River of Dreams #6: Rockers, Angels, and A Black Bird

Posted on October 5, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 4

Continued more

Behind the Red Door

They mixed gin and tonics after they had gone for pizza down the street. Lin had asked about pizza, and Steve said, “You have to have pizza to understand what America is all about. It’s dinner on bread with cheese! Can’t get much more American than that.”

They Settled on the chartreuse sofa shaped like a seven that divided the living room/ bedroom (there was a twin bed tucked away in the corner) from the kitchen area. The sofa faced a conglomeration of shelves that contained an old TV with a funky antennae arrangement, an ancient stereo with a turn table on top of a low shelf and vinyl records in a wire rack underneath along with cassettes scattered loosely about.

Steve focused his attention on Random and after taking a swig of his drink he spoke seriously, “Hey, Man, tell me about this thing with Essie. How come you said nothing when we last talked?”

“I donno, I guess I was just trying not to think about it too much.” Random took a sip of his drink and leaned back, closing his eyes. “You know how it is. You see it coming, but you just can’t get out of the way.”

“Donit jus’ go that way.”

“Where you with her long?” Lin said shyly, holding her drink with two hands, cautiously taking tiny sips.

“10 years,” Random shook his head to one side and pursed his lips. “Can you believe it’s been 10 years since Jered split?”

Steve looked up and smiled.

“Its actually 11 years, Man. It was a week before Essie’s big three Oh party. Remember that?!”

Random recalled what a raging disaster that turned out to be even though he had planned it so carefully to be looking forward. There was to be no mention of Jered, but Jered called to wish her a happy birthday. Essie answered the phone and ended up heaving it through the window, glass and all.

Random remembered how surprised he was when he found out that Essie was 5 years older than he was. It was a shock. He had just assumed because of her more passionate spirit that she was younger. She just moved in and said that in 2 days she would be 30 years old.

“Can you believe eet, thirty years I have in 2 days! I feel like a child,” she had said when they were resting from moving her few boxes and bags up the stairs.

It made Random sad to think how much passion he had lost or maybe never had.

Then he remembered her last birthday just a month ago. There was a big 4 and a big 1 candle in the middle of the cake.

They lived in apartment 41. It was on the door. The flaking chrome numbers seemed to reinforce the importance of the passage of time in years.

It had been 11 years not 10 since she had come to him. How could he just lose a year like that? He promised himself that he would sit there and remember each year as clearly as possible tonight maybe with a little gin and tonic to help.

“How the fuck do you just lose a year like that. I must be sleeping through my life the last couple years,” Random rubbed his hand over his face and finished off his drink.

“I gotta have a few more of these. I gotta wake up! I musta been dreaming. She knew it!”

“She was older than you?” Lin asked tentatively.

“Yeah, about 5 years. But just in age, she was such a child, passionate and crazy.”

“Wow, was she. She could be laughing one second and throwing hard stuff at you the next,” Steve laughed.

“Hey, why are we talking like she’s dead.” Random said irritated with himself. “She just left my sorry ass. She’ll be somewhere else doing the same crazy shit.”

“You bet, bro. You better believe it!” Steve hooted. “She is like a fucking force of nature. You don’t change that.”

“No, ya just gotta live with it and let it go,” Random finished off the train of thought and got up to get another drink.

They were all drunk and listening to Led Zeppelin. Steve made tired drumming motions to a John Bonham solo.

“Hey ol’ Bonzo’s dead, Man,” he slurred.

“Yeah, I heard that.”

“Who is this Bonzo?” Lin asked sleepily. She had curled up next to Steve resting her head on his stomach.

“He was a drummer and a madman,” Steve raised his glass. “Here’s to all the fucking mad drummers of the world.”

Random lifted his glass and shouted, “Here’s to Keith Moon. He was a fucking lunatic and he’s dead too!”

Lin smiled sweetly, her eyes still closed.

“These must be rockers, Right?” Lin asked vaguely.

“Yeah and verily, the fucking rockiest,” Steve burbled dreamily.

In the background the drum solo ended and Robert Plant went into the screaming blues backed by a shredding lead guitar vamp. Jimmie Page ripped into a solo.

