River of Dreams #9: Dreams on Highway 9

Posted on October 8, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 7

On the Highway of Dreams


Random was sitting in the backseat of a ’64 Chevy Nova station wagon. He was trying to drive and could just see out the windshield, but steering felt awkward. He could see the steering wheel in the front, but knew he could not use the brake from where he was. He recognized the road. It was highway 9, and he was winding over the low rugged hump from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz. The interior of the car was dripping and on the floor were puddles of water. His body was enveloped in the sultry air that filled the car. Each breath was heavy as it entered his lungs. He became aware that someone was sitting next to him and turned to see who it was. It was Essie, but her form was unclear. She was having difficulty fitting on the seat next to him. Suddenly he realized in a panic that the car was full of water and he had to take a breath.

Random woke up sweating in the quiet dark. His heart jack hammered away at his ribs, and he could not get air into his lungs. He wobbled out of the car and stood bent over, hands on knees, trying to slow down his thoughts and his breathing. The panic faded and his breathing eased.

Slowly his thoughts calmed as he leaned back against the car. Memories of the last time he had driven that road came floating up still mixed with the dream images. Essie was beside him, her eyes wide. Every now and then she would put her foot on an imaginary break. Then putting her small sturdy hand on his forearm, she would gently say, “Don you tink you should slow down a leetle beet.”

Random remembered the Nova. It was white with red naugahide bench seats. Essie had joked that “No va” means won’t go in Spanish, but that car went. It was solid metal the way they made them then. It felt heavy and boat-like on the winding road, but the engine was good. They had bought the car together, their first major purchase as a couple, part of their weekend escape plan. Every month or so they would go camping for the weekend. He realized it had been a couple of years since they had done anything like that.

After looking up in absent wonder at the speckled streak of stars in the country dark sky, he got back into the seat. Trying to remember the shape of Essie in his dream, he fell asleep. Almost immediately he fell into another dream. It was a story about slaves on the Orinoco River where Essie grew up. He was on an old style riverboat with the big wheel turning behind. Only instead of high-stakes gamblers and cabin boys, there were poor people and farm animals crowded into large dark rooms. Again the feeling of stifling air heavy with moisture made him feel uneasy.

He was in a large room filled with noise and squalor. There were many native peasants, children and farm animals moved restlessly about in the dimness. A monkey perched on Random’s shoulder, and  Essie stood next to him.

There was an explosion, and the riverboat began to list and sink. In the panic and chaos, he and Essie were separated.

“It was the abolicionistas who blew up the boat,” the monkey chirped into in his ear, “Because the boats carry supplies to the mines.”

“Where is Essie can you see her?” Random shouted in the smoke as he staggered on the tipping  boat. It was all so real. He could feel the smoke and heat.

“You will need to come with me if you want to survive,” said the monkey as they fell together into the warm river, and Random swam as hard as he could to escape the undertow of the sinking paddle wheel as it disappeared under the current.

He could hear an announcer’s voice (his dreams often had announcers) over the sound of swirling water and cries of panic saying:

“Esmeralda de Orinoco: a river, a woman and a struggle for freedom in the jungles of Venezuela.”

He woke up with a start. A large shiny raven stared through the windshield at him, and croaked, “Tegethnot!” at him and in a whirl of black and fluttering push off into the air and was gone.

“Tegethnot?” Random muttered to himself, “What the hell is my mind up to?”

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River of Dreams #8: Over The Bridge

Posted on October 7, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 6

Over The Bridge and into the Night


He came in the back way from the alley were he parked the car illegally. He usually had to drive around a while to find parking for the night, but decided to just run in and pick up a few necessities for the weekend and get out of the city. Traffic on the bridge would be murder, but, what the hell, he had plenty of time and good music to listen too. He cleaned out the fridge cramming everything in a little ice chest with the little bit of ice in the freezer. He grabbed a change of clothes, a parka that could double as a pillow and basic bathroom stuff and stuffed it all in the frameless pack he had bought along with his nice sleeping bag for the Mexico trip 16 years ago. This stuff really stood the test of time, he thought. He had been backpacking, hitchhiking, bike touring all over the west using the same equipment. He went down to the storage and got the two person backpacking tent he and Rocky Larsen had bought to use during their one month lightening tour of Europe. That was 2 years after Mexico. Random had worked double shifts at the restaurant and done tutoring on the side to save up enough. That was all before Essie. How had he kept all this stuff with all of the moving? Then there was all of the work at the University. Where had it all gotten him? A couple of decent jobs, not much of a life beyond his few friends from previous incarnations, Essie, and a few work related friendships. Miss Bianca was steady and true and joy to work with, but in the last couple of years he had let his old ties loosen and had made no effort in creating new ones.

