posted on October 31, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 16

III

A Storm of Horses Coming

 

Emmylou dreamed of beautiful grey horses running, six of them running across a dawn field. There was a murmuring music that gave the whole scene a clear consistent rhythm. The drumming of hooves and music like water over stones as the horses shifted positions in their steady progress in a weaving dance. They came to sudden curves and moved as one to shift into the center of a broad path. She was not one of the horses but her mind was guiding them some how to find the right pattern and path.

Masses of ominous dark clouds loomed in the distance and thunder rolled like timpani along with steady rhythm of horses hooves coming closer and louder. They were all coming here to do something, to complete something. She was a part but somehow not involved, an audience with limited participation for a show as big as the earth. She felt the immensity of the horses their mighty bodies pounding down the earth yet leaving no trace as they passed.

She woke expecting to hear the drumbeat of hooves, but the night was oppressively still and the room seemed confining after the expansive space of the dream.

She sighed and snuggled down into a more comfortable position and immediately fell into sleep.

IV

Maddie the Mermaid

After the dream of the snake, Maddie gave up on sleeping for a while. She got out her history book and started reading something about the Missouri River and Lewis and Clarke. She lay on her stomach her elbows planted to either side of the book, her palms supporting her chin. Every now and then her eyelids drifted down to cover her eyes. She shook herself awake a few times, planting her chin firmly on her palms.

Finally gravity and sleep won out. She drifted off into an easy dream of the lake and the musical reeds. They played like panpipes, a river song. It was a river not a lake. She parted the reeds and saw through the warped glassy ripples of the current, fish, silver and flashing. Maddie realized that she was a mermaid and dove into the water, moving with the fish.

A man sat watching from the bank. He scooped her out and tossed her on the bank. Then she was a fish, flopping and wriggling and gulping for air. He carried her up the steep bank, showing her to a woman.

“This is the one I caught,” He said.

When the woman raised her head she could see it was Essie. Maddie tried to speak but couldn’t. Her mouth opened and closed without any sound.

“That ees the wrongwon,” Essie said, “that ees Maddie. She ees helping us already. We need the one from before. You know the one that I could not hold on to.”

“Oh, I know which one,” said the man and grabbed Maddie and ran back to river and threw her in, saying, “Thank you little fishy. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He grabbed another one and charged off up the bank.

Maddie’s face hit the book and she rolled over on her back and fell into a deep sleep and slept until her alarm woke her up.

She remembered the dreams, the one with Random and the snake and the fish dream, more clearly than the trip to the lake which was colored in dreamlike twilight.

Maddie was almost too excited for school. She thought of the coming afternoon with Essie with growing anticipation, as she threw together an outfit, stuffed her feet into her large, black boots, and thumped down the stairs. Over breakfast, as she half-heartedly finished reading her history, she told Debbie she was going to take some pictures at The Eagle Tree Ranch with Essie.

“Isn’t that Emmylou’s place up the other side of the ridge?” Debbie had said.

“Yeah, who’s she?”

“Oh jus’ a woman who runs a farm, comes into to the casino to see the bands and dance. I talked to her a few times. She’s got people livin’ up there with her, college students and artists, real hippie types. Jes don’t do no drugs. Essie don’t do any of that funny stuff does she?”

“No, she just writes and knows how to use a camera.”

“Alright, baby, I’m glad to see you workin’ hard on your books. You better get goin’ or you’ll miss the bus.”

Maddie gave her mom a quick kiss, as she stuffed her history book into the large black daypack, and clomped out.

“I love you too, sweetie,” Debbie said softly and smiled at the slamming door.

Maddie ran up just as the bus rattled to a stop. She skipped up the stairs.

“Mornin’ Clyde, hows the road conditions?” she always asked him some such question.

“Oh, tolerable, I s’pose, but still this highway’s not getting’ any younger.”

The bus left a puff of blue smoke dust devil that was blown apart by a black Porsche racing up the highway seconds behind the bus.

V

The Man in The Black Porsche

Essie was crossing the highway to the coffee shop as the bus passed. She did not see Maddie.  The Porsche roared past, just missing Essie, did a U turn without slowing and pulled into the coffee shop parking lot, screeching to sideways skidding stop ten feet in front of her. The driver got out and leaned casually on the side of the car. He was just under 6 feet tall, wore a black leather jacket, over a blood red t shirt and nicely fit but worn jeans. He had light brown hair, a mustache and goatee with a soul patch under his lip.

“I don’t suppose you’ve forgiven me yet,” he said casually.

Essie’s jaw dropped and a look of shock, joy and fury fought for possession of her face. Her body went limp with just enough tension to keep her standing.

“Jered? Jered! Jered you bastard where haf you been?!” She finally mobilized herself and flung herself on him fists flying.

He leaned back and let her fists fall on his chest where they were aimed.

“I’ve been in Maryland with my folks, and in Europe, and Egypt, and other places.”

“Eet has been 5 years you bastard. We thought you were dead.”

“ 5 years? Wow! I didn’t realize. I shoulda let people know,” Jered said in his usual dry tone.

She looked closely at his face trying to read his intent. She could never get a fix on whether he was serious or not. He was always half smiling.

“If you let me buy you some breakfast, I’ll try to explain.”

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