Random felt himself fading as the room spun and suddenly

He was sitting in the cemetery on a bench next to the thinking angel, in front of him a drum kit which he promptly began a delicate solo with brushes. An angel on top of the monument next door pulled out a long trumpet and began jamming cool Miles Davis blurbs and riffs and single notes to punctuate a particularly complex set of moves on the drums. A large shiny raven sat in the tree doing croaky vocals ala Satchmo. All was swingin’ nicely. Random put down the drum sticks, walked over, and picked up a flute that just happened to be perched in the crotch of a bent black little tree. It was all gold and shine. Random put the mouthpiece to his lips, tensed them and puffed. His fingers flying in arpeggios of perfect notes. the flute spoke of an endless, lunatic night. The moon rose huge as the music and cemetery jazz scene faded.

Random woke again to sun coming through the blinds, but this time his head lay on Lin’s thin thigh. Lin’s head lay on Steve’s lap, who sat with his head back over the back of the couch loudly snoring at the ceiling.

Random sat up and stretched, stood unsteadily and went over to take the needle off of the record which had run up against the middle of disc and made a repetitive hiss pop. As he put the tone arm back on the stand, He looked at the record. It was Miles Davis’ Silent Way.

“Those angels knew how to jam,”  he thought, “But, the flute solo was all mine,”

He suddenly realized the song they were playing. It was an old Zombies tune “She’s Not There.”

Let me tell you ‘bout the way she looked

The way she acted

The color of her hair

Her voice was soft and cool

Her eyes were clear and bright,

But she’s not there.

That’s what the raven was singing only so much cooler and slower than the rock version. That Satchmo swing, hitting the notes that worked for his gravelly growl, placing them perfectly to keep the song jamming along.

If it’s too late to say you’re sorry

How should I know?

Why should I care?

Don’t bother tryin’ to find her

She’s not there.

The words echoed in his aching head as drove back over the bay bridge to his apartment to get ready for work.

Posted in conversations, Dreamtime, Fiction, Geographies of Death, mindworks, music, Mythical and mysterious, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, Other peoples words, River of Dreams, Singing, Telling Stories, time travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

River of Dreams #5: A Plan Emerges

Posted on October 3, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 4

continued

They sat around the Formica table, nursing beers and riding out some slightly awkward spaces in the conversation. Steve’s face lit up suddenly.
“Say, I was just tellin’ Lin here about all the cool, wild places around. You know Mount Tam, Old Diablo, Point Reyes. Maybe we should take a little road trip. I would do it, but I don’t have wheels.”
“I have to work tomorrow. I could come over after work,” Random thought out loud. “we’d have the whole weekend. Yeah, that would be cool. Maybe just what I need.”
“Wow! Man just like those old days, except not hitch-hiking. Remember when we left the camp, man. That old 54 Ford that caught on fire on 101! Oh wow, that was somethin’!”
“Yeah! You didn’t even stop. We just opened the windows and hoped it would go out.”
They were both laughing hard now with Lin looking on confused.
“It went out dint it?” Steve gasped.
After their laughter subsided he turned to Lin and said, “Man here, is going to give us a tour of the greater bay area starting tomorrow. How does that sound?”
“Where is this bay aria?” Lin asked still confused.
“It’s around here south, north, east, west,” Steve explained in his gentle excitement pointing as he talked.
“We can start heading to Santa Cruz and come up around over the Golden Gate to Mount Tam and Point Reyes.” Random imagined a map as he spoke.

“Hey, we could stay at my apartment tomorrow night,” Random added warming to the idea.

“Now you’re talkin’. What do ya’ say, Lin?” Steve looked at Lin with childlike hope.

“It sounds good,” Lin said, “I would like to see more of your country than this little room, these streets and a graveyard.”

They talked a little more about the points of interest they might visit. Lin and Random talked about how well she spoke English and how China would at some point have more fluent English speakers than the US. Steve began staring up through the window over the table and peeling the label off of the empty beer bottle.

“Hey, I got gin in the car and tonic. I can’t get too drunk, but a drink or two will do me good if I can crash here tonight. “

“What about Essie?” Steve interrupted, “She usually don’t like this not coming home stuff.”

Random was snapped back into the realization that he had no one at the apartment waiting for him.

“Essie’s gone. She left this morning and took all her stuff.”

“Oh Wow, Man! That’s rough,” Steve erupted shaking his head. “Did you see it comin’ or was it total surprise?”

“I think I knew one of us had to go, but it was sudden. I’m still processing,” Random trailed off. “Thus the gin and tonic to clarify and tranquilize my spinning head.”

“Yeah! Right, well shoot yeah!,” Steve said as if waking from a short nap suddenly, “you can crash here any old time.”

Random went out to the car and grabbed the bag off the seat. As he turned back he caught a movement in the cemetery just on the other side of the chain link fence that divided it from Steve’s yard. It was a shadow taking off into the sky. He turned to look and caught the last of a large black shape disappearing over a gnarled ancient oak.