After he had gathered up the tent and checked all the equipment and rolled up the ground cloth, he went back upstairs, gathered all the stuff in a jumble, and bumped down the stairs peering around the load, loosing balance as the tent, backpack, and ice chest fought each other’s gravity pulling him this way and that. Finally he staggered to the car threw everything in the back of the ancient Subaru station wagon, and took off for the other side of the bay.

The traffic was a nightmare of the parking lot variety. It took him over an hour to go the less than 10 miles to Steve’s place. By the time he arrived, the sun was beginning to set.

Steve came bounding out looking like a maniac puppet his arms and legs moving in big clumsy arcs as if invisible strings were trying to pull him apart in four directions.

Lin watched from the doorway standing exactly in the center and composed like a painting of a woman far away from her home.

“Hey, Man, I was beginning to think you weren’t comin’,” Steve said in what for his quiet voice stood for yelling. The words carried emphasis and clarity but were never any louder. He never whispered or shouted, but he placed emphasis. Random had only seen him mad once. It was Jered that pushed him a little too hard. Jered was always testing the people around him, not out of malice, but true interest in human beings. Random was not sure if Jered considered himself human. He was not unkind just a little removed from people. Steve was set apart in a way too. He didn’t notice the differences between himself and others. He just was and didn’t really care what anyone else thought. He wanted everyone to have a good time, and if that was too much for people, he would move on to the next party.

“I got some food and stuff just in case we get stuck somewhere, or want to spend the night where we are.” Random said as Steve shambled up.

“Well lets get a move on, buddy. We been ready since we woke up.”

“When was that, noon?”

“More like one or two. Lin got up for a while, but she thought better of it.”

“You guys got stuff to stow, or are we ready to roll.” Random was starting to feel restless and wanted to be gone.

“I’ll jus’ go grab the camera and I think Lin has a bag. You said you got food?”

“Yeh, but we can stop for dinner. I have some cash.”

“Well I guess you better ‘cause I’m between assignments, if you know what I mean.”

Lin came out with a small canvas bag as Steve charged back in and made it back to the car with his camera bag as Lin reached the car.

“Did you lock it?” Random pointed at the door.

“Never do. As long as my camera is with me, there’s nothin’ worth stealing.”

Random swung into the driver’s seat and clicked the shoulder strap, punched the stereo. Nina Simone came on with “Feelin’ good”. It was perfect. Lin got in the back next to the ice chest. She opened it and peered inside. A carton of milk, ketchup, a package of hot dogs, a hunk of cheese, mayonnaise, mustard, a Tupperware container of something were on top with some mysterious items underneath.

Steve was already into the music, humming out of tune to the foreboding blues. The lyrics seemed to say you gotta have a good attitude even when things are bad. Never say die.

“It’s a new dawn, a new day . . .  and I’m feelin’ good.” As the horns’ dirge-like progress drags it on. Like life, it will go on. So did Nina, and you could believe the cost of what she was leaving behind.

Random put the car in gear and off they went to the freeway and San Jose down the 880 through Hayward and Fremont at a crawl in the rush hour, sunset fiery to their right over the coast range across the mud flats of the south bay.

They pulled into a little diner just southeast of San Jose. Random paid for dinner of burgers, fries and shakes. Lin was looking a little frightened but also awake and curious as to what these madmen would do next. They piled back in. The traffic had cleared some as they now were a little beyond rush hour and the path of the home bound traffic. They cruised across the south side of San Jose and up into the rugged hills through Los Gatos.

“Hey I got a brilliant idea. We otta go to the Farm School. I should show you that place. Wow, I wonder what it looks like now, and who’s there.”

“But Man, It’s dark. And it’s Friday night.” Steve said. “Let’s head to the ocean and we’ll find somewhere to crash. Maybe tomorrow we could find it on the way back to your place.”

Lin leaned up close and said a little anxiously, “Yes, the ocean sounds nice. Maybe we could wake up at the ocean, OK?”