“Wow, that’s a big raven,” he said to himself. It really seemed more like an eagle. He had seen bald eagles around but not in the city, more out on the mountain or by the ocean.

He shrugged and walked down the steps to the basement door which was the color of old blood.

Posted in California, conversations, Fiction, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, River of Dreams, Telling Stories, Wild Life | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

River of Dreams #4: An Old Friend with A New Friend

Posted on October 2, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 4

Over the Bridge


Random decided to head over the bridge to Oakland and his friend Steve, who lived in a basement apartment up at the summit of the hills next to a sprawling cemetery. He was a free-lance photographer living month to month in a vaguely bohemian lifestyle. He was laid back and easy, but with a big heart, a good person to sort things out with, almost the polar opposite of Jered who was a wild and restless spirit stirring the world to see what would come up. Random was the one with the plan, a logistics guy, not that he worried about the plan once he made it. They fit together well but loosely, when they were together, as if they were splintered from the same block.

Steve was out when he arrived, so Random decided to take a stroll around the cemetery. On the first reunion of the Mexico trip, he met Steve at his then cave-like dwelling in Berkeley, and they had ridden a bus to the cemetery so that Steve, who was then just starting in photography, could complete an assignment for a class. It was a day very much like this one, clouds all around like islands in the deep blue ocean of sky. A cool breeze toyed with the loose strands of Random’s hair that had escaped the ponytail hairband.

As he drifted through the cemetery he found an angel that stood at the door of a crypt looking like it was forlornly waiting for a bus that would never come. There was a twenty foot pyramid with CRANK carved in monumental clarity on one side, another angel in the pose of the Thinker by Rodin, her wings extended askew pointing skyward. All this he remembered from that first walk here, Steve clicking picture after picture and chuckling to himself. He remembered chuckling too. Now it just made him sad.

He walked out on the crunching sandy path and back to Steve’s house just down the busy street. He felt exhausted and ready for a gin and tonic. He went to the door and knocked. This time the door swung wide revealing a tall, thin wild bearded man, dressed in a gray English style raincoat, baggy blue jeans and a black Pearl Jam t-shirt.

“Hey, howzit goin’! Long time, Man!” Steve erupted, face going from distracted to elated surprise in a flash as he grabbed Random in a brisk embrace and held him back out to get a better look at him.

“Yeah, yeah too long.” Random passively received the embrace and smiled guiltily as he tried to remember the last visit. He had seen Steve about a month ago at a mutual friend’s party, and they had both said that they would call and set up something. Neither had called.

“Come on in, Man. Have a brew and pull up something to sit on.” Steve always called him Man, short for Random Man, his alter ego in their private jests. “Faster than a speeding non-sequiter. Able to leap into a tangent with a single bound. It’s Random Man!” Jered would say after one Random’s slightly off-center comments

Steve always lived in basements. This one was at least well lit with narrow windows just above head level around the roughly square room with a bathroom off to one side and a bar that served as a kitchen which had a sink, microwave, toaster oven and a fridge like the ones in hotel rooms. There where various armchairs in various states of disrepair and three chrome tube, plastic cushioned kitchenette chairs pulled up to a small 1950’s chrome and dingy yellow formica table against one wall under a poster of Rasputen, crazy black eyes gazing into the room, with a caption that read in large black letters “Just Because Your Paranoid  . . .”

There was a rattling in the bathroom and a muffled thump. Steve raced over and threw the door open and said in a gentle yet insistent tone, “Lin, I told you to use the door. Your gonna kill yourself.”

Random got up and wandered over, gazing around Steve. A tiny Asian woman stood next to the small shower stall which was simply a square plastic tub about 6 inches deep in the corner underneath a shower curtain around a bar stuck in the wall next to the toilet.

She looked like a middle school boy with her black shaggy hair and small round doll-like face. She looked up at Steve and then down at her feet, “I know. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

“You’ll get me in more trouble by coming in the window like this,” Steve said. There was a tone of sadness in his voice as if he was holding a delicate piece of art in his hands and trying desperately not to break it burdened with the knowledge that he was doomed to fail at this.

“Oaky dokey, I do it that way next time,” she smiled up at him waiting to see his reaction.

Steve looked down and shook his head so slightly, and, then remembering Random, he turned his head and said with quiet excitement, “Come on in and meet The Man. He’s a friend from way back. I picked him up in CCC and I haven’t been able to shake him since.”

Lin shuffled shyly into the main room and offered her hand with a little bow, “I am Lin Chen. Steve is kind enough to let me stay here for a while.”

“She came in a shipping carton just like those stories you read about. Isn’t that incredible. Somehow she slipped through without getting caught, but couldn’t hook up with her people. She went to the wrong port. Can you believe it?” Steve rattled enthused, but still quiet.

“I’m Random, Steve calls me Man,” Random took her hand and nodded his head a little.

“I found her wandering the docks when I was doing a shoot for an article. She was half starved and raggedy, and I just knew she was lost.”

“He save me. Give me food. Let me stay here.” Lin gave him a hug around his waist and smiled, her tiny lips pressed together.

Posted in California, conversations, Fiction, Geographies of Death, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, River of Dreams, Telling Stories, time travel | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

River of Dreams #3: Whispering Mermaids and a Bottle of Gin

Posted on September 29, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 3

Whispering Mermaids

As Random drove the small back streets over Twin Peaks from the City College to the department office near the Medical Center, he focused on driving; the radio was off. He was part of the car. Everything that was not driving did not register. He pulled to a stop at an intersection somewhere on his way up the hill and a sign caught his peripheral vision.

Whispering Mermaids

Magical Gifts From Other Worlds

There was a painting on the side of the one story shop of 2 women with long dark hair over a background of dark greens and blues done in a Matisse-like abstract. One woman was white and thin and facing the street, the other was golden brown side ways with one almond eye closed and her hand covering her nose and mouth all somewhat covered by the white one’s hair as the golden one leaned in to whisper. The golden one was Essie. A horn honked and he came back into the world, pulling through the stop sign and on up the hill. He had to focus! Bianca was waiting for those papers. He made a mental note of the location of the shop and was able to make it to the UC and back in 30 minutes.

“Just in time,” sighed Bianca, she had just finished greeting the first parent and child. Today he was helping Dr. Radchishin, Bianca’s formal title, with a study on the effects of parenting styles on autistic children. They had done exhaustive questionnaires on parenting style, daily schedule, family history, environmental factors and visited the subjects in their home taking notes about almost everything. Now they were working on some simple experiments to see how the children responded to their parents and if their responses changed when parents used different approaches. Random loved working with Bianca, but the work left him cold. He was not inspired by numbers and experimental data no matter how elegant the design. Bianca said that he had helped her a lot in the design aspects. She called it his “Third eye.”

“I look at all this with my two eyes and it seems to hold water, but with your third eye you see the leaks.”

Random checked the video and sound equipment one last time.

“Did I do all right?” Bianca asked.

“Perfect, it’s all ready to go.”

They went through the experiments. Everything went smoothly.

After the last subjects had left and they were taking down the equipment. He put the last of the small pieces in the box, closed it and carried it to the office. Bianca was entering some of the data on the computer.

“It was very good today. How can you work so well on such a day?”

Random shrugged the truth was he had feared this day since the day Essie came storming in. Now that it was here, he just felt empty. He had poured his passion into her and left himself nothing.

“What you need is a funny movie, my friend, and a nice bottle of wine.”

“Could be. I guess I need to figure out how I feel.”

“Come to my house for dinner and we’ll watch some Marx Brothers. It will all make a little more sense after that.”

“Thanks, but I have some things to take care of. I’ll see you tomorrow. Do we need anything different or are we set.”

“We’re set.” She smiled thoughtfully and grabbed Random’s hand. “Take care of yourself, and stop by if you need to talk or just laugh at a few stupid jokes. I gotta million of ‘em.” She wiggled an imaginary cigar and moved her eyebrows up and down.

A small smile came onto his face.

“That works better with a funny mustache,” Random said as he turned toward the door. Bianca followed him with a concerned look.

“Really I’m alright. I‘ll tell you if I’m not. See ya tomorrow.”

He walked out into the parking lot and realized he had no idea what he was going to do now.

He drove up over the hill by the same route he had taken to get to the UC office. When he came the corner where he thought the Whispering Mermaid had been, there was a little liquor store with a cigarette ad on the side of it, a burly, rugged looking guy on a bored horse enjoying the clean taste of smoke backed by a beautiful sunset.

He went inside and bought a pint of Gorton’s and some tonic. He was not going home unarmed. Where had that shop gone? Was it just a daydream? He had been in that right brain state. Random drove around the neighborhood just to make sure he was not on the wrong block, but no luck. The Whispering Mermaid did not exist at least not where he was looking for it.