“Sure,” Random said with a firm nod of his head as if what Lin said was final, and he steered through the tight curves and close quarters of Highway 9 over the rugged, worn-down mountains of the coast range into Santa Cruz.

They went down to the boardwalk and rode the big twisty roller coaster mostly for Lin’s sake. She had a blast and Steve and Random had a blast watching her finally really see something fun in America.

They found a campground, but it was full. So they drove back out of town and pulled off in a turn out. Random pitched the tent 20 feet from the car just on the other side of a break of quaking aspens and laurel. It was not too cold so they did not bother with a fire just made some tuna sandwiches from what Random had put in the ice chest. Then Steve and Lin went off to sleep in the tent, Random in the car in the drivers seat reclined back.

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River of Dreams #7: Miss Bianca and Mermaids Too

Posted on October 6, 2010 by randomyriad

Chapter 5

Miss Bianca’s Lab Day

PartII

By the time Bianca arrived at the lab, Random had all of the equipment set up and ready to go. So they had time to go over some of the data from the day before.

“Time for a break, Mr. Random,”she said with a sigh, “We are ready and we have half an hour to spare. You are on top of everything today. And, why is this?”

“I drank a lot last night?” Random shrugged.

She laughed and shook her head. “I will make tea and you will tell me about it.”

Random told her of his night at Steve’s and their plans for the weekend.
”Oh, you must take a few days off more. Just to think things over. It takes time to make such big adjustments. You can’t do this and work too.”

“How ‘bout I call Monday and tell you where I am, and if I will be here.”

“That is fine. It is just a data day anyway.”

He wrapped up his work at the lab and drove back over the hill to the office to put the equipment away for the weekend. He stopped at an intersection, and there out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the mermaids, the flowing hair, and golden skin tones next to the luminous moon maiden. The golden one was Essie; he knew it. He turned and there it was The Whispering Mermaid. He parked and walked up to the door.

He looked for the street signs. There were none on this corner or the one across the street. He looked down the block. There was the liquor store where he had bought the fifth of Gorton’s. The shop was closed and dark. He knocked on the glass door and peered through the glass of the door. All was darkness inside. He walked back toward his car and stared up at the wall.

The Whispering Mermaid

Magical Gifts From Your Dreams

He was sure the sign had changed and swore it was changing even now so slowly that he could not be sure. Weren’t the mermaids’ eyes closed before?  He could have sworn that the golden mermaid had closed eyes the first time he saw them. Now Essie’s eyes gazed down at him. He walked up to the wall and reached out to touch it. A car pulled up to the stop sign, a red convertible with a thin pale young woman with dark hair wearing large sunglasses. Random looked back quickly at the pale mermaid. He turned back to the car. The woman had lowered her sunglasses. She was staring at him. She faced forward quickly, and the car jerked ahead, the tires making a little squeak of protest.

“Hey! Wait!” He yelled, but the car was already well down the next block. He jumped into his car and sped through the stop sign. He saw the car turn right at the signal at the end of the next block. The light turned red. Random put his signal on, but the cross traffic cut him off.

He was finally able to turn after a garbage truck rumbled past, but could not see around it. He had to follow cursing as a steady stream of oncoming traffic made it impossible to pass.

“I’m just upset about Essie that’s all. All these dreams and seeing things. She was just freaked out because I was staring at that mural like it was real. But, how could she tell?” thoughts clambered about over one another in his tumbling mind. He decided to go back to the shop and look at the mermaids one more time, but when he circled around, the block down from the liquor store ended in the deep woods of a park. It was a dead end with no cross street. The shop was gone again.

He parked and walked into the woods a little ways. There was a narrow path that wound among some redwoods and cedars. A raven’s rocky grating croak echoed loudly through the woods. “Boy, what is it with the ravens these days?” he thought. Maybe he’s behind it. He realized he had no one to tell this story to. Maybe Steve, Jered for sure, but he had disappeared 5 years ago after coming back into town for a while. No one knew where he was not even Steve.

He sat down on a fallen tree and stared out into the deeply folded green and brown of the underbrush. The raven croaked again and it sounded like a word that Random could not understand “Tegethnot” echoed around in his mind. He shook his head, stood and walked quickly out of the woods to his car. He decided shove all the weirdness into a box and shut the lid for a while. He could take it out later and examine it. He drove to office and put the equipment away and headed to his apartment, thinking only of getting to Steve’s and out of the City. All of this would make more sense with a little time and distance.

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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.

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