Posted in California, conversations, Dreamtime, Fiction, hidden places, mindworks, Mythical and mysterious, NaNoWriMo, River of Dreams, Telling Stories, working world | Tagged , | Leave a comment

River of Dreams #2: Miss Bianca’s Lab Day

Posted on September 28, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 2

Miss Bianca’s Lab Day

On the way to work, Random blasted the radio. The Who’s “Baba O’Reily” came on and he went all Keith Moon on the steering wheel while shouting the words:

Out here in the fields

I fight for my meals

I get my back into my living.

He felt free in the car to be emotional. He remembered the dorm at the conservation corps camp roaring out Dylan songs with Jered and Steve. Idiot Wind was their favorite. They wrote new lyrics to vent their frustration at the “powers that be” at the camp:

Idiot wind blowin’ every time you move your teeth.

You’re an idiot, babe.

It’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

They had separated themselves out into their own cynics club. Jered and Steve were definitely more pure in this. Random made some connections with the more conventional elements, while Jered and Steve connected with Jan and Ellen the cynical element in the women’s dorm.

But, where was this thread taking him? Back to Mexico again. Again Random tried to make the connection between Mexico and Essie’s sudden flight. The circuit failed and he returned to The Who.

He arrived at work a little late and cursed the lock on the door as his key refused to come out while the box of equipment and the bag over his shoulder began to slide in opposite directions. The key suddenly came free as did everything else.

“Goddam Fucking Freakin’ Asshole!” he shouted at nothing in particular.

He checked the equipment as he put it back in the box. It looked OK. He picked it all up again and headed down the narrow hallway to the office, which he had to unlock while propping the box against the wall with his hip. This time he was successful.

The office was a square room about 20 by 20 filled with 4 desks each with its own solid white I Mac hunched in the middle like a toy TV, the keyboards hidden in trays underneath. There where tall filing cabinets and a storage locker against one wall. There where no windows. The walls that weren’t covered with filing cabinets had bulletin boards and one large white board with a calendar with notes written in the numbered squares.

Miss Bianca’s Lab Day was written in bold letters in one of the little squares.

“Oh, crap!” he thought, “I forgot the fucking papers for the lab!”

He hated letting Bianca down. She would not be mad or even disappointed, but she was one of the people he wanted to do his best for. She was one of the ones that had a genuine passion for the work and yet was able to treat people around her with compassion. He put the box down on his desk, flipped the light switch and reached around the side of the monitor pushing the little circle that brought it humming and clicking to life. He dropped his bag, flopped in the black padded swivel chair and stared while the I Mac booted up.

He checked his Email. Nothing worthwhile, the usual unsolicited ads for penis enlargement and prescription drugs.

“The Girls Will Gaze In AmaZement AT YOUr Largesse!”

He chuckled thinking of Essie’s comments in bed.

“Oh, the leetle man ees so sad and droopy, lets pep eem up.”

She always called it “the Leetle Man” and it always made him laugh.

He snapped out of the thought when he heard the outside door open and Bianca’s cheerful voice drift in. She always sang a little when she talked.

“Hello, who is here? Is that my lovely assistant?” she crooned as she made her way down the hall.

He did not answer.

“Mr. Random? Why do you ignore me when I have nothing but love for you,” She said as her broad smiling face appeared in the doorway.

“Because, I am a depressed idiot,” Random answered glumly. “Essie left me, and I forgot your papers at the Office.”

Her face fell into instant empathy.

“How can you even be here on such a day? She is gone for good or just for a little while? And what do you mean you forgot my papers?”

“I have to be here. She took all her clothes, and I left the papers in my box at the office.”

Their conversations often went like this.

“Well, I’m sorry about Essie, but if we don’t have the papers, we can’t do the lab.”

“I know. I’ll just have to go get them. If you can set up, I can get back in time.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

“You don’t mind setting up? Do you know where everything is?”

“Don’t you worry Mr. Random. I know this center like I know my own house. Go get the papers. I’ll have it all ready.”

“At least I remembered the hardware.”

Random apologized with a look as he handed her the box.

“It’s OK! I’ll set up. You get going.” Bianca pulled herself up in mock stoic attitude. “After all we are professionals; little obstacles are what we live for.”

Random chuckled and checked for his keys as he went through the door.

“Sorry again! Don’t start without me,” he shouted as trotted down the hall.

Posted in conversations, Fiction, Mexico, music, NaNoWriMo, novel projects, Of the Road and The River, River of Dreams, Singing, Telling Stories, working world | Tagged , , | Leave a